Part One gives you infromation on how dogs evolved, understanding canine behaviour, healthcare, feeding, grooming and exercising your dog.

Part Two gives you information about 90+ different breeds. The breed guide give you a size comparison (comparing the dog's height with that of and "average adult and child"). My question to the author is what is "average". The breed guide also gives you the breed's temperament, excerise required, watchdog capability, grooming/trimming, preferred enviroments for the breed, and the size and weight of the breed. It also gies you a good representative of the breed, and the breed's (AKC) name.

Some breed descriptors are erroneous such as the Jack Russell Terrier would be "ideal for apartment living", and the Pug "doesn't shed much". I advise anyone to go to a JRT rescue group and ask why this breed is not suitable for apartment living if they don't understand why. The JRT is simply has too much energy, and needs to romp in a big fenced backyard. Also, go into a pug owner's house and you will probably see little fawn and/or black hairs all over thier house. Pugs, like Dalmatians, are notorius shedders.

Overall, I would have to give this book three stars. It is a good and colourful introduction to different breeds, but has some simple errors about breeds in it. To supplement this book I would purchase the "Encyclopedia of the Dog" by Bruce Fogle and "Your Purebred Puppy : A Buyer's Guide" by Michele Welton.

This book has a guide to dog breeds, how to care for your dog, and other helpful things. It has full color photos that are helpful to identify certain breeds. Although I don't own a dog this book comes in handy a lot. There are other books in this series if you are interested, but if you don't own one in this series I recommend you get one.

I bought this book (...) and it's been such a help! It tells you about the breeds history, their temperament, the exercise needed, grooming requirements, and much more. Color photos for each breed as well.

I definatly recommend this book. I can't even count the number of times it's come in handy.

I don't know who Nancy A. Collins is, but this was an interesting book. The FF were never my favorite (let's all sit around and complain about ourselves), but this book at least makes them likable, unlike most of the comics I read of them when I was a kid. Honestly, this book focuses more on Namor than the FF, maybe that's why I like it more. Everybody pretty knows what there is to know about the FF, and this book does nothing to bulid on that. Namor, on the other hand, is fleshed out more than I have ever seen (although, I only had 2 of his solo comics, and both were boring). This book really focuses on Namor and Atlantis's pasts, presents, and futures. The Atlantean palace coup is actually quite entertaining. This book was more ambitious than it needed to be as it feels rushed and not fleshed out enough (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic's address to the U.N. comes to mind), but the book is exciting enough to allow you to overlook that. For Namor fans (or anyone wanting more information on this, suprisingly, deep character) should definately pick this book up. FF fans might be dissapointed as the FF's and Doom's involvment are paper-thin at best. I've heard that their other 2 books are even better though, but I have yet to read them.
If you're keeping track, here are my Top 5 Marvel novels so far:
1. Hulk: What Savage Beast; Peter David
2. Fantastic Four: To Free Atlantis; Nancy A. Collins
3. Ultimate Spider-Man; Stan Lee, editor
4. Spider-Man: Carnage in New York; David Micheline & Dean Wesley Smith
5. due to the extreme suckage of the other 3 books, none of them deserve to grace the top 5 with these other four, and to even mention them in the same breath as the Hulk and FF books is an extreme act of blasphemy and you should kick yourself in the shin for even thinking that!

This was a good book to start the Fantastic Four in the novel series.Nancy Collins did her research with all the characters in this book as Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben join forces with Prince Namor to save Atlantis from Dr. Doom. The charcters act like themselves and they all play important roles in the development of the story. It;s a tribute to the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby FF stories.

I have to hand it to Nancy Collins, this book really took me back
to my old comic book days. All I can say is please please write more of them. I know this book is hard to find, fact is i got it at a yard sale. but if you can get a hold of one you wont be sorry.

It's a wonderful little piece, but a teeny little book for $40 bucks?! What's more, most of contents are/were actualy available at Krugman's own web site. Someone's sure making a lot of unearned money here off..... If money were no object, though, I'd surely rate this book much higher.

This is an excellent critique of high development theory. Although good economists will know the main faults of their disapline, this text elegantly explains why development theory lost its direction. I will not divulge the main ideas, they are well worth the money to find out. - Economists consist of two groups, those that don't know, and those who don't know that they don't know.

Paul Krugman is one of the few economists at home both in 'high theory' and in public economic discourse. He thinks deeply, and he thinks brilliant thoughts. This little book - based on the Olin Lectures he gave in Stockholm - is proof of what his mind can yield, when it sets out to clarify issues.

Development and economic geography, he argues, failed because they did not submit themselves to the discipline of model-building - what might look or even be at first sight downright silly in the end is preferable to the unconscious metaphors of the narrative economic discourse.

For all its clarity, Krugman's argument is deeply flawed. Development and economic geography - together with income distribution - belong to the derelict class of economic problems that addresses the question of historical disparities of wealth in the economic tissue. Why have some countries or regions developed and others have staid behind, why are there poor and rich? Was it done by better use of the available resources, or by impoverishment of other nations or persons? A corollary to this question would be: does our quest for efficiency worsen or reduce disparities? Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx addressed this question, but their observations have been largely forgotten. Pareto and welfare economics picked up the thread, only to conclude platidinuously that the only 'good' policies are those that benefit all.

Should the model-building solutions that Krugman suggests be used in development and geography be any good, they might imply that a 'big push' applies not just to economic growth, but also to concentration of income - consumer surplus playing the role of 'economies of scale'. Interesting. Just as interesting as the metaphor that - as in the 'big bang' theory of star formation - the smallest of initial income irregularities (e.g. first predatory capital accumulation) lead to the agglutination of wealth around capitalists. Which, of course, also implies that it is the 90% of dark (workers) matter that keeps the shiny capitalist 'stars' in place in a well-ordered and expanding economy.

Toys are useful provided they teach a child the 'real thing'. Toy models are not useful when they fail to recognise (let alone address) fundamental issues like that of economic disparity. Models are downright bad when their incautious use leads to blind-sighting in economic policy. Every economist should be made to ponder Kenneth Arrow's Theory of Second Best. Partial optima are bad solutions in the search for an overall optimum.
Can we expect models of income disparity soon? Paul Krugman might devote some of his intellectual powers to construct the simplest of models of income disparity and attempt to integrate it into a growth model - just to disprove (or prove) the widespread intuition that when governments pursue efficiency single-mindedly, the rich get rich and the poor poorer.

Can we further expect a 'grand unified theory of everything economic' that would bring together both concerns of efficiency and income distribution into a unified model for development? Don't hold your breath. As Koopmans famously proved, one cannot kill two birds with one stone. Until then, however, efficiency models should either be denied the Warrant Of Fitness for circulation in political circles, and/or carry the label: Efficiency may be harmful to income distribution.

As usual, this Zubro mystery is well plotted. Also as usual, it is rather tediously written. It would seem the author was always instructed to give details, to carefully note the appearance of each character. What he comes up with is a detailed description of apparel for each character, from the top down: hair, shirt, trousers (or skirt), shoes. Colors, patterns, and fabrics are always noted. All very good, if or when these are noteworthy. But usually folks are wearing denim and cotton and etc., and giving these details imparts nothing to the reader.

This is just a warning--I shall probably continue to read Zubro's books. But I only WISH he wrote a bit better!

I've read most of Mark Zubro's work, and I think that "Drop Dead" is his best effort yet! A mystery that kept me interested and guessing, good descriptions of places in and around Chicago, likeable hero, and a keen, yet dry sense of humor.

"Drop Dead" features deliciously snappy dialog, along with Zubro's realistically drawn characters and well-paced action. In this latest addition to the Paul Turner mystery series, Zubro gets the balance just right. Read it!

With a book of this nature, it's hard separating an evaluation of the book from an evaluation of the technology itself -- so I won't try too hard. Yes, the book showed certain evidence of haste in editing and proofing but the errors and weaknesses are not of the type to cause an early adopter to stumble. For instance, there is no index but chapters are distinct enough so that it is easy to find the broad categories.

I eagerly picked up this book after attending a very impressive demo of Curl's capacities. Only skimming the two chapters on Object Oriented Programming, I concentrated on the other chapters most relevant to GUI developers of Web-based applications.

Being an ardent practitioner of the W3C's Cascading Style Sheets technology, I was a bit disappointed in Curl's implementation of styles, which seems clumsy and very limited, even considering the differences in syntax. The authors were very knowledgeable on HTML and CSS issues -- which made their reliance on tables for layout a bit disturbing. Does this indicate that Curl lacks equivalents for CSS positioning and layout properties -- or merely that the authors did not happen to see this as important enough to include in examples?

I was dissatisfied with the paucity of examples and the fact that these examples were not of the type of depth to glue the various parts of Curl together. There were some good examples involving 2-D and 3-D graphics which showed the technology to advantage. However, if your primary interest is in form-based Web applications, the examples were sketchy.

The book really needs to have context. Criticism of Java, HTML, JavaScript, etc. is not enough.
The authors must speak more directly to the questions:
{}Does the Web world need another proprietary, Java-like browser plug-in?
{}Does the Curl organization have what it takes to go against Microsoft's .NET, which has a similar architecture and revenue model?

Answer these questions and you not only have a good book, but a real cool winning tool.

Curl is an important new client-side web language that permits you to create web applications that have the same rich interactive power of local applications (Word, Excel) while reducing the complexity that arises from using multiple existing web languages.

This is currently the BEST Curl book on the market. Ok, it's currently the ONLY Curl book on the market, which makes it Good News/Bad News.

Good News: This book does a great job of providing Curl information and "how to" examples in more depth than the Curl manuals. All the major topics are covered, which makes this a good overall reference book. The graphics architecture section is particularly helpful, where the authors describe the overall graphics framework of Curl. This info would save any new user time when learning Curl.

Bad News: by targeting the early adopter, the book is timely, but shows some warts. Some sections still show and describe the last beta version of Curl. The last beta was mostly similar to the current version of Curl, but the small differences are occasionally distracting. The book also has a number of typos and the class descriptions in one table were copied directly from the (free) Curl manual. As most of the authors are from Curl Corporation, this is not plagiarism, but it is not new information either.

Overall, this book serves its purpose by being the first overall book on Curl. The book itself is a great way to learn Curl in conjunction with the Curl manuals. Despite its warts, it is well worth owning.

[Bruce Mount worked as one of the Technical Reviewers for this book. No, he didn't review the section with typos. :-)]

If you have never been to curls website and looked at this new web technology, you do not know what you are missing. In some ways, you can think of Curl as Flash on steroids, although you can do much more than the eye candy Macromedia is known for.

They call this book an early adopter book, but, since I think Curl is most likely going to go the way of Microsoft Agent, it is more a Bleeding Edge book. Unlike Microsoft Agent, however, I do think this technology is very useful.

So, what is Curl? Curl is a new OO technology for web UI development. In many ways, it is what Java promised, with applets, in its early days. The main difference here is Curl is designed to create dynamic, awe inspiring presentations (ala Flash) without a lot of work (once you learn the language, that is).

The book deals with Curl primarily as a UI development language. Through the chapters you will learn to work with 2d and 3d environments, multimedia and even dynamic client interaction. As with all Wrox books, there are plenty of code examples (all downloadable from the Wrox site).

I really love this book, although I wonder if the technology will ever really take off (Curl engine download is huge if you have a dialup).

When a book is translated it is supposed to be in English... this book is in topology as a language of it's own. For me with a library and long history of reading topology books, it is understandable. The author is recognized as a great mathematician, but I think he should have had his maiden aunt read his proofs for the book... he writes badly of topology and his references aren't anywhere near clear enough. I suppose it is that I found that his treatment of the tetrahedron and projective plane really don't work well when translated to numbers....

A very slender book, but it sets out the basic ideas of algebraic topology and HOW THEY RELATE TO EACH OTHER. A roadmap to what all this simplex stuff is all about.

For sophisticated mathematical readers only. Perfect adjunct to any first course.

(And a "lemniscate" is a figure 8).

A great book, born in a great moment of mathematics. Alexandroff explains, and shows in pictures, what topology is basically about and why "homology groups" are the way to do it.

Anyone can follow this who has had multivariable calculus, plus seen the definition of a group (as in, say, arithmetic modulo 2). In 55 profusely illustrated yet rigorous pages Alexandroff shows how to define topological manifolds, cut them into "simplices", and keep track of simplices algebraically. He proves the two founding theorems of topology: the dimension of manifolds, and their homology groups, are both preserved by topological isomorphisms.

Alexandroff was a favorite student of Emmy Noether, and L.E.J. Brouwer, and followed Hilbert's lectures. The greatest algebraist, the greatest topologist, and the greatest mathematician of the early 20th century all had direct input into this book. All believed the most important, deepest mathematics can be made the clearest. They were right.

Paul Kurtz's writings about Secular Humanism represent just about the best that man's intellect could propose regarding the good life in the context of the 20th Century. Guess what? The context for what's thinkable and doable is rapidly changing in the 21st Century.

Secular Humanism's main weakness -- its fatalism about human mortality -- seems hopelessly feckless in light of what advanced thinkers are foreseeing as the radical rejuvenation and life extension offered by medicine circa 2030 and beyond. Anyone who doubts this apparently hasn't been paying much attention to the science news lately, or else hasn't been thinking about its deeper implications. Neo-Luddites take this scenario seriously, hence their efforts to stop or "relinquish" progress in biotech, nanotech and artificial intelligence.

Because of this failure of nerve and imagination, Kurtz cannot effectively counter Nihilism, a pessimistic, heretical interpretation of Secular Humanist premises. The prospect of conquering aging and death through human efforts offers the best hope of defeating Nihilism (not to mention supernaturalistic belief systems) and making a modified Secular Humanism, with the proffered name of Transhumanism, the working creed of a civilized and livable world.

Kurtz has collected in this one volume a kind of time capsule of what Secular Humanism had to offer in biomedically primitive times. Though I don't understand what he was trying to show by recounting his friend's deathbed conversion to Catholicism, for that just reinforces religious stereotypes about Atheism/Humanism being an unsustainable way to live. If you want to know what will replace Secular Humanism, look up the significant body of Transhumanist philosophy on the Web.

While I may not always agree with everything Paul Kurtz may say (as a secular humanist), I do believe Embracing the Power of Humanism is a valuable tool in showing those who profess to have "spiritual/religious beliefs" that those who do Not, i.e. Mr Kurtz, can be equally as humane and thoughtful. Compassionate and wise. That it is the actions that speak louder than words.

It saddens me that those I know, who are non-religious, atheists, agnostics etc are so often thought of or looked upon as being "lesser than". "Inferior" The book helps build a bridge rather than a wall, which we really need these days. Helps to show that it is ones brain and actions that one should be "judged" on.

If you are a religious person I challenge you to learn sometning new and enlightening. Buy the book and become enlightended.

As much as I tend to disagree with Paul Kurtz on more abstract philosophical issues, I found myself unable to tear away from EMBRACING THE POWER OF HUMANISM, which compiles some of the most inspiring parts of his other books. Kurtz successfully conveys the sheer wonder, power, and exuberance of the humanistic outlook. Although I do not feel I learned anything especially new, I came away feeling unusually energized - a feeling which still persists, long after the book is back on the shelf.

The book is set up as a series of accounts from numerous sources. Some are verified accounts and others are third-party accounts.

The oldest discovered accounts are at the front of the book and the newest discovered accounts are at the back. As you might imagine "history" changes over time so that the older accounts tend to be believed while the newer ones are mostly fiction.

Unfortunately this makes the reading after about a hundred pages irrelevant as the author believes the latter accounts to be false, which makes me wonder why I would want to read those accounts at all.

The other aspect is there is no summary of all the accounts to give a clear picture of what really happened. I know that the author's intent was to be unbiased, but he could give the accounts then make a summary based on his investigations. This would wrap up many loose ends, which would make the book complete.

What's most obvious, by its nature, can easily escape our attention. It may therefore be worth noting that the Alamo events of 1836 are long beyond the recall of any person alive today. Theoretically, there might now be some living centenarian whose grandfather could have known James Bowie, or at least been in his presence and spoken with him - but this is conceptual, and though conjecture is fruitless it's still fascinating. We can't talk with the defenders who perished at the Alamo or with the non-combatants who survived it, some of whom actually lived into the 20th century - but in this book by Bill Groneman, EYEWITNESS TO THE ALAMO, they operatively speak to us, if not in the literal sense, then surely effectively.

Gathering information is only one facet of a researcher's work. Finding what he seeks is one of the more time-consuming features of his job. What distinguishes this book from most others is its efficiency: it presents information which apparently can't be found elsewhere in a single book, thereby saving time and effort for both the historian and the knowledgeable reader.

By their immediacy, the accounts presented here - many first-person Alamo reports by those who were there - are as insightful as the very concept of offering them in one self-contained volume. Theoretically many could have compiled such a book, but no-one else did it. This collection of accounts can be a conspicuous blessing to those interested in Western history generally, in Texas history specifically, and in the Alamo in particular.

It seems no adobe brick was left unturned in the research for this work. It is, in a very real sense, a treasury of material taken wherever possible from primary sources. While the reports themselves sometimes contradict those of others - people witness events through their own eyes and relate them from viewpoints tinted by their own experience - we're offered accounts of Alamo events from those very people who endured them. Effectively there's no substitute for this.

This book also offers a balance many others don't: reports from both the American and Mexican sides. Some of the accounts were written down or told to others long after the siege, but those who were there were by definition closer to the scene than those who weren't. The collective discrepancies in their reports (people are in fact human) prevent us from knowing "precisely" what happened at the Alamo in 1836, but that these accounts were offered by those who literally lived through the events gives us not only a more immediate picture, but perhaps more importantly, bottom-line details. If the aggregate details don't resolve conjectures or provide explanations to unanswered (or unanswerable) questions, they are still details which shed more light on what transpired there more than a century and a half ago.

While other historians compile and try to present an amalgam of data, Groneman takes us into a courtroom and displays primary evidence unsullied by legendary gloss, the ghosts of myth, and the passage of 16 decades. He places before us, devoid of cosmetic veneer, the raw material from which we can form our own opinions and draw our own conclusions.

Walter Lord, author of A NIGHT TO REMEMBER and A TIME TO STAND, wrote about another Groneman book, ALAMO DEFENDERS, "...an indispensable tool for anyone working on the Alamo... I wish I had it when I was doing my research" - an ultimate compliment, and the same sentiment can be applied to EYEWITNESS TO THE ALAMO. Interested in the Alamo? Get this book. Have no interest in the Alamo? This book can get you interested.

JEFFREY DANE

By compiling all known first-hand accounts of the siege of the Alamo (including some with a debatable authenticity, duly noted by the author), Bill Groneman has produced an excellent, handy resource for studying this famous incident. Going back to the original sources is always the best way to gain a sense of what really happened, and "Eyewitness to the Alamo" lets the reader do this with a minimum of trouble. Groneman's comments about the various source documents are a helpful guide to their reliability, although of course not everyone would necessarily agree with his every assessment (I have particularly in mind the De la Pena "Diary"). This book makes a great companion to Alan Huffines "Blood of Noble Men" in which Huffines arranges excerpts from many of these accounts into chronological order to tell the Alamo story.

Paul Ferris has undoubtly written a highly readable biography of one of the icons of the XX century. The book may be broken down into three main parts: the first one shows Freud until his mid-life or so and focuses on Freud's obsessive drive for recognition; the second part, is a very superficial account of Freud's threories intertwinded with some irrelevant details of his life, and the third one is an account of the internal and external struggle of the psychoanalytic movement.

Ferris' writing style is polished and entertaining. However, after 100 pages or so, Ferris (who acknowledges to have no psychology or psychiatry background) loses his objectivity and starts to criticize and put down Freud's theories. This is not necessarily bad, but the criticism is on very superficial grounds while failing to place Freud and his thought in the proper context of the late XIX and early XX. Freud thought is only presented in its outline (which is something expected of a biography) but for the sake of simplicity and brevity the outline lacks a meaningful presentation of the issues behind Freud's theories. The oversimplification of the essence of Freud's thought makes it appear somewhat grotesque and irrational.

There has been much dispute on Freud as a "scientist" and psychoanalisis as a "science" and Ferris has a go at both. Unfortunately, Ferris forgets that both Freud and his thought fall within the concept of "social science" not "physical science", thus many of the theories and implications are based on case studies, which obviously carry highly individualised connotations some of which can or cannot be generalised to the entire population.

In summary, this book joins sides against Freudian thought and therefore hardly provides a truthful insight into the man and his theories. A reader looking for an introduction to Freudian thought is advised to look elsewhere. A reader looking for some some insight into the man will find plenty of biased, irrelevant and selectively chosen details that do not paint the entire character of Freud.

This is the first biography that I have read (of any one) that has kept me interested to the last page. That says alot for the content and flow of the book. As a psychology student, I have studied Freud's theories. This book helped put it all in perspective, along side theries of Jung and Adler. It showed me how 'way out' his theories were for the time but how they had a certain logic given the type of patients he had and the attitiude towards sex at the time. It's a fascinating read - and strikes me as very frank and honest. There's no glamourising of the man himself - but why should there be.. It's a story of a man's life and an interesting one at that.

This is a great biography. Though, the reader can find themselves lost at some times, the overall book is a wonderful peak into the mind of Dr. Freud. We glimpse Freud in new ways- through his own letters, his own shortcomings, his fears, his hopes, his dreams. The picture that history paints of an overlly egotistical man is blown away as we begin to see the human Freud, not the illustration of a sex-obsessed psychoanaylsis. We walk through Freud's pioneering days & can truly understand his outlook on life and the amazing gifts he has given to those who succeed him.

I find it hard to believe that any experienced roleplayer would find this boxed set challenging. It has no new monsters and no surprises. What it has, in spades, is one of the cheapest and weakest monsters in the genre: the kobold: poor cousin of the goblin. Sure, maybe they can cast spells or gang up on you, but face it: They are physically weak. Easy to defeat. Especially against a group of seasoned players. I was highly disappointed. I do not recommend that you buy this product. It is a waste of time and money.

When I pick out a module, my biggest gripe is that the majority of novels aren't well thought out and therefore have plot holes or illogical maneuvers.

In order to get around this, I usually pay attention to the game designer credits to up my chances of getting a good piece. But, that doesn't always work so I like to be able to flip through the item.

DRAGON MOUNTAIN is broken up in to three books with illustrious maps and score cards. The first book lays out the overland adventure and certain parts don't make sense and are probably there to beef the party up.

However, the module makes up for this shortcoming in that the second and third books are put together quite well. This is a perfect example of where you can use very weak monsters, give them terrain and trap advantages with lots of magic and they can easily mess up party members. It can also be humiliating to the PCs if that turns you on as a DM. :D

The leader at the end of the story is tough and intelligent. Creators actually took the time to explain her battle strategies rather than rely on the DM figuring it out.

The fact that this mountain can shift from plane to plane makes it easy to fit in to any campaign. If, for some reason, your PCs are higher level, put a tougher race in place of kobolds and beef up the leaders.

Overall, the idea of weak monsters being able to take on midlevel and high level adventurers is a keen concept. Most DMs toss such creatures out when the PCs get to a certain level. This boxed set rejuvenates a weak race like kobolds. For that reason alone, I rank it five stars as great.

SOHP

This is one of my favorite high-level epics for AD&D, because it teaches your players to fear Kobolds for the rest of their lives. No, I'm not kidding! There's thousands of them - ingenious ones, wizardly ones, invisible ones, and far worse - once the PCs face the enormous dragon, they'll be relieved that it's something that's merely exactly what it seems! Or is it? Included are an unpunched sheet of gaming and monster counters (complete with stands), dozens of player handouts, endless reams of maps and new monsters, and 192 pages of adventure. An adventure your players will never forgive you for...