What the reader expects is an atlas of these crater structures, but what you get is little more than the content provided by any other run-of-the-mill tourist type book. This could have been a great work had there been some real meat and history added. Above all else, however is the insult of a [high]price tag ... outragious.

This book contains short discriptions, with some photos and usually a local map to be used when exploring each impact structure on the ground. It is not intended as an in-depth scientific discussion of the impact process or of any particular terrestrial impact structure, but rather, as a "travel guide" to impact sites. It fullfils this purpose admirably.

There is really no alternative to this Metropolitan Opera guide to opera on video and it's hard to be fussy about a volume that can be easily recommended as the only reference source of this kind. I rarely buy opera videos and this book may not be as important for me as it will be for true opera video collectors, but I suspect that it would be difficult to me to get acquainted with most of the titles featuring in the guide if I had to make choices based on the guide's reviews. But I am lucky to live not too far from the famous "Best Video" in Hamden, CT, which has a marvellous collection of classical music/opera tapes and I can afford renting tapes with "bad reviews" to confront my impressions with the MET's critics'. And there are simply too many "bad reviews" in this book to make it credible! After just a short acquaintance with the guide you may ask yourself a question: so what is there to watch? Here "Barbara Bonney looks a bit old for Sophie (Rosenkavalier, p. 315), there "Te Kanawa, a handsome Marshallin on stage, suffers under the camera's close scrutiny, her eyes and blonde wig evoke memories of Carol Channing..." (p. 314) etc, etc. The MET's critics are often fussy about quite trivial details, what sometimes distorts the more general impression and leaves the reader with just one conclusion: don't even touch this tape, let alone buy it! An exerpt from the review of the admirable English National Opera production of Handel's "Xerxe" can be a good example of the reviewing "technique" used too often in the MET's guide: "Lesley Garrett's spoiled brat Atalanta and Valerie Masterson's cool cucumber Romilda succeed along vocally deconstructive lines. Between them they barely possess one whole soprano voice. Garrett's peeps and squeaks are damnably annoying in themselves, apart from her character's innate obnoxiousness. The puny piping of Masterson proffers instead of bravura singing indispensable to the great "constancy" aria that closes Act II (Handel's "Come scoglio" equivalent) turns a potential audience rouser into an anticlimactic fizzle" (p. 103) I don't want to argue with the review itself, but with the style used here and in many other places. This style reminds more of an informal conversation or a review in a daily newspaper (or Amazon.com!), where a high degree of subjectivism is very welcome, but not of a "guide kind" of criticism known to all music lovers from such publications as the Penguin or Gramophone guides to classical recordings. What is striking in these reviews is their very "impersonal" tone - I haven't notice a single first person pronoun; a "personalization" of the reviews' language would make them much more likable and credible, because THEY ARE highly subjective and the distanced, impersonal language doesn't conseal that. This book, after all, is not a "collective effort" - every review or group of reviews is signed by one of the 14 contributors. As I said, many of the reviews here are simply sour, what - in some ways - makes the fun of confronting them with the tapes they refer to much greater. The operas by Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti or Wagner got the most extensive coverage, and not surprisingly so, but these are the composers that I don't particularly care for so I cannot offer any comments. A few words about the structure of the guide. The composers are listed alphabetically, and so are their operas - this is a very user friendly arrangement, preferable to the chronological one seen in some opera guides. Chronological order is adopted when more than one production of a particular title is available, in these cases also a brief ending note summarizes the reviewer's preferences. Quite understandably, there is no room in such a publication for even brief synopses of the operas, but each work is given a general introduction with some details on first performances etc. The MET's guide is a valuable and helpful book and, if given in a more likable, "personal" form, could be treated as a wonderful collection of essays on opera theatre. Collecting operas on video can be quite expensive and if you follow most of the reviews, you'll simply save a lot of money (and room on you video racks). But that's not what an opera lover, given an opportunity of building a collection of videos preserving some of the exquisite productions from the past, really wants. Use with caution!

An indispenable guide for the serious collector -- the most-used reference book on my shelf. Especially helpful for identifying the best production among multiple ones of the same work. One caveat: some of the reviewers are unduly harsh and pan productions that I found completely satisfactory in every respect. Arranged alphabetically by composer, then chronologically (not alphabetically) within each composer's section. Includes indices, e.g. by performer. All the more valuable as VHS releases dwindle and go out of print, and DVD titles are scant and of questionable interest.

This is e-mail I have sent to the editor of this book:

This is a book for the people who like puzzles. I have just started to read it and even in the beginning I've found a lot of controversy. On page 10 in paragraph 5 (considering Note as a paragraph) you read: "With Windows NT 4, Microsoft moved the GDI, or Graphics Device Interface (the display part of NT), to the Kernel. Previous versions of Windows 2000 had these services in User mode".

But on page 40 the first paragraph under the "Why the lost legacy?" section you can read:"Keep in mind that Windows 2000 follows Windows NT in having the Graphics Device interface (GDI) in User instead of Kernel as in previous Windows NT versions".

So, where GDI is actually located??? I was not awared that we have had previous versions of Windows 2000. What are they? Or did the author mean Win95, Win98, WinNT as previous versions? In that case they are not version of Windows 2000, just versions of Windows. Or may be I have missed information about previous versions of Windows 2000?

I have to find now a different source of Windows 2000 information, because after the problems I've encountered in this book it is a waste of my time to read it at all.

This book covers everything I needed to know to work with Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. It covers the issues how to install IIS 5, setting up Websites, and management issues. There are loads of step through exercises, and plenty of screen captures to walk you through the tasks you need to know to manage a Web. A very complete book.

"Mobilizing for Modern War" examines the impact of industrialization and technological innovation on American mobilization for defense and war....

Koistinen does not seek to explain why America became an empire or why it went to war in 1898 and again in 1917 or how the nation conducted war on the battlefield and at sea, but rather to discern the pattern of the constantly evolving relationship between business, government, and the military in "harnessing the economy for hostilities" (p. ix). He looks at how the nation actually mobilized its robust economy for the sake of empire, defense, and war, and at how the public and private sectors--their boundaries increasingly "blurred" over time--learned to cooperate to those ends. The relationship evolved as each side adopted pragmatic, "makeshift" changes in response to actual experience, first in building a modern, professional, technologically up-to-date navy and army and then in mobilizing those forces and industry in the brief Spanish-American War and in the more protracted and demanding Great War. By stressing adaptation, experimentation, improvisation, and the "drift" of the process, Koistinen minimizes the ideological dimensions of the changing relationship between government and big business and points instead to the allegedly inevitable adaptation of mobilization to the environment of a rapidly emerging industrial economy.

Although it is a serious, methodical, and impressive scholarly work, "Mobilizing for Modern War" suffers from several weaknesses. Its effectiveness is hindered in part by the recurring assumption of the "inevitable" role of the Leviathan state in the industrial stage of war mobilization.... He also makes various claims, as if they were self-evident truths, such as that a powerful President is "a necessity in a modern, complex society" (p. 14) and that the government was forced to nationalize the railroads during the First World War (pp. 221, 277)....

More important, and contrary to its subtitle and to the promise of the introduction, "Mobilization for Modern War" is not a comprehensive study of the political economy of American warfare from 1865 to 1919. It is not a study of economic mobilization, but rather a narrower work about industrial mobilization. Despite the author's attempt to summarize in several paragraphs other pertinent dimensions of economic mobilization, there is little discussion here of how the government financed the war through taxes, loans, and inflation--all means of extending state power in wartime. To be sure, J. P. Morgan and Company figures large in Koistinen's revealing account of U.S. financial aid to the Allies from 1914 onward, but the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department play at best a tangential role in the rest of his story of mobilization after American entry into the war in 1917. As painstaking as Koistinen's work is overall, anyone looking for a full treatment of the political economy of U.S. involvement in World War I will not find it here.

Koistinen's look at the economic and military powerhouse that the United States became during the years before World War I was done with style and economy. This view of history is an import part of the military that is often over looked by other accounts of the same period. The story of individual personalities however romantic they may be is incomplete with the information presented by Koistinen. Koistinen's writing keeps the reader interested with the use of in depth descriptions gained through the use of many different resources. He does cover the role of the WIB, and J.P. Morgan and company in depth, and almost to the point of exhausting the topic. I would have liked reading more about how all the policy changes effected the lower enlisted man's life. Other than what I mentioned above I think the book is necessary read for anyone that intends to study WWI with any seriousness. It completes the typical military history of battles and generals with the story of the battles ship builders and steel mill owners fought at home.

Get the printed version (excellent!) instead. This high-tech version is underwhelming, especially for the cost. It apparently has the same content as the standard text, but the interface looks like it was written for a computer running Windows 95.

The book is especially good to understand the mechanisms of Cell Biology. The beauty of the book is that it does not look at Cell Biology purely from the aspect of a cell and it's organelles but goes a step further to give a clear picture of how cell organelles and their components function in a cell and how it is impossible to study the cell without it's amalgamation with molecular biology. The chapters on DNA replication and RNA transcription are very lucid. Signal transduction is also very comprehensively explored. The book has kept abreast with latest studies and makes it an especially useful text for 1st year Masters/Ph.D students

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is probably the best fighting game out there. However, when I bought the guide, I realized that it was exactly the same info that could be found in the character's Konquest mode, and by pausing any game and bringing up the character's moves. The guide only adds a few combos, and it never covers any character's fighting styles very well.

For instance, looking at Johnny Cage, even though it says "he works very well in all of his fighting styles," they only go into small detail on Jeet Kune Do. With Shang Tsung, they only really explain two of his fighting styles. No matter the character, the guide actually tells the player to stay in one fighting style! This is extremely boring, and a bad idea, considering the fact that each style has some merit. It's obvious when you read it that the author didn't spend a whole lot of time with most of the characters. After reading storylines like Johnny Cage's, which explains he never died in the MK storyline, only in one of his movies (this was done to quiet some fan-boys [mad] that he was still around. Next up should be explaining to them that Scorpion's been dead in every game...), the author still says something about him being ressurrected (for this game), again. This is one of the many, many over-sights in the guide, and it shows the author's over-looking of details.

When you play MK:DA, each character has three different fighting styles, usually 2 hand-to-hand styles and one weapon style. The fun is switching between them to confuse your opponent, and accessing the different moves in each style. Where this guide fails is describing each style's strengths and weaknesses. The guide only touches on select styles, and usually doesn't give enough info on these. If the guide would've had a few more pages per character, this might have fixed the problem. As it stands, the guide is almost useless. It promises on the back to reveal "Krypt secrets," but no, you have to buy a seperate, "Krypt Pocket Kodes" book to find out what's in the Krypt--the book doesn't even touch on it, therefore lying to the potential customer. (The Krypt is a huge "graveyard" which allows a player to sapend earning "Koins" from battle on the 675 or so "koffins" in the game, which contain secrets like alternate costumes, hidden characters like Kitana and Reptile, etc.)

After all is said and done, this guide doesn't really cover anything that isn't already available in the game, but it does make this info readily available. For hardcore MK fans, or people who hate pausing the game constantly only, otherwise it's pretty worthless.

I used to love the old MK pocket guides and was a little disappointed when they went the way of the 8 track tape. After picking up the new MK/DA strategy guide by BradyGames, I can see why this one in particular wasn't a pocket-sized guide. It would have been the size of a Stephen King paperback (and the full size, full color artwork would have been reduced to a CD cover). BG has crammed everything you could think of and more in this wonderful guidebook. It's broken down into how to use the guide; terms of kombat; kombat basics (for XB, GC, and PS2); fighting styles (each character has 3); konquest; kombatants (available, unlockable, and secret); chronology of MK (shouldn't that be kronology or something?); a 20 page art gallery (don't worry though, as all 144 pages are covered with cool art work); 4 pages for the Krypt; and kombat trivia (with answers). Even though I was about halfway through the game, I still had to add this awesome book to my MK collection. Who knows, I might need it down the stretch.

Hmmm. I'm just not sure about this one. The book itself is well laid out, full-color, and spiral-bound. So everything is easy to use and see when you are working in a dusty garage after a hard-core ride. But I just can't get past the fact that this book simply doesn't cover everything you need to know about basic mountain bike maintenance. I mean, its certainly a good enough book that covers the different parts of a bike and most of the different routine maintenance procedures. But, I find that, although the pictures are clear and pretty, they just don't adequately cover all of the steps. For example, one of the most common things you will need to do as a rider is adjust your spokes and true your wheel. The book just doesn't cover it in as much detail as it needs to. In the end, you can guess your way through the process based on the book's text, but you really can't follow it clearly. This is just one example of what this book lacks - DETAIL. And because of this, I just can't recommend it as the " only mountain bike maintenance manual you will ever need". It's nice, but it's not enough. I can, however, say that about the book "Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance". If you want to own only one book on the subject, give it a try.

What I like:
Concise description and outline of steps needed for repair.
List of tools needed and rating of difficulty.
Tips "block" on many pages.
Clear color pictures.
"Extra" chapters included such as: "Ten Top Tips" and "Silence Unwanted Noises".
Up-to-date, i.e. includes V-brakes and other current components.

What I don't like:
Some text refers to a picture and it is unclear which picture, or which part is being refered to.
There are a few procedures which should have more detail: if you are not used to working on bikes.

Other observations:
This book was written by a Brit, so you need to know what a spanner is (there are other terms as well, such as "washing-up liquid).

The best book I have worked with to date. Any information not included I can ask my local wrench. I can't give the book a 5 star rating due to the minor items under "What I don't like" above.

This book shows many cases, gives rarity & tell who madethe cases. There is almost no text at all in this book, it isbasically a picture book. The book is lacking in information on the different companies that made cases & on when the cases were made. For those who do not know about the cases a company name is not helpful without the company background. Without the time they were made they are not helpful in dating the images they hold. The book is lacking in that it does not show a single top folding case from the early years of photography c1839 to 1842/43. You would be better off getting the books 'Union Cases' by Krainik & Walvoord & 'American Minature Case Art' by Rinhart. The two books I recommend give more information on the cases & are not just a bunch of pretty pictures. Do not waste your money.

A "must have" reference book and price guide if one collects photo cases.Contains photographs of all cases from previously published books, and much, much more. Rated excellent.

This is a middle of the road NIrvana biography. It offers straight, almost commonly known facts about the band, with little or no insight. This book contains information about Kurt Cobaine's early life, his joining with the band, information about the band, and information about his suicide. In this book a discography and a small time line are also provided. I would recommend this book to a new Nirvana fan who doesn't know much about the band, there are better books with more insight than this one on Nirvana/Kurt Cobaine.

I think this book/CD is worth buying for the book, since the CD isn't the best (it is hard to hear what is being said)but the book gives a good, concise view/story of Nirvana's rise to Grungedom. I think the CD could have been better, but kudos to the writer. 4 stars