The author is knowledgable enough that one would assume he single-handedly developed GCC. Any doubts to his authoritativeness were quickly dismissed as I finished the introduction in this behemoth of a reference.

The Book is divided Into 3 parts(4 actually).

The first part delves into the reasons as to why? and what? regarding the creation/use of GCC. It also covers some incentives to continue through the book, which are later examined in detail. Installation, configuration, and usage is covered here. And covered quite well!

The second part details the mechanics of the compiler with tests and examples that take you through the workings of it. Mixing of different languages into one native-executable, experiments and understanding of the compiler's built in extensions/pragmas, and demystification of the command-line switches are all covered in this section. Also this section covers this in great detail as with the first part!

The third part of this book gets right into the fun stuff of learning how to properly set up configuration and make files. It covers a *great* deal of extra resources commonly found on systems with GCC installed and makes haste to demystify these as well. This was my favorite part of the book. I had no idea in the nine hells to even begin creation of 'configure' scripts manually(try reading the man/info pages for make and autoconf and watch your hairs get pulled out by your hands!). This section is concise and to the point!

Part 4 is an extremely important part of the book. This part covers ALL of the command-line switches and directives for use with GCC(and it's family of compilers). You learn where, when, and how to use the advanced functionality. A section in this part also covers all the environmental variables; this helps greatly when you are trying to figure out a perfect function/class/struct/call to do a procedure that ends up taking months...then you see here that a single variable contains actual data/info already!

All in all, this book is concise. I love it. It currently sits next to my Stroustrup(C++ Programming Language), Josuttis(C++ Standard Library), and Sedgewick(Algorithms in C++ 1-5). This book is upstanding. The only reason as to why I gave it 4/5 stars is because of the formatting. It reminds me of something you would find in a Prima Tech "Game Programming" book: large font, bulky, and divided. This is not the authors fault though since this same tasteless formatting is used in all other Osborne "Complete Reference" books.

NOTE: Do NOT get this book to learn C or C++. This book is for the intermediate to advanced programmer wanting to better optimize their usage of the GCC package.

From the back cover:
"For mothers and fathers who wish to take a more educated, active role in the birth of their child, _Getting Ready for childbirth_ is a superb guide to a happier, healthier, more family-centered experience. Written by three certified childbirth educators and based on Lamaze techniques of relaxation and exercise...."

There are many helpful diagrams in this book and a good list of suggested reading. It was originally published in 1977 and revised in 1986. There is a tremendous lot of information here. Everything from the benefits of breastfeeding to how to tell the stages of labour. Should be on the bookshelf of every childbirth professional.

As with all Mr. Myers' books, this is a well written account of supposedly haunted dwellings -- in particular, those of famous folk. He draws no conclusions, which gives his tome an air of journalistic honesty. Very interesting, somewhat spooky in places, and quite entertaining.

It was wedged between a pile of other long forgotten volumes in a used bookstore. The only thing that caught my attention was the title. Other non-fiction books, particularly those that almost sensationalize crime, appear with the usual flashy covers and bold titles 'PREDATOR: The Shocking True Story of *insert Mr. X here*" This fascinating book simply tells a strange story about a mysterious murder in an Ohio town. The Author, a local Reporter who decides to cover the case, finds himself working directly with the police to solve the mystery. The rest of the book involves a mixture of common-sense facts, numerous unfolding twists, and probably the strangest element of all - ESP (Extra-sensory Perception)

The latter makes this book worth the discounted price alone.

While Jewish Renewel by Michael Lerner is the classic of the genre, this is the pre-eminent books for giving Jews a feeling of spirituality and a mission to great spiritual energy. This is something that is oft-times missing in the Reform, Conservative and even Orthodox movements. This is a great book to give to anyone who is Jewish and trying to be a Wiccan, as Arthur Waskow admits that he takes much of his material from Judaism, while Starhawk tries to pass off her philosophy as secret teachings of Celts or something silly like that. Environmentalism, liberal politics, and feminism were never foreign topics to Judaism. Waskow is one of the Renewelists that reminds us of this fact.

Waskow's midrash are interesting. Some of them give new insights into the text, others go a little too much to the personal. The book of Genesis is about brothers fighting but that's not ALL it's about, for example. Other times he tries to impose his politics a little too much into Halacka - such as the Jubilee being a time to give Israeli Land to Arabs as part of the peace talks.

Particularly enlightening is the material concerning his marriage, how the first one broke up and the ceremonies he keeps to keep the second one.

Problems that I have with this book that I didn't have a few years ago when I read it:

Waskow automatically assumes that Orthodox Judaism is outdated and sexist.

Several times he "reinterprets" Halacka to suit his own needs because he doesn't agree with the Talmud. This is great for getting people interested in Judaism and getting people excited by Halacka - but "they did the same thing" doesn't really hold water, as "they" were Rabbi Akiva, Hillel, Rabbi Judah the Prince, Jonathan, and hundreds of others with Maimonides, Rashi, Ran, Nachmanides interpreting their works and adding to it. Waskow may be a decent scholar in his own right, but he doesn't measure up to these guys.

This is a great read and an invigorating book for people unfamiliar with the more spiritual aspects of Judaism and see it as what they train for when they are 13 and what is keeping them from marrying their shiksa girlfriends. However, the last 50 or so pages has the author trying to work out some plan from his writings as to where to take Judaism. It is here where the book stumbles. As Renewelist services are largely "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" it's kind of impossible to state anything definitive about them. However, there is a serious hippie mentality to them that turns off people who don't like to be hugged by strangers. Waskow assumes that everyone if given a choice would want to be in this kind of Rainbow Gathering inspired ceremony.

This is an interesting book and one of the more spiritual books you might read if you aren't particularly interested in traditional Judaism, but it suffers from its own Chutzpah.

A timely book describing the way of science practised by Goethe and still continued today through the talents of Bockemuehl, Schad and others. Thankfully Goethe's "way" has not died the seemingly natural death expected after the assault of scientific positivism/reductionism/mechanism which has been the mainstream approach associated with science since Galileo, Newton and Descarte. In fact science has come to mean this very method. Whether it is admitted or not by many scientists, they do feel a certain dimunition in the sense of life first experienced when exposed to the original dynamic ideas of science such as general relativity, evolution or the concept of the atom. This sense, well expressed by Blake's beautiful poetic lines "universe in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower" is what drew them to a scientific career in the first place and shows that scientists just as much as artists are searchers for wonder in the universe. The question remains how has this sense of wonder been eradicated from the modern scientific approach. The answer is it hasn't, not completely, investigators still feel this sense of wonder as they investigate a new phenomenon for the first time and the associated flood of ideas emanating from it. However once past this initial stage scientific investigations progress in a very methodical way which leaches the life from the initial phenomenon. Goethe initiated a science which tries to maintain this "living" sense at all stages of the investigation without the influx of total subjectivity. This book demonstrates some investigators' own contemporary scientific investigations from the growth of plants to the evolution and structure of mammals. Hopefully such expositions will be read and digested by future scientists and lead to a new revitalisation of science in a creative living way, where this very approach becomes part of the life of the scientist rather than as a separate part of his world.

This book teaches people about the problems that families faced after the Civil War, both emotional and physical. The main character's name is Will. Will's uncle did not join the war because he felt it was not right. So everybody in town felt that he was a coward. Will thought at first that his uncle was a Judas because he also helped a Yankee go back home. Will's uncle gave this Yankee food and shelter. As the book goes on, Will changes his feelings about his uncle.

....to the principles of ecology. This book, if you can find it, is logically organized and very easy to understand. It moves gradually from the foundational dynamics (energy flows, eat-or-be-eaten) to entire ecosystems.

Some readers will be distracted by the dated references to outer space and the cute chapter headings--"Methods for Mission Impossible," etc. Most of the first chapter, Wonder and Anxiety, was a teaching device that seemed to me to take forever to get to the point; other readers less familiar with ecology might find it useful, however.

Bottom line: I'd buy another book from this author. It's always nice to find clear voices in the sciences.

This book proves that dreams due come true. The book Growing Up Harley Davidson is about the life of a family whos dream came true one day. It also shows that dreams come true even if the odds of doing so aren't so great. The book proves that if two minds are working together that anything is possible. However, this book showed along with this is a lot of time and money. This book first caught my eye because it envolved a family environment. It talked about in great detail about each generation of the family receiving it and the changes they made to make it better. The most interesting part of this book was at the ending chapters. It discussed the selling and of the buyback of the Harley Davidson Company. This was interesting to me because during that time of the selling the qualtiy of the motorcycles were going dowm along with the families dreams. I would recomend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about Harley Davidson Motorcycles.

Its really nice how they show that having glasses and being different doesn't really matter! I like that and I hope children read this and say that discriminating people for their disabilities is horrible and don't ever do it!