I have spent many years reading books, talking to counselors, and talking to friends about relationships. Reading Johnson's book was a real eye opener, to put it very mildly. I have enjoyed the author's style in his other books where he presents a myth and discusses it's psychological meaning. This book is no exception, except that it's relevance is way off the charts. Before reading "We" I had all but thrown my hands in the air in frustration regarding relationships. The author's beautiful style drills deep and answers the many questions I had. Johnson's use of the Tristan myth told me what I did not want to hear, but the pain I have experience in relationship told me that Johnson was right on the money. The author's analysis of romantic love and the distinction he makes between passion and true love (which is more low key and may even come across as boring sometimes) spoke loud and clear. He made me realize that I have been searching out there in vain for so many years for lady soul, because lady soul lurked within my unconscious mind. Since reading this book I was able to connect with lady soul and have that symbolic marriage that Johnson talks about.

I highly recommend this book to each person who has a lot of questions about why relationships in our cultures are in a state of epidepic crisis. The author's answers may not be what you want to hear if you are a "zealous" romantic. If you are willing to stretch yourself and change, then Johnson's words are an excellent catalyst for changing your ways and heading in the right direction.

I consider "We" among the most relevant books by Robert Johnson, and among the most relevantt books by any author!

This classic work gives us a simple story and model for how men think, what they secretly want, and how men can see what it is they really need.

I've incorporated a lot of this book in my own work (a hidden resource that I don't really mention or credit).

At only about 100 pages and less than [$$], how could anyone miss out on buying this book.

I found this volume almost impossible to put down once I started reading it.
Author Robert A. Johnson has a very fluid writing style, and does a superb job
of exposing the archetypal aspect of romance and love relationships by discussing the implications of
the myth of Tristan and Iseult. I found myself strongly moved
by this volume, and it helped me work through some live and
at the time previously unexplored aspects of my own psyche.

This book doesn't leave you feeling torn apart as many analytical
works on love do. It analyzes the emotions and expectations of
lovers in such a way as to allow one to re-examine one's own
love relationships and ultimately one's understanding of what
a love relationship should be. This is a timeless volume, which
transcends the stereotypical types of responses one has to love and love relationships. Western media and folklore have so thoroughly dwelt on this topic that I find it remarkable that this Jungian philosopher is able to significantly add to the tradition, by allowing one to consciously break down the archetypal influences that seem to so powerfully motivate us when we are in love. I found this book illuminating enough that after finishing it I had to purchase a copy for a close friend.

Be aware that this type of progress doesn't happen in a vacuum, so this book may be somewhat troubling if you are a person who has
long cherished views that you do not want to question about love and romance. But if you are willing to subscribe to the author's thesis that love and love relationships can be improved by understanding their core motivations as reflected in myth and allegory, you will absolutely love this book as I did and possibly this book will change the way you look at love and life. Definitely a must-read if you are someone like me who is always falling in love and not knowing why.

This book was great. The concept is so realistic and simple but the actual sessions seem unbelievable. I would love to experience them myself. If you have any trainings. let me know, I want to tell my therapist about ERP.

Thanks,

I had to write and tell you that I bought the book and found it very provactive. As a substance abuse counselor, the book was right on the money. It talks about the reality of the addiction and makes clients look at how their drug use encircles all aspects of their lives. Nice job! I reccommend this book to anyone working in the field who has an open mind to change. ...

Thanks You;
TM

I saw your book in the bookstore a few days ago. I did not buy it right away because after reading it in the store I thought it was not for me due to my recent arrival back into AA. Your approach is radicle but after a few days I thought about it and decided to buy this book. I have been battling this disease for years now and I decided I had to give it another chance. I will apply all the tools I could find because after many attempts to stay clean, I kept returning back to the bottle. I am optimistic about this attempt to stay clean because I do like the realtity of this concept. Even though it is not oriented on a twelve-step approach it does allow the freedom for me to incoropate my current tools and enhance them with the exercises and more importantly ERP.

Thank you and keep the information coming.

This is one of the best books I have read. Ingersoll was one of the most courageous and eloquent spokesmen for Reason. He honored nature, science and liberty and condemned superstition, bigotry, slavery, religious intolerance and worthless ritual in a time when it took great courage to be outspoken. His words have even greater meaning today when the evils of religious fundamentalism and fanaticism have again reared their ugly head. This book condenses much of his writings in an organised and eloquent way. If it were required reading I think it would seriously undermine the religious convictions of many Americans. I urge everyone to familiarize themselves with Ingersoll, the magnificent!

I had finally sat down to read the Bible when I picked up a copy of Ingersoll the Magnificent. I can tell you the latter was the only book I finished. The Bible shocked me with its ignorance and cruelty. Ingersoll impressed me with his wit and principles (charity, respect, intellectual integrity, hope, and honesty.) There are so many gems of wisdom. Here are but a few: "I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet it is the only light. Extinguish that and nought remains." "All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the bible is simply and purely of human invention -- of barbarian invention -- is to read it." "It is a great pleasure to drive the fiend of fear out of the hearts of men, women and children. It is a positive joy to put out the fires of hell." "Honest men do not pretend to know...they admit their ignorance, and they say, 'We don't know.'" Reading Ingersoll made me want to meet people like him and directly to meeting Madalyn Murray O'Hair. They certainly had their differences, but both stood for high ideals and wanted humankind to be better.

It's funny that in the 21st century most Americans have forgotten the lost American tradition of Free Thinking. Robert G. Ingersoll was one the greatest free thinkers and one of the greatest Americans in our history. This is a tremendous collections of his thoughts on the nonsense on christianity and the seperation of church and state. You have to love a politician who had the guts to stand up and say "Christianity has made more lunatics than it ever provided asylums for." Here is the opposing view to those who believe this is a "christian nation."

Two summers ago we went into Seychelles, and Mauritius,Reunion& Seychelles LP travel guide was essential for us. Thanks to it, we could discover Seychelles was not just a diving and incredible beaches paradise, but its interiors landscapes were the best of our journey. We recomend it,because its fantastic information about Mahe,Praslin and La Digue islands, their national parks (such as Sainte Anne or Vallee de Mai). Prices were as high as the author wrote! and all information about public buses, rent-a-car and restaurants was right. Just one thing, we couldn't find where La Gogue Reservoir was! If anybody can strength the lake exists, please let us know!!

This guide was my Bible while I traveled through Mahe and Praslin islands in 1999. The Seychelles are full of kind, open-hearted locals who are generous and more than willing to show Westerners around. My trusty LP guide helped me find several reasonable b&b's, Michael Adams' studio (wonderful local artist) and the most perfect beaches in the Indian Ocean. What I love about LP guides, and this one in particular, is the extensive history of the area the book is covering, as well as the locals' interests. Those intending to visit this incredible area should take this guide book - the photography alone will tempt anyone.

I used an earlier edition of this book on a trip in 1996, in which I visited the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Reunion. I was travelling independently (not as part of a package tour) and the book helped in many ways to make my trip a great one. It provides a wealth of information about hotels and restaurants, island culture, and places and things to see on the islands. If you can only visit one of these three islands, I would recommend the Seychelles, which offer some of the finest tropical scenery I have ever seen. One advantage of Mauritius for the budget-minded traveler is that it is considerably less expensive than the Seychelles.

The approach that Mr. Joseph Zbukvic uses in his book is fascinating. For me, he takes the mystery out of painting watercolor and breaks it down into a more understandable approach. What I like about it is that he explains the different consistencies that paint should be when applied to the paper. His consistency of paint is described as: tea, coffee, milk, cream and butter. The dampness of paper is described as: dry, damp, moist, and wet. He ties these ideas together by using a concept of a clock. The concept of a clock is used to explain when and how paper and paint should be used together. An example of one of his demonstrations: laying in the first background wash to paper, the paper is dry and the paint is in the consistency of tea. His demonstrations in the book are clear and easy to understand especially with this "clock" method. He also writes very well and it is an enjoyable read. I love the way he paints and the price of the book alone is worth just looking at his paintings.

The example paintings in Joseph Zbukvic's "Mastering Atmosphere and Mood" are stunning. By manipulating the amount of moisture ON the paper and IN the wash of paint, Zbuvic creates strong contrast between ethereal washes and densely painting architectural or landscape elements.

Zbuvic uses a device he calls a clock, which consists of a circle divided into wedges; the left side gauging the amount of water on the paper (from shiny wet to bone dry) and the right side gauging the amount of water mixed into the paint, from weak "tea" to "butter" or thick paint. This is rather original, but it does communicate an awareness of the moisture levels in both paint and paper to the artist. One example painting that really stands out is a rainy scene of downtown Melbourne, Australia. The street is lightly washed to allow the paper beneath to create the white shine of a wet street; the buildings and headlight reflections are painted more densely to provide either solidity (the building) or glow (the headlights.)

Most books on watercolor demonstrate a layered method of washes followed by glazes (paint over paint.) The end result can often be muddy for beginners in watercolor. This method is quite different in how it describes laying down washes and glazes, and can help the watercolorist achieve transparent atmosphere effects by paying attention to the water. If you've run into a brick wall with your current method of painting, this might be a great book to give a boost to your technique.

I think this book is essential for one trying get a handle on this sometimes frustrating medium. One of the critical parts in watercolor painting is judging the amount of water in the paper and on the brush to get the effect one seeks. It's a tricky process but one which this friendly book makes understandable and attainable. I've been painting for 25 years and have bought scores of books on the subject, finding something useful to nearly all of them. But this book, along with two others, I consider to be MUSTS. The others are Robert Lovett's "The Art of Designing Watercolors" and Tony Couch's "Watercolor: You Can Do It."

It does not matter if you all ready are a "fort-geek" or some one, who just want a book on the topic: This book will for sure please you.

"The Medieval Fortress" is a nice big (app. 11" x 8.5" or 28,5 x 22 cm), 319p. book, which covers the development of fortified places through out Europe and North-Africa from the early to the late middle ages - when the forts had their glory.
The book is built up of five main chapters. The First deals with the elements of a fortification; the Second deals in general with the different kind of fortifications in different parts of Europe (Islamic, Byzantine, Frankish, British, Norse, Slavic and Magyar (Hungarian)); the Third does the same, but with emphasis on the emerging castle; the Fourth chapter introduces gunpowder and the decline of the high castle walls through the description of several sieges (Constantinople, Rhodes, and siege of fortifications during the Reconquista); Chapter Five goes in depth with some selected fortifications in Europe: Some of the more famous ones and some more obscure. The reader is guided through fortifications/castles in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Low Countries, Switzerland, Holy Roman Empire, Scandinavia, Central Europe (present day Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, and Slovenia) Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Mediterranean, Italy, Spain&Portugal, and North Africa. The appendixes gives the names of some more important builders and architects and their titles in different languages (French, Portugese, Spanish, Duch, Sweedish, and Russian), a chronology of important sieges from 623 (Constantinople) to 1529 (Vienna), a history of medival artillery and a glossary.
There are endless amounts of B/W pictures alongside with even more B/W line drawings and plans of forts, just like on the front cover of the book.

This book is a very good buy!

(Review based on First DaCapo Edition, 2001)

If you liked Sydney Toy's book on Castles, you will love this one. Covering the earliest origins of castles to their decline at about the time of the Rennaisance, this book is a must-have for anyone fond of castles or interested in the middle ages. Although it has only black & white pictures and other books may contain a larger number of castles, this book is incredible in its scope of the subject and covers much history of the important castles and towns of Europe in the middle ages. Reading about this history and seeing pictures of the fortresses & towns gives me a feeling of how it was like to be there. I now have a wish-list of ancient towns & strongholds I would like to visit. The book has many 'basic' floorplans of castles & towns as well as rough maps of the regions talked about. Enough info for many book reports; great for design ideas since the coverage spans hundreds of years & styles of construction from All over Europe.

The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts And Walled Cities Of The Middle Ages is a superbly researched and presented historical survey of the castles and other walled defenses of medieval Europe. Fortification specialists J.E. Kaufmann and H.W. Kaufmann explain the origins and evolutions, compositions and components of these structures, along with their offensive and defensive strategies, weapons, and modifications. The informative, photographically illustrated and engaging text is enhanced throughout with technical artist Robert M. Jurga's illustrations, detailed technical drawings. The Medieval Fortress is an enthusiastically recommended addition to any personal, academic, or public library medieval studies reference collection or reading list.

This is in answer to many letters, phone calls, and e-mails concerning the writer's fiction and non-fiction.Robert Banfelder's nonfiction writing on the criminal justice system is unquestionably fodder for his novels. Through his first nine articles and editorials in 1991, Banfelder decried the incarceration of a young man wrongly accused and convicted of a crime he did not commit. With the help of Banfelder, attorney Mark Baker -- formerly of Barry Slotnick's office in New York -- along with CBS News correspondent Mike Taiibi, Richard Tchilinguirian's conviction was overturned and the Armenian man was released from prison. Bob's sequel to his first published novel, No Stranger Than I, The Signing, incorporates the tragic but factual aftermath of the young man's death.In an article entitled, A Case for Vigilantism, Bob Banfelder writes bluntly about a family's plea and promise for street justice with regard to the rape of their 15 year-old daughter.Displaying an editorial concerning the John Gotti trial and sentencing, the latter of which the writer attended, protestors held and waved copies of the author's writings which appeared on the front cover of The Daily News and Newsday, complete with photos of Bob and the mob boss. TV cameras zeroed in on the two photos and text clipped beneath windshield wiper blades as demonstrators overturned federal vehicles that ringed the Brooklyn federal courthouse.These factual events figure prominently into his fictional works, giving his writings the ring of truth upon which his stories are built. Another example is to be found in The Triumvirate concerning the Buttafuocos, that is Mary Jo and Joey. Banfelder interviewed the latter as well as having attended Joey's 'coming out of jail' party at an Italian restaurant in Syosset. Banfelder's portrayal of the event and its cast of characters is intriguing, "with very little embellishment," the author says.Banfelder, while a reporter covering the Galen Kelly story -- a cult deprogrammer and distinguished law enforcement professional who was convicted on kidnapping charges and whom Banfelder believes was set up by a notorious cult -- writes with an unerring eye in his treatment of fanatical groups passing themselves off as religious sects as evidenced in The Triumvirate in addition to his latest completed work entitled, The Author. Its theme? Why would the Justice Department look the other way concerning a suspected serial killer? The answer is tied to a seemingly innocuous cult, its leader insulated for reasons concerning national security.Wish to gain insights into the trials and tribulations of courtroom proceedings where Robert Shulman (Howard Mills) is on trial for his life as a serial killer? Trace Evidence is a novel based largely on the actual pretrial, trial and sentencing phase, which the author attended for fifteen months. Banfelder made it his business to interview forensic scientists, Suffolk County's head of homicide -- Detective Lieutenant John Gierasch -- as well as virtually all the major and peripheral players involved. Too, the author lectured before psychiatrists and students at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, speaking about the trial and his writings.Banfelder's novel in progress is entitled, The Teacher. All seven of his works, with the exception of one (Trumble's Pond), are psychological thrillers. His novels are unique in that they delve into the mind of the serial killer as well as one who sees little equity in a flawed criminal justice system -- namely a vigilante that sets out to avenge the victim and his or her family.Bob Banfelder is an expansive literary novelist, drawing from his investigative reporting on the innocent as well as the guilty. Other personalities include Amy Fisher, Leona Helmsley, O.J. Simpson, Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, as well as several lesser known individuals.Banfelder's writings are both fascinating and brilliant say his readers and reviewers. I have read all of his published works and manuscripts, and I wholeheartedly agree. His writings are literary and lively, with strokes of murderous genius at their core. A rare combination, woven successively and harmoniously. It is only a matter of time before an ambitious agent together with an audacious publisher pick up on Bob Banfelder, acknowledging his unique form and style while realizing a potentially prodigious audience -- a readership both sexes will relish.

The author presents his literary abilities on every dynamic spell-binding page. Read this book slowly so that you can savor each line. I never wanted to reach the last page. But, then again I can always re-read it. Would be very interested to hear more about the writer and his current project(s). Is this the same Robert Banfelder who was the key crime reporter during the early 90's for the Towers Newsletter (New York). I remember reading about John Gotti and Amy Fisher... and seeing the name Banfelder. Is he still doing television? Let's hear more about the Banfelder man. Signed: Editor North Shore News

Mr. Banfelder must have done a lot of research on schizophrenic killers, ventriloquism, voodoo and ancient Egyptian mummification because it is all here in this story of Richard Geist -- plus a few interesting chapters on U.S. Marine boot camp. The book covers the territory explored in Silence of the Lambs and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but with its own twist and turns.

Mr. Ray's Weekend Novelist is an excellent reference book. However, I wouldn't necessarily use it as a template for writing a novel . . . unless you plan on writing novels similar to Mr. Ray's or to Ann Tyler's "The Accidental Tourist", the novel that Ray uses as an template throughout citing it as a perfect example of a well written novel.

For those new to the daunting task of writing a novel, this book can pigeonhole you into thinking this is the only way to tackling writing. I came across that dilemma. After getting halfway through the book, doing the exercises and starting to write my own novel I began to abandon my old habits of writing and started to adopt Mr. Ray's. I started to feel that I couldn't put pen to paper UNLESS I completely plotted my novel, developed my characters and set up every scene. This didn't work for me. The natural flow I usually feel when writing was taken away and eventually I completely gave up on the process returning to my methods of writing: sitting down with a pad and pencil and allowing the ideas to flow. Then fine tuning the story only after I have a huge chunk of it written and some idea of what I want to convey. Not all novels are structured in Mr. Ray's manner, not all novels use Aristotle's incline to develop plot and storylines and not all novels can be written in 52 weekends.

Not to say this is a bad book at all. It's a wonderful reference book full of ideas and exercises to help you strengthen your writing. For example, it never occurred to me to create backstories and timelines for each of my characters giving them dimension and realism. Ray also offers exercises to help you set up scenes, write dialogue, write action and plot your novel. I now find that I refer to these exercises to help me develop my writing but I no longer follow the program.

This book is a great starting point for those interested in writing a novel but do not have an idea how to start (one more thing: you definitely have to have some idea of what you want to write BEFORE you start). However, for experienced writers you will find that this book is more useful as a reference guide rather than a program to follow.

Robert J. Ray's "The Weekend Novelist" can help just about anyone realize their potential as a novelist. I don't think any of us out there can drop everything to become a professional novelist (unless you're born into wealth, I guess). We all have to work sometime. So, Mr. Ray puts together a program that will allow you to not only write a novel on the weekends but also write a novel with depth and meaning.

Before I read this book, I wrote lots of short stories and the start of a few novels. I used this book to turn some of my old ideas into the reality of a manuscript.

I felt myself getting bogged down at first by following his program of hashing out the details of the lives of the characters. But I quickly realized the commitment that is involved in writing a novel. It's important to develop meaningful characters/structure before you start writing.

Thanks, Mr. Ray! I highly recommend this book to any aspiring writer.

I wish I had studied this book before I ever put pen to paper. I used to think that if only I had something very interesting to write about, then all I would have to do is start writing, and a great story would magically appear. Robert Ray helped me understand just how much planning and preparation go into writing a good novel, as well as what to focus on when plotting your story. There are three things in particular that this book taught me which were especially helpful.

First, this book taught me that what really drives a novel is the characters and their relationships to each other and to events. I looked at Grisham and Clancy and thought that smooth prose filled with action would make a novel into a bestseller. Although that is sometimes true, Robert Ray showed me that the real key to a compelling, meaningful story is a stellar character through which the reader can identify. A good character can drive the whole novel.

The second thing this book taught me, which was perhaps the most valuable for me, is that the basic building block of the novel is not the chapter or even the major plot points, but the individual scenes. Robert Ray shows that each scene is like a compact story within your story, with a set-up, a middle part for conflict and development, and a climax which pushes the story into the next scene. The section on scene building in this book was excellent, and it gave me the breakthrough I needed in understanding how to give a story real structure.

Finally, this book helped me understand the importance of the major plot points, and what has to happen in the scenes at these points in order to make your writing tight.

In addition to the above, this book has many basic tips on how to organize yourself, how to approach your writing, and how to work through the major revisions of your story. There's even an appendix at the end with tips on getting published.

For an amateur like me who has never had any classes in story writing, this book was the most helpful guide that I was able to find.

DK makes wonderful books -- always colorful, well written and made of heavy stock. This French Wine guide is no exception. Covering all of the wine growing regions of France, including the non-classified areas, this guide provides for some wonderful reading. It covers several of the better vinyards for each area, including a history of the vinyard. The photographs are of very good quality and quite beautiful. The descriptions of the vinyards are fun to read and give a good general history. This guide would make an excellent companion for a travel tour of France.

One of the great attributes of DK books is that they can be read in short bursts -- the information is concise but thorough, and allows the reader to take in a good amount of information in only a two or three paragraph span. This makes it an excellent book to keep in the car, for those times spent in waiting rooms.

While attempting to purchase a number of interesting and fine wines for my brother for Christmas and finding my knowledge of the subject lacking in almost every way, I purchased this book as it seemed to possess everything I was looking for in a fine presentation with plenty of much needed photographs. For me, visting a wine shop is a dangerous endeavor; I am dually susceptible to selecting and suspicious of the wine merchant's recommendations. After researching some fantastically priced wines on the FinestWine.com website, I took my list to my local store and was sorely disappointed. Since none of the wines I had researched were available, I needed to start at square one and did not have a square one to jump on. This book provided one. It tutored me regarding label so that I could get more grape and taste for my buck. By depicting in full color the actual labels produced by the various chateaus along with a succinct description of the producer's quality, yield, climate, soil, grape varieties, styles, longevities, etc, I was able to make some great selections.

The book is divided into the different varieties of wine based on region: Alsace & Lorraine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, etc and is further exemplified by the various appellations and recommendations regarding producers and good vintages. Each of the ten regions begins with pages about the region with a drivng tour and ends with a discussion of the region's food partnerships and tasting tips. I would imagine that this would serve well on one of the popular wine tours of France.

The book begins with some rudimentary information regarding the process of winemaking, label reading, red and white wine differences, starting a cellar, wine and food . . . it is extremely comprehensive and yet fits well into the 240+ page format --- every page filled with glossy photographs and interesting sidebars.

If you enjoy the popular DK city/region/country travel books, you will equally enjoy this. I recommend this highly for anyone who wants to indulge in a small book with a huge amount of information.

This is precisely the book I'd been looking for. I have grown to enjoy French wines and am lucky to live near New York stores with great selections to choose from, but the subject is horribly confusing. Joseph deals with just about every wine I've come across and provides enough information to give a clear idea of how it's likely to taste and the food to have it with. I travel overseas for my work and have found it a great companion (its format is ideal for a briefcase) in restaurants with daunting lists.

It's difficult to find original material in most security books. "Hack Proofing Your Network, 2nd Edition" (HPYN2E) breaks that trend. Responding to feedback on the first edition, the authors have made numerous improvements in the second edition. If you're looking for relatively novel content in a security book, read the sections of HPYN2E I discuss next.

HPYN2E shines in many respects. The "laws of security" in chapter 2 are accurate and enlightening. Chapter 4 helps teach secure programming techniques by comparing insecure and secure code snippets. Chapter 4 also demonstrates debugging and disassembling code, usually not seen in security texts. Chapter 8 probably contains the most advanced coverage of buffer overflows I've read in a book. By actually showing and explaining stack traces, the authors share a level of detail sufficient to satisfy all but the most elite coders. Chapters on "diffing" (5) and format strings (9) are robust. Hardware hacking, thoroughly described in chapter 14, is fascinating. The author cared enough to include numerous clear photographs of disassembled equipment, and mentioned many helpful external web references.

While these great chapters comprise more than half of HPYN2E, the remainder is not exceptional. I was not happy with the rambling, wordy chapters on spoofing (12) and tunneling (13). Spare us the quotes from Dante's "Divine Comedy"! Still, this material is easily skimmed.

Because HPYN2E is written more from an intruder's point of view, the title doesn't seem to reflect the material. The book isn't exactly a "how to hack" manual, but it expertly illuminates many facets of compromising information resources.

When I read the first edition of this book, was truly disappointed. I was wondering how such people could have written such book. Not that the book was worthless, but too 'standard' to met the expectations I had from these guys.
Still the idea was very interesting (information directly from the real experts), and I kept waiting for a new edition.
Well the second edition is now out, and not only fulfills, but exceeds all my original expectations !!

Let's take a look:

The Approach:

Understanding attacks and vulnerabilities, by understanding 'how to hack' (good hacking of course. . . .ahem )

The Book:

Rewritten, expanded and improved, the book consists of 800+ pages well structured into 18 chapters (against 450+ pages and 15 chapters of the first edition).
Well written, well presented, with a real fancy table of contents, the chapters include url's, a FAQ section and a SOLUTIONS FAST TRACK one.
A lot of CLEVER code is included as well as helpful 'Tool & Traps' and 'Notes from the Underground. . . ' outlines.

The new sections (all outstanding) include:
- Hardware Hacking (otherwise only found in papers)
- Tunneling (excellent)
- IDS evasion (very easily explained)
- Format strings attacks

The Intended Audience:

People willing to become network security pros.

Contents:

- Introduction to Security, Attacks and related Methodologies.
- Cryptography.
- Unexpected Input, Buffer Overflow, Format Strings.
- Sniffing, Hijacking and Spoofing.
- Tunneling, Hardware Hacking, Viruses (et al.).
- IDS Evasion.
- Automated Tools.
- Reporting Security Problems.

The Bottom Line:

It is not just a good book, it is the best book among high level network security books, and the only that compares with specialized papers. Only quite easier.
I got more than 60 papers on buffer overflows. None compares with the classical 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' by Aleph One. IMHO, however, the corresponding chapter from this book, does compare and is really easier to understand.
Finally, the 'piece de resistance' of the book, is the chapter about Spoofing. Really enjoyed it, and by the way got surprised reading the innovative (to me) technique to 'Spoof Connectivity Through Asymmetric Firewalls'. Good Job Dan ;-)
As an added bonus, as an owner of this book, you'll find a lot of code files, applications and links...

I have the first edition of this book also, and I was really glad to see the second edition come out. There are some great hacking books out now, but I really think these ones are the best. I found in depth coverage on a lot of stuff you just can't find any place else. Some very cool info. on administering hosts locked behind a firewall and tips for making a "poor man's VPN". I also like that a lot of big names wrote the book, and their personalities really come through. A lot of tech. books can be a little dry even if they are well written. This one is actually entertaining also.