This is not a book for the novice. The author presumes that the reader is familiar with basic astrology i.e. there are no details on how to draw up a chart from first principles given a birth date, time and place. In that sense the title is a bit mis-leading. I can't judge the book from an astrologer's perspective, since (as you have probably gathered by now) I am a novice!

I had read another book on Vedic astrology and it didn't come close to giving me the understanding that I got from this book. Everything was explained in easy to understand language. This book left me with a great appreciation for the science.

Although I have been a western astrologer for 28 years, I'm very new to Vedic astrology, and The Essentials of Vedic Astrology is only the second book on the subject which I have read. Thanks to Komilla Sutton's clear, inspiring and supportive text, I am now well and truly hooked on the subject. People coming to Vedic astrology from the better known western system will probably find themselves more at sea than those who haven't studied astrology at all: the reason for this is that, though sharing many elements, the two systems have a different way of arriving at the overall balance of the chart. Komilla steers the student through these differences in a way which clarifies and inspires, while at the same time providing a thorough and easy to understand foundation for people who know nothing about astrology at all. Her treatment of the subject of karma is particularly inspiring and reassuring; instead of treating it in a fatalistic way, she shows how karmic patterns can be traced in the chart with a view to working with them positively...a far cry from the usual impression of Vedic astrology as being fatalistic and dire. Her introduction to the Nakshatras, dashas and transits fascinated me and make complete sense in terms of my own chart and life events, and the material on Rahu and Ketu (the moon's nodes) has got me determined to buy her book on the subject. Though I don't see myself ever discarding the western system of astrology, I know my passion for Vedic astrology will continue to unfold, and this is in no small part due to Komilla Sutton's excellent, supportive, inspiring and accessible book, which I will not only continue to use for reference but will recommend to anyone else wanting a sound and lucid introduction to the subject.

In the first chapter or it may even be in the Preface, it says all the books available, if they are more than 5 years old, they are outdated. Its copywright is 1996, since then we have seen the New Economy Boom and now we are in the midst of a New Economy Crash(maybe). Right now, jobs are not as easy to come by, anyway.

I would have to say that so far its content is readily applicable, still. Although, we are not quite halfway through it.

Next to the "VaultReports.com Guide to the Top 50 MBA Employers," this guide is the best career guide for MBAs I've read.

Really impressed by research but most importantly it was right. Fundamentally changed how I approach my career and work - and it has benefited me greatly.

A must have. How great it is to have the facts from the people in the know.

Bonansinga's plots are culled from old movies, pulp thrillers and comic book style adventures then given a 90s spin. This wild action-filled story is a vast improvement over The Killer's Game and far more deserving of being turned into a film than his previous book. I found myself gasping at points and trying to outguess the characters as they attempt to piece together the true identity of John McNally. Once again, he leads the reader through a rapid, breathlessly paced story ending with an outrageous, nerve-shattering and preposterous climax. This pulp thriller has it all: amnesia, serial killers, train chases, car chases, and a very modern twist on the mad scientist and his creepy lab experiments.

The Kirkus reviewer must have lost a high-school love to Bonansinga -- there's no other explanation for such an off-the-wall review. Bonansinga's premise is a different twist, it engages straight into high-gear, and his dexterity with the word and the mind are like a master jazz musician's fingers working two lines, in counterpoint, into one perfect climax. Get this book. Get every one of them, in fact.

Head Case is a well written roller coaster of a page turner. Sort of like the Dean Koontz genre with its well liked characters and plot but definitely the author's own. The characters are well fleshed out, the amnesiac with an uncertain past and the strong female character who helps him make you care what happens to them. The plot kept me guessing and was rewarding and made complete sense with all its twists and turns and plot developments. I was never bored with it and the short sharp chapters worked with the fast-paced feel of the book. I highly recommend it! I would like to read the authors other books if they are as good as this one.

As the child of parents who came from the strictly Orthodox Jewish community of Hungary, and as one raised within that Orthodoxy, albeit transplanted to America, this book exposed me to a portion of Hungarian Jewish history I never really knew. This book speaks of the tragedy of so many Hungarian Jews. Jews who were totally estranged from their ancestral faith, who had no attachment to their heritage. For those people, Judaism was an undesirabe yoke to be cast aside or at best ignored. This book tells the reader however that one cannot truly escape his true identity. The true hero of the book, the author's father, discovers this in the hell of Bergen-Belsen. His uncle, the priest, spends the war in relative safety, but always in fear that he would be denounced. That uncle also has to contend with the very real possiblity that his Hungarian coreligionists "allowed" him to escape to Italy into the warm embrace of Padre Pio and the Capuchin monks not out of dedication to him in the spirit of Christian fellowship, but rather out of a desire to be rid of another Jew.
The emotions that pervade this book are powerful. The characters are real. The dialogue, while made up, displays the pathos of the characters and speaks to the reader's soul.
This book is about many things: religion, families and their dysfunctions, theodicy, Catholic-Jewish relations, and overding all of those, this book is about the complexity of life. Like all great works, the message of this book will be shaped by the reader and his/her weltanschaung.

I hate to disagree with 3 5-star evaluations, but I thought the story was insightful and interesting but I did not find the reading process as easy as another critique stated. If the book was decrased by about 50 pages, I believe it would be even more compelling than it is.

I have read a number of holocaust books and this family did not have it as bad as others, but I assure you all of them were near death except the Catholic Father.

I particularly liked the beginning and end when the author was talking in the first person. A fine read.

A very thoughtful and sensitive family story. Very insightful. It helped me to understand my own parents better. It is very well written, easy to read and I couldn't put it down.

Young has done an admirable job at presenting some really beautiful and useful aspects of Hilbert spaces in a manner comprehendable for advanced undergraduates. After reading the book and reflecting on the experience, I'm somewhat amazed at the amount of nice ideas that were presented in such a compact text. The book cannot be compared with more rigorous and comprehensive texts such as Rudin, but you still get all the fundamentals of Hilbert space plus some wonderful applications.

I must strongly disagree with the reader from Sao Paolo who says that chapters 12 and 13 are poorly motivated. These chapters are crucial for the final theorem of the book in chapter 16. Parrott's Theorem in chapter 12 is the key to the foundational Nehari's theorem of chapter 15. Chapter 13 explores Hardy spaces which are the setting place for the major theorem of Adamyan, Arov, and Krein in chapter 16. In fact, I found the movement of ideas from chapter 12 to chapter 16 to be marvelously compelling. These chapters have extreme importance for theoretically oriented control engineers.

Only a modicum of real and complex analysis is necessary to understand the book. Knowledge of measure theory is not required.

This book is good to any control engineer who wants to know the background theory of optimization and robust control, but read read an analysis book first.

The first eleven chapters are an excellent introduction to functional analysis . Both Hilbert and Banach spaces are introduced carefully. Then there are two short chapters on orthogonal expansions and classical fourier series and then linear operators are studied. From the point of view of a person who is interested in applications to physics and engineering one can say that the book is well motivated mainly because is so compact and because of the many notes on applications. Chapters nine , ten and eleven on Green's functions and eigenfunctions expansions are extremely good. Chapters twelve and thirteen are poorly motivated from the point of view of applications.Finally chapters fourteen to sixteen try to exhibit the applications to complex analysis of operator theory and be helpfull to eletrical engineers.I think the book fails in this. So the ten first chapters of the book are excellent . The remaining less so

Pete Shotton was John Lennon's best friend throughout his life, and this book gives a positive upbeat and revealing look at that friendship.

Starting from their rebellious childhood antics in Woolton and Quarrybank we are taken on a "Magical Mystery Tour" through the Quarrymen formation and onto Beatles superfame. Throughout it all Pete was the sane down-to-Earth component of John's life. Here's a glimpse of the Real John Lennon from getting every bird around (and the rest) to going off the deep end with Acid. It's sure to entertain you and keep you laughing with uncanny Lennon humor. The book is no whitewash, but neither is it the blackwash of Goldman's book. It's basically as close to the truth as a good friend can get. I also recommend The Man who Gave the Beatles Away and the new book, Lennon in America. I await the release of John's Diaries.

I very highly recommend this book to any Lennon/Beatles fan with a good sense of humour and an open mind. I Loved Every Page Of It. You wont be able to keep a straight face while you read it. What A Clown!

There are only three decent books on John Lennon: Albert Goldman's, Ray Connelly's and Pete Shotton's "In My LIfe". This book is almost completely free of the schmalz that ruins other biographies. It's truthful and frank and is quite fascinating. A good thing about the book, is that it focuses on the man rather than the music. From reading it, you do get an idea of what he was really like. Regrettably, I lent my copy to a friend who promptly left it on a table in a cafe or hostel in Paris (early '96). So if you found it - I want it back!

IF you love action packed eciting books you should read Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. This thriller made me want to turn the page every second. It takes place in a very old town in London. It is about a kind doctor named Henry Jekyll. He creates a potion that turned him into a destructive crazy person named Edward Hyde. Not one single person in the small town expects the truth, that it's Dr.Henry Jekyll. What do you think the towns people will do when they find out it's Henry? You'll have to read the rest of this fantastic,and exciting book. If you like this book I recommoned you read "Kidnapped" also by robert Louis Stevenson!

If you love action packed book you should read Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.It's about a kind docter named Henry Jekyll,he makes a potiont that turns him into the weirdist scareist creature. No one expects it's the kind Dr.Jekyll.This story takes place in London.I think this is the greatest book of the year, because of all the exitment and action in it. If you liked this book I think you should read kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.

If you like exciting books you will love Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson! The story takes place in olden day London. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a kind and caring person. Mr. Edward Hyde is a destructive crazed lunatic! With this distructive creature on the loose no one suspects that this monster is really their loving Dr. Jekyll. It was very a exciting book I couldn't wait to turn the page. If you like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde you would also like Kidnapped also by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I never got to see a copy of this book. However, I saw "Grinny" as a 1/2 hour cartoon special on that old Saturday morning tv series "CBS Storybreak". (I think ABC still has their books-made-into tv specials series.) Every Saturday morning, there would be a book made into and animation.

I read this book when I was about 10 and still have a copy of it now on book shelf (aged 25! ). It is a captivating and addictive read, with narrative that transfixed me from the first read. The narrative and sory telling is brilliant. This is a book that I will be passing onto my childeren. I only wish that the follow up book had been as exciting.

This is a really great book for those who're into science fiction and horror. The way Grinny hypnotizes the adults is scary, but the way the kids counter with their "eyes right" treatment is pretty cool.

Even though I have not finished the book as of yet, I thought I'd still comment. Obviously with Russian you are forced to learn almost twice the amount as compared to an alternative European language due to the fact that you have to grasp the intracies of the Cyrillic alphabet. Once you've translated a word from Russian to English, the meaning could still be unknown. Anyway, the author realises this and has spent a fair deal of time on making the alphabet clear, and the first few chapters are dedicated to giving you a thorough understanding of it, including some basic rules, and of course letter pronunciations. The imitated pronunciation, which is present in all of Hugo's language books, is once more very helpful. Once you start repeating certain words with the pronunciation guidelines, you realise that what you're saying does sound like authentic Russian, or at least if you have heard Russian before anyway. Personally I may find it easier because I possess books by the same publisher in Swedish and Spanish, but even so, the explanations are clear and comprehensive. It's the little additions, like idiosyncracies and other tidbits which supplement your understanding. For example at the back of the book the author has included a section on how Russian handwriting is done, showing you how some of the alphabet changes when written rather than printed. Unfortunately the version I bought was without the cassettes which come with the book, and I feel that these would greatly assist me in learning the language. The cassettes do a lot for giving the student a real 'feel' for the sound of the language. If you are prepared to do a little bit of work and revision, you can easily master the basics of the language. I do and will continue to use Hugo's language courses exclusively. (And not just because they are nicely colour-coded...)

This course is an excellent value. It has four cassettes with very good audio quality. The book in combination with the cassettes helps you see how the words are written as well as how they are pronounced. It would be nice if there were more repetition with the tapes -- but considering the price you are getting a lot for your money. I have also purchased Pimsleur tapes which are excellent but which are very expensive. This course also provides grammar and pronunciation rules that are very helpful and which make this course better in some ways than Pimsleur because many of the sounds in Russian are very subtle and are difficult to pick up when only listening to audio tapes. I highly recommend this Hugo course. I would also supplement it with other materials like Pimsleur.

Three months after starting this course I went to live in Moscow. I bought food, travelled on public transport, had simple conversations with strangers, read newspaper headlines, spoke to my neighbours and went out to nightclubs.

I've read a lot of Russian language course books and this is easily, easily the best value.

To improve your Russian after this book - there's one 'Verbs of Motion for Intermediate Students of Russian', which is also fantastic. Also buy Offord's guide to Russian grammar if you're going to Russia. There are also a couple of great books published by Strathclyde University's Professor of Russian, do check these out. Don't buy any textbooks written by a Russian (unless it's from MGU), they're all terrible!

This book is better than Erickson's in many ways. I did wish
King could have told us more about Alix's childhood and family.
Read Mager's bio of Grand Duchess Elizabeth for a better narrative on this point. Some of King's phrasing is awkward (he
repeats the word "pair" too often when referring to 2 people.
Overall, this is a pretty good book, as long as you consult
other books to flesh it out.

This book is a good retelling of the facts, with some new theories added (King's ideas about the influence of the Empress's childhood, for one) and some academic theses give the popular treatment for the first time. On the latter score, this biography, for example, is the first Romanov book which does not repeat the old stereotype that Rasputin was exploiting the trust of the Imperial family for political ends, but rather adopts the more credible line that he simply agreed with their own views. The political context is presented a little superficially, with no attention being given to the Empress's real reasons for selecting particular ministers, and the assumption made (all too easy with hindsight) that she was pursuing an illogical and doomed course. Dominic Lieven's "Nicholas II" is a good alternative picture, locating her strategies firmly in the populist tradition of the later nineteenth century. In some ways the book does not fulfill the promise of its introduction, which hints at a totally new picture. However, it is a good read and a good introduction for newcomers, and the character it presents, if less attractive, is a more lively and interesting one than that in the celebrated 'Nicholas and Alexandra'. It redresses the balance of the latter by actually discussing the Empress's work beyond the political sphere, in particular her interest in girls' education. For a fuller picture of her political role, see Joseph Fuhrmann's footnotes to her edited correspondence with her husband.

In this wonderfully nuanced book, Greg King explores one of the most complex and contraversial figures in Russian history. Alexandra Romanov was universally reviled by the Russian people and scorned by the Russian aristocracy. King does an excellent job of exposing the woman beneath the legend. One the one hand you see the exceptionally devoted wife and mother who desperately fights to preserve her family and their heritage. On the other hand, you see an unyielding and essentially stupid autocrat who is unable and unwilling to accept wise counsel or clearly see the dangers all around her. The story of Rasputin is the perfect example. She remains desperately devoted to the Russian holy man because of her belief that he can save her hemophiliac son despite the overwhelming evidence that he is a serious threat to the empire.

Alexandra is a fascinating subject, and King's balanced analysis of her character and her impact on the history of Russia is excellent. King combines excellent research with complelling story-telling. This book leaves you with a sense of sympathy for such a misunderstood woman and a simultaneous frstration that she was so stubbornly misguided in her attempts to influence political events.