This book has had a profound impact on my view of the war in Vietnam. Written from the perspective of "One who was there", I have been a part of the author's experience. No other book to date has had the same impact. I sense the truth in it's pages. The author has "been there". Truly one book that the reader of Vietnam War history should read. Thank you Robert Roth, Not only for your service to the United States of America, but to the world, for your portrayal of the involvement of our troops in this time of war and of the personal perspective that so truly states the feelings of the marine involved. Clearly a masterpiece.

I read this book twice over the a span of ten years and found it as awe inspiring the second time as the first. It has moments of sadness, irony and humor. It leaves the reader emotionaly drained as you become caught up in the lives and deaths of the charactors. The war as seen by those that fought it and did their best to survive it and return home. How this has missed by the movie industry is beyond me.

This book is one of the all-time great books about the Vietnam War. Read it if you want a real inside look into the USMC fighting in Vietnam. I have served in the Army over ten years now, and I still believe this book captures the true feelings of service to God and Country.

This is a beautiful book. It is beautifully made and more beautifully written. I got it at a time in my life that I felt spiritually dry. It has helped so much! It makes you realize that you have a loving Heavenly Father. Not One who is just waiting to punish you. It is like love letters from God. I thank God for such a blessing!

It will touch your heart, pierce your soul and correct wrong mindsets. It will make you weep Godly tears of joy. It will bring you closer to your Heavenly Father with words of wisdom and insight. A must for any Follower of Christ hungry for a deeper relationship with God. Ready for a touch of fire from the Holy Spirit? Then this book is for you. Read it often and always.

Come Away My Beloved is more than a devotional. These are love letters from God. My son, 15, says, "Mom, this really encourages me in my life to live more for my Heavenly Father."

I read the Psalms to be encouraged...and now I also read Come Away My Beloved..it's food for my spirit!

As an aspiring young filmmaker, the first thing I was told to do was go out and get a copy of the Filmmaker's Handbook. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the book had been updated in March of 1999, and that now it included all kinds of information about the digital age. I have learned so much from this book. The book goes over the entire film process, and does it in a straight-forward manner. It is a great start for beginners, yet it includes a rich amount of information for the professional. Anyone who has ever thought about a career in film really needs to get a copy of this book. Written in a manner that neither patronizes nor confuses the reader, the Filmmaker's Handbook is the best book I have skimmed or read on film, and believe me, I've looked at a lot.

The media has traditionally been an extremely specialized, not to mention prohibitively expensive, field. With the introduction of digital production and editing, however, the material costs and requirements for video and audio production is decreasing rapidly, with quality levels already remarkably high and increasing annually.

This book provides a superlative introduction and overview to all of the key subjects in producing a lower- to higher- budget film. Though the title makes reference to the digital age, analog equipment is discussed when pertinent as well, and compared to existing and emerging digital technologies.

The technicalities of optics for lenses is fully detailed, as are filters, microphones, stands and other equipment, recommendations for each field of what emergency supplies to have on hand, editing and previewing equipment, software, to name but a few of the countless topics covered. A truly comprehensive and detailed work.

Anyone with a serious interest in this field can learn from this book the fundamentals needed to get started in extremely high quality digital production. Given the materials and information provided, the cost of the book is truly remarkable. Any reader will complete any section feeling like an expert on the subject. One does not have to begin with experience in the digital arena, however, nor even in video production. Even as technical as this work is, it leads the reader very carefully through all which is pertinent and necessary.

A single possible minor shortcoming, is the description of the process of digitizing analog recordings or an actual/ambient environment, into a digital format. One totally unfamiliar with digital concepts may find the analogies provided a bit difficult to follow. It provides enough of a foundation, however, that an interested reader can seek out more technical and/or accurate descriptions of this process. A very small criticism to an otherwise truly excellent work.

I'm getting into film production but don't have time to attend a real film school. And I'm basically interested in the mechanics of filmmaking - so this book The Filmmkaer's Handbook is perfect.

It gets down to all the basics of filmmaking. If you want to know what a line producer does, how light meters work and the ratio of film stock to projection, this is the book for you.

It's thick but easy to read with nice B&W illustrations. As a novice and somebody who wants to know how a movie is made this book is perfect. I was really impressed by how simple and to the point this book was on the mechanics and made it an easy read. I will keep in hand at all times for reference as well!

Very well done and exactly what I was looking for in a filmmaking book!

I've only gotten through volume l and part of volume ll (so far). I agree that I find it incredible that Musil is not as well known as Proust...he's his equal as a writer and in my opinion a much finer thinker. The brilliance of the book is in the extended introspections rather than the events...the multi-page musings on the human condition illustrate the timeless aspects of what we conceitedly think of as our "post-modern" psychic quandry. In common with Proust we are inside the protagonist's head, but in the third rather than first person, which gives the experience a different feel...we're a little outside at the same time. It's a ghostlier sort of connection, but I think equally as immediate. We walk the streets of Vienna as vividly as Chambray, but, perhaps Ullrich's less romantic nature, I find him a better correspondent. His perceptions are intellectual rather than the sensual, and yet, experiencing that intellect is a sensual experience for the reader (at least for this one!)

A note: I do not think the recent translation compares to the original English one...it may read more breezily, but my brief comparison suggests that it loses a LOT of subtlety in trying to achieve a more colloquial, effortless, less dated narrative voice. For instance, a passage in the original English translation reading "knowledge was beginning to become unfashionable" is translated in the new as "science became outdated". Two totally different meanings, and the first is clearly closer, given the context..(in which Musil is waxing sarcastic about a silly but dangerous bourgeois "believing" fad - spookily portentious of the Hitler era). An incredibly absorbing psychological novel...if your reading time is precious...nothing will reward more deeply or stay with you longer.

Of all the great European novelists of the first third of the century -- Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Knut Hamsun, Herman Hesse -- Robert Musil is far and away the least read; and yet he's as shapely as Gibbon, as mordant as Voltaire, as witty as Oscar Wilde and as indecent as Arthur Schnitzler, a fellow Viennese writer who gets more attention. "The Man Without Qualities" is an extraordinary amalgam of the formidable, the delicious and the unfinished; and no doubt each of these attributes is in some measure dissuasive.

If we take it that the characteristics of 20th-century life are fatuity, doubt and confusion; the "barbaric fragmentation" of the self, where "impersonal matters . . . go into the making of personal happenings in a way that for the present eludes description"; a crisis of individual identity and collective purpose -- then it is Musil's astonishing achievement to make a comedy of all this.

The book begins with a baroque meteorological description; its first action is a car accident; the hero is first seen looking out of a window, stopwatch in hand, conducting a statistical survey of passing traffic. Can there be any doubt that it is a prophetic book about our world? Musil is us. The world of "global Austria" in 1913 and "the Parallel Action" -- the plan, in the novel, to claim 1918 for the jubilee celebrating the 70th year of the reign of the Emperor Francis Joseph before the Germans get it for Kaiser Wilhelm's 30th, made nonsense of by the intervention of World War I -- is our world of the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction and other fatuous schemes. While Musil's contemporaries Proust and Joyce chose interiority and the private world of memory, Musil is uncannily prescient about modern life, where sportsmen and criminals are indifferently idolized, where quantity sits in judgment on quality, so that an author, as Musil puts it, "must have an awful lot of like-minded readers before he can pass for an impressive thinker," where we sit and stew among "bobsled championships, tennis cups and luxury hotels along great highways, with golf course scenery and music on tap in every room." So "The Man Without Qualities" is satire; as one character says, "The man of genius is duty bound to attack." However, it is not harsh satire, nor is it sour. There is something loving about it. Musil's tone is unlike anyone else's. Partly it is the Austrian melancholy that underlies the book, the melancholy of a defunct empire, of a closed conditional: what was to happen did not. WHAT if, the novel implies, instead of expressing itself in the carnage of World War I, human folly had chosen another form? Partly it is the equable irony that plays over every character, institution and group in the book that makes reading Musil such an exquisitely flattering experience. No characters in the book escape mockery -- especially for taking themselves so seriously. All of them are skewed and partial, but none are caricatures; perhaps the book's almost complete lack of physical description plays a part here -- and yet, in spite of that, you feel you could pick them out in a lineup. They are Musil's puppets.

In his early career he wrote stories, plays and novels that had a certain popularity. But none of those prepare a reader for the expanse of "The Man Without Qualities". It took up the last two decades of his life, before he died in self-imposed exile in Switzerland in 1942, at the age of 61. It is a quite overwhelming novel, quite indeed...

No doubt the book is a little draggy and you can glean a lot of what Musil wants to say in his earlier more tightly written work. But, read this work (I've read this work twice) with the unpublished posthumous papers and you will get a feel of the vast scale of this masterpiece. If Musil had lived to complete this masterwork the way it would have inveitably turned out, it would have been the greatest novel of the century. It would have been the consummation of European thought of several centuries placed in context of both the first and second world wars...now that's something to think about.

I finished the paperback which is a reprint of a story Nora Roberts wrote in 1988, or at least that is what my book says. As with Sandra Brown, the publishers are reprinting the older novels of their best sellers. That's not a problem in Roberts case though, because her first published books to my way of thinking were her best. When she started writing, she had style. Maybe I think she even had class which set her apart and aside from most other writers. And I think this is what made her so great to start with. Too bad she's changed. I guess when you get to be so famous it doesn't matter what kind of story you write, the author's name will sell it. I do admire the lady with the utmost respect. I think The Last Honest Woman was written with a lot of theme from her own personal life, including the two little boys and location. (Just my own personal opinion) The romance is a heartwarming, tearjerker that has a happy ending, as the industry seems to think all romance stories should have. I read the story and felt the emotion. Abby, the middle of the triplets, was a strong and self-willed woman. Dylan was the knight in shining armour coming to save his princess. She writes romance in the early years quite well and this story proves it.

Please, I implore the publishers of these books to label them more clearly. "The Last Honest Woman" is book one of a 4-part series about the show-business O'Hurleys; unfortunately, not knowing that, I already read the other 3 parts. That said, it was fun to go back and revisit where this story began, and to see how and why Abby, the "middle" triplet, did not follow in the family business of entertaining others for a living.

Dylan Crosby, the writer who comes to chronicle the life of Abby's late husband, is almost too good to be true -- he likes her kids, cooks, pitches in around the house ... and of course falls in love with Abby. This is a very light read but a sweet tale.

Nora Roberts, well known for her family series, once again delights readers with several books about the O'Hurley family. Beginning with The Last Honest Woman, we meet Abby onew of the triplets born to Frank and Molly O'Hurley and their son Trace. The O'Hurleys are a show business family who travel from one gig to another entertaining audiences in both large cities and small towns. Each of their children in some way is able to entertain and so the world of show business is something they grow up doing along with their parents beside them.

Today, though, Abby no longer entertains but spends her days raising two small children and on a horse farm in Virginia. She is the widow of a well- known racing car driver, Charles Rockwell, who died during a race. But Abby who married at 18 was ill prepared for her husband's lifestyle and is acutely aware that her marriage ended way before Charles death.

Now Dylan Crosby, a journalist, has approaches Abby to write a book about her husband. As Abby wonders what she will say and what will be written, she invites Dylan to stay with her on the farm and see what her life is all about. Reluctant at first to give him all of the facts lest her children someday be hurt by them, Abby finds herself growing fonder and fonder of Dylan while he tries resisting her. But as Dylan finds out more and more about her supposedly wonderful life, Dylan can no longer stop feelings he also has for Abby and her sons.

This was a most enjoyable book as Ms. Roberts begins this series. The readers are offered heartwarming and endearing characters particularly Abby, Dylan and Abby's parents, Frank and Molly O'Hurley.

Being a big fan of the show and former military member I looked forward to reading this book and was not dissapointed. The plot was well thought out and the continuous action kept the pace up. It read a lot like a script for the show and would probably make a good episode. I liked the idea of the Davy Jones Locker Club. However for a book I thought there could have been a little more depth to the characters,a little more of their thought processes revealed and a little more description. This would have slowed the reading some but would have fleshed-out a fairly simplistic book. Also I found the editor's proof-reading(or whoever proof-reads) could have been better. At one point early on it seems an entire sentence or two are left out and there are several misspellings throughout the novel. I think it helps to be a fan of the show when you read this book. I'm not sure I would be as enthusiastic if I didn't enjoy JAG on CBS. It was very easy reading, almost too easy.This is no Tom Clancy novel. But like I said it would be a good episode for the series.

Being a fan of JAG I was surprised and excited when I found out there was a TV Tie-In book for the series. I promptly ordered the book and wasn't quite sure what to expect, having read a fair amount of Tie-Ins that were nothing like the series they portrayed. Happily, I was well pleased with my choice! I feel that Robert Tine really captured the feel of an episode of JAG. The characters were well drawn and right on par with the ones I've grown to love through the show. The dialogue and thought processes of the characters were spot-on except for Harm's penchant to revert to heavy cursing -- something I felt was completely out of character for someone who is so good at expressing himself. The action was fast paced and exciting, I was kept guessing and completely immersed until the very end. This story line would certainly make a wonderful episode of JAG -- one I'd love to see. There was just enough humor thrown in -- namely Harm being shifted from one place to another -- to lighten the mood while still advancing the plot. Mr. Tine also captured the chemistry of Harm and Mac perfectly -- right down to the way they play so well off one another. And as a bonus -- Harm even gets to fly! That, in my opinion, is always a plus! There were a few disappointments such as one quite confusing place where some sentences seemed to have been left out of a pretty important scene and there were a few typos spattered throughout that could have been caught through tighter proofreading. I was sad to note the absence of a picture section toward the middle as I've seen in other TV Tie-Ins -- it would have made a nice addition to the book. All that aside, I still rate this book 5 stars because it kept my attention as well as the actual program does and the fact that I will read this book again. Mr. Tine certainly did his research, I could actually see the actors who play these parts in my head as I read. Despite the few errors and the brief slip-up on Harm's character it was a good, solid read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm completely looking forward to the next JAG novel by Robert Tine -- Clean Steel -- and hope that there are plans for other Tie-In novels for this spectacular television program.

I found this book to be very fun to read. I am a JAG lover and felt that Mr. Tine, expressed the characters true to how they are shown on TV. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read or lover of JAG.

I have to admit that I (mis)judged this book by its cover. I saw "Agile Software Development", and from that I figured it was a bunch of squishy, feel-good BS about XP and other bandwagons. When I opened it up I found that I couldn't have been more wrong. This book is simply packed full of great stuff. It provides a solid introduction to Agile Development and eXtreme Programming but, of more interest to me, it is a GREAT BOOK on object-oriented design.

This book has dozens and dozens of practical but concise examples illustrating everything from relatively simple object-oriented design concepts such as Meyer's Open/Closed Principle to subtle and complex issues with class and package dependencies. Examples are always accompanied by UML diagrams and Java or C++ code is brought in when appropriate.

My company provides training in object-oriented design and this book now sits at the top of my recommended reading list, the position formerly occupied by Larman's (also excellent) "Applying UML and Patterns".

As a manager, I'd have no hesitation to buy this book for any developer who'd take the time to read it, and I'd consider reading it "on the clock" to be time well spent.

Agile Software Development is a great Object-Oriented Design book that presents it's subject in the context of Agile Development. The book delivers solid design and programming advice in a very "light" style. Not light in that it avoids technical detail! No, Bob seems to have taken the principles of agile development and applied them to the art of technical book writing.

The book is divided into six sections and has four appendices. There are numerous UML diagrams and many code examples in C++ and Java. If you don't know UML two of the appendices will introduce you to it.

The book takes a top down approach to presenting the material. You are first given a quick overview of agile development practices. I particularly liked the Testing and A Programming Episode chapters from this section. The second section presents five high-level design priciples that every developer should learn and apply.

Case studies dealing with a payroll system, weather station software, and testing software are then presented. Each case study section starts by discussing the design patterns that will be seen in the case study. Section Four discusses subdividing the payroll system into packages. Six principles and a set of package Dependency Management metrics (I've known them as the "Martin Metrics" for years) are covered. The book wraps up with the two UML appendices mentioned above, a comparison of two imaginary developments, and an interesting article by Jack Reeves.

In my opinion Agile Software Development Principles, Patterns, and Practices is the best OOD book out there.

This book has had a profound effect on my coding. Uncle Bob does a masterful job putting together the fundamental principles, patterns, and practices that make him and his cohorts gurus. This book introduced me to a number of very important ideas in a very real context and helped me solidify some of the things that I only kind of understood. If you don't have your own personal guru to learn from, this book is the next best thing.

This is an excellent book,very well written. Anyone who has seriously studied demomology, or the paranormal, will know this book is true to the facts, from the bangings in the walls, to the terrible odors, to the physical and mental abuse that inhuman spirits put upon their human victems, to horrible manifestations. This family suffered greatly under the hand of a true inhuman spirit, but yet survived it toegether as a family because their faith in God did not falter. If you have followed Ed and Lorraine Warrens teachings, this book is a must read...

Evil is everywhere. This story is about a family that moves into a duplex in PA, which is haunted by ghosts, and even a demon. These presences immediatly latch onto the family and terrorize them to no end. There are rappings on the wall at all hours, some of the family members are levitated and thrown around, they are followed even when they go camping, there are noises, smells, and cold spots. Noone would help them, not even their own church. Then a team of demonologist come to help but do they??? This is not a book to read alone...

I read this book after I had read IN A DARK PLACE., this book is just as terrifying. It tells the story of THE SMURL FAMILY who just happend to move into what they thought was a quiet and peaceful house . How wrong they were!!! this book goes from the first paranormal incident up into the WARRENS investigation with chilling details. While reading this book I felt the hairs of my neck curl up you definatley can't put it down. I felt that the tv movie doesn't give THE HAUNTED justice at all, my advice is too read the book only but be warned it'll make you think twice about the things that go bump in the night.

This book is a great eye opener. It gives very clear insight into the great miracle ministers of the 20th century. Roberts Lairdon shows us the great heart of compassion of Smith Wigglesworth. He writes the truth of Acts 10:38, that Satan is the oppresser of all the sick & demonized. This verse was the one God used to release the ministries of John Alexander Dowe and John G. Lake. Both these men felt the heart of God in His great anger against disease. It is this anger that Jesus (John 11:33 & 38) experessed of the death of Lazarus just before He raised him from the dead. These are keys to more healing ministry.

I have always been greatly impacted by the words and works of Roberts Liardon and this book is no exception. I've actually heard him preach on this series before, but reading it straight from the book is a definite different experience. He makes each unique individual come alive with fire and passion. This book will open the eyes of many to catch a glimpse of the awe-inspiring lives of men and women who once lived so very closely to the Most High God!

(I've already reviewed this on October 16,1999, but since then I've changed my email address) First off, I'd like to say that Pastor Roberts Liardon is a man of God. With these men and women that God has called him to write about, he explains their lives, and helps us to look at ourselves more in deph with the spirit realm. Are we walking according to God's standards? Are we operating in the great gifts of the Holy Spirit? Are we showing compassion and love and taking care of our bodies which are the temples of the Holy Ghost? These questions may arrouse you when you read this book, or watch the video series. I encourage any baptized believer in Christ who wants to grow spiritually to read this book! It will help change you life!

Forget Raymond Benson. Don't even waste your time with John Gardner. They're hack writers who learned all about Bond from the movies. Markham (aka Kingsley Amis) knew enough about Fleming's vision of Bond to write "The James Bond Dossier", one of the first critiques of Fleming's series. "Colonel Sun" picks up right where Ian's final novel, "The Man With The Golden Gun" left off, and brings 007's career to a fitting close. The writing style is eerily like Fleming's, even containing dashes of the famed "Fleming Effect". Read this one, put in on the shelf next to your original 007 books, and forget about wasting your time with any other authors who attempt to write Bond.

Colonel Sun is a sadist. So was Kingsley Amis, as the miniscule details of pain and torture are given as much relish as Fleming did about the class trappings that we enjoy. It's also clear that the style was more "modern" than Fleming, but it still remains true to the character that he built, more so than what's been coming about lately.

Even without the minor details, it's still a great Bond book; compelling throughout.

I have just finished this book and I experienced the same thing as when I read Fleming himself. Amis has been able to do what none of the other Bond writers (Gardner, Benson) can even come close to doing. Very Fleming-esque and very true to the original formula of a Bond story. I really enjoyed it and highly agree with the other reviewers. Kingsley Amis was the true successor to Fleming. If only he'd written more like this...