I have to agree with others and say that the parents are very interesting. Their relationship is different. But it has worked for them for 35 years. Oddly enough, they are a very fun couple. They are good parents as well. They support their daughters no matter how crazy they make their lives. Which seemed to be often. Ms. Booth really did a great job of expressing a close and extremely interesting family. One that we "all know" - in some way.

I have recently read Terri McMillian's "A Day Late and A Dollar Short". Sistah Dear reminds me so much of this book. The relationships are real. They are not sugar coated - at all. Very interesting charaters that keep you turning the pages. There is some really hot stuff going on in the book. What I really liked about it, even though some major sin is going on, a great sense of spirituality is represented. That is always comforting to see, which is also a great part of life for many of us.

I do recommend this book to be added to your collection. It was refreshing and very entertaining. The sisters really convinced me that there is nothing like having a sister. Many sisters at that! They let us know that no sisterhood is perfect but in the end - miracles happen and your sister is always there to have your back.

Relating is the factor here. I have to agree that this author took basic stuff and gave us a good source of entertainment. And even though it is fiction, I learned some new tricks and excellent ways to deal with some life issues. That is why I have to read it again and maybe one more time - it has been some good therapy!

I believe this is a good book to read if you are interested in the truth from a fiction standpoint. There is an outstanding expression of sisterhood in Sistah Dear. It will make you want to call up your sister and tell her how much you love her. It will make you think twice about how your actions effect the rest of your family. It will make you bug your eyes, grit your teeth, shed a tear and laugh out loud. That's life!

Toya D. Booth did an excellent job of rounding out the characters. The older sister being in her mid thirties and the younger sister barely breaking into her twenties. It was interesting to see how they all related to each other. They all had problems that continue to be issues among women in our society. Although these women will have your mouth hanging open by the things they say and do, each have a sense of spirituality that adds hope to their lives and makes you feel the same way.

As an older woman, I could relate to the things going on and helped me reflect back over my more eventful days. Speaking of which, I totally loved Camille! I believe that their mother was their strength. Even though they did not seem to understand where she was coming from most of the time. Her handle on life was an example for them to make it through their own struggles. It is great for all women, but I really recommend Sistah Dear for women between 17 and 40. Just because it displays situations that lets them know - "I am not the only one going through this".

It flowed nicely and never was I bored. I would have liked to have seen more action in the book. Although, it appears that she wanted to give readers enough drama but not too much. I did get the sense that the author wanted to keep it simple and realistic. Sometimes that is the best read.

I bought this book becuse it was the only delphi c/s book i could find.. (another written by Ken Henderson for delphi 3 was out of stock)

I can say you can either try out this book or buy a specific book for your target platform (oracle etc.) and when you finish it find some other source to learn about delphi's components. and you become a c/s hero :)

he's very objective when talking about database servers.

the only thing i didn't like is that it is based on delphi 2, so he misses to explain some components like decision cubes.

other than that he covers quite well the rest (and more used)of the components, describing every single property and method.

Teri Dinsmore is a high school freshman nobody. Her mother is the most beautiful woman in the town, and her older sister Samantha is a rebel who tries her best to be everything that their mom isn't. Suddenly, on Teri's birthday, her house burns down and her life changes. Suddenly, her crush (the cutest boy in school) breaks up with his girlfriend and wants to go out with her. Suddenly, she starts developing feelings for her best friend, and suddenly her mother (who rarely settles on a man) decides that she's in love with Nolan, her current amour. Teri's world is completely altered. Are you yawning yet? Is this plot a little too familiar?

Falling From Fire has a promising and original idea in Teri's birthday cake burning down her house. Unfortunately, that's probably the only original thing in the book. The characters are one-dimensional, and the plot drops dead at your feet. It is as though the author, Teena Booth, took all of the teen stereotypes she could think of and crammed them into a book. The book's purpose isn't to tell us a story or teach us a lesson. Rather, it stalls trying too hard to get the reader to feel something. There's one scene where Teri ends up drinking. This (like many other scenes in the book) seems to have been just thrown in. Oh, here's something else! Teen alcoholism! Feel something, darn it!

After I read the first couple of pages and the side of the book, I pretty much knew what was going to happen. Expecting the characters or the plot to surprise you is like expecting a cat to talk. It just isn't going to happen. Even at the end, when Nolan tells Samantha he plans to marry her mother-was the reader really supposed to be shocked? A happy ending for insecure Teri Dinsmore, who loves and hates her mom, who loves and hates her sister, who loves and hates her best friend, is pretty much expected. Oh, and did I mention that Samantha takes drugs and plans to run away with her boyfriend, only to change her mind and come back to finish high school because it's the right thing to do?

The only part that gave me a twinge of feeling was when Teri's younger brother left with his alcoholic father. You can't help but feel for the poor kid who is neglected by nearly everyone around him. Maybe if Booth had given the rest of the characters the same honesty she gives Teri's brother, the book would have been better. Who knows?

My advice? Go read the dictionary. You'll learn something new and won't be half as bored.

The weaknesses of this guide stand in contrast to the strengths of the AIA guides to major cities. These architect-written guides are exhaustive. The Boston, Chicago and New York books in particular make excellent travel guides as well as desk references. They mix building descriptions with history, and delightful nuggets of information that deepen your appreciation of the place and its builders. There's nothing dry about these books. When it comes to criticism, the editors can be delightfully bitchy.

Between politics and earthquakes, San Francisco is not an easy place to build. But SF AIA members, please find the time to draft a guide your craft and your city deserve. One that is worth schlepping up and down the hills.

As a teacher of Systems Thinking, especially Managerial Cybernetics, I have found the exercises very helpful in grounding the concepts and unlocking the rich variety of perspectives that make up the South African gestalt.

Everytime I facilitate an exercise I learn something new. Makes for a great learning partnership. However, there is a risk that groups have so much fun, they neglect the challenge to get more deeply into 'the thinking within systems thinking' i.e. epistemology and ontology, and may miss opportunities for even deeper awareness and consciousness.

Some more references to other Systems Thinkers and their writings might be useful as follow through and encouragement to embark on deeper learning cycles that lead to more rigourous understanding.

This is also a characteristic and somewhat predictable love story that Tarkington delivers so easily, with a bit of a surprise ending for the reader. The book is wordy and contains mellifluous descriptions that drone on. However, despite it being slow, it picks up about 50% of the way through and delivers a solid story.

While nearly all of his books that I've read have been this good, none has been better. It captures to perfection (I think :) country life of the later 1800s, and politics as it fit into it. The descriptions are beatiful but not overdone, and the plot is gripping.

Highly recommended.

Written from Alec's point of view in chapters alternating between his adventures as a young man and his life now as an old one, ISLANDS OF SILENCE is a strangely haunting novel. Although I found it slow going and in places was bored to the point of skipping whole paragraphs that seemingly had little to do with the plot, the prose was poetic, the details singularly perfect, and I worked my way through to the last page and was rewarded by an end satisfyingly appropriate for a story as mystical and sad as this one. Martin Booth has created here a horrific portrait of war, painting the devastation in chapters I will not soon forget. It would be hard to call ISLANDS OF SILENCE a love story; equally difficult to consider it a coming-of-age novel. Rather, it is a beautifully if sluggishly written account of one man's attempts to come to grips with a world that has hurt him too much.

Readers who enjoy complex, mystical tales of love and loss will most likely find ISLANDS OF SILENCE a brilliant addition to their collection.

The story begins in a mental ward where Alec has been a patient for a very long time. He's in possession of his faculties, but has eschewed speech for many years and as the story progresses the reader begins to understand Alec's motivation for this silence. We're given glimpses of his childhood and the memory-portion of the story really takes off when Alec puts his archaelogical degree to work investigating brochs off the Scottish coast. When researching ruins on an island off the coast, he sees a beautiful and mysterious young woman (note: I would not characterize her as otherworldly, she is very much human flesh) who is incapable of speech--although she is able to make sounds. Alec is mesmerized and eventually is able to meet and spend some time with her in an almost intimate setting. She allows him to make sketchings of her and there's even some minor physical contact. In spite of her inability to speak any language, she and Alec communicate during their brief time together and Alec either falls in love with her or becomes infatuated (the reader can be the judge). I found this part of the novel a bit of a stretch, but Alec is young at the time and the woman is very beautiful, so who knows? It is about this time that WWI is starting to heat up and pacifist Alec is incarcerated for his refusal to serve in the military (his military step-father is behind the charges) and taken from the coast and his incipient romance.

After multiple beatings and several months in prison, Alec is offered a release if he's willing to serve in the miltary with the medical corps. This section of the book is particularly riveting and revealing. Booth's depiction of the March 1915 naval assault on Dardennelles, Gallipoli is so well-rendered that the reader is almost transported to the beach (much like the opening scene on Normandy in the film 'Saving Private Ryan') and the horrible scenes and thoughts that follow. Alec shares his thoughts prior, during, and immediately after the assault and Booth provides the reader little chance to catch his or her breath. It's gripping stuff and brings the book much closer to its conclusion.

All in all, the writing is wonderully vivid and the alternating past/present chapters works very well in the context of the novel. I found the love story to be central to the story, but also a little difficult to buy into. I particularly enjoyed the war writing and the present day musings of Alec and how the author tied everything together. Part mystery, part war-novel, and major part love story, this is a very good read and one that's recommended.