I am not a fan of bull riders in the least. But when given this book, I couldn't put it down! This is a must read for anyone and everyone. Not only is it a great depiction of the life of Chis LeDoux, but shows all readers what a passion for something can help you accomplish. Every moment in this book, made me want to get off my butt and do something with my life too. I credit Chris LeDoux for all his efforts and the author for a wonderful book put into print. There is no way my words can come close to letting you know the emotion and triumph involved in this book. All I can really say is READ IT!

This book is by David Brown as told to him by Chris LeDoux. It starts when Chris was a child learning to ride horses and living in Texas, later moving to Cheyenne as a teenager, and follows his life through attainment of his dream of becoming a World Champion bareback bronc rider. It was written before he became world famous for his musical talent but describes the beginnings of his musical career as well. Chris describes one special memory of standing in the empty, quiet arena at Cheyenne Frontier Park as a teenager dreaming of being able to ride in the Frontier Days Rodeo. I can just feel the emptiness of the big arena and hear the Wyoming wind whistling through it. When Chris performs in Cheyenne, it is always very special to him. With all that Chris has attained since this book was written, there is definitely a need for a sequel. I don't think Chris ever even dreamed he would be a World Champion western singer too

I think Gold Buckle Dreams is fantastic. Chris LeDoux represents what is great about our country about rodeo, and about country music. Gold Buckle Dreams lets us see some of the stories of the life of an American rodeo legend. It is great to find someone with such talent, also being someone of such dignity, and heart. Chris LeDoux's music brings to life these stories from his life. Buy the music, then read the book! Chris' songs had pieced together a story of his life in my mind , and Gold Buckle Dreams opened the door to see even more of the life of a champion.

This well written book gives the beginner investor the information needed to understand investing in stocks.

The book goes through setting your goals, assesing your risks and rewards. It teaches you about common and preferred stocks and the basics of buying and selling stocks.

There is a chapter on different investment strategies and then the book takes you into fundamental and technical analysis of a stock.

Finally the book touches on mutual funds, rights, warrants, and options.

All in all this is an excellent book and is one that any beginner investor will learn a lot from.

I HIGHLY reccomend this book to kids that are interested in stock trading. I have tried to read all kinds of stock books, and this one is the only one that I could understand past the first 30 pages! This book isn't a dumb kiddy book either. It goes into GREAT detail about options, margin trading, and investment strategies. The moment I turn 18 I am on my way to the market! (and you should too)

This book is written well enough to be used in a college course on the stock market. I cant say its helped me make money in the market with all the problems that have come about recently. This book will teach you enough about the technical side of stock trading, but not about managing a portfolio of stocks and mutual funds.

Too long out of print, this paperback is a beauty. A compulsively readable book. Addie Pray and Long Boy take the South by storm. It's fun and fast, but also weighty and moving. The amazing movie was based just on the first third.

This is an excellent book. Having long been a fan of the movie, what a joy to discover the book that started it all. Addie Pray is a hilarious and charming narrator and her adventures pulled me happily along. A real treat. For anyone who likes stories of sassy girls growing up.

First of all, I was befuddled with everyone talking about a book titled "Addie Pray." I saw the film "Paper Moon" and later read a book with the same title and picture on its paperback cover, never realizing that Addie Pray was the original title of the book by Joe David Brown: they changed the title to coincide with the film in re-published versions of the book after the film became popular.

I love both the novel and film. As usual, the novel makes more of a social statement. If you check IMDb for the tagline to the film - "As P.T. Barnum put it, 'There's a sucker born every minute.'" - you get a sense of the difference between the point of view of the book's author as opposed to the producers of the film. The film producers are after the carnival-like novelty of a crooked bible salesman and his too cute daughter, who's also a thief at heart and, by the way, a better one than her father, who is basically a loser. The reason for this is clear: films are basically hi-faluted carnival acts. Apparently, the audience member is just another sucker.

The novel, on the other hand, carries a great deal more compassion for the human condition, particularly human frailty. Not to say that the film wasn't at all sentimental in this way. Ryan O'Neill's character, the loser father, was treated sensitively by director Peter Bogdanovich. But he (Bogdanovich) is unique, a prime example of the kind of compassionate intelligence that flourished to some extent during the Let It Be trend of the early 1970s, a trend that could do the human race well if it was allowed to continue forever. The producers/distributors reveal, with their tagline, a more Hollywood-typical ruthlessness. Like "Ha ha, people. You're all jsut a bunch of suckers ripe for the taking."

True, the overt theme of the story & film is basically about how hilarious it might be to watch such father/daughter con artists, especially when these con artists are working in 1930s territory where stupid, faithful Christian farmers etc. (middle America) dwelled. But the most important part of the story happens toward the end, when the thieves are confronted with their toughest mark: a more experienced thief (Mr. Robinson?, can't remember).

This character is far more developed in the novel. He's great fun in the film. But in the book he's downright Marxist. Indeed, one of the greatest anti-capitalist epigrams ever written, in the tradition of Wilde and Twain, is spoken by this succesfully affluent crook, in what is otherwise merely a silly/fun little dark comedy of a story (paraphrasing): "Anybody can make money. It doesn't take any great talent to do so. No, people who make money are merely people who can't do anything else. But it takes real talent to be a fine musician, or an artist..." Something like that (I don't have the book with me now). But you get the point.

Clearly, Joe David Brown, like John Steinbeck, was an author with an important, righteous opinion on the weaknesses of our capitalist system. He died a few ears after the movie was made. Too bad it wasn't Reagan who died and Mr. Brown, instead, the "great communicator" of the 1980s.

This timely and useful book collates and summarizes in handy paperback form what is known about the northernmost population of the jaguar in the U.S. Southwest and adjoining parts of Mexico. I couldn't put the book down and recommend it highly as an authentic learning experience about the jaguar in southwest history, ecology, and culture. The authors are to be commended for undertaking such a thorough attempt to gather and assess all manner of pertinent information about this animal, past and present. In the recent era, jaguars have been in rare and marginal numbers in Arizona and New Mexico as northern outliers of a larger Mexican breeding population in northern Sonora. Currently, it doesn't look good for these nearest breeding populations--where the two lone jaguars photographed in 1996 in southeastern Arizona most likely came from. The size and structure of this nearest jaguar population (about 120 miles south of Arizona)is largely unknown scientifically and likely in serious decline now. According to the authors' survey results a continual number of animals in the population (including lactating females) are apparently still killed each year in response to livestock predation. Hopefully, improving research efforts like this will lead to a more informed public (here and in Mexico), to timely and more effective conservation measures, and a more certain future for these animals. Otherwise, we may learn all too soon that the presence of but another magnificent creature has quietly, permanently winked-out and will no longer enrich our common borderlands.

With „Borderland Jaguars" David E. Brown and co-author Carlos A. Lopez Gonzalez have continued the investigative writing tradition Brown started back in 1983 with „The Wolf in the Southwest" followed by „The Grizzly in the Southwest" (1985).

While the previous books are considered classic references of the imbalanced struggle between man and predators in the past, the recent spectacular sightings of jaguars in the remote Baboquivari and Peloncillo mountains of Arizona have refueled the public's interest into the present status and future of „tigres" north of the Mexican border.

Brown and Gonzalez show that jaguar visits from the south are not accidental events but follow a complex pattern. One important issue in this respect is the biotic communities of the borderlands providing jaguar habitat, and which are thoroughly discussed. The natural history of the jaguar is highlighted by a carefully up-dated listing of jaguars reported from Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora and Chihuahua between 1900 and 2000, many supported by photographs and behind-the-scene information from eyewitnesses. Through on-site investigations in Mexico, Brown and Gonzalez were able to locate the possible source(s) of those jaguars that periodically show up in AZ.

The ancient symbolic power, as well as the elusive beauty of the jaguar, which trigger our imagination, are omnipresent throughout this book. And, the tension and personal reports of the few lucky Arizonans, who have actually come across jaguars, make this book extremely exciting reading. Putting the reader down in a comfortable armchair in pursuit of a jaguar in an abandoned minetunnel, with only four shells and a dim flashlight, is simply not offered by regular wildlife references!

By giving attention to the large predators of the Southwest, Brown has brought us a long way, covering the Mexican wolf, the grizzly, the cougar (in a foreword for Harley Shaw's „Soul Among Lions") and now the jaguar. These fine books should be considered a series, and appreciated as a totality. The concept of a jaguar reserve in Sonora as proposed by Brown and Gonzalez has set a high goal for conservation efforts. Until then, the vast majority of us will have to live with Brown's cold comfort that „the thought of such a cat's presence is enough in itself".

Change your mental image of the big, spotted cat crouching in leafy jungle shadows and enter the world of jaguars living a hundred miles or so south of the US-Mexican border in dry, rugged mountains. "Borderland Jaguars" gives a fascinating overview of these cats: the threats by man's presence and development of its shrinking habitat, and the possibility that the animal may be threatened to the point of extinction in the region. The well-researched book includes sections about how man, from pre-hispanic times to first explorers, hunters and settlers viewed the jaguar. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in these endangered cats, and especially conservation in the borderland region.

This little book starts off by actually teaching you HOW to read a CXR. Not many books do that ... they just assume that you can. Then it goes into the four broad categories of abnormalities: 1) too white, 2) too black, 3) too large and 4) in the wrong place which helps you to categorise abnormalities. Then all the major conditions (e.g. pneumonia, COPD, malignancies etc.) are reviewed under each category. Read this before you start you clinical years and keep it in your coat pocket along with 'The ECG made easy'. Look at heaps of CXRs and ECGs from the beginning of the year along with the help of these books. Practice makes perfect! Good luck! I wish someone had told me these things at the beginning of the year! ;)

This book teaches the basics such as pneumonia, pneumothorax, and other abnormal thoracic conditions through the use of x-rays. It explains the abnormal findings of each x-ray in a clear and easily understandable manner. Best book I've seen so far on chest x-rays.

I love this book. It first teaches the reader how to look at a chest x-ray in a simple, step-by-step approach. Then it is organized quite effectively into chapters based on the appearance of the x-ray (white lung field, widened mediastinum, etc.). A must read for medical students starting their rotations.

O'Reilly sets the standard by which all other technical publishers should aspire; their books are technical, dense, and personally, I love the pithy, no nonsense tone. I have never been disappointed with an O'Reilly book. This book continues the tradition of above par books and I can attest that hands down, this is the best book available on Samba.

Remarkably, the information inside is aging very well. While it doesn't cover the most current version of Samba, this book is by far the most informative and helpful on the subject available.

While the book is fortified with examples, screenshots, and an easy to read style, by far my favorite portion is on troubleshooting (complete with a "fault tree"). It is just a way of systematically approaching connectivity problems in relation to the samba server.

I mean, really, what exactly is "System error 53?" This book won't tell you outright, but it will help narrow down the problem to solvable proportions.

The included CDROM also includes a mirror to the official Samba FTP site, including sources, binaries, documentation, and utilities.

When I have Samba configuration problems, or questions pop up about Samba, this is the book I reach for. If pressed for time and pressed for answers by coworkers, I have been known to pull it off the shelf and lend it out.

Samba is one of the wonders of the Open source movement. A small bunch of guys in out of the way Canberra, Australia develop a product that emulates a Windows Server Message Block (SMB) server. They do such a good job that within a couple of years they have sponsors assisting programmers around the world in bringing out a product that does a better job than anything Microsoft offers.

I've installed Samba in a number of different environments and used it both as a server and client. I wish I'd had this book. It does a good job of explaining how to set it all up, get it running and maintain it. Nothing else does as good a job. While you can (probably) install and run Samba using just the online manuals you will find it a lot easier if you buy this book. It certainly saves me a lot of time.

It is well written, easy to read, thorough and well paced. It contains a large number of examples and goes through the almost monolithic smb.conf file till it feels like an old friend.

While it does cover some of the underlying network protocols it does not unnecessarily dwell on them, it is a good mix of explanation and getting your hands dirty examples.

The book is well structured, starting with simple configurations and proceeding through to complex ones involving printers, domain controllers and the like. A marvelous way to learn, at the same time it is easy to find particular snippets of information when you require them. I find Appendices C (a configuration option quick reference) and D (a summary of the command line options for the daemons) and the fault tree in Chapter 9 particularly useful.

I would recommend this book to everyone who wishes to integrate Samba into a Windows environment, regardless if it is a small home network or an entire office building. And yes, you can download the entire text for free - the Samba team have now adopted it as part of the official documentation thanks to the authors and O'Reilly, but call me old fashioned, I like having the paper.

Network administers will invariably face the task of integrating Windows systems with Unix or Linux ones. Samba provides an excellent solution to this problem, but for people starting out, Samba seems like a daunting task.

Not so with this book. Prior to reading this book, I had no experience with Samba whatsoever. Before long, I found myself setting up Samba on a linux server and setting up file shares to Win2k systems. The massive smb.conf configuration file no longer looks menacing, but rather, its easy to read now.

I see why this has been adopted by the Samba team. Its very easy to read, very relaxing in its pace, and very thorough in its treatment of Samba topics. I do not believe there is a more comprehensive on Samba to date. Even the reference sections in the back are very nicely organized, and very easy to use.

What really tops this book off though is its treatment of Windows networking. For those who have little or no understanding of Windows and how networks are organized, this book covers the topic very well. Unix/Linux administrators will be glad they read this chapter.

In closing, I strongly recommend this book to Network Administrators, particularly those using Unix/Linux. This book is very comprehensive, but very easy to read.

This book is fantastic for the experienced, as well as the inexperienced landlord. It sets out in plain English some of the common legal pitfalls landlords run into and how to avoid them. The books cites examples - some quite frightening - of how these pitfalls occur and the appropriate action to take. The book clearly outlines the differences in particular laws between the states. It explains all aspects of landlord law from finding goods tenants to dismissing bad tenants. The book makes a great desk reference and it's cheaper than a lawyer!

If you can only purchase one book about rental properties, get this one! It is well-written, well-organized, and worth the price. I purchased this book at a point of peak frustration after making some costly and discouraging rental mistakes. This book has been immensely helpful in turning things around for me; it has saved me time, money, and headaches.

As a beginning landlord, I cannot recommend this book highly enough!!

If one is a landlord and one thinks that knows everything. Well, be ready for a surprise. In this book in question, i.e., Every Landlord's Legal Guide (Book & CD-ROM) by Marcia Stewart, et al, leases & rental agreements are discussed and explained along with concept and rules governing deposits, rent rules, liability, discrimination, repairs and maintanance, privacy, property managers and evictions. The book is written in an easy to understand manner and the font is quite easy on the eye (which is a nice bonus if I may say so). Highly Recommended for people in the industry.

I first saw the work of this super talented photographer in the wee hours of August 20th, 2000 outside Palais du Luxembourg in Paris. I was so fascinated by the colors, the angles, the beauty, and the emotions conveyed that I pledged to get a copy of the book as soon as I returned to the US. The pictures portray everyday places and people that seem out of this world when viewed through the lens of Arthus-Bertrand. The photographer and his staff really did their homework when putting together the captions that accompany the pictures. They have gathered information on geography, history, ecology, anthropology, economics, sociology, politics, and popular culture to describe the sites, hence increasing our awareness of our precious and wondrous yet fragile world. Earth from Above will never make it to my bookshelf because it's so fascinating that I keep it out on my living room table to share the wonder!

This book is a jewel. In my opinion, everyone should have a copy of this book at home.
I first saw Yann Arthus Bertrand work during an outdoor exhibit in Paris. I was fascinated with the photos, and the next day I ran to buy the book (although some people to whom I have recommended it find it rather expensive).
Certainly, the photos are sensational, but that is hardly the point. Yann is a true citizen of the world, and represents globalisation in its 'kindest' -and most 'useful' form, if I'm allowed the expression.
In this book, Yann Arthus shows us that earth is sick. Whether it is the Amazon rainforests, Alaska, Africa or Australia, clear signs of decomposition appear in the photos. This book is a waking call for many of us, however, at the same time it reminds us how beautiful is everything around us, and how rich is this planet we live in.

I saw this amazing exhibit, "La Terre Vue Du Ciel", of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's in the Jardin du Luxembourg Senat when I was in Paris a few weeks ago. The exhibit included much larger-than poster-sized photos that are some of the same photos contained in the book. They were spectacular and breath-taking. Stunning really. But if you can't afford to go to Paris, or if you can't get a hold of a poster of his work, this book is a fantastic collection of awesome, thoughtful, inspiring, thought-provoking, and humanistic usually unseen images taken from above Earth, that have an incredible aesthetic beauty. I can't recommend this book more highly. I was going to purchase 3-4 of them myself for me and my family and friends. However, I waited to get back to the US before doing so since they are large and very heavy due to the high-quality paper the photos are printed on. I was sorry they would not fit in my luggage as I had wished to stare at the photos for many hours on the plane trip home. Many kudos to Yann Arthus-Bertrand for an outstanding artistic work! Bravo! I hope to see another exhibit by this talented photographer in Paris or the U.S. in the near future.

Wonderful book. Makes you think!! There is more than the Titanic than most people know.

Relying on his own experience of ships, David G. Brown has attempted both to reconstruct the last few pages of the Titanic's log and also to closely analyse the happenings of that night. His interpretation of the impact as being more akin to a grounding has the advantage of closely matching the actual observations of the persons on board that night, much more so than the "grazing collision" described universally elsewhere. Several years ago Walter Lord pointed out in his "The Night Lives On" that there was apparently lethal damage to the bottom of the ship, and Brown's analysis confirms this. Brown also usefully describes how ships actually handle and points out that First Officer Murdoch, just as he told Captain Smith immediately after the crash, tried to "port around" the berg - first putting on starboard helm to turn the bow away from the berg, then port helm to clear the ship's midsection and stern, explaining succinctly why the damage to the ship was limited to the first 200-300 feet. Brown also theorizes on the actual visibility from the crow's nest that night and suggests that the berg may have been sighted as a "dark mass" looming in the distance several minutes before it was seen to be an iceberg and suggests that First Officer Murdoch may have mistaken the "dark mass" for a safe path through ice. One suggestion Brown makes that I tend to disagree with is his contention that the Titanic had been manuevering through ice for some time before the impact. Even a gentle turn in a ship the size of the Titanic will cause the ship to heel noticably, particularly in a ship, like the Titanic, that lacks stabilizers. Passengers should have noticed the ship manuevering instead of maintaining a straight course, but there appears to be absolutely no testimony from anyone that night that the ship was doing anything other than steaming straight ahead. That, however, is a minor issue; this book is extremely interesting, a very valuable contribution to the literature on the subject, and I recommend it highly.

As one of the archaeologists who has visited the Titanic site, piecing together a forensic analysis of the liner's final minutes, I am happy to report that Captain Brown's book forces me to go back to my own analysis with new questions. We all know, for example, that some minutes after the collision, Mr Shephard fell through an open hatch in the tank top - and until this book, I don't think anyone has really taken pause to ask what might have compelled the men in the forward boiler rooms open those floor hatches in the first place. Into this question Brown brings the process known as "hogging," which sheds new and credible light on some of the phenomena observed that night, ranging from the odd cracks and leaks reported by Charles Joughin, to Richard N. Williams' out-of-line door frame and the flood from below that caused the evacuation of boiler room 4. There is much to agree with, and much to disagree with in this book. One small nit arises from Samuel Hemming's (page 124) recollection of carpenter Hutchinson's statement, approximately 10 minutes after the collision: "The ship has half an hour to live, from Mr. Andrews." This clearly contradicts Brown's hypothesis that the ship was not already doomed before it resumed steaming; but at least the author is honest enough to present multiple views even when some of those eyewitness accounts contradict his interpretation of events. A less honest author would have tried to sweep the Hemming account under the rug. I happen to agree with Brown that steaming forward shifted multi-ton masses of water in Boiler Room 6, producing damaging inertial effects that, to one degree or another, sank the ship faster. Agree or disagree, this is (along with the works of Paul Quinn and Walter Lord)one of those truly rare books that, far from being another amongst hundreds of rehashes on an old subject, breathes new life into it.

Well written, containing all the neccessary information and forms, this book is an invaluable resource for those individuals who are interested in legally changing their name in California.

Pro's and con's are examined about Court Ordered Name Changes and Common Usage methodologies. Well thought out and written in a very readable and comprehensive style...this book answers almost any question you may have regarding the implications of changing you name.

Highly recommended....by far, the best book I have seen on the market around this issue.

This book packs a wallup!
It was complete, concise, and easy to follow.
I definately could not of made the change without the help of this book.
I do not recommend trying to change your name without this - it walks you through from A to Z, not missing a beat.

Excellent book.

clear, concise...a pleasure. made my name change easy. thanks nolo!