I grew up hearing these tales from my mother, a native of Barra, and so this book was like hearing her tell me the tales all over again...A must have for those interested in the cultural/sociological history of Barra.

Illustrated on almost every page with period photography, drawings, schematics, advertising flyers, etc., John Campbell provides collectors and gun enthusiasts with a wealth of new information on one of the most popular American rifles ever made: The Winchester Single-Shot. Together with its companion title, The Winchester Single-Shot: Volume I, this newest volume by John Campbell provides the definitive reference work that will be an enduring, core reference for generations to come. The Winchester Single-Shot: Volume II provides authoritative, invaluable information and insights that includes the human side of the Winchester through detailed biographies of the men who made this rifle the legend it has become.

The author has compiled an impressive amount of technical data on the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Virtually every important detail concerning major caliber rounds fired and their effects is laid out. Each chapter covers a chronological part of the battle, usually 45-75 minutes each. The final summary provides a very detailed list of the damage to each ship, casualties and ammunition fired in the battle. However this book is limited in several areas. It is not particularly readable because the author seems to have an aversion to the English language in favor of excessive use of jargon and sentence fragments. Organizationally, the book needs a detailed chronology which might reduce some of the redundancy. A big part of the book focuses on the damage to each ship and a huge weakness is the reliance on poor-quality, hard-to-read crude sketches. After all the effort he made to collect the information, the author makes little effort to present it well. Standardized, well-drawn battle damage charts would have made this an outstanding work. The battle maps are generally adequate but the omission for one covering the critical night action was a serious deficiency. Finally, I reached the end and had two critical questions remaining unanswered by the author: first, where German warships really that superior or was it just lucky visibility conditions that aided their gunnery? Second, which fleet was hurt more seriously and how might this have affected a renewed battle if the British Grand Fleet had not lost contact on the night of 31 May 1916? Overall, this is a great technical work but it cannot be read without other, more thorough operational accounts handy.

This is a reference book more so than one you read through to gain an understanding of Jutland. Other reviewers have remarked that it is "dry", and the meaning of this word in this context merits explanation.

Campbell's work is about shells impacting ships or water, and their explosive damage in each case where a ship was hit. It is almost entirely devoid of discussion (or even mention!) of who was where, making which decisions based on what information. It is all "what" and little "why".

In other words, very much a reference work on a very narrow (but novel) forensic aspect of this pivotal naval battle. Indeed, you could read this book and come away with the impression that Jutland was about ghost ships steaming about with no one at the helm.

Every recent book on Jutland cites this as a source, and its accuracy and professionalism in cataloging the "'oo killed 'oo" aspects of the battle, but this book is not unchallenged in all that it contains. Andrew Gordon singles Campbell out tellingly on a point of whether the 5th Battle Squadron was taking fire during its belated turn to the North. Given that the handling of this squadron was amongst the most debated elements of the battle, and Campbell's intent was to track every single shellhole, it seems clear from several seemingly indisputable primary accounts cited in Gordon's book that the ships were receiving heavy fire this entire time -- in fact, at least half of the German ships firing were concentrating on them.

This book is a valuable addition to a scholar's library, but is in every case best when combined with other books, given its finely focused topic area. I would offer that Gordon's "The Rules of the Game" is a good companion to this volume in that it focuses on what distinguished Jutland as a battle worthy of study: the men crewing these vessels, the information available to them and what actions they took when so equipped, and the lamentable posturing and blame-laying that took place in the aftermath.

Like many, I have always been fascinated with battleship vs. battleship encounters. Jutland was the last of such "real" capital fleet on fleet battles. Mr. Campbell gives a very matter-of-fact recollection of the incident, including post battle damage. All sides claimed victory in Jutland, but Mr. Campbell allows the reader to form his/her own opinions. A well written book.

(This review refers to Volume One only.) Asimov has collected eight stories in this anthology that were influential in his own writing. Asimov read most of these stories when he was about 12 years old, being fortunate enough to devour most of them from pulp magazines that were sold in his father's candy store. As might be expected with any anthology, some stories are better than others, and some have held up better through the years than others. Yet these pieces are not included for comparison to current stories, but to show what Asimov read as a young person and how the works influenced him. Asimov's mini-autobiography alone is worth the price of the book. After each story, Asimov tells how an idea or a concept from a story led to the formation of one of his own works. A very interesting idea. "The Jameson Satellite" is a forerunner of "I, Robot," and "Submicroscopic" is a small step from "Fantastic Voyage." As mentioned by another reviewer, the reader will have to deal with several prejudices from the time these stories were written (especially racial), but overall this book is a great insight into what makes Asimov Asimov.

This collection of early, pulp-style scifi works is a great joy. Asimov's introduction to the stories is exceedingly interesting and helpful. The stories sometimes show flaws or problems in their writing and in their attitudes (while several stories are forward-looking, most show the racism and misogyny common to that time), most of the stories are entertaining and all of them are interesting from a historical perspective. Check it out if you can get your hands on it, it's a great find. I really got a kick out of several pieces, which run the gamut from more reasonable 'conquered man, driven underground, strikes back at his evil alien oppressors' to the completely ludicrous story about the planets of our solar system hatching into giant space chickens. (That last story is meant to be taken seriously, by the way.) A veritable laundry-list of great, long out-of-print authors and some wonderful writing from the early days of popular science fiction.

This book contains the good old stories from the 1930's. There is nothing great here, but it is till worth reading. You can see the evolution of the Science Fiction field by reading the stories in this book.

Escape from Alcatraz depicts the full history of this infamous prison stronghold. It reflects how life was on the Rock and details the circumstances when and how 23 convicts attempted or succeeded in escaping from the island prison - the latter few never to be ever seen or heard of again. If you are interested in Alcatraz you need go no further than reading this book - it is really that good !

Most people know of Escape from Alcatraz from the movie staring Clint Eastwood. However, the famous prison has enjoyed a long and colorful history.

Written by J. Campbell Bruce, a San Francisco Chronicle newspaperman for over forty years, the book delves into the history and social significance of Alcatraz Island. Beginning with its discovery and subsequent use by Native Americans, the book takes us through the island's history as America's "unescapable" prison.

The books most recognizable chapter, by far, deals with the mystery shrouding the prison's most famous escape attempt. This section of the book became the basis for the film Escape from Alcatraz.

The book is very intersting as a historical account of both the island and the San Francisco Bay Area. It comes highly reccomended from this reader.

Not a bad collection of color F4U Korea photos, and general Corsair summary. Worth the $ to add to your library.

Well worth the price, and probably the best F4U book written to date. This book examines each model with stories from aces, test pilots, and others who flew the plane. Good coverage of the radar equipped night fighters, Corsairs in service in South America, in the movies, and RACERS! Too bad it wasn't put out in hardback.

Why all this strange words? I have no problem what so ever with the English language, but this book, have a lot of slang that is not so easy to translate. I don't say it's a bad or anything but..My classmates did actually agree with me when I said it was too difficult to understand. Hey, I'm from Sweden, and the english we learn in school is NOT the same language that English people talk, or write for that matter. Well, Harper Lee is one of the better authors that I can think of and To kill a mockingbird is kind of a great book if you learn to understand all the slang that follows. Thank you!

I thought his book was extra-ordinary. The characters are so interesting and complex. Harper Lee is a brilliant writer and really brought this little southern town to life with her descriptions of the town and the people in the town. She has a vocabulary to die for. I have to say my favorite character is Scout because she is so innocent and really wants to know what is going on but can't quite get the clue. She is so adorable and she knows who she is and how she thinks she should act and she doesn't bother herself by responding to the snotty remarks of Miss Stephanie. This book is really amazing and I would recomend it to anyone that is looking for a good read.

Self-help is big business. According to Gerald Rosen (1993) as many as 2000 self-help books are published each year. However, only a very few have been evaluated empirically. This sad state of affairs is a poor response to the appeal made by Rosen (1987) that self-help books should first be evaluated empirically before being sold to the general public. Additionally, the little research that has been done on do-it-yourself treatment books sometimes demonstrates major limitations in their usefulness. Yet psychologists continue to develop and market new programs with increasingly exaggerated claims. This is potentially a problem. Especially as psychologists often use self-help books as adjuncts to their clinical practice (Starker, 1988). The good news from research (e.g. Gould & Clum, 1993) is that certain self-help programs can be quite effective. Fairburn’s Binge Eating Disorder treatment (Carter & Fairburn, 1998) and the Albany protocol for Panic Disorder (Barlow & Craske, 1994) are two good examples. In Gould and Clum’s (1993) meta-analysis, fears, depression, headaches, and sleep disturbances were especially amenable to self-help approaches. Sometimes with effect sizes as large as for therapist assisted treatments.

How can busy clinicians keep up with the flood of new self-help books, and know which to recommend? Guilford Press offers a solution. In an attempt to help the clinicians a guide to self-help resources in mental health has been published. It includes ratings and reviews of more than 600 self-help books, autobiographies and popular films. It also includes hundreds of Internet sites, and listings of online support groups. The book addresses 28 prevalent clinical disorders and life challenges – from Schizophrenia, Anxiety and Mood Disorders to Career Development, Stress Management and Relaxation.

To determine the usefulness of the self-help resources a series of national studies have been conducted over the past 7 years. The methodology consisted of a lengthy survey mailed to clinical and counselling psychologists residing throughout the USA. A total of 2,500 psychologists contributed with their expertise and judgement in evaluating the books, movies, and Internet sites. The self-help resources were rated on a 5-point scale (-2 to +2). These data were converted into a one to five star rating (negative ratings were given a dagger). On this basis, 19% of the self-help books were rated as “very helpful” and fortunately only 1% as “very harmful” [e.g. the assertiveness training book Winning Through Intimidation by Ringer (1973) and the weight management book the Beverly Hills Diet by Mazel (1981). Interestingly, many of the books by Scientologist guru L Ron Hubbard are categorized as extremely bad].

When looking more closely at a specific disorder, let us say for example panic disorder, there are some good books that I feel are missing. This is probably because of the rating criteria. In order for a book to be included in this self-help guide the psychologists used as referees had to know about the book beforehand. It was their rating of previously read books that mattered. Hence, if there were good books out there that had not been read by many referees [like the Australian panic disorder workbook by Franklin (1996)], they would automatically receive a lower rating. Thus, a low rating does not necessarily mean that a book is less helpful than a higher rated book – only that it has not reached a wide audience. For example, an excellent book, An End to Panic (Zuercher-White, 1998), previously recommended in a review article (Carlbring, Westling, & Andersson, 2000) was described as “highly regarded by the psychologists in our national studies but not well known, leading to a 3-star rating.” (p. 79). Another thing that disturbed me was that this particular author’s name was misspelled. Instead of Zuercher the surname appeared as Luerchen. No wonder the book was “not well known”! One wonders how many other errors this survey included.

In a perfect world all self-help books would be scrutinized in the same manner as other treatments. However, as a majority of the published books still have not been evaluated, this new guide to self-help is a step in the right direction. Despite questionable inclusion criteria and a few errors I thoroughly recommend this excellent guide to self-help

From books and movies to the Internet, Authoritative Guide to Self-Help Resources in Mental Health provides a strong survey of self-help resources in mental health which reveals the good ones, bad ones, and how general consumers can tell the difference. Five national studies involving over 2,500 mental health professionals lends to a rating of over six hundred titles and films, along with Internet sites evaluated by a clinical psychologist.

This book contains reviews / lists of the best (and worst) of self-help books / movies and internet resources. It has been compiled using surveys of 1000's of mental health professionals and gives essential guidance on which resources are helpful, and which are best left alone.

The book is clearly-written and well laid out - each chapter relates to a specific problem area eg mood disorders, men's issues, abuse, anxiety etc.

I found the recommendations on books particularly helpful - one can immediately determine which are the best books to read on their own specific problem. Clearly, the input of mental health professionals gives a "scientific" basis on recommendations which in turn leads to a systematic process of choosing which resources should be given credence.

Essential reading if you want to build up a collection of serious (i.e. most useful) self-help resources.

This is a concise treatment of major foundation topics in financial economics. Although my interest is in monetary economics and macro, I finally have a book I will keep and use on financial economics. It closely blends the insight and "wisdom" behind the various theories with parsimonious amounts of math. Careful, patient reading and a comfortable grasp of econometrics is required but will be rewarded. Notation changes were a bit of a problem, though the authors address this issue early on. The end of chapter questions are good but it would've helped to have answers. Overall, it is intuitive "page turner" material.

This is really a classic book on financial econometrics. I like the design of the book. The content is also pretty up-to-date. A little bit advanced - requires solid background in econometrics, analysis, statistics, and some stochastic calculus. The only problem I have is the authors did not provide background data, so it's really hard for people to do self-study like me. If the authors could include a preferred computer program (i.e. Matlab, GAUSS, EViews, etc.) with codes and data, that will make the book a true bible of financial econometrics.

In recent years, the economist have used various econometric method in analyses financial market, but though you can discover some excellent book for financial theory,such as Darrell Duffie's "Dynamic Asset Pricing Theory",there is few comprehensive book on the theories and applications of econometric tools for emprirical finance. So when I found this book, I was so excited. Only having read several chapters, I think it an excellent book, though some difficult, and can't help to introduce it. I think every student who is interested in financial market should read it, at least scan it to know the content of this book. If you have this book, then you can throw all other book on this subject, don't waste time to read them, what you need is just this excellent book. Unfortunely I havn't it,and I hope to own it some day. At last, I have to say thank you to Prof. Gregory Chow who brough this book to my University, so I have chance to read such an excellent book.

While the white wolf system is usually thoroughly enjoyable, I have found that the Mage characters start off fairly weak, easy pray for any others. The book itself was fairly easy to follow, but a little too much game specific information that newbies would not understand. I have also found the combat system to be a bit clunky at best.

The play section was misorganized (Character creation should come before playing rules) and the whole 5 pages that explain the rules do a poor job.

Let me start my review by saying that I view all White Wolf games (at least the 5 main games) as being equal. That's right, I'm not going to promote one book over another. The beauty of all White Wolf games is the "Golden Rule:" The game is up to the storyteller and players. If you don't like an idea, change it or ignore it completely. This works quite well with small groups if you feel comfortable with table top or LARP. However, when you get to larger groups (esp. roleplaying online) it's more difficult to decide on which rules are practical and which ones aren't.

This edition of Mage *does* have a slight problem with clear definition of rules and systems, and I've yet to see any of White Wolf's books completely cover the systems as they pertain to other games (for example, can a hedge wizard be discovered as such using the gift "Scent of the Trueform?"). As with all of White Wolf games, I think this is a game best played with a small group of close friends.

Now a little more about White Wolf and specifically Mage. I don't know how many have noticed this, but all of these games probably seem like they're shaped after Myths or other real-world beliefs (no matter how obscure). The reasoning for this: They are! Take a look through the bibliography of a White Wolf book and marvel at the resources. This is one area where I would promote Mage above the other books (although I said I wouldn't) because in reading through this you get a small glimpse at the beliefs of so many other cultures. What's even scarier - notice how people of different cultures seem like they live in "another world?" If you really think about it, the Mage concept isn't hard to follow at all. We see this in everyday life. We believe things to be one way, and that's true for us. Others believe differently, and that makes their reality. What happens when the two collide? Disagreements, fights, all-out wars (think of the Inquisition)... It's really a great game to get into, but if you're not all that much of a roleplaying fan it's just nice to read and ponder the concept. Great little quotes and mini-stories, too!

Thats right. You'd have to be right out of the box of Autumn People if you think this game suxs. Seriously, this game is the best as far as the World of Darkness goes. I mean yeah the others do have some definite things running for them but come on. You get to toy with peoples beliefs here, even if that person happens to be an Atheist. The problem is those types might find this game frightening especially when they realize that reality IS up for grabs and regardless of belief its gonna be exactly the way you percieve it. Maybe some people can't handle that kind of responsibility and try to play ignorant to it. Well the Technocracy likes people like them and I like to watch them squirm to define something vulgar as a rational thing. Some people will never learn. But enough about people who such cause they can't figure a good cronicle to run, Mage: The Ascension is a book worth reading for enjoyment of reading alone. Hell I've been playing the game for years now and I still can't help but pick the book up and re-read it every once in awhile. As player and storyteller of this game I must admit its one of the most fascinating roleplaying game I've ever played.