Old Ben was about how a boy teaches his parents that a black snake could be useful. I read the book and liked it a lot. I would like to read it over again. It made me want to get my own snake! The author said that this story was based on a real snake. Audrey Smith, age 8.

Old Ben is a story about a boy and his snake. I have been teaching my child through homeschooling and I found this book to be great for a 8th grade reader to do a book report on. She started reading the book reluctantly however, when she started reading it she just couldn't put it down. She enjoyed this book and I enjoyed watching her read.

In reading the title, I thought this would be a great book to help me with those Red Flags we all see in our relationships with our partner, but somehow believe we can over come due to our tremendous power to love. Yes, Virginia, for I to, Love & Do Too Much.

When I opened this book, I was shocked to see concepts relating to: when faced with an unbearable action by loved one, go deeper. Show more love, give more! I personally can't give any more, do any more, be any more than I am or ever will be!!

I was hoping to see some helpful hints liken to the title (You know, if this hurts you - it isn't love baby). Say, "he's verbally abused you, yet again, in front of friends or tells you're stupid, worthless, etc." - I'd think the correct response is A. Walk Away (right Chuck?)

I've just ended (for good) a 5 year abusive relationship. I'm glad I did it before I saw this book.

Chuck, Change the title - what a misnomer!

Chuck Spezzano has packed a tremendous number of inspired and practical insights into this book. There are so many psychological perspectives on relationships and life in general that I suspect everyone can find something here to inspire them. The layout of 366 statements with corresponding explanations and exercises is accessible and easy to dip into for a spot of inspiration or guidance now and again.

"A Course In Miracles" is acknowledged as a major influence by the author and many of his ideas have that flavour about them. As someone who struggled with A.C.I.M. I am always grateful to come across similar profound wisdom in a more digestible form. Thank you Chuck!

Some examples... "Intimacy can heal anything", "Forgiveness changes perception", "Every fantasy is an expectation", "A bad feeling is released by true giving", "Everyone's actions reflect my choices", "The ultimate goal is total dependence on the universe", "I can be in heaven with every person I meet", "Commitment means being true to myself", "Every expectation is a fear of the future". Each idea is practically explained and developed with a corresponding exercise. Well worth the effort and self-reflection, even if you don't agree with all of it. Excellent.

I am getting more and more weary of self-help "feel good" books, and I must admit that I have read probably over 1000 books of this genre over the past 15 years. It takes an exceptional "self-help" book to grab my attention these days. This is one such book. I recommend this to all Amazon customers, particuarly (though certainly not exclusively) to fans of A Course in Miracles.

This book addresses short topics very clearly and then follows each topic/lesson up with equally brief exercises for the reader. Each topic and corresponding exercise only a page long, oftentimes just half a page long. Sample topics are: "The Extent of My Expectation is the Degree of My Stress," "Pain is an Areaa Where I have Cut the Lines of Relatedness," "If I am Exhausted, I am Playing a Role," or "The Need to Dominate Comes from Fear," and so on. It's sort of like reading a daily meditation book, but it isn't categorized by chronological dates. I like that. It allows for synchronicity.

Another thing I like is that each lesson or meditation is followed by an exercise or question directed to the reader and his or her life. (One example: Under the topic, "If I Give Up Being Right, I Will Be Happy," the assignment is to write down the areas where you are stuck and not receiving in your life and then to write down all the ways you are being right about this situation.) The question format helps because it turns a quick topic into an experiential lesson.

I think this simple little book might be as helpful for some readers as therapy -- and far less costly. It opens a door to your inner workings and, by doing so, hands you back your power. Highly recommended.

After all of the wonderful reviews, I expected more from this book. The page layout was VERY difficult to work with, bouncing through source code, then reading about it, then having to flip the page to see the implementation file for the struct.

Three chapters are devoted to the C standard library, so if you are a traditional C coder, this will be familiar. However, if you are trying to learn practical C++, there are better books: Effective C++, More Effective C++, C++ Gems...

Many of his examples of 'practical' code are written in C, with the C-style comments as the give away. The section on casting does not include any of the new standard safe casting operators, although they are included in the appendix. Several of the examples shown near the end of the book are many pages long, and if you want to use it, you get to type it in manually.

Also, although this may or may not affect your decision to purchase this book, I found the glossy pages VERY DIFFICULT to read under a halogen desk lamp.

If you are looking for a transition from C to C++, or want code samples for bitmasking (2 out of twenty chapters devoted to this), this book may be for you. However, if you want a great C++ book, look elsewhere.

One of the hardest things about learning a programming language is discovering how to use it the natives do. This book allows programmers of all skill levels to improve their use of C++. As a long-time C programmer the C capsules were interesting and vindicated opinions I had held for a long time. The C++ capsules helped me to gain proficiency, helping me to feel like I am now an expert with C++.

My favorite use of this book is to help settle "style" discussions. Finding a code capsule that discusses why the position I'm supporting has some definite benefits makes it easier to get the point accross.

I put this book right on the shelf next to Scott Meyers' two books (Effective C++ & More Effective C++) and Jim Coplein's Advanced C++ as "read once a year".

I had a great start of 1998 when I acquired this newly published book at the beginning of the year. This book exceeds the expectation on which the title conveys and gears itself towards the practicing C++ professionals. Although the first six chapters talk about "preliminaries", experienced practitioners can also benefit vastly by revisiting the core fundamentals on which this book is based: "I have found too many developers ill-prepared to master C++ because they lack a thorough understanding of basic concepts such as pointers, scope ... and the biggest deficiency of all is a lack of familiarity with the standard C library." One of the best feature of this book is that it is packed with examples and interesting language manipulations while simultaneously alerting on common pitfalls, and reading the "code capsules" alone makes good revision and time investment, and surprisingly, it also provides new insights on our knowledge, or lackof. As this book constitutes the anthology of articles contributed by the author to a leading computer magazine over a period of time, the only downside of this book is the inconsistent declaration and definition of main() with and without the explicit return type and return value. Overall, this book is highly readable and is very interesting to read, and it encourages repeated readings that reinforce more and better understandings. This book is an indispensable tool for the current or aspiring practitioners.

I picked this book up on a bargain rack and it is definitely a good read for conscious hip hop fans and Public Enemy fans

Fight The Power, by Chuck D examined everything in the current world today from the education system right down to where he thinks our culture is headed and why. Chuck D breaks everything down in the world and examines it to the fullest. At first glance it may seem like he is a grumpy, washed up rapper but look closer and you will find so much more meaning in the words than you can possibly imagine. Like in the following quote, "Whatever you do, don't go to war for your country." Chuck D is very opinonated and set in his ways. He goes into a full chapter about why you shouldn't be in the army because it changes you forever and how you will never be the same. Therefore, he also shows how the army tricks you by coming to your school and showing all this glitz and glamor to you. People shooting big guns, driving tanks, waving the american flag which essentially is not what the army is like at all. It's very gratifying that a successful rapper has finally released a book like this. It's a great break from the mundane evening news and daily paper. And in the following quote, "There's only a few serious black roles on TV. We have to put pressure on the networks and station groups where pressure hurts." Chuck D make his book universal by showing both sides of the issue and he shows the reader what can be done to help rectify the current problems he addresses in his book Fight The Power. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes any kind of hip-hop or anyone who wants a break from their day to day life and have a great read and whats wrong with our culture and what we can do to help it.

"RAP, RACE and REALITY by Chuck D (with Yusuf Jah) is a blueprint for empowerment! Chuck, master orator and ever the visionary, offers keen observations to help this generation recognize and understand the interaction of prophets, players and pawns in our society. He offers insights into a range of diverse factors which contribute to the current state of Blackness in the world and outlines an action plan to help us combat these forces.

Chuck ties it all together in a cohesive fashion which makes knowing what we need to do plain and simple. I couldn't put it down....AND I was literally taking notes!

In other words, he shows where the power is in our society, who's got it, why we need to fight it, how to fight it and how to get it for ourselves!" True Genius.

--Walt Goodridge, President
Hip Hop Entrepreneur Association
(Walt is also author of Rap: This Game of Exposure andThis Game of Artist Management, two success tools for the Hip Hop Entrepreneur)

I am having mixed reactions as to whether the Knightfall saga really needed to tell its story this long. For instance, this volume obviously could have done away with some chapters that really didn't need to be there but as a mere extension of the storyline to keep its length at par with Knightfall vol. 1. Anyhow, this story sets us up for the most interesting year in the life of Batman. After Bane broke Bruce Wayne's back we get to see a more human character of Bruce Wayne. We finally see he him going into a direction that doesn't make him a cold fish to people around him. We also see what the next Batman, Azrael, would be like when he will be donning the mask for the next whole year. This book is a major event in the life of Batman and has got us looking into what happens in the Batman books because a lot of things will be a first time for the new Batman.

"Batman: Knightfall: Who Rules the Night" picks up where "Batman: Knightfall: Broken Bat" left off, with Bane having added injury to insult by breaking Batman's back. This second half of the story has pretty much the same strengths and weaknesses of the first half. Writers Doug Moench and Chuck Dixon are clearly trying to come up with an epic Batman storyline. The two key ideas from the first part, the release of all the Arkham Asylum inmates to wear Batman down so he is no match for Bane and his simple but brutally affective tactic of shattering Batman's spine, are certainly worthy of such an epic story, but the individual stories were fairly pedestrian, albeit with a few choice exceptions. In "Who Rules the Night" they have another pretty good idea generating the continuing story. Having been weaned on hundreds if not thousands of comic books are expectations are at the end of this volume Batman is going to be healed and beat the living crap out of Bane. But that is not what happens.

Ultimately, "Who Rules the Night" is about Batman, but not really about Bruce Wayne. The argument is that Batman is too important to Gotham for the city to do without. With the rumors of Batman's death running rampant, Commissioner Gordon lights up the night sky with the Batsignal and Bruce and Tim decide that somebody should fill in and answer the call. The "logical" choice of Nightwing is immediately dismissed in favor of Azrael, who has been hanging around helping out anyway. However, this new Batman is a decidely darker version of the Dark Knight, tinkering with his costume to fit his own views of costumed vigilantism. Still, in the final confrontation with Bane, this Batman also has his own demons to conquer.

The result is that "Knightfall" is the opening act of a much larger story, continued in "Knightquest: The Crusade" and "Knightquest: The Curse" as Bruce Wayne begins the long road to recovery and reclaiming his mantle. Overall the artwork by pencillers Jim Aparo, Graham Nolan, Bret Blevins, Klaus Janson, and Mike Manley is better in "Who Rules the Night" than it was in "Broken Bat," but is still short of the providing the atmospheric resonance of the most stylish Batman art. This also might have something to do with the fact Kelly Jones only does the cover art on this collection and there are no longer all those promotional splash pages where Jones shows up the rest of the artists. The comics in "Batman: Knightfall: Who Rules the Night" were originally published in the comic books "Batman" #491-497 and "Detective Comics" #659-663. This is not a great Batman storyline, but it certainly tries to shoot for the stars. How disappointed you will be simply has to do with the level of your expectations. This is not "The Dark Night Returns" but it is not a sixties "Batman" comic book story either.

Many reviewers of this book have noted that it is "stupid" and "lacks action". If I were you, I'd flip through it again... It was a few years back when DC caught the fever of killing off their greatest heros. The Superman thing got old real fast (I'm not even a fan and I got sick of hearing about it), but the Batman storyline remained fresh and realistic. Bruce Wayne is finally realizing his straneous workload, and refuses to rest as the inmates of Arkham Asylum escape. Meanwhile, a shadowy character called Bane has entered the picture, and is noting Batman's struggle by spying on him. Batman defeats all of the major criminals that escaped (barely) and finally confronts Bane. You can't help but feel sorry for the guy... Read "Who Rules the Knight" for another good book, and "Knightsend" for a GREAT conclusion...

This book gives a biblically based step-by-step guide on how to prepare to rid your home of evil and how to rid your home of evil. The author gives examples of spiritually cleansing homes from his life and the lives of others. He even shows how evil can sometimes be hidden and shows how to uncover it.

This is the best "how to" book on ridding your home, office, living space, car, etc. of demonic influences. You may not have thought that "pretty little vase Aunt May brought back from Russia" was demonic but it very well could be. You are taught through balanced biblical teaching that you need to "spiritually house clean" where you are living. This book travels with us when we go abroad and is a mainstay of our home library. If you do not get this book you may be in for trouble that you could and should have avoided. BUY IT NOW!!!!!

This book is a wonderful resource for anyone trying to understand more about spiritual warfare and its application to things we buy, places we live, and the actions we or our bloodline have done. Buying a ceramic cat in a voodoo shop will surely bring spiritual darkness on the home. I have prayed in various homes that were oppressed by spirit(s) of darkness and found this oppression tied to articles people owned as well as things that have happened on the land even before the home was built.

Rebecca Wagner Sytsema and Chuck D. Pierce have written a great Scripturally based book that is a must have reference for those folks who want to keep their homes free of demonic oppression.

Historians will record the age we are living as another cardinal contribution to Church growth. The excitement of this prophetic age is not releasing audiences but scores of participants who are moving in the prophetic gifting. Prophesying will soon become a way of life.

Nevertheless prophecy is still a recently recognized gift. Many are still seeking for directions. Mature believers will know that prophetic words must be edited and correctly presented before they are spewed to the public or individual ears. This is because the effects of a prophetic word are almost uncontainable within the four walls of the church when it is released.

Unlike any gifting, mishandling of prophecy can lead to helter-skelter in House of the Lord. Foreseeing this potential danger, God has breed many trustable prophetic teachers and instructors with experiences. Chuck Pierce is just one of them ! His modular teachings in this book will put the fear of prophesying at bay and encourage the usage of this wonderful gift in the right approach.

The pattern of madness over the way prophecy is released is one of the reasons why this book is a must for beginners or those who have gifting skew towards the prophetic. So, include this book as your collection. It contains no-frills manual-like which readers will find assurance and confidence.

The W-Hollow cookbook is full of recipes handed down from one generation to the next, including how to clean and prepare squirrel, deer, and even "homebrew." This book also contains a look into the life of the Stuart/Stewart family with excerpts from various works of the late Jesse Stuart.

Board books were designed for babies and toddlers so they can hold the book without ripping pages or even put it in their mouths. This book shows a dinosaur ripping another dino apart, showing blood,etc. It is not appropriate for young eyes!!

I have given this book to my grandson who is 18 months and he has asked repeatedly to have it read to him. The very simple text, with its theatrical "roars" fascinates him, the pictures are big and very precise so that he can marvel at the big teeth or the snapping jaws. The sturdy pages are useful: this book is already a favorite, to be held and played with.

Okay I've made four of the forty or so recipes and they are all inedible!!! Now, I'm normally a Williams Sonoma cookbook fan - love their "soups", "stews", "stir fry", "cookies & biscotti", "cakes, cupcakes & cheesecakes", "pasta sauces" cookbooks like crazy! These cookbooks contain some of our favorite family recipes of all time with very very few recipes I didn't care for. The hors d'oeuvres & appetizers cookbook is a horror! Four out of four recipes are awful so far (eggplant caviar, marinated button mushrooms, Greek style caviar spread, Chinese spareribs). I'll try a few more, but if they aren't any good, the book goes into recycling!!!

This is one of the best books in my collection. I've made several items and none have let me down. Great cheese puffs, meatballs, and the mini-pizzas are always a big hit. Clear, easy to follow directions. The recipe pictured on the cover (can't recall the name right now) is my favorite from the book.

This is one of 4 books from WS that we own, and they've all been great.