Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2
Book reviews for "Collier,_David" sorted by average review score:

The Race Card: White Guilt, Black Resentment, and the Assault on Truth and Justice
Published in Hardcover by Prima Publishing (1997)
Authors: Peter Collier and David Horowitz
Amazon base price: $24.00
Used price: $3.56
Collectible price: $11.95
Buy one from zShops for: $9.99
Average review score:

Deserves a wide audience
This is one of the most disturbing books I've read in a long time.

Some of the essays are chilling, and all are informative, well-written and compelling. There is little here in which one can take comfort.

A must-read for whites and open-minded blacks as well.

Excellent Insight
This was great book. The chapters always kept my attention. It provides great insight into a lot of different areas. This book seems to be comprised of logic and clear thinking.

Excellent Read
On December 29, 1992 one of the most brutal racially motivated killings since the era of lynching occurred in South Carolina. The victim was Melissa McLauchlin, a young woman who was kidnapped, raped, violently tortured and then dumped on a highway in an effort to avenge "400 years of oppression".

I heard about the crime quite by accident while passing through the area at just the right time. For years I thought that no one else would remember this woman's death as it was blatantly ignored by the national media. It was quite a surprise to open this book and find an entire chapter largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the killing.

This alone would justify reading the book, which also focuses on other "politically incorrect" subject matter relating to race. The editors do a commendable job of presenting challenges to the moral character and direction of the modern civil rights movement while disallowing racist implications and language.


Globalization, Growth and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy (World Bank Publication)
Published in Unknown Binding by World Bank (E) (2001)
Authors: Paul Collier and David Dollar
Amazon base price: $17.50
List price: $25.00 (that's 30% off!)
Average review score:

Comprehensive discussion of Globalization
The signal to noise ratio in the discussion of Globalization makes it hard to sort out what is really going on. Much of the discussion comes from anecdotal evidence or from a particular point of view. Of course, it is impossible to be completely objective about anything, but since the mission of the World Bank, the publishers of this study, is "a world free of poverty" it's point of view at least attempts to not view globalization from the perspective of any particular nation or group and to represent different views.

The result is a strongly documented case for the beneficial effects of our increasingly globalized world. This books is a good reference books with facts about the distribution of income, poverty rates throughout the world, changes in GDP over time and other things that are frequently misrepresented by anti-globalization folks.

The book covers many things that are in books like The Lexus and the Olive Tree, A Future Perfect and so on about how the legal and social structure affect investment and growth. This book references the original studies and is a good starting point for research.

It also points out that the forces towards globalization, better communication, transportation and financial markets can easily be stopped in their tracks by trade wars as happened in the 1930's so educating oneself about the benefits of an integrated world economy can help make sure we do not have a repeat of the Great Depression.


Samba Pocket Reference
Published in Paperback by O'Reilly & Associates (15 April, 2001)
Authors: Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown, and Peter Kelly
Amazon base price: $9.95
Used price: $3.50
Collectible price: $3.69
Buy one from zShops for: $3.10
Average review score:

Simply simple
This book is a great book for setting up samba!


Water, Earth, and Sky: The Colorado River Basin
Published in Hardcover by Univ of Utah Pr (Trd) (1999)
Authors: Michael Collier, John C. Schmidt, and David L. Wegner
Amazon base price: $20.97
List price: $29.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $20.82
Collectible price: $9.53
Buy one from zShops for: $9.50
Average review score:

A drop-dead gorgeous book
This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen. I wish they would have given details on the printing process for this book. I've never seen such vibrant, sharp, photographs in a book. They look almost as good as professionally done prints on photographic paper. As for the artistic merit of the photographs themselves, they are wonderful, something to get lost in.


Using Samba (O'Reilly System Administration)
Published in Paperback by O'Reilly & Associates (1999)
Authors: Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown, and Peter Kelly
Amazon base price: $34.95
Used price: $3.87
Buy one from zShops for: $5.00
Average review score:

THE best Samba book available
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.

The essential book on SMB networking
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.

Very comprehensive, very handy!
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.


It's a War, Stupid!
Published in Mass Market Paperback by Second Thoughts Books (1997)
Authors: David Horowitz, Peter Collier, and J.P. Duberg
Amazon base price: $5.95
Average review score:

Excellent but still too beholden to blacks
This is on the whole an excellent book; the only thing I disagree with is his constant emphasis on appealing to blacks. Given what Horowitz himself has exposed as the moral and cultural breakdown so endemic to that community as well as its endless huckstering about largely non-existent "racism", it would be utterly fruitless for conservatives to attempt to appeal to that group. Instead, electoral strength will result by trying to appeal to the justified resentment felt by the overwhelming majority of the rest of the population (including Hispanics and especially Asians) towards unreasonable black behavior and incessent demands (i.e racial shakedowns and guilt trips). Still he has very much touched a nerve.

What the hell does the left actually want?
"Unlike traditional liberals, even those who have sometimes embraced its excesses, the Left is permanently at war with America - day in and day out, year in and year out, on every front and every issue, no matter how moderately it disguises its aims, nor how modestly it announces its objectives."

The left, in essence, aims to destroy western civilisation in the belief that a utopia can then be created. It may succeed in destroying the west but a utopia will not be created afterwards. In reality the result will be something much worse.

The most important insight of this excellent book is is in identifying this central motive of the left. The right in my view has always been baffled by the left because the left has always concealed the radicalism of its motives (ideological zeal must always be concealed because it sounds absurd if stated plainly and openly) and this ignorance has been a huge weakness. This book should hopefully help to galvanise the right into taking their opponents more seriously.

Horowitz explains how the left is able to disguise its radicalism in moderate clothing, its use of the "myth of oppression," and offers advice to conservatives in political battles (e.g. attack from the high ground).

He explains how the right has been creamed in the culture wars and usually refuses to even fight them at all.

But in some ways this book does not go far enough. The author does not seem to draw the logical inference from the effectiveness of the culture war being waged by the left - that culture is more important then politics. In other words, political systems rest on the cultures that created them.

And if culture war can be used to subvert democracy, there are really 2 ways of fighting back. The first is to wage culture war, and the second is to strengthen and immunise the political system against subversion. The left is a minority movement and can be more effectively resisted by a stronger democracy. Direct democracy will destroy the left. In my view this would be a much more efective way of countering the pernicious influence of the left on western societies.

If all conservatives (and maybe a few open minded left wingers) read this book, the world could be a lot happier and a lot better place than it is today. If only.

Clift's Notes of Politics in America - Fantastic!
This little book says it all. No wonder it is hard to find. The PC Gestapo would like to burn every copy. Buy it, read it, send a copy to every respresentative you have in government. This is essential reading, the Clift's Notes of the Horowitz collection.


Just the Facts: A Decade of Comics Essays
Published in Paperback by Drawn & Quarterly Pubns (1999)
Author: David Collier
Amazon base price: $11.95
Used price: $4.99
Collectible price: $16.94
Buy one from zShops for: $4.25
Average review score:

Slices of real life
These short historical essays in the graphic/comic form are a fine example of what this medium can do.

This is a good access point to a genre of comic books that often gets overlooked - the biography. (Because it's not all superheroes).

Collier's clear storytelling and his involvement of personal vignettes in the context of the tales makes them educational and entertaining. Most prominent comparisons in the field would be the DC/Paradox Big Books of ... (Drugs, Crime, Urban Legends). But they have various artists whereas the tales here are united by the author's enthusiasm and interest.

great current comic artist
This is a collection of Collier's pieces from his eponymous comic and elsewhere, focusing on his non-fiction naratives. Collier is a fine graphic artist, but the interplay of the visuals and the texts to create engaging and informative stories is superb. Especially fine are the pieces in which he combines a story of some historical moment-the development of reggae, the evolution of the disc record player, with his own personal framing narative. The closest comparisons I can think of are Harvey Pekar's pieces with Joe Sacco on music or literature. Overall this is a collection of a lot of the best work by an underrecognized comic artist. Highly reccomended to anyone interested in current comic art.


Living happily ever after : couples talk about lasting love
Published in Unknown Binding by ()
Authors: Laurie Wagner, Stephanie Rausser, and David Collier
Amazon base price: $
Used price: $25.00
Buy one from zShops for: $25.00
Average review score:

There's more than one way to a successful relationship.
We recieved this book for our 25th Wedding Anniversary from a beloved nephew. It is full of honest stories--some shocking,some humorous,some touching, all interesting--of ordinary couples who in their own way overcame obstacles, big and small, and made a success of their relationships. This enlightening book changed the way we view committed relationships. We have given copies of this book as anniversary, engagement and wedding presents. Also, we have recommended it our committed friends.

This is Real Life - not like in the movies
I've included this book as part of wedding presents several times, to outstanding reception. The particular stories of how couples create their lives in a way that is satisfying to both is comforting and inspiring in its human-ness. What a treasure!

Candid, beautiful, inspiring!
When I saw the cover of this book in the bookstore, I thought, "Oh no, another syrupy sweet collection of essays on marriage." But when I had to wait a few minutes before the tears clouding my eyes finally cleared (after skimming the first story), I was hooked. These are stories of everyday people who speak quite candidly about what it takes to sustain a relationship through the years, and you can't help but fall in love with them! I was surprised by the candidness of many couples, and thankful that they were willing to share such personal facts. And I liked that the book covered all sorts of couples...this made it even more interesting. This lovely book would make an excellent anniversary, Valentine's Day, birthday, wedding or shower gift.


The Heterodoxy Handbook: How to Survive the PC Campus
Published in Paperback by Regnery Publishing, Inc. (1994)
Authors: David Horowitz and Peter Collier
Amazon base price: $14.95
Used price: $3.10
Collectible price: $10.59
Buy one from zShops for: $6.22
Average review score:

Horrifyingly hilarious
Former radicals Horowitz and Collier expose the Left again. This collection of vignettes from campuses (and other areas) across the nation are quite humorous -- and at the same time scary. McCarthyism alive and well? Sure is -- at your local university.

Have kids about to enter college? Read this first, and then examine what classes your child takes along with his/her reading materials and syllabi.

Oh, and make sure to read the letters section at the end of the book, especially those from university professors. These guys and gals are supposed to be the epitomy of "tolerant?"

Not Just PC, Not Just the Campus
This collection of materials (mostly essays, but also some parodies and, delightfully, readers' letters) from Heterodoxy is horrifying and invigorating. "These people are crazy," I kept telling myself as I read the book. "They need to be institutionalized."

But they're not crazy. They're mobilized, they're motivated, and they're out to get you. Okay, maybe not YOU, specifically...not yet. The essays in this collection reveal leftist individuals and organizations at work, putting their agenda -- the consolidation of their own power by the destruction of existing American institutions -- into action.

The title is mystifying. Many of the essays contained in this volume relate to American universities (one of the first redoubts to be siezed by the Raving Left). Others, though, deal with issues and incidents as diverse as fascist feminism's assault on the US military and a social workers' crusade against the "patriarchal" family.

Still, give it to your college-bound friend or relative. Think of it as inoculation.

U.S.Universities¿Islands of Oppression in a Sea of Freedom
American Universities, Islands of Oppression in a Sea of Freedom.

And daily the size of that sea is shrinking. We scratch our heads and wonder what is eating away at the America we once knew. This is a good place to start answering that question.


How to Write & Sell Your First Novel
Published in Paperback by Writers Digest Books (2003)
Authors: Oscar Collier, Frances Spatz Leighton, and David Morrell
Amazon base price: $11.89
List price: $16.99 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $3.50
Collectible price: $17.00
Buy one from zShops for: $5.99
Average review score:

Better ones are out there.
It's an interesting book for someone who aspires to write a novel. But I did not find nearly as much practical advice and instruction as I hoped. For example, there are only a few pages on plotting your novel. Evan Marshall's book on novel-writing, on the other hand, has about 60 pages.

This book is more of a pep talk, a "you can do it" kind of thing. If that's what you're looking for, this is it. But for something to help you get a novel written, I'd look elsewhere. Marshall's, which I mentioned, is a favorite of mine, but there are others, too.

Great For Beginners
This is not the best writing book for those who have already read such books and for those who are already somewhat expiereinced at writing; That, however, is not who it is targeted at or who it is best for (as the title suggests). It is for people who are interested inwriting but have probably not started--or just not been at it long--who are new to writing books. It is great at providing the basic and practical advice every writer needs in the beginning, and it provides a very important asset for the beginner: motivation.

Most helpful, practical book I've read on writing a novel.
I've read more than a few good books on writing; several are quite inspirational. The difference here is that this book is practical. I wrote my first novel following the guidelines set forth in Collier and Leighton's book, and I sold it to a major publishing company. Inspiration is great; inspiration plus methodology is better.


Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2

Reviews are from readers at Amazon.com. To add a review, follow the Amazon buy link above.