A very good book about the Lewis & Clark expedition. The illustrations were vivid and the best part of the book. I would recommend this book

Set in 1804, How We Crossed The West by Rosalyn Schanzer is the true story of the incredibly adventurous Lewis & Clark expedition exploring westward from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean (May 1804 to November 1805). Superbly presented in an exciting picturebook format for young readers, the "reader friendly" text is taken from the original journals of the explorers themselves, though slightly edited for clarity. The wealth of illustrations are warm, colorful acrylic/colored pencil designs that bring a great journey through early America vividly to life. As educational as it is entertaining, How We Crossed The West is a superbly presented history and very highly recommended for school and community library collections.

This book is an excellent example of a primary source of information. I originally bought the book because I believed it would be a good resource for teaching about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but after I got it and realized the text was created from journal entries made by Lewis, Clark and others, I was truly excited to be teaching from this book. There is just enough text per page so as not to be overwhelming to elementary students and the illustrations are gorgeous.

While Christian Spirituality is a fairly basic book about the spectrum of the spiritual life,its main focus is spirituality developed within the Roman Catholic tradition. Cunningham brings his description forward to the 21st century keeping the roots connected to the future. I particularly liked his chapter on Friendship and how it relates to one's spiritual growth. That is one of the more unique contributions this book makes. Cunningham's foundational approach is a good start for someone initially exploring this topic. He presents every chapter in a chronological manner, describing first the scriptural basis of this aspect and then bringing it forward through the history of Christian history. Obviously this is not done in depth, but provides a reader with many footnotes, bibliography and some exercises to help the reader look for his/her own nuance.

I have read and heard many of the things Cunningham wrote, but I found his presentation be to be a concise and terse one. I enjoyed that. It is the kind of book one can go back to find something quickly for further exploration.

Leisurely to read, commodious in depth and breadth, this book is a showcase of the learning and expository ease of two well-respected professors of theology and religious studies. For anyone who wishes to acquaint themselves with major themes in the Catholic spiritual tradition in painless indulgence, I highly recommend this book.

Each chapter focuses on a theme, such as the spiritual journey, meditation and contemplation, asceticism, living in the presence of God, solitude in community, or friendship. In the selection of themes and in their treatment, the discussion leans heavily towards established monastic, medieval, or post-Reformation traditions. This holds true even though the authors may take up modern innovations, such as Gustavo Gutierrez' liberation spirituality or Thomas Keating's centering prayer. Unfortunately or not, given this tendency, very significant modern developments get short shrift--for example, the "little way" of St. Therese of Lisieux.

I was delighted to see the authors pick up shiny gems from the Catholic classics like shells on a beach stroll. Turning the pages, I happened upon the penthos of the desert fathers, the epektasis of St. Gregory of Nyssa, the schola of St. Benedict, the contemplatio of St. Dominic, the discretio of St. Ignatius Loyola, and the gustos of St. Teresa of Avila.

Interspersed throughout the text I came across citations of the likes of The Brothers Karamazov, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, or Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, making the book an engaging display wherein the modern is lightly hung upon the traditional like decorations.

This book was intended as an introductory overview. For a fuller discussion, the reader should consult the original texts and scholarly works, for which the authors provide a modest bibliography. Excluded as an important reference is Jordan Aumann, O.P.'s Christian Spirituality in the Catholic Tradition (1985), which I would strongly recommend as a historical survey.

I have read this book three times. Every time I wish to send a gift to a Catholic friend, this is what I send. Why? Because it is loaded with the best stuff the Catholic Church has to offer. That may be a drawback. It is unlikely that readers who aren't Catholic would be familiar with many of the experts on prayer who are quoted and interpreted. Persons who aren't Catholic, however, who are seeking to grow in their spiritual life, will have a hard time finding a more useful method to pray the psalms than what is offered here. The entire Bible, of course, is presented as our first source for prayer and meditation, but the specifically Catholic traditions may be offputting to some. For over a year now, ever since I read this book for the first time, I have been spending an hour with God in the morning before I do anything else. It has changed my life.

This is a very good book for introducing students to art, literature and music from the beginning of the Renaissance until the 1990s. Many illustrations are included which help the reader comprehend what the text is saying about works of art. Selections from works of writers studied are included in the back of the chapters in which they are mentioned. However, no footnotes, commentaries or definitions are included in these selections by the authors, which may sometimes be frustrating because some writers are harder to understand than others. As a student who used this book in my humanities class, I would have to say that overall this book is an excellent survey of humantities because it provides good information not only about the writers, artists and musicians but also a good background of the social/political events of the times during which these people lived.

I, as an undergraduate student studying culture and civilization, was very impressed by the content of this title. It covers everything from the effect of the Mona Lisa on society to Guernica. It goes into great detail about how art, music, and archetecture has affected society throughout modern times. The quality of the book is unprecidented as the photos and painting prints in it are beautifully presented in a very aesthetically pleasing fashion. This is a must buy for all interested in the affect of the arts on society and culture. As this is the only textbook that I am keeping this year, I completely recommend it for those who may not be taking any subject associated but are just interested in its subject. If I could I would give it 1000 stars.

This book was very instrumental in my leap from classic ADO to ADO.Net. The book is very easy to follow and gives good code examples. The book gives a great introduction to all the key principles of ADO.Net and won't leave you stranded without a clue.

The only downsides to this book are:
The book is written for both C# and VB.Net development and would have been very thin if not so. The book was a very quick read, only taking about 4 days to finish. More detail could have been given in the space taken. The other problem I had was that the cover of the book came unglued from the book when I was about 1/2 way through, which wasn't pleasing to say the least.
Lastly, some examples contain errors, which only slightly takes away from the greatness of the book.

Based on content and how easy it was to pick up on ADO.Net I have to give 4 stars.

This is one of the best ADO.NET books. The author uses both VB and C# examples. The CD contains both languages and Visual Studio projects.
The author does not favoritize a database. You can use any DB you want.
If you have programmed before and want a complete reference and alot of examples. This is the book for you.

In the .NET arena, there are a zillion books available. Many are rehashes of the documentation; many aren't worth the paper they're written on. This book isn't one of those. David Sceppa (who turns out to not only be an excellent writer, and a strong public presence on the support newsgroups, but a sincerely nice guy), has written a book that's actually useful. Not only does it include explanations of how ADO.NET fits together, David's book also includes explanations of how and why you should make choices about particular implementation details in your applications. The comfortable tone, the reliability of the information, and the graciousness of the author make this a top pick, from my perspective. (I must confess that I've found a few small details that have changed in the product since the time David wrote the book, and he's been incredibly responsive, when possible, to my correspondence. Not many authors take the time to respond immediately, if at all.) I wish there were more books out there like this one.