Mr. Conley has taken easy concepts & completely obscured them in arcane language that only a lawyer could love. I found myself lost in his description of things I already knew.

Remember John, the goal here is not to prove that you know what your talking about, but to pass the knowledge on to new comers. Tip #1: tone down the jargon.

I have been working with VB for over a year. "Teach Yourself" is a good title for this book because that's exactly what you'll be doing, teaching yourself without much help from the text.

After a long search, I have found this book has solved many of my concerns on developing corporate size VB projects. John is not only help elaborate OOP using VB in smooth and organized contents but also let the reader realize the importance of understanding users' business goals. Well versed in VB does not mean that we can create user-oriented solutions. For serious corporate VB programmers, you have to learn from John. He is the real VB's "OOP GURU".

This books gives an excellent overview of how a good object or more like a component based system should be build. I think the information given in this book is very much usable in the real world. Great Book. I suggest expanding on the concept a little more with better examples for the next version..

Most books of this type deal with Earth's disapperaring cultures in a "laundry list" fashion, shelving away race after race as if they were mere groceries. Not so with this outstanding volume - it delves deep into the society of these hardy societies and focuses on their everyday hardships. Life accounts bring the pages of this book to life with true emotions of fear and uncertainty, distress and need. A definite must-read for those whose views are a tad bit too narrow - I presume that's most of us.

Some modern Scottish thriller writers are contrasted (not always favourably) with two perceived greats of Scottish fiction - Robert Louis Stevenson and John Bucahn. I love Stevenson, the fast pace of his stories, and his characterisation. This was the first Buchan I read. While it will not be the last I felt a little disappointed.

The Thirty Nine steps is said to be one of the most important novels in the thriller genre. Featuring Richard Hannay a former South African miner, who is caught in a spy story, the effects of which may lead to war in western Europe.

The story is fast moving. Hannay is placed in predicament after predicament (like the Perils of Pauline) following the discovery of a body in his London flat. He escapes to Galloway, then Dumfriesshire (rural south west Scotland). Pursued by both police and foreign agents Hannay's life is at risk - and we witness his use of a number of disguises, and his experience as a mining engineer, in escaping each predicament.

At times the novel feels like a loosely related series of escapades, but the final chapters (as in Childers' The riddle of the sands) pull the disparate strands together satisfyingly. Fast paced with an appealing central character, the novel is recommended as a quick and easy entertainment. However, there are some flaws readers ought to be aware of.

In the Scottish sections of the novel Buchan writes the dialogue of the locals in dialect, contrasting this with the the "received pronunication" of the other characters. As a technique it appears to belittle the validity of the dialect spoken, and appears to patronise the locals. Although, Buchan's sleight here is countered by his portrayal of the locals. They share a certain cunning and deviousness. Additionally, the use of dialect (and a particular type of lowland Scots dialect) renders parts of the text difficult to follow.

Most concerning about the book is the inherent anti-semitism. Analgoies and metaphors rely on negative imagery of jews; and one of the characters (scudder) is overtly anti-semitic in his comments. While this was a prevalent attitude in a certain strata of British writing pre- World War Two, it jars today - and rendered parts of the novel, for this reader, offensive.

Buchan is certainly readable, but his work has dated. His influence is apparent in the work of Greene, and inherent in his work are the influences of American thriller writers of the early twentieth century, and Conan Doyle's Holmes, Challenger, and Brigadier Gerard stories.

If you enjoyed this novel you might want to try Graham Greene's Gun for sale; The Confidential Agent; Stamboul Train; and The Ministry of fear.

This 1915 espionage thriller will delight fans of Conon Doyle with a chain of "adventures" involving a chase, disguises, roll playing, an impossible escape, secret code, warplans, sudden promotion to the inner circle of Britain's defense establishment, mistaken identity, a trap, and clues galore. The vignettes are connected one to the next by miraculous coincidences, as in a dream, but the style is charming enough and the story short enough that you're willing to suspend disbelief long enough to see the end.

The main appeal is a Wordsworthian ramble through a rural scene populated by deep and knowing pastoral types, such as the roadman and the fly fisherman, though no Lucy, nor any available women at all to signify the potential future of a British race. All the characters are either aristocrats or peasants, befitting the narrator's acknowledged anti-middle class sentiments. Curiously, the hero himself is middle class, a mining engineer, though retired at 37 years old, idle but restless, and by nature the best picture of an English sport. He is Sherlock enhanced with amazing physical prowess.

Readers will notice disrespect towards police. Our hero throws a good punch right in a cop's face, and police are everywhere ineffectual. In today's prosecutorial climate, our hero would be in for a 10-year felony.

Anti-semitism: It's there, it reflects the times, of course. However, I must say it's far worse than charmless. It's insistent, each time sudden, and gratuitous, violent, and associated with images of extermination. Towards the end of the book, our hero expresses mild condescension towards anti-semitism, not a satisfactory rebuke.

This book offers a minimum of political background to WWI. Don't pick it up for a slice of life. It' for people who just can't get enough of Sherlock.

A great espionage thriller, involving danger, murder, and the future of England, set just before World War I. The pace is fast, and it makes for a quick but enthralling read. It was the basis for the very popular film by Alfred Hitchcock, made in 1935, starring Robert Donat.

This was the first time I have picked up a John Le Carre novel. As much as I read, even I am surprised by that record. Don't ask me why I chose this one and not the more famous "The Spy That Came in From the Cold" or "The Russia House." I think when I read the book jacket, something jumped out that interesed me more--perhaps because many of the events in Chechnya are straight from todays' headlines.

John Le Carre is a master of language and of character development. Patrick O'Brien comes to mind in the same veign of storytelling elegance. You just know that you are dealing with someone who is the man among boys in the NY Times Bestseller List realm. Le Carre is highly intellegent in his approach and how he makes intricate details centerpieces to plot. I truly enjoyed just being sucked into this novel, which is sometimes hard to say when describing strict genre writers. You can tell Le Carre is writing this because he enjoys his work.

I have a hunch this is not his best work. I have heard so much about Le Carre from friends and reviews that I know that his works are worthy and necessary reading. Perhaps this is a book I may have to come back and read again after I have become more acquanted with his artistry. My only criticisms are that Tim Cranmer was hard to penetrate as a main character and the story has several complicated flashbacks. Most assuredly they are necessary (I hope), but I found myself getting confused and distracted. Like I said, maybe I need to read more of his work and come back to this novel at another time in the future. Perhaps I will pick up some technique or formula I was missing that only fans of John Le Carre can pick up on.

Good writers of this type of genre are reknown because they know their subjects so well and know the landscape their characters dwell in so intimately that the stories they tell are believable. Le Carre will be an author remembered 100 or 200 years from now, I am sure. He is incredible to read and it is fun to read. That is the true measure of any author--make it enjoyable. I will other reviews of John Le Carre in the future I am most sure of that.

I've read all of Le Carre's books and OUR GAME, while not the best of the bunch, ranks near the top.

Being the same age as Tim Cramner and having been "early retired" myself was a real attention grabber for me. It was extremely interesting to see how another "cold warrior" was handling his own post-cold war existence.

I was about a third into the book when I thought to check this site for comments - BAD IDEA! The BOOKLIST review TELLS THE ENTIRE STORY - Shame on it, AND Amazon.com for putting it on the site. Luckily, I caught myself before seeing too much. Hope other readers do too.

Le Carre's attention to detail is what MAKES his stories (for me at least) so gripping. So my only gripe abt OUR GAME is that he DOESN'T develop the EMMA character nearly enough to make me see why Cranmer is in love with her. Le Carre doesn't succeed much better with Larry. He too, remained relatively one-dimensional for me. Sure, spys are supposed to be "shadowy", but I still had a tough time trying to see what it was about him that so intrigued Emma. (I know, she's fm Venus and us Martians won't ever understand.)

But as I said at the top, Tim C is the character I was MOST interested in, and Le Carre's "first person" narrative kept me reading way past my bedtime. I found myself specifically scheduling the final chapter for a time when I could read it line by line, covering what was coming with paper.

For someone new to Le Carre, however, I'd recommend "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" first. It is STILL the best spy book ever written; and the movie with Richard Burton is also still the best of its genre.

This is not Le Carre's best book. If you haven't already read them, I suggest you read the Smiley trilogy which begins with "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" -- one of the great masterpieces of the last century in my humble opinion. "Our Game" by contrast is good -- not great.

One of the problems is that the characters aren't very appealing. Tim is an insufferable public-school Englishman about whose fate we care nil plus the square root of zero. Larry is a professor who's committment to the downtrodden of the world seems an ego trip, the female lead is an airheaded artist who doesn't seem to merit the sort of admiration she gets.

But the subject matter is interesting. Who ever heard of the Ingush people until Le Carre wrote about them? His portayal of them is superb: the downtrodden ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union asseting themselves brutally, stupidly, unsuccesfully, but with doomed courage and dedication. "Our Game" is kind of thin gruel compared to Le Carre's great cold war novels, but it's worth a read.

Despite the fact that I generally enjoy comic British writing, and have on occasion watched the TV version of Rumpole with amusement, I found this collection of short Rumpole stories rather tedious. Having never read any of the extensive Rumpole series, I figured this collection of six stories would be a good place to test the waters. What I found was a series of predictable tales, populated by thin characters that offer little variety in their foibles from story to story. And while you could make the same case for P.G. Wodehouse's creations, the difference is that he had the Midas touch when it came to language and wit, whereas Mortimer's prose is generally uninspired. After a while, the curmudgeonly grumblings of Rumpole get rather old, as does the sharp tongue of his wife (She Who Must Be Obeyed), the pathetic philandering Erskine Brown, and the doddering foolishness of Uncle Tom. While the cut and thrust of the courtroom scenes do impart a sense of vigor and wit to the proceedings, they are the only bright lights in what are otherwise remarkably dull and predictable stories. Perhaps lawyers find Mortimer's prose remarkable, I, on the other hand, do not.

This is a really funny story, well told by Leo McKern, who IS Rumpole. (There are other Rumpole readers, but his is the best, even if you never saw his tv version) For Rumpole of the Bailey fans, you have all the usual cast, She Who Must Be Obeyed, Erskine Brown cheating on Portia, Uncle Tom, and Soapy Sam Ballard, head of Chambers. Lots of fun and really a pleasure to listen to. Couldn't even tell it was abridged. I'm a lawyer and I listen to mine evey fun months to get recharged

I cannot give a review of the entire book, as I have only read one of the short stories contained in it. I read the one entitled, "Rumpole of the Younger Generation." I felt like I was wasting my time, because all I was reading was a synopsis of a former triumph of this man. The case might have been exciting, but the author did not play fair, and the guilty party was obvious. I did not like this story very much, and can only hope that the rest of them are better than this one was.

The inaugural book in the Rumpole saga presents one of the great characters of British crime fiction. It's Holmes with humor (excuse me; humour), Bertie Wooster with brains. A collection of short stories, all revolve around Horace Rumpole, a self-described "Old Bailey hack". He practices (almost) exclusively as a defense barrister, specializing in hopeless causes, spouting poetry and cigar ash with equal gusto. The book provides the background for the accompanying series on "PBS", and it is at least as much a credit to Leo McKern's portrayal of Horace Rumpole as it is to author John Mortimer's skill that the stories--now contained in three massive omnibuses--have such deep appeal.

As an introductory book its fine but as a 'Most Complete' you want it to expand beyond basic examples into e.g. interaction between the cartridge types, practical implementation advice etc.

I'd have used the money back guarantee if there was one as I expected a bit more from it.

Does a reasonable job of covering Oracle Web Application Server 3.0, but the Oracle Press book is better.

This book does a good job of providing an overview of the architecture surrounding OAS 3.0, but certainly does not hold to its claim as "The Most Complete Reference." Its biggest shortfall is its lack of detail concerning Inter-Cartridge Exchange (ICX). It mentions this topic at least a few times, and explains the premise behind ICX, but doesn't provide any examples of how ICX is accomplished from a PL/SQL cartridge to a C cartridge, for example. A good book for people who are just learning about OAS and want an introduction and then some.

This is le Carre's first novel. It has the merit of brevity, and this brevity is coupled with a plot just complicated enough for the length.

It is an important book, but not for its contents. It introduces George Smiley, Peter Guillam, Mendel of Special Branch, and Mundt of East German intelligence. The latter was to play a pivotal role in The Spy WHo came in from the Cold; Mendel in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Guillam in The Karla Trilogy; and Smiley? Well, Smiley is the key figure in le Carre's fiction - probably the most famous figure in all spy fiction. And it is for Smiley's introduction that the novel is important. Here, we find some of the history of his marriage to Lady Ann, we find some of his background, his work during the war, his time as an interrogator; and - a curiosity - Smiley as protagonist, a man of (occasional) action, rather than the deskbound thinker so familiar from later books.

The plot can be summarised simply. Smiley has interviewed an individual about allegations of spying. After the interview they die, apparently at their own hand, leaving a note which suggests that Smiley's interview led to the death. Smiley investigates whether this was suicide or murder? Was the deceased a spy? He is led to a confrontation with individuals from East German intelligence.

The writing style is workmanlike, although there is some foreshadowing of later le Carre obsessions. There are musings on the nature of betrayal (personal betrayal in a relationship, and public betrayal of a country); there is the conflict which rests at the heart of Smiley, a moral man acting in a way which may be immoral to achieve a greater objective.

Characterisation is perfunctory, only Smiley being adequately realised. But throughout this book and the later A Murder of Quality the characters seem ancillary to plot, and Smiley himself seems distant, cold. This reviewer did not care about the characters.

The novel is entertaining enough, but contrasted with the high standards set by le Carre's later fiction is disappointing.

This is one for le Carre completists. If you've not read le Carre before do not start here. The Spy who came in from the cold; and the Karla trilogy are as good as any post-war English fiction.

Although the author has said that this book is a disappointment, and that George Smiley did not develop fully until he wrote The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, this book is a fine first effort. This is a must read book for anyone who wants to learn about Smiley's relationship with Anne, the origins of his career, and his physical characteristics.

This book is far superior to the follow-on murder mystery, A Death of Quality.

It is unfortunate that this great little book has fallen out of print, like so many of Le Carre's books. I can't help but wonder why. It marks not only Le Carre's entrance into fiction, but George Smiley's first step into our world. Here we have our introduction to The Circus, Smiley's odd relationship with Ann and the history thereof. Such small things that are in fact so important. Not to mention that is a great little murder mystery, which is how Le Carre began his literary career. Both this and the follow-up, "A Murder of Quality", find George Smiley involved in that greatest of literary traditions: the murder mystery. It was not until Le Carre's third novel, the classic "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold", that he broke George Smiley free from his confines and dropped him into the world in which he is now such a familiar fixture.

This little book (not even two hundred pages) forms the perfect introduction to Smiley, and though it is not an essential piece of the Le Carre library, it is not to be missed if you're a George Smiley fan. I encourage everyone interested to seek out a copy (which you can in fact order from Amazon's sister site: Amazon.co.uk, but be prepared to spend the extra few dollars for importing).

John Feinstein is one of the preeminent sports writers in the country and his new book, The Punch, is yet another solid work. The story centers around a game on December 9, 1977 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets at the Great Western Forum in LA. At the time, the NBA was not the institution it is today. Drug use was rampant, fighting was commonplace and the league was really an afterthought to most fans. In fact, the NBA finals were not even broadcast live on TV. So, the game between the Lakers and Rockets was just an average early season contest between two mediocre teams. The incident started when Laker center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Rocket center Kurt Kunnert got tangled up at center court. Being that Abdul-Jabbar had hurt himself in a fight earlier in the week, Laker forward Kermit Washington got involved to protect Abdul-Jabbar. Rockets forward Rudy Tomjanovich, who was at the other end of the court, saw the melee and ran down to try and break it up. As Tomjanovich was running at full speed, Washington felt his presence, turned and delivered a crushing blow to Tomjanovich's face. The force was so severe that it basically broke Tomjanovich's face. Tomjanovich was rushed to the hospital, where it was discovered he was leaking brain fluid and actually if not for the good sense of the Laker trainer to call a head trauma specialist, he may have died. The book is at its best when it details how due to this one brief instance, the lives of two men were irrevocably changed. Tomjanovich's career got back on track, he returned the next year and was a starter on the Western Conference All-Star team, and he eventually became coach of the Rockets and won two NBA titles in the 1994 & 1995. But the physical and emotional trauma that he was left with still haunt him. He could never seem to accept accolades as he felt they were bestowed on his out of pity. He also became an alcoholic. Kermit Washington fared far worse. His career never was the same. He was suspended for an indefinite period of time and his career became defined by the punch. Even though he was an enforcer and tough guy on the court, off the court he overcame many odds to succeed in life. He was from a tough neighborhood in Washington, DC, but went to American University and not only was a star basketball player, but an Academic All-American and class valedictorian. But since the punch, he was virtually been blackballed from getting a job in the NBA. Mr. Feinstein does a great job of detailing the lives of the two men and how their colors, Tomjanovich is white and Washington is black, helped play a role in how the incident was received. What The Punch fails to do though is to explain how this incident really changed basketball. Outside of adding a third referee and scaling back on the fighting, Mr. Feinstein glosses over that aspect. Basketball was changed and elevated to the level it is today basically due to Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. The Lakers and Celtics rivalry in the 80's and Jordan's pure athletic excellence propelled the sport and helped to overcome any stigmatism left from the 70's. Mr. Feinstein does a good job of getting into the effects on the two players, but he takes what is essentially an ugly footnote in league history and tries to make into a pivotal, league defining and altering event.

This is not a bad book, though it is overly long. Some of the repetition is due to Feinstein's need to describe "the punch" to establish the need to delve into the lives of the protagonists, Kermit Washington (the punch thrower) and Rudy Tomjanovich (the punch recipient). Feinstein then begins telling each of their stories through alternating chapters. By the time he gets to their meeting on 9 December 1977 the confrontation is anticlimactic, in light of the detailed analysis that opens the book.

From a normative perspective, the punch and its aftermath can be summed up in three quotes from former NBA players. On Washington's culpability, as Calvin Murphy points out "Your first instinct is to protect yourself. You hear someone coming from behind, you turn and get your hands up. Then, if you need to throw a punch, you throw it. Kermit, turned, saw Rudy clearly, and threw the punch. He was angry. He wanted to hurt somebody. Not in the way he did, I know that. But this wasn't an act of self-defense. If it had been, he would have just been covering up" (page 52).

On Tomjanovich's contribution, according to Wes Unseld "There is no one I respect more in the game than Rudy Tomjanovich, but he got himself into something that he was not prepared for. He made a mistake running in the way he did. That doesn't mean he deserved to the pay the price he paid - no one deserves anything like that. He was certainly the victim of something horrible. But regardless of his intentions - and I assume that they were good and peaceful - he is not blameless in what happened" (page 252).

And on Washington's problematic quest for redemption, John Lucas observes, "You know what I wish? I wish [Washington] could just say, 'I'm sorry. I screwed up.' All the years, all I've heard over and over again is, 'I'm sorry but...' Sometimes in life, you make a mistake and there's no buts and no explanations....There's no peace in 'I'm sorry, but.' You can't find peace until you truly understand that the only thing to say is, 'I'm sorry,' period" (pages 343-4).

Fascinating material, impressive reporting, but 300+ pages are not required to tell this story.

I read this book concurrently with "You Cannot Be Serious" by John McEnroe.

One of these books is about a star who admits his foibles and, without attempting to justify them, explains why he acted the way he did, and the consequences of same. Put more simply
1. He did it
2. He accepts reponsibility for it.

The other is a hagiographic account of how one young basketball player almost killed another player with a single blow. The victim eventually recovered and went on to moderately great heights in the NBA. The other carped and whined his way through life, and despite all the spin this well-regarded sports journalist put on the story, two inescapable facts come out in the book.
1. He did it.
2. He doesn't accept responsibility for it.

It's certainly disappointing what happened, not least for Rudy Tomjanovich, the victim. But get a life already. There was only one victim that night, but Kermit Washington has spent the rest of his life attempting to pursuade anyone who will listen that there were two.

on page 79, (English test) beginning with #22, the answer key is off. It gives the answer to 21 as D. and 22 is also D. How is this possible when the choices for 22 are F,G,H,J?

This was an o.k. book. It didn't help me very much, but it had good tests. They made a lot of mistakes, which could have been avoided. The writers probably didn't put their best into it.

This is the best book I've ever used to get higher scores on the ACT. It tells exactly what you need to know and study -- and nothing more. I was studying a lot more formula's then I needed to and I didn't realize it untill I got this book. I also wasn't taught a couple of formulas, needed for the math part of the ACT, untill I used this book. I highly suggest this book to anyone who wants to raise their scores.