This little book covers 15 notorcycles including two racing models. Nice quality paper, great pictures but very little info and many,(most), models are not included. Might make a good gift for someone that is only mildly interested in BMW bikes. If your looking for a reference book, look elsewhere.

A little pocket size encyclopedia on BMW motorcycles with pictures and descriptions of the significant models. It is written in the same format as Wilson's The Encyclopedia of the Motorcycle.

Wilken's debut novel excels as an example of a certain kind of crisp, emotionally detached style that for some reason seems to be particularly prevalence among modern British male writers. So it's just as well that the story centers on an emotionally empty, self-absorbed human rights worker who gradually self-destructs over the course of the slim book. At work, Matthew Bourne is given stewardship of a campaign to free a dissident African poet facing execution in his homeland, while at home his French girlfriend becomes pregnant with their second child. However after he's called upon to ID the body of his colleague Christian's wife, something slowly start to eat away in him and he casually falls into a torrid affair and neglects his work.

Wilken creates a lot of mystery and tension in a limited space, but the payoff isn't quite there. His on again, off again guilt certainly rings true, but his spiraling descent is more annoying than it is disturbing. Why is Matthew's girlfriend acting increasingly odd, why does their three-year-old daughter fear "the man with glasses" who attacks her teddy bear, why does his colleague's dead wife's face haunt him, why does his fate suddenly seem inextricably bound to that of the poet? Some of these are answered, and some aren't. While I often like films that don't explain every last detail, here there are too many unexplained threads. (This may be because the narrative constraints of film's 120 minutes make such absences more necessary and thus palatable, whereas novelists have all the space they need to explain anything they wish to.) For example, a number of times Christian tries to tell Matthew something important, but is never able to. Why repeatedly stage such a scene only to never reveal its meaning? Another time, Matthew and Christian see each other in a train station, pause, and then walk past each other wordlessly. Again, as if we are in a David Lynch film, the reader is left wondering what that was all about.

All this is not to say the book is not well-written, because it is-however, it suffers from a kind of "is that all there is?" ending. Indeed, I could see it making a much better film than novel.

I too thought this book left too many loose ends and unanswered questions. On the other hand it was a great psychological study and felt "real" on so many levels that most modern day novels do not. In other words-if you are looking for a great plot look elsewhere,perhaps a John Grisham. I did not particularly like the protagonist in this story,but I did feel sorry for him in a way. He had perhaps led too charmed a life to know how to deal with adversity.In the end I felt cheated in some ways-yet strangely deeply affected in other ways, as tho I had been handed a small window with which to view another person's soul. And maybe a recurring thought of mine,that adversity can truely enrich us and be a building block forming character and developing coping skills. But the adversity had sadly come to late in this character's life.

...I can honestly say that, if this were the only study guide Ihad ever seen, I would have given up on learning Italian. FortunatelyI own "Just Listen n Learn Italian"...and "LivingLanguage Ultimate Italian"...infinitely more valuable than thishalf-hearted effort. My main complaint with this course is the lack oftime allowed for the listener to repeat the phrases in thedialogues. Any other course I've used allows such time, so thelistener can repeat the previous phrases. How else can one practicewhat they've just heard? Do they assume we're supposed to stop thetape every 5 seconds? If so, we can just say that this is merely userunfriendly and let it go. However, I would also add that the wholesetup lacks any coherent sense of progression. There is just no logicto it. OK. Basta! You've been warned. Please get one or both of theothers that I mentioned. Or...the Pimsleur courses are the Cadilacsof the genre, but for the best deal, I still recommend the other two.

This course is acceptable for one who is beginning to study this language, but not for one who would like a thorough review of how to use the language. Unless you already have some experience in the language, it'll be difficult to follow the course. Wave upon wave of things to get on your nerves are found in this course. For instance, at the beginning, the book gets involved with teaching very little grammar but giving a lot of sentences and vocabulary. This would be okay and a good way to let the language sink it, but it then follows this with going into exercises in which the reader has to answer questions using the words he or she has learned. Without knowing which words are translated into which and without knowing the grammar to Italian, one finds this to be a challenge. Several instances occur where the book uses vocabulary or grammar before actually teaching them. The vocabulary is also listed at the end of each chapter, but there is no reference section or appendix for grammar or verb tenses. The verbs are sporadically listed throughout the text, and the reader has to search for them should he or she forget a conjugation. It deals with basically every verb tense except for those within the subjunctive mood. But, once again, the reader has to memorize them as they come because there is no appendix for grammar or verbs. The glossary also doesn't recognize irregular verbs, which might cause some confusion. Also, the native speakers on the cassettes don't always say the correct readings which are in the book. They change words and sometimes add them. The best parts of this course are the several conversations and that the cassettes read many of the exercises in the book. The only way I made it through the course was because I've had some experience with the language already. I've had experience in several others, as well, so I know what I'm talking about when I say this is a weak course. Try finding something else instead of this. The books "Colloquial Italian" or "Italian All the Way" are extremely good courses. If you have a cassette of Italian already and a dictionary that recognizes stress on words, you won't need the cassettes to these courses. Italian orthography and pronunciation coincide almost always. Knowing the stress on words can be difficult at times, but dictionaries usually list the words (usually verbs) that carry and irregular stress pattern. Either of those two courses provide a strong base for further learning.

I am a language learning lover and this was my first exposure to an Italian course. I got this kit a few weeks before my wife and I went to Italy for vacation. I managed to cover the first 6 lessons in 3 weeks and I was amazed by the amount of useful sentences/vocabulary that I accumulated by then. Listening to the tape is not enough, you have to grab the texts for the dialogues, read them over and over again and repeat the sentences so they really sink in your memory. The negative points, there is not long enough pauses between sentences in the dialogues to allow for you to repeat them and the grammar guides are scattered all over the place with no index at the end. This is a course geared towards everyday conversation essentials, renting a room, getting around the city, shopping, traveling etc. and I found it really worth the price.

I agree with the first reviewer. A blatant case of intellectual dishonesty. Michael Radelet is one of the worst researchers on capital punishment. I don't know how the guy got his tenure. Don't buy it!!

Just some definitional clarification in response to comments made about the "intellectual dishonesty" of the authors:

CAPITAL OFFENSE - a crime for which the death penalty may be imposed. Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Ed. 1999.

Black's is the legal system's most trusted authority on legal terminology, and while it is perhaps unfair and potentially misleading for the authors to have exploited a reader's possible misunderstanding of the nature of capital sentencing and prosecutorial dealmaking, the authors are correct in their usage of the term.

This is a wonderful book documenting some of the most significant failures of Justice in the 20th century. The stories presented within are both enthralling and heartbreaking. I highly recommend this book.

Another reviewer accused this book's authors of "intellectual dishonesty" for including crimes that did not result in a death sentence. However, this reviewer erroneously stated that only crimes that eventually result in the death penalty are capital crimes. This is not true. A capital crime is an crime that carries with it the _potential_ for recieving a death sentence - not just the crimes that actually do recieve such a sentence.

The authors also stated in the introduction that they would be including crimes which, at the time they were committed, constituted a capital offense, but no longer are considered death penalty-eligible (like rape).

The only "intellectual dishonesty" present is that of certain reviewers who make false statements and tarnish the reputations of well-respected researchers.

It is not that this book is really bad in anyway, but it is very basic and only skims the surface. A nice little introduction, but if someone is really going to do maintenance on their cycle, they need a book specific to that bike.

This is a well written book for those wanting to know how a motorcycle actually works. The author states that " this guide should be used in conjunction with an owner's manual" and he is absolutely correct. Basic maintenance is well documented and the photographs are fantastic. A worthy addition to any motorcyclist's library.

Your new motorcycle came with an owner's manual. Why in the world would you need a more general one?

If you are like me, you do not really know very much about motorcycles other than how to ride one. The manufacturer's owner's manual assumes more knowledge than you really have, and encourages you to get professional maintenance for all but the most routine matters. But if you love your motorcycle (and who doesn't?), you want to take good care of it.

Here's where Mr. Wilson's guide is valuable. It simply explains keeping your motorcyle clean and safe. It also provides good background on how motorcycles are designed and the parts work. Even if you never plan to do any repairs, you will find this interesting. The photographs are very clear and detailed, and allow you to see what he is talking about.

My only complaint about the book is that some of the explanations assume a level of knowledge above what I have. "If you can rewire a plug, you can work on your bike." Well, I still don't know what "rewiring" a plug is, even after reading the book. My guess is that he is referring to adjusting the gap for the spark, but I'm not sure.

I did come away with a sense of what needs to be done with motorcycles. I recently read a similar book by the same publisher on bicycle maintenance. I found that there are more differences than similarities between bicycle and motorcycle maintenance. Also, because you will be riding your motorcycle at higher speeds than a bicycle, I came away thinking that professional maintenance is not such a bad idea.

The economic benefit from this book will come mostly from helping you be more aware of the importance of preventive maintenance (so you are more likely to do it) and spotting repair needs before they become more expensive. But I doubt if all but the most ardent do-your-own-repair people can hope to recover their money by owning this guide right away. Rather, the return will mostly come from improved knowledge and the comfort you have in knowing that your motorcycle is safer because of your enhanced awareness.

How much conscious competence is valuable to you? You probably don't know much about electricity, but you can turn on the lights. I suspect that you can improve your enjoyment of life if you learn more about how things work that you love . . . and use all the time. A good place to start is to seek out books like this one that explain and photographically illustrate the basics in simple ways.

Have a great ride!

I was very disappointed in this course. I bought the course because it had both a book and an audio component. AUDIO: The tapes start off with an excellent section on pronunciation, but soon they're just saying unrelated sentences without any translation. The tapes are completely unsuited for use without the book. There are several long conversations that are useful for practice in listening, but they are not really intended to help you speak better. The narrator's British accent and idioms are very distracting for an American, not to mention that she starts each lesson with a condescending lecture. That approach will not go down well with Americans, either. The BOOK: The book is fairly good for initially learning the grammar, although it gets terribly bogged down very early on with learning the numbers. Each chapter has written exercises which were helpful. The book is not good as a reference due to the weak index and the fact that topics such as prepositions are sprinkled throughout the book.

I've been searching a long time for a book that could effectively teach both pronunciation and grammar, and this still isn't it.

On the one hand, the tapes are very effective for getting the sound of the words 'in your ear,' and you find that you can soon say 'krzyczysz' without stuttering. : ) The book is also helpful for verbs, although it does run through them very quickly.

On the other hand, the British way (I assume) of handling the declining of nouns (and pronouns and adjectives, etc. for that matter) is very disorienting in the way it teaches a seventh of single noun at a time. It would be a lot easier if they would explain all seven cases right at the beginning instead of 'all right, this month you'll learn 'I...' , next month you'll learn '...like...', and the month after that: '...chicken.' What's the use of learning 'he' when you don't learn 'him'? This makes learning a single word excruciatingly frustrating, impeding memorization, while easily making errors.

On the whole, though, I'd say it is worthwhile as a starting point for getting a sense of the layout of the language.

it seems a very good book if you want to learn polhish quickly... Nice ilustrations...

Ruben Alvarado begins this account of the "common law of Europe" with a surprising confession: before writing this book, he "had never known of an ancient constitution of Europe, of a common law of Europe. . . ." Having made this admission of ignorance, Alvarado implicitly promises the reader two things: (1) that he will convince the reader that he has remedied that initial ignorance, and that he now knows enough to offer an intelligent account and valuable insights into the subject; and (2) that the book will therefore be worth the reader's investment in time and money. Unfortunately, (1) he didn't and (2) it wasn't.

Alvarado attempts to demonstrate that there is a Eurpean common law, a _jus gentium_ (lit. "law of nations," not to be confused with "international law," about which Alvarado says nothing of consequence). Broadly speaking, anyone attempting to define a set of laws applicable to all peoples will rely upon one of three theories: that such laws are either (1) set down by some authority (typically of divine nature); (2) ascertainable by human reason alone; or (3) ascertainable through study of actual practices. Alvarado, on the other hand, never really decides which of these three approaches is right. In particular, Alvarado studiously avoids describing his version of the _jus gentium_ as "natural law," which makes it even more difficult to determine exactly what he's trying to say.

This confusion extends to the dichotomy he establishes between the "common law" and the "civil law." Unlike the familiar distinction between "precedent-based law" and "code-based law," Alvarado sees the difference as one between "top-down absolutism" and "bottom-up constitutionalism." Just why civil law tends toward absolutism and common law tends toward constitutionalism is never really made clear, and the author's loose employment of the terms merely increases the confusion.

In the end, it appears that Alvarado is arguing for a set of laws deriving from some sort of Christian commonwealth. How these laws became "common," or what authority is ultimately responsible for these laws, remains unresolved, and so Alvarado's thesis remains unconvincing.

The book, however, isn't a total waste. Alvarado offers some useful analysis of the Salamanca School (Vitoria, Vasquez, et al.). In contrast, his description of Grotius is limited, and he ignores modern natural law theorists entirely. Those readers wanting a better introduction to the history of theories regarding _jus gentium_ will have to find them elsewhere.

It is absurd to expect from this book something which it is not. _A Common Law_ does *not* provide an exhaustive theoretical definition of the Common Law of Europe. What it does provide is an *interpretation* of a historical phenomenon as real as the existence of feudalism or the Holy Roman Empire itself. Neither of those items has been exhaustively defined to everyone's satisfaction either, but that does not mean they did not exist, nor that books written about them are complete failures because they do not provide exhaustive theoretical definitions of them. The Common Law of Europe did exist. What exactly it was and how important it was are subjects for debate. _A Common Law_ provides an interpration emphasizing the constitutional, liberty-under-law nature of this Common Law. Other works such as Harold Berman's _Law and Revolution_ and Manlio Bellomo's _The Common Legal Past of Europe_ provide more details into the structure and institutions of the Common Law. The Common Law must not be confused with modern international law, which is a bastardized, corrupted version of the original jus gentium. Don't purchase this book if you want your preconceived notions about law and history confirmed -- buy it if you want to examine an alternative approach, that does not belittle the Christian and classical basis of the Western legal tradition.

In a recent review of two books from the Subtext collective (some sort of Seattle based poetry commune), Stephen Thomas, wrote, "Wallace Steven remarked somewhere that every successful poem expresses a theory of poetry... Every serious poet has had to come to terms with the power of language to express its own meanings apart from, or even in opposition, to the poet's own intention. The Language poets seem to start with this experience. It is not too much to say that they cultivate a distrust of language and that their poems often frustrate the 'basic' function of language to narrate, to explain, to describe and to import knowledge or wisdom."

I should point out that every serious poet should be burned with a Buick Regal's cigarette lighter and thrown into the Duwamish until they learn that the basic function of the human throat is to howl. The 'basic' function of language is to frustrate this impulse.

Eighty years ago, in Zurich among a population of international outcasts and deserters from the Great War, a group of artists exploded what had been German Expressionism. They protested Western Civilization (the whole ball of wax), a society whose devotion to a coldly analytical and rational language had wrought Verdun and the Somme. Remembered largely now as the foundation for Surrealism and trivialized for their jokes, such as Marcel Duchamp's urinal, La Fonatine (1917), The First Texts of Dada revels in the serious anarchy and the subversive antics that gave birth to Dada.

Hugo Ball -- one of the principal perpetrators of Dada and the author of the only Dada novel, Tenderenda the Fantast, included in this book and which of course bears absolutely no resemblance to what then passed for a novel and often doesn't bare clear resemblence to any known language -- believed that under the "influence of Kant and German idealism, as well as Lutheran sobriety, that language had been made abstract and thus had been debased into a utilitarianism that allowed it to be plundered by jingoism, literary professionalism, journalism, and intellectual vacuity. It had become a tool for upholding the ruling value system." Ball made it his mission to purify the word. He saw Dada, which was initially performed at the Cabaret Voltaire as a fusion of sound, drama, and painting; a cacophony of contradiction, music played on found objects (known as Merz performance, the philosophy that any sound or text can be incorporated as material into a performance), monologues of gibberish, that is an art free from any concrete constraints.

This book charts the inception of Dada and more importantly presents three texts in their confounding entirety. This is not a book about art history; it's a handbook for subversion and a champion of the vitality of art as terrorism. It is not much to say that Dada cultivated a mistrust of language; they burned every scrap of it they could find.

He have just betted with his friend that he could write novel in some monthes. He was 16. A joung black skinned Bug-Jargal was the leader of Negros uprising in 1791 august in San Domingo. A lot of adventures but there isn't much philosophy, so I think this book is the best of Hugo's books. The book I've read before this one was "Notredame...", so... But I don't liked this book, because the scenario wasn't interesting. Read maybe you'll find it interesting more than I had

Corto Maltese, worldy-wise seaman and romantic, travels from Caribbean islands to South American jungles to Venetian palaces in this slightly disappointing sequel to 'Banana Conga'.

Like the previous collection this book contains 4 adventures. In the title tale Corto and his seedy friend Steiner stop by a small Caribbean republic where they discover that the beautiful Soledad Lokaarth, who shot Corto in the earlier adventure 'The Seagull Is To Blame', is being tried for voodoo practices by a viciously corrupt government. Next Corto sails into the Amazon as little more than a witness to the decline of a hallucinatory deserter from the trenches of WWI. In the next story Levi, the South American curiousities dealer, enlists Corto in a mission to rescue the enslaved son of a wealthy South American doctor. In the final story Corto arrives in Venice on the trail of a map to El Dorado. He becomes involved in a murderous plot involving the devious Venexia Stevenson, who was thought dead in 'Banana Conga'.

Although full of Pratt's fascinating characters and geographical detail I thought the first two stories were rather weak, and the moral of the third a bit too blatant. But who but Pratt creates thought-provoking graphic novels?