"San Francisco Moon" is for anyone who has been touched by the special qualities of one of the world's great cities. This book captures the timeless mood of the full moon as it illuminates the twilight splendor the city by the bay. The warmth of a summer evening, the cool dampness of a creeping bank of fog, the glow of a cloud speckled moon accenting the rain-dampened streets to the imagined accompanyment of the trolly car's clanging bell-you'll find the echo of your favorite memories of San Francisco in this book.

"Transforming the Organization" is among the first books to use the concept of "corporate DNA," although the author doesn't use that term. The book may be most valuable for the author's development of organic design principles, such as corporate nervous system. My major disagreement is that, despite an organic orientation, the author's approach becomes a little mechanical, as with his insistence on 12 corporate chromosomes. All in all, the book is well worth the read

In What Is Truth?, James Emery White presents an insightful examination of the concept of truth as it finds expression in the theological systems of five prominent Evangelical theologians: Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Carl F. H. Henry, Millard Erickson, and Donald Bloesch.

White rightly realizes the enormous challenge that postmodernism presents to Christianity, especially its Evangelical stream. Post-foundationalist thought tends to challenge not only objectivity in man's grasping and appropriation of truth, but even the very ontological reality of truth. While even so hardened a relativist as Richard Rorty admits the self-defeating nature of such a claim, it continues to garner support from many sectors of philosophy. White helpfully draws a clear distinction between the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of. This is his book's major contribution to the debate. He concludes that the metaphysical and ontological reality of truth as it is expressed in the traditional correspondence theory of truth is basic to Christian theology, indeed to all thought. The epistemological aspect of truth is a bit more problematic, though, as debate soon becomes mired in debates over epistemic justification, the nature of starting points, evidentialism vs. presuppositionalism, etc.

White provides incisive critiques of the five major thinker's systems. He appropriately questions Van Til's jihad against univocity, his attendant rejection of the necessity of the law of contradiction, and his claims that his system provided objective certainty and absolute proof for Christian theism.

The chapter on Schaeffer is rather well done. Schaeffer's shortcomings as a philosopher and historian (he claimed only to be a simple evangelist) are discussed. The best portion of the chapter deals with Schaeffer's failure to provide positive proof for Christianity. He failed to realize that disproving atheistic nihilism does equal proving Biblical Christianity. Schaeffer also tended to stress the pragmatic aspect of truth-claims, asserting that a worldview could not be true if it did not explain the 'mannishness of man,' not realizing that his values existed within his worldview and thus could not be a criterion for choosing a worldview.

Carl Henry likewise placed too much faith in the power of rational argumentation to prove the truth of Christianity. Henry is to be credited, though, for championing the universality of logic, and the propositional nature of reality and Scripture.

Millard Erickson is one Evangelical who has engaged in serious dialogue with postmodernism and post-liberal theology. He has attempted a synthesis which preserves the historic orthodoxy of the Reformation while incorporating the insights of recent trends in theology, including existentialism, structuralism, and narrative theology. While his synthesis tends more toward the former tradition than the latter, he has nonetheless been influenced by contemporary thought more than other thinkers. This influence is evident in his nuanced formulation of inerrancy, his emphasis on personal revelation, his coalition with evidentialism and its emphasis on empirical verification, and his openness toward progressive hermeneutical methods.

The last thinker examined, Donald Bloesch, can hardly be classed an Evangelical. He is a Barthian through and through. He embraces the dialectical theology of the neo-orthodox irrationalists and vitiates the doctrine of the authority of Scripture. Positively, though, he steers Evangelicals toward an appreciation of the theological implications of the Incarnation, as well as the concept of revelation as an event as well as a body of truth. Furthermore, his rejection of autonomous philosophy is a strong antidote to the Enlightenment strands in Evangelical thought.

White's book is well worth reading. White provides a good overview of the concept of truth in the thought of the thinkers he covers. I do have some gripes, though. First, numerous misspellings and typos mar the text. Second, White makes the same mistake he accuses most thinkers of making: that of confuting the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of truth. He does this when he asserts a dichotomy between the correspondence and coherence theories of truth. He wrongly portrays the latter as an ontological description of truth. Coherence and correspondence cannot be so easily dichotomized. Coherence proponents such as Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til believed in the ultimate unity of the two. Truth corresponds to the mind of God, which is completely coherent. Third, the book contains no index! Fourth, the selection of Van Til, Schaeffer, Henry, Bloesch, and Erickson is questionable. The issue is primarily philosophical. I would have selected Van Til, Gordon Clark, Arthur Holmes, Alvin Plantinga, and Norman Geisler.

Darnell is going to be in the newspaper just to impress a girl. He is saying this is sort of fun. Later he becomes the most popular kid in the newspaper. I did not like this book but you might. I thought it was cool how Darnell did things how he wanted to do them.
Another book I read like this was Crash. They were similar because they both were trying to pick up girls.

Darnell is an African American that goes to Oakdall Middle School and he finds that he gets into a lot of trouble. He gets low grades and visits the principal often. The principal comes up with a suggestion for Darnell to join a school club, which he does. He begins to help the school newspaper with hesitation until he befriends a homeless man. By talking to the homeless man, Darnell gets a different outlook on life.
I liked and disliked this book. I disliked this book because the story moved slowly. I did like this story because I believed that Darnell was not a loser. He finally finds a homeless person who he helps by writing an article to help the others think beyond their own world.

The reason I think Darnell Rock Reporting is a fantastic fiction book for young readers. Darnell Rock is a cool kid who didn't get into many activities at school. That was until he got into the school newspaper. At first he didn't like it that much, but it turned out to be a great success. So you see, this is why I Darnell Rock Reporting. Why do oyu like it?

John Russell wrote this "biography" while Francis Bacon was very much alive and tends to emphasize the influences on Bacon's work more from an environmental standpoint than an art historian view. But to jump into Bacon's raucous life "in medias res" is a gift that now can be savoured, like picking the grapes off the vines that in years to come will become a fine vintage wine. A diversion, and only in black and white reproductions, but a rather important comment in retrospect.

Like many biographies, Russell's work concentrates more on the man's times than on the man himself. While we learn a lot about what was going on around Bacon, what he himself experienced is left unexplored. Granted, Bacon made gathering biographical information very difficult, but I would have appreciated more insightful analysis of Bacon's life and its connections to his work. Overall it is a very good introduction to Bacon's career and total output, and includes a huge number of pictures that make the book extremely valuable as a reference. Unfortunately though, while there are many color reproductions, they are outnumbered by black and white ones that take away from truly experiencing the power of Bacon's work.

Well i really think that Francis Bacon is a great artist. I just stratid reading about his art work and he has so many goos drawings like Henrretta Moraes, and his selft portrait. They are veri nice drawings.So i really think his greatt.

Author Stephen Carter, in real life a black professor at Yale law school, is a talented writer with a knack for drawing the reader in by adding interesting plot twists at critical points in his novel. I found intriguing the manner in which the author crafted a work of fiction from the kinds of headlines we all have seen. And, the perspective his main characters offer on what it feels like to be black in upper middle class America is thought provoking.

The book is filled with rich portraits, but noticeably absent is any character with a sense of humor. Is the humorlessness intended to be a commentary on the black condition in America? Or is it a reflection of the legal community in general, and the legal academic community in particular? These questions were answered to me in the "Author's Note" at the end of the book. Carter says there, in effect, "You might read this book and think Yale law school is a horrible place, that today's law stuents are horrible people, and that our legal system is horribly flawed, but don't worry...this is a work of fiction". Frankly, I thought this was a cowardly way for a member of the legal establishment to try to avoid accountability for a work that makes an undeniable statement on the extent to which our legal institutions rob people of their humanity. I defy anyone to read the brilliant indictment of modern law students with which Carter opens Chapter 9 and to then accept at face value the closing apologia in which he says that he treasures and respects his students.

Bottom line: I'm glad I read it.

Although black influence may be discerned in many strands of modern popular culture, from sports to stand-up comedy, from music to fashion and movies, one couldn't say that this has also been the case for fiction. Professor Carter's book is a welcome first step in populating a compelling plot-driven narrative with characters we haven't heard from before (or at least, not to my knowledge). In "The Emperor of Ocean Park" black university graduates with high-powered jobs and all sorts of material comforts are resolutely center-stage. In Philip Roth's "The Human Stain", the main character must resign his blackness to achieve success and power in the academical world. Carter's characters never resign their race to be successful in the white man's world. The main voice is Talcott Garland's. He is a lawyer in his forties, a professor of law in an ivy-league-ish university, which in spite of Carter's denial in a post-scriptum is a straigth forward rendition of Yale Law School, where the author teaches. Garland is a complex man, not a cypher, surely a cut above the generic "cut-and-paste" renditions typical of modern popular fiction. He is slightly overweight, not very likeable (he is aloof and emotionally remote), very much his father's son. The father, the eponymous "Emperor of Ocean Park", is Oliver Garland, known in the book as "The Judge", a composite of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Robert Bork and famous intellectual Thomas Sowell. A moderately conservative civil rights lawyer, he is appointed to a federal judgeship in the District of Columbia Appelate Court where he moves increasingly to the right. In the Reagan era he is nominated to the Supreme Court, but he must withdraw his candidacy when certain sordid associations become known to the public. He then joins a Washington D.C. firm as counsel and rakes in fat fees as a very popular public speaker. The Judge has shaped his children sometimes in ways he didn't mean to. The first born, Addison, is a rebel who refuses to be subject to his fathers very exacting standards of emotional self-control. His daughter, Mariah, the cleverest of all, has withdrawn from intellectual life to become wife of a rich white banker and mother of a large brood. Talcott has fled the rough and tumble of political life to become a tenured professor, and is stuck with Kimberley, a woman he adores, although she doesn't love him and may be cheating on him. A third daughter, Abby, died long ago, run over by a car that then fled the scene of the accident. This death is the catalyst of all that happens afterwards. The Judge is dead at the beginning of the book, and Talcott is quickly assailed by all sorts of shady figures who are looking for the Judge's arrangements. Talcott has no idea of what this means, and he struggles till the book's very end to find the arrangements and keep himself and his family alive. There is a complex chess problem (whose relevance is perhaps less clearly conveyed than the author intended) and several sub-plots to keep the reader occupied. Those thinking about buying the book should not be dissuaded by its heft. The book is a page turner and it has the right mixture of plot, action and rumination to keep the reader interested. It is also evidence that a book may be compelling without a single overtly sexual set-piece, without unnecessary profanity and without obsessive concern by fashionable slang or luxury good brands. This book will still be readable in fifty years without a special dictionary.

Many people have commented on the detailed rendition on the specifics of middle class lives. The big surprise is that these lives are similar to those of their white counterparts. Middle class blacks are hard working achievers, sometimes hindered by emotional distance and obsessive self-pondering. Perhaps one key point is that this is not the middle class as such that we are regarding, but the upper-middle class, with their large townhouses in Washington D.C. ("the Gold Coast") and their summer places in the Vineyard and the Hamptons.

We should expect this book to be slaughtered in the movie version, with Denzel Washington as Talcott, Morgan Freeman as the Judge, Hale Berry as Kimberley and Angela Basset as Maxine. Gene Hackman would be a good Justice Worthington. Read the book before you see the inevitable movie. It will only spoil the fun if you do otherwise.

What an amazing debut novel from Stephen L. Carter! The story itself is a magnificent mystery. It's not your typical "whodunit". Instead, it is a wonderfully crafted, deeply intriguing story about a family wrapped around some judicial mischief at the highest level of our court system. Senior District Court Judge Oliver Garland has died leaving his son to unravel what the author refers to as "the arrangements." Judge Garland's daughter, Mariah, is suspicious of her father's death and suspects their Uncle Jack, known for his organized crime affiliations, is involved. Her younger brother, Tal, remains unconvinced until their father's funeral when Uncle Jack stresses his need to know of "the arrangements" Judge Garland left behind. The "arrangements", however, have nothing to do with burial or estate planning. They do have to do with digging into some earlier family tragedies, getting involved with some very unsavory underworld characters, and hints of even more crooked judges at the Supreme Court level.

There are many hints thrown in throughout the book, woven into the ongoing dialogue lead you to think you know exactly where the story is going. But Carter's crafty and imaginative twists of plot, however, frequently deceive you. There is also a subpart to the story that brings frequent reference to the game of chess, and more particularly to the relationship of a black pawn and a white pawn and the importance of the black pawn coming out on top. Read the book and see what you think of all these references and subtle pieces of symbolism. The fact that he can leave us pondering all that is strong evidence of talented writing.

This book is not a fast paced, 48-hour thriller, but takes place over several eventful months. I enjoyed the complexity of the plot and the very human characters Carter created. The Garlands and their extended families illustrate how dependent we are upon one another and how easy it is to succumb to temptations. I encourage you to join Tal as he investigates pivoting points in his father's life, uncovers the Judge's legacy, and, ultimately, finds "the arrangements". I predict that we will see many best sellers by Carter. At least let's hope so. Highly recommended!

While mildly amusing, there was little in the way of meat in this book. The author was located at either the New York or London office for almost the entire life of the magazine and only met with senior management on a few occasions.

For him to have written a book about the Industry Standard is like me writing a book about [a store] because I shop here.

If you can pick it up used, it might be worth a quick read but you will find yourself skipping pages because the details have little to do with the company and more to do with James explaining his job while there.

Documenting the rise and fall of the Industry Standard makes for an amusing tale. I was hoping for more "inside" stories about the companies that were at the heart of the craziness but this is really a gossip book for those who knew the companies involved. As an avid reader of the Industry Standard, one great piece of information to come out of it is that thestandard.com web site is still in business. It's great source for archival material on the Internet revolution as well as current news and features on those who survived the shakeout or emerged from it.

The tale of the rise and fall of The Industry Standard is an entertaining read, especially if you know somebody affected by the dotcom bubble burst, if you were laid off yourself, or especially if you were an employee of the company in question. I just happen to fit all three categories.

The Standard was of course an editorial operation, and this book focuses on the experiences of the editorial staff of which the author was a member. Since I was a part of the technical infrastructure team, I wasn't privy to many of the intricate details. Ledbetter's insights into the editorial staff's point-of-view are interesting and amusing; the basic happenings are all there (extravagant offsite meetings, reckless overspending, internal power struggles, and so on), but with some added first-person (or second-person) details.

I was hesitant to buy (and read) this book at first. Would I want to relive the days of The Standard? Would there be anything in there I didn't already know? Would it be interesting? For the most part, sure. It's not entirely a rehash of the life and death of one company; there are sprinklings of humorous (and Dilbert-ish) anecdotes that should be appealing to anybody who has dealt with the pressures of startups and shutdowns.

This was the idea of Scott Lobdell to do a story where the X-Men are attacked by a new generation of Sentinels with the purpose of wipeing them out. Sound Familar? Anyway from issue 1, this concept went no where expect to rehash story ideas that have been done before. It also marked the end of Lobdell's seven year run on the X-Men and brought about the return of Chris Claremont (although Claremont's second run on the X-Men has been nothing to be proud of either).

The title pretty much says it. This is one of the worst X-Men story arcs that I have read. O:ZT? It seemed like more of a filler story than anything else. I read (and bought!) almost all of the books that had to deal with this before I read them, and when I finally read them I was monumentally disappointed. I think the only good thing that came out of this story arc was Marrow and Doc Reiss joining the X-teams.

All rite, this izn't a storyline that equals Age of Apocalypse or The Dark Phoenix Saga- that's nearly impossible. But I mean, I thought it wuz okay. If yer a collector, you would have had to buy from like 4 different titles (UXM, Cable, X-Force, Wolverine, etc) but this collective book arranged the storyline in a very logical and easy to understand sequence. If they had half-stars, I woulda given it 3.5, but they dont' so I rounded up. I mean, it had it's moments. I guess the fact that Zero Tolerance wuz a government project made it a li'l boring, considering their enemies Senator Kelly or Prime Sentinels (which are a new deadly type of sentinels that take on humanoid forms). They're very minor characters whom we know (and care)very little about and therefore don't have that familiar notoriety that has we've become acquainted to through villains such as Apocalypse, Magneto, and Sabretooth. I still think Bastion made an interesting and mysterious foe. They dont' resolve his past in this book, so that's one of it's many shortcomings. It would have been much more complete if they revealed his true nature. He still manages to keep the books interesting. As for the artwork, Pacheco makes some of the pictures worth looking at. In general, though, they weren't anything special, so I therefore focused on the plot. Personally, I would have enjoyed it much more if they had Joe Madureira instead. At the time, he was drawing for the Uncanny X-Men titles, which brings OZT to another drawback. Half of the team is in outer space and don't return until the final 10 pages or so of the 400+ page collection. I personally like those characters (Rogue, Gambit, Beast, etc.) compared to Wolverine, Cyclops, and Phoenix just cuz, so yeah, I found some moments pretty boring. On the other hand, once you actually get into it, Iceman and Dr. Cecilia Reyes make a very dynamic couple. When Sabra and Marrow eventually join in, they're actually quite entertaining, but moreso through their petty squabbles than their action, though. Cable plays a key role, and he's an intriguing character, too. I normally don't read X-Force ((my biggest branch from X-Men to other titles besides Gambit iz Gen X and the occasional X-Factor which I don't believe exists anymore, so this wuz a big reach I'd never even heard of Rictor or Dani Moonstar til then.)), but began to like several characters from them, too. Overall though, I thought it wuz all rite, juss not enough to blow me away. If yer a big fan of wolverine and Cable, you'll probably like it. I'm warning you though, they seem to have lots of unnecessary stuff in between, like two books about Domino, who has very little to do with the story. But, even though I found the story very enjoyable, I don't think it's good enough to be considered necessary fer a Marvel conossieur. So my review and advice would be thus: If yer a hard core collector, go ahead and get this. It may be valuable in the future, and you may get some jollies out of it. If yer looking fer X-Men entertainment, I recommend the Phoenix Sagas, Onslaught series, Age of Apocalypse, or the recent Hunt for Xavier. I havent' read this yet, but I have also heard good things about The Twelve.

It's a good book. Lot's of good information about the Keith's from Scotland. If you are a descendant of the Keith's you will love the history. If you are just a history buff you will learn a lot about a not very well know person who had a big impact on history.

This book has at least 10 authors and is fun to read for the first few chapters. Then I really got annoyed to read the same things over and over again and at the same time I missed some more in depth explanations. A lot is done with the framework itself. This is probably due to the very early delivery date of the book. Though I really enjoyed the C# example (game of life) I think you be better served with Hollis, Lhotka "VB.Net Programming". Also there seem to be quite a few other books out by now.

This is a good introduction to .net, as the cover says, but me thinks it was just a ploy to make money. Not very useful at all, but if you are a beginner to .NET, then you might want to browse through it to get a general feel for the framework.

I have purchased several Dot Net books as of late. I thought the book was very thorough as an overview. This book was not intended to be a programmers guide to any single language in the Dot Net suite. But if you want a book to give you some insight as to what Dot Net is all about, this is a great place to start. I also purchased Wrox "Programming C# with the public Beta", although this book is being replaced with Professional C#, I still learned much from this title as well.