Last year Humphrey Carpenter published his official biography of Dennis Potter. Roughly 500 pages long Carpenter's book was a disappointing mixture of synopsis of Potters' plays, edited quotes from interviews Potter made to other journalists and interviews with people who have known Potter. Carpenter decides early on that the key fact to Potters' life was his sexual abuse, and the rest of his life is viewed from this angle. His remarks on Cold Lazarus are only concerned with a few, strange sexual remarks.

I mention this because it makes such a contrast to Gilvert's book. At times it is clumsy, wooden overwritten and a bit unfocused, and yes, a lot of it doesn't hold together but it is distinguished by a genuine, though healthily critical approach to his life.Gilbert understands Poters' importance as both a literary figure and a creative figure and writes passionately about both. Potter was a brilliant, difficult man and although he has not yet got the brilliant, difficult review he deserves, Gilbert's goes a long way to understanding the man and his extraordinary writing.

An excellent companion guide for laboratory exercises. The sketches and drawings were able to add much more detail than many other manuals which had photos. I found it invaluable.

I found the book of the utmost help with my studies of the anatomy of the necturus. After all, how many of us can actually say we have seen a necturus, let alone study its anatomy?

Anyway, this book is highly recommended if you have any desire to know about the anatomy of a necturus, or if you even just want to see what one looks like. Basically this book is a great in depth guide to a necturus' anatomy (By the way, a necturus is a mudpuppy) The pictures are quite nice and reveal a lot. If you don't have the heart to dissect one of these critters, but need to know their inner workings, i recommend this book.

I first read lives of the musicians when I was about 7 yearsold or so. Then, I thought it was terrific. I still do. However, I amnow 12 years old, and now that I have paid more attention to it, I see several faults, but overall it is still a very good book. First of all, their choice of musicians is not the best. I would have recommended Debussy and Schubert, like the Kirkus Reviewer. Some of the composers I have hardly ever heard of, like Igor Stravinsky or Nadia Boulanger. And while Clara Schumann was a great pianist, I think they should have focused more on her husband, Robert, a prolific composer, whose works are among the very best. Also, some of the parts of the biographies are questionable. Frederic Chopin may not have actually been romantically involved with Aurore Dudevant (George Sand), but in love with the Countess Delphine Potocka. The book states that the Waltz in D-Flat, or Minute Waltz, was written for George Sand's dog, when in fact it was probably written for Potocka. However, the book was still very well written, and I enjoyed it, despite the possible mistakes. I recommend this book to anyone who likes music, classical or not. So sit back and enjoy!

I loved this book because it made those musicians seem like real people instead of great-all-star-super-geniuses. It is full of strange little facts about all the famous musicians like Bach,Gershwin,Beethoven and Schmann.

---Megan W.

This book provides interesting insight into the lives of composers. I teach music to elementary and high school students and I read this book to all of my students. They all enjoy learning the details of the composers lives. The book presents the composers in such a way that the students remember the information about the composers. The book does not provide information about what the composers' music sounds like, and that is something I also like to teach. A great book to gain kids'interest in famous composers.

THIS WAS THE SOURCE FOR THE 1971 MOVIE ''WILLARD'' AND WAS PUBLISHED IN THE STATES UNDER BOTH TITLES.THOUGH MILD BY TODAYS STANDARDS, THIS WAS A BESTSELLER AND BOOK CLUB SELECTION WHEN RELEASED HERE IN THE LATE SIXTIES.......HORROR FANS WILL BE LARGELY DISAPPOINTED BY THE LACK OF ACTION HERE,BUT THERE IS ONE GRAPHIC DEATH THAT IS A SHOCK.THERE IS REALLY ONLY ONE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BOOK AND THE MOVIE,AND THATIS THE SETTING.HERE IT TAKES PLACE IN ENGLAND, AND THE MOVIE WAS IN AMERICA......I GIVE RATMANS NOTEBOOKS 4 STARS,BECAUSE IT IS VERY ORIGINAL IN ITS TAKE ON THE WORM TURNS THEME,AND HOLDS YOUR INTEREST THRUOUT.........

This is quite possibly the best novel I have ever read. It's too bad that there is no more info. on the author, Stephen Gilbert. Apparently, this was his only novel. The story concerns a young man who is oppressed in his life, and befriends a family of rats that he finds one day in his back yard. He then trains them to do his bidding, and he uses them to wreak havoc on his enemies and gain financial stature. As far fetched as it sounds, it is actually a very spellbinding read. The frienship at the heart of the story between the man and the rat helps to lessen the level of horror and disgust some people might feel about rats. I highly reccomend this fine novel to anyone. I think that everybody owes it to themselves to read this.

Listening to Robyn Walensky's eloquent retelling of the events of that fateful day at a booksigning in Washington, DC, and reading the minute-by-minute reconstruction of what it was like to cover these events, this book brings back all of the emotion and impact of September 11th, but from the vantage point of the working broadcast journalists who brought the story into the living rooms of the country and the world. Ms. Walensky and her co-editors and contributors have done an historical service to all future generations by putting their experiences collectively into the permanent record. If time ever can dull the memory of what happened that day, take this book down from the shelf and it will all come back, with clarity and purpose. Hopefully, a similar book will be assembled on what the print reporters experienced that day. A superb recounting of the working reporter's craft.

How many times have you perhaps thought, and also heard that the press are really bad folks? The press has an agenda? The press is biased? Well, this great book reminds us all how truly wonderful the men and women of broadcast journalism covered the horrible events of September 11th. I will never forget how I saw Tom Brokaw, lower his head at one point and choke up. After a second or two he acknowledged to us all that he had an emotional moment. At one point, Peter Jennings, who had just received word that his kids were safe, looked at the camera and told the audience that we all should call our children. I dearly loved reading of the human sides of these men and women. Also, it was astonishing to see how radio and TV covered the story not knowing from moment to moment where the story was going. Local New York area radio and TV are covered as well as that of national TV networks.I really don't want to give anything more away. Buy this book and read it. This will be one that you will want to include in your home library for years to come. You won't want to be selling this one to a used book store or in a garage sale. It's a keeper.

If you only buy one book about September 11th - this is the one to buy. There are several books out but this is the best for a moment to moment account from broadcast journalists who experienced that day from a news point of view. Everyone, from news program producers, sound techs, camera people, radio people are included in this excellent compilation of who saw what, when, how and what they felt as participants in the biggest story of this century. I'm a history nut and stayed home the day of the attack to watch TV coverage all day from all the different networks and I wanted a book that would really convey the events, the victims and the feelings and impressions of those who responded to the catasrophe of 9/11 in an accurate fashion for my children to read and, hopefully, my grandchildren to read in this one book and have some idea of what living this historical day was like. I consider this to be the most valuable book I have bought all year (and I buy lots of books).

It is difficult to write about a book that holds one's interest throughout but which so thoroughly disappoints in the end. THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY begins like a mystery, but it increasingly becomes apocalyptic as its religious message comes to the forefront, and I believe will appeal to few modern readers. As the religious symbolism begins to dominate, the mystery that drew the reader in begins to fade, and one continues reading simply to see how Chesterton is going to manage to finish the thing. And this is where it is most disappointing. There is no ending which follows from its premise AS A MYSTERY. By that time, most of what happened in the beginning is no longer relevant.

Chesterton subtitled the book A NIGHTMARE, and this is more revealing than it appears at first. In one sense, this book can fit into a long tradition of the religious vision genre, which is more common in Medieval and Renaissance literature. This is not something that evokes much for a modern reader, though, so what we really get here is an inexcusable case of "And then he woke up." At least the writers of the Middle Ages had the guts to tell you upfront at the beginning that the character had fallen asleep.

By the time I got to the end of the book I felt that I had been cheated. I had been given a fascinating story, one in which Chesterton seemed to be setting up for himself insurmountable difficulties and obstacles in terms of plot, but it felt as if all that had been a device to get my attention, to get me to listen to his religious message, which, it turned out in the end, was not that interesting anyway.

The Man Who Was Thursday is an extraordinary work of fiction. It's a comedy, a spy novel, an adventure story and a work of Christian apologetics all at once. It begins with a party in a London garden and ends with the face of God - with a nightmare of chase, horror and keystone cops in between. G. K. Chesterton is always good, but here he outdoes himself.

Set in Edwardian England about 1905, the plot ostensibly revolves around a cabal of anarchists (a turn of the 20th century movement of men who believed that chaos was better than order and used dynamite as their markup language). Our hero, the poet and police inspector Gabriel Syme, penetrates the ruling council of this anarchist ring whose members go by the names of the days of the week. Syme wins a place as Thursday and sets himself against the unholy evil of Sunday. Soon, however, he finds that nothing is what it seems to be and that he himself is the one pursued.

The real novel, beneath all the fun and horror, is a look into a basic mystery of existence: how can a benevolent God be reconciled with the chaos of uncaring nature and monstrous evil?

Chesterton handles these interesting themes with a light, but sure touch. Chesterton believes in good and evil. He's by no means a modern moral relativist. At the same time, however, he's showing us that good and evil are parts of the same dance, part of the same chaotic fervor of nature and that it's not for us to see their clear nature; only God sees through the veil of chaos.

You don't have to be religious to enjoy the book, it's OK even for an atheist to ponder the nature of God (in fact, it's required). Chesterton takes us right to the heart of his.

If only all Christian apologists were as eloquent and brilliant as Chesterton. He never hides the fact, he never uses silly rhetorical tricks to try to convince you, "See, you really believe in Christianity!" as so many do. I don't agree with Chesterton on much of anything, but he at least understands his opponent's attitude better than many more simple-minded religious conservatives. (He was, in fact, good friends with George Bernard Shaw.)

The book *is* a "nightmare"; this is what its subtitle states; despite what an earlier reviewer remarked, Chesterton himself, in the book's afterword, insists that it ought to be taken that way; more importantly that's the way the narrative itself appears. All the objects, people, and backgrounds are loaded with wierd supernatural significance. The narrator's fears and desires constantly distort the world he sees around him. Of particular interest is Chesterton's peculiar skill at making everything pregnant with meaning like this. Borges picked up on this skill, and put The Man Who Was Thursday in company with Moby Dick, Vathek, and Robert Louis Stevenson's horror writings. (An example: "It was as though, at the eastern edge of the world, there is a tree that is both more and les than a tree; or, at the western edge of the world, something, perhaps a tower, whose very shape is evil.")
This is only in the loosest sense a detective story; it starts out that way, but if you insist on looking for a "whodunnit" you will be disappointed. By the end it transforms into full-fledged Christian allegory. But it never seems like a easy cop-out, the way, say, the end of C. S. Lewis' Narnia books do. Chesterton's thesis, if one can call it that, is that even a nightmare about atheism, modernity, and anarchists still has some potential to transform itself into something profound and sacred. Whether you like that or not, he gives you an intellectual run for your money. Besides which the book is worth rereading for the prose alone. Chesterton, anti-modernist that he was, was also one of the best stylists of modernist literature.

I really enjoyed this book. I am an AS/400 programmer with 11 years experience and want to become more familiar with Windows programming. I started off with a Sam's Teach Yourself Visual C++ in 21 days (which I also liked) and followed up with this one. The authors presented the material in an easy to read and follow format. I only had two issues with the book. One, the authors would occasionally pull a function out of nowhere and use it with little or no explanation as to why. And two, I thought they dragged out the examples on drawing too long. I would have preferred more time spent on the database chapter rather than the drawing examples. But, overall an excellent book and I highly recommend it.

I recently decided to learn Visual C++ 6, after finding that there are some limitations to what can be done in Visual Basic. I have been trying to learn from tutorials etc. on the web but they always seem to be unfinished or not cover all of the important stuff. I am only 15 so I thought it was quite a challenge for me to try and learn this so called complex and confusing language. I had taken the foresight before reading this of learning the C++ language and think that that is a must before attempting this book, or Visual C++ at all.

After reading that book, I have a solid understanding of the Windows APIs and can use the MFCs reasonably confidently. I would still class myself as a beginner, but at least now I have a starting point and hopefully can pick-up the rest as I go along. Even after the first 10 pages, I could see that this book was well written and the information inside of it would be easy to take in and understand.

If for some reason you wish to contact me, then you may do so at r_hayden@breathemail.net.

This was by far the best.

Its relevent to Version 6.0, many of the others were talking about subjects that were related to Windows 3x etc.. eg they were the same old books with just the covers changed and really just repeating the Scribble Tutorial. The Authors really do act as guides throught the book and provide useful information for any beginner programmer such as myself. Also the book is set out in an easy to follow style that makes following the Author's instructions exceptionally easy, with a wide variety of samples to follow. The only downfall is a few typos in the printed sample codes. However with the CD on board they are easy to rectify .

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Visual C++.

(( I'm off to write 5 real bad reviews now ))

The book is pretty well structured and written for somebody having a little exposure to design. I personally felt I lost my time reading it since I already have some experience in design in another OO language. The book is definitely too much like a school text book. In particular, the chapter on database access with Java concentrates on relational db concepts instead of providing useful design and architectural hints on how to develop a multi tiers application using JDBC !

This is a witty, well-organized, thorougly researched and informative work. Not only do the authors do an excellent job of presenting the concepts of software design using solid OO techniques, their introduction to Java (in a chapter only somewhat facetiously titled "Teach Yourself Java in 21 Minutes") is almost certainly the most concise and understandable introduction to the language that I've seen.

Every chapter is focused and the flow of material is really excellent. I found myself, as someone who has had years of OO design and development experience, nodding my head repeatedly. And the end of each chapter contains a quiz, some suggested exercises, and a section on where to go for more depth on the subjects covered. As a result, this book would be outstanding for a college-level course or an informal workshop of Java developers who want to learn serious OO design and analysis.

I've been involved with OO Design for over 10 years, and thought I knew it all. This book is more than an excellent introduction to methodology for novice programmers - it's also an excellent reference for how to apply patterns in the real world using Java. This book packs an amazing amount of clear and concise material into a surprisingly cheap package. I'm sorry to say, I paid full price for it - and it was still a bargain. Everything from UML to Beans to RMI to Web development. Great book.

The book is not bad, easy to use for beginners. Some significant errors noted. The online part is if you want more problems or exercises. But the site is always down. I haven't been able to access it for sometime and no one responds when I email any possible SAMS contacts. So discount the web part if you want this book.

Programmers new to Java will develop a foundation to build on by reading this book and doing the exercises. Not as high brow as other "beginner" Java books (Just Java 2, Beginning Java 2). My only complaints are the numerous errors in the code examples, the written code in the book sometimes does not match the code on the CD. If you're like me you will consider debugging the compile errors as educational. Another note, don't use the JavaMatic IDE on the CD, it's quite poor but it is free. Downloading the KAWA demo is not a bad alternative.

Great book for the beginners. If you want to get hands-on experience, this is the one. You'll get some help with the problems by posting them in the discussions online, and other students will reply if they want, or you can look at the past discussions and responses that are helpful to you. One thing that needs authors' attention is that they should compile and create a Frequenly Asked Questions file and put its icon in in a corner of discussion panel, so the students don't have ask the similar questions over and over again.