The Concurrency Control and Recovery in Database Systems, by Bernstein, Hadzilacos and Goodman is the jewel for the Theory of Transaction Management and Concurrency Control in Database Systems. Despite of the fact that it is out of print (the last edition going back to 1987), it is still consider up to date and the best source for important aspects of the implementation of the transaction manager of a DBMS such as: - Transaction design -- query formulation, isolation, degree desired, and transaction length - Serializabilty -- criterion for serializability, serialization graph, serialization order - Atomicity -- avoiding dirty reads, repeatable reads, phantom reads - Concurrency control -- two phase locking, resource & data contention, thrashing, detect deadlocks, intention locks, deadlock avoidance protocols, other concurrency control mechanisms - Recovery -- tolerating failures and guaranteeing atomicity, quantitative conclusions

Again, I would recommend this textbook to anyone who interests in the theory of Database Systems in general and at the Theory of Transaction Management in particular.

Regards, Prof. Sarbanes C U N Y Queens College

P.S. : I am looking for adopting this book for my database course for the Fall 2000, but I can NOT find this text book easily. Any help for this matter, would be greatly appreciated.

in Goodman's "Anthology" series, perhaps because it discusses a holiday that many Jews don't know that much about. Before reading this book, for example, I never knew much about how Shavuout is celebrated in other lands (I was especially surprised when I read about the Kurdish custom of engaging in mock battles on that day) or about the custom of decorating homes and synagogues with greenery.

Every so often we need to refresh our memory of the bad things that happened in our lifetime. That is why I read books about the Holocaust. It is also why I read this book, telling of what Mississippi was like for black people in the early 1960s. The murder of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney on June 21, 1964, is a defining event in the struggle to bring Mississippi to greater respect for the basic liberties guaranteed to Americans. This book tells the story in some detail, and also covers other events leading up to the murders. And there are some pages telling what has happened since (up to 1988, when the book was published). Very worthwhile and carefully done.

I found my hardcover copy of this book at a garage sale many years ago for -- dare I say it? --- only 25 cents. Well, their loss was my gain, because it's a FANTASTIC collection of inspirational materials about Yom Kippur, ranging from biblical and talmudic references on how to observe the holy day, to prayers, anecdotes, essays, excerpts, and fiction by such authors as Leo Baeck, Abraham Isaac Kook, Max Artzt, Louis Jacobs, Franz Rosezweig, Herman Wouk, Nahum Glatzer, Israel Zangwill, David Kranzler, Isaac Peretz, Rabbi Soloveichik, Ruth Brin, Martin Buber, and a host of others. Nowhere else can you find so many wonderful insights about Yom Kippur by so many great authors, all between the covers of one book!

Especially interesting to me was the chapter, "Yom Kippur in Many Lands," where you can read about how this day is (or was, in some cases) observed among Jews in Lybia, Ethiopia, India, Persia, Old Russia, the London Ghetto, the Warsaw Ghetto, the Dachau concentration camp, among soldiers in Korea and Vietnam, etc. Any one of these stories will inspire you to deepen yoour own Yom Kippur experience. This book is a priceless treasure that you will return to again and again for years to come.

The discovery of a "new" book of H. L. Mencken's writing is always a special pleasure for those of us who love the old grouch and his work. This particular book, however, is something of an oddity. Anyone who has read much Mencken will be familliar with the style; from the scurrilous asides he liked to sprinkle into his narratives. In his published writing they served as a condiment, adding a scandalous spice to accounts of Political Conventions and the like. Here they are the whole meal, and it can become something of a muchness.

The subtitle "The Whimsical Letters..." is somewhat misleading. Whimsy has overtones of gentility, like two little old ladies exchanging stories about the faries that live in their gardens. Here we have two old so and so's raking up scandal in the "Old Neighborhood"; indulging in vulgarity, innuendo, and (had the subjects of their discourse been real) slander.

Fans of Mencken (and, presumably, of Goodman) will probably enjoy the book, although it is not a new Newspaper Days or Prejudices. Non fans should probably avoid it until they are familliar with Mencken and his world. This is not a good introduction.

A beautiful book, nicely edited with notes so that you can get the obscure references, and funny--nay, uproarious--impromtu tall tales. Mencken and Goodman knowingly comment on the goings-on of all-too-human folk, with Olympian and sunlit wit and detachment. If you like to read Mencken, don't miss this one.

Following the quality standard set by the Radiology Requisites Series, this revised version of the original publication presents the radiographic evaluation of the gastrointestinal system in a time-efficient, yet comprehensive manner. It certainly prepares the groundwork for more detailed texts. The book is divided in eight chapters of moderate length and plenty of images to help solidify concepts. Although gastrointestinal radiology may not be one of the most sought out themes by the radiology residents, this book makes it an enjoyable experience.

The Director of Central Intelligence now serving refuses to accept the word "reform" and persists in the traditionalist view that only incremental change is needed within the U.S. Intelligence Community. This book, by a very respected team of private sector authorities with experience in the business of intelligence opens by noting that "informed opinion overwhelmingly holds that many of the important questions about the intelligence agencies have yet to be addressed." Their book, and mine, and the books coming out this year by Greg Treverton, the team of Bruce Berkowitz and Allan Goodman, and a group of ten authors including Mel Goodman and Bob White, are part of the responsible effort from the private sector to get the incoming President and the incoming Congress to finally accept their own responsibility for engaging these issues and legislating reform that will never come from within the U.S. Intelligence Community if it is left to its own devices and inclinations.