Looking forward to a family chronicle which would give the history of Venezuela in its pages, I was deeply disappointed. The first several chapters ramble on and on with the voice of Dona Ines talking to her husband and his illegimate son while mentioning the names of others unknown to this reader. It is confusing, disorienting and portrays her as crazily consumed with all the negative things in her past. Many pages had no paragraphs which provided no relief to the stream of disjointed memories. I did not find any saving grace to this work.

Once, I read this book at school (Valencia, Venezuela). Now I'm studying college (NM, USA) and I decided to write my outside reading report for Social Anthropology on this book. It's amazing the way Ana Teresa Torres describes 300 years of venezuelan history. I loved it!

Im ana's nephue i just want to say that this book is great it was used in my school for the 11th graders and it was just fabulous

Okay, Ms. Bastos must be an expert on this issue. This book indeed contains a lot of information. HOWEVER, her English [stinks]. Sentences don't make any sense at all, and it makes your mind numb from exhaustion just trying to read 5 pages. (Forget about a whole chapter.) I am writing a graduate paper on this subject, and have read quite a few books on IPRs. This one is by far the worst of all, just because she didn't get her English checked. "These conditions, which helped the establishment of the microcomputer industry, were, however, imcompatible with sustained development of the whole IT sector, which included a newly born software industry, and therefore, could not persist as justification for a long-term policy orientation." Can anyone make out what she is trying to say? I truly wish she had had a better editor, because this book could have helped a lot with my research on the Brazilian IPR regime. I've given up reading it so that I can preserve my brain cells to write my paper. It is such a shame.

This awsome title charts the journey of Arthur Dent across the galaxy in a golden spaceship. Illiterate's Anonymous gives this excellent satire on American satire by Thomas Pynchon 2 thums up.

This is a good, inexpensive book with basic information on how to set up a planted aquarium. I'd recommend this book in conjunction with Barry James' A Fishkeeper's Guide to Aquarium Plants. Although there are a few mistakes (photos of Riccia fluitan and Java moss have been switched), you can't beat the amount of info you get for the price.

If you are a non-scientific or beginner with aquatic plants, this is a terrific reference book for the price. You won't find anything this good for less than 20 bucks. It has excellent pictures so you can ID plants correctly. It has solid info on substrates, co2, and fertilizer. It is the most accurate cheap book on water conditions, ph, buffering, etc.

It also has crystal clear easy to understand explanations of complex things such as photosynthesis and respiration, biogenic decalcification, and iron use. It also has terrific clear info about how to recognize plant problems.

It clearly IDs the most popular species and these are outstanding pictures--much better than those most other and even more expensive books offer. And the writing and diagrams are absolutely fuss-free, clear and plain. A monkey could read this and grow a decent plant!

This will not be particularly useful to an experienced aquatic horticulturalist but it is hands-down the most accurate simple intro level book available.

If you are a botanist or water chemist, you'll be dissappointed, but for the average person trying to grow some decent plants in his or her tank, wow. It's fanatastic! And a great bargain. For 30-40 more you could get great books by Teepot and Walstaad, but this slim volume is essential for the beginner.

Please excuse me, I'm about to gush. If you are just going to buy one book, and you have [little] to spend, buy this one. (If you have unlimited funds, buy this one plus Aquarium Plants by Christel Kasselmann).

As the planted aquarium chairman at our aquarium club, I get a lot of questions. The answers to most of them are in this book. It is a great beginner reference, but be sure to go back and reread it after you've been in the hobby for six months, because you'll learn a lot more about pruning, aquascaping, trimming, etc.

Just buy it!