If you have not read this book, you are not well enough informed on the subject(s), even if you are a seminary grad and/or Pastor. This book is a complete treatment of the histories and comparison's of Passover and Easter. If you are a spiritual leader in any position, absorbing this book will provide the only way for you to be confident you are leading your "flock" with an accurate, non-biased approach, especially during the Passover/Easter season every year.

If you design steel members and connections this book is an absolute necessity. It contains the standard AISC member properties, as well as standard specifications for connections. Most importantly, Vol I includes the complete LRFD design specification(s) (1993) along with 500 pages of detailed notes carefully explaining each section of the LRFD design method. I found the notes and design examples very useful, thorough and easy to follow in actual practice. AISC of course provides the same extensive design charts that were used in ASD, as well as expanded appendices for design practice and commentary for this "new" method. The only drawback is the typical supplement of errata for this printing.

This elegant and informative book is the perfect introduction to the concept of sustainability - the meaning of which is self-evident but a working and uniform definition elusive. Brief, highly readable, thought-provoking essays examine the world's food system ranging from global to regional issues from the points of views of producers, politicians, activists, chefs, scientists, and educators. An excellent publication and an excellent gift. I gave copies as Christmas presents last year.

If you've bought a water smoker and want to smoke things the long way (3-5 hours) this book is not for you. This book is 98% recipes and most are for things that take 20 minutes to an hour to cook. Out of the 420 pages or so, 34 deal with how to cook or other things related to smoking. The rest are recipes for everything from hot dogs to oysters. 123 pages are devoted to sauces and accompaniments (muffins, etc.).
This may be a great recipe book (and I'll find out), but I was disappointed that it didn't have more on smoking.

If there's no smoke, it ain't Q! This is probably the only book you will ever need to become a backyard pitmaster. These folks know the difference between Q and grilling and aren't afraid to let you know what that difference is! It is true that they don't hold your hands through every step of every recipe, but then again, a true artist can't work with someone holding his hand! (This is not a "For Dummies" book) This cooking style demands much patience, practice, innovation and adaptation....but boy is it worth it! As in anything else, once you get the fundamentals down, nothing can stop you! SMOKE & SPICE serves as a wonderful reference book, containing several recipes for basic rubs, sauces, and mops, which are easily modified to suit your tastes. If you want to go with an authentic regional style, this book will explain how. It covers everything from Texas brisket to a North Carolina pig-pickin'. So if you are truly serious about good outdoors cooking, you need to get this book. If you're still stuck in the hamburger and hotdog phase, stick with Raichlen.

After reading the book almost cover to cover, and then reading most of the reviews, I felt compelled to correct some misunderstandings. First. many of the complaints are from people wanting more instruction on "how to smoke". This is nonsense. There is no need for detailed instruction on how to smoke. What makes smoking a art and skill is being able to produce the right temperature in the smoker and this comes only from practice. Instructions on how much charcoal, wood, water, air, etc to use for each type of smoker, at every external temperature, etc. would look like statistics tables and be equally exciting. For this reason, the authors advise a temperature goal of about 200-220. With a five dollar thermometer and a little practice, anyone can figure it out.
Second, the smoking is a forgiving and inexact process, no matter what your experience level. Cooks used to following exact recipes so their soufle won't fall will always be frustrated by smoking. Smoking requires some monitoring and adaptation. I may have used X amount of charcoal one day, but on a colder day need more.
If you are willing to experiment, and have 5-10 hours then you are ready to smoke, and for everything else, this book is fantastic. If you are from the microwave culture, then you will probably be frustrated with the whole process and no book will save you. To reemphasize the most important point, if you have the aforementioned patience to try smoking, then this book is outstanding.

Too many Christians "feel" that the exercise of the mind is not important when it comes to the Christian faith. How wrong these believers are! In this day of easy-believism, where the intellect is forsaken for a spiritual diet of cotton candy and bon bons, it is refreshing to know that there are important Christian apologists who make it a point to write thinking pieces such as "Why I Am a Christian." Indeed, Jesus Himself said that we are to worship God with our whole heart, soul, MIND, and strength.

Although I don't remember seeing if the editors, Geisler and Hoffman, were attempting to respond to Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian," this book certainly serves as a lob back to the atheist's court. Included in the book are essays on truth, God, miracles, the Bible, Jesus, and evil and suffering. Taking some of the better apologists who have already written on the topic at hand, the book's top two strengths were:

* William Lane Craig's chapter 4 entitled "Why I believe God exists." Using the same arguments that he used in a Willow Creek debate against an atheist in the early 1990s--Kalam, Design, and the Moral arguments--Craig's chapter is solid and is a good reference to utilize when determining strong rational arguments for the Christian faith. I think the following chapter by Geisler was very redundant and not as clear as Craig's. It would have been good had the editor perhaps narrowed his chapter since he commissioned Craig to work with the cosmological and teleological arguments.

* Although he offered very little new material, Barry Leventhal's chapter on Jesus as the Messiah was enjoyable to read. The chapter was well-laid out, fully supported, and summarized its points better than perhaps any other chapter in the book.

The book's top two weaknesses were:

* Beckwith's look at moral relativism. He tries to pack too much into too short of a chapter, and though I admire the man for his brilliant mind, I think he needed more room to complete his thoughts. Geisler does an admirable job with the next chapter (Why I believe Truth is Real and Knowable), but I don't think this issue is still fully resolved with these two chapters. Rather, I would recommend Beckwith and Greg Koukl's book entitled Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air to get a better look at this important issue.

* Chapter 7 regarding the miracles of Jesus was pretty dull and was written with little life. It seemed like Habermas could have simplified his approach with this chapter. The next chapter on divine creation by Hugh Ross had some excellent tables incorporated in it, but truly it just seemed dry. Also, not everyone will agree with Ross' view of the age of the earth--nor with Walter Bradley, a Progressive Creationist who in chapter 10 says on page 168 that the earth is at least 4 billion years old--Ross' ideas about the world being designed would not be quibbled with by the theistic thinker. However, I could see some of the Young Earth folks become offended with these chapters, and I'm wondering if perhaps the other side should have also been represented with an issue that, while important, is peripheral to the essential Christian faith.

Overall, I would say that the book as a collection of essays is worthwhile for readers who like to think, but the average lay reader would probably be best served in looking for other avenues, including Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Kreeft) or When Skeptics Ask (Geisler).

This is a collection of articles (or chapters) from the top contemporary Christian apologists. The book is divided into 6 parts. Each 'part' deals with an issue such as Truth, God, Miracles, the Bible, Jesus, and Following Christ. Within each part is a chapter written by well known scholars/apologists such as William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, J. P. Moreland, Ravi Zacharias, Peter Kreeft, Winfried Corduan, Gary Habermas, Doug Geivett, Francis Beckwith, and the renown Law Professor at the University of Texas, J. Budziszewski (a professor of law who at one time used to be an atheist).

The chapters are detailed, highly referenced, well researched, and well written. Of course, this book is a basic apologetics tool/reference but is quite compatible to those who might already have this knowledge (due to the articles and the caliber of scholars writing) since it is always nice to refresh your data base on these issues. I would recommend this book to anyone who is searching for solid answers to objections or issues which have been raised in witnessing to non-believers or in discussions about the essential tenets of the Christian faith.

The book is 318 pages long and is a nice companion to works such as J.P. Moreland's "Scaling the Secular City," or William Lane Craig's "Reasonable Faith," or Norman Geisler's "Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics." I recommend this book whole heartily.

This collection represents the best essays on apologetics, a must read for any person serious on Christian faith. If one thinks that there are no new ideas from these essays, he/she might have overlooked that these essays are deep rooted in the rich apologetics tradition and built on previous scholarly research, so any reader can get a quick overview on what arguments have been put forth for the topic discussed. Having said that, the overviews are not overly simplified. They are really high quality review essays and intellectually stimulating. This book is a must unless you have read all the literature on apologetics written over the entire course human history.

The story of Max Factor as he rose from Russian immigrant to Hollywood royalty-the man who brought glamour to the stars and regular folks alike with the invention of pancake makeup, no fade lipstick and the idea that makeup should fit a woman's coloring. (He had rooms in his store for blondes, brownettes, brunettes and redheads-all color coded and enhanced to work with the skin tones of the women in each category!) The star of this book is definitely the photographs, however. Make-up test shots, his early years in Russia, wig making contraptions, print ads of the stars endorsing his products-the pictures tell a better story than the text!

Filled to the brim with glamour shots of some of the Western World's most beautiful women, this book shows us the man beind the mask, the incomparable Max Factor. Almost every shot is shown behind the scenes, how the look was created, etc. . .Truly a masterpiece work.

This is one book that combined it well! "Professional ADO.NET with VB.NET" is the text to grab, if you are a .NET programmer who wants to learn more about .NET data access technology.
The book has a consistent practical approach to issues. It is full of grounded information, which would ensure that programmers execute their tasks with unflinching confidence.
This book has a result-oriented outlook. Its authoritative analyses of cross-platform programming issues are flawless. All the important classes, (DataSets, DataAdapters, e.t.c.), which constitute ADO.NET received generous attention. However, all these expanded ADO.NET tutorials came at the expense of VB.NET, whose underlying parameters received little attention. Still, this is a valuable book to have.

This book is typical Wrox: it offers a comprehensive coverage of the subject in a very easy to follow fashion. It starts with several chapters covering the core ADO.NET classes - DataReaders, DataAdapters, DataSets. As the ADO.NET DataSet is a class with very rich features, this book discusses each facet of it - from the ADO Recordset-like generic disconnected in-memory data presentation with constraints, relationships to strongly typed DataSet, and finally to the built-in support of XML. The later chapters then introduces advanced features such as web services, SQL Server XML support, Performance, Security, etc.

A minor inconsistency is that some examples in the book use Console Application interface, while most others use Windows Application, perhaps reflecting the fact of this being a multi-author book. But as far as learning ADO.NET is concerned, this is really not a issue.

Oh, if you already owns its predecessor - Professional ADO.NET, which is written with C#, you might want to keep it and skip this one because it's mostly the same contents in different language (VB.NET). But if you haven't got either, it's definitely worth a very close look at this title.

In Hoffman's Three Babies and a Bargain, Professor Jillian Marshall convinces her sister, Roxane, that she can take care of her triplet toddlers while Roxane and her husband are on their second honeymoon. She is completely convinced that she could do better than Roxane because she understands that organization is the key to giving the children a structured existence. Nick Callahan is building shelves for Roxane and her husband as a favor for lending him their guest house for the summer. He comes to Jillian's rescue and basically spends the rest of the story bailing her out of disasters created by her own misguided devotion to organization.

Hoffman does a great job setting up a rapport between Nick and the triplets but she might have been better served developing a stronger one between him and Jillian. Nick's quick wit and generous sense of humor save the day as well as this story. The reader is never given the chance to warm up to Jillian because of her inflexibility as well as her calculated models on what disaster would strike next because of her ineptitude. Rather than truly learning from Nick how to care for the children, much of the story is spent witnessing her relying on him instead. Hoffman spends so much time focusing on Nick and Jillian creating a temporary family with the triplets that the story weakens when it comes to their own relationship.

In the story by Sandra Paul, Jessica Kendall is the operations officer of a Los Angeles bank who has been frequently targeted as being easy to rob due to the fact that five of their tellers are pregnant. Security adviser, Mitch Flaherty, takes action to prevent another robbery by implementing a number of new procedures and policies which irritates Jessica because she has to be the one to soothe and comfort the tellers who are trying to acclimate to the new rules. Though Jessica feels Mitch has usurped her authority, she tries to help for the sake of the bank and its tellers. Her innate tendency to nurture eventually extends to Mitch who wants to act on the attraction they feel for each other.

Paul's story is clearly the stronger of the two in terms of characterization. Both Mitch and Jessica are clearly defined by their actions as well as the secondary characters who rely on her and get to know him. Their relationship is clearly the focus of this story and though babies do play a role in this story, they only enhance their relationship rather than playing an integral role in the story.

If you're looking for a fun time, look no further than Duets #31. Sandra Paul is always a fabulous read and while Kate Hoffman was new to this reviewer I was not disappointed in her work either. Fast-paced, rib-tickling, you'll love this book if you love romantic comedies. Highly recommended.

This book might always have come across as a disjointed read (as it delves into four separate areas of mathematics) but it also suffers because these areas fail to hold the reader's attention. The four sections covered are number theory, shapes and topology, computer science, and the mathematics of voting.

Of the four, the number theory section is the most interesting, but a more in-depth and charming analysis of this area of mathematics can be found in Simon Singh's two books: Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book.

The chapter on computing machines is weakened by the fact that the book was published first in 1989 and consequently is rather dated.

Overall I would describe this book as a page-turner but only in the sense that I skipped pages to swiftly conclude certain chapters.

Most people have math-phobia, which is too bad, because math exhibits a certain beauty and perfection. The great thing about Paul Hoffman's "Archimedes' Revenge" is that he shows you the beauty and perfection without your having to be a math major to understand.

Moreover, for anyone who's wondered what use math is, Hoffman can answer that as well. Among the subjects covered are: cryptology (code making and code breaking), architecture, computer science, and political science.

The book is divided into a number of sections, ranging from number theory to topology to game theory. While these may sound like esoteric (and useless) concepts, Hoffman masterfully weaves in stories, such as the (in)famous Beale cipher, a secretly coded treasure map that has resisted all attempts to crack it for over 100 years.

I recommended to a colleague of mine that she buy this book for her teenage son, who is bright but a slacker. She reported that he raved about the book and was so eager to discuss it with her!

As an example of the sort of thing covered in this book, Hoffman describes a game where A, B, and C all have balloons and darts. A hits his target 80% of the time; B hits his target 60% of the time; and C hits his target 40% of the time. If each person attacks his strongest opponent, who wins most often? Surprisingly, the answer is C, because A and B concentrate their attacks on each other.

In summary, if you have math-phobia but would like to conquer it, this is a great place to start. There are no equations to speak of, just concepts explained in (relatively) plain English. It may take a couple of readings to understand it all, but it's definitely within grasp for those who progressed no farther than Algebra 2 in high school.

I found the book to be rather interesting, and not difficult to understand. A scientific or mathematical background is an added plus while reading the book. I felt that it got bogged down in some sections, but they were of little interest to me and skipping them did not hinder the overall effect of the book. Enjoyable light reading, for if you ever thought,"What the hell is math good for?". Good section on cryptology.

After hearing all the hype about Perl and seeing all the cool stuff people where doing with it on the Web I just had to learn it myself. I've had previous programming experience having taken a Pascal class in high school and I taught myself a little C from books, but I'm not what you would consider a serious programmer so that's why I chose to go with the For Dummies book. I sure am glad I did because after reading Perl For Dummies for the second time I wrote my first Perl program on my Linux machine that actually did something useful with the Internet. Unfortunately, my first program wasn't a CGI program because that's one of the areas this book falls short on. BUT, if you just want to learn straight Perl and are not all that great of a programmer like myself then definately buy this book because in no time you'll be joining the ranks of the Perl programmers.

Yes! Finally, the lightbulb went on! I'd been puttering along using the "Camel" book, but I just didn't get it. I read the "Dummies" book and now it all makes sense. It takes a clear approach to learning all the syntax. Now I can use the Camel book for reference and it doesn't look like Greek. I can program in Perl! And, most importantly, understand it!

I originally purchased the llama book, but I was forced to return it. I knew there must be a better book out there, and I was right. Perl 5 for dummies starts off with the simple stuff and gradually works its way into the more complex aspects of Perl. The organization is great, and the explanations are better. This book is a great platform to build on, but if you're interested in CGI, you'll be forced to buy another book.