I bought this book to learn more about one of my favorite musicians. Instead, this book simply provides random quote after quote. I didn't learn anything from this book that I didn't know before, it provided very little insight into the artist himself. It was also very short (only 95 pages). Hardly enough to describe anything in detail. One plus though, were the photos. Seeing pictures of Peter Gabriel in concert was a great quality of the book. If you want a light read about a great musician, then this is the book for you. If you really want to learn something about the artist himself, look elsewhere.

In this book, Peter Gabriel talks about everything from his childhood experiences, musical influences, the inspirations for his music and gives the meanings to his music and songs. An all-round excellent book for those interested in music, world music, and musical advances or even the man himself

Ghost stories, in spite of their association with tales of terror (almost any scary tale told around a campfire is referred to as a "ghost story"), have lost much of their luster in the days since Poe and LeFanu. With the occasional exception of a work like Shirley Jackson's The Haunting or Stephen King's The Shining , few modern ghost and haunting stories are scary, and even fewer, frankly, are good. Peter Crowther, in his latest anthology, Taps and Sighs , has assembled a host of top-notch authors to reinvent the ghost story, and for the most part, he has succeeded.

Most of the authors in this anthology recognize that ghosts aren't that frightening in this day and age, so instead of an anthology of half-rate horror, this is actually a mixture of subtle horror and mythic fiction. Richard Christian Matheson and Michael Marshall Smith set the tone with the opening tales. Matheson's "City of Dreams" is a tale of horror, not because anything nasty happens to the protagonist, but because the best of intentions lead to true tragedy. And Smith's "Charms" is a touching (but not sentimental) tale of urban fantasy that could fit well among Charles de Lint's Newford tales.

Speaking of de Lint, he provides one of the two most pleasant surprises in the collection, as his "The Words that Remain," a twist on a classic urban legend, not only is sweet, but is a rare Newford tale that doesn't require the reader to be familiar with ten years of backstory. Setting the tale outside of Newford, and getting rid of the alternating first and third-person narration that had bogged down so many previous Newford tales has led to the most enjoyable de Lint story in ages.

The other surprise is Ray Garton's "The Homeless Couple," quite possibly the best piece of fiction Garton has ever written. Like de Lint, Garton's ending is utterly predictable, but the road he takes in getting there, and the parallel tragic lives of the protagonist (who morphs, over the course of 20 pages, from an unsympathetic archetype into a truly sympathetic hero). Garton, normally one of the best at telling novels of terror, makes a wonderful shift this time.

The actual tales of terror in this collection are no less impressive. The always-amazing Graham Joyce, in "Candia," provides his own nasty little tale of folks trapped in their own personal hells. Ian McDonald and Mark Morris take the same twist in two different, but equally horrific, directions. And Terry Lamsley's "His Very Own Spatchen" is a fun little tribute to the classic DC House of Mystery comics.

The cream of the horror crop is Gene Wolfe's "The Walking Sticks," a tale that presents as untrustworthy a narrator as in any Edgar Allan Poe tale. Wolfe's tale nicely mixes personal madness with ancient hauntings. Like Garton's story, expect to find this one reprinted in any number of "Year's Best" collections next year.

There are a few stumbling blocks. The McDonald and Morris stories, given their similarities, really should have been placed far apart, not next to each other. Ramsey Campbell's "Return Journey" is almost deliberately bad (the only horror being the reading experience itself), and Poppy Z. Brite's "Nailed," although completely readable, simply fails to break any new ground (a bit of a disappointment from such a consistently groundbreaking author). Still, Crowther (who contributes a very nice story with Tracy Knight) has assembled some great authors, and Taps and Sighs , added to his earlier Touch Wood and Dante's Disciples , establishes Crowther as one of today's top editors.

In Douglas E. Winter's introduction, he qoutes a poem about the sounds a ghost makes...tappin and sighing, hence the title. Like nearly all anthologies their are some good stories, some bad stories, some horrible stories and, gratefully, some top of the line stories. This collection is about 25% of each. The bad and horrible stories, however are outweighed by the good and great ones.

I found that I championed the more Twilight Zone/trick ending stories over the more experimental ones. An example of this is Thomas F. Monteleone's contribution, "The Prisoner's Tale, versus Graham Joyce's "Candia". Monteleone excellently delivers a straight ahead tale of one prisoner's chance at freedom. Joyce just delivers a confusing nonlateral tale of deja vu.

Poppy Z. Brite shows why she is a favorite among the horror sect in "Nailed". A revenge tale with some voodoo thrown in is precise and perfectly laid out and ended. In Ramsey Campbell's "Return Journey", we get a time travelling train that is convuluted and unclear.

Graham Masterton gives us a look at what happens to the past if you dare forget it in the terrific, "Spirits of the Age". ; scary as well as thought-provoking is Ray Garton's "The Homeless Couple" where a man who ignores cries for help from people in need in turns needs help. Ed Gorman's "Ghosts" is a tale of caution about reprucussions.

All in all a recommended collection of differring takes on ghost mythology.

This is a very good book for newcomers to the fields of video compression and networking, covering the basics of Broadband ISDN, ATM and MPEG-2. Ideas are very clearly explained, although the book doesn't go into a lot of technical detail.

These RFCs are *THE* source material for IPv6 addressing, and Peter Salus has collected all the relevant ones here. Also included are some chapters about topics you simply won't find anywhere else--and a killer index (though the introduction sheds no light on why the included RFCs were chosen).

If you're interested in IPv6 addressing, this is the book to buy.

The 'Calyx' anthology is a good introduction to 30 Australian poets writing today. The selections are generous and well-chosen, and will encourage readers to explore the work of those included.

Anthologies are a problematic medium- important writers are inevitably left out- but the editors are careful not to be exclusivist in their introduction. Much of this poetry is exciting and experimental, young writers are included- a great read.

I believe that the best lessons in e-commerce can be learned from others. In this selection of case histories by a group of a group of professors from Western Ontario, various aspects of e-commerce stories are covered. Both product and service stories as well as ISPs, payment methods and other categories are a good start on the many good commerce ventures that have broken ground. The cases are covered in a good, logical fashion, well written and well illustrated. I only wish that they had included more about mistakes made, as well as risks and rewards of the business in general

With the Disney animated movie as inspiration for this story and illustrations, lonely Quasimodo, with only a trio of "Three Stooges"- like gargoyles for company, rescues a kitten, who becomes his friend. When he sees the sad little girl who lost the kitten, Quasimodo does what a real friend would do, despite the sacrifice to himself. Of course, there`s nothing like this in the Hugo classic, but it stands on its own as a warm children`s story.

This book explores the narrator's mother's death - the second half being narrated by the dead mother. Interspered between the narrative segments are quotations from a wide variety of literary sources. In the narrative segments, especially those of the mother, dreams and "reality" are intertwined. The book deserves multiple readings to fully appreciate its content but is certainly enjoyable as a single read.

Note: since there is no description of the book this is translated from Hungarian and is part of a larger work.

Australian farmer Michael Keenan hits hard times on his farm in New South Wales and heads off to western Queensland with his cattle. A grand tale of life on the land, horses, cattle and people who live a life so different from our comfortable city existance. I loved this book for its earthy hardships and at one point its gripping high drama, Michaels persicution by 'the wild bunch'. A great read by a first time author that left me pleased there are still places in modern day Australia untouched by popular culture.

The story of Vancouver's voyage to the Pacific North West is one of much hardship, persistance and determination. John Naish tells the story of the voyage by cross referencing the journals and diaries of four of the key players in this expedition. Taken individualy the journals are a great read themselves but when used to collaborate or just to fill in blanks it results in a very pleasant read. It takes the reader into the world of 1791-1795 in such a way that we can forget, briefly, what we have today and imagine the world during the times of the French Revolution and the emergence of America as a nation.