This book is a collection of eight essays. The first seven are each written on the subject of one of the "deadly" sins of sloth, anger, lust, gluttony, pride, avarice and envy. The eight is on despair. Each of the famous authors ruminates on the sin, looking at it from his or her unique perspective.

Overall I found the essays well written, and the book to be easy to read. This book makes for some lightweight reading, short and simple, but without much substance. Overall, I don't recommend it.

Eight essays on Sloth, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Avarice, Envy, and Despair (yes that's 8 sins). To be honest I bought it because of Pynchon, (whose essay -if you are even a slight fan- makes the buy worth it) but read on to the back cover. I quickly discovered that these authors compiled around the topic of sins is a great way to see inside these writers styles and appraoch to a similar idea. Some I'd read before, and others introduced themselves in this novel. All were unique and interesting in their own right, especially for someone -me- who isn't terribly interested in sins. Highly reccomended!

Some of the questions contained in this book seem to come from other sources.

I also found that the questions were unclear, poorly phrased, and contained discrepancies.

There is some merit in reviewing this book before testing, but you would think that with all the contributors (9 being CISSPs), that the answers on the sample exam would be correct. Two of the first 100 questions (#67 and #97) of the sample exam are wrong and a handful of others were borderline. Even though they may have quoted other sources, being a CISSP, the authors should have known difference.

While studing for the CISSP exam, my time is best used for absorbing facts, not proofreading. I did not finish the sample exam for fear of committing errors to memory (my protection domain).

However, in all fairness, the questions segmented by domain appear to be of better quaility.

Full Disclosure: I've worked with all of the contributing authors of this book and consider them friends of mine. I also consider each of them consummate professionals who truly know their stuff.

This book is NOT for those who are just beginning their study for the CISSP exam. It IS for those who are nearly ready to take the exam and simply need to ensure that they have a complete understanding of the 10 domains and the types of questions likely to be on the exam. (One reviewer states that some of the questions are unclear... well, *perhaps* that is true, but then again so are the questions on the actual exam. The purpose of this book is to prepare you for that exam and I believe it closely mirrors what you are likely to see when you sit for the CISSP test... therefore, the book accomplishes it's goal very well indeed.)

This book does not replace books such as Shon Harris' excellent "CISSP All-In-One Exam Guide". Nor does it try to do so. Nor should it. Shon's book is excellent for those who need full disclosure of all of the information covered in the ten domains... those who are just beginning their CISSP study. This book is more of of a polisher for those who already know most of the material and just need to find (and plug) knowledge gaps... and for that purpose, it is nothing short of outstanding!

In short, I highly recommend this book. It is not for everyone and most will need to work up to it. But if your almost ready to take the CISSP exam, then you should definately go through the questions in this book first.

Keith Palmgren, CISSP

Mr. Howard's book concerns itself almost exclusively with the "who" "when" and "where" of efforts to cross the Sierras into or out of California -- just as the title suggests.

I have a couple of complaints about the book, one of which represents my own subjective preference about what I would have liked the book to cover, but the other represents a shortcoming I suspect most readers would regard as a serious oversight.

First, I would have liked the book to describe more about the "how" of crossing the Sierras. A few passages describe the efforts of early travelers who made their way up into and over the mountains, across streams, past boulders, up and down cliffs, and so on. But not many. I would have liked a fuller accounting of that process, as well as the mechanics, financing, and logistics of early road-building efforts. That was not, however, the purpose of Mr. Howard's book.

My other complaint is more general. Maps are almost non-existent in a book that relies upon knowing where geographic references are, both in an absolute sense and in relationship to one another. Some of the references are relatively obscure, even to native Californians. (Others have been obscured, literally, by subsequent development; towns and lakes have disappeared under man-made reservoirs.) The (two!) maps in the book are unhelpful; I was forced to keep a AAA map at hand for reference. Each chapter, discussing a different series of routes, really should have had a detailed map showing each geographic point mentioned in the text.

Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to the narrow audience interested in early California history, and who are likely to travel in and around the Sierras to follow some of these historic routes. The text is not as dry as it could be, and the material is presented in encyclopedic fashion, making it accessible when returning to it later for cross-reference.

The quality of pictures and diagrams were poor. More slide preparations should be displayed

This book started out extremely well, but the final two chapters left me with a negative impression of the text. The first five chapters are entitled: 1) Analyzing technology in an interactive environment, 2) Competition in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry today, 3) The foundations of the modern pharmaceutical industry, 4) Dynamic trends in the postwar era, 5) The structuring of the modern industry. If anything, the material presented in all five of these chapters is too condensed but very interesting.

The final two chapters are entitled: 6) Firm responses in a changing industry, 7) Forces in competition: past, present and future. The sixth chapter is awful, here the authors, both of them management researchers from different business colleges (neither with a background in science or medicine) analyzed nearly 20 years of inadequate data in a ridiculous way that was poorly presented. The seventh and final chapter was also disappointing. Someone should take the good material in this book as a template and write another book, especially in speculating about the future impact of biotechnology on the pharmaceutical industry. If I were you, I would get a good book on the history of the pharmaceutical industry, and make your own inferences about competitive forces.

I was one of the people that worked with Howard DeWitt on this book project and I loaned him access to my countless Elvis pictures and photos in exchange for a copy of this book which I never received. After reading the book, there are several typing errors, not to mention the fact that Howard seems to be his own Best Critic. Save your money on this dry and boring book and spend it on a good steak. Sincerely, Rockin' Robin

I was fontunate enough over the years to see Elvis in concert 72 times from Feb. 1970 through Dec. 1976 mostly in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, but also Oakland and San Francisco. Over the years Elvis began to remember who I was and one night in Las Vegas as the band started to play Polk Salad Annie, Elvis walked over to me and said "Rockin' Robin" and pointed down to me as he had given me a scarf earlier that evening. Oh sweet memories, so long ago. Over the years since 1988 I have been on several talk shows such as Geraldo, Oprah Winfrey, Joan Rivers and Vicki Lawrence and have consulted on several book projects related to Elvis and the continuing efforts to TCB in his memory.

Most of this thin book consists of quotations from various letters written by Grubb and his associates. While interesting in that respect, I feel the author failed to bring them all together into a story of the lives and work of these men. I sometimes had the distinct impression that the author does not understand the industry he is writing about. In any case I believe this book is certainly not worth the high price.

I found this book to be more of a so-called cultural study instead of the old-fashioned facts-and-chronologies accounts of history. The book is highly opinionated to the point where the events unfold along the lines of the author's opinion about the matter. I also found the book to be heavily slanted to the Left-wing way of thinking.

My son was required to read this book for his history studies at school, but I can't help but wonder if there is any good American history book that plainly tells the facts.