This sourcebook for great theology has helped me to understand the historical dynamics at work for the last two hundred years. Simple in format but not in the subjects tackled, it covers the minds that daily affect our worship. My only criticism is that too many subjects are included: a little more depth on major topics would make it even better. The sources are chosen with God in mind, and are an acomplishment in expression for the Christian faith. An excellent read, praise of Jesus Christ is throughout.

This book gives an excellent overview of reformed theological thought from its inception in the 16th century to the 18th century. I have nothing but praise for the editors' selection of works which ranges from the well known theologians such as John Calvin to the lesser known but equally important theologians such as Turretin. The selection of the works are also well balanced by not giving too much emphasis on any particular reformed theologian.

The editors are to be commended for organizing the book around the main themes of reformed thought and for the excellent introductory essay on reformed theology at the begining of the book. I believe this is a great help for those who are just begining to explore reformed theology.

Definitely a must-book for anyone who have an interest in reformed theology.

What some cynics will have you believe is that everyone is a little quirky, and that you should just accept that. Personally, I think that's a laugh. It's true ignorance shining through. The unwillingness to have an open mind and truly accept that there just might be biological reasons for behavior.

I began reading about anxiety disorders years ago, because my wife was having true panic attacks. When my son was born 7 years ago, we knew we would have to keep an eye on him. Now, as a first grader, we're seeing signs of behavior that don't make sense. They aren't just as simple to brush off as saying "he's just being a boy". So I've been reading more about bipolar, ADHD, ADD, and other conditions.

In reading about some of the mental disorders, I was intrigued by the recent acknowledgement of adult ADD. I read the symptoms, and had to face the cold reality that they really fit me. I'm 41 years old with a BA, MS and I'm halfway through my MBA. I've done well in my career and I've been married for 13 years to the same person. By all rights, I'm pretty normal. But I have always been a terrible procrastinator. I've read books on the subject and tried...REALLY tried...to help myself get organized and on track. Nothing I've ever done has helped. As an example, I had a report to write for work last fall. The CEO wanted me to do this. I knew what needed to be done. I knew how to get the research. I knew what the final presentation should look like. I had 5 weeks to prepare. I would sit at my desk, tell myself I wasn't going to get up until I had a good chunk of it done...and then surf the internet. Or work on another project. Or enter addresses in my Palm Pilot. I was distracted by every noise, every conversation in the hallway...even though I had a financial stake in the outcome (my job!).

These things happen all the time, and they have for over 25 years. I've always said they're just part of my personality. A reviewer below wants you to believe that this book is worthless. I can tell you from first hand experience, this book has helped me understand that there may be a biological answer to what I thought was "just my personality". I believe, as one of the authors states, that it is my duty as a husband and father to explore the possibility that I have ADD in a mild form, and seek treatment. If that means I take a pill, so be it. I take a pill for my cholesterol, wear contacts for my eyes, so why wouldn't I treat this as I treat those other bio-conditions?

If you think, just maybe, that you have a hint of one of these conditions, spend the bucks and the hours and read this book. Those of us with "shadow symptoms" are less likely to get diagnosed, because we're not as obvious. We need to help ourselves a little. Ignore the skeptics and cynics...make the decision yourself.

I heard John Ratey speak at a conference on ADD, and had to read this book. He provides fascinating insight into the brain and the origins of mental health disorders. When you read this book you may recognize yourself or other people in your life. Little quirks in personality will suddenly make sense to you. Addictions may be better understood as self-medicating as he explains the effects drugs have on different areas of the brain.
If you are at all interested in mental health issues, you have to read this book. It could change your perception of mental illness.

Especially if you live with engineers or computer nerds. Find out what makes them tick--or tock! They are different, for good reasons.

Try: a little bit of Autism?

We ALL are different, for good reasons!

Find YOUR reason!

A little depression, a little obsessive-compulsive disorder, a little hypomania (which sounds like a lot of fun!)

And what to do about it--if anything.

Extremely interesting, eye-opening!

Could save many foundering friendships and marriages.

This book provides an excellent introduction to ASP.NET and would make a good text for a ASP.NET101 class. It assumes no prior knowledge of ASP. It assumes no prior knowledge of any programming language. It does not make use of the VS IDE. There were 13 authors plus 4 other contributors, even though only 7 persons are included in the photo printed on the cover (I wonder who got left out). However, the editor and technical reviewers did a good job of bringing all the material together and providing a remarkable degree of consistency. Some others found the style to be choppy. I thought it was fine because of the disjointed nature of the topics. Each chapter is pretty much independent of the other chapters (see the list of chapters at the end of this review).

A reader should finish this book with a basic understanding of C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, OOP, Event-driven programming, data structures, components, assemblies, custom controls, error handling, debugging, web services, and security. Highly recommended for someone starting from scratch -- or with only a brief introduction to programming. Someone with programming experience will find about one-fourth of the book to be too basic. Someone with prior experience using an OOP language will find about one-third of the book to be material they already know. Still, it provides a useful introduction to ASP.NET; especially in regard to the structure of ASP.NET and the use of server side controls. Many bits of wisdom can be found throughout the book -- such as on Page 141, "DataStart and DateEnd are better than StartDate and EndDate, as these two related methods will then come next to each other in an alphabetically sorted search."

The Index is 28 pages and very useful.

Here are the chapters:

1) Getting Started with ASP.NET.
2) Anatomy of a ASP.NET Page
3) Forms and HTML Server Controls
4) Storing Information in C#
5) Introducing XML
6) Control Structures and Procedure Programming
7) Even-driven Programming and Postback
8) Introduction to Objects
9) Shared Members and Class Relationships
10) Objects in ASP.NET
11) Objects and Structured Data
12) Reading from Data Sources
13) Manipulating Data Sources
14) ASP.NET Server Controls
15) Reusable Code for ASP.NET
16) .NET Assemblies and Custom Controls
17) Debugging and Error Handling
18) Web Services
19) Configuration and Optimization
20) ASP.NET Security

Jim Holloman
Atlanta, GA
...

I was hoping to get an insight on ASP.NET when I purchased this product, as an experienced developer I would say that this book is too basic for me. This book can be great for a beginners who are just getting into making websites dynamically.

One thing I found somewhat bothering was the fact that it's quite jumpy. In some parts of the book there are portions that say "we will get to this on chapter blah" and what bothered me was that the concept was used in previous examples. An average reader, in my opinion, would want to examine the code and see how it works. The likely chance that he/she will read through the other chapters and look back is less than likely. More than likely they will get confused if they tried to jump through some sections to understand this certain porton. For example, in one of the first 3 chapters they used IF statements in the examples to explain some of the Radio Buttons Functionality. Now someone who doesn't know C# out of the bat will be confused!

Read this book for an overview only...

Excellent resource for all ASP.NET AND C# beginners. as well as a quick reference for C# and some ASP.NET basic configuration. These guys did a great job in putting together a logical sequence of chapters that will help the reader successfully learn to code basic ASP.NET web pages using C#. I especially like the general overview of the C# language and Object Oriented programming.

Know what you are buying, because some readers commented it was "A bit too basic" and that is probably a technically correct statement however relative to your level of expectation.

I used it to first phase into ASP.NET for which it was extremely helpful. Later in the development cycle of my initial application the book lost its use but I keep coming back to it for quick reference.

A must for anyone coming from a classic ASP development environment into ASP.NET, C# and Object Oriented Programming. Worth every penny.

HEAVEN, the 1999 Coretta Scott King Award book, is a first-person narrative centered on the idea or theme that just as some truths in life may bring a sense of sorrow and loss, they can also turn those painful feelings and emotion into real joy, hope, and acceptance. When main character, Marley, discovers that she's adopted, knowing what to do with that truth becomes the real issue of the story. For 12 years, Marley has lived in Heaven, OH with two doting parents, a quirky but lovable brother, good friends and neighbors that she adores. Now, it seems that her life up to this point has been one big fat lie! Even though she lacks trust in her adoptive family now that she knows the truth, it will be their continued love and support which wins her over and helps her to finally find the answers she so desperately needs to know about her life.

I believe what makes this book so interesting to read is that it presents Marley's family, filled with deception and lies, as paradise. While the most troubled family in the story is "picture perfect" and free of deceit. The plot is idyllic and often dreamy with punches of reality mixed in as everyone's deceptions unravel. Even though this story is not as compelling as Ms. Johnson's 1994 Coretta Scott Award winning book, TONING THE SWEEP, it is still a moving story that handles the topic of adoption with graceful sensitivity.

I think this is a very interesting book because the story ends up being something that you never would have thought. As I read the title "Heaven" I didn't think it would be the name of a town. I thought more of a wonderful place to go. I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to my friends.

I liked this book and would recommend it to anyone that likes comedy, drama, and some sad parts all in the same book. It isn't to long, but not real short. I would recommend this book to mostly pre-teens and younger teens. It may be a little hard for younger kids, but anyone older would probably like it.

Soble and Johnson are both reporters for the Los Angeles Times. The latter fact shines through in this book, which is nothing more than an extended newspaper article on the tragic and wildly infamous Menendez murders. There is no new information here: it was all dragged out at the trial, which was covered in it's entirety by Court TV ("Gavel to Gavel coverage" is, after all, their motto). What's more, the menendez trial was one of the first truly sensational ones COURT TV ever covered. It is clear that almost all of the information, from the beginning to the end of the book, was taken from the trial transcript. All of the background information on the Menendez family, the anecdotes including the Menendez children and Jose Menendez's much publicized infidelities are all a result of a careful reading of the trial transcript. The only significant background information provided is that of Jose's rise to the top of his business (whichever it may have been: car rentals, music publishing or video sales) and a detailed accounting of the Menendez's boys travels through the ranks of competitive tennis (as well as the fact that Kitty was "Miss Oak Lawn"). For people who did not follow the trial and are hungry for Menendez information, this can be a good book to read, because it is a fuller portrait of the trial and the family than, say, "Bad Blood" by Don Davis. But do not expect an original analysis of the boy's motivation. This book is purely reporting: facts, facts, facts. The only scenarios you will get here are those that were presented at the trial and surfaced during the police investigation (which is also amply covered): both of which were interesting enough in the first place to keep this book afloat. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that most fans of the true crime genre will appreciate this book, but it will be more out of a desire to learn more about the case and because of the dynamics of this genre, than out of an intensity for the story developed by the book.

Good, more information then 'Bad Blood: The true story behind the Menendez killings'. Informative if looking for more of an inside view of the first trial and Jose Menendezes' rise to the top. But, like another reviewer stated, its just a drawn out version of the trial transcript. Leaves you with enough facts to decide for yourself if you believe these boys defense. When you read it, it sounds like a script version of the movie, 'Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills'. If you saw Court TV's live coverage of the trial, and the movie's they made you'll basically have read the book.

Soble & Johnson are fabulous writers, leaving one "chilled" after a brief read of the Preface alone. In addition to their powerful prose, the authors provide a very equalized, thorough discussion of Erik and Lyle Menendez and the events leading up to their parents' slaying. Though one gets the feeling that they harbored little sympathy for the brothers, the authors' portrayal of "both sides of the story" -- from Erik's recounted sexual abuse to Lyle's statement that it was not about "manslaughter or life sentences" but about "winning or losing" -- allows the reader to do what in the end 3 juries had to do: decide just which story one believes.

John Wooden is an amazing person. So much can be learned from the man. In that light, this is an intersting book. Since the "author" obviously can't write (His intro is painful proof of that), he took the smart approach of conducting interviews and then collecting them all in this book. The approach gives a multi-dimensional look at this amazing person.

For that much, I recommend the book.

On the other hand, the execution of the book itself is a complete embarassement. Rinky dinky type setting and spelling errors literally every other page are a joke. How could the people behind this book release it with so many spelling errors? It's worse than a fourth grade paper. One gets the feeling that the author is totally disorganized, couldn't get his act together, and then finally pushed this product out the door on his own dime. To make matters worse, he's a lawyer.

Well, we shouldn't be too hard of the guy. He did deliver an interesting tome - and we'll forgive him for representing the reprehensible Yoko Ono.

A grand spanking good time

Frankly, I have no idea how many people are both willing and able to read more than 500 pages about a retired basketball coach. So, at the outset, permit me to suggest that the length of this book becomes relevant only if you have no interest in human greatness. Yes, Wooden was probably the greatest basketball coach (if not the greatest coach) who ever lived but, for me, he is infinitely more interesting as a fellow human being, albeit one who possesses exceptional qualities of character. His "Pyramid of Success" is only secondarily a "guide" to success in athletic competition. Its greater value (as his former players unanimously attest) is derived from its relevance to virtually all areas of human experience. Johnson organizes his material within seven chapters:

John Wooden's Legendary Achievements

Biography of John Wooden

The Official Pyramid of Success Lecture

Opening Interview with John Wooden

Woodenisms, Maxisms, and Poems

Interviews, Reflections, and Comments

Closing Interviews with John Wooden

For me, the interviews are most interesting. Almost all of the names of those interviewed are unfamiliar to me but throughout their observations, there are recurrent themes: Wooden was kind and thoughtful but a strict disciplinarian, prepared for each practice as well as for each game with meticulous care, was highly competitive, had non-negotiable personal values, was most proud of his role as a teacher, viewed unsportsmanlike conduct with contempt, and never EVER offered an alibi after a rare defeat. Most people do not know that he was an outstanding high school and college player, and, that he toiled in anonymity at U.C.L.A. for many years before his teams began to win national championships.

Many years ago while I was head coach of the varsity basketball team at a New England boarding school, I attended a clinic in Boston. Coach Wooden was the featured speaker. After dinner with friends, I returned to my hotel and saw him seated alone in the coffee shop. I approached him, introduced myself, and thanked him for all I learned from his presentation. He invited me to join him and then, for about 30 minutes, asked me about my team, our competition, and what my basic strategies were for offense and defense. I indicated that I was having some problems with the full-court zone press. He used several napkins to diagram a solution to the problems. I thanked him, we shook hands, and I went up to my room. Two weeks later, I received in the mail a handwritten note from him wishing our team well, accompanied by a single sheet on which "The Pyramid of Power" was illustrated.

John Wooden was a great human being long before his teams at U.C.L.A. began to win national championships and he remains a great man in the years following his retirement. No doubt age has taken its toll on his body but, as recent television interviews suggest, his mind is as sharp as ever. Also unchanged is his heart, one which is filled with love for basketball, of course, but all also for all the people whose lives he has touched (and whose lives have touched his) along the way.

This book isn't primarily about coaching basketball although, for those of us who love the game, it provides an abundance of information otherwise unavailable. Rather, it is about an extraordinary man who has always been an avid student and, in the best sense of the word, continues to be an outstanding teacher. He has nourished so many other lives. This book affords the unique opportunity to have him nourish yours.

I've been alone with you inside my mind And in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times I sometimes see you pass outside my door

Hello, is it me you're looking for? I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in your smile You're all I've ever wanted and my arms are open wide 'Cause you know just what to say and you know just what to do And I want to tell you so much, I love you

I long to see the sunlight in your hair And tell you time and time again, how much I care

Sometimes I feel my heart will overflow

Hello, I've just got to let you know 'Cause I wonder where you are and I wonder what you do Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart for I haven't got a clue But let me start by saying, I love you

Hello, is it me you're looking for? 'Cause I wonder where you are and I wonder what you do Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart for I haven't got a clue But let me start by saying, I love you

John Eaton holds a doctorate in psychology and is a senior partner of Coaching solutions. They provide coaching and cultural change programs for managers and directors. Roy Johnson has extensive senior management experience and runs Pace, an award-winning training company. Together they also have written Business Applications of NLP.

If you want to learn all you need to know about helping people to achieve their full potential, then you will enjoy Coaching Successfully. This book will show you how to motivate others, promote initiative and help others to take responsibility.

Your coaching style will need to be adapted when dealing with a group and you will also enjoy reading about how to overcome negativity. There are power tips throughout the book which help you to handle real-life situations and increase your effectiveness.

In today's business environment, e-mail can also be used for coaching, however they advise you not to use it for "personal" coaching. At the end of the book, you can evaluate your own coaching skills.

"Raise your expectations and ask people to live up to them." -pg. 62 "Allow people to learn from their own mistakes." -pg. 63 "Motivate staff by linking their personal goals to the company's aims." -pg. 20

These power tips are very useful and there are so many great ideas contained in this mini book. It won't take a long time to read, but you will be able to be a more positive influence on others and will know how to bring out the best in those you work with.

I truly would like to recommend "Sacrificed Sheriff" more strongly. It provides a wealth of factual information about John Behan, the Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, when the city of Tombstone reached its pinnacle of fame as the site of the so-called Gunfight at the OK Corral and the surrounding events. Behan's reputation, as Bob Alexander vehemently protests, has long been assailed through innuendo and an unfairly selective use of evidence, painting him as a weak and corrupt opponent of Wyatt Earp and his brothers. In Alexander, Behan has at last found a very sympathetic biographer, perhaps a biographer too sympathetic to objectively view the historical questions involved. While Alexander repeatedly (and rightly) protests the negative assumptions and interpretations of evidence used in the past against Sheriff Behan by various writers, Alexander himself falls into the same trap, seemingly never missing an opportunity to paint Wyatt Earp in the darkest colors, repeating sketchy rumors and always promoting the most negative answer to any question.

I confess a particular personal aversion to some stylistic choices made by Alexander, most notably the lavish use of italicized words and exclamation points throughout his text. Reading this, I could not help but feel that the author is displaying an unseemly indignant petulance not at all appropriate for anyone attempting an objective history. In the end, I think that Mr. Alexander has eroded the effectiveness of his own book by such devices and through a blatant display of partisanship in his unceasing attacks upon Wyatt Earp at every opportunity (extending to creating such opportunities even where the narrative text about Behan, supposedly the focus of the book, does not logically involve Earp at all). At times, Alexander seems to confuse the opinions of earlier authors of an "anti-Earp" bent with actual evidence, citing with relish almost anything unflattering ever written about the man whom popular history has chosen, instead of Sheriff Behan, to be at the center of Tombstone's story. I believe that "Sacrificed Sheriff" would have benefited greatly from a strong editor who would have toned down Mr. Alexander's all too evident antipathy towards Wyatt Earp and kept the book's focus more clearly on its supposed central subject.

Do I encourage persons interested in the controversies surrounding Tombstone in its glory days to read Alexander's book? Yes, I do. But I caution them to read it for the facts given about John Behan's life rather than for the interpretations the author makes about Behan's opponents.

The "Sacrificed Sheriff" is an excellent and well documented read. It provides a wealth of factual information about John Behan, the Sheriff of Cochise County, AZ. Behan's reputation, has too long been outright lies and innuendos. The footnotes in this text indicate it is well researched and make for easy confirmation of Alexander's story, unlike the so called auto-biographies of Wyatt, Virgil and Josephine Earp. Behan is nothing less than a partiot who served his country well while the Earps were seeking personal wealth and self-agrandized fame. You should read all the Earp texts before delving into this factual account of Arizona history.-Bill McLennan, San Antonio, TX

This is a great book to keep as a reference. It covers all of J2EE, and has some interesting ideas on application design. However, if you already have a lot of Wrox "professional" titles, such as "Professional JSP" or "Professional XML", stay away. This book just repeats excerpts from those, and is more confusing because it doesn't contain all the information. For example, the section on XML namespaces was a hodgepodge editing job on the section from the XML book, and confused me even though I already had a basic understanding of the topic.

But, its worth a look if you don't have any of the other contained content.

This is NOT a book for beginners who wish to learn JSP/servlets and EJBs and the techniques of J2EE. On the other hand, if you already have some knowledge with these techniques, the book may help to improve your background of J2EE and its components.

1.The strong points of the book are:

- the book does a wonderful job in explaining different key points of J2EE techniques especially at the beginning of each chapter; although the discussion sometimes becomes pretty vague and less clear at the end.

- the book's code examples use j2sdkee1.2.1, orion and jboss which are available for you free with unlimited time.

- the book looks quite impressive, 1600 plus pp. hardcovered.

2.The weak points of the book:

- all the code examples are fairly easy. In fact, too easy to do much help to the readers who need a better workout to pay attention to some key points of the techniques.

- Since only half of the book is devoted to really J2ee techniques, people who already experienced with jsp/servlet may find the other half of the book unecessary.

In conclusion, you may want to check this book out if you alread know jsp/servlet and j2ee( through the Sun's tutorials and examples and wish to have a better understand of this popular but pretty complex technique.

As lots of wrox book, this book does provide some interesting information. UML diagrams are used for better explanation, design issues for JSP, using XML with JSP, how interface object, control object and entity object fit EJBs, JMS, Corba, Unit test, are all well explained.

However, as the non J2EE edition, the code still contains errors: for all the Primary key classes in examples of EJB, hashCode and equals are not defined, you have to add them yourself. There are errors for package names, for the example, in Chapter 20, Order and Product classes are defined in book.order and book.product classes, and other classes imported them from factory.order and factory.product classes. You have to change "book" to "factory" class by class manually!

They used jBoss and orion server to implement EJB examples, I am not against these two servers, but I think it may be better to test the examples with Weblogic as well, since it is the most popular application server, they did not. And they never mentionned Weblogic in the book, not even in the appendix.

In split of all these errors, there is no serious error, this is a good and interesting book.

againandagainandagain. it gets almost interesting. lovecraft's scientific story ending up with nothing much of a climax, Poe drowning in nautical technical information and fragmentary style. taine's is the most interesting one. first too little happens, then too much. could have been good, but is first too boring then too much in the overwhelming action-genre. glasby has good descriptions, but his story doesn't go anywhere. some of the other stories could have been good too. but always, something destroys. too boring, not going anywhere, lacks suspence. truly sad since many of the stories shows potential.

An excellent collection of short to medium length stories, all dealing with Antarctic expeditions and what the adventurers found (but wish they hadn't).

I only gave this book three stars because of the horrible proof-reading. It appeared as if the original documents had been scanned in and run through OCR software without a human bothering to check the results. Some examples: in one story, Tekeli-li is printed T>k>li-li; in one story all instances of "he" are printed as "be".

Other than that, I would recommend this collection to anyone interested in weird fiction set in Antarctica.

From the ends of the Earth come stories of adventure and really BAD things. Start off with a sonnet by Lovecraft himself, called, 'Antarktos', then on to the first course with 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket' by Edgar Allan Poe, with a follw-up of excerpts by Jules Vern's called 'The Sphinx of the Ice Fields'. This is followed by the not-so-well-known 'The Greatest Adventure' by John Taine. 'At The Mountains of Maddness' by H.P. Lovecraft is served next, the main course, followed by 'The Tomb of the Old Ones' by Colin Wilson. Arthur C. Clarke cooks up a fine story in 'At the Mountains of Murkiness' and what meal would be complete without 'The Thing From Another World' by John W. Campbell Jr.? We finish off our fine dining with 'The Brooding City' by John S. Glasby and 'The Dreaming City' by Roger Johnson. Full yet?