I missed out on this book in my younger days, but have since made up for that lacking. Overall, I truly enjoyed this story, and the translation provided the Rieus. A comprehensive introduction is given, and the translators provide a basic summary of the action at the beginning of each book, and which lines they encompass. The latter was especially helpful between long breaks in reading.

However, from a reading standpoint, I found several of the books in the Iliad superfluous, e.g. the entire book devoted to describing where the soldiers were from and how many soldiers were fighting in the Trojan War. Parts such as this did little to nothing to advance the plot of the story.

If you seek a more academic treatment of this Homeric classic, I would highly recommend this book (5+ Stars). If you are simply interested in the story as a leisurely read, I would then suggest that you seek out another version, particularly an abriged version.

This is the story of the Reverend Peter Jones,(1802-1856) (Kahkewaquonaby), a Methodist missionary and a Chief of the Mississauga.

Doanld B Smith, a History Professor at the University of Calgary, writes an important story of the conflict between the First Peoples and the Europeans in the first years of settlement of south-Central Ontario. We see this interesting man in the context of the British settlement in Canada at a time when the new nation to the south (the USA)were forcibly moving the Cherokees and other eastern tribes to west of the Mississippi. That this did not happen in Upper Canada is to an important extent due to the leadership of this one man who could interpret the Europeans and Native Peoples to each other.

This is not a book for the faint hearted. It deals with Taste and Aesthetics in a complex way and begs for us to consider the relevance of things as a consumer and flaunter of our own taste. There should be many, many more books like this.

I used to love Spider-Man--and for the same reasons that everyone else did. He was fun, daring, brave and most of all, human. He failed at times, he had doubts--he was just like us. But somewhere along that way, the character changed. I lost that connection that I once felt for Peter Parker and it never seemed to return. Up until ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN was released, I hadn't read a Spidey comic since he was flying around as Captain Universe (I remember the days fondly when the true identity of the Hobgoblin was a predominate concern). But for some reason, the other current Spidey titles didn't seem to interest me.

But that changed with the release of PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN: A DAY IN THE LIFE. Written by Paul Jenkins, this collection of two separate Spidey series (WEBSPINNERS: TALES OF SPIDER-MAN #10-12 and PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN Vol. 2, #20-22 & 26) has rekindled that interest. With the same contemplative and insightful style that made his take on THE INHUMANS such a compelling read, Jenkins manages to inject poignancy and humor into this classic character again. We see the personal struggles that have weighed heavily on Peter's conscience. We relive the tragedies that besieged his life and the events (and the people) that shaped it. And best yet, we see him persevere and continue fighting the good fight.

If you like Spider-Man and would like to maintain a sense of history, especially in the wake of the "Ultimate" Spidey reboot and the film, or just want to read one of the best Spidey stories in years, I strongly suggest you pick up this TPB (trade paperback). And I'm not saying that you should disregard ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN--you shouldn't. It's a great series, too. What I am saying is that this collection is one of THE definite Spidey stories that I've read, and a great way to get back into a character that had seemingly lost his way.

Check it out!

I used to love Spider-Man--and for the same reasons that everyone else did. He was fun, daring, brave and most of all, human. He failed at times, he had doubts--he was just like us. But somewhere along that way, the character changed. I lost that connection that I once felt for Peter Parker and it never seemed to return. Up until ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN was released, I hadn't read a Spidey comic since he was flying around as Captain Universe (I remember the days fondly when the true identity of the Hobgoblin was a predominate concern). But for some reason, the other current Spidey titles didn't seem to interest me.

But that changed with the release of PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN: A DAY IN THE LIFE. Written by Paul Jenkins, this collection of two separate Spidey series (WEBSPINNERS: TALES OF SPIDER-MAN #10-12 and PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN Vol. 2, #20-22 & 26) has rekindled that interest. With the same contemplative and insightful style that made his take on THE INHUMANS such a compelling read, Jenkins manages to inject poignancy and humor into this classic character again. We see the personal struggles that have weighed heavily on Peter's conscience. We relive the tragedies that besieged his life and the events (and the people) that shaped it. And best yet, we see him persevere and continue fighting the good fight.

If you like Spider-Man and would like to maintain a sense of history, especially in the wake of the "Ultimate" Spidey reboot and the film, or just want to read one of the best Spidey stories in years, I strongly suggest you pick up this TPB (trade paperback). And I'm not saying that you should disregard ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN--you shouldn't. It's a great series, too. What I am saying is that this collection is one of THE definite Spidey stories that I've read, and a great way to get back into a character that had seemingly lost his way.

Check it out!

What makes Spider-Man a fascinating character is not his great powers, but the man behind the mask, Peter Parker. Spidey has enjoyed tremendous success ever since his conception nearly 40 years ago. Throughout all this time, the most unique thing about him was not the colorful suit he wears while swinging, but the simple average, all-so human Peter Parker. Stan Lee, his creator, knew that a long time ago and what better way to bring this character to life but through mastery of one of the hottest British writers of all time, Paul Jenkins.

Jenkins became a household name with his unbelievable work on the INHUMANS, but it is here in his take on Spidey that he truly does shine. His characterization is par none, he takes you on a trip into the Spider-Man saga and fills in points of history, with original art of that time, but never truly changes anything for the old reader. He makes things come to life with his words. The take on going back and forth in the past sure does display his powers as a writer. This is a man that was set to write any hero and make him out to be more human than the people you see walking the street everyday while going to work.

The whole story delves completely on Peter Parker and how his life as Spider-Man has come to be in the recent years. This is a man who has been through much and still persevered to tell the tale. He is your average guy who you might bump into while playing softball in the park or the guy next to you in the movie theater. He is a living, breathing human being and not a comic book character. At times, a person might think that he's probably too human with all his flaws and gestures. The TPB starts off with how the Chameleon, one of Spidey's first foes views him. This trip goes without saying is an in-depth look at Spidey and Peter Parker that has never been explored before. This culminates in Chapter 3 where Spidey is defined as the true character he really is. The following 4 chapters take you on a ride of how Spidey came to be through the eyes of Peter Parker. Flashbacks on his life as a child help create the man he is now and the hero he then later becomes. Jenkins takes you all the way, with a day in the life. The witty humor and the pretenses don't leave you laughing out loud, but keep giving you that smile that you carry on throughout the story. Anyone could be Spider-Man given the right circumstances, but it is only Peter Parker that makes the character who he really is. You feel the loneliness that he feels and the sadness that he carries each day with him. The loss of his loved ones, his uncle and his wife. You just learn that no matter, to be who you are, you have to learn how to laugh. In the end, that's what helps us being ourselves. That's what makes us appreciate our life for what it is. This is a smart piece of fiction, superbly written by Jenkins and drawn by the industry's top artists.

Spider-Man is a comic character, but Peter Parker is a real man in all sense of the word.

The author tried to write this book with a "lighter side" style and with more "test taking" strategies than some of the more well established study guides. A good attempt, especially concidering how dry the material can be. But if you are stuggling with how to spend your time and money preparing, I suggest strongly the following:

1) PMP: Project Management Professional Study Guide
by Kim Heldman

2) PMP Exam Prep (4th Edition)
by Rita Mulcahy

After you've completed these two "must reads", you may want to add PMP Certificatoin for Dummies by Gerald Everett Jones as a third pass at the information. But I'm afraid that this publicaiton only fills that limited role.

Get to work on the "must reads" and good luck with the exam.

R.T.

My study group reviewed this book and came to the conclusions that PMP Cert For Dummies has the best formulas, graphs, explanation of Quality and EV of any book you can find for studying for the PMP Cert exam. There is an 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach to listing formulas and the quantitative section really is easy to follow. I needed this spoon feeding to get the hang of the math.

Now, I believe I can ace the exam

This is the easiest of all the cert books to read.

Although the PMBOK Guide is organized along the lines of skills sets called the nine Knowledge Areas, the exam is organized along the lines of the five Process Groups. That provides a linear flow through the project lifecycle, which is how I work. This book (and the less complete ISBN 0782141064) are both based on how the exam is structured, rather than on the PMBOK Guide's structure. While this organization can be confusing to beginning project managers, PMI repeats over and over that these processes all connect, overlap and interact with each other. The PMBOK Guide was originally written by a bunch of engineers who really liked the idea of feedback loops and they understood that these processes happen simultaneously. So, in order to pass the exam, you have to think along the timeline of the project lifecycle as well as the Knowledge Areas. Otherwise, you'd miss every question "what do you do first?"

1.The familiar For Dummies icons make it easy to spot important information.
2.The answers are the most complete of any of the cert books. The questions are well thought out and representative of what is on the exam.
3.The CD has a study schedule (Microsoft Project template file) that provides a detailed roadmap to keep you on track. They suggest that you use this schedule and monitor your progress using Earned Value Analysis. That way you can practice the EV metrics that are on the exam.

Thanks, it's a great help! And it's the best value of any of the books in the category.

Better yet, do yourself or your students a favor and FORGET SIDWELL.
This cancer on the body of Latin education has impaired and imperiled students for too long. Choose Wheelock, choose
Scanlon, choose to sit down and memorize Lewis and Short, but please, please, don't keep buying this putrid and detestable
mockery of a language course. If you need evidence of this man's utter madness, look to the mind-numbing exercises devoid of holistic comprehension, and to the chaotic presentation of grammar. Introducing the passive voice a dozen chapters after deponents? Absurd! Criminal! This study guide might be necessary, but it is also clumsy in arrangement and difficult to navigate. The mise en page is likely to scare new students, and turn them away from what can be a very fun and accessible language without the obstacle of a rotten mushroom like this guy. Sidwell: the sun has set on your empire of tears; you have had your day.

For those of us learning on our own, or for whom Wheelock has proven as dry as toast, the Reading Latin course (text volume and grammar volume) has been a godsend. And now with this Independent Study Guide it will be even better!

This is definately an academic exercise in social history. For a researcher of the MINDSET of the Renaissance it is invaluable.
A costumer solely looking for color photographs will be disappointed. Information from inventories, wills, and monographs is limited.
For people looking for a sound and expansive biblioography on clothing issues, this book provides one.

It has been said that "the clothing makes the man," and in Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory, Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass seek to determine the validity of this statement. To examine the impressions that were crucial to the creation and recreation of concepts of status, gender, sexuality, and religion in the Renaissance, and to reconcile the conflicting significance of clothing during the Renaissance - clothing as a physical representation of the wearer, and clothing as a financial investment - the authors examine a number of unusual and original sources, including literary texts, paintings, embroidery and theatrical presentations. Though clothing could be a good way to invest money (the authors point out that many nobles were commodity rich and cash poor) and to maintain power over subordinates (a gift of clothing would serve to bind a servant to the master more firmly than a gift of money), the authors believe that clothing was important during the Renaissance for other reasons. Jones and Stallybrass come to the conclusion that during this period clothing served as a "material memory system"; clothing was the method by which people were reminded who they were and where they belonged in the hierarchy of society. Essentially, the clothing that people chose to wear "fashioned" them into the person that entered in the social realm. Items such as cloaks, armor, and heraldic symbols could indicate ones social situation; the removal of such markers, however, would return the individual to the naked anonymity that Adam and Eve sought to escape.
As Jones and Stallybrass argue, "livery was a form of incorporation...that inscribed obligation and indebtedness upon the body. As cloth exchanged hands, it bound people in networks of obligation" (20). The concept and use of livery, which was defined as "the payment of dependents in food, lodging and clothing" (19), clearly fits with the various methods of gifting that are examined in "The Gift in Sixteen Century France" and "Convents and the Body Politic." All three texts deal with the use of gifts to establish a hierarchy of power and exchange; "Renaissance Clothing" describes another method of exchange - clothing in return for service. When a noble gave clothing to a servant, it was a physical guarantee of the noble's protection, while it bound the receiver of the gift more firmly to the giver than a simple payment in cash ever could.

As a gnostic, I have always wanted to check this book out. Brought it to the beach on Labor Day and read it in one sitting. So, what's the verdict? Dr. Jones has done his homework. He actually retained a translator to translate the Nag Hammadi documents for him as Robinson, et al, would apparently not give permission. And he does cite them unlike so many other anti- "New Age Authors". And he is witty and the book is entertaining.

While I completely disagree with his agenda (roll back women's and gay rights, put an end to religious pluralism, etc) he does not come accross as a wide-eyed conmspiracy theorist a la Jack Chick or Hal Lindsey. This guy is an actual academic, albeit somewhat reactionary.

The flaws in this book are as follows: Jones pays a lot of attention to the perceived indignities suffered by YHWH (Lord of Hosts) in those gnostic scriptures which denounce the demiurge as a lion-headed demon, but completely ignores those Gnostic Texts which explain the gnostic concept of the spiritual esurrection. He criticizes gnosticism for ignoring "sin" and then himself ignores the gnostic redemption. Plus he collapses the systems (equating Sophia w. Barbelo, ignoring the Basilidean and Valentinian apocalypses in favor of the flashier On the Origin of the World). To his credit he give one of the more coherent explanations of Gospel of Thomas Logion 114 (I think) wherein Jesus recommends that women bacome male in order to enter heaven. Jones actually explains what this means, as reverse-creation, the rib going back into Adam. Good Job there.

Unfortunately, Jones also pushes the ridiculous interpretation that the archetype of the divine androgyne can be literally and directly equated with homosexuality and the gay rights movements. WHile it is true that gnostics are a tolerant group, the idea that andro (male) + gyne (female)= homosexual (same + sex) is absurd on the face of it. The gnostic concept of balancing - and even cancelling - the opposites - light and dark, good & evil, etc - of course includes sexual difference - so too do certain schools of tantric buddhiusm, which depict this "alchemical wedding" as a seated (male) god with the shakti power (dakini - sky travelling goddes) sitting on his lap in flagrante delicto! Clearly this has less to do w. homoeroticism than joining the opposites, exactly as the word "androgyne" would imply.

The stuff about the Minesotta Re-Imagining conference and the resemblace of the gnostic hermaneutic to reader-response theory was pretty interesting. Maybe I should write this guy a letter and find out a good place to go to divinity school.

Though written in a somewhat popularizing and slightly sensationalistic style (which will unfortunately cause some to dismiss it before considering its central theme), this book is well-documented and is an interesting look at the theological motivations of the leaders of many of today's religious movements. It contains many revealing and well-chosen quotations.

Dr. Jones provides the faithful with a thorough analysis of a growing portion of the apostacy away from the church which is a fall back to paganism.

Especially, he takes note of the Sophia movement and Wicca, both associated with the feminist agenda of righting the ship of patriarchal dominated Scriptures.

This valuable resource documents from the apostate sources their increasing candor in preaching clearly what they believe, a gnostic inspired, new revelation which if anything is just a new appearance of the old lies.

The growing concern here, as the book points out, is the inroads this has made into the church (or what formerly was church). Jones concludes: "The God of the Bible locked in mortal combat for the souls of men with the goddess of revived pagainism--who would have imagined such a scenario in civilized, Christian America at the end of the twentieth century?"

One only has to look at ELCA and other bodies, where the feminists have power gobbled up much, and seek more. What they have eroded and distorted with their deceptions is traced in this well written, researched work. It will serve many to contend for the faith without being contentious.

This book was chosen as the textbook for the AP Computer Science C++ class at my school. Having programmed in C++ for quite a while, I must say I was disappointed. Most all of the basics are covered, and I believe a beginner would, after reading this book, "know" C++. However, the style of teaching isn't that great, and the order in which things are taught isn't the best either. Also, much of the code appears untested, and contains errors. The code also does not conform to the ANSI/ISO standard. I've read much worse, but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who asked me about C++, and I definately would not use it to teach a CS class.

-Alan Johnson

This book is intended to be a textbook for an introductory programming course for students who have never programmed before. You may agree or disagree with the premise (I disagree), but you have to admire the authors for trying.

What's in the book is pretty decent. The writing is clear. The examples are simple and clear enough to read without straining your brain. The authors do cover some fairly advanced topics, such as multiple inheritance and templates, but they concentrate on explaining the basics and make little attempt to cover the weird stuff and pitfalls of the language. You need a more advanced book for that.

Because the organization, writing, and index are better than average, I find that I am continuing to use this book. (I don't usually keep tutorial-type books after the first reading.)

I would recommend this book to undergrad students and beginning programmers who want to learn C++ or to anyone who wants an easy-to-read overview of the language. For advanced programmers who know C, Bruce Eckel's book "Thinking in C++" is a better choice.

If you're an evangelical or fundamentalist Christian, you might find this book to be an interesting study of ancient Gnosticism and its parallels to the "New Age" movement. It has the potential to make some people very, very afraid. For others, it may be a useful tool for discerning between a conservative standard of "Biblical" doctrine vs. "non-Biblical" doctrine. If you're not an evangelical or fundamentalist Christian, but are interested in learning about some perspectives within this group, you may find this book to be an interesting study in Christian conspiracy theories and paranoia. From equating feminism with serpents with evil*, to prophecying "A Battle to the Death" between Christianity and the "Gnostic New-Age movement," Peter Jones presents a clear illustration of the reasoning and belief patterns of some groups of conservative Christians. In this sense, I found it fascinating. * Side note: In his diatribes equating all serpent symbols with Satan and against equal rights for women in the workplace, apparently Peter Jones has forgotten John 3:14 and the various sayings and doings of Jesus which reflect a more egalitarian view of male and female roles.

In "The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back," Peter Jones alerts the Church to the rapid re-emergence of an ancient religion called Gnosticism, today known as "New Age" thinking. Jones compares the two religions, and finds a contrast only in that the New Age is far more pervasive, influential -- and dangerous. He traces the roots of the sexual revolution, feminism, radical ecology, and "mandated cultural and ethnic diversity," directly to the New Age movement. All of this relates directly to the New Age and Gnostic belief that each person has god within himself/herself. This results in a devaluing of what the God of the Bible says and an "anything goes" mentality. Peter presents a compelling call back to the Scriptures and orthodox Christianity. All should take heed of the warnings inside this book and -- one thing Jones fails to do -- seek to put the solutions in practicable terms. That aside, this is not only a book that can be read -- due to its simplicity and accuracy -- but must be read if one wishes to have a clear understanding of the New Age movement and its relation to the Church it seeks to destroy.

Peter Jones gives a fairly well researched analysis of the parallels between Gnosticism and the New Age movement. As the negative reviews of "Gnostic Empire Strikes Back," prove, Peter Jones is correct when he concludes that the New Age ideals of tolerance are only skin deep. How quickly the champions of pluralism and tolerance rise to the occasion to denounce Christians as "paranoid" and "narrow." Why not review the book instead of denouncing the author with the shibboleth of "fundamentalist"? It seems the only heresy today is orthodox Christianity.

The book is a short read, really just a quick historical overview of Gnosticism and an analysis of the parallels between it and New Age spirituality. It is not a comprehensive study into either Gnosticism or New Age thought, but an introduction primarily intended for Christians. It is a bit dated, having been published in 1992, but still applies nonetheless.