Jim Henson truely wsa a creative genious. The original development sketches of the muppet characters truely makes this book a gem

This book is absolutely incredible! Every page is bursting with the zany creativity that Jim Henson inspires in us all. This book is well-worth the price for the photos alone -- everything from early obsure works to Sesame Street to my hero, Kermit the Frog. The text is engaging, informative and full of interesting stories behind the movies and tv shows that have made so many of us laugh. If you are part of the Muppet generation like me you will especially appreciate the fond memories this book brings back.

I am so sorry that I could not put in 5 million stars. I go to the library everyday and read this book while awaiting to be picked up, and I never get tired of it, this is the BEST book there is, it tells you everything with awesome pictures to go with it, I can't say enough about this book, its the BEST. I am hoping to join the Muppet clan ASAP. I can't wait, the Muppets are the best invention anyone has ever come up with. Jim Henson is the best person in the world, and I only wish I could thank him for all the things he has done for me and everyone else.

You may notice that i revied the "Shamabla Pocket Classic" version of this with 3 stars. Well this translation is so much better. This book tells you exact things to do in your every day live to become a more perfect person. I love this book more than the "Art of War" and "The Prince" for one reason, this is more practical to every day life, and not to ruling a nation.

I received this book as a gift in 1992, I had no idea what I had been given..The Art Of Wordly Wisdom, is "THE" guide to Human Nature, a Handbook on Life, It is a brilliant how it describes human nature/behavior in all scopes of life's pursuits and how to handle any situation, not based on incident but based on human reaction and interaction to the incident...The writings are ageless, the book should be in everyone's library and read often..It is not a one read book, but one you can take out when dealing with whatever life may throw at you...I have used it and I have never found anything better on human nature and it always find a way of getting you out of the worst and even the best of situations. It is not religious, not new age teachings,not cult, it is common sense,you could say psychology by examples of life and people....
Nietzche and Shopenhauer were fans of Gracian, but none ever reached his clarity and accessibility..THE translation by Christopher Maurer is the ONLY ONE worth reading, for he is as clear as Gracian...Don't bother with the rest...
Baltasar Gracian is a man still ahead of his time...

This book should reside next to your Bible, Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", and Macchiavelli's "The Prince". Like 'War' and 'Prince' (and some parts of the Bible), Gracian's thoughts can seem a bit too tough, at times. Don't be put off by that. Like all operating manuals, not all of it fits every person's situation. What you will find is a well-written set of directions, some of which you will want to apply in your life. I think you will find it is filled with very useful insights into the humans that surround you, and, perhaps, even into yourself. My advice? Buy it and read it. You can ignore anything that offends you.

...From the second line of the Emily Dickinson poem that both inspired Cokinos and gave him his title for the book. It is only natural that a poet would look to Dickinson and it is appropriate that it is this form which guides this book. HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS is indeed a poetic and lyrical description of the symbolic significance of six vanished species of North American birds.

The Carolina parakeet, Heath Hen, Great Auk, Passenger pigeon, Labrador duck and Ivory-billed woodpecker have with their passing come to represent for Cokinos a lot more than simply another group of vanished species. They are emblematic of lost time, effort, habitat, environment, and are missing slice of life. Poignant as his descriptions of their loss is, there is always an element of hope that suffuses each of his chapters.

Cokinos with this book successfully blends history with a little bit of biology and adds just enough personal observation and insight. The mix works and his writing is excellent. There is enough science here to satisfy those who wish to remain at a respectable distance. For those who don't mind getting close there is sufficient reason - through what these birds represent about our past and future on this planet - to allow them to come and perch in your soul.

Cokinos, an amateur birder, explores the life histories and conservation problems of North America's extinct birds, and then visits some of the famous zoos and nesting sites that marked the end of a species. Each section is filled with personal stories about the birds to give the reader a better feel for how the birds reacted to their habitats.

The book covers the Passenger Pigeon, Heath Hen, Carolina Parakeet, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Labrador Duck and Great Auk. Every birder has seen large flocks of Cedar Waxwings practically stripping all the berries from a tree- but imagine a flock of 3,000 Passenger Pigeons (considerably larger than a Mourning Dove, and much noisier) flying into a forest and deciding to nest there. That would be a small colony. It was the most populous bird on earth just a hundred years ago- and now it's gone.

The book is filled with interesting, and sometimes witty stories that will keep the reader from closing the cover. Sometimes, though, Cokinos drags on with information that doesn't seem necessary to the rest of the text- but this, by no means, should discourage you from buying the novel. I definitely recommend it.

Although it chronicles several chapters of bull-headed human stupidity, this book also documents the painstaking efforts of the many people who worked hard to save these vanished creatures, and offers some hope that the future need not repeat the past. At times sad, but also funny, and even joyful despite the material.

"A Man's State of Mind" is a heart renching eye opener for the man that thinks he is a "player" I thinnk this book was well written. Chris really knows how to bring out the realness of his characters. This book will make you laugh and then out of nowhere it will make you cry. The thing I enjoyed the most was that Chris didn't sterotype the African American women to be the loud, rude women with bad attitudes that people assume they are. Even though this book is fiction it is still the truth as to how it really is in the world, as fr as the way the chacters think and feel. When I started reading this book I couldn't put it down I recomended this book to all my friends male and female. I also recomend this book to you. I look forward to more books by Christoper D. Burnes

Darryl's attempt at being in a monogamous relationship is hindered as he develops secret relationships with other women. He is faced with a painful "reality check" when he finally discovers that the world does not evolve around him. I really enjoyed this book because it challenges readers to think about the consequences of being less than honest in relationships. The author delivers a powerful message through the voices of Darryl, Tasha, Michelle, and Sherry and the use of humor, real life situations, and intelligent dialogue. This is a must read.

This novella reflects the author's state of mind: clear, genuine and eager to communicate in a meaningful way. Unlike other novels that glut the market, this one isn't filled with glib stereotypes or trite situations. African-American readers--all readers, for that matter--deserve more, and this novel delivers. Its characters and situations carry distinct elements of reality and are thought-provoking. Voices and dialogue are thoroughly convincing. All of which makes for a read that is as enlightening as it is entertaining. The author clearly has a bright future ahead of him and I look forward to seeing where the writing will carry him.

This book was one of the most riveting of any fire related books,I have ever read. The attention to detail ,from the initial alarm, until the conclusion of the incident, was flawless. If Sean Flynn were not familiar with the workings of a city fire department, then he took the time to become more knowledgeable than most civilians could ever hope to. He not only covered the technical aspects of the fire, but the human side as well. This book easily falls among the ranks as those written by other noted authors as Dennis Smith, and Leo Stapleton.

As a girlfriend of a Marlborough, MA firefighter, this book hit very close to home. I cried many tears as I turned each page. Because of my first hand experience with the bond of brotherhood, I initially speculated the value of the author's words. I was pleasantly surprised. Sean Flynn created such strong insight into Chief Macnamee's thoughts. I constantly feared what he would be faced with next, and I felt as though the only way to support him was to keep the book in my hands and the lives of those men in my mind. Even though I knew of the devastating ending, I couldn't stop reading. The reactions of both the chief and widowed wives seemed like an invasion of privacy but at the same time created a pocket of peace in my heart. At first frightened by the idea of what the story would unfold, I am grateful that I trusted Flynn to tell a story of courage.
With each chapter, Flynn's words became more and more resemblant of a voice in my mind each time the fire fighter in my life kisses me goodbye and says "See you tomorrow." This story is as real as it gets. After closing the back cover, two days ago, I feel greater appreciation and pride for not only the man in my life, but the firefighter in my world. This story is a must read.

There is only one complaint to be made of this book: The picture on the dustjacket. Instead of a photograph of someone dressed in fireman's gear, there should have been a photograph of the building described in the narrative, an enormous building with no windows, no easy paths, and, once it caught fire, no mercy. It became a monster which took the lives of six firemen.
Sean Flynn does a great job in telling this story. The book is relatively short, but Flynn does not shortchange the reader. You turn the pages fast as Flynn provides brisk views of the firemen he writes about, giving us the flavor of their family lives and their personal ambitions, and then rushing on into the action and tragedy that are the centerpieces of the book.
This is a true story, but Flynn writes as if it were a novel, letting us know what people were thinking and saying in a terrible situation. He is able to do this because he has researched the story so well. (It began as a story for Esquire magazine.)
The descriptions of the desperate attempts to save the six firemen who became lost in the mazes of the fiery Worcester Cold Storage building are some of the best true-life action sequences you are likely to encounter in a book. Flynn describes the aftermath of the fire eloquently, relating the sorrow, guilt, and pride felt by the surviving firefighters, and just as important, the heartbreak of the families the heroes left behind.
Before the Worcester Cold Storage building ever caught fire, one of the firemen in this book looked at the towering thing, imagined it on fire, and said, "Bad Building." It seems he was right.
Bad building. Hell of a good book.

Those who are hard-core Tolkien fans will revel in the lore found in this book. Though at first I found these books rather difficult to read, I have come to absolutely love them. The two volume Book of Lost Tales gives much information on the creation of Middle Earth and some of the important events that happened in the first age. In the Book of Lost Tales 2, a page has been included from Tolkien's original manuscripts. Seeing that made me appreciate all the work that Christopher Tolkien went to even more. I am very grateful to him for making all these stories available to Tolkien fans. Probably the thing I like best about reading these books is that I now understand the vague references to history that are included in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Part Two continues the history of the Elves and contains the oldest version of my personal favorite story "The Tale of Tinuviel". The stories in this book (which include an early version of Turumbar, The Fall of Gondolin, The Nauglafring- aka the fall of Doriath, and the story of Eriol) are recounted in grand Tolkienian style. They reveal some very interesting early ideas which Tolkien did not include in "The Silmarillion". The stories are superb in and of themselves but also offer a tantalizing 'behind the scenes' look at Tolkien's creative genius in progress. One of the most pleasurable aspects of reading this book is to watch the metamorphoses of the characters and to contemplate the elements which Tolkien altered or deleted in the later and more finished "Silmarillion". The stories in "Lost Tales 2" are even more marvelous than those of Book One. Book Two also provides a complete (though lamentable) closing to the tale of the wanderings or Eriol. Yet, to those who have read only "Lost Tales 1" there is no need to persuade. For I do not believe it humanly or divinely possible to read only Book One without inflaming the insatiable desire to experience the second half of the enchantment.

This is the second volume in "the Book of lost Tales" and also the second volume in "the History of Middle-earth". Here are all the stories that were not put in the first book, so if you liked that one than no problem, because these stories are enchanting in their own right, as well as giving us a one-of-kind glimpse into a masterpiece in progress.
Although, if you have not read the first volume than go do that first, because although these stories are somewhat unfinished there is still a continuity of sorts. These stories were seemingly written down by a traveller in elf-land who heard theh while staying in the Cottage of Lost Play. The moments at the cottage, with the children and the story-telling, are the best part of the book.
As in this entire series, Christopher Tolkien provides an in-depht commentary after each story, comparing it with the published Silmarilion and with the rest of his fathers work.
This is a look at a different style of Tolkien-writing, one that does not show in the more finnished works. I recoment it to anyone who would like a more in.depht understanding of Tolkien as an author, as well as a chance to look over his shoulder while he writes his first drafts for the stories that would enchant the world.

I'd like to agree with previous reviewers. Note that you will need a good mathematical background (especially in statistics) to understand the content. However, the book is completely thorough in developing all the key concepts and really tries to give you insight into the meaning behind the equations. It's style is that of an undergraduate level textbook, but a very well written one. To use neural nets effectively, I think you need to have at least one book like this.

When I came across this book, I had already read several on the subject, including Beale & Jackson (lightweight) and Haykin (middleweight)

For a reader unafraid of basic statistics and linear algebra, this is an excellent beginning book. For the math wary, I would say read a math-lite conceptual book first. This was a text book in my master's program, and I heard from students with a weak math background that they found it extremely challenging.

Bishop rightly emphasizes the statistical foundations of feedforward networks. This is a large subject in and of itself, and he covers it well. It provides an extremely solid foundation.

Neural dynamics via recurrence, Hopfield Nets, and many other topics outside or on the edges of feedforward networks are not covered.

I find many NN books are poorly written, imprecise, and have little content. This is one of the best books I have read on the subject.

Rarely do I encounter a book of such technical quality that also is a pleasure to read. Bishop moves through sometimes difficult topics in a clear, well-motivated style that is appropriate as both an introduction and a desktop reference on neural nets. Definitely on the "A list."

Bishop chose to not include discussions on a number of topics that might have diluted his focus on pattern recognition (for example, Hebbian learning and neural net approaches to principal components analysis). I think that these choices greatly strengthened the integrity of his presentation.

I would love to see an updated edition with a discussion of recent results in statistical learning theory, kernel methods and support vector machines.

An English army Captain is propelled from the beginning of the twentieth century to the latter third only to be confronted with the subtle evil he has unknowingly morally supported all his life. As he is propelled from parallel universe to parallel universe within the Multi-verse he comes to the realization he is but a pawn of some greater force doomed to be crucially instrumental in the destruction of everything he believes in and has defended as a soldier. Unable to take control of his own destiny, he discovers some relief in the secrets of someone who keeps appearing in each world. But is he free? You may have to read the entire series to find out.

Though the readers of Elric may not be satisfied because of the all but total lack of sorcery, "A Nomad of the Time Streams" is a twentieth century Eternal Champion enmeshed in the classic struggle between infinite shades of good and evil, for which Moorcock is famous. Here "Chaos" and "Law" are not named, as in many of his other novels, but they are much more potent because good and evil are subtly hidden within each. This set of stories is a fine contrast to Elric's the end justifies the means and Corum's goody two shoes gets mad.

This book is probably the most science-fictional of the four books in the series I have read thus far, and I'd probably consider it the best. The three tales of Oswald Bastable are rife with ideas and imagination. As usual, here are comments on the individual books:
Warlord of the Air: Great introduction to Bastable. I thought Moorcock in the beginning was him, so it was neat to see Bastable actually show up later. The future of 1973 that he goes to is great on the surface, but dark underneath, and the political arguments are anything but one-sided, highlighting both sides. Oh, and Oswald drops a bomb.

The Land Leviatian: This one reminded me of Heinlein's novel Farnham's Freehold, for some reason. The premise of blacks taking over the world in response to the crimes against them by whites is an interesting study of our world. Still, Bastable still feels lousy for helping to destroy the obviously unrepentant whites. Go figure.

The Steel Tsarr: Longest of the three, and probably the most complex, set in a democratic Russia at war with its Cossacks. Poor Bastable finally gets some peace with the help of Mrs Perrson. And is it me, or is the Steel Tsar a dead ringer for Stalin?

I enjoyed reading about Bastable and hopefully Moorcock will include more about him in the later book in the series. In this one, he mentions that Bastable is mentioned in Warriors at the End of Time, so perhaps he's there. I can't wait

"A Nomad of the Time Streams" is a unique and fun read, somewhere between Rudyard Kipling and H.G Wells. I think the concept alone is worth the price of the book--but of course, Moorcock is a writer of rare excellence and the result ranks with the best books of speculative fiction.

I must admit that this has been probably one of the hardest texts that I have ever read ( well in league with Thomas Paine's Common sense). However, it, i.e., Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton, Christopher B. Ricks(Editor) also is one of the most beautifully written and well written pieces of literature ever produced. Milton, has a sense for language that can only be compared with the great writers of the literary tradition, e.g., Dante, Shakespeare, and Thoreau. Writers of today lack these skills and cannot write with the same complexity as the great authors of the past. A good example of this when one reads Dante's Inferno or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.; these stories are both good examples of a lost art that Milton was a master at. The art of writing a story in the form of a poem without the story in question sounding phony or having lines that do not make sense. The story itself, i.e., Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton, Christopher B. Ricks(Editor) is very hard to follow if one is not a biblical scholar and most of the angels are new to me ( which does not disturb me a bit, since most people nowadays, do not study the Bible as they did during the life time of Milton and his contemporaries). Overall, I would have to say that this story, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton, Christopher B. Ricks (Editor) is easily one of the most thought provoking stories that I have ever read and I will definitely recommend it to anyone remotely interested in well written literature.

A few days ago I finished Paradise Lost for a book club I'm in. It took me the whole first chapter to get adjusted, but then the book really swept me away. The language is beautiful and the concepts very deep and thoughtful. I can't always agree with Milton's thoedicy, but it definitely provides rich and spicy food for thought. The book requires a lot from the reader, but it's well worth every moment. We also read all 3 books of Dante's Divine Comedy for the book club. I was frequently lost, especially while reading Purgatorio and Paradisio, but Milton is different. You can understand - and enjoy - most of what he says even without the footnotes (though you'll miss 90% of the allusions without them). The poetry is sublime. Like a really great novel, this work hangs over you for days after you finish it, tugging at your heart.

Mr. Milton is without a doubt, a liteary genius! I got intrested in the book from a quote, which I read in John London's The Sea Wolf. Even though, I am only 17, the views presented in Paradise Lost, as well as Paradise Regained could still be used today. I highly reccomend this book to ones who want to know where it all started.

Oracle's Financials package is a complicated collection of software. This book takes it from the beginning, progressing in a logical step-by-step process. I was just about to take my first OCP exam, and saw this book, so I bought it. Am I glad I did! There was a lot that I didn't know because my business didn't need all of the functionality that is tested. I crammed like crazy, and then took the first exam...and passed it. I wouldn't have passed if I hadn't read the first part of this book.

On to exam 2!

This book covers every point in the OCP exams for Financials consultants. Lots of hands-on exercises, and lots of wise perspective from someone who obviously has done a lot of installations. Considering what the book contains, it's price is really low.

Last year I used Oracle Press's OCP Developer exam guide to prepare for, and pass, the Developer/2000 exams. The book worked great. Now I need to apply my Forms knowledge to creating custom Financials screens, so I bought this book. Its excellent. It gives the underlying logic behind Financials, and then goes into screen-by-screen detail. Very helpful. After buying this book and starting to read it, I've rescheduled my first Apps exam from a month away to next week!