Luckily, I read 'Visual Interdev in 24 Hours / Tom Archer/Sams' before I read Ian's book. The two books are as different as night and day.

This jolly Brit has serious difficulties explaining concepts in a linear or 'Top Down' style. Instead you are always introduced to concepts at a very obscure detail level. You will never understand Visual Interdev nor will you get excited about this incredible product by reading this rough draft.

Don't take my word for it. Read Ian's Acknowledgement/forward on the inside cover - it makes no sense. Unfortunately the entire book is written in this non-elegant and non-useful style.

I am a Wrox fan at heart, but I returned this. The search to find something as good as the 'SAMS' book continues.

A great book for experienced developers who need to know how to build effective and robust Web applications. Excellent coverage of the VI IDE, DTCs, debugging and COM component creation and deployment. As you'd expect from the Wrox Professional series it doesn't waste time trying to teach you basic programming and Web fundamentals. Highly recommended.

This book goes further than any other VI book I have read. It assumes an understanding of VI so it is definately not for beginners, but if like me you want to get the most out of the product then it's spot on. At last I understand how the Design Time Controls and the Scripting Object Model actually work and can make use of them in an effecient manner to build my applications quickly. Highly Recommended!

This slim volume isn't really a book. It's a totally textless (not even captions) photo gallery taken by Mr. Baker along Route 66. In addition to the "roadside" images of motels, travelers and scenery one might expect in a Route 66 photo essay, there are several pointless photos of images on TV screens, and at least two too many shots of roadkill. This book is no substitute for driving the highway -- or even for looking over the photo album of a friend who's driven Route 66.

Susanne Jonas is an expert who cares deeply for the people of Guatemala. Her book is interesting and informative, but in places it distorts the truth. Although Guatemala was ruled by military or civilian dictators for most of the 20th century, the author blames its problems on America. Hence the chapter on the CIA-backed coup against Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. Discussing the elections which brought him to power, she admits that his main opponent, Francisco Arana, had been assassinated and his supporters crushed by armed workers (pp25-6). But she insists that the campaign was honest (p26), even though other writers stress that the vote "could not be genuinely free" because the impoverished majority, denied a secret ballot, would not dare to oppose any candidate backed by the government (Piero Gleijeses, "Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954," p84).

Maintaining that Arbenz sought a "modern capitalist economy" (p26), the author suppresses the fact that he was a doctrinaire Marxist who became an official Communist Party member in 1957 (Gleijeses, p147). Applauding his confiscatory land reform - the "brainchild" of the Communist Party (ibid., p145) - she does not mention that it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which was then purged (ibid., p155). She does accept that Arbenz legalised the Communist Party, which subsequently took control of the unions; that he allowed communists to occupy key government positions; that he relied on the communists as his principal allies; and that he was receiving arms shipments from Eastern Europe (pp29, 31). Yet she dismisses fears of a communist threat as paranoid (p32). The fate of Cuba suggests otherwise.

To her credit, the author questions the myth that the coup was induced by the United Fruit Company (UFCO), a fiction which has been demolished by historians (Gleijeses, ibid.; Richard H. Immerman, "The CIA in Guatemala"). Admittedly, she was writing before the release of government documents proving that it was the CIA - not UFCO - which raised concerns about Guatemala, fearing a communist dictatorship in the Western hemisphere (Nicholas Cullather, "Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of its Operation in Guatemala, 1952-1954," pp24-7). But she could have mentioned that immediately after the coup, the Eisenhower Administration started an anti-trust suit which caused UFCO's disintegration (Stephen M. Streeter, "Interpreting the 1954 US Intervention in Guatemala," The History Teacher, November 2000, online).

More impressive are the chapters on military repression, which exploded from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Anticipating the findings of the UN Truth Commission (Commission for Historical Clarification [CEH], "Guatemala: Memory of Silence," online), the author notes that 200,000 civilians were killed over three decades (pp2, 240), the vast majority during "the planned genocide that left 100-150,000 civilian casualties" in 1980-3 (p148). The murder of hundreds of thousands is clearly a crime against humanity. But the author should have noted that even this outrage pales in comparison with the millions who were being slaughtered at the same time by Marxist regimes in Cambodia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique. Moreover, she does not even discuss the atrocities of the Marxist guerrillas who butchered thousands of innocent people in Guatemala (CEH).

Then there is the contemptuous treatment of democratic reforms, mocked as "reactionary pluralism" merely because the socialists had to renounce violence, hardly an unreasonable demand (pp154-5). Discussing the parliamentary election of 1984, she admits that it was free of open fraud and military intervention, but dismisses the result (p155). She attacks the constitution of 1985 - which established "standard political rights on paper [sic]" - because it failed to ban the civil defence patrols and because it "enshrined private property as an absolute right" (p155). Turning to the presidential election of that year, she accepts that "it was not fraudulent and was procedurally correct," but still questions the outcome, citing the pro-communist Washington Office on Latin America (pp156-7). By use of such evasions, she is able to rationalise the fact that her "popular/revolutionary" forces have yet to win the popular vote.

America is portrayed as the fountainhead of evil. The author admits that both the Carter and Reagan Administrations observed an arms embargo throughout the major repression and that the Guatemalan army had "to look elsewhere" for its weapons (p199). But she still tries to blame the murders on Washington, her only evidence being the provision of budgetary bailouts, which did not begin until the massacres were ending (p204-5). Clutching at straws, she berates the Americans for helping the army decades earlier, before lapsing into absurdity by protesting the renewal of aid after the return to democracy (p205-6).

The author does not hide her allegiances. Without embarrassment, she praises the "Latin American revolutionaries" who combined "a renovated and flexible Marxism" with "religious/humanitarian values" (p214) - as expressed, perhaps, in the hundreds of thousands of needless deaths which these saintly figures have caused. She applauds the Sandinista junta in Nicaragua for its "positive example," its "unique experiment in revolutionary pluralism," based on a "multiparty system" as well as "popular/participatory democracy" (p215) - insights which would have surprised the Sandinistas, who thought that they were building a communist dictatorship (Roger Miranda and William Ratliff, "The Civil War in Nicaragua: Inside the Sandinistas"). She even compliments the genocidal Soviet regime for its willingness to "advance peace" (p220). It is difficult to comment on such open support for a totalitarian ideology which has killed tens of millions of people. How many innocent victims have to die before left-wing scholars renounce the politics of Mengistu and Pol Pot?

While there was nothing horribly wrong with the plot or characters, I just found it dull. Granted, there isn't alot of room for details in a short story book, so I don't grade it too harshly. The problem was that the characters were your run-of-the mill hero and heroine, their reactions were so very typical. The plot was dull and a bit cheesy, much like the dialogue. It wasn't absoloutly terrible, it's just not really worth reading. You're not really reading anything new, although the author did effectively make Saskia come out annoying. Ah well, I've read better.

[Bad info] for snorkelers, and the site information is flimsy. But Lonely Planet just published a new edition of this book. ...It's MUCH better than this sorry, 10-year-old book, and the pictures are incredible!

This does suck for snorkelers. But Lonely Planet just put out a new edition of this guide. I bought if off their website, www...(sorry Amazon!). It's MUCH better than this tired old book, and the photos are incredible!

The title is misleading, therefore only 1 star. There is only one paragraph devoted to snorkeling. It is, however a great 4 star diving guide. Great marine life pictures.

This is a reprint of a seriously out of date work originally published in 1982. It is highly judgemental and written for practicing clinicians interested in curing this 'deviant' behavior. My guess is the publishers expect to capitalize on the surge of interest in bdsm over the last decade. Fortunately the psychoanalytic profession has moved forward since then.

FACT: There is no known, proven or scientifically observed cause of sadomasochism. There is certianly no one type of parental relationship that causes such desire. There are as many people abused in childhood in the vanilla world as there is in the leather world.

FACT: Sadomasochism has absolutely nothing to do with sexism. Men and women, women and women, and men and men enjoy SM play, and the majority of straight men into SM enjoy being dominated, not being dominant.

FACT: There is no cure for being a creative, playful, passionate, emotional, sexual being. The people this author treated were not SM players, but sexually and emotionally dysfunctional. SM players are kinky and imaginative, not sick.

FACT: SM is not for someone still grappling with their emotional maturity. You must a strong sense of self and good communication skills to allow your shadow to express itself sexually. This doesn't make you sick, it makes you a person of integrity and honesty.

I've been learning German for over two years now. Of all the different tools I've used to learn it, this was the worst. This set is not for beginners. It's more in the taste for intermediate-level speakers. You go through different scenes with people that sure don't sound like they're catering to beginning speakers. There's also a relax method in-between different situations which is a waste of time. If you want a good start, try "Just Listen and Learn German," or "Berlitz Basic German." You want people to learn German the correct way, you don't want them to feel frustrated and stupid.

If you want to know how to make realistic paper flowers, this book is not for you. It will show you how to create the campy, fake looking flowers kids and young people might have made in 1960's USA, but if what you want is to make realistic paper flowers, for decorative use, that you can really be proud of, I suggest you look elsewhere. photos are mostly black and white, and instructions are not clear.

This book was published in 1986 but I only came across it (second hand) in 2001. It caused me to wonder whether people still agree with a feminist critique that describes sexual intercourse as 'phallic vexation', comments that 'with lovers like men, who needs torturers?' and includes the all encompassing statement:

"It is, in fact, impossible that women, black people, the working classes and consumers attain anything like their 'democratic rights', anything like full human rights and liberty within the present cultural system of values."

Apart from the polemics, the basic premise of the book is that art and pornography are both representations and share the same subject/object relationship to the viewer. The author concludes that any attack on pornography on the grounds of obscenity is doomed to failure because of the inability to draw a line between art and pornography without interfering with 'free speech'. There is clearly an issue here but this book focuses on gender when the problem is wider (eg. the concept of blasphemy).

It is further argued that men, as publishers, artists or critics completely control the cultural perspective and that any distinction between art and pornography is therefore specious. It is self serving men who have consciously moulded culture to dominate, repress and objectify women through representation. This makes the Taliban's law banning the representation of any living thing seem like a reasonable response.

In summary, this book is short on facts, long on theory, has never heard of Evolutionary Psychology and was written before the Internet altered communications for ever. It really only had value for me as an historical artifact.

This is a college/university text of 15 essays on Macbeth, all written by college/university English lecturers and professors. For college/university English majors who dote on constructionism, or who have to suffer through it, this is a 5 star book.

For others, however, this book is a terrible disappointment. It is filled with post-modern criticism and headings like "On the Fringe of Patriarchal Discourse," and a chapter on Macbeth as a male Medusa.

I hate giving negative reviews on Amazon, since readers tend to say that negative reviews are not helpful. Oh, well. Here are some other resources that will help you get good hands on Macbeth, which I used in setting a unit for 7th through 11th graders who were about to see Macbeth:

Peggy O'Brien, Shakespeare Set Free. Great activities and thoughtful things that youngsters can do. O'Brien is a great writer, too.

A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy. This is an old book, originally published in 1904, long before post-modernism, and it went through 26 printings. Bradley gives the best description of what Shakespeare meant by tragedy. Bradley does not have activities for youngsters, however. Just a powerful way of thinking about Macbeth.

Greenhaven Press Literary Companion, Readings on Macbeth. The Literary Companion series addresses Macbeth in 16 very informative chapters. Topics include the historical context of Macbeth, dramatic allusions, witches, the poetry of evil, and so forth. Very good essays, but not immediately translatable into activities for 7th thru 11th graders.

There! I hope this was helpful. If you purchase Wofford's book, you'll get an essay on male fear of maternal dominance, object relations theory applied to Macbeth. Bon chance.