I liked the stories because they were short and to the point, though some a bit depressing. But that's to be expected reading a true crime book about juveniles. Some I would have liked to know more about the outcome of the cases, but it was still a good book. I would recommend it to anyone that reads true crime books.

Helen Smith's "The Scarred Heart: Understanding and Identifying Kids Who Kill" is much more up to date (it just came out), and offers a better framework for understanding. But there's something to be said for being first -- and given the price of this paperback, it's well worth buying.

Fascinating look at the psychology of children and teenagers who kill.

This book is very informative and well written. It describes all of the killings, the trials, and the outcome of the trials of both Caril Ann Fugate and Charles Raymond Starkweather. It begins by giving you a reporters view of the crimes and the manhunt for the murderous couple. It also has one chapter just about the confessions of Charles Starkweather. A very good read. I would highly reccommend this book to anyone who is interested in this story about a couple on a rampage.

I was excited when I saw the advanced advertisements for this book and looked forward to its publication. I was not let down. The authors know their stuff and have put together a fine reference work on the 20th Century passenger service of "The Old Reliable".

This is not a novel or in-depth review of the subject so don't appoach it looking for any insight into the inner workings of a railroad. The extensive biliography gives plenty of sources to find that material. It is, however, a detailed overview of all aspects of L&N passenger service, from train equipment to dining car staffing. The writing is crisp and well paced with only a few dry spots. Many personal tales and anecdotes abound adding dimension to the topics.

My only complaints about the book are that the authors should have focused on each train such as the Hummingbird and Cresent in seperate, detailed sections rather then covering them in a chronological manner (which can be confusing and tedious for those not familiar with the railroads many routes). Also, more color photos would have been appreciated, especially for those of us who model L&N equipment in their model railroad layouts.

Again, a fine reference work put together by authors who definately love their subject.

Li Shih-Min was a much revered emperor who helped found the Tang Dynasty, reigning in one of China's most powerful and prosperous eras (the second Chinese Golden Age, ca. 650AD-750AD).

It's a shame that this book has been out of print for some time. Very good book with in-depth material about the emporer and the Tang society from anecdotal, socio-economical, military, political, cultural, and international perspectives. It also gives us a good look at China's relations with its neighbors, especially the Turkic tribes across the Gobi Desert. It sheds some light about the eminently multi-cultural nature of the Chinese society of the era, when members of Central Asian ethnic groups were a part of the collective Chinese identity.

However the book suffers a little from lacking originality, as much of the material comes from an important Chinese history book of the 11th century (Zizhi Tonjien). I think the author could have injected some of his opinions, and given his interpretation of the material that is recorded in history. In many case, description of an event seems to have been translated verbatim, even if it appears somewhat euphemized. This is a stark contrast to the French historian Rene Groussette. Groussette, in his book on Chinese history, routinely compares aspects of Chinese history to that of the West (Jiin Dynasty was the "Chinese Byzantine").

Over all it's still a very worthwhile book, and especially this is the only English-language book available on this subject.

The book, upon first inspection, looks like it will statisfy the need for worked-out trigonometry problems. You then realize that only every fourth problem is worked out, which, as it works out, misses many of the ones where one needs a solutions manual--those that are both difficult and not easily understood from the textbook (and sometimes challenge the teacher as well). The book's layout poorly uses space, leaving you with a feeling that there's more blank paper than substance.

Pretty easy to follow at some points but suddenly the books throws things at you and expects you to "discover" how to solve it. The answer and the easiest way to approach the answer shows up in the next or following sections/chapters. I shouldn't be wasting my time trying to discover something that was discovered centuries ago. Had I not taken a self-paced course, I probably would not have been dissapointed by the book. The instructor would have helped. Also, some references for the HP calc. would have been nice.

Well laid out book, taking you a step at a time through trigonometry. Frequent reviews of material from previous chapters enables you to stay in touch with the full subject so you can be ready for the cumulative final. Author does a good job of trying to find real world examples, which is not easy.

This book was the text for a class I took. Everyone, including the teacher, found it almost impossible to learn from the book. We used it for exercises and examples, but that was about it.

An excellent book such as this one deserves praise. I read it, I got it, and I can teach it.

The photograph of Darwin on the cover of this book caught my interest. Darwin's expression seems almost apologetic, as if to sadly say to future viewers that evolution is a hard but illuminating fact of life.

The book is packed with interesting 19th century photography and art relating to his family and achievements in science. As a device, the extensive use of photography and art gives one the flavor of his times, but as anyone who is interested in attaining at least a modicum of literacy in science knows - and where is there a better topic for one to start than evolution - understanding most present day science concepts reqiures considerable effort. And it may be expecting too much of any author, however expert, to explain the concept of evolution in this small and thin book.

The sample dialog from the Scopes trial in the 1925 religious controversy is old, tiresome and a waste of time. To make a personal discovery one needs the help of better devices and explainers to begin to wade the deeper waters of the current literature on the science of evolution.

This book totally failed to explain the concept of torque to me, I spent one hour reading the torque chapter twice and it failed to show me. Then I asked my friend online and he was able to explain it to me in less than a minute. This book is only good for the problem sets, which occasionally have a cameo from a Warner Brothers cartoon and one picture of Raymond Serway on a bed of nails. You will not be able to teach yourself physics concepts if you use this book, so if your professor assigns it, I recommend you go to class. Maybe that's why he or she assigned it in the first place.

I'm currently using this book in a high school physics course, and have found it to be fairly non-technical. The exercises at the end of each chapter vary in difficulty, from the very straight forward to the very difficult. While this book has many strengths, it should not be used by its self. This book requires equations to be derived in class, as they are simply presented at the beginning of the chapter in the book... Overall, this is a great textbook if you have the mind to be able to derive equations and properties yourself.

I used this book for physics my sophomore year, and I have mixed feelings regarding the book. On one hand, the text does not clearly and concisely explain concepts, but on the other hand, the end-of-chapter summaries and the practice problems were great preparation for tests. I doubt you will find more difficult problems than those this author gives, and your teacher would have to be a sadist to test you with problems harder than these. As another reviewer stated, you must couple this book with the lessons of a teacher - it would be very difficult to attain a firm grasp of the concepts based on this book alone. But if you're looking for concise lists of equations and challenging applications, this book will serve you well.

Like most other books published by Sam's, Teach yourself Visual J++ in 21 days really lacks any learning value. Subjects are often incomplete, wordy or skip important explainations. In addition to it's lack of quality, this book has several mistypes or mistakes. I would not recommend this book even to an experienced OOP programmer wanting to get a grasp on J++.

You would think, with an editor (Patrick Winters, who should keep his day job), that this book would have less than the usual number of errors and typos found in a computer book. Instead, it has just as many, if not more. How frustrating! O'Reilly and a few others do it right; why not Sams?

Errors aside, the book has that 'written by a committee' feel, and I found myself consulting other books to figure out concepts that made no sense in this one.

The new edition of the book was scheduled for release in January 1999; it still hasn't seen the light of day, over a year later. What does that say?

This was the first Java book I bought. Once I realized that the book was incredibly buggy and that it wasn't me screwing something up, I was able to learn a small bit about Java (just because I had to go digging in another manual to find out why my applets didn't work after following the examples). In a nut shell, this book taught me how bad Visual J++ is. I was determine to stick with Microsoft products but I just couldn't stands no more.