I bought this book back in 1975 and used it regularly to find fascinating watering holes like the now defunct Harvey's Chelsea restaurant (what I wouldn't give right now for one of Sterling's Margarita's) and Village classic Chumleys. Despite the age, with a little detective work, this book can still provide some real "finds" for friends of the grape. Yeadon's drawings alone are worth the price of admission.

situation normal is a fine example or what can be done in architecture with a tool that is becoming somewhat of a lost art, the pencil. the authors use the pencil exclusively in their design process, and Situation Normal is a fine resource for architectral students and architects, whom it is very important to, to understand the power of the pencil. the pamphlet is by no means wordy, but it does contain a strong body of designs and projects by the author, that demonstrate how the pencil can holds its own in a profession where the pen and especially the computer have become the norm.

Was hoping to read an unbiased history of the conflict in the Middle East. Instead entire book is so heavily slanted toward Israel that had to put it down after a few chapters. If you are genuinely trying to educate yourself about this important region, don't bother purchasing this book. Just more pro-Israel rhetoric.

This book is absolutely correct. It is an accurate account of the Last War. Dr. Lewis is a fine Bible teacher. His books are Biblically accurate. He doesn't speculate or put his views into it. The Bible is the final authority. You won't regret purchasing this book or any of Dr. Lewis' books. Buy one and give it to a friend after you read it.

I cannot stress forcefully enough the enormous importance of this book.

With the current worldwide political climate, especially relating to events in the Middle East, it is essential that we understand the background and true context of news reports emanating from that region. Ultimately they will affect each and every one of us.

David Lewis provides a thorough, comprehensive and incisive analysis of this very issue. His easy to read and in-depth analysis of the media reports and the political & religious background to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is absorbing.

Lewis supports his analysis through a range of thought-provoking interviews with a number of political figures who possess a vast knowledge of the historical and political core issues of the present unrest.

Having read this book, one will forever examine our TV News and International Media reports with a fresh outlook. This book is of great assistance in achieving just that.

I am a big fan of the Rough Guide series and of their philosophy of including socio-political commentary, to remind travelers that the world isn't just for show. And what the China guide does well it does VERY well, with great detail. But my wife and I took both this book and a competitor's guidebook for our monthlong China trip, and Rough Guide contained maybe 1/3 as many things to see and do, and left many places to stay off the list altogether. Worse, some maps were just plain wrong. A travel guidebook that you find yourself leaving in the hotel room is not a good one.

The Rough Guides are considered among the "cream of the crop" in the guidebook world, and this book is no exception. I used it extensively in the planning phase of my recent month-long trip to China, and it was very helpful.

The background sections of the book are outstanding, giving the reader a solid overview of Chinese history and culture. The primary sites of interest to travelers are adequately covered as well, and so the book is very helpful in planning one's itinerary.

The main drawback of the volume is it's weight. If you are backpacking in China, as I was, this book is pretty heavy to be lugging around. Therefore, unless you are staying in China more than a couple of weeks, you might consider looking at the smaller city guides.....or ripping the necessary sections out of this book and packing only those in your rucksack.

Highly recommended for pre-trip planning at home. Recommended for packing and taking to China *if* you are going on an extended trip to the country.

I traveled extensively throughout China in 1998, and I found the roughguide a much more practical book for getting around. The charts inside the guide allow you to find the information quickly, whereas the other popular guide forces you to flip through pages with apparent random entires of Chinese Characters, which can be frustrating and stressful when you climb into a chinese taxi in the middle of the road, and you need to show the driver where you want to go. Although lonely planet seems to have more detailed information, the well organized layout of the Roughguide makes it ten times more desireable when your actually on the road. I'm looking forward to the new edition, as I left my roughguide in China with a friend who only had a lonely planet!

Save your money and purchase the REAL stories 'outlined' in this cheap book put together to ride the wave of The Perfect Storm. The collection of stories is nothing more than a collection of extended abstracts of the real stories. Many of the 'abstracts' are taken out of context and the reader does not get an accurate picture of what and why the nautical situation developed or how it concluded. Pass on this one.

This book is in a series put out by Adrenaline books and each book contains certain selections chosen by the editor. The selections are either excerpts from books, excerpts from diaries and journals, short stories, or an occasional essay. I look at how good the writing is, and how good the stories are.

There are 16 selections in this book. Half of them range from good to great, and the other eight are fairly poor. The writing is okay throughout, with some being more exceptional than others, but it's the stories that differ the most in quality. Six of them, whether written well or not, have virtually no story whatsoever or are very poor. As it turns out, the best stories in this book are also some of the better written. This is where the book's strength shows up. The selections introduce you to stories and books you may have never read and after reading some of the good selections, it makes you want to go read the books they were taken from. So I would mostly recommend this book to people who have not read much or any sea stories. It introduces you to a wide variety of sea literature. But otherwise I would only lightly recommend it by saying that everyone would find some selections that they really like.

Clint Willis has created a fascinating series of books with Epic, Climb, High, Wild, Ice, Rough Water, and The War. Each of these volumes presents the best literature about their respective subjects in a powerful cohesive manner. These books are a quick read, but intricate and spellbinding. I have given many of them to friends and family as gifts.

This book is almost a reminder of howNOT to sail around Antarctica. I read his second book which was even worse,since it had a group of ill-assortedpeople picked at the last moment.

I greatly appreciate people seeking out new sailing adventures regardless of their motivation. From each of their stories of beauty, adventure, fear, skill and humor we can all learn a great deal about ourselves and our own potential. I read stores like this one by David Lewis to live vicariously and to learn. After reading many other true sailing stories and doing some cruising of my own, I have to raise the caution flag for those readers who are new to blue-water cruising and sailing in general. While the writing style kept me turning pages, the content and the actual story raised many concerns for me. I would describe David Lewis' execution of this adventure as poorly thought out, reckless and even dangerous. He buys a boat that is new to him, which he knows next to nothing about and takes it to Antarctica with no sea trial. He tries to justify keeping himself at near dehydration to conserve water while also regularly consuming hard alcohol. Why is it that aft! er being doused in repeated rain squalls, not once does he try to set up a "rain-trap?" Why does he set out for Anarctica with no heater on board? He experiences several storms and even capsizing more than once. Why does he never speak of heaving-to; a basic and necessary storm survival tactic? After finishing each chapter I actually found myself saying aloud, "I can't believe he's still alive!" While I appreciate Mr. Lewis' vision, I believe his actions are a display of carelessness and possibly arrogance. If you were sailing to the Antarctic alone, would you get off your boat in the ice pack to float around on a small piece of ice? I don't think so. This is an extremely poor example of seamanship.

I owned a copy of this book,years ago, but can not find it. A thrilling story about his circumnavigaton of Antartica, alone, in a small steel hulled sailing vessel. Foolhardy or brave? I never could say, for sure. If memory serves, he did not take a transmitting radio, only a receiver for news and weather reports. He said that anyone foolish enough to undertake such a journey, should not be able to broadcast a distress. He sailed '' the wrong way'' (against the winds or currents, of the roaring forties. His story underlines the problems and solutions such a feat produces. Well worth the time and effort to obtain this book! (whether you believe his undertaking was foolish or not). A must read. (By: W.R.Bell, '' Squadcar54@aol.com '' 4-7-1999, St.Pete, FL. *end

Not recommended for purchase, especially by academic libraries (this suggestion is from a holder of a 1985 Master of Library Science degree, University of Illinois). I admit that I'd have really enjoyed browsing in this book when I was a junior high school student, though.

Many readers who know a bit about the Inklings, and, certainly, scholars, will not find the book to be satisfactory, whether as regards style or as regards content. There are various usage and even spelling errors that should have been caught in the editing process. There are curious inclusions -- satanist Aleister Crowley? John Macgowan(1726-80), a Baptist minister, who wrote a book the authors think resembles Lewis's The Screwtape Letters -- though they don't think Lewis ever read it? It's weird to include entries such as these, and then leave out people such as Pauline Baynes, whose artwork won raves from Tolkien (she illustrated three of his books in his lifetime) and Lewis (she illustrated all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia)!

The authors really deserve censure for neglecting to discuss the major controversy in Lewis scholarship of the last fifteen years, the possibility of forgeries being offered as unpublished works by CSL. No responsible scholar would "stonewall" such an issue! One cannot understand why their bibliography, while listing some items twice, omits some very important books, such as Scull and Hammond's book on Tolkien's artwork, or Charles Williams's Outlines of Romantic Theology.

I wouldn't have bought this book if I'd known how unsatisfactory it would prove to be when I'd got it.

I gave this Colin Duriez and David Porter's book a five because it does exactly what it set out to do: give readers an excellent overview of The Inklings relationship.
I have collected, read and studied the works of C. S. Lewis for the past 30 years. This book filled an empty niche in my collection as it is a clear and concise handbook of the most fascinating group of friends known as The Inklings and the complex elements of the lives they brought to their relationship.
I have been pleased to know and enjoy the work David Porter, one of the authors. His research and that of Colin Duriez is meticulous. They have included an excellent bibiography, including Charles Williams' _Outline of Romantic Theology_ and other important works of The Inklings which will keep you reading and learning about The Inklings for a lifetime. At the end of each article further reading is listed. Pauline Baines, the great illustrator, is mentioned in the Narnia chapter. The entry on Aleister Crowley is much appreciated by those Lewis lovers who also read and enjoy the works of Charles Williams. The style of the book is delighful as authors often include interesting anecdotes and quotes. The book is not overly pedantic, or ostentatiously intellectual. _The Inklings Handbook_ is a must read for those who would begin to learn about the amazing alchemy of The Inklings.
You will find in this book much that is relevant in the 21st century about the spirited exchange of ideas- The Inklings as a model for living with great enthusiasm and vitality.

I was looking for a clean and concise approach to XML. Instead I got the impression that this book was just an excuse for the author to squeeze in as much minutia on SGML as he thought he could get away with.

It does give good background on XML along with a mind numbing amount of hype.

Look elsewhere for a good introduction to using XML.

It's a pretty decent indication of the potential of the XML document/messaging structure, but lacks significant insight into designing any type of formal business application.

Most of the book relies heavly on perl scripts for message processing. I wish some attention was directed at VB/ASP or CGI for message processing.

With few XML books on the market, I would recommend this book, as it provides a good insight of the potential of XML.

This is obviously a book where the authors commited themselves to writing a certain number of pages and then, half-way into the work they realized that didn't have enought material to cover it. The totally useless 100-page poorly-commented pre-release Java source code for a DOM-implementation in chapter 10 is a particularily good example of this.

Another horrible chapter is chapter 11, which contains an explataion of user interface interaction that is so overly abstract but still so extremely stupid that I've used that particular chapter as an example of how a really useless book should be written.

Also, early in the book the author explains that the book is amed towards rpogrammers. It's interesting to see that they hardly ever back their examples up with and source code at all.

In short. Don't buy this book.

As a builder and collector of AR-15's, I purchased this book in the hopes of getting some new info on the military versions of the rifle. The cover of the book certainly caught my eye, and perhaps that was the intention. However, I found myself getting a bit "depressed" as page after page of non-M16 info was thumbed through. Finally, after reaching nearly the end, there was one story on the M4 Carbine. It was just enough to make me keep the book. That's more than I can say about a few other books I also ordered.

I was really disappointed with this book. It was more of a outlet for the authors to brag about themselves and complain about their ugly guns that were never excepted and produced by the military.

When you think "assault weapon" you think AR15, AK47, AK74, FAL, right?

There was almost ZERO info on the FAL. How can you right a book on assault weapons and not dedicate pages to the arm of the free world, the assault weapon used by over 90 countries?

There was little info on the AR or AK too. No real shooting techniques, cleaning ideas, or model info.

If you are interested in reading about the authors home made guns and a UGLY 22 cal. machine gun, this book is for you.

If you want valuable info on real assault weapons and there many variations look somewhere else.

This book has almost all the right things to be a hit. It has tons of pictures, gun tests, gun specifications, and hard to find information about guns never built. You can read it once and be amazed and then you can still pick it up and learn more. you can never stop learning from it. The reason I gave it four stars, though, is because of its lack in amount of guns. I understand it is the fifth installment in a series, so I can't wait for the sixth!

Exception to Amazon rule-Overprice

This is an excellent reference guide for the auto enthusiast who is interested in year-to-year Ford automobile differences. The pictures are first rate, many of them in color. The pictures of the 1930's models are especially good, which will be of value to the hot rodder group who search out these vehicles for customization. I would have also liked to see Mercury and Lincoln models included in this volume, but I guess you can't have it all. I liked the highlight page for each year which summarizes the changes made from the previous year. Overall highly recommended.

A great book for any Ford antique lover...