Much of the data, SAT scores and other info, was at least a year or two out-of-date. The preface stated the SAT scores would all be on the newly recentered scale, but were not.The narratives are often not changed much, if any, from year-to-year, so how up-to-date are they?The weighting system for evaluation favors Princeton U. strengths, so Princeton U. came out as best overall undergraduate experience (no surprise for Princeton grad editors!!) And, the book devotes as much space to schools of 500 as it does to schools of 50,000! There is a huge amount of variation between the academic experience of a P.E. major and a nuclear physics major at these big schools, and I'm sure one number rating for academic quality cannot do justice to both. But the book gives a good overall flavor, and I hope (presume) the numbers are overall reasonably accurate. If they gave one overall rating and publicized it, this would be more cited, I believe, than the U.S NEWS survey.

Of the 6 guides we used in our college search, we found this to be the most complete and useful with unbiased information about academics, quality of life and admissions. The Fiske Guide to Colleges was probably the second most informative.

I thought that this book was perfect!! I've seen others of its kind and there is no comparison because it offers how the students view the school

This is Alan Watts' final work, left incomplete upon his death, "finished" by Al Chung-liang Huang. Many sections of the work seem sketchy and undeveloped, which is unsurprising.

That said, that which is there is as well-written as any of Watts' other prose. As an "introduction" to Taoism, it is somewhat lacking, but it's a good work to pick up after you're already familiar with the Tao Te Ching in common translations. The chapter on the method and beauty of the Chinese written language is a notable highlight.

In short, if you're looking for an introduction to Taoism, start with the Tao Te Ching; if you're looking for an introduction to Alan Watts, start with "The Way of Zen". But the fact that this book doesn't fulfill either of those purposes well doesn't detract from its good points.

The Watercourse way is a most wonderful work on Taoism and mysticism/spirituality in general. I started to read the book with only a vague understanding of Taoism, but when I was done I was in love with the philosophy. Alan Watt's characteristic intelligent and compassionate way of writing shines through, and with his help one can really wrap their head around very complex ideas.

Although some parts dealing with chinese translation and calligraphy can be somewhat monotonous, the insight gained from a heightened understanding of Tao, Te and wu-wei more than make up for any shortcomings of the book. This book is definately an important stepping stone on my personal spiritual journey. I just wish he had put the 'fun stuff' in.

Alan Watts is obviously an extremely intelligent and well-read man who has a wonderful way of writing. He is British and sharp as a razor, and his use of analogy is entertaining and clarifying. He knows a lot about Chinese caligraphy and about Taoism in general, so his interpretations of many well-known and already-translated verses adds a fresh new perspective, and I think a valuable one.

One thing Alan does that many writers do not is apply the insights to life. He tries to show how your own life can be more enjoyable by using these Taoist perspectives, and he does this effectively. I'm the author of Self-Help Stuff That Works, and I am an expert on self-help. The ways of perceiving the world Alan presents in this book are effective in making life more enjoyable. I highly recommend it.

One of the best things about this book is it puts a face on Confucius and, more importantly, his disciples. It's difficult to read The Analects (which this book uses a few sayings from) and keep straight who's who; this book helps a lot. The last section with a brief bio on a few of the disciples is fantastic. I can find no other source to compare to this. Now when I read The Analect I see the faces from this book when different people are mentioned. My only complaint is that different translations of Confucius' work seem to use slightly different names then those used in this book. It can be a bit confusing when this book is the first one you read, but I would still HIGHLY recommend it.

Just getting started on your desire to understand eastern philosophies? Have you stood at the bookstore for hours pouring over where to start and what to buy?

Any of this authors books are a wonderful place to start. The reason? Because these books are all about the title subject in a nutshell, easy to read as a comic book, the story lines and illustrations are wonderful, and after you read this as well as all the other books by Tsai, you will have a great, well rounded start on your path and will know what you want to study more deeply!

To add, when others ask you about your interest in eastern philosophy, you can get them started here as well, because these books are fun, consise, and you know they will enjoy them over and over again!

The Cartoon Chinese Philosophy books of this series interest me for two reasons: I like Chinese History and I have to teach it to high school kids.

On a personal level I enjoy reading through these books and find it much more useful than some of the straight translations even though they may be more complete and more pleasing to academics. In addition to the Confucius book, I have enjoyed both Daoist books and the version of the Art of War.

As a teacher, I like this book even better. New York State requires high school kids to have 2 years of world history. In this new political correct world, world history is no longer dominated by Europe. In fact, must of the New York State exam is about Asia and Africa. Thus Confucianism is a very important concept to teach.

Filial Piety, the concept of order and relationships, and the 5 Confucianian relationships are extremely important. But they are not fun things to the average teenager. There are many lessons we can get from Confucius as adults, for kids its a bit harder. However, these comic books make teaching Confucius so much easier and effective. The kids like to read them and they get so much more from them.

So in short, yes this is not the complete Confucius. But for anyone who wants to read a visually pleasing edition or teaches this is quite good.

I didnt like this book and it was very boring. Its said the same things many times and the only thing I found useful were the moves that it showed. If this is the best book of TKD sparring I wonder what kind of books the others are.

It's a very well written about Taekwondo Kyorugi. One of the best. It tells you almost eveything about Olympic Style sparring. From the Skill, Strategies to the aspect of Sport Medicine.
Also, this book is very useful for all WTF style competitor.

I trained in Korea from 1992 to 2000, and can honestly say the programs outlined in this book are equal to if not more complete than the training I received in Korea. In conjunction with the "Future Champions" video there is no better training product.

This book is quite good. I've studied Japanese for a long time and have gone to great lengths to find a good book for learning it, and it took me about 15 books. I thought that would be the case with Chinese as well, so you can imagine my surprise when the first book I tried actually turned out to be good. This was actually the textbook we used for my class, and although I haven't used many other Chinese textbooks, I would highly recommend this one. There are a number of good points about this book, and a few bad ones:

Pros
1) The vocabulary presented is fairly useful, and the early chapters really do start you off with useful vocabulary. Not like some books where you learn how to say "rainy season" in chapter 1.
2) The accompanying workbook is excellent. The only studying you need to do is the workbook exercises. With languages usually I have to study alot, and do many of the exercises twice, but with this book, I simply do the workbook exercises once and I really feel like I know the material.
3) Although this book romanizes all dialogs, the later books do not. This is a _good_ thing. Believe me, after learning 2,000 Japanese words from a book that puts the phoenetic transcriptions everywhere, you'll be glad to put in the extra effort to simply learn how to read and write the characters early on. I can't stress this enough. Although it may seem hard at first to memorize and learn how to write 30 or 40 characters for each chapter, you will definitely be glad you did. Imagine getting to the point where you know 1,500 words and then deciding hey, I sure wish I knew how to read and write.

Cons
1) The grammar explanations aren't terribly descriptive. It turns out that for much of the grammar they are teaching there's many variants of the same pattern, which they don't teach. So you're stuck if somebody switches around the word order on you. Furthermore, they teach by pattern rather than by grammar. It's great to know "this is the pattern to use when you want to say this", but it's also nice to know that the function of a certain word is to turn an adjective into an adverb, which you won't get from this book.
2) Sometimes the vocabulary can be presented in a weird order. For example, they will teach you the word fast in one chapter, and slow in another chapter. Eat in one chapter, drink in another chapter. Similar words should be grouped. This is of course, what they try to do but it could be done a little better.
3) The glossary in the back is very annoying. There is simply no English->Chinese glossary. Good luck figuring out how to say a certain word in Chinese, because you'll have to scan through _every_ single word in the Chinese->English portion of the glossary until you find it, and you'll probably accidentally skip over it anyway.

Overall though this is a solid book, and I would recommend it. Note that _the_ best book on Chinese is Beginner's Chinese, by Yong Ho. It is simply the best. Buy it. It's insanely cheap, and unbelievably well written.

I have been using Yao's texts for the past two semesters, and have found them to be quite useful. The Level 1 texts are divided into a total of 23 lessons, each containing two dialogues/narratives. The dialogues are generally interesting and are not overloaded with new vocabulary or grammatical points, and new grammar topics are explained fairly clearly with the aid of simple examples. As a guide to learning to read and write in Chinese (Mandarin), the texts (along with the accompanying workbooks) are very good. However, to master speaking and listening comprehension requires exposure and interaction with Chinese speakers.
The only problem I have found is that in the workbook, particularly in later lessons, some characters are used which do not appear in the textbook until later. However, if you know how to use a Chinese dictionary, this isn't really a problem.

I've been studying Chinese for three semesters using the Integrated Chinese series (Level 1, Part 1; Level 1, Part 2; and Level 2), and I'm a BIG fan of these books. I went to Taiwan after learning only 18 chapters' worth of material, and found that the book had -- miraculously -- taught me most of the practical vocabulary I needed to survive. The grammar explanations following each chapter are clear and thorough, and the workbook is an excellent means of reinforcement.

This books is truly outstanding. What it does is to tie sports and excercise into what matters in life: transcending limits, continually growing, becoming everything that you can be, and enjoying the process. The authors argue that you can use your workouts as a means to personal growth and transcendence and that that newfound spiritual power will transfer over into other areas of your life as well. I heartily agree!

The book is about the mind in sports and is applicable to everything in life. It talks about dealing with fear, being compassionate in your "self talk", and the power of beliefs and self concept. The most pervasive concept, however, is the instruction to focus on the process rather than the outcome. The authors continually harp on being in the moment, giving one's best, dealing with inner demons, and just letting the results take care of themselves. What makes you a winner is not the outcome but the effort, perseverance and fortitude that you bring.

This is a book that brings together fitness and excercise with philosophy and personal growth. A great achievement!
...

A previous reviewer commented that the book was not necessarily Taoist but common sense; I would suggest that much of Taoism is common sense. I am a triathlete and a student of eastern philosophy and I found that this book was great at making me think about applying Taoist and Zen philosophies to improving my athletic performance. I also think that this book is not just applicable to sports but to living in general. The book also supplies various exercises at the end of each chapter to help apply the principles, which I found useful. Some sections are more applicable than others, but that would just depend on the reader more than anything. I also found the discussion of Taoist philosophy at the begining a little bit slow, but that's just me, and it's over quick enough before getting into the good stuff. For the price, this book offers a great deal to athltes of any ability.

Great book. I highly recomend it

"Big as melons!" Who would have known Uncle Stone was exaggerating

about how big the gold was going to be? The book I am talking about is The

Journal of Wong Ming-Chung, by Laurence Yep. The genre is historical

fiction.

The story takes place in two areas. In the beginning, it's in China

(year 1852) and it ends in America. Uncle Stone wanted to make a better life

for his family by getting gold. At first, everyone agreed with him, but when

they found out the ticket to America cost too much, they didn't know what

to do. Uncle decided to sell one of their lands to pay off the ticket, but the

whole family disagreed with the idea. Everyone knew Uncle was unlucky, but

since Uncle was the oldest, his word was law.

The main character is Runt (also known as Wong Ming-Chung or Bright

Intelligence). Runt was the only one out of the whole family who liked Uncle.

They got along very well and liked spending time together. When Uncle

arrived at Golden Mountain, he sent a letter home requesting for Blessing's

help. Blessing was Runt's older brother, and because of that, the family

decided to send Runt. They didn't want to send Blessing because they were

afraid he might become sick or die. They cared more about Blessing because

he was the oldest and more valuable to them. Runt was very useful at Golden

Mountain. He was very determined to dig and pan for gold, and he got paid

for writing letters.

This book was very good and descriptive. Through most of the book, I

could easily get into the story. The characters were interesting because

they had words as names. For example: Fox. Fox was the boss of Uncle Stone

and Runt. He was sneaky and brilliant. The author was also very

informational. He made the story seem real, but the book was also boring

during a few parts because it was too descriptive and informational. The

book also became confusing sometimes because there were too many

characters to keep track of. You'd get confused with all the new characters'

names and who they were and what they did. Besides that, this book is

pretty good and entertaining.

The Journal of Wong Min-Chung is a very good historical fiction book!!!Dispite what someone else said in a reveiw it tells alot of chinese as much as I need to know for now anyways!!!Runt is a young boy from Tiger Rock,China yup and well they hear talk of the golden mountain(The gold feilds in Cali),and they think it sounds so great like you'll make millions since the guest(That's what those relatives of those who dig gold are called)are very rich from there relatives working on the mountain!!!So Runts stubborn Uncle Stone with much fighting with Runts father which is also Uncle Stones brother he is on his way to America claiming to the clan he's bringing home melon sized nuggets!!! Of course that doesn't happen...But Runt's brother Blessing was supposed to be sent to the golden mountain to be with his Uncle,but there parents didn't want him to go so they forced Runt to go instead,and Run suddenly thought his parents hated him for his own parents were willing to risk Runt's life over Blessing's!!!There is so much more to this wonderfully crafted book on the American gold rush,if you want to learn about the gold rush you should read this book!!!

Young Bright Intelligance (who's usually called Runt because of his small size) and his family live in grueling poverty in rural China in 1851. Hoping to make a name for himself and earn a fortune, Runt's uncle sets out for the gold fields of California. Soon, Runt joins him. He is horrified by barely endurable conditions on the ocean voyage and by the cruelty with which the American miners treat the Chinese. And he soon learns that mining is mostly working long, hard hours for just a small ammount of gold. And the predjudice of the Americans soon escalates into violence. Still, through it all, Runt holds on to his hope of discovering gold and earning a better life for his family. Told through Runt's diary, this book showed what a young immigrant miner in California during the gold rush might have seen, encountered, thought, and felt. An excellant addition to the My Name is America series.

...underneath a city almost the size of a continent, and you've got "the Clay". We learned in earlier volumes that this was scientist Kim Ward's homeland. But now, in this volume, we get a closer look at the place--much of this book is set there. This is an "underworld" with none of the romance of the Sewers Of Paris as depicted in "Les Miserables". Two hundred years of the Seven's rule have created an underclass of people in both a social and a geographic sense, and it's beginning to boil up into a conflagration we couldn't begin to imagine in present-day ghettos and barrios. Meanwhile, the rule of the Seven has been on the skids since the previous volume--the only T'ang who's still a viable ruler may be the most decent of the original Seven, but that fact doesn't help a bit. Arch revolutionary Howard Devore--a Stalinesque type who as a cure for tyranny is worse than the desease--has come back from his exile on Mars. In the words of James Baldwin, it's "the fire next time", and next time is right now.

Wingrove's Chung Kuo cycle has been compelling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its believability. Despite his daring intent to combine politics, science, sexuality and history into one dangerous mix, his tale has never sunk into the category of easily-dismissable science fiction. He has done this by refusing to follow the lead of popular SF trends; he has, for the most part, eschewed the technical-laden side of SF storytelling, preferring to anchor his tale to the human element.

"White Moon, Red Dragon" departs somewhat from that formula, however, in its greater reliance on technology to progress plot and to solve problems, almost deus ex machina. But the masterpiece of the previous five books encourages me to expect a sublime and profound climax in Book 7, followed by an audible denouement that will bring Wingrove's vast vision to fruition.

This book is but a preliminary step to that greatness. Though paler than its predecessors, it nonetheless reflects their glory and brilliance.

Take the chance and embark on a long journey with David Wingrove. You will not be let down. Problem is, you will see nothing of your friends or family for the next three months.

But, that is what you are looking for in a book, isn't it?

David Wingrove's series continues to keep me coming back for more. The characters are well developed, the intrigues are captivating and the possibilities are scary... Can't wait until the next volume arrives at my door.

What if in the 21st century the western powers were degenerate and the Chineese filled the leadership vacuum. This is another of David Wingrove's well written and researched novels of the world of Chun Ko

Take the chance and embark on a long journey with David Wingrove. You will not be let down. Problem is, you will see nothing of your friends or family for the next three months.

But, that is what you are looking for in a book, isn't it?

OK, worked through Book 3 of the Chung Kup septology. Earth with 30 billion inhabitants is reduced to only a handful who seem to influence all events. Speaking as a technoid, it is disappointing a description of the technology needed to support such a society is passed off and very limited. However, the charachterizations seem to follow John D. Macdonald's advice to make the good guys a little bad and the bad guys a little good. So, overall better than a Star Trek episode. Coming onto 10 years on, did these books sell well?

Mao Tse Tung's vaunted "Cultural Revolution" was supposed to be the Chinese application of the Marxist ideal of the victory of the working class, but Wingrove's depiction in this series of a Chinese Imperial world culture in the 22nd Century footnotes poor ole Chaiman Mao as "the first Ko Ming emperor". All of that holier-than-thou Victory of the Proletariat noise in the Manifesto and the "Red Book", only to have it result in totalitarian regimes just about everywhere it's applied in this century, and then in a couple hundred years, history views it as just another dynasty. To quote a Dean Martin lyric: "Ain't that a kick in the head"

Take the chance and embark on a long journey with David Wingrove. You will not be let down. Problem is, you will see nothing of your friends or family for the next three months.

But, that is what you are looking for in a book, isn't it?