Thomas Sullivan provides a clear, consise, and easy to use reference guide for anyone to use. This book not only contains actual text of some major environmental laws, but it also sites case studies and court decisions, all in an easy to read format. This book is a must for anyone dealing in environmental matters, and is a good source of reference for anyone concerned with the environment and public policy.

The mistake that's always made with this book is to see it (or worse, market it) as a cute little study of dog love--a kind of non-fiction equivalent, say, to LASSIE COME HOME. Ackerley's MY DOG TULIP is much better than that, and it's about as far from cute as you might imagine. Tulip does not emerge as very lovable at all: she barks and rushes and she makes messes and she seems to be constantly in heat. Ackerley's narrator, however, loves her no less for all this, and indeed seems wedded to her not only in spite of but because of her distressing physicality. The point this study is making is that to be an animal--like Tulip, or like her master--is to have a very unloveable body that needs to defecate and mate and bump into things. As we read further, we notice how the narrator's manners are not only at odds with these aspects of Tulip, but also with his own less-lovable traits: his jealousy, his snobbishness, his sense of entitlement. This is, in the end, largely a study of manners--and what manners must conceal in both dogs AND humans. If you take it as its meant, this is a very compelling little book.

So much more than a book about a man and his dog--I laughed, I cried. I laughed more than I cried as the author's way with words grew on me. Several months ago I heard about this book and author for the first time. The book was out of print and I could not find a copy online. I stumbled upon this new edition while browsing online and am so glad that I "waited" for this new version. The book is very attractive and unusual and I enjoyed the introduction which is new too. I'm now reading another book in this same new collection about the author's life--My Father and Myself--it puts My Dog Tulip into a new perspective and I may have to re-read it and if I do, I think I might cry more than I laugh this time around. Although when I looked again at the cover I had a private laugh. I'd recommend this book to almost anyone of any age. Parental guidance perhaps for My Father and Myself.

In fact that was from a review of some 45 years ago, but it will do for a title.

I think My Dog Tulip is possibly the best book about dogs I have ever read. It doesn't suprise me to see that Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (The Hidden Life of Dogs) has written the introduction to the current edition, as Ackerley opened up some of the territory she was to explore. They remind me of each other quite a lot.

In the first scene of My Dog Tulip, Ackerley meets a little old lady wheeling a little dog around the park in a pram. The dog is dressed up in a blanket and she is cooing to him like an invalid. It's obvious that this highly anthropomorphised canine is the sort of dog Ackerley wants NOT to portray. He commented at the time that he wanted to restore beastliness to beasts, and as E.M. Forster put it, Tulip is 'a dog of dogdom', not just 'an appendage of man.'

My Dog Tulip lampoons the British middle class as well as human anthropocentrism in general. Ackerley's technique of combining shocking subject matter with a genteel, decorous prose style is always a joy to read. It's also definately the main reason he managed to get away with publishing this book in 1956. It's no small measure of the success of this balancing act, that a book which still manages to upset a minority of readers in 2001 was published in 1956 to general critical acclaim.

What you get, if you buy My Dog Tulip, is a very detailed account of Ackerley's life with his dog Queenie (he changed the name to Tulip, only after it was suggested to him that 'Queenie' might cause some tittilation, as Ackerley had been a somewhat outspoken member of London's gay community for some time). At times it is hilarious - never more so than when he's poking fun at English propriety. At other times it is very touching, and at others there is a barely concealed anger against human arrogance. Yes, there are many, detailed descriptions of canine bodily functions - one chapter is titled 'Liquids and solids'. In my view Ackerley pulls this off with complete dignitiy, even if I'm reminded of Salvador Dali explaining to a shocked society lady how he covers himself with filth when he paints, but in order to attract "only the cleanest flies."

When the real Queenie died, Ackerley was devestated, and never really recovered. The greatest achievement of My Dog Tulip is its final chapter 'The Turn of the Screw', where suddenly the style of the writing changes; the comic veneer is dropped, and suddenly all the imagery about life, death and reproduction make sense. Tulip is still with him, but time is against them. It is one of the most beautiful and moving ruminations on mortality that I've read.

The informational density in this book is too low.

The book provides good description of compression techniques and algorithms, however, compared to the number of pages, the amount of information provided is not adequate.

The book is full of program listings in both BASIC and C, together with a description of what this code does. This I consider unnecessary.

Also, the book is dangerously inaccurate in many places, even in algorithm specifications, formulations are often so inaccurate, that they can be even considered misleading.

However, if you are a carefull and aware reader, you can harvest the compression algorithms out of this book.