Recent attempts to discredit Kinsey originally drove me to read Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. I'm not a scientist and was worried about Kinsey's accessibility. But like Freud, he is a great writer with an empathic style. Kinsey builds a lyrical momentum that carries the reader to each new chapter.

By actually reading the book many histrionic notions about Kinsey's work are exposed as just that. But there's more. I especially enjoyed the stats that show excessively pious people overrepresented among those practicing beastiality, and Kinsey's unintentionally droll interpretation.

But more importantly Kinsey is committed to framing sexual aberrations in a social context. I'm sure it was a great comfort to many at the time it was written, as it must still be now. Rather than viewing the individual as twisting in the wind of his own personal sins, Kinsey provides perspective via a sexual continuum which draws the individual back into the human family to which he belongs.

If you really want to know about Kinsey, read this book, not just the widely published Bible-banging protests which the first two reviews reflect.

The folks who call this book "bad science" are the folks who hate science. It is surely possible to find faults with the Kinsey Research, but the obvious answer in the real world is to DO BETTER. Interview more people with better controls and better interviewers. To date, no one has done this.

Kinsey and his staff made the interesting discovery (about 50 years ago) that the most common sexual orientation for the human male was actually one of the bisexual orientations. There are some men who are exclusively straight, and there are some men who are exclusively gay, but the most common case is the male who is attracted (to some extent) to BOTH sexes. One example would be myself -- I consider myself 100% gay, but, when it comes down to the truth, I cannot honestly say that I have NEVER had sex with a female. And a lot of other guys cannot honestly say that they have NEVER had sex with another guy. They may be 98% straight, but their orientation is SLIGHTLY bisexual.

When you compare this interesting fact with the popular American mythology that men are 95% straight and 5% gay (hmm, no bisexuals at all!), you learn a very interesting lesson!

Al and me have a lot in common. We both graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, NJ. We're both uninterested in the myth of objective morality. Lastly, we both would do anything to reach our goals--to bring glory to our Egos! This book, along with its Female counterpart, have had about as much impact on our society as Darwin has. Even if you're a bible-totin' Xian, you should read these volumes and then do some research into Kinsey. It may be "bad science", but it's good history--and good fun!

This book attempts to address two needs and fails at both. First, as an introduction to basic computer science, the author's ambiguous style of writing seems to confuse most students. A poor sense of English grammar permeates the book. Secondly, as an introduction to Java, the book glosses over important details such as how to handle Strings properly. Don't bother... it is not worth your time.

This book is a good intro for those who want to start learning computer programming in general and Java specifically. The authors ease you through basic programming concepts, including control statements, user defined methods, and loops. Eventually the get into heavier subjects like object-oriented programming, inheritance, and abstract data types.

The authors have even created their own library called BreezyGUI, which helps make web/GUI programming easier. While this is o.k., I would have prefered that they focused more on Java's AWT instead.

Although I thought this book was good as an intro to programming, if you're an experienced C or C++ programmer, this book probably won't work for you. I have a year's C++ experience, and the only reason I used it was to do an independent study comparing C++ and Java as a first programming language. I probably would have selected a more advanced text if not for the nature of my independent study.

That being said, I still think the book does a good job of presenting programming/Java concepts, and I do like the fact that the authors decided to go with a GUI approach instead of a CLI (Command Line Interface) approach. This will help keep the interest of those learning their first language, because they can make "cool" looking apps quickly.

This book doesnt baby you, its simple and can be easy if you apply yourself and it comes with its own builder software (make sure the book you get has the disk or you are screwed!! you need it to do the work).. you will not be disappointed!

Compared to other Java books I have used, I find this one rather poor in comparison. The program examples are not helpful at all unless you are trying to create an exact copy of their program. The diagrams are not helpful, there is a lack of color. Also, the binding on this book is not secure. I purchased this book new and just about everyone in my class complains that theirs is falling apart as well. For the price, this book is not worth it.

I'm teaching from this book for the second time this semester, and
I'm mostly happy with it. I have a few comments, though, that
don't really come out in the other descriptions and review here:

1) The book has a very good set of exercises, though some have
typographical errors.

2) The number of typos is high for an intro text (not surprising
for Thomson/ITP, though), so make sure students are aware of the
on-line errata.

3) The authors make a few unfortunate, incorrect remarks which,
fortunately, aren't critical to learning Java. A particularly
egregious example is their claim that "a thread is a process."

4) The index is very poor, making me disagree with the reviewer
who said the book is a good reference. For example, buttons are
introduced on p. 17 and used extensively throughout, but the only
mention in the index is of p. 368. In general, classes and
methods are given very short shrift in the text.

5) The text uses its own GUI API, which is ok, but not very well
documented. The on-line documentation is vague on a lot of
points, which is unfortunate since the index is so bad.

There are probably better texts for complete beginners, though
this isn't really bad. The layout and typography remind me of a
high school text, which is really not a problem. Anyone with
prior programming experience, though, will want to go elsewhere,
e.g., Arnold, Gosling, and Holmes.

This book provides the new-novice Java programmer with some practical examples for using Java for the study of Computer Science. Unlike many of the Java books out there this one does not skimp on the instruction of Computer Science principals in parrellel with the instruction of the Java language. As a plus it has some pretty useful breakdowns of classes that will be useful to a new Java programmer(such as String, Math, etc.) If those reasons were not enough, it also makes an excellent reference because of the way the book is written. The logical progression between chapters allows you to remeber almost without looking at the index exactly where that one snipit of code to do something was. I think that this is a must for any programmer who is teaching themself to program, because one cannot learn just to program without the theory behind how it should be done.

This is probably the worst textbook I have ever had thedispleasure of being forced to own. The author expects the"student" to already have a degree to be able to read thetext. None of the formulas are explained in detail at all and someare just pulled out of the air. Others are explained only half givingvariables that are expected to be known - in a textbook! Also, thelayout and format of the book are horrible, it's in newsprint stylewith no color no illustrations to give better understanding of thedata contained in the book. There are a few graphs, but again,they're poorly explained. In my personal opinion, DO NOT PURCHASEthis book, it will not help you. You're better off trying to learnthe material on your own.

For anyone in the pharmaceutical sciences, this book is a must. It is exhaustive and covers every aspect of physical pharmacy that you can think of. Along with Remington's The Science and Practice of Pharmacy, these two books are a must for anyone in hard-core pharmaceutical or pharmaceutical chemistry research.