This is a beautiful book, which everyone must read. If you never read another commentary, read this one. Meier has a special relationship with Matthew. After reading this book, you will have one, too.

John Cabot and the Matthew are to Newfoundlanders and Canadians what Christopher Columbus and the Santa Maria are to Americans. When the modern replica of Giovanni Caboto's (Cabot's Italian name) caravel Matthew visited our shores in 1997 to celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the originals voyage, I was smitten! The fact that it was the 20th Century, and not the 15th, didn't detract from the realism of the reinactment of John Cabot's transatlantic crossing of 1497. The modern crew battled north atlantic gales, encountered icebergs and vast fogbanks, much as had Cabot's crew of 500 years previous. On June 24th, 1997 amidst freezing temperatures and a howling gale, 500 years to the day after the original Matthew landed in Bonavista, the modern replica sailed out of a fog bank at landed at the very spot where Cabot reportedly first sighted land! After 53 days at sea in oftentimes trying conditions, the mostly novice crew, ranging in age from 20 years to 77, managed to sail their tiny replica ship from Bristol, England to Newfoundland and into the hearts of all Newfoundlanders. Fisrstbrook's book chronicles the birth of the idea for the recreation of Cabot's historic voyage through to the ships design and construction and her sea trials in 1996/97. Also, the book deals with the medeival world of late 15th century Europe that spawned such explorers as Columbus, Cabot and Corte Real as well as the historical facts surrounding Cabot's three voyages. Firstbrook also entertains the various theories dealing with Cabot's subsequent disappearance during his mysterious and ill-fated third voyage of 1498. For anyone interested in sailing ships, or history, or just an interesting read, this is an excellent book. The book is a companion to a BBC TV documentary which coincided with the Matthew replica's voyage in May/June of 1997. I haven't had the opportunity to see this series, as it has yet to be carried by local television unfortunately. For those who may tend towards the actual adventure of sailing a replica of a 15th century caravel across the stormy North Atlantic during one of the worst times of the year, I recommend "Bound Down for Newfoundland; the Diary of a Young Seaman Aboard the Matthew" by crewman Chris Legrow. You'll feel the stiff salt breeze reading this one!

This book shows the reader the balance between the Native shamanic traditions of Northern Europe and the Hermetic ceremonial traditions. These two make up the the Wiccan tradition. There are practical excercises with each section within the chapters one can do which will deepen one's understanding and widdens one's well of wisdom.

This book is simple to follow and to learn from, it was just like following the dots from a childs book! This book sits on my desk and is within arms reach for me to use if I need it. The netMeeting part was my main reason for buying this book, however it has proven to me, to be a much needed asset in my growing computer book collection.

This ought to be a terrific book. Winston Churchill led a fascinating life and shaped the history of a time with many lessons for our own. John Keegan is a wonderful military historian whose book "In the Face of Battle" I still assign to students. Moreover, there is a real need for a biography of Churchill with a military emphasis. I plunged into this book with enthusiasm after having waded through the parliamentary detail of Roy Jenkins's Churchill biography. But this is very ordinary. It provides a competent sketch of well-known information, and would not make a bad introduction for someone unfamiliar with the man or the time. That merits several stars. But it does not go beyond that; tracing the intricate interweaving of the political, moral, and military strands that enabled this leader to stand almost alone against tyranny and to hold his country with him remains a challenge to future biographers. Part of the problem may be that Keegan's greatest strength as a writer is his ability to recreate small moments of history in amazingly vivid detail. Perhaps a series of vignettes of crucial moments in Churchill's career would have suited Keegan's talents better.

As with the entire Penguin Lives series, this book was written by an expert who was given the challenge of sharing his knowledge in less than 200 pages. John Keegan succeeds brilliantly. As an expert on World War II, Keegan has written many wonderful and insightful books and this is no exception despite the literary constraints placed upon him. His clear and beautiful prose make the book a quick and enjoyable read, but he does not sacrifice information. I did not know a lot about Churchill before reading this book, but now I feel that I have a good understanding for his achievements and why he was so significant in his own time. It is a fabulous book for an amateur historian who does not want to spend dozens of hours wading through a biography several volumes long and simply wants to know significant events and some good analysis by a renowned historian. A wonderful, well written, and interesting book.

John Keegan succeeds brilliantly in this short biography of Winston Churchill, summoning Churchill's persona and principles, as well as providing an overview of Churchill's role in the great events of his long life. While Keegan has crafted his book beautifully, he graciously allows Churchill's voice, in the form of snippets from his speeches, to provide this biography's rhetorical highpoints. This is a first rate portrait of an amazing man. Highly recommended!

I'll agree with the many other reviews that rate this book as an extremely knowledgeable reference on ASP, perhaps the definitive reference.

However, there are several points that make this book somewhat unappealing from a practical perspective.

First, note that it was written by 15 different authors. This incorporates many different writing styles, making it unwieldy. The previous edition was written by 8 people. Do not attempt to use either book as a cover-to-cover tutorial.

Second, the code examples are written almost exclusively in VBScript, although the book acknowledges that Javascript (also known as JScript) would work just as effectively. From a real-world perspective, I have found that many ASP programmers prefer to use Javascript for both server-side and client-side development.

The use of 2 scripting languages in one application is simply impractical. VBScript persists mainly because it is a Microsoft invention, as is ASP itself. However, Javascript (or ECMA Script) has become the industry-standard scripting language for web-based applications.

Another issue with the code examples is that they are not line-numbered. For short examples, this is not an issue. But for larger code modules (as one would encounter in the real world), line-numbering is considered part of best practices in explaining and debugging code before it is deployed.

For readers with any ASP background, this book would be a useful desktop reference. Carrying it around in your briefcase may cause lower back strain.

Professional Active Server Pages 3.0, by Alex Homer, is
a book on developing web applications using Active
Server Pages 3.0. This book goes in depth into
developing web applications with discussions and
examples on advanced topics such as, CDO/Microsoft
Exchange Server, ADO/Microsoft SQL Server, and
ADSI/Active Directory. Homer presents the reader with a
wealth of information on advanced enterprise level
topics based on Microsoft technologies. This book is
excellent for intermediate/advanced users who wish to
learn about Active Server Pages using Microsoft
technologies, however due to the fact Homer does not
goes in depth with fundamentals of programming Visual
Basic Script, this book should not be recommended to
novice developers.

Throughout the book, Homer discusses the importance of
COM/COM+ and what that technology can do for your web
application. He writes examples of a COM+ component in
Visual Basic and shows the user how to register/load
the component into memory along with utilizing the
functionality of them in an Active Server Page. Homer
further explores the features of Windows 2000 by
introducing the features of Active Directory and
explaining/demonstrating how ADSI can connect an Active
Server Page to the Active Directory. The book goes into
further detail on enterprise level topics by discussing
how CDO interfaces with Microsoft Exchange Server.
Using CDO, a developer can access all of users Exchange
account information including mail, contacts, calendar,
etc. The book ends with performance and security issues
for web applications running on a Windows 2000 Server
and how an administrator should configure a Windows
2000 Server for maximum performance and security.

The software/technologies the book uses are based on
products/technologies developed by Microsoft. Since
Active Server Pages is a Microsoft technology, it would
be reasonable to use only Microsoft
products/technologies. However, in the real world, many
businesses have heterogeneous environments with Oracle
database servers and JavaScript web developers. The
fact that this book only exposes the reader to vendor-
specific technologies could be a down fall, however
creates a centralized focus for the reader.

This book covers a wide spectrum of advanced knowledge
with Active Server Pages, however is completely based
around Microsoft technologies. Several other authors
composed this book, which helps the reader get a
dynamic flavor of knowledge from chapter to chapter as
one can see. Any intermediate/advanced web developer,
interested in enterprise web application development,
should purchase a copy of this book for reference
purposes.

Being an enterprise web developer, I found this book to be the absolute best in its field. It covers a very wide spectrum of fields any web developer working with Microsoft web technology should know, including ADO, ADSI, ASP, CDO, COM+, error handling, MSMQ, Windows DNA, XML, and a whole lot more (note that this book is primarily oriented at web developers who's target platform is Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0, but I also found it to be extremely useful for use on Windows NT 4.0 and IIS 4.0, since the authors clearly indicate features that are new to Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0). The writing style is absolutely excellent and gives clear tips on code optimization and performance. I have read literally dozens of different books on these subjects, and none has come close to this one. Although this book is not for beginners, it is, in my opinion, good for anyone who wants to advance their career on the web or become an web developer. This is definitely a book you will want to read from cover to cover, and use as a reference. At just about any price, it's a steal.

Both Volumes 1 and 2 of Penguins Le Morte D'Arthur were filled with an endless fountain of legends and reading these books one knows why it provided inspiration for writers throughout the centuries. The sub plots alone (ex: King Mark and Sir Tristam's love for Isoud and Sir Palomides internal and external battles) provide the aspiring writer with a wealth of plots and ideas. But for the love of God Penguin could have included some clear annotation throughout the book. The footnotes are in dire need of a major overhaul. All Penguin gives us is a few pages of translation for the more obscure words, but the reader has to go back and forth between the story and the dictionary. To put it simply it's an enourmous pain to do this. A system of annotation similar to Signet's publishing of Paradise Lost & Regained (which is also an excellent copy of this classic which I highly recommend) would have put this set of books up to five stars. Once you get past the obscure English the book becomes surprisingly easy to read, far easier than Shakespeare or Chaucer. Malory, obviously, was not a writer like Chaucer but he did do us a favor and put the bulk of the French legends into a handy volume so we wouldn't have to search through obscure Old French romances. So think of this more as an anthology rather than a novel. For those of you struggling through the text, as I did, you can skip to almost any part of the book (except the very first and very last part) and the story you will read will make sense (this is of course assuming you understand the obscure English).

I don't read a lot. In fact, the only time I do read is when I am required to do so by a class. Such is the case with The Tales of King Arthur. But although I would never have read the book were it not for my fascinating English teacher, I must say that I have never read anything as intriguing as the Tales of King Arthur.

Getting used to the language isn't as difficult as some other reviewers are saying... At least it wasn't for me (and I'm an eighteen year-old high school student). You'll struggle through the first few pages but once you've got an ear for it the language comes natural (somewhat like reading Shakespeare - it takes time to adjust). I found nothing tedious about the book other than the somewhat unfocussed book of the Sangrail.

The characters are awesome, the language is awesome, the plots and emotions are awesome. If you read this from beginning to end you'll walk away with a sincere compassion for the characters and the inevitable death of the times.

I can't imagine bothering with a modernized version - the classic text is just so sweet.

Most everyone has some knowledge of the King Arthur legend. Either they've read it, been exposed to it by Disney or Robert Goulet, or have just heard of it from someone else that knows. So, I'm not recommending this book so much for the text.

The reason why this edition of Le Morte D'Arthur is an absolutely necessary part of any collection is for its stunning illustrations. Anna-Marie Ferguson must have dreamed of Camelot when she was a child for there is simply no other way to explain the attention to detail, the romantic cast to all that we see. As real as Arthur and Lancelot may have seemed to us before, they become infinitely more human in the hands of Ferguson. I never tire of walking to my shelves and pulling out this book to just flip through it. To track my fingertips down the smooth sweep of colors and the beautiful images that really bring Camelot to life.

Of all the talking heads on television nowadays, the one I stop to listen to every now and then is Christopher Matthews, the Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner and a former aide to Tip O'Neill who delivers a fascinating chronicle of the interchange between the two most well known statesmen of the Cold War.Matthew’s authoritative anecdotes stand out as the book's top selling feature. Further Matthews demonstrates the complex and vibrant nature of the Kennedy-Nixon rivalry and friendship. Booming with hubris, tragedy, and destiny, Matthew’s book reads something out of the Homer’s Iliad recast in American political theatre. Our heroes, both World War II Navy Officers, Class of 46 vets shared a common goal of American confrontation toward Soviet expansionism. One would be murdered for it and remembered as a hero, the other would die in old age whose reverent eulogies are stained with villainy.

Matthews alone stands out as the only scholar willing to look beyond the rivalry that still colors our perceptions of history today. He dares to see Nixon as who he really was and not a dastardly villain as his enemies would have one believe. He forthrightly portrays Nixon as a brilliant statesman who brought into reality the international order that his rival Jack Kennedy failed to achieve.

Owing somewhat to his patronage to Mr. Speaker, the man who would succeed Jack Kennedy’s Congressional seat, the author and democrat’s silence on the Kennedy-Nixon rivalry after the 60 election until the 1963 assassination is deafening. One cannot help but sympathize with self-made Nixon who does nothing to impeach the political fortunes of his Presidential rival where the rich kid Kennedy, like the illegitimate Richard III, engages is a whole array of ruthless buyouts, cheap tricks and petty jabs to secure his ill gotten throne and destroy his old nemesis.

This is a really good book for a serious reader interested in the history of this nation and the art of statecraft.

I am very impressed with Chris Matthews's narrative on the political careers of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. His book is well-researched, well-written, and his conclusions are well-proven. At first, I was suspicious of Mr. Matthews's claim that their jousting was "the rivalry that shaped postwar America." But in completing the book, I can appreciate that Kennedy and Nixon were the American version of Disraeli and Gladstone. They both served in the South Pacific during World War II and were elected to Congress in the same year, 1946. Nixon ran as a "pragmatic liberal." Kennedy ran as a "fighting conservative." Excuse me? But beneath the contradictory rhetoric lay an ideological similarity: a passionate hate of communism and a deep suspicion of the New Deal, Eastern Establishment. American leaders during the Cold War, they rallied their nation against Communist threats at home and abroad. They further overthrew the old Washington rules of political cordiality and fairness. To substitute, the first leaders of the G.I. Generation created a winner-take-all political culture that forever changed the Beltway. Kennedy started as the more ruthless pol. His early political career was filled with charges of bribery, vote-stealing, and other low-ball maneuvers. Nixon, of course, would not be outdone. His relentless pursuit of Alger Hiss gave him his first political break and cemented his fear that the Elite was out to break him. Similar in political style and ideology, Kennedy and Nixon became genuine friends in the 1950s. This surprised me but Mr. Matthews documents this point prodigiously. Nixon was invited to the Kennedy wedding in 1953. When Kennedy was near death in 1954, Nixon was in tears. "Oh God, don't let him die." Jackie Kennedy told friends that Jack admired Nixon more than any other man he knew. What forever changed the relationship was the 1960 presidential election. Kennedy beat Nixon by an incredibly narrow margin and the loser was forever convinced that the election was stolen. Mr. Matthews emphasizes the role of "imagery" in the 1960 campaign. All things being equal, Nixon should have topped Kennedy that year. But Kennedy's good looks and aristocratic style contrasted favorably with Nixon's common looks and straight talk. When Kennedy was assinated, the manufactured mythology of "Camelot" masked an average presidency. When Nixon was finally elected president in 1968, it was the ideal of Camelot that haunted him throughout his term. No matter what Nixon did, he could never measure up to Kennedy in the eyes of the American people. The Eastern Establishment viewed Nixon especially distastefully; they saw him as an illegitimate president. Nixon knew that he was in a constant struggle against the liberals who carried the torch for Camelot. Nixon was determined to use every weapon in his arsenal to save himself and his presidency - constitution de damned. Mr. Matthews is especially fluent in describing the step-by-step political destruction of Richard Nixon. The Kennedy-Nixon rivalry ends in 1974 with Nixon's resignation in disgrace. Kennedy had bested Nixon one last time. But in a true sense, both men were equal winners. It was their Cold War zealotry and political ruthlessness that defined Washington after 1960. Our communist-free world is largely their child. Our cynical political culture is largely their creature too. For better and for worse.

Chris Matthews has written a extremely readable, informative, and fair history concerning two of the most important politicians in the post war era. Both were elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. Kennedy ran as a fighting conservative and Nixon as a common sense liberal. They became friends while serving in the House and later in the Senate. When it appeared that Kennedy might die in the mid 1950's Nixon broke down and cried. Both come across as extremely fair minded Senators politicians to do the right thing. Their friendship did not survive the 1960 election. After Kennedy was assassinated, Nixon could never live up to the myth of Camelot. It haunted him throughout the rest of his political career and played a part in his descent into Watergate.

This reference has more or less picked up the torch from the late lamented "Baseball Encyclopedia," and is indispensible for serious fans (and probably casual ones as well).

Included in the hefty (nearly 2,000 pages) volume is everything you'd expect (player stats, franchise histories, postseason results) and a number of things you might not (Curt Smith's wonderful roster of radio/TV announcers, for instance). It's perfect for whiling away the hours on rainy Sunday afternoons, and invaluable for settling arguments or answering trivia questions.

It would be nice if the next edition included a few more historical essays such as those found in its NFL counterpart, "Total Football II." That's a minor quibble, however, and perhaps impractical considering the voluminous size of the current book. All in all, this is a must-buy for baseball lovers.

Total Baseball is definitely a must for every baseball fan, from hardcore to casual. And it can be a gateway for many who haven't enjoyed the blessings of this beautiful game. There's everything you need to know: from team histories, great essays on the Negro Leagues. There's stuff for the stat nut as well: from sabermetrics to a handy guide on how to score a game, some insights on Women and Baseball, and of course, the hefty, precise and so accurate register of every player in Major League history. There's even a chapter on International Baseball results, that suprisingly, does NOT include the champions of the Venezuelan League, and does have the Dominican and Mexican team champions. Anyway, all in all, if you love baseball or simply you want to understand baseball, this book is for you.

Total Baseball is to baseball what the Beatles' songbook is to rock n' roll music, with authors Thorn and Palmer the Lennon-McCartney of baseball composers. It is a work of mind-numbing thoroughness, the baseball reference to end all references. The prose section includes the story of baseball from every region of the world. Also included are "The True Father of Baseball" and a lively new section of quotes. There are dozens of other sections, including the complete voting for every MVP award ever bestowed and diagrams -- including fence distances -- of every Major League park ever played in. Want to find out the Brooklyn Dodgers total attendance the year before they left for Los Angeles or the attendance of any other team in a any other season? It's in here. The register includes complete records of the nearly 15,000 men who have ever tied on spikes. The statistical derivations, including algorithms, are the standards and most ambitious ever done. For the rue fan, this is it: nearly 2,700 pages of baseball bliss.