Hedda Gabler lives in an absolute prison. Her idylic residence is a prison, her marriage to a hopeful "ilustrious intellectual" is a prison, but above all, she lives imprisoned by herself, trapped by the social parameters that demand her to live the way she does. Hedda just can't figure out how to get out of that tedious state. She's intelligent, cold, severe; Gabler has an almost prodigious capacity to obtain all the information she inquires about the people around her; she manipulates them, she seems to get involved, but she simply tries to take advantage of the situation. Apparently, she doesn't feel much, but in reality, Hedda is in constant turmoil - her involvement has to do, almost exclusively, with what she just cannot allow herself to do.

For this woman, being able to have some sort of "power" over someone becomes the most exciting of all experiences, however - there's a point when she no longer will be able to manipulate the situation on her favor, she will realize how many forces have power over her; therefore, she will simply do the most congruent and coherent of things, as unexpected and shocking as the outcome of this play could possibly be.

Hedda Gabler is a wonderful story of a woman desperately trying to have control over her life. Married to a husband she doesn't love and pregnant with a child she doesn't want, Hedda seeks comfort in an old friend. There are enough surprizes in this play to keep it interesting throughout. Ibsen uses his brilliant writing style to capture the very essence of Hedda. I highly recommend Hedda Gabler as well as other works by Henrik Ibsen.

Hedda Gabler is a play filled with tensions and the theme of power play. Personally, I feel that Hedda Gabler is a reflection of a woman trapped in the wrong time. She is one who wants power but is denied of it due to her gender and also her status in the society and all that she needs is to just sit at home and recieve visitors. She has no aims to look forward to and I believe that it is suffocating for this woman. If she had been born in this time of the century, I believe that she would not land up in that patathic end.

As a parent, this is certainly not a book that I want to read to my kids or one that I want them to read. In the book, Thomas is disrespectful to his mother, teacher and principal. Each adult fights with Thomas trying to get his snowsuit on and loses. In an attempt at being funny, Munsch undermines values that I want to build in my kids. I don't want the time that I spend reading to my kids and the time my kids spend reading will be spent teaching them to be disrespectful and disobedient. Nor do I want them thinking that this is or should be amusing to them. If you still want to read a copy of this book, I know where you can get a copy very cheap, my garbage can!

I like "Thomas' Snowsuit" by Robert Munsch Because ot is a good book, but it is a children book, so it's not for adults. It is still a good book. I think Robert Munsch did a good job on makink it. It is pretty funny, also.I also think it is a great book for people who just learned to read.It is really easy to read for me.Other books i like by Robert Munsch are I Have To Go, 50 Below Zero, and Stephany's Pony Tail.

Young readers and preschoolers love irony as much as adults - that's what the best humor is based upon. Munsch and Martchenko excel in bringing that irony to the printed page in this book. Exageration is at its best as Thomas asserts his independence, and the rhythm of language pairs beautifully with the witty illustrations to keep kids and adults laughing throughout. My kids have treasured this book since it first landed at our house several years ago. As a child psychiatrist, I find it to be a great ice breaker when working with my young patients. It's a great book for breaking out the grins!

Like any other recent Wrox titles, this one contains jewels and pretenders. On the bright side, quite a few of the Java and XML chapters are strong, and I particularly liked the ones on EJB, PL/SQL-Java inter-operation, and SOAP. There is also a chapter at the end on setting up the environment to run the book samples. On the not so bright side, the PL/SQL chapters are disappointing, because they cover either fundamental stuff that anyone who calls themselves an Oracle developer should know, or irrelevant technologies like OAS PL/SQL cartridge and PSP (huh?). The chapters on JDBC and connection pooling wasted 60% of the pages by talking about the basic JDBC API and showing the details of a connection pool manager class, rather than talking more about Oracle's extensions to the JDBC 2.0 standard and optional packages API. Finally, there is one glaring omission - MTS (I am talking about the Microsoft stuff here), although it does contain an informative chapter on ASP/Oracle. One more thing: this book covers Oracle8i Release 2, not the latest 3.

With everything considered, you may still want to own this title, as it is the only book under the sun that covers all (well, almost) current distributed programming technologies that interface with Oracle (both J2EE and Windows DNA). It also covers promising Oracle proprietary technologies such as interMedia, BC4J, and Portal (aka WebDB).

This book is one of the more comprehensive I have read about Oracle programming. It has very good examples and you will find tips and information you won't find in any other books/web sites/forums etc. This book has been written by genuine Oracle developers and you will get a depth of real-world knowledge and application. I recommend highly it for the serious Oracle, Java and XML developer.

To produce this book, Wrox took twenty expert Oracle developers and had each of them write about their area of expertise. The result is that whether you are a manager, a developer, or a DBA, if you are working with Oracle 8i this book should be on your desk. This book covers virtually every topic that you need to understand about the Oracle 8i development platform. It does not cover each topic completely but it provides a thorough and in most cases sufficient introduction on each topic. For a particular topic of interest you may need an additional book but to get all the information found in this book you would need ten volumes at least. The book opens with an introduction to Oracle 8i and some of its components including Net8 (Oracle's network solution) and Designer 6i (Oracle's development environment). The next section covers PL/SQL and PSP (this is similar to JSP). This is followed by an extensive section covering Java. This section covers JDBC, SQLJ, EJB, and interMedia (Oracle's powerful search tool). The last section covers XML and includes information on DOM and SAX parsers, SOAP, XSL, XSQL, and more. Extensive case studies are scattered throughout the book. Examples show how to use Oracle tools such as BC4J to develop enterprise applications. The book even includes primers on Java and XML. As a tour of all the features of Oracle 8i, this book is without competition.

Interesting that you basically ignore native XML DBs. They are the definitive choice in most XML Document Centric environments. While RDBs remain quite strong in XML Data Centric models, they must resort to BLOBs or risk an order of magnitude of sluggishness compared to native XML DBs, such as our GoXML DB. Even with BLOBs, you cannot create a new document from multiple existing documents because of the columnar structure. The lack of a full table of contents when your title is 'Professional XML Databases' is disappointing...

Concerned XML Enthusiast

this is very well written book. the material presented in this book are exhaustive and gets you good insight on how xml would be used with dbms. the chapters 2,3 and 4 are very informatiove as they list ou tthe steps required for converting db table to xml and vice versa.

I read through this book at more of an advanced developer level, so I'm going to treat it from that level.

The chapter on XQuery was great; it answered many of my questions concisely. There is very little information on the web about XQuery outside the W3.org site, so I was surprised to find such high quality information in a book.

XPath is also a newer API that is covered well in this book, giving you enough information to get your project going.

If you're planning to do any kind of development with XML coming in or going out of a relational database, this is an excellent book to buy. I also recommend Professional XML from Wrox and O'Reilly's XML in a nutshell.

I've been listening to country music for more than four decades, plus recently brushing up on music history while researching Faron Young's life. This book contains much good information, but I wonder how the writers define "country." In spite of all their hits, the Wilburn Brothers rate a two-inch column and David Houston gets three inches. Yet many, many performers I've never heard of (and non-country ones I have heard of) get a page or more. How often has Grateful Dead ever been played on a country station? Faron Young--a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame--is allotted one page, but Neil Young gets six. How many times did he appear on the country charts? None that I recall. Even the historical Carter Family is limited to two pages. There would have been room to give more information about more performers if the book had fulfilled the promise of its title.

I'm a big fan of this series, which is prized among buffs for its reliable and informative album ratings. This volume gets big points for unusually inclusive coverage, which makes sense for the "big tent" that is country music. We get everything from rockabilly to country-oriented rock acts to straight-up honky tonk. Also, you get good coverage of some fairly obscure artists (finally, Michael Hurley in a reference book!).

Complaints? I've got a few. The editing in this volume is not up to the series' usual standards. Some of the biographical sketches are sloppily written and some artists seem to have been left out unintentially (for example, Area Code 615 is mentioned many times in the text, but doesn't get an entry). Also, as long as I'm complaining, some of the decisions about who to include are a little loopy -- the Greatful Dead but not John Prine? And music reference books go stale fast -- the latest entries in this one are from mid 1996, so a new edition is called for.

With all that said, I spent half the night reading through this one, promising myself that I'd go to sleep after I read just one more entry... If you're anything more than the most casual country fan, you need this book.

Books like this make know-it-alls like me shudder: now everyone can have decades worth of hard-won musical knowledge at their fingertips, for just a few bucks. Hardly seems fair. Highly recommended.

This review book is not up to date, specifically the questions are in a format nowhere near USMLE's exam. Memorize the newest edition of First Aid.

I have just passed Step 1 and I do believe that this book helped me to get a good score. Despite the fact that the questions in this book do not mimic the exam's questions they highlight many details, which may be missed even in good review books. If you use only one book to study one subject, you will definitely miss some important facts. To cover those facts I did the following. First, I studied the subject using the main review book and answered questions in it. Than I answered questions in this book and always found missed important details, which were not mentioned in my main textbooks but were covered here. In other words, I would advise to read this book before the exam.

This book has a lot of important information that anyone taking the USLME should know. It has pretty good questions and answers and I like how the book explains the various USMLE topics. It's much easier reading through this book then some long textbooks. However, I also used the following which is also available on amazon.com:
Microbiology Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers by Patrick Leonardi
This questions were on target with the type of questions asked on the microbiology section of the boards. Get both books.

Where this book provides more info from others of its ilk:

- some decent "beginning" tales. I was hopeful that this would continue in such detail to give a full picture of the man. More on this later.
- Some excellent Gemini tales, particularly about himself, Grissom, and Schirra.
- Lots of post Apollo stuff, and interesting ASTP, ISS, and shuttle info. I personally was unaware of stafford's importance in the 90s in organizing various committeees to discuss NASA futures, and ISS, and think it's a shame that he declined the oppportunity to become NASA Admin.
- some more detail about alexei leonov, the great russian cosmonaut (and soviet space program in general) is sprinkled throughout the book, as he and Tom are very good buddies. There's an attempt to present their careers in parallel perspective - sometimes successfully, sometimes not. One nice piece is the Bondarenko bit - this has been reported by Oberg and others, but placed neatly in context here. Nice.

Where this book is no better

- most of the apollo era. Not much new here, little new insight.

Where this book fails to fully satisfy

- No deep insights or understandings or Mr Stafford himself. I'd wager he's a friendly-on-the-surface (certainly seems to get along with almost everyone) but hard-to-get-to-know-beyond type of fellow. Which is fine is all you want is space wonk stuff and policy info, which this book genrally delivers - but frustrating if you really want to understand the man, his families, and his friends. The bits about Faye and the astronaut wives felt tacked on - as if the authors had read Gene Cernan's book and decided "well we gotta follow suit here"...but did so half-heartedly.
- you have to put up with the usual par-for-the-course slightly egotistical way of looking at things. This is by no minds Mr Stafford's sole demesne - all the astronaut's possess this, perhaps rightfully so. I guess that only strongwilled strongego fellers could prosper in the space program. Esp. if they became 3 star generals later. But it does sometimes get to one while reading along (eg when he makes the offhand remark about how NASA folks were impressed by how long his client list was)
- a little too unwilling to pass judgement (and hence even hint at his feelings) on fellow astronauts. An example is where he recounts the issues with Apollo 7 crew and OTHER people's opinions without really expressing his own. Oddly, the major exception is Gus Grissom, whom Tom seems to like but also points out a few misjudgements on his part.
- a little too stiff in general. Even if he didn't tell us, I could tell he was "general-speaking". More and more I wish Pete Conrad had lived to write his memoirs. Those would have been foul-mouthed and crazy. Ah well.

In short I think it needed say 75 more pages sprinkled all about that delved more deeply into the man. Whether this is the fault of Mike Cassutt (who also co-wrote Deke!, which I thought went a bit deeper but also descended even more evilly into "list making"), or Tom's own reticence, or my own critical eye. I dunno.

Still a decent book. I'd probably place it towards the top-middle of the pack. I found Slayon, Cernan, Kranz or Kraft (you really only need one), more informative.

Tom Stafford is one of the more interesting and accomplished of the early Astronauts. He had a pair of groundbreaking Gemini missions and then a test pilot's dream of a mission, Apollo 10. He capped off his space career with Apollo's swan song, Apollo/Soyuz. This is a very interesting read for those who know a bit about the early space program and some of its people. Some parts would likely confuse people who were new to the topic and unfamiliar with some of the basic facts.

One complaint is that the editing is very poor and it was clearly not thoroughly proofread. Grammatical errors abound and there are a few sentences that defy the English language. It's a shame. Aside from what the publisher neglected to do, Stafford put together an interesting and very readable book.

By the way, don't miss Chris Kraft's book, "Flight." One of THE best books on the early days of NASA.

Many books have been written about the glory days of NASA. Now we have the chance to learn about the life of one of the early pioneers of space exploration. Tom Stafford takes the reader on a journey of his amazing life from small town Oklahoma to 50,000 feet above the moon and shaking hands with Russian Cosmonauts in space. Anybody interested in Stafford's giant role in the glory years of Gemini and Apollo will love this book. Stafford vividly recalls both the joys of test pilot and astronaut life as well as the tragedies such as the T-38 flight into St. Louis where astronauts See and Bassett lost their lives. Stafford explains how profound the Apollo-Soyuz project was in his life. He began his military and astronaut career as an avowed enemy of the Soviet Union and eventually became the commander of the flight that initiated American and Russian cooperation in space. This book is a real winner and will delight those with a basic or advanced interest in the orgins of manned space exploration. The only drawback of the book is that one realizes that the NASA of 2002 is only a shell of what it was in the sixties and early seventies. Well done on a great book that adds immensely to the literature of manned space flight.

Not to put the previous reviewer down, but which culture hasn't studied the constelations ("fixed stars") & plenets ("wandering stars") for centuries?

This is a great book. The wording is very practical and down to earth. The subject matter in most of these chapters is formidable (given the limited space), and allows dialog between the reader & writer. What I enjoyed the most was not the diversity that was braught to the book, but the depth of knowledge that was braught to it. The chapter written about Chinese "Five-Element" Astroloy was my favorite. For more info about "this stuff"; I recomend anything written by DEREK WALTERS.

Now if you'll me let complane (which is what most of the critiques on Amazon.com do), I'll share with you what I don't like about most practicing astrologers. Most people (including Fagan) try to dispute the validity of using one Zodiac over another (sidereal vs. tropical). But the fact is that some Zodiacs don't even use the ecliptic! Incuding Chinese astrology. Or the Nakshatras, which most western astrologers "throw in"! And this is my point, that these Zodiacs are a cration. Our creation! And that's what makes astrology valid! Remember Arroyo. Don't forget Arroyo. He said, "If astrology is in fact an emination of universal mind or 'Collective Unconscious' or anything like that, then instead of imposing foreign dogma on astrology, I would say, let us open our eyes to what astrology already is! Let's acknowledge its inherent, extremely sophisticated, psychological [soulful] dimentions. It's all there. It's a tremendous tool, a language of consciousness and inner experience... This is one reason why traditional astrology has become quite meaningless to many of us; the astrology has not for the most part evolved to keep pace with our growth [in] consciousness. And it's why every culture has it's own astrology-the consciousness of that culture determines what level of understanding they can have of astrology."

I really need to emphisise this feeling I have about these truths! It seems as though all we need to do is look up and astrology becomes valid, alive because we are!

For another "good read" try The Origin of The Zodiac by Rupert Gleadow.

This is a book about astrology from China, India and Tibet. I do not know of any other book in which there are so many different astrological techniques from the East. Everything is clearly explained. In this book, you will find the wisdom of the sages of the East who have spotted the stars and planets for centuries. Now you can learn about their insights.

Readers hoping for a good read about Lawrence will be sadly disappointed.

This is an interesting story badly told. Mr Asher keeps interrupting his narrative by persistent psychoanalysis of Lawrence as well as stories of his own exploits in the footsteps of his subject. Such comments rightfully belong in the footnotes and appendixes. Putting them in the main body makes this a cumbersome work.

The book should be more aptly titled Psychoanalysing Lawrence. Then at least the reader will know what he is in for. For those who just want a good read of Lawrence of Arabia, warts and all, this is not the book.

This book fails in many ways. The reason it gets 2 stars instead of one is that it's hard to discuss Lawrence without some fascinating things coming through.

First, Asher makes himelf part of the biography. He discusses his own personal travels in a manner that add absolutely nothing to the reader's understanding. The final paragraph of the book begins with "I." Further, the frequency and manner in which he interjects himself in the book is highly annoying.

Second, there are numerous factual problems with the book. At one point Asher refers to Turks shooting their rifles at Bedu who are over two miles away. Even a trained sniper with modern equipment wouldn't take that shot. Further, his description of Lt. Junor's plane crash is at odds with other accounts. Asher says the plane erupted in flames even though there are published photos of the crashed plane that show otherwise. Lastly on this point, Asher doesn't use Tunbridge's writings on Lawrence's days in the RAF as reference material. It's a surprising omission.

Third, as other reviewers noted, Asher writes extensively about Lawrence's psyche. This would be sensible if Asher was either trained in psychology or referenced studies by those who are; unfortunately, neither is the case. Instead there are a few bibliographical references to works on psychology, but none specific to Lawrence. Asher's vehement discussion of Lawrence's mother makes the reader wonder whether the author or the subject had the greater maternal relationship issues.

Fourth, is Asher's style, or more accurately, styles. At times he uses the contemporary jargon of British soldiers, whereas at other points he writes in a very stilted manner adding unnecessary Latin phrases to the text. His best writing is when he's providing background or contextual material such as the discussion of British military actions elsewhere in WWI.

Lawrence was one of the most fascinating personalities of the 20th century. He deserves a much better biography.

It was with the greatest fortune that I happened across this biography a couple of years ago,and immediately I was struck by the galloping pace and relentless ability Asher displays in making you turn each page.Two years later I find myself re-reading passage upon passage of this wonderful literary work with just as much enthusiasm as was spent the first time around.
Out with the old and in with the new.This assessment of the enigmatic Lawrence steers joyfully clear of the deeply mundane school years that most other biographers choose to dwell upon.
Instead,at last we have a biographer that is willing to put Lawrence to the test and travel in the footsteps of the little man.An experienced camel trecker and linguist himself,Asher portrays the whole Arabian experience and sustains our interest with fantastic descriptions of landscape and personal thought as to what Lawrence was thinking at the time.However,Asher is aware of the complex character of Lawrence and acknowledges the limits one is faced with when dealing with motive.
Ashers reluctance to be drawn into the shallow debate of Lawrences sexuality in a present climate where the obsession of scrutinising potential homosexual desire in the disguise of political corrctness is overwhelming,is both refreshing and worthwhile.He has managed to put to one side obvious adoration and produced a constructive view of personality and genius.On a respectful level this book is clearly too honest to be even sentimental-even though he often discovers that all is not black and white in the world of Lawrence.
In this single work Asher offers us a vast depth from an angle that all previous biographers have failed to acknowledge and attempt.One is struck by the sense that this book is reluctant to enhance the myth of Lawrence.This is the only point on which Asher fails.His conclusions concerning the exploits of Lawrence could have no other outcome.
"All men dream: but not equally.Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,for they may act their dream with open eyes,to make it possible.This I did."
Can this biography of Lawrence be bettered?Keep on dreaming!
Paul Barnes.

They did a pretty decent job. Some problems crop up, however, as there are errors throughout the book on specific bands that even the casual fan would catch. Hey, I'm not a fan of all these bands, but I caught most of the errors. There are also proof reading errors throughout the book.

These points aside, most of the reviews are fairly well written and informed. Whether or not you agree with the opinions expressed, the authors generally have solid reasoning for their comments. Still, one could wish for better accuracy for a book that is supposedly so comphrensive.

Hey guys, if you're looking for an additional writer I'm available!

This is a good book but the guides to jazz, rock, and blues are much better and more complete. Also, the classical section is rather skimpy.

This book needs no review. Buy it