I recently bought several kid-oriented versions of the tale of Robin Hood, looking for one that would be right for my 2nd grader. I haven't found one that's right for him to read yet, but this version is excellent for me to read to him. The first one edition I read was the Bullseye "Step into Classics" edition, and this edition is the second children's edition I've read.

The chapters are short (as is the whole book), but the author takes the time to include the elements of feasting and fighting that mark the older, more adult versions of the tale. The language is more complex than the Bullseye edition, but not by too much, and the language has a bit more of the "Olde England" feel I'm used to without going so far as to use archaic words. There's no smiting of pates here, I'm afraid. I'm torn between missing the archaic style and being glad I don't have to explain every other word to my son.

Robin Hood comes off as having a nasty temper, which I suppose he always did, but other versions usually have a bit more build-up before he goes wild. In order to keep the pace fast, the author omits some of the process of Robin getting mad, so he often seems a bit mean.

This book does a bit better than the Bullseye edition as far as telling how the men joined the band, giving better detail on the origin of Robin Hood himself and how Friar Tuck joined the band. It also tells the story of Alan a' Dale with more detail, and gives much better background on Maid Marian and her father. The other members of the band are explained as having been there from the beginning (in this story, an existing band saves Robin from the Sheriff, and Robin comes to lead them.)

The biggest weakness in this edition is that Prince John is virtually absent from the story, and King Richard never comes back to pardon everyone. There are several bits where the sherrif goes to see "the king," and the king he talks to seems a decent sort of fellow. Without a properly evil ruler, it's harder to understand why the people love Robin Hood so much.

Overall, I'd say this edition is a good compromise between being comprehensive and remaining accessible to children. I'd estimate it's at about a 3rd-4th grade reading level, but should be fine for reading to children as young as 6.

Since this includes interviews with some of my favorite writers, I was eager to devour it. I totally love the tidbits, as well as the interviews. Now, the biggest problem with this book is the excessive amount of editorial errors. Just in my first reading of this book, I found over a dozen! And this is published by a university press! If you can overcome the distractions of these mistakes, then you can enjoy what this book is meant to be: a fascinating collection of interviews of some of the biggest names in gay men's publishing.

After reading a few chapters from this book and compared it to other Fluid Mech books like Frank M. White's Fluid Mechanics and Fundamental of Fluid Mechanics by Munson, Young & Okiishi, I would say this book doesn't provide enough explanation to the various topics in Fluid Mechanics which the other authors did.
If you are the type who prefers to read something lighter, this book will be suitable for you. But for those who prefer to read up & learn more about Fluid Mechanics, Frank White will be a better choice although beginners who are new to Fluid Mech will find White's book a bit hard to understand.
Personally, I would say the best Fluid Book i have ever read will be Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics by Young, Munson & Okiisi. Please refer to the review of that book for more info

Whether you are a student, or actually working in the field, this book is a great first step in fluid mechanics. Tons of problems and good examples in every chapter make this book not only easy to understand, but somewhat enjoyable too!!! You don't get that very often! If you have problems with this book, like 4.0 boy below, then there is obvious problems with your studying habits. Should have gone to Purdue University!!
Good buy I would recommend it to anyone.

I used this book as an undergrad and found the many examples very helpful in doing the homework problems. I still refer to this textbook quite often as an aeronautical engineer. If you've had a few math courses it isn't too challenging. It is a very good explanation of the basics!

I bought this book because I wanted to develop a better understanding of the music I was hearing at concerts. I was disappointed. The authors spent so much effort trying to make the book interesting that they didn't include the information I was seeking. I can understand the wordplay in the section headings, but I got VERY tired of the "Bet You Didn't Know" sections with tidbits like "Salmonella was reputed to be such a wonderful piano player because he had two left hands." I tried to just skip them, but the remainder of the text assumed the reader had read those sections.

The music theory portion of the book - the part I wanted to understand the most - is only 13 pages and still left me lost. Some of it may be from oversimplification. One question I had - and still have - is the meaning of a piece described as being In C Major. The book states that this is "the basic tone on which the rest of music is constructed." I don't know if that means the most common note, the midpoint, or something else. Examples of specific works would go a long way to making this discussion more useful.

This book might be an amusing resource if you're looking for biographical trivia about composers, singers, or performers. But I would not recommend it for someone struggling to understand the music.

This book is not bad at all. It may deserve 4 stars had I never read Classical Music for Dummies. A book on classical music ought to come with a sample CD. This one doesn't. And you won't know what you miss until you get the other book.

Ironically, I took up violin when I was four (like so many Asian kids) but gave it up after 13 years of continuous practice. Recently I realized that even though I could still play, I did not know much about classical music as a genre! So I bought this book and found it very informative. Let me just say that (after checking with my music history professor) everything you need to know about classical music is here, explained in a friendly and clear way. You'll learn how to appreciate classical music as well as who-is-who in the field.

Now, would someone care to write a "complete idiot's guide to Chinese music"? :)

The software basically covers the SAME EXACT INFO as the book and 99.99% of the times its word for word the same. Why spend extra money ? Just get the book. Also, on my computer there were about 15 - 20 test questions where some html tags were not interpreted properly and were therefore indecipherable in some cases (I do know HTML). The book is great. Just get the book. The authors could have did a lot more with this concept, but sadly they didn't. I did pass the SCJP test and their book helped a lot.

Worthwhile complement to "Complete Java 2 Certification." Offers practice and timed exams. Keeps statistics. Allows review of answered questions. Provides explanation for each question. Good investment.

This is an excellent tool not only for learning ALL of the Java Certification material but also for charting the progress of your study.

It allows you instantly to review your progress. And with it's comprehensive review questions it's very useful for helping to pinpoint troublespots or missing areas in your study.

This is the only tool I've come across that easily helps you determine if what you THINK you know is the same as what you ACTUALLY know.

After completing all of the many review questions and practice tests contained in this product, the Exam itself was almost an anti-climax!

It deals especially well with some topics like Threads and IO which are really not covered all that well with other guides.

Initially I was somewhat concerned with the rather steep cost of this guide but as it turned out it was well worth the price!

If you would like to know a bit more about content analysis strategies, have a look at this book. Weber wrote more than a simple introduction. Altought he introduces some techniques quite useful in this domain, he did not give a really detail application of these different techniques. Qualitative researches must have a look. esy to read.

This is another one of those great little Sage books which provide solid overviews of various areas of social science methodology in under a hundred pages. Like many applied researchers, I have a number of them on the shelf next to my desk. Robert Weber does a thorough job of introducing the reader to the basic approach and methods of content analysis. My only criticism is that this 1990 book could use a third edition by now. Readers interested in a longer and more current treatment might try Riffe, Lacy & Fico (1998). A good and useful book, though. I am glad that I purchased it.

Robert B. Parker does an admirable job of capturing Marlowe's character, in this somewhat dissappointing (as expected) attempt to bring him back to life. Marlowe is married to a millionaire in a desert oasis, yet feels compelled to continue to eek out his own nickel, playing the hard boiled detective in LA by day. Predictably, the marriage is put under stress as Marlowe's job makes it difficult to get home for dinner. The mystery is a little strange. Marlowe immerses himself into a pair of murders, going beyond the instructions of his client. In the end, the murderer goes out in a way that I found difficult to believe. Nice try, but there will never be another Chandler.

Poodle Springs is a Philip Marlowe mystery that starts with four chapters Raymond Chandler wrote before his death in 1959. Thirty years later Robert B. Parker finishes the work left by Chandler. Parker is an accomplished mystery author himself and breathes life back into Philip Marlowe so we can follow one more case.

Yet Parker is not Chandler and there are places in the book where I kept feeling that he wasn't getting Marlowe just right. Probably I was looking for these non-Chandleresque moments and they are actually intriguing. Marlowe fans can read the book with this additional level of interest: did Parker capture the essence of Philip Marlowe in this scene or not?

All that aside this is a well-paced and entertaining mystery. There is a side plot as the book opens right after Marlowe's marriage to an heiress. The tension is between the independent and honest detective and his pampered wife who can't understand each other. He gets along better with her house boy, and she can't understand why he won't sit back and let her daddy take care of them.

The main plot is pure Marlowe with a sleazy pornographer/blackmailer leading a double life and mixed up in a murder. Marlowe keeps discovering bodies which puts him in trouble with the cops. Yet he can't quite figure out who is the murderer until it is almost too late.

If you haven't read Raymond Chandler this is not the place to start. Although this is a minor addition to the Marlowe corpus, it will be a welcome addition to those who have read the other works and desire more Marlowe. It reads quickly and never lets you down.

The heirs of Raymond Chandler, one of the most imitated writers of all time, approached Parker, an obvious disciple of the master, to finish an incomplete manuscript the deceased author left behind. This was a tough assignment: The story was begun when Chandler was past his prime, his habitual alcohol abuse having taken it's toll on his creative powers. There was no plot to speak of, just a few initial chapters, with Chandler's writing sounding like a maudlin parody of his earlier work. Still, the talent was there, and the playfulness and wit had not died out completely, in spite of all else. And like Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe is too good to let him fade away just because his initial author has passed on. So Parker had to finish someone else's novel, with someone else's style and someone else's protagonist, in another place and time that wasn't his own. And he did a remarkable job - funny, witty, and as true to the original as the first five chapters that were given him would allow. It's a period piece that re-creates the decadent world of Marlowe's California, with a nod or two to contemporary tastes for violence and sexual content. So once you understand the obstacles, you can appreciate the result even more...a fun novel that stands on it's own as a parody and as a hard-boiled romp through old L.A., and a chance to spend some time with a much-missed thick-skinned soft-hearted galahad of the golden state, after a long goodbye.

A sorry science fiction book (not a mystery novel in my judgement) not written by Ludlum but his name is on the cover to sell books (my viewpoint). The book takes advantage of todays terrorist threats and smallpox concerns to stir the readers interests but nothing in the book reflected the writings of Ludlum. I strongly suspect that Ludlum did not even write the outline for this book and the sorriest one, "The Paris Option".

I happened to like the Prometheus Deception, and therefore, fully expected to like this book too. Like the Prometheus Deception, you'll find action, suspense, and diabolical characters. However, unlike the Prometheus Deception, this book just didn't add up. It's more like a movie that you go to see that has so much action going on that you don't realize that there really is no compelling story until the end.

The plot was a familiar one and decent, but the events that took place -- at times, seemed a little far-fetched. There wasn't a lot of character development, but what was done was sufficient. However, the inclusion of characters from the earlier book seemed to be just to show continuity -- which isn't a bad thing, but it didn't seem necessary since there was no in-depth interaction among them. Despite its "faults", the book is entertaining enough to pass the time with and it is a decent read. And, there were some pretty good suspenseful scenes in the book that kept me on pins and needles.

If you read the book and don't expect the caliber of story you typically get from a Ludlum book, you'll be okay.

"The Cassandra Compact" is a very exciting and entertaining read. The plot sometimes stretches the bounds of credibility a bit much, but that is to be expected in an action-thriller like this. There are also times when Dr. Jon Smith (the protagonist) borders on becoming a superhero rather than a true character, but he is generally very likeable, if never quite realistic.

In the past I have read some of Philip Shelby's work and thought that he showed promise. I have been impressed by his skills as a wordsmith, but found his story ideas to be somewhat lacking. Combining his writing talents here with the imagination of Robert Ludlum, however, has produced a blockbuster of a novel. This is not great literature by any means, but it is an engrossing story that will definitely keep you turning the pages.

With his death earlier this year, Robert Ludlum left a huge void in the international suspense/thriller genre. Thankfully, we do have writers like Philip Shelby and Gayle Lynds who are eager to take up his mantle. If "The Cassandra Compact" never rises to the level of the best of Ludlum's work -- and it doesn't -- reading it is still a very pleasing way to pass some time.

--David Montgomery, Mystery Ink

I feel that the authors of these books may, or may not start with good intentions. Books of this kind are part fact, part spin, and all biased. Just look at the title, no objective look into scriptural evidences would sensationalize itself on the front cover that way. Is this a tabloid, or does the author really have something to say?
All that said, take your own opinion of the mormon doctrine, but don't believe this one source. If you really want to be equipped with all facts, try finding them out for your self, the book of mormon is free.

I am now a Catholic after being a life-long Mormon. This book hits the major inconsistencies between Mormonism and Christianity and points out the serious changes to doctrines found in the Book of Mormon and early recorded revelations as compared with what Joseph Smith was preaching and living at the time of his death. The book could have made a better case about the Mormon view of Adam and Eve using quotes and sources tied back to Brigham Young. The book has a strong Protestant flavor which is unfortunate since much of Mormonism can be best understood in the light of Roman Catholicism including the Mormon temple, the importance of works, purgatory, works by the living to benefit the dead, church authority and hierarchy, and the necessary nature of the Fall just to name a few. Most of the "Witnessing Points" at the end of each chapter, while a good summarization, provide very little that can be effectively used in witnessing to a Mormon. This book would be best given to someone investigating Mormonism rather than to a person who has already been deceived.

Also recommended: Emma Smith, a Mormon Enigma and From Mission to Madness: concerning the life David Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith, Jr's youngest son.

Trying to reason out of scripture is a difficult task with mormons, as many are familiar with just enough of the Bible to be able to agree with much of Christian thought. The average mormon will tell you: they believe in God, they believe in Jesus, that He is the only way to salvation, they can agree with the BASIC terminology of grace and faith. This work gives you a deeper understanding of what comes next. For the Christian, it seems that we agree on an awful lot, but it is harder to pry out of mormons their belief in the need for a number of works, all centered on the mormon church, to ensure the "highest" level of heaven. Despite some typical reviews below, you CANNOT learn what mormons believe by reading the book of mormon. The ideas of mormon/Masonic temple worship, polygamy as a "new and everlasting" covenant, plurality of gods, man's potential to become a god, the word of wisdom, the "restored" priesthood, etc are nowhere to be found in the book of mormon, and are in many ways refuted by Joseph Smith's writings in the book of mormon before he started his ever-shifting changes in doctrine. Modern mormons try hard to pass themselves off as just another Christian church, albeit with some unique modern doctrine. If mormons are going to send missionaries to our doors, they should have no objections to this book. The characterization of the questions raised in this book as being rehashed ignores the reality of the issues they raise and the lack of credible response by mormons. This is not the best work on the subject out there, but it is valuable as a resource tool.

Now, how do I explain that title? I know - it's kind of confusing. Well, here goes.

The story of Robert Hanssen is fairly well-known by now, in generalities. Most of the world doesn't know the specifics, and that's what David Vise attempts to do here.

Vise does tell as much of the story as he could get his hands on. He lays it out in chronological order, looking at both sides of the story - Hanssen's and the man who headed up his capture, FBI Director Louis Freeh.

The thing is, the story reads like a newspaper article - or, more accurately, I felt like I was reading a plot from "Dragnet" (remember? "Just the facts, ma'am."). Being a true story, I realize that Vise can't embellish on what happened, but his writing style is extremely low-key - almost dead, which is somewhat surprising, since I read this book based on Terry Gross' interview with him on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air", in which he was extremely animated and passionate about his subject.

I now know as much as anyone else about the Hanssen affair - but I didn't really enjoy finding out what I learned.

David Vise does an amazing job of keeping the reader turning the pages on this one! The Author puts you right into the mind of the most damaging spy in US history, and into his bedroom as well! The book reads like a classic fiction spy novel with twists and turns that keep the reader intrigued. I found the parallel story of Louis Freeh, the then FBI director, as well as deep insights into the KGB, and concurrent FBI initiatives over the 20 year story truley fasinating. The book contains actual letters, photos, and an excellent synopsis of what top secret security items were lost by the United States. I don't think people really understand the magnitude of what Hanssen gave away! Of all the spy novels I've read lately, fiction and non fiction, this is the Best Yet!

The Bureau and the Mole not only tells the most amazing and unbelievable story of the most successful double agent in history but also creatively interweaves the subtle and unique differences and similarities between Hanssen and Louis Freeh, the head of the FBI and Hannsen's boss. Even if you're not an espionage or counterintelligence buff, what you learn about Hannsen and his escapades as well as how the FBI is managed will absolutely blow your mind. The contents page alone will motivate you to read this book.

Here are a few reasons why I rated this book a 5.

1. I'm not a fast reader, but the story is so intriguing that it kept me turning the pages. The author's writing style is clear and easy to read. I appreciate books that are short, sweet and to the point. I finished the book over the weekend.

2. I have followed this fascinating story of Robert Hanssen very closely since the beginning and now having read the Bureau I see that the author has obviously done his homework. The author uncovered many new and fascinating facts about Hannsen's complex life and sordid personality. While I find most of Hannsen's acts terribly disturbing, I at least have a clear picture into why he did what he did and what motivated him to do it. Believe it or not money was not his driving force. Considering the relationship between Hanssen and his father you wonder how many other Hanssen's are out there. David Vise, the author tells of one particularly amazing discovery. Hanssen's brother-in-law a FBI agent as well, attempts to turn Hannsen in more then 10 years ago but does the FBI pay any attention?

3. I like the way Vise clearly lays out in the appendix the incredible secrets that were not only available to Hanssen but ones that he sold to the Russians. I also enjoyed reading all of Hanssen's emails as well as the Internet postings (albeit sexually explicit) Hanssen put out on the www for the world to see. All of this information is valuable to the reader to better understand what kind of individual or animal would and could do the things he did. It's simply amazing how any one person has the ability to 'compartmentalize' so many aspects of their lives, (actually not so different from a recent President) and for so many years to keep everyone at bay. What was Bonnie possibly thinking about?

Certainly in the months and years to come new information will be uncovered, written about and scrutinized. But as far as I'm concerned to this date The Bureau and the Mole tells the real Hanssen story. I look forward to the movie!