A valuable addendum to general reference. Excellently presented, as with most Readers Digest products. The ideal companion book to this is the wonderful "THE Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth and the Missing Years" by Richard G. Patton. Readers digest shows you where the Master walked, Patton shows you exactly who left the footprints!

This book is written by a newsman of the late 1800's. His attempt at times to make the exploits of his chief character a little bigger than they were sometimes gets in the way. However if you can be disciplined enough to read through it you will find a pretty accurate picture of the man who was probably General Crook's favorite scout and a key player in the death of Crazy Horse. Maybe not quite the villian in the Crazy Horse death as many think, but possibly not entirely sqeaky clean. Worth reading for those who have more than a passing interest in the Indian Wars of the latter half of the 1800's.

This book was written during the post-assasination hype following Jesse James' death. The author claims to have gotten much of his material from Jesse's wife and mother. They deny they contributed yet apparently did receive royalties. The author writes a good story and quotes many good first-hand sources, though make allowances for hype-driven inaccuracies. It's good reading.

As a 2nd year pediatric resident in a foreign hospital I chose Oski's Pediatrics as my reference textbook based on the clarity of disease presentation, the friendly and consultatory approach to issues as begining your own practice etc. I found extremelly helpfull the sections with brief disease outlines, symptom related differential diagnosis and syndrome presentation. An excellent book (5 star)with the only drawback being the unacceptable CD (no star) which is hard to master and has limited flexibility regarding page layout (could a PDF version help?).

I have been a fan of Mr Howard for nearly 12 years now, which in my opinion, makes me a bit of a connoisseur, and frankly this book was a bit of a disappointment. Undoubtedly the contributing writers are well-respected and immensely able but their writing lacked the Howardian flavour I have come to love. Ghor's sudden personality shifts are hard to follow and the various ideas in the story lack sufficient depth. This book is not the way Mr Howard would have written it. Nevertheless, this should be read because the original idea belonged to the great REH.

Ghor is a nice blend of Conan and the Cthulhu Mythos together. Abandoned as a child because of a deformity, Ghor is adopted by a pack of wolves. Raised by them, he adopts the ways of the wolf, yet when he meets up with humanity joins them. Constantly struggling with his wolf upbringing and his human surroundings, Ghor becomes a mighty war hero wherever he goes.

This is an excellent adventure book that takes a Conan like hero and plots him against all sorts of evil (and good), including some Cthulhu creations as well.

Originally Ghor was an unfinished story by Conan creator Robert Howard. Upon finding this unfinished story, a magazine decided to finish it. What they did was have a different chapter every month written by a different top fantasy writer. It made the reading interesting.

While most of the chapters were great. Some were excellent. Unfortunately there were a couple chapters that I just wanted to get through to reach the next writers' chapter. Overall a really good read.

I WAS VERY SUPRISED ABOUT HOW WELL THIS STORY CAME OFF. THE VARIUOS WRITERS DID AN EXCELLENT JOB IN WRITING AN EXCITING BOOK THAT FLOWED SMOOTHLY. IT DID NOT COME OFF AS A SERIES OF SHORT STORIES. THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK FOR ROBERT E. HOWARD FANS, AND FANS OF FANTASY IN GENERAL.

Part 1 (6 chapters) - Absolutely a waste of time, not worth a read. And the code examples are not related to JWSDP.

Part 2 (6 chapters) - Discusses on SOAP, UDDI and WSDL. The code discusses using a Older version of Apache SOAP and Apache Axis. The code needs a complete rewrite.

Part 3 - Discusses on JAXP, JAXB, JAXR, JAXM and JAXRPC. Good introductions but the JAXB chapter is based on DTD (which is obsoleted in the latest specs). JAXM and JAXRPC chapters just reproduces the Sun JWSDP tutorial...not much value addition.

Part 4 - Security, WSFL, WSIF (based on IBM Specs) currently these specs are obsolete no further releases.

It might've been a good book during 2002. The code and content needs an update to the latest specs and SOAP implementations.

Just as I stated in the title, it's a great book to start you with. It's written in a clear and precise manner where you could learn the basics of Java Web Services and not be intimidated by it.

It is a good introductory book to web services standards like SOAP, WSDL and UDDI but also goes further and talks about topics like WSFL, WSIF which are not covered by all books on web services but are essential to any real business processes exposed as web services where flow control and service unit(s) choreagraphy is as important as the single unit service request/response. Java specifications relating to web services are also covered like JAXM and JAX-RPC. I wish more examples and code was given, perhaps even a chapter or two, for ebXML which may not be a part of web services standards but still uses SOAP and defines industry standards for business to business collaborations especially dealing with supply chain commerce issues.
I agree with a previous reviewer (John Sfikas) that this book alone isn't exactly an eye opener for experianced professionals who have been dabbling with all the tools mentioned in this book like Apache SOAP, Axis, WSTK, Tomcat, Jetty etc. and know the challenges facing B2B collaborations on the internet quite intimately, but this book combined with "Building Web Services with Java: Making Sense of XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI" will give a much needed practical grounding to start making sophisticated web services in the real world. I highly recommend getting both these books but be prepared to use your brain and further what is presented in these books to deploy web services satisfying your needs. They will certainly not amount to spoon feeding you a near solution to your collaboration problems.

I needed to write a report on Shiloh, and this book gave me some information which I greatly needed. It gave me the points of view and opinions of some of the new recruits used to fight at the Battle of Shiloh.

Seeing the Elephant takes the historiographical tactics of McPherson or Power -- close study of participants' own writings -- and applies them to a specific group at a specific moment: green recruits at the Battle of Shiloh. While the conclusions the co-authors come up with are more or less what one would expect, the book is still highly interesting and gives a good picture of the mentality of the average Civil War soldier before, during and after the battle. One thing I'd point out is that this is *not* a tactical study of Shiloh -- you'll have to go to another book for that. I would recommend this not only to students of the specific battle/campaign but to anyone interested in the battle experience and soldier mentalities of the period.

One gets the same feeling finishing Frank Capra's autobiography The Name Above the Title as one does finishing a Capra film: thrilled with the zigs and zags of life and optimistic about one's own future.

But following up The Name Above The Title with Catastrophe of Success is akin to washing down Thanksgiving dinner with a rotten-egg-and-sour-grape smoothie. McBride has tainted a seven year odyssey of painstakingly documented research (175 interviews! weeks with Capra's personal papers! archive searches! FOIA releases! federal declassifications!) with an animosity uncommon in academics, at once vilifying Capra and his father while portraying those who loved and associated with Capra as selfless victims of Capra's insecurities, inner torments, and anticommunist political convictions.

In reading McBride, one senses that behind it all, there exists an even better story than the one McBride has scratched out from the voluminous source material. Why did McBride seek to so vehemently deconstruct what he called "the Capra myth," and soil the dignity of Capra's image by using such tactics as only quoting those interview passages in which his subject used expletives, or subjectively interpreting Capra's blinks and nods in a This Is Your Life episode as queasy squirming in the face of some underlying "irony"?

Was it because Capra declined to direct a made-for-TV sequel to It's A Wonderful Life, one which McBride hints he may have been involved in on page 644 of the paperback edition? Did Capra at one point step on McBride's toes as had done with so many insufferable fools?

McBride's perseverant scholarship is self-evident, yet his shamefully slanted execution degrades the whole presentation, making the book unreadable except to Capra enemies and eternal sourpusses. Readers are advised to reserve a second helping of "legend" for after the egg-and-grape "truth" sauce.

This was a disappointment. I don't like everything that Capra made ("Platinum Blonde" and "You Can't Take It With You" do nothing for me)but this book proved too much to take. It reads like a legal brief against Capra by a prosecuting attorney. Every action Capra undertakes is wrong. Every success Capra enjoys is really the work of someone else.

Shortly after reading "Catastrophe of Success," I read "Christmas in July" by Diane Jacobs, a biography of Preston Sturges. It was the difference between night and day. Jacobs seemed to enjoy her subject, and while she noted Sturges' personal failings, she didn't dwell on them or harp on them. Instead she focused on the films and why they worked (or didn't). If only McBride had done the same.

This book is an unholy surprise for any Capra film lover picking it up and expecting to read a warm-hearted tome about the greatest director of 1930s Hollywood. The author hates Capra, and to be fair he makes his case really well. It is sort of like Frank Capra is a china shop and the author goes into him with a baseball bat and vast damage on his mind. Nothing is left unbroken, not even Capra's reputation as a maker of great movies. Much of the credit for those masterpieces is shifted to Robert Riskin. This doesn't even come close to the hit that Capra the man takes, especially with the revelation he named names to federal Commie seekers. Guys like that never get off easy these days. But the most fascinating aspect of the book is how Frank Capra -- the All-American movie maker -- was hounded to prove his patriotism. And nothing worked. No wonder Capra was left so exasperated and bitter. The only good thing is he didn't have to read this book.

Joseph's book is interesting, but only as a piece of fantasy. His jumps in logic are enormous and difficult to believe as a serious work of science. Certainly, there are more intelligent and reasonable explanations for pyramids in Rock Lake, that could be answered by scientific investigation. Linking civilizations of the New World with the Canary Islands and Egypt are yet another attempt to trivialize the important and complex communities that have existed in North America for centuries. This book definately has entertainment value, but that is all it has to offer and should not be taken for more.

Ancient Civilizations are a mystery almost as deep as the mystery of what tomorrow will bring, and almost as deep as Rock Lake. In this narrative the Author takes you scuba diving in search of ruins in the heart of America. From pyramid builders to Ancient Mariners hoarding copper, this book answers many questions but leaves the reader dangling by the thin thread that ties us to an unknown past.

I am sorry if this review may happen to hurt the feelings of people concerned. But this book really is not helpful for someone looking to be introduced to statitics. Throughout the book, important concepts are introduced randomly, in disorganized way. The definitions are generally unclear and mathematics proofs hard to follow, the exercises excruciatingly boring. Is this statitics? No, this represents math teaching at its worst!