This book is a must-read for anyone that has gone through a tragic event, rough time, or is feeling sorry for themselves. It puts life into perspective and shows that there is always someone worse off than you, no matter how tough things get. It shows that you can laugh at yourself no matter what, and provides insight to the strength of the human spirit.
Paul sets the example that you can accomplish anything that you set your mind to.
Inspirational!!!

I usually don't get into books like this but I read a review on this one and had to check it out...and I was not disappointed. This is a great book for non-athletes and athletes alike. It really shows how someone can change their lives and become great in whatever they decide to focus their energies on regardless of the barriers in the way.

At times the book seems somewhat self-indulgent...but if it was my book I'd do the same...overall it's a great book and recommend it!

One Man's Leg shows the strength of the human spirit, and the determination of one man in particular. But rather than bludgeon us with a tale of dark adversity and eventual triumph, this book delights in its accessibility and humanity. Paul leads us through his life and evolution with humility and honesty, and writes in a natural prose that inspires genuine identification with him as a person first, and an amputee secondarily.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone at any stage of life, for both a delightful read and a reminder that humans are capable of great things if we only rise to the occasion.

I've created basic database structures and applications for about five years and pledged never to go past writing macros, because I didn't want to be forced to learn VBA. I run a realty and mortgage office and just couldn't spare the time. Now that Outlook and the Office suite is becoming more familiar with my crew and now that we've joined a WAN and some B2B data sharing, the basic stuff just didn't fill the bill. I've bought quite a few books on Access recently (not to mention dozens from the past few years) and have found this one to be one of the best in its presentation and content.

It gave me some real insight on how I should be considering networking and upsizing. I answered more questions I had after spending 12 hours with the book, than I had spent searching the net or reading the other books for several months. I even read though the code and understood it, and contrary to the warnings the presentation still flowed well. I still know little VBA and am now going back to get a Wrox book on Beginnng Access 2000 VBA.

Concise, very detailed, stuffed full of info and reference. I'm a Wrox fan now.

I've been consulting for over 5 years with Access in all it's iterations except 1.0 and I must say that this is the best book on intermediate topics that I have found. There is no "fluff" like in books from other publishers (especially Queue in my opinion). This book is concise with real world examples for real world issues. When I first opened this book and read a bit I realized this book was written by consultants/developers who have gotten there hands dirty and not "feel good" academics who have never written a line of code for a company. Keep this one handy if you're the Access guru at your firm.

Professional Access 2000 Programming is a combination of a training book to heighten your programming skills, and a reference work that will give you a complete overview of Access 2000 and it's related programming environment. It's written in the traditional Wrox style that is so easy to read and usable for developers.

One thing I do miss, is the usual Wrox opening statement where it is described whom the book is written for and if any previous programming skills are assumed. It's not until chapter 3 that you find out VB or VBA programming experience is assumed to make use of the chapter. Don't start on this book without any knowledge of VBA, since it is used in most of the coding examples. If you don't know VBA check out the following books: ISBN 0782123244, ISBN 1861001762 and ISBN 0735605920. An understanding of ADO would also improve on the usability of the book.

To make use of the books fullest potential, have a design plan of your database next to it and make notes or check for errors in your design when you go through the chapters. This helped me to improve on the design of my database.

Not essential, but it would have been nice if the sample code used in the book had been made available to the reader. At one place in the book the author even writes that the sample code is available from Wrox' website, but as of today it is not.

This book has given me the skills and confidence to start working on client/server solutions and integrating SQL server. It breaks down the entire complexity surrounding Access 2000 and database development to sizeable blocks and tools that I can piece together according to programming and design goals. A must have for any Access programmer on his way to become a true professional.

Being a French speaker, I didn't have any problem understand it and reading it. The subject is really well covered and written by many scientists. Many causes are explained.

This is the best, most comprehensive treatment of available data (which has grown some) and theories (which have grown but not multiplied) on land vertebrate extinctions of the last 100,000 years. If you are a mammoth/sabertooth extinction hound, this book will feed you better than any other. It does require some specialized knowledge in a few chapters, but the gist is accessible for the educated layperson. It's worth hunting for or buying used.

A more recent offering, though briefer, is "Extinctions in Near Time," Ross MacPhee, ed.

I appreciate the candor in labeling two of the major sections, entitled 'the theoretical marketplace: geologic-climactic models' and 'the theoretical marketplace: cultural models' which encompass variations on each of the two main theories for the extinction.

In addition to theories, the book describes the various mammals as well as their pattern of disappearance region by region worldwide. At 867 pages, it will keep you going for a while, but it's worth every page.

There is only one chapter on birds, only passing references to a tortise, lizard, or fish, and nothing on plants. I would love to find similar treatments for changes in characteristic flora for the same time period.

This is THE reference on Quaternary extinctions. The beauty of this book is that it isn't just one person's opinion, but a collection of well-researched articles on Quaternary topics by some of the top minds in the field. College students, especially in the biosciences and geography disciplines, BUY THIS BOOK AND KEEP IT HANDY!

This is a comprehensive and systematic survey of the theology of Martin Luther. While Luther himself never wrote a systematic theology text, he did, nonetheless, write enough material for a researcher to gather and assimilate such a text. This is the very thing Paul Althaus accomplished in this text.

Althaus is considered by many to be a foremost authority in Reformation studies. This text certainly bears that out. Althaus presents the main theological questions of Luther in precise and clear fashion. Moreover, Althaus provides plenty of direct quotes from Luther's works to support the theological views presented. I believe that Althaus intended to remain true to Luther's original thought without attempting to add his own opinion's which might otherwise alter what Luther meant in each topic.

This work is richly footnoted with Luther's original works, and other's who have commented on Luther's works. The text itself is divided into two parts-part one is the 'Knowledge of God' and part two is 'God's Work.'-yet each of these parts has subchapters dealing with topics such as the general and proper knowledge of God, the theology of the cross, faith, reason, the Holy Scriptures, law and gospel, the Trinity, and much, much more.

This would be a great text for anyone who collects and reads systematic theology texts, who wants a greater understand of what Luther espoused and taught, anyone studying the Reformation, and for anyone who is studying theology. It is well written and accessible to the lay person and scholar alike. I highly recommend this book!

I don't have this book in English. I have it only in Chinese. In some ways, the meanings of the words comes out even clearer in Chinese. But that's that.

Where I come from, Christian bookshops hardly carry much books by Luther or even on Lutheran theology. Actually, bookshops around here hardly carry any good theology books with substance. People here lap up the latest marshmallow-devotional and/or pop-psychology-self-help garbage but not good theology. Again, that's that.

Now on to the book itself:

Althaus have always been recognised as providing us with the standard textbook on Luther's Theology. In some ways, many (myself included) prefer reading Althaus' Luther than Luther's Luther! What I mean is this - Luther's writings covered such a large spectrum of differing theological perspectives and here, Althaus synthesizes his writings under appropriate subject headings to let the readers see how Luther's mind works. But instead of merely giving the readers his own views on those same subjects, Althaus includes thousands of quotations direct from Luther's writings and sermons (thus allowing Luther himself to speak to the reader - albeit in a more systematic manner!).

Highly recommended primer on Luther. Read this first. Then seek out the actual works of Luther.

This book was extremely helpful in researching several papers for my religion course titled the History of Christian Thought. It is very thorough and easy to understand.

Pauli engaging, converstional writing style makes the application of Heidegger's toughest themes to current cognitive science research clear and exciting.

This is a very controversial book, one which is not frightened to deal with some of the mind blowing consequences of holistic naturalism and quantum theory. The most controversial chapter deals with Fascism. Pylkko blows open wide the present debate on whether or not Martin Heidegger was a Fascist - a point that Pylkko says is obvious - by asking us not to simply re-review Heidegger's writings but asking us moreover to ask what Fascism REALLY is. For Pylkko, Fascism isn't merely about anti-semiticism and war-mongering - although they were 2 of its later consequences - but about a radical conceptual relativism! In a word, cultures can't ultimately understand one another; and this is more complex than Wittgenstein's notion of "forms of life", according to which one needs to understand the lifeworld of people not just their language. But the driving force behind Pylkko's argument isn't mere opinion, or yet more phenomenology, but a scientific view, a sort of meta! physics, or ultimately anti-metaphysics, based upon notions within the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory.

New Age bookstores are full of shelves devoted to developing social models derived from quantum physics, but Pylkko's book is the only book on this issue which is based upon a highly sophisticated philosophical argument. I highly recommend this book.

The stories featured in A. P. Martin's Harnessing the Power of Intelligence are fun to read and talk about, at work and at home. I have used some of them to alert my customer-service team about hidden risks and untapped opportunities. We have been applying the ideas of the first six chapters (Part I) for about three months. Our interactions with customers are yielding better results. We are now moving aggressively to prevent tampering with our information assets as noted in the section titled "How Good Organizations Lose Intelligence".
Four of my high-school educated supervisors, who read the book, found Part I a down-to-earth eye-opener, and right on target, for making wiser choices and avoiding costly errors. They, however, thought Part II would be more applicable to middle and senior management. A drawback: the cases in the chapter on Psychographics lack the detail necessary to be useful.
I have also read C. S. Fleisher's Strategic and Competitive Intelligence. Both books represent, in my opinion, two different, credible and complementary approaches to intelligence-based decision-making. Except for some references, there is virtually no duplication of content. A big bonus!

Alain Paul Martin gives us a new, non-traditional, and thought-provoking guide to intelligence gathering and strategic planning. This book is must reading for decision makers. Its incisive analyses, practical framework, and real-world examples provide valuable lessons that can be immediately put to use as we cope with our ever-changing world. Mr. Martin deserves our congratulations and our gratitude for this masterful work.

"Ninety percent of the information used in organizations is internally focused and only ten percent about the outside environment. This is exactly backwards." -- Peter Drucker

As usual, in one pithy phrase, management sage Peter Drucker captured the central problem facing organizations in uncertain environments -- they look in the wrong place. In volatile times, humans tend to hunker down in the cocoon of the controllable. Effective leaders embrace such times as an opportunity for greatness, when the prepared organization can jump ahead of ostrich-like competition.

Yet, few management advisors opine on how to combat these human tendencies and systematically scan, analyze and act in uncertain environments. Michael Porter's classic works on Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantage did dispense advice on competitive intelligence gathering, but did not attend to the conversion of intelligence into commercial advantage. Alain Martin's new book "Harnessing the Power of Intelligence" compiles tested processes which create such value.

Martin's frameworks are based on research at American Express, Boeing, Dell, DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, and Microsoft as well as application of his ideas in businesses, government, and the military. The book has the most up to date, and complete list of intelligence sources. For example, Martin cites the University of California at Berkeley "invisible web" project, which has shown that search engines only document about 15% of the business intelligence available publicly, because the vast majority of it is either not in a standard hypertext format or not linked to a public domain name (the silent campers). His framework on issue incubation, shows that large scale issues go through a relatively predictable process of incubation and development. Many leaders make the mistake of getting on an issue too early or too late. The issue incubation process delineates ways to recognize the progression of topics, and provides advice on if, when and how to intervene. Martin also has a tool called, Factional Analysis that helps a manager analyze who is likely to influence a volatile situation (from allies to adversaries). This tool is much richer than the traditional stakeholder analysis for it includes roles that do not fit in the normal economic calculus. For example, he includes "fanatics" in the analysis -- people whose sole purpose is to disrupt.

A leader can take the advice in this book and use it to guide outward looking intelligence, assess the current state of issues (or do a triage on a surprise event), and then take concerted action.

At points, the book does suffer from the same weakness of Porter's books in that its desire for completeness, the text often has a "list-like" feel. But, on balance this book provides a framework full of tested tools to turn uncertainty into value.

This was the first volume in the whole IVP series I purchased, and because of it, I bought the "Dictionary of the Later New Testament." This whole series is a wonderful and insightful compilation of Biblical studies. This work is a concise, and yet thorough work on Paul's theology and termonology, and the novice student doesn't need to worry about a ton of theological jargon or a degree in Greek in order to read it, either.

I tend to prefer the more extensive "The Theology of Paul" by James Dunn, although this book may have a more logical orginization to it as a dictionary format. I usually sit down with both when I study, as they both have their strenghts and weaknesses as a resource.

I dont 100% agree with everything in this book, but I agree with a lot of it, and consider it a necessity in my library.

The best one volume book you can find on the complete writings of Paul. The book covers everything dealing with Paul and his writings, and not one stone is left unturned. Every article is brilliantly written, and informative. I found the articles on Textual Criticism and the various ones on Jesus Christ very helpful to my study. Along with the other three volumes (Jesus and the Gospels, Later New Testament and its development and New Testament background) it makes a good collection to the complete understanding of the New Testament. Go out and buy it, and you will not regret it.

Another extremely helpful dictionary from IVP and Dr. Daniel Reid. A tremendous work that provides a vast array of scholarly articles on issues related to the Pauline corpus. The sweep of this project has been enormous. This particular volume has been of great help to me as I continue to move through the Pauline epistles. The many articles relating to the law have been especially helpful. The editors have been careful to give the traditional as well as the new perspective on Paul and the law a balanced hearing. Some of the articles are thin, but the bibliographies (at the end of each article), provide primary sources. This is truly one of the best resources on my shelf!

'The reader seems to have some disaster of far vaster import than he can fathom. That is the mysterious effect of Mallarme's poetry. One gets a strange emotional effect past analysis'. So declares translator C.F. MacIntyre of a typically impenetrable Mallarme sonnet. Unfortunately, it's an effect the non-French reader will never experience. In translation, somebody like Robert Frost once said, what is lost is the poetry, and no other writer exemplifies this truism more clearly than Mallarme. Most translations will at least yield some sort of broad narrative or imagistic or intellectual sense. Mallarme's self-contained, bookish, exquisitely artificial poetry (Borges was a fan) exists on a plane beyond sense. It is an intensely intricate agglomeration of sounds, forms, distorted grammar, codes and riddles whose 'meaning' is not literal. Mallarme is usually compared to a costumier, jeweller or musician, such is this artisan's devotion to the poem as crafted object. The only real way to translate Mallarme is not to find literal English equivalents for his words as printed, but to find new word-constructions with sounds and resonances that transmute the originals' spirit, rather than sense. But if the translator had that kind of gift, s/he wouldn't be wasting it on Mallarme translations. Despite MacIntyre's best efforts, then, literal Mallarme in English sounds like the worst kind of sub-decadent pot-pourri, like the imitations of French Symbolism Oscar Wilde churned out in his youth. Pick a line, any line: 'The sun that is exalted/by its supernatural halt/forthwith redescends/incandescent/I feel how vertebrae/in the dark give way'; 'You know that, amethystine gardens, hidden/without end in dazzling erudite abysses'; 'Just any solitude/with neither swan nor dock/mirrors its desuetude/in my abdicated look'. Etcetera.

This does not mean the volume is useless. French students struggling with the originals can use the translations as a kind of grammatical glossary, and will find MacIntyre's synopses and explanatory notes, with background and critical infomration, helpful, if dated. The casual reader, however, will find much to enjoy. After a few poems (including the famous 'Herodiade' and 'L'apres-mide d'un faune'), I gave up struggling with Mallarme, and gave into the pleasures of MacIntyre's annotations. A real-life Charles Kinbote, he doesn't even seem to like Mallarme very much: one poem 'is built up of so much nothing, like a fragile pastry of whipped cream. It is artful in the worst sense of the word... He should have had a stern editor! (As I have)'; 'Line 4 is particularly good, [a critic] insists, because it suppresses the classic caesura! I don't think many readers would suffer if the whole sonnet had been suppressed'. He refers to Mallarme's art as a 'dead end', execrates 'his miserably bungled up French', and cheerfully admits that he doesn't really understand the poems! So what qualified him to translate them?! A delectable egotism blows through the pages, from its overheated, homoerotic dedication, and the unwarranted, though very welcome, detours into autobiography and war memories, to the Olympian sneers at previous commentators. Published in sexually unliberated 1957, MacIntyre is forced to euphemise Mallarme's detailed and relentless erotics, which leads to some splendid tongue-twisting; the frequent suspicion that MacIntyre himself misses the point of a poem like 'What silk...' ('the mouth will not be sure/in its bite of finding savor,/unless he, your princely lover,/breathe out, diamond-like, in your/considerable tuft the cry/of Glories stifled as they die'), which he says is about a woman brushing her hair at the mirror (!), is quashed by his mocking one persistently misreading critic: 'Really now. I wish I still had Herr Wais's niaive innocence. I really do'. Barmy, endearing and delightful.

Verlaine is perhaps my favourite poet--many of his poems are exceptionally beautiful, salacious even. However he wrote prolifically, and as is often the case with prolific artists, his work is of uneven quality. Nevertheless, at his best, Paul Verlaine's poetry is among the most remarkable that I've ever read. I highly recommend this collection.

I first read this collection during Christmas break of my freshman year of college, and have never again had a more powerful experience with poetry. Verlaine is often viewed as the poor man's accomplice of Rimbaud; MacIntyre, the translator of this volume, is often dismissed as an awkward versifier. I regard both assessments as absurd.

Verlaine is not as close as Rimbaud to the free verse dogma of recent decades, but precisely for this reason he plays a vintage music in his poems, mixing whimsical subject matter with rock-solid traditional verse forms. (I don't agree that he did better work after his encounter with Rimbaud-- far from it, in fact.) Consider this lovely, even haunting refrain:

In the ennui unending
of the flat land,
the vague snow descending
shines like sand.

With no gleam of light
in the copper sky,
one imagines he might
see the moon live and die.

Wind-broken crow
and starving wolves too,
when sharp winds blow
what happens to you?

In the ennui unending
of the flat land,
the vague snow descending
shines like sand.

This sort of melodic drollery is mastered by nobody in the history of poetry like Verlaine, and MacIntyre is just the man to capture it. (He also does fine versions of the early Rilke.)

Don't miss this volume!

In his Foreword to this reference book, Donald Rumbelow states that "contrary to popular belief, the pre-occupation with the Ripper is not anti-feminist".

Oh, thank you for the sour persimmons, Donald Rumbelow. Now all can revel in the mystery of Jack the Ripper with clear consciences and without having to worry about being affiliated with those horrible (chooey!) anti-feminists.

And your clarification was necessary because, as everyone knows, when we are not blowing up abortion clinics, anti-feminists are indeed in the habit of committing serial murders of women and ritualistically using their blood to brew our sacred malt liquor.
Sheesh!

And Rumbelow also states that he has no doubt that the mystery will eventually be solved. He wrote that in 1991 before the Maybrick Diary was publicized, but some of us think that the Maybrick Diary contains the solution to the mystery, and yet the debate rages on.

What would have to happen in order for the mystery to be solved to the satisfaction of MOST, let alone EVERYONE? In the wake of the Maybrick storm, Rumbelow's prediction seems naïve today.

But notwithstanding the Forward, this is a very good reference work, usable for both novice and expert, for which the editors, Paul Begg, Martin Fido, and Keith Skinner deserve much credit.

They appear to have overlooked no detail of information or speculation or tradition associated with Jack the Ripper. When one sees an entire entry devoted to "Smith, H - Undertaker of Hanbury Street, who supplied hearse for Annie Chapman", one must acknowledge that the editors truly appear to have left no stone unturned.

Maybe they went a little too far. Does it advance the study of the Ripper mystery to list every fanciful movie or TV show based on that theme, including the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold"?

The authors are modest enough about what they have done and do not vouch for 100% accuracy, but as corrections are brought to their attention, they appear to be dutifully acknowledged and included in each new edition of this book.

Where there are disputes, the authors usually present all sides well and demonstrate impartiality in their analysis. Usually. I especially appreciate their presentation of the dispute over the "Lusk kidney" (genuine kidney removed from Ripper victim, Catherine Eddowes, or medical student hoax?)

But what's this - "(O)n the basis of handwriting analysis, there currently seems little doubt that Maybrick did not write the Journal"? Uh - no. Even the most stalwart Maybrickian might have to admit that the handwriting in the diary is a problem, but that remark from "A to Z" unacceptably crosses the boundary between impartial analysis and opinion.

And what of the famous "Dear Boss" letters written to the Central News Agency, which were signed "Jack the Ripper", from which the East End murderer acquired his legendary nickname? If the letters were contemporary hoaxes and weren't written by the murderer, it isn't really accurate to refer to the murderer as "Jack the Ripper".

When the editors solemnly intone (correctly) that "most researchers" have concluded that the letters were indeed hoaxes, I am inclined to believe that they are slyly using the weight of majority opinion to browbeat the reader into agreeing.

Begg and Fido are certainly part of the "growing consensus" on this issue - do they ever advertise a willingness to go AGAINST the consensus?

And yet, among other things, the "Dear Boss" letters were taken seriously at the time by the police and were written by someone who appears to display the extreme cocksureness of the serial killer. They were written by someone who seems to know that human blood thickens quickly and can't be saved for later use as ink. And they were written by someone who seems POSITIVE that more murders are yet to come. Moreover, they are written in the same hand as that which wrote a threatening letter to a police witness who might have seen the murderer - hardly the work of a hoaxing publicity hound.

So why the consensus AGAINST the authenticity of these letters? Could it be that most Ripperologists have their own favorite suspects, who were unable or unlikely to have written the "Dear Boss" letters, and that these Ripperologists merely alter their view of the letters to conform to their own pre-drawn conclusions?

Begg and Fido wrote about the Ripper before publishing this reference work. Each of them named a different poverty-stricken lunatic semi-literate Polish Jew as the most likely Ripper candidate. Neither of their candidates could have written in the good copperplate hand that wrote the "Dear Boss" letters. Are Begg and Fido expediently allowing their objectivity to be clouded by taking false reassurance from the opinion of "most researchers"?

Ripperologists are confident about issues such as this because of consensuses that they learn about by reading the works of Ripperologists. Did the police operate this way? No wonder Jack was never caught in his lifetime.

In their published commentary about Jack the Ripper, Begg, Fido, and Skinner have proven themselves to be of impartial disposition and advocates of fair treatment for all points of view. They have shown themselves to be friends of the truth, whatever that truth may prove to be. But I am reminded of a book on realpolitik that I once read, in which it was observed that a friend is someone that you can trust 80% of the time.

With that in mind, a rating of four stars out of a possible five seems quite appropriate.

I found this book extremely well researched, well done begg,fido and skinner. I have been interested in the jack the ripper mystery for some years now,and this book was the first to introduce me to such little known suspects as william h piggot.He was arrested in a public house not far from whitechapel after causing a disturbance, and was found to have a torn bloodstained shirt in his possession plus a severe bite mark on his hand(the day after a ripper murder).Then there was edward mckenna, arrested for suppossedly threatening people with a knife.When he was taken to the police station for questioning and told to empty his pockets, they contained amongst other things several metal and cardboard boxes!(the ripperologists out there will know) that a month after mckenna was arrested,Mr lusk recieved a human kidney delivered by post in a (cardboard box). These little gems of knowledge have been brought to life in this alphabettically arranged guide of who's who ,from the bobby on the street to the head of police investigations.A breath of fresh air, much better than the usual claptrap about the prince of wales etc.

I had to write a research paper on the Ripper murders, and I found this book invaluable. Grab it as soon as possible. I reccommend it 100%

This book is proliferated with Paul Bosman's art. The art includes Paul Bosman's paintings and drawings capturing the moments in the life of the cats. We see the lioness facing it's pray, a leopard resting, a family of cheetahs, a male lion walking through the bush and so on. The illustrations cover lions, leopards, cheetahs, as well as smaller wild cats. I recommend this book for any nature lover, wild cat enthusiast or a person interested in African wildlife.

A stunningly beautiful and fascinating book, Cats of Africa describes the continent's lions, leopards, cheetahs, and small wild cats. The text is accompanied by numerous gorgeous drawings and paintings. The book is both informative and gripping, with excellent desriptions of the behaviours and characteristics of the animals in the wild, as well as discussions of their futures. I strongly recommend it!

A stunningly beautiful and fascinating book, Cats of Africa describes the continent's lions, leopards, cheetahs, and small wild cats. The text is accompanied by numerous gorgeous drawings and paintings. The book is both informative and gripping, with excellent desriptions of the behaviours and characteristics of the animals in the wild, as well as discussions of their futures. I strongly recommend it!