I have three really nice, big hardbound mother goose anthologies, but this is my favorite; contains the most popular of the mother goose nursery rhymes, has brightly colored pictures, but, most importantly, is user-friendly. It's thin and light, and when my son and I sat down for nursery rhymes (over and over and over!) this was the book that kept getting pulled off the shelf. I recommend it very very highly.

One of the great books of the last century, one that never leaves my bedside. Covering the period 1820-1950, this is a canon of extraordinary, varied richness in all culture, never mind French poetry, from the Romantic movement (Lamartine, Huge) to 'Negritude' (Cesaire), and encompassing Surrealism, Symbolism, Lyricism, Cubism, Metropolitanism and Modernity, the Parnassian movement etc. All the giants are well-represented - Baudelaire, Mallarme, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Laforgue, Cendrars, Michaux etc - but the collection's real joy is its recuperating journey of poetry's byways, finding forgotten figures, curiosities, one-offs, such as Tristan Corbiere, Anna de Nouilles, or Charles Cros. Dip in at any page, and you will be treated to poetry of unmatched beauty, strangeness and invention.

After a brief introduction explaining his selection process, and an invaluable technical note on the 'alexandrine', the dominant metre of French poetry, editor/translator William Rees divides his material into historically discrete sections, prefacing each movement and poet. These essays are an accessible mine of invaluable historical, biographical and cultural information. His prose translations, although 'poetic' in themselves, are much preferable in their more literal accuracy, to those translators who abandon faithfulness for some vague notion of 'spirit' which usually only leads ot silliness. A gem of an anthology that deserves a prominent, beloved, dog-eared place on the bedside of any lover of literature.

I am not a Linguist, but this book helped me to appreciate all of the differing theories and various fields within what is known as linguistics. If you are seeking a book that is simple to read, yet very comprehensive, I recommend this volume. If you enjoy languages, speech development, regional dialects, language acquisition, theory of language, language trends, and more - this book is for you.

Major disciplines coverd include: phonetics, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Also included in this new addition are new chapters on second language acquisition and psycholinguistics.

One of the best features of this text is how well it is laid out. It is a pleasure to peruse and even study because of it's logical and user friendly format.

If you love anything about language- whether knowing it's origins, or what part of the mouth is used to create certain sounds, or how language changes over time and for what reasons, or a host of other curiosities, you will certainly enjoy the wealth of information within Contemporary Linguistics!

"Contemporary Linguistics" (CL) is a wonderfully clear and accessible introduction to the field of linguistics. The authors begin by introducing the methodological assumptions that underlie present day Chomskyan linguistics and then reserve a chapter each for almost all major research directions within linguistics.

One thing in particular that I liked about the format of CL was the treatment of more advanced material (marked "Advanced") in each chapter. The "Advanced" sections augment the material in the rest of the chapter and are placed in logical sequence with the rest of the material instead of appearing in an appendix at the end of the chapter. For example, a section marked "advanced" on X' (read X-bar) Theory appears fairly early in the syntax chapter. Having some knowledge of X' Theory allows the reader to proceed to examine the rest of the material with the knowledge that there exists an intermediate level of structure between lexical categories (N, V, ...) and phrasal categories (NP, VP, ...).

Most chapters in CL are pretty well written and technical tools to treat linguistic phenomena are almost always introduced at the correct juncture. However, CL does not treat Innateness properly (why Innateness and arguments for and against Innateness), and has a weak chapter on semantics. The reader would do well to augment the material in CL by reading Pinker's "The Language Instinct" or Jackendoff's "Patterns in the Mind" for a non-technical introduction to some ideas in linguistics, as well as sections of De Swart's "Intro to Natural Language Semantics" to get an idea of how semantics is done. If the reader is interested in looking at language from a cognitive science perspective, she would also do well to read most of Gleitman et al's "An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Language".

All in all, CL provides a relatively painless initiation into linguistics and I highly recommend it.

Speaking as a newcomer to the subject, I found this book to be an excellent intro. Very useful.

The variety of readers makes Yeats poetry come to life. If you like to chill in the car, this one is for you.

It is impossible to say who of the tremendous artists on this recording does the greatest honor to Yeats' words and intentions. Let us merely say it is the sort of contest which only the listener wins, especially if he or she has even one Emerald Isle gene in his or her make-up.

This is a wonderful collection of poetry. The readers contribute so much emotion to their reading. The listener can hear the music of Ireland in each voice. Every time I listen to this, I hear something new. Some of the poems included are: Stolen Child; The Indian to his Love; The Cloak, the Boat and the Shoes and The Sad Shepherd. This has brought many hours of relaxation and beauty to my evenings. I highly recommend this tape.

If you are looking for tragedy and a dark bloody drama then I recommend Macbeth with no reservations whatsoever. On a scale of 1-5, I fell this book deserves a 4.5. Written by the greatest literary figure of all time, Shakespeare mesmorizes the reader with suspense and irony. The Scottish Thane Macbeth is approachd by three witches who attempt and succeed at paying with his head. They tell him he will become king, which he does, alog with the aide of his ambitious wife. Macbeth's honor and integrity is destroyed with the deceit and murders he commits. As the novel progresses, Macbeth's conscience tortures him and makes him weak minded. Clearly the saying "what goes around comes around," is put to use since Macbeth's doom was similar to how he acquired his status of kingship. He kills Duncan, the king of Scottland and chops the head off the Thane of Cawdor, therefore the Thane of Fife, Macduff, does the same thing to him. I feel anyone who decides to read this extraordinary book will not be disatisfied and find himself to become an audience to Shakespearean tragedies.

William Shakespeare's tragedies are universal. We know that the tragedy will be chalk-full of blood, murder, vengeance, madness and human frailty. It is, in fact, the uncorrectable flaws of the hero that bring his death or demise. Usually, the hero's better nature is wickedly corrupted. That was the case in Hamlet, whose desire to avenge his father's death consumed him to the point of no return and ended disastrously in the deaths of nearly all the main characters. At the end of Richard III, all the characters are lying dead on the stage. In King Lear, the once wise, effective ruler goes insane through the manipulations of his younger family members. But there is something deeply dark and disturbing about Shakespeare's darkest drama- Macbeth. It is, without a question, Gothic drama. The supernatural mingles as if everyday occurence with the lives of the people, the weather is foul, the landscape is eerie and haunting, the castles are cold and the dungeons pitch-black. And then there are the three witches, who are always by a cauldron and worship the nocturnal goddess Hecate. It is these three witches who prophetize a crown on the head of Macbeth. Driven by the prophecy, and spurred on by the ambitious, egotistic and Machiavellian Lady Macbeth (Shakespeare's strongest female character), Macbeth murders the king Duncan and assumes the throne of Scotland. The roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are tour de force performances for virtuosic actors. A wicked couple, a power-hungry couple, albeit a regal, intellectual pair, who can be taken into any form- Mafia lord and Mafia princess, for example, as in the case of a recent movie with a modern re-telling of Macbeth.

Nothing and no one intimidates Macbeth. He murders all who oppose him, including Banquo, who had been a close friend. But the witches predict doom, for Macbeth, there will be no heirs and his authority over Scotland will come to an end. Slowly as the play progresses, we discover that Macbeth's time is running up. True to the classic stylings of Shakespeare tragedy, Lady Macbeth goes insane, sleepwalking at night and ranting about bloodstained hands. For Macbeth, the honor of being a king comes with a price for his murder. He sees Banquo's ghost at a dinner and breaks down in hysteria in front of his guests, he associates with three witches who broil "eye of newt and tongue of worm", and who conjure ghotsly images among them of a bloody child. Macbeth is Shakespeare's darkest drama, tinged with foreboding, mystery and Gothic suspense. But, nevertheless, it is full of great lines, among them the soliloquy of Macbeth, "Out, out, brief candle" in which he contemplates the brevity of human life, confronting his own mortality. Macbeth has been made into films, the most striking being Roman Polansky's horrific, gruesome, R-rated movie in which Lady Macbeth sleepwalks in the nude and the three witches are dried-up, grey-haired naked women, and Macbeth's head is devilishly beheaded and stuck at the end of a pole. But even more striking in the film is that at the end, the victor, Malcolm, who has defeated Macbeth, sees the witches for advise. This says something: the cycle of murder and violenc will begin again, which is what Macbeth's grim drama seems to be saying about powerhungry men who stop at nothing to get what they want.

While I was basically familiar with Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth, I have only recently actually read the bard's brilliant play. The drama is quite dark and moody, but this atmosphere serves Shakespeare's purposes well. In Macbeth, we delve deeply into the heart of a true fiend, a man who would betray the king, who showers honors upon him, in a vainglorious snatch at power. Yet Macbeth is not 100% evil, nor is he a truly brave soul. He waxes and wanes over the execution of his nefarious plans, and he thereafter finds himself haunted by the blood on his own hands and by the ethereal spirits of the innocent men he has had murdered. On his own, Macbeth is much too cowardly to act so traitorously to his kind and his country. The source of true evil in these pages is the cold and calculating Lady Macbeth; it is she who plots the ultimate betrayal, forcefully pushes her husband to perform the dreadful acts, and cleans up after him when he loses his nerve. This extraordinary woman is the lynchpin of man's eternal fascination with this drama. I find her behavior a little hard to account for in the closing act, but she looms over every single male character we meet here, be he king, loyalist, nobleman, courtier, or soldier. Lady Macbeth is one of the most complicated, fascinating, unforgettable female characters in all of literature.

The plot does not seem to move along as well as Shakespeare's other most popular dramas, but I believe this is a result of the writer's intense focus on the human heart rather than the secondary activity that surrounds the related royal events. It is fascinating if sometimes rather disjointed reading. One problem I had with this play in particular was one of keeping up with each of the many characters that appear in the tale; the English of Shakespeare's time makes it difficult for me to form lasting impressions of the secondary characters, of whom there are many. Overall, though, Macbeth has just about everything a great drama needs: evil deeds, betrayal, murder, fighting, ghosts, omens, cowardice, heroism, love, and, as a delightful bonus, mysterious witches. Very many of Shakespeare's more famous quotes are also to be found in these pages, making it an important cultural resource for literary types. The play doesn't grab your attention and absorb you into its world the way Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet does, but this voyage deep into the heart of evil, jealousy, selfishness, and pride forces you to consider the state of your own deep-seated wishes and dreams, and for that reason there are as many interpretations of the essence of the tragedy as there are readers of this Shakespearean masterpiece. No man's fall can rival that of Macbeth's, and there is a great object lesson to be found in this drama. You cannot analyze Macbeth without analyzing yourself to some degree, and that goes a long way toward accounting for the Tragedy of Macbeth's literary importance and longevity.

I was assigned to read this book for an nature and human values course. And I must say that this book is by far the worst assigned reading, the level of reading is average, but what bothers me the most is how the author talks down to the other side of the spectrum of the arguement. It is also extremely repetive and I found myself dreading the reading of the next chapter, because I didn't want to read the same thing that was stated in the previous chapter.

I have not only read this book but I have had the honour of hearing author William Rees explain the world's current environmental predicament. His analysis -- as stated in the book and by other readers-- is so simple yet profound. I believe the ecological footprint analysis tool offers one of the best ways to explain to people why they must change their lifestyles. I believe so much in the concept, I have started a business to help the corporate sector implement sustainable practices and policies. Our society probably has a better chance of survival if we can change the way influential companies do business, rather than changing one individual at a time. This book provides the basis for understanding why we must change. Then read Natural Capitalism by Hawken and Lovins and you'll understand how much progress has already been made and how much more is achievable.

Professors Rees and Wackernagel have developed a new concept to assess individuals and countries impact on the environment, a quantitative measure which acts as a common denomintor for all peoples, at all levels of affluence or poverty. This will become the yardstick of our future, like the invention of money by the Babylonians or Assyrians has become the unit of exchange in the trade of goods and services. Clearly written, the book is needed to be understood by all politicians, bankers, voters, leaders and living humans. Knowing ideas such as these is crucial and essential for our survival in the biosphere.

The book does not cover very good examples on each topic specially on Datatypes. Also it is not exclusive on detailing schemas. The kind of material/information provided by this book can be read from any core xml book. XML Bible describes the Schemas very well in one chapter.

At first glance this book impressed me by its sheer volume and the fact that there seemed to be some interesting topics discussed that went beyond the schema spec itself. However, as I looked at it more closely, I have two big problems with it:

1. There _are_ a lot of errors, and they're not just harmless typos. I found numerous examples that are incorrect, and not just because they are missing a quote or something. It makes me wonder if anyone bothered to validated the examples with a parser.

2. It was very obvious that the book was written by multiple authors, with little coordination between them. There is a lot of overlapping and even contradictory information in the book, which is frustrating. It is also not organized well - I had a hard time finding the simplest of concepts - for example, what attributes are allowed on the "element" element if it is a ref vs. a name, whether it's global vs. local, etc.

Overall, I was not impressed.

I had to create an XML schema out of an XML file that was already existing (I am sure that rarely happens:-)) and I could get the job done by reading half of this book. Would be a five star if not for the typos.

This is a much better way of learning to write XML schemas compared to formal language at the XML schema specification site.

The Great Reckoning is a long but great read. It will NOT appeal to those who focus on 30 second sound bites and 120 second interviews on Good Morning America. If that's your bag, forget this book. It also requires thinking, so if you don't like to think about things in general, or dismiss history and the liberal arts in general, this book will be a total turn off.

A number of people bought this book when first published as a "trading" strategy book. I don't know where they got that idea from, perhaps they simply assumed to much. Rather, it is about probabilities and possibilites in the 1990's on the macro level with plenty of caveats.

In retrospective hindsight, the authors had some outstanding hits, and some complete misses. However, on the whole, those who dismissed this book during the tech bubble are now looking at themselves in the mirror and wondering how stupid they were to dismiss it out of hand.

If you think through what they have to say, you begin to realize that some things will take longer to work out than others. A "must" book to read if you enjoy looking beyond the daily "noise".

All those who, in 1999 and 2000, rated this book 1-star should sit down and re-read this greatly informative and prescient book! Because its "timing" was off by a decade does not render this book useless, though it may indeed have cost investors lost profits. For this reason only do I give it 4-stars. HIGHLY recommended read!

This book has enough truth to make you loose sleep at night. What I found most interesting was that this country can't possibly continue much longer the way it is: Keeping people of african descent down. People in this country actually think that they are independent from the poor people in this country. Those same people they're oppressing will one day rise up and bite them in the [butt]. We all didn't come over here on the same ship but we're all in the same boat!