Writing fine magazine stories is harder than it appears. But then, the best writers have a way of making it look easy. A real craftsman must satisfy two needs---his own urgent need to reveal a story through lines that circle and punch, and the reader's robust need to be actively engaged. But that is the magazine writer's duty, and no one takes it more seriously than Jan Reid, an award-winning Texas writer with a long line of credits with the best magazines in print, including GQ, Esquire, Men's Journal and The New York Times Magazine. Now Texas A&M University Press has compiled a superb collection of Reid's finest work spanning the past 25 years. All but one of the stories in Close Calls first appeared in Texas Monthly, the magazine the Austin-based writer has called home since its inception and where he still is a contributing editor. Reid, in his book's introduction, calls himself an "accidental journalist." For such accidents, we all should feel grateful. From the mean streets of Dallas' toughest neighborhoods to the gorgeous rock cliffs of Palo Duro Canyon, the 16 pieces in the collection range far and wide in celebrating the writer's native state. Texas is Reid's beat, and he covers it with a sympathetic vengeance. Close Calls offers spellbinding stories. There are Mexican jailbreaks, professional prizefighters, beat cops fast with their guns, impoverished Kickapoo Indians, the state's meanest river (the Red), and a bizarre effort in South Texas to breed the endangered African black rhinoceros. Showing considerable courage, Reid is unafraid to shove back the veil and show us what lurks beneath the surface. He can pare a story down to its gritty details, or treat it tongue-in-cheek when humor is merited. In several pieces exploring our state's natural landscapes and wildlife, Reid reveals an eye as perceptive as the legendary Frank Dobie at his best. It so happens that Reid is a devoted boxing fan, and the final two stories detail how that fascination led in a circuitous way to a nightmarish late-night scene in Mexico City in which Reid is shot by a mugger wielding a handgun. Reid survives---truly a close call---but his prognosis afterwards is paraplegia. He will not walk again. But of course, he does. Not only that ... well, read Close Calls for yourself. Reid shows precisely why the best magazine writing has become an art form. You won't be disappointed.

Jan Reid's fascinating account of the rise of the "Outlaw Country" scene of the 1970's will more than hold the interest of folks who were into the Austin scene of the time, as well as those who have only recently discovered some of the singer-songwriters from that period via covers of their work by Lyle Lovett and other artists.

Reid's book explains why Austin has long been an island of culture and tolerance in Texas, and how that atmosphere set the stage for a burgeoning music scene. He chronicles the rise of artists who went on to varying degrees of mainstream success, such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Michael Martin Murphey, and Jerry Jeff Walker. He also tells the story of artists who once seemed on the precipice of stardom, only to fade into relative obscurity as the sun set on the era of "redneck rock": Willis Alan Ramsey, Steve Fromholz, Rusty Wier, Bobby Bridger, B.W. Stevenson, and Kinky Friedman (who reached a level of success as a novelist which surpassed that of his music career).

This is a readable, enjoyable book. Well worth a look.

It started off great with an excellent history of how Karl Rove got mad from losing, a great motivator, and how he never gave up which is the true lesson from this book. I agree there were potshots at the republicans about what I'd expect from a talk show.

The discussion on the 2000 election fiasco was disappointing. The authors prefaced the chapter with stating that karen and karl just stood by during the recount. That's gotta be ... C'mon, his point man on being presidential simply took a vacation? Please. That was a silent admission as to the authors inability to fill-in the gaps.

I got Karl's motivations and experiences but after that the book simply dragged-on reporting what I got from glances at the news. Should have made it 50 pages smaller and $... cheaper.

I've started reading Bush's Brain, hopefully it will be better.

I expected a more insightful, more personal exploration of a genius political consultant -- Karl Rove -- what makes him tick, what motivates his Machiavelli-like agenda, what personal inconsistencies belie his political agenda etc. What I got was more of a "complaint" against the Republicans in general and "W" in particular. The authors seem to be writing from the point of view of sore losers who want to diminish the validity of the Republicans' political victories in Texas and on the national stage by painting Rove as an amoral Machiavelli/Svengali who has maninpulated an entire party (and country) to fit to his whims. As gossip, it's pretty good -- a lot of juicy tidbits and "could be true" explanations. As a study of a political genius, the authors don't really get at the heart of Karl Rove. Yes, he's brilliant. Yes, he's "The Man With The Plan" for the Republican party. Yes, he's sitting pretty right now. But that's all presupposed. We could get that from a New York Times article. The authors don't give us more than that -- nothing to explain or demystify the man behind the mystery. There are very few attempts at a more in-depth analysis. For example, the authors' mention briefly Rove's lack of religious inclination. It is a fascinating point considering Bush's moral compass. Yet, the authors don't really go anywhere with this information. It's left there to dangle in the wind.

Too bad, Rove is such an interesting subject. Maybe someone else will pick up where this book left off . . . .

I found "Boy Genius" to be insightful, compelling and humorous. The book is written by three journalists, two of whom followed Karl Rove throughout his days in Texas and a third who writes for the National Journal. The outline of the book is a chronological history of the campaigns and administrations Rove has managed or contributed to. The book is full of interesting antecdotes that really give you an idea of what Rove is all about and his motivations for the directions in which he takes his advisees. Most importantly, after reading this book I would describe Karl Rove as a winner, which makes this an interesting read no matter what your politics.

Two things the potential reader should know are 1) the majority of the book is about Texas politics and Rove's work in that state, and 2) the authors demonstrate definite left leanings in their storytelling, although it mainly shows through in their humor and when they point out the irony that George W. Bush never fails to provide for them. These caveats are fairly minor, I think most political readers will enjoy this one.

I'm normally a big fan of the Wrox books. They generally do an excellent job of selecting authors and editors. This book, however, was a huge disappointment for me.

Others have said, "It's full of samples." While this is true, many of the samples are for very obvious functionality, whereas very fundamental and complex functionality ends up getting minimal treatment (an example is the Fill() methods for the Data Adapter). While there's more written explanation of the Fill() methods, it is sorely inadequate and the samples are very basic. I would expect much more coverage and probably even an appendix at the end to cover it in more depth.

For the most part, I find the book no more useful than the SDK documentation and samples that you get for free. For a book with 10 authors, I'd expect a lot more insight and knowledge to be passed on and sadly, that doesn't appear to be the case.

Even for the "Reference" books Wrox does, they normally do a much better job of passing along great insight from the authors. If you need treeware docs for ADO.NET, then I guess this book will do but personally, I'm sticking with the online documentation.

This book is the single most valuable book I bought from WROX in terms of being able to borrow ADO.net code for my application.

ADO.net is the most undocumented are of .net and this book offers hundreds of code samples. The COM Interopability chapter is very good and introduces he obcure Recordset fill and how to use ADOMD from .net!

The Transaction chapter is way too small and incomplete. Another flaw is the fact that the book is supposed to cover VB.net and C# but they were sloppy and it is not a 50/50 split. Often they forget the VB.net samples. You would think their editors could count and make sure all examples come in pairs.

I think it is a great buy but I hope they get all VB.net examples in 2nd edition and a re-orgnization to be more task oriented.

Wrox lists this book as a "Programmer's Reference". In a reference I look for detailed information and code samples demonstrating usage all of which should be more extensive than what can be found in the help files or online API. This book succeeds very well as a reference providing a great deal of information that you will want to have nearby while you are coding. The book starts off with a description of ADO.NET which I found to be the weakest part of the book. This section doesn't quite put all the pieces of ADO.NET together in a meaningful way. The remainder of the book is excellent. Each of the key ADO.NET classes (DataSet, DataReader, DataAdapter, etc.) and their constructors, properties, methods and events are discussed in detail with code samples in both VB.NET and C#. Each key class or concept (data relationships, transactions, XML mapping, etc.) is given a chapter in the book. The explanations are much more useful that what you will find in the online help files. Besides covering SQL and OLE, the book also covers the ODBC classes which are not documented in the help files included with VS.NET. In a reference the index is important and here the index is good although some entries seem to be off a page or two. If you are looking for an in-depth introduction to using ADO.NET you will want to look at other books. If you need a detailed reference book then this should be your first stop.

I had mistakenly thought that Wrox books were held to a higher standard. First getting a taste for them going through both of Rob Vieira's two SQL Server Programming books and regarding them as the finest technical books I've ever seen. However this Professional SQL Server 2000 XML is a disappointment. Part of the problem lies with having 12 different authors because it seems a bit jumpy. I think I'll really try to limit my future purchases to single source efforts. Also, no care was taken with the code examples that you can download from the Wrox website. The book shows the source but there is really no way of really matching the example to the source other than guessing the name. Often I've needed to open up all 15 or so files in the directory to realize that the particular example is not included. I'm picking my way through but it is not pleasant.

It is a good book as far as explaning what SQL Server has to offer regarding XML capabilities but it should have covered the case studies fully with the .Net Framework. Also, it covers very good the IIS configuration, and how to manage XML Templates, XPath and Schemas. The book has a migration example from ASP to ASP.Net which does not cover ADO.Net. If you want a rich source on how to integrate SQLXML and the .Net Framework THIS IS NOT THE BOOK.

I looked at two other SQL Server 2000 XML books, but found this one to be the best - covering almost everything on SQL Server 2000 XML. Very well written, nice examples help understand the technology better. The chapter on Updategrams is very useful. I wanted to learn updategrams and this chapter covers it nicely to get started using them in production.