Ellis, McCosker, and Giddings have produced an informative and entertaining book on the Great White shark. While the book does provide scientific information it does not require that you hold a degree in marine biology or physiology to comprehend the information being presented. Adding to the text are an abundance of quality photographs. I read this book several years ago, but still open it up again and again to re-read passages and look at the photographs. One of the best shark books I have ever read.

I found GREAT WHITE SHARK by RICHARD ELLIS to be one of the best books about GREAT WHITES ever written. I can see why STEVE ALTEN the author of MEG recommendeds it. It talks about the GREAT WHITE'S hunting instincts, swimming instincts and breeding instincts with more information about GREAT WHITE'S, like no other book before it. I admit that when I started reading it I thought I would be bored with it quickly, how wrong I was. The book was fascinating and informative, I felt that the author had really done a lot of research about GREAT WHITE SHARKS before writing it. He even goes into the remote possibility of the GREAT WHITE SHARK'S ancestor. The CHARCHRADON MEGLADON"S existence in the modern era. I felt he also researched those sharks greatly as well. All in all this book gives you a greater appreciation of these maginificent creatures and the importance of thier continued survival. If you love sharks this book is definitley a must read.

I found GREAT WHITE SHARK BY RICHARD ELLIS to be one of the best shark books I have ever read. It's imformative and interesting there's soo much information about GREAT WHITES that you don't want to put the book down. I never knew all that much about GREAT WHITE SHARKS, but after I read this book I felt that I could understand them a lot more and ther'e not what the movies make them out to be. This book is a must read for shark lovers don't miss it!!

I first read White Lotus when I was in high school (and that's been awhile). I have read this book three times and would read it again. It's a book I would like to pass on to my grandchildren. I enjoyed it thoroughly. (Now all I have to do is find another copy). Instead of requiring Shakespeare in school, maybe this book should be required reading. It would sure keep a teenager's interest better. I think it should be marked as a classic and be reprinted. I'll be first in line.

This book will touch you emotionally and intellectually. White Lotus is a view of the future that provides the reader with insights into slavery and the black experience in America. The machines and technology once a part of world culture are gone. American civilization as we know it is gone. A young white girl is captured from her Arizona enclave and marched to the sea. She's transported as a slave to the east to serve the now powerful Chinese. The story is beautifully written and reads well on all levels. The heroine's many experiences mirror the history of the African-American experience leading up to the civil rights movement. White Lotus should be required for reading and discussion in schools and deserves to be reprinted.

in fictional form. Written at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, this book can make a white person *feel* the pain of racial discrimination. This is my personal favourite of all the Hersey output. In addition to the "message", this book also tells a fine story of personal courage in the face of adversity. Please do read this one.

Keywords: English, Bloody Funny!!!

'Blackadder' was a BBC English television series staring Rowan Atkinson. It ran for four series (and at least one special).

The four series ran through 450 years of English History, with the same characters reincarnating /reappearing over that time.

It is bloody funny.

Series One has Blackadder as Prince Edmund, the Black Adder under his father (who hated him) Richard IV set in the late 1400's.

Series Two has Lord Edmund Blackadder, a favorite of Elizabeth I.

Series Three has Edmund Blackadder, Butler to the Prince Regent, Prince George (the son of Mad George III).

Series Four has Captain Edmund Blackadder in the trenches of World War One France in 1917.

Always with his dogsbody Baldrick and always descending the social ladder, Blackadder is a revisit on history that is well worth a visit.

The scripts, the primary content of this book, are extremely well written. The authors are Atkinson himself, Ben Elton and Richard Curtis. Other fillers in the book are original and funny.

If you've seen the programs, you will buy the book anyway. If you don't know Blackadder, get the videos from Amazon.com and then buy the book. It is excellent.

To the Creators of Blackadder, thank you and isn't it time for another series?

Even if you are NOT a die-hard fan of The Black Adder--you WILL be after reading this book. It consists of all the scripts from the television show and reads very well. In fact, for those who have never even seen the television show, this book is easy to follow, extremely witty, and absolutely hilarious and will make you want to run out and buy the series on video!!! It translates very well in book format--I can hardly say enough good things. Profits from the sale go to Comic Relief--also, as an added bonus, the book features Black Adder's "greatest insults" and lots of other "fun stuff" from the Dark Ages, including most effective torture devices, best cures for skin diseases and deformities, etc. etc. very tongue-in-cheek. Loved it! Go out and buy this book! Highly recommend and you will laugh out loud!!

This compendium of scripts from the four Black Adder series is the perfect instant mood enhancer. Carry it to work, on the train, and best of all, to the in-laws for emergency bathroom reading. Tension and anxiety are sure to melt away after the howls of laughter induced by reading some roaring, spiffing exchanges, especially, Blackadder's hyperbolic similies.

Even for an inveterate brooder like me, it's virtually impossible to stay in a snit after a glance or two of these cunning and subtle transcripts of one of the world's most hilarious and brilliant sitcoms.

As other reviewers have noted, the dialogue translates well into print, thanks to editorial asides and stage directions. Some of the material is even funnier read than viewed. For those who haven't seen the Black Adder series, be aware that a few pages of this book can instigate quite an addiction, leading to stronger stuff like the complete series and specials on VHS. Hurrah!

Richard Garfield is the creator of Magic The Gathering card game. This book gives the reader an in-depth look into the game and shows the beautiful illustration that each card contains. This is a must have for all players and collectors of the card game.

If you are currently collecting or playing Magic cards, I suggest buying this book if you dont have it NOW! It is filled w/ information, fully illustrated cards, interesting facts, playing tips, etc. Also, buy the Magic Encyclopedia Volume 1.

Great book of pictures of Mirage, Visions, 5th Edition, Weatherlight & Portal. Helps alot with viewing the cards for collecting.

The weirdest thing about this book is that the beginning is so true-to-life. The book was written several years ago, but the story is very much in sync with what is going on in the world today. This is my fifth Marcinko book and it's one of his best. It's his second fiction work, a follow up to Rouge Warrior: Red Cell, which is the main reason I didn't give it five stars. The action scenes in Green Team are much more exciting than Red Cell, but the plot just doesn't stand up to the latter. It develops at a break neck speed, but its quality fluctuates right up to the end. First time Marcinko readers will probably get hooked, just like I did with Rogue Warrior: Task Force Blue, only to be more pleased with the discovery of his first and second books. Marcinko's crossing of the thin line between reality and fiction might annoy some readers who are not used to his style, but I think it's a very original welcomed breather from the "2+2=4" formulas of other action books. Marcinko is not the writer Tom Clancy is, but then again, Tom Clancy is not the warrior Marcinko is.

Marcinko lives large and plays hard. This book, along with the rest of the Rogue Warrior Series, is hard hitting and action packed. This dude does it all, says it all, and doesn't take crap from no one. Execellent reading for someone whose tired of the slow moving far fetched action of most fiction books out there. I read Red Cell just three months ago, and I've read almost all his books to date. It's KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) read the book and get hooked!!! Anyone for a Bombay?

I'll admit to this guilty pleasure: I love the Rogue Warrior books. Not because they're great literature, but because they're just plain fun. I'm a Marine combat vet, so I can usually detect the (very) fuzzy line between military fact and fiction, but with Marcinko's books I throw up my hands in the amphibious salute and just go with it. Demo Dick's literary swagger is intoxicating, and his larger than life character is THE male archetype. All of us guys want to pump iron at Rogue Manor, throw down the double Bombays, and go shooting and looting with the SEALs' best.

It's not "the best book I've ever read," nor is it the SPECWAR primer that Rogue Warrior is. But for some unadulterated macho fun, Green Team (like the others in the series) can't be beat.

For years I have wanted to tour World War One battlefields, and finally I came upon Before Endeavours Fade: A Guide to Battlefields of the First World War, by Rose E. B. Coombs. I read it cover to cover and felt doing so was the next best thing to touring those sites. When I finished reading this book, cover to cover, I thought this is better than going to each birthplace! It is certainly a lot easier, and I found it extremely satisfying to see each gravesite, all in the course of a couple hours, and to learn so many interesting things, like: What state has the most Presidential graves? Why is there a picture of David Rice Atchison's gravestone in this book? What President lived the shortest time after leaving office? If these sort of questions intrigue you, as they do me, get this book and revel in all the fascinating things you can learn from it.

This book is the only book I have ever read in less than 24 hours. It is, by far, the most interesting and best Non-Fiction book I have ever read. It is a must for Presidential Buffs like me!

Before reading Brian Lamb's terrific book about Presidential gravesites, I counted the number of these sites that I had visited....11 to be exact. Now, after finishing the book, I want to visit the remaining ones. Mr. Lamb's ability to teach us about the lives (and in this case, the deaths) of these remarkable public servants goes well beyond C-Span. He has crafted a most enjoyable and educational book...one that should be in every home. This is a book that can be read at almost any pace...each chapter is short and well-laid out. He reminds us that every president has been important in some way because of the fact that they have all held the highest office in America... not just Washington, Lincoln and the Roosevelts, but Fillmore, Arthur and Taft as well. How important is must have been, for instance, for the children of the nation to donate their pennies to build the Harding Memorial in Marion, Ohio. The death of a president is a major event in our country's history and Mr. Lamb (along with chapter postscripts by Richard Norton Smith, who further humanizes our presidents) has succeeded in a winning form with his book. I found nothing maudlin or morose about "Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb"...only a colorful walk through America's past.

Over the last 15 years I have been involved with organizations undergoing major change. For all of those years I have tried to discover why change, that appears so essential to these companies, fails most of the time. I have searched for years for a logical answer.

I happend to notice the title of this book at a donated book sale at our local library.... I picked it and others up and proceeded to add it to the pile of books I would some day scan. On a long business flight I started to read this book.

I could not stop. As the authors laid out their ideas I covered the pages with notes.

Finaly a logical explanation of why change, even obviously necessary change, fails. Even more the begining of a method on how to make it work.

Knowing the difference between first-order change, and second-order change can change your life! See if you can figure this out: "It obviously makes as difference whether we consider ourselves as pawns in a game whose rules we call reality or as players of the game who know that rules are 'real' only to the extent that we have created or accepted them, and that we can change them." This is pretty much what this book is about. And this, "When a person enters therapy, he is fully entrenched in a dilemma: what he wishes to attain has become all the more important and urgent ... and because of this urgency it is all the more important that no risk of falure be involved in the eventual action." Complex stuff. I read it once, and now I'm back to read it again. It's hard to absorb it all the first time even though you know you're reading some pretty radical stuff that you probably ought to be acting upon!

This is a great book on the mind. It shows us that we don't really need to know the mechanisms of things to make it work. Just like we don't have to know how a car works in order to drive it. The mind is the same way. Never mind the mechanisms it involves but if you do this and this, a person will do this and this. And surprisingly, although most of the suggestions are counterintuitive, most of the things discussed in the book actually work when we try it out on others. Try it and you will see! If you want to know why these things work, I'd suggest you read "Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence" by Toru Sato. It is a very insightful book about relationships and consciousness. If you get the message, you will know why the things suggested in Watzlawick's books actually work. Happy reading!

Along with Herbert Parmet's "Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy", Richard Reeve's "President Kennedy" are the best two books ever written about a legendary (and much-romanticized) American President. Unlike Thomas Reeve's hatchet-job "A Question of Character", which basically could be called a job in "character assassination"; or books such as Arthur Schlesinger's "A Thousand Days", which idolize Kennedy and ignore his flaws and failures as President, Richard Reeve's book maintains an admirably objective and balanced view of our 35th President. Reeve's Kennedy is neither a liberal saint nor a debauched devil, but is instead a complicated and often frustrating man who is woefully unprepared for the Oval Office when he moves in in January 1961, but does possess a great many gifts that save him when he gets into trouble. Reeve's Kennedy makes many mistakes early on in his Administration - the Bay of Pigs, his disastrous summit with the Soviet Union's Nikita Krushchev in Vienna, and his reckless womanizing in private, which as Reeves notes might well have become public knowledge if some enterprising reporter had ever followed JFK's movements very closely. Yet Kennedy does learn from at least some of his mistakes, and his handling of the Berlin Wall Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis was excellent. Whether Kennedy would ever have grown into a great President is a matter of debate among historians, and after reading this book I had my answer - JFK was a good President in many ways, but he probably would never have become a great one, due to his overly cautious nature on civil rights and the other great issues of the sixties. In short, this is a very well-written, impressively researched, and very fair-minded look at one of our most difficult Presidents to study and write about...this should be required reading for anyone who's interested in the 1960's, the Kennedys, or American politics.

Richard Reeves' book is a welcome addition to the "CamelotYears" genre. Written from the President's perspective,i.e. "a day in the life" type format, this excellent readneither fawns, nor muckrakes, but rather a balanced account of aPresidency that, until this point, has not been examined in anobjective light. Reeves first person perspective shows a president whohad more profile than courage. Inspite of his many gifts, JFK wasdiffident, at best, as President. Reeves book reveals a JFK that wasdriven, almost maniacally, to get to the White House, but once he gotthere was pretty much out of his league. The portrait of a neophytestatesman is obvious when Kennedy makes his first trip to Europe,receives a lukewarm reception from DeGaulle, and is taken to thewoodshed by Nikita Khrushev who, upon seeing the youthful presidentexclaimed "he's younger than my own son." Reeves accountbeautifully illustrates how the rich playboy-president miscalculatesKhrushev; one gets the impression that Kennedy felt that his Sovietcounterpart could be rolled like a Boston Pol. Kennedy came away fromhis first overseas trip as president much chastened. Richard Reeves'book is excellent; well written, well researched, and balanced. Ihighly recommend it. (I've read it twice!!)

Richard Reeves has crafted an exceedingly insightful, well-written, you-are-there look at the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. As someone born the year Kennedy was assasinated, and having been inculcated over the years with the Kennedy Myth, Reeves took me almost day-by-day, minute-by-minute through the events starting from Kennedy's election through the day 33 years ago when he was killed in Dallas.
Reeves' looks at the Berlin Wall and Cuban Missile Crises take advantage of recent disclosures from US, Soviet and other sources to show how close we came to World War III in both of those situations.
The book's description of the start of the US commitment in Vietnam under JFK allowed me to gain a better understanding of how Kennedy's prior failure to stand up to the Soviet Union and Krushchev in Laos and Cuba "forced" JFK to stand firmly behind the unsupportable South Vietnamese government.
Other topics addressed by the book include JFK's tepid support of civil rights and his rampant promiscuity.
I had to rate this book a 9 (I've yet to read a 10), but this book has to be one of the best out of the almost unlimited supply of JFK biographies

This is a really excellent work on all aspects of numbers, but only if you already have a pretty fair familiarity with them, i.e., several college mathematics courses or a significant amount of self-education. I particularly enjoyed the chapter "Doing Arithmetic and Algebra by Geometry" because it provided an interesting perspective on what number is. There are also chapters on the primes, imaginary numbers, infinite numbers etc. etc.

This book is excellent. I am not a mathematician; my Ph.D. is in a social science, but my interest in intellectual history made this book worth it for me. The reason that it seems a bit expensive is because the authors use color illustrations. These are really helpful and make the book more exciting. The book is essentially number theory for a lay person. All you need to have is high school level math in order to start enjoying this book, so don't be afraid. Conway and Guy present a fascinating look at what the human intellect can achieve in the realm of abstract thought. Number theory, and mathematics in general, can be mysterioius, artful, and exciting. Highly recommended.

To these "guys", numbers are toys, where the price of possession is nothing but a little knowledge. It is truly astounding, even for veteran mathematicians such as myself, to see how many different sets of numbers there are. They all have a story behind them, and given the multiple uses for so most of them, there are many more yet to be written.
Presented in a unique and engaging style that one associates with the authors, the numbers come to life with descriptions that hold your interest and leave you wanting more. The level of demonstration is not extremely technical, being well within the range of anyone who has been exposed to the topics of precalculus. Figures are used extensively, giving a visual interpretation of several ways in which the numbers can be used. Many of the numbers covered in the book are named after the person most responsible for making it famous, an aspiration that most mathematicians would no doubt confess to. In some cases, I was previously unaware of the name assigned to the numbers.
When I am in the mood for some light reading in mathematics, my preferred form is some type of listing of the properties of numbers. In this case, I found several hours of enjoyment and recommend it to anyone with similar tastes.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

Father Neuhaus has titled his book "Death on a Friday Afternoon" because that is when Jesus died. But his meditations on the seven last "words" of Jesus (actually, the seven last utterances) provide an understanding and explanation that will lead thoughtful readers into the meaning of the resurrection as well. Neuhaus, however, does not want readers to get to the resurrection without pondering carefully what is meant by the seven words on the cross, a compilation from the Gospel accounts.
I found Neuhaus'es book refreshing, in that it helped me to contemplate in a careful manner the circumstances in which Jesus uttered his words and the reason that he gave them.
Along the way Neuhaus introduces aspects of Catholic theology that are a part of his faith and world-view, but a Protestant reading the book (like myself) may find somewhat beside the point. Far more illuminating are the asides to social issues that are relevant to what Jesus said and taught.
In summary, a profoundly insightful book, caputuring the mystery of God in human form, dying painfully but purposefully on the cross for the sins of humankind.

The Seven Last Words are not seven "words" but seven "utterances" and they are these:
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
"Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise."
"Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother."
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
"I thirst."
"It is finished."
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

These are the seven biblically recorded utterances of Christ on the cross, and Neuhaus has written, in my opinion, the superlative meditation of the significance of these final words of Jesus. Each chapter expounds upon one of these "words". The writing is so clear-headed... it will appeal to those who need to approach the ineffable mystery with at least one foot on the ground. Or even two! It is not spiritual platitude, it is gut-level and sobering. Have you ever wondered what happened when Jesus died on the cross? Or WHY it happened? Or IF it happened? This book speaks to those questions, with a rational approach that can only be likened to the writings of C.S. Lewis.
I was transfixed, and overwhelmed (in a good way) with the wealth of information in Neuhaus's book. Beautifully written.
He says in the preface, "If what Christians say about Good Friday is true, then it is, quite simply, the truth about everything. I have written this for people who are convinced of that truth, for people who are open to thinking about whether it may be true and for people who are just curious about why so much of the world thinks Good Friday is the key to understanding what Dante called 'the love that moves the sun and all the other stars.'"
The Convinced. The Cautious. The Curious. If you are any of these three types, this book will not disappoint you.
"We must not turn away from what we have done to God, lest we be found to have turned away from what He has done for us." (p.257).

I read this book during Holy Week and Fr. Neuhaus' insights really deepened my experiences leading up to Good Friday. This book lays out many different facets of Jesus' teaching and meaning in a very accessible way.

I highly recommend it.