After reading The Purpose Driven Life, I decided to buy every book Rick Warren has written and I haven't been disappointed. This one is filled with practical advice. It's a quick read, but jammed packed with insights. Highly recommended.

If you are smart, you'll read everything Rick Warren writes. I discovered this little gem after reading The Purpose Driven Life, Planned for God's Pleasure, The Purpose Driven Church, The Power to Change your Life, The Purpose Driven Life Journal, and all his other books. I'm never disappointed.

A book of its time (60s-early 80s), but I'm glad I finally came to it. Generally it contrasts the theories and practices of western innovators (Stanislavski et. al., Brecht, Grotowski, Brooks) against the rituals and traditions of eastern institutions (Kathakali, Noh, Kabuki, ritual events of Bali, India, especially Ramlila). Fascinating diagrams accompany the discussion of performance theory. Loved the essays on performance in "Restoration of Behavior," and "Transported and Transformed." And for both the actor and director, the argument that performance exists somewhere between the "not-me and not-not-me" is compelling.

Victor Turner wrote the forward to this book.

He is not its designer

Now in a newly updated and expanded 8th edition, The Book Of U.S. Government Jobs: Where They Are, What's Available, & How To Get One by governmental employment resources expert Dennis V. Damp is a thorough, comprehensive, reliable reference for anyone considering a possible career in governmental public service. Individual chapters address the basics of governmental employment, and the processes of being interviewed and taking civil service exams, as well as jobs specifically for military veterans, overseas employment, the U.S. Postal service, law enforcement jobs and much more. An exhaustive reference with appendixes of contact lists for federal agencies, a straightforward checklist for job hunters, and much more, The Book Of U.S. Government Jobs is an essential, core guide suitable for government job seekers of all backgrounds and recommended for school guidance office, community job-center, and public library reference collections.

Finally, someone has written a book on government jobs that is not only up-to-date but easy to follow and understand. One of the best career guides I've read. I found all of the information I needed to locate, find and apply for government jobs. The Chapter on Completing Your Application was especially helpful. It shows you step-by-step how to complete your application or resume and it provides an actual job announcement and a well constructed sample application to guide you through the sometimes complex application process. The author also provides an easy-to-follow Job Hunters Checklist that walks you through your federal job search. Loaded with resources such as agency addresses, helpful web sites, and job hotlines and it covers special hiring programs including student hiring, overseas jobs, jobs for people with disabilities and much more. Well worth the purchase and I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a government job.

This is such a wonderful tribute to the thirty-three actors, directors, and writers who make up the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Most of it is all full-page pictures of every ensemble member. The pictures are all black and white and done in a sort of avant-garde style that reflects the spirit that the theatre company has conveyed for the past 25 years. The ones of John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, and Moira Harris are particularly good. In addition to the pictures, the book also contains a history of the company, telling how it was formed by Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney in 1974 in Highland Park, IL, and leading up to the company receiving the National Medal of Arts in 1998. There are also insightful and thoroughly entertaining short essays written by outsiders who have worked with the company over the years, including Sam Shepard and Terry Johnson. In the back of the book, there is a complete list of all the shows that Steppenwolf has presented, plus the credits of all the individual members. This is a magnificent book and I highly recommend it.

This book is a must-buy for theater-lovers and photography fans alike. Skrebneski's portraits of the 33-ensemble members (which include John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, Laurie Metcalf, Joan Allen, and John Mahoney) are absolutely beautiful. The essays in this coffee-table book reflect the essence of this "rock n'roll" theater. I recommend this book as a holiday gift to every theater-lover on your list!

Design is a topic of social, cultural, and philosophical investigation. This book presents several essays by many contemporary philosophers of design, with a good mix between highly academic rhetoric and slightly more informal writings. Not light reading, but highly enlightening.

Richard of St Victor was a great thinker and traveller on the mystical path. The works contained in this volume provide a fascinating glimpse onto the uses of scriptural allegory as Richard unites the Latin and Greek mystical traditions into a synthesis all his own. He was very influential for those who followed him. The student of medieval mysticism will find this book a delight.

The discovery of Mandelstam is one of that strange gifts that Life give us every since in a while and this is probably his very best book. He wrote these poems under a terrible personal experience being a prisoner of Stalin's camps and being sure he'd die very soon. These poems, and this poet, are not an easy ones but once you have entered into you feel that they are so rich that you can't almost bear it. For those who don't have read any of his poetry i'd recommend to start reading the book"Hope against hope" that his wife wrote about those years of sorrow. OM has been essential in the poetry of the second half of this century and you can follow his traces in poets of the importance of Paul Celan and Edmond Jabès.

It is a good DB theory book for professors and students. It covers most topics in data models and database theories. But it is not suitable to be a textbook, and should be avoided by IT engineers in industry. The book is hard to read. There are too many maths elements in it. Compared with the discontinued book by Ullman, its English is not good, maybe because the first author is French.

Whenever I need to check or find some result about database theory,
I look into Foundations of Databases, and I find the answer, stated
and explained in a clear and understandable way. This book
contains all you need about foundations of databases, and even more ...

Here is the book to grow up from intro. It is definetely harder to read than Date, but - as it is always with math - the extra effort is rewarding.

There are some omissions, for example, 5NF is not covered. (While lower normal forms are more important from practical side, the higher ones are more interesting from math perspective). On the positive note, coverage of Extended Relational Model is much more open-minded as compared to C.Date, for example (BTW, Abiteboul's paper on object views is among the most cited).

I don't think I need to explain how great the "Nelson's Textbook of Pediatrics" is, so I focus on the features as software.

This product is based on a java applet and for Windows and Macintosh. For each of the chapter, about 30 review questions are available in a multiple-choice format. The answer is not only with alphabetical one, but also with a concise explanation with a link to the textbook. I find this feature very helpful. I haven't checked "Nelson Review of Pediatrics, 2nd ed., Behrman,R.E.CW.B.Saunders , 2000 263p", but the publisher says that this feature is based on this book.

Update service is available. Every time when you launch the program, you are asked whether it checks the updates. Full access to NelsonPediatrics.com for further information is also available, after you sign up on the web site. After all, the support service is awesome.

However, there are some things you should know as windows users, which is why I put 4 stars. First, you are required to use Netscape or Internet Explorer as your default browser. The browser must be new enough, too. Second, you must insert the CD-ROM every time you use this program, since it doesn't install all the files to your hard disk unlike the previous edition. Third, if you are using localized Windows other than English, you may have to replace some files. The procedure is as follows, quoted from the mail I got immediately from the support center:

>The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that we distribute with the Nelson
>product is not the internationalized version. It could be that one of
>the following may address the issue (FIRST BACKUP THE JRE DIRECTORY IN
>NELSON'S INSTALL DIRECTORY):
>1. Download and install the international version of the JRE 1.2.2 (the
>one we use for Nelson) from
>http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/jre/download-windows.html. Then
>copy the installed JRE directory and all contents to the Nelson
>directory, naming it JRE.
>
>2. Download and install the international version of the newer JRE 1.3.0
>from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/jre/download-windows.html and do the
>same thing as above.

This textbook is the gold standard of pediatric books. I used mine all through medical school and still use it in my practice. I highly recommend this text to students, residents and physcians. The thought provoking text and excellent illustrations make this a must have book. I couldn't practice without mine.

No medical text can ever be comprehensive, or completely up to date. The science of medicine advances so quickly that books are outdated the day they are published.

Nonetheless, "Nelson's Textbook of Pediatrics" comes as close as possible. Along with another other classic pediatric text, "Rudolph's Pediatrics," Nelson's represents the best of pediatric medicine in America. Every pediatrician has a favorite, but Nelson's is the gold standard.

Nelson's is particularly strong in pediatric cardiology and immunology. For the latest in infectious disease, see the "Red Book" published by the American Academy of Pediatrics. For neonatology, developmental pediatrics, and the surgical sub-specialties, consult specialty books in those fields. For congenital malformations and syndromes, "Smiths's" (by Jones!) is a good place to start. For the latest in oncology, your best bet (after your local trusted oncologist) is to search Medline or the Web, but watch out for quackery.