Maybe I'm a bit biased since two of the four players profiled in this book are now Mets, but I really enjoyed their stories. Siroty takes you from their childhoods through college, to the minor leagues and the majors. Every player has a different path, and not all of them have the traditional happy endings. Every page mentions a new player whose name you'll recognize - I always wondered how every baseball player seemed to know each other, even if their teams never competed. You'll love this book if you love baseball - because it really shows the players' passion for the game.

The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth by sports writer David Siroty is an involved and involving study of the lives of Craig Biggio, Mo Vaughn, and John Valentin, three renowned baseball players, each of whom earned MVP honors, Gold Gloves, and more, -- as well as the life of Marteese Robinson, a friend and college teammate of the three men who was left behind from the professional baseball world. Robinson would eventually find a way to join his friends; just not a way that any of them expected. The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth is an engaging tale, featuring an aside with a quotable quote from the men it spotlights on almost every page, as well as an inset section of black-and-white photographs. The Hit Men And The Kid Who Batted Ninth is a very fine read -- especially for baseball fans.

David Siroty writes a factually accurrate account of the Hit Men from Seton Hall. As a former Pirate player, I spent some time with these guys and they were all good guys and had one distinguishing trait in common; they all had the burning desire to play the great game of baseball. Excellent job by Siroty telling a great story about the greatest game on the face of the earth.
Brought back good memories. Wish I was there!
Can't wait to bring my son to Mike Sheppard's Basball Camp...keep the hustle.
PS: Marteese Robinson was one of the nicest guys in our high school, SHP.

I first read an older edition of this from the library, and immediately ordered the current edition. If you are going to own only one book on being a landlord, this has to be the one. Very easy to read and understand, and every bit of advice is practical and do-able. Not a book on how to get rich in real estate, but how to get the most from rental property you own without going nuts, whether its a spare sleeping room or a 200 unit multiplex.

I read this book for a research paper and was surprised that I became interested in becoming a landlord. It is clear and understandable. It offers all the necessary forms for tenants and also ways to document property condition, remove tenants, etc. A must for landlords!

This book was very thorough in dealing with the multitude of decisions a landlord has to make. Practically all small details and major concerns are addressed. The forms are of great value for the beginner who has none. One could learn from trial and error at some expence and head-ache or they could utilize this book to hit the ground running as they start landlording or just become better at it. The only draw back is that about 1/2% is subtley influenced by the laws and practices of California, paricularly the forms. But, this is not major at all, and can be overcome by learning your own state's statues on rental property. This book is not merely about landlord law but how to be a prosperous landlord. The landlording techniques for dealing with tenants makes this book invaluable! Overall, it is the most usefull book I have read on this subject.

I highly recommend this book. I purchased it about 2 months after starting development of a Java-based GUI. This book paid for itself in the first week, based on the time I saved. It has excellent code examples that are well commented - each example has a section titled "Understanding the code" which explains exactly how each Swing component is used in the code. The sections on JTable and JList were the most valuable to me. I have modeled all of my tables on the examples in the book, and was able to write my own renderers to handle the unique data I was displaying in the tables (combination of icons and text). I have used this book more than any other on my shelf - it's well worth the price!

Excellent treatment of this flexible GUI API presenting both basic and advanced usage of JFC Swing with great care. I especially like the way all examples are annotated and fully explained. I hope this book's source code style will be emulated in other publications! The book can also be regarded as an easy-to-follow reference for JFC Swing techniques. Every example is a complete application; this allows any snippet of code you pull out to be derived in context. I find this format ideal and it provides the convenient ability to skip around in any chapter to exactly what might be needed for a given task.

From my initial comments, you can tell I truly like and recommend this book. The only negatives I see right now are those last four chapters not being printed but only available on-line (I dislike this trend). Also, the book stressed Java 2 but it would have been nice to see them mention that 95% of the book applies to the JDK1.1.x with the JFC Swing extension (e.g. simply reference the single file swingall.jar); those examples will run with Java 1.1 unchanged.

I found this book the best for intermediate to seasoned Swing developer. Excellent coverage on some Swing topics not covered in sufficient depth elsewhere - such as tables, trees and GridBagLayout. The book is considered a classic in Java Swing developers community and is highly recommended to anyone with some basic Swing understanding who wants to know it real well and use it. The code examples are quite practical, I used the concepts from the book several times in my projects.

Aristotle's The Politics is without a doubt one of the most celebrated works of political science from antiquity. He begins with a description of a state, advances through the numerous types of constitutions, describes the ideal citizen, and defines good government-not to mention numerous other fascinating political insights into the running of a state.

Aristotle's outline for government and state has been influential to political scientists for over 2,400 years. His discussion on the cons of complete unity, as well as his chapter on "the natural and unnatural methods of acquiring goods," certainly must have influenced Karl Marx, and his discussions on the "good of all" certainly led to Mills and Bentham's utilitarianism.

The Penguin Classics edition gives the reader an authoritative, inexpensive copy that is ideal for scholars as well as students. The footnotes are helpful, but not excessive. An excellent purchase all around.

As a mystery novelist, I find that reading a wide variety of materials helps enormously in my work. This book is one I read regularly. I first read POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE during my college days at Claremont McKenna College. The political science department insisted on a classical background for its students, and this book was one of the canon. It impressed me then. It still impresses me today. I only wish Aristotle could collect royalties on the books sold.

Just as in most of his other books, in "The Politics", Aristotle becomes the founder of organized, ordered, and systematic thought. Of course, he was not the first philosopher to think about the organization and governance of societies, but his work is the first classification and comparison of different possible systems. As I said in a recent review of Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics", his greatest originality is the stripping off of myth, legend, metaphor and poetics from his exposition of the subject. This is his main difference with his predecessor and teacher, Plato. This makes for a drier reading, but also for a clearer and better organized rendering of his clear thought. It can be said, moreover, that Plato and Aristotle constitute the founding pillars of the two main currents in Western thought: idealism (Plato) vs. realism (Aristotle). Although any tragedies deriving from these sources is, of course, not a responsibility of these great thinkers, it can be said, in general, the following:

The idealist tradition inaugurated by Plato led to the rise of universal, all-encompassing theories. That is, those which assert that there is a single unifying principle tying up together economics, politics, ethics, and social organization, and that this principle (whichever it may be) is suitable for any society at any time and place. Hence, Rousseaunianism, Socialism, Communism.

The "realist" tradition springing from Aristotle simply says that human problems can not be resolved by magical formulas or recipes. Social situations can not be severed from their immediate environment. Aristotle, then, classifies possible types of systems and defines their advantages and disadvantages for different types of societies. His approach, then, is that there can be no universal and general solutions or organizing principles. Aristotle is absolutely practical in his approach, as opposed to the theoretical systems imagined (as opposed to observed) by Plato. Hence: liberalism, Realpolitik, capitalism, democracy (or I should say "capitalisms" and "democracies", since there are very different varieties of these systems). Aristotle examines then distinct kinds of Constitutions, what they require to be effective, and what effects they might bring upon.

Read it, then, for a clear and well-ordered exposition of themes, subthemes, and advice. Here you will find the origin of half of Western political thought. And precisely the half that seems to be winning the race.

'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' is a legendary film that has become buried in its own legend(s). There has been the ugly conflict between its various contibuotrs as to who actually 'authored' the film (with maligned director Robert Wiene, who died before the spats began, losing out). There has been the contentious issue of the framing story, where the screenwriters' conceived attack on authority is neutered as the ravings as a madman. There has been the notoriously influential thesis of art historian Siegfried Kracauer in his book 'From Caligari to Hitler', which claimed that films reflected the subconscious of a nation, and that, by virtue of the framing story, 'Caligari' somehow visualised the German desire for Nazism. Then there is 'Caligari''s position in the history of film, as the first example of Expressionist cinema, the most widely influential 'school' in the medium.

Legend and myth are anathema to the British critical mind, which prefers to deal with verifiable facts. By going back to primary sources - the original script, production memos, trade reports, advertising materials, contemporary reviews, as well as first-hand testimonies (which latter he treats with scepticism), David Robinson builds up a more prosaic, but convincing, picture of the conception and creaton of 'Caligari' (an appendix compares the original script with the finished film, allowing us to dismiss the main myth-disseminator, co-screenwriter Hans Janowitz), showing how subsequent legends were created for various self-interested reasons (e.g. as a calling-card for exiled screenwriters in World War II Hollywood).

'Caligari' is revealed as less the inspired breakthrough in Cinematic Art than a happy accident - the famously Expressionist sets were less a necessary visualisation of character subjectivity than a cynical attempt to cash in on the vogue for modern art and Grand Guignol. Wiene, derided in film history as a 'one-trick pony', is rehabilitated, as it the framing narrative once condemned as conformist. The study offers a fascinating history of film-making in the context of post-World War I Europe, the expectations of the public and the reactions of the press. He gives a precis of the wider Expressionist project, showing how 'Caligari' borrowed heavily from the art and theatre of its time (not just visually, but in acting technique), concluding that this style was 'bolted on' to a story that didn't really need it, rather than arising aesthetically out of it. 'Caligari' is no longer considered a great film, but it is important because people thought it was, encouraging film-makers and audiences to take more risks, paving the way for the genuine achievements of Expressionism (co-screenwriter Carl Meyer would write most of Murnau's great films).

This is all very interesting and a pleasure to read, but something is missing - the film itself. There is little analysis of 'Caligari' as a movie, why it can still exert a fascination for a sympathetic audience, what the various stylistsic choices actually mean or achieve. It's not enough to dismiss 'Caligari' as a ragbag of various accidents (so are most Hollywood 'classics') - it is still a film to be watched and understood, even if eventually dismissed.

Nevertheless, this book is a visual joy, full of crisp stills, sketches for sets, and, most pleasurably, various posters for the original exhibition run (including the lurid but mysterious one on the cover) which, I must confess, are more strikingly beautiful than anything in the actual film.

Dr. Caligari's cabinet is a wonderfully done piece of literature. The story is very original and suspenseful. Definately the book to read if you don't want to sleep at night

The BFI Film Classics series is a consistantly stimulating guide to great films, and this is one of my favorites. Robinson is particularly strong in placing this film in its historical context. As wonderful as it is, Caligari is nevertheless a product of its time, and an awareness of this only increases its resonance. This book beautifully passes the only true test of film criticsm - it enhances our experince of the film itself.

I ordered this book for my father's birthday - sight unseen. When it arrived in the mail, I was initially very disappointed. The cover is an ugly green and looks like it's 30 years old at least! It truley looks like one of those old reference books you find at the library! But after skimming through it, I decided this was a pretty good buy after all. It contains TONS of info on all of the episodes and the cast. My father loved it as well and said that it even came in really handy when he played the Andy Griffith trivia game with some relatives!

This book has everything you would need to know and most fans of this show NEED to know a lot! Buy one for you and another for a gift. Then check out the authors book about Mayberry RFD! Again very very good. You can tell the author loves the show and thats the kinda guy I want to read, because so do I!!

I enjoyed this book greatly and learned a lot about this complex man.

Growing up in Brooklyn, I heard many stories about Jackie Robinson. All of them praised his courage and admired what he went through. But nobody ever thought of him as a saint, he was a complex character with many rough edges.

Most of what has been written about him has deified him incorrectly. The author makes it very clear early in the book that he wanted to show Robinson as "warts and all". And he succeeds, Robinson comes across as a complex human being.

Two things to note regarding the research done on this book. The author refers often to other biographies, especially when they disagree on various points. He then gives his account of the given point, a very good procedure.

The author also notes that he was not given any access to the "official" Jackie Robinson archives and that Jackie's widow and her minions refused to cooperate in any way shape or form with this book as well as trying to discourage others. All I can say about that is how petty those actions are.

I especially liked the depth in which the author discussed Robinson's post-baseball life, especially in the political arena. Robinson supported several prominent Republican politicians, such as Rockefeller and Nixon and took a lot of heat for his views. The author did a wonderful job in this area.

Great job by the author is separating man and myth.

I'm a big Jackie Robinson fan and this book taught me things I never understood or knew! Great reading. Great insights into the life of a true pioneer! BUY IT!

This book is written in a lean manner. It is simple, common and easy to read. It describes ordinary things and ideas very clearly and with one purpose. This book provides all the roadmap, tools and insight needed to allow plants to achieve excellence. The authors take great pains to address common failures issues. They provide a single source handbook that any plant can understand and use, a source with example metrics and tools, with logic and simple ideas to prevent and overcome the daily issues faced by the team that implements Lean.

This is not a book that deals much about soft issues. It is not a fuzzy warm feeling book about the people side, nor is it a motivational "you can do it" book. It is a frank easy to read book about simple steps and simple ideas that make plants great. It explains the people issues and the fact that unless working teams make the decisions and changes Lean will not happen. It is a long book, more of handbook length, but much easier to read.

Lean Manufacturing: A Plant Floor Guide fills the space between a detailed "How To" text and an overview. It provides coverage of every key issue in moving to Lean Manufacturing, offering rationale, plans and encouragement.

From understanding your customers needs, metrics, building a solid business case and launching a methodical process, this book has all the tools necessary for a sound lean transition.
Perhaps most importantly, it offers reliable advice on overcoming resistance and building an effective team.

I'll agree with the many other reviews that rate this book as an extremely knowledgeable reference on ASP, perhaps the definitive reference.

However, there are several points that make this book somewhat unappealing from a practical perspective.

First, note that it was written by 15 different authors. This incorporates many different writing styles, making it unwieldy. The previous edition was written by 8 people. Do not attempt to use either book as a cover-to-cover tutorial.

Second, the code examples are written almost exclusively in VBScript, although the book acknowledges that Javascript (also known as JScript) would work just as effectively. From a real-world perspective, I have found that many ASP programmers prefer to use Javascript for both server-side and client-side development.

The use of 2 scripting languages in one application is simply impractical. VBScript persists mainly because it is a Microsoft invention, as is ASP itself. However, Javascript (or ECMA Script) has become the industry-standard scripting language for web-based applications.

Another issue with the code examples is that they are not line-numbered. For short examples, this is not an issue. But for larger code modules (as one would encounter in the real world), line-numbering is considered part of best practices in explaining and debugging code before it is deployed.

For readers with any ASP background, this book would be a useful desktop reference. Carrying it around in your briefcase may cause lower back strain.

Professional Active Server Pages 3.0, by Alex Homer, is
a book on developing web applications using Active
Server Pages 3.0. This book goes in depth into
developing web applications with discussions and
examples on advanced topics such as, CDO/Microsoft
Exchange Server, ADO/Microsoft SQL Server, and
ADSI/Active Directory. Homer presents the reader with a
wealth of information on advanced enterprise level
topics based on Microsoft technologies. This book is
excellent for intermediate/advanced users who wish to
learn about Active Server Pages using Microsoft
technologies, however due to the fact Homer does not
goes in depth with fundamentals of programming Visual
Basic Script, this book should not be recommended to
novice developers.

Throughout the book, Homer discusses the importance of
COM/COM+ and what that technology can do for your web
application. He writes examples of a COM+ component in
Visual Basic and shows the user how to register/load
the component into memory along with utilizing the
functionality of them in an Active Server Page. Homer
further explores the features of Windows 2000 by
introducing the features of Active Directory and
explaining/demonstrating how ADSI can connect an Active
Server Page to the Active Directory. The book goes into
further detail on enterprise level topics by discussing
how CDO interfaces with Microsoft Exchange Server.
Using CDO, a developer can access all of users Exchange
account information including mail, contacts, calendar,
etc. The book ends with performance and security issues
for web applications running on a Windows 2000 Server
and how an administrator should configure a Windows
2000 Server for maximum performance and security.

The software/technologies the book uses are based on
products/technologies developed by Microsoft. Since
Active Server Pages is a Microsoft technology, it would
be reasonable to use only Microsoft
products/technologies. However, in the real world, many
businesses have heterogeneous environments with Oracle
database servers and JavaScript web developers. The
fact that this book only exposes the reader to vendor-
specific technologies could be a down fall, however
creates a centralized focus for the reader.

This book covers a wide spectrum of advanced knowledge
with Active Server Pages, however is completely based
around Microsoft technologies. Several other authors
composed this book, which helps the reader get a
dynamic flavor of knowledge from chapter to chapter as
one can see. Any intermediate/advanced web developer,
interested in enterprise web application development,
should purchase a copy of this book for reference
purposes.

Being an enterprise web developer, I found this book to be the absolute best in its field. It covers a very wide spectrum of fields any web developer working with Microsoft web technology should know, including ADO, ADSI, ASP, CDO, COM+, error handling, MSMQ, Windows DNA, XML, and a whole lot more (note that this book is primarily oriented at web developers who's target platform is Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0, but I also found it to be extremely useful for use on Windows NT 4.0 and IIS 4.0, since the authors clearly indicate features that are new to Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0). The writing style is absolutely excellent and gives clear tips on code optimization and performance. I have read literally dozens of different books on these subjects, and none has come close to this one. Although this book is not for beginners, it is, in my opinion, good for anyone who wants to advance their career on the web or become an web developer. This is definitely a book you will want to read from cover to cover, and use as a reference. At just about any price, it's a steal.

The Book suffers lack of detail on Charlie Chaplin's movies. The book does not really have that much text to read.The only thing there is is pictures

Often books written about popular film celebrities are thinly
disguised means of making a buck by publishers
who contract people to write a story about a
subject they so obviously care little about.
But this title is a wonderful appreciation of Chaplin by someone
who appears to at least be a fan.

The small but attractive book is packed with b/w
photos and anecdotes that span Chaplin's entire
career; printed on thick glossy paper and beautifully
designed, it is not the usual slapdash mass market
pulp cheapo that will crumble to dust
in six months. This is a permanent little gem
that will sit very well on the shelf next to a more
text-heavy volume such as Chaplin's autobiography.
There is enough story here though to give anyone
with an interest a basic outline of Charlie's whole life.
Highly recommended.

David Robinson is an historian and film critic who produced a massive definitive biographical study on Chaplin. A short time afterward Robinson did this small volume for the Abrams Discoveries series, a line known for its smooth paper, compactness, and illustrations.

The book is as excellent an overview of Chaplin's career as anything published. While only 143 pages, it is packed with information. Robinson was given access to the Chaplin archives by Charlie's family for the production of his earlier study, and his wealth of knowledge is on full display here. The book follows Charlie from his very rough childhood and early success in vaudeville through to his rise as a star in the Karno and Keystone comedy groups. Robinson details Chaplin's ethic of hard work and inventiveness, which lead him to eventually take full control of his projects and propel his fame to an international level. The story of the comic genius' life is never far away, and we are given facts about Chaplin's first love, his marriages, the creation of his famous "Little Tramp" character, and his friendships with other actors and directors.

Robinson successfully communicates to the reader Chaplin's inestimable influence on the motion picture. Chaplin is shown to be a perfectionist and artist at a time when films were not considered for anything other than pure entertainment value. Chaplin's unique sensibilities, his creativity, and the combination of comedy and pathos deepened the overall lure and texture of early 20th Century cinema. Along the way we also learn about behind-the-scenes toils undergone by Chaplin during shoots, his participation in forming United Artists, even his pursuit by the F.B.I. and eventual self-exile from the United States.

The information here is communicated in a lively, lucid style, and there are included throughout significant quotations from Chaplin's autobiography as well as some of his other writings to emphasize important points. There is a documents section which adds perspectives on Chaplin and his work by some of his contemporaries and followers, as well as an indispensable filmography, listing Chaplin's work from his first picture, 1914's _Making a Living_, to his final, 1967's _A Countess from Hong Kong._ Despite all these useful features, the book's greatest asset are the illustrations. From full color to black and white, there is a photograph, drawing, or film still on almost every page, bringing to life Chaplin and his era beautifully and respectfully.

I recommend this book highly to Chaplin aficionados new and old, as well as to someone who is curious what the fuss is all about. For those who would like to see the major events of Chaplin's life portrayed onscreen, I recommend the 1990's biopic _Chaplin_ starring Robert Downey Jr.