The dramatization of the end time events before Christ returns is the most Biblicaly accurate of anything like this I have ever read (and I have read many). The book is a page turner and thought provoker. After reading this book you will wish you had skipped the Left Behind series and gone straight to the Eleventh Hour! This book is the first of two parts. You might as well go ahead and order the Midnight Hour also to finish the story.

In this book a Biblical View given through a possible series of events gives the reader an idea od what Revelation has been trying to tell us for 2,000 +/- years.

It is a great read, and most will not be able to put it down. It is a great second opinion to the Left Behind Series. Its views are different, and is readable by all from ages 12 and above.

Well worth the money

This is one of the best book I've ever read!

This collection includes songs written by Hanns Eisler for plays by Brecht (Die Massnahme et al.), "mass songs" such as the United Front Song (Einheitsfrontlied), and selections from the Hollywood Liederbuch, with texts written by Brecht while he and Eisler were living in Southern California. In some cases, Eisler set Brecht poems which were also set by Kurt Weill; the comparison is enlightening. This is a fine introduction to the work of an important, complex, and (until recently) neglected 20th century composer.

Clare is a true poet, and strangely neglected currently it seems. Really he is one of the essential poets of the wonderful romantic era which includes Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake, Coleridge, and Keats. Why is this just about the only book of his work being published? I think you're lucky to find this one, and you can find many poems of his on the web to see yourself. Cheers

I found this book to be very informational. Good step by step pictures.

tHIS WAS A GREAT GOOD BOOK. I personaly like the part where they eat him. poor guy though. It teaches you not to boast or be big headed about yourself

The Gingerbread Man

Have you ever chased a gingerbread man after it jumped out of the oven? A lot of people, a cow, and a fox run after just one gingerbread man in this story. Will anyone eat the Gingerbread man? This book is funny and good. I like how they all chase after the Gingerbread man.

I recall this book and bought it because it was the exact one I read when I was a child. I love how it repeats and how the photos are just so colorful. I read this one every night to my daughter and my favorite part is the ending when the Gingerbreadman gets eaten but it's not sad because they remind us how they come back again when we bake more gingerbread men. It's a must for anyone who loves the classics.

I teach a course for junior-high and high-school teachers of mathematics, who are getting advanced degrees--either their masters' degree or what Alabama calls an advanced certificate. These students have all had calculus at one time or another, but it may have been a long time ago for some of them. If they haven't been teaching the subject -- and most haven't -- then it's likely that they have forgotten most of it.

This book is ideal for this particular population. It takes a highly graphical approach; almost every unit calls for some graphing work. Moreover, it asks students to interpret the graphs in physical or real-life terms. Then the unit asks the students to match up the verbal descriptions with the graphs.

The book is divided into short units of three or four pages each. Each unit is intended to present some short project that is designed to help the students gain a better understanding of some topic in calculus. For instance, there are several units that show graphs of functions and graphs of derivatives and ask for matches. Later on, there is a unit that asks students to look at the derivative of 2 to the x power -- using the definition of derivative as a limit. The unit then helps students to understand why the base e= 2.71828... is easier to use. At the end of the book there are longer projects for the students to do. There is also a nicely wry sense of humor that pervades the book.

I wouldn't use this book as a *textbook* for a college calculus course; it is designed to be used as supplementary material. I also couldn't use it very effectively in our regular engineering calculus course. For one thing, our course at the University of Alabama has too jam-packed a syllabus -- I always have trouble finishing the assigned topics, much less any extra things. However, with the class of high-school teachers I can be more relaxed. Many of these students remember at least a bit of calculus, but they, too, probably learned it in a course where every topic was covered at breakneck speed. Very likely, they didn't spend enough time on their own to get the clear understanding that a math teacher ought to have. In this course, we have enough time to talk about *interpreting* graphs, limits, derivatives and integrals instead of just manipulating them. This book is excellent for gaining that kind of experience. I usually split the students up into groups and let them present most of the topics in ways that they might use in their own classrooms. I'll usually present some of the harder topics; for instance, I may give an hour lecture on why some elementary functions don't have elementary antiderivatives, and how we could prove such a thing. (This topic is not in the book under review.) If you teach a calculus course whose syllabus isn't already bursting at the seams, you ought to look at this book for ideas for supplementary topics. It's well-thought out and nicely presented.

Terry Pratchett has, in his other work, produced some of the finest fiction ever written, period. Therefore i have higher expectations of his work and judge accordingly. This little book, by Pratchett standards is an embarrasment to the entire series. Apparently the author felt it necessary to reclaim his inept 'wizzard' from the depths of the dungeon dimensions, possibly to appease his fans, so he whipped out this little fart of a story and then moved on. Poor Rincewind deserves better than this, and anyone planning to read their first discworld tale should avoid this trash like the plague. If you really must find out how Rincewind got away from the Dungeon Dimensions, this book is worth about [$$$] or less; personally, i think he'd have done better to wait and write the wizzard's revival into the beginning of 'Interesting Times' I'm sure the wizards of Unseen University could have summoned him themselves for the purpose of that story. I hear that this was originally to be a graphic novel with lots of fine pictures, but i don't really see how any amount of artwork could do much to help this pathetic work; it's missing the character developement, plot work, and the general magic that makes Terry Pratchett what he is, I've read other Pratchett books which I didnt feel were his best, but this is the only book by this author that i would ever call his worst.

Eric is more of a Discworld novella than it is a novel. At 154 pages, it's not very substantive. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't a quality book. However, in this case, I'm sorry to say that Terry Pratchett dropped the ball a little bit. It's another Rincewind adventure, and like most of the other Rincewind books that I've read, it fails for the most part to entertain.

I've never been a fan of Rincewind or his luggage, which I know makes me unusual for a Discworld fan. Unfortunately, Eric continues the trend of sub-par Discworld adventures featuring the incompetent wizard. I just didn't find it that interesting or funny, and the main saving grace is that it's short. If it had been longer, I think my rating would have been less. The idea is clever, a parody of Faust with Rincewind unable to fulfill any of the functions that the devil does in the original play. The execution of it isn't even that bad, though it's not up to Pratchett's usual standards.

I guess my main problem with it is that Rincewind seems even a lesser part of things than he usually does. The luggage saves his bacon a couple of times, and the other times things just happen and outside forces end up dealing with things. I think he actually solves a problem himself once in the whole book. The concept of an observer who would rather be sitting home bored than actually taking part in all of these adventures may be a good one, but I don't find it very interesting. Because of that, Pratchett has to make the situation worth my while in order for me to like the book. Eric doesn't do that. There are amusing bits here and there, a wry comment or a funny situation, but as a whole it doesn't work for me.

Once again, Death gets the best part of the book, and he's only in it for two scenes. The part at the beginning of the book where the wizards attempt to call forth Death to tell them what's going on is hilarious, with it not working quite as the wizards planned. He always seems to get the best lines in any Discworld book. There are a few other parts of the book where I actually laughed (like where Rincewind becomes a living part of history by tripping over something and setting the city on fire), but the overall affect, for me anyway, was "ho-hum."

The thing that brings this book up to 3 stars, though, is the rendition of Hell that Pratchett has. Astfgl has made hell a boring place rather than a fiery place, because he's realized that souls can't really feel any pain, so eternal physical torment really isn't that bad when the soul can't feel anything. So he makes it intensely boring instead, with people chained to rocks and forced to listen to stories of hernia operations and vacations on the various circles of Hell. I found this idea very inspired, and had to laugh at quite a few of the bits here. I don't want to ruin any of the jokes here, since they were most of the funny ones in the book, but suffice it to say that Hell was the best part of the book, and the only real saving grace.

The book's ending, though, is as uninspired as the rest of the book. It's a bit anti-climactic and not very well-done. Once again, Rincewind is saved by the actions of outside forces (not even the luggage saves him this time) and things start looking up for him again. Pratchett gives a rundown of what's happened to the various places that Rincewind and Eric have visited, but even that is only mildly amusing and not up to Pratchett's normal standards.

I know there are fans of Rincewind out there. I've read a few reviews, and even they think that this is one of Pratchett's weaker efforts. If you're a fan of his, you may enjoy this book, though I would suggest checking it out from the library rather than buying it. If you're not a fan of his, than you may want to skip this one (unless you're like me, and want to read every Discworld book out there). Thankfully, it's short, so you won't spend too much of your life with this one.

The trouble with the novel Eric, is that it was originally printed as a graphic novel, with paragraphs accompanied with large illustrations by Josh Kirby, and as such made much more sense (and had a much lighter tone than a normal Discworld book did). Unfortunately, that edition isn't printed, and so quite a few people seem to be disapointed by the lightweightness of Eric. Bear in mind that it isn't as it was intended, and that it's a light tale (about Rincewind...always less than serious) and it should prove quite enjoyable

Oh, what a waste of my money! Only a few of the pictures of banners was worth looking at. The rest looked like 1960's tie-dyed, psychedelic, drug-altered drawings. The altar frontal pictured on p. 84 is something that shouldn't even be in a church. Sorry I bought it.

When I realized my calling was to be a church decorator this was the first book I bought on making banners. I have loved using it. The pictures are very clear and inspirational. I have used ideas for Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, Green Season and baptism. The church has been delighted with the results and very supportive, saying how warm thy have made the church feel. I used only the pictures in the book and not the instructions when I made my banners, so they are not copies. For example, on the Easter banner I did not use all the symbols around the edges, only the three crosses at the bottom. While I did tie/die my fabric for Easter, on the others, as the green time and Palm Sunday, I did not as was suggested, but found fabric I liked. The green time, on page 84, gave the feeling of God's beautiful earth, and I will probably add removable appliques as the season progresses to give changes over the long period of Kingdomtide, as it progresses from summer into fall. I used sequined fabrics and metallics on many of the banners. My designs for Pentecost and baptism were my own, only following the idea the book gave. I also appreciated the written meaning given for each banner, and always write something for the bulletin about the banner I present, including the meaning of the season and the symbolism used in design and color. I like the design to speak on its own, no words. I also do not want it to look like one anyone could purchase from a bookstore. I am always on the lookout for more books like this one, but so far it is the best.

It is a shame to give this book a "Professional" title - it is rudimental in every sense. I can't even call it a rehash of the manual, because MS documentation is much deeper.
Book is un-inspiring and wriiten in a very bad language.
In general, I see Wrox sliding down on my scale, while Microsoft Press shining. Just try to compare this "Professional" book with Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows with C#"!

Ill-conceived and rushed into print

Wrox sure knows how to put together a beautiful looking book: the dazzling red color of the book cover contrasting with the bright yellow, shadowed titling shows that someone has done their homework on how to attract a reader to a book shelved alongside dozens of other similarly-titled books. Open up one of their books and you'll find a beautiful layout with gorgeous typography employing carefully chosen fonts for the various types of information being conveyed. Their books are chock-full of professional looking diagrams, tables, and screenshots that just suck the beholder into thinking that this must be some excellent book.

Sigh...if only the cosmetics reflected the contents. I know people who buy almost every Wrox book published, yet who express their disappointment time and time again because of a host of shortcomings common to so many of them. Talk about finding the sizzle irresistible regardless of the quality of the meat! "Professional Windows Forms" is a perfect example of a wonderful looking Wrox book that is just plain annoying when you get down into it. The book is supposed to teach you how to program with Windows Forms in the .NET platform (standard thick-client Windows programs). The book does cover all the bases, you can't fault it for that: there is a really good introductory chapter on the .NET framework itself, a fair overview of Visual Studio.NET, a good chapter on event handling (critical for Windows programming), how to connect controls with data from a database (something new with .NET), all the standard Windows controls (buttons, lists, trees, toolbars, menus, whatever), dialogs (modal vs. non-modal) and standard windows, common dialogs, GDI+, a chapter on debugging Windows Forms, even a chapter on localization (internationalization.) The book has all the usual Wrox shortcomings: a host of typos and misspellings, half the examples don't work, the source on the web site does not match the source in the book, sometimes the bugs are in the web site source, sometimes in the book, often in both, class and procedure names differ between the web site source and the book's printed source (so searches often fail), there is inconsistency in the presentation of material from chapter to chapter (because in this case there are eight different authors, which is actually below average for the "Professional" series Wrox books), and there is a lack of focus on the topics presented. There are a couple of extremely elementary chapters that seem completely out of place in a "Professional" series book: "Inheritance and Other Important New Language Features," and an insultingly elementary chapter on interface design (what's a button for, etc.). There are also some topics that may be interesting in themselves but are only marginally related to Windows Forms, such as "Components and Reports." This book is more like a grab-bag than simply Windows Forms. It even touches (but JUST touches) on building web pages with ASP.NET.

All that aside, the thing that I find most annoying about this book is the language mix used to teach the Windows Forms .NET classes. Three fourths of the examples in this book are in VB.NET, the rest in C#. Personally, I don't think any book purporting to instruct us about .NET classes should be using VB.NET, because the prolix and convoluted syntax of this horribly ugly language stands in the way of us clearly seeing what is going on with the .NET classes themselves, the actual topic under discussion. C# has far superior didactic power for this purpose, since it is concise and clean and lets the workings of the classes shine through transparently. A case could be made for saying that the only .NET books that should have VB.NET code in them are books whose main purpose is to teach VB.NET (it will be a detriment to the industry if this language catches on, but that is another story). But to mix VB.NET and C# in the same book, where there is not a total duplication of code for both languages (as some .NET books do), well this is simply egregious. Up to now, all serious Windows programmers, to whom presumably this book is addressed, have used either C with the Win32 SDK or C++ with MFC (or ATL). The natural language for this book's audience is C#, not VB.NET. To burden this audience with VB.NET for exposing the Windows Forms classes is an affront. Then to tease us with a little C# in an occasional chapter, especially when follow-on chapters later in the book are then presented in VB.NET, is a terrible frustration and road block for learning the actual topic at hand. Why cover up the meat with this mess of a language when it is so much more natural to expose it in C#? What was Wrox thinking? Especially nitty-gritty code like illustrating GDI+ you'd want to look as clean as possible, but they chose to write this intense chapter in the muck of VB.NET!!! Oh, how I wished I'd waited for "Programming Windows with C#" by Charles Petzold, which only just now came out. Unfortunately, "Professional Windows Forms" was the only game in town at the time I bought it and I did not look at it close enough before I brought it home and started getting into it, being suckered into it by its wonderful cover and smart typography. Oh, the price we sometimes have to pay for being early adapters!

With practically every book on .NET focusing (screaming ?) on Web Services and ASP.NET, this book is a welcome addition to those like me who write classic applications .. this book has been written wrox-style, with several code samples and a logical progression of content .. since this book has been published before VS.NET release, one can run into minor problems in running the code with the release version of vs.net.. but if you are brave enough to venture into VS.NET, then you should be brave enough to modify and compile them in the release version. Each new control in the toolbox has been discussed in the context of a project .. inheritance has been covered well with good samples .. chapter on components/reports is very new and helpful as these are new to the toolset of the .net programmer .. a comprehensive chapter on deployment will come in handy for those of us who deal with deployment as well ..case study at the end of the book is right-on-target in putting windows forms piece of the .NET into action .. since the title does not refer to either vb.net or c#.net, the code samples and discussions are both in vb.net and c#.net ..

again, with all the hoo-ha about web services and asp.net, classic applications are renegated to the back-burner .. but after one installs vs.net and tries to write their first "hello world" program, one will have to start with windows-forms to warm up to vs.net .. this book provides a good foundation for warming-up to vs.net .. could not give a 5-star rating since security issues are not covered