The author admits that "a large part of this book is the product of internet research." He continues by noting that the book "is by no means complete or entirely accurate, as the internet web pages and my skills as a translator are of questionable reliability" (XV). This indeed is an accurate statement, and should serve as a warning not to trust the contents. Not only are there two to three typos per page, but there are also substantial errors in many of the entries (too many to mention here). The author claims that his book is "intended to be a guide for further research," but one wonders about the usefulness of a research guide which is not only inaccurate and badly (if at all) edited, but fails to provide references (even to questionable websites).

Occasionally useful as a checklist of obscure English-language sources, but often let down by amateurish slips, the Asian Horror Encyclopedia lacks both an editor prepared to stay the author's outbreaks of fanboy gush and unsupported speculation, as well as a proof-reader who could have corrected the many, many errors. Without an index, it is less obvious that many words are spelt differently each time they occur; though this is a book for English speakers, its usefulness to someone who cannot check the primary sources is severely limited. Seemingly scooping up any information to hand without much sense of its quality, Bush's work reads more like a series of notes than a book in its own right. Researchers in Asian literature may stumble across occasional crumbs of interesting information, but will need to find help elsewhere in digesting them.

The Asian Horror Encyclopedia contains a lot of unique material available for the first time in English. It collects literary and folkloric information to give a complete look at the roots and directions of Asian horror. From Tang Dynasty ghost stories to modern Japanese horror bestsellers, it covers the broad range of this little known subject. It has an article on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos in Japan as well as coverage of many Asian mythos writers. It mentions horror films only if they have a literary or comic-book connection. It is of interest to manga and anime fans as well as those interested in folklore, vampires, werewolves, yokaigaku, Chinese metaphysics or international horror culture in general.

this book was a total dud it did not make sense and the laws are totaly wack i dont recommend this book,and your own safty stay away from this book.

As one of the most traditional legal codes in the Western World, Brehon Laws should be understood before being criticized... it is rather difficult (if not impossible) to try and make sense of a code of laws that has been orally preserved since Celtic days in Ireland if one has no idea of what this is about...

I can understand how some readers, if unfamiliar witht he Celtic world and inparticular the Brehon Laws of Ireland might find it a little hard to follow the more intricate parts but the content is well arranged and well explained and the worth of these ancient codes, with their emphasis on solutions that are both practically and spiritually satisfying, provides a fascinating insight into an ancient society.

Once again, we have the oldest trick in the book. A cheap way of getting the support of bitter and frustrated people by hurling blame at others and calling names (i.e., growing SOUR GRAPES). Simply another in a long line of rants to serve as an outlet for the bitter and semi-educated and collecting of cash by the clever by confusing the credulous.

The writers would have accomplished more by showing the readers how to defeat the ills they speak of and improve their condition rather than wastiing their obvious intellect in denigrating others. But hey, controversy sells.

BTW-In response to a previous poster, the Willie Lynch letter was a recent forgery, not a historical fact (see review for that book).

TO ALL THE PREVIOUS READER RESPONSES.......before you degrade the validity of this book, please remmember what the authors are trying to make us as readers realize. Even though not EVERYTHING in this book is 100% true, and although it SEEMS that the authors are slamming the idea of "success" in america, they are right in saying that these so called Uncle Toms or "sellouts" are not using their positions as powerful and popular figures in the black community and abroad to explode the reality of WHITE SUPREMACY in this country. The book is not saying that just because they are successful that they are Uncle Toms, it is saying so because they do not address the fact that we as a Black community are still being controled and manipilated by the same forces and powers that give these figures their salaries and status. True, people like Oprah and Bill Cosby have done many great things with their careers for all people, but they are still operating within their bondaries as the figures they are. If one of these prominent black figures had the audacity to speak out against the real history of this country dealing with the holocaust against black people and it's 400 year history and HOW TO REVERSE IT, their credibility AND their status, finances, positions and all would be virtually stripped away from them by the SAME corporations, financers and institutions that not only have an influential hand in their present status, but were a part of the mental degradation of black people when this all started. THAT is why some of these names are in this book. Look past the fact that they all don't live in the ghetto or don't speak slang, and pay attention to their role (or lack thereof) in working so that black people will no longer be associated with these things, as well as re-define the meaning of black people being "successful" as a WHOLE and not only as individuals.

a sad and sobering reality but yes the colonial/slave mentality still exists and is the number one reason behind black sabotage. read and weep.

400 small pages of mostly tediously boring one-liners, punchlines and other filler. No analysis of how luck works, or the science of probability. Ideal gift for someone you don't want to give a gift to.

A lovely little book filled with occasionally funny, occasionally sweet, always fascinating tidbits of folklore. Each story or one-liner about various methods of finding good luck is insight into another time or culture. A light-hearted collection of good luck charms from around the world. Everyone can use a little luck, and this book gives you plenty of options for finding what works for you -- or at least making you smile.

Although this book is written by an accomplished scientist about an intrinsically fascinating topic, I found it to be quite disappointing. The title would seem to offer more - a discussion which connects the neurons of our brains with ourselves as people. Nope, not in this book.

The main shortcoming of this book is it's focus on the lower levels of brain function - physiology and chemistry. This makes some sense, given the authors own ground-breaking research on synaptic transmission. Unfortunately, this emphasis also means that any systems-level understanding of the brain and of behavior is almost completely missing. There is virtually no neuropsychological content. There's no real discussion of language, human learning, perception, cognition, etc. The whole affair is decidely reductionistic.

As an example of the magnitude of the mismatch between what the reader might expect and what Changeux offers: "consciousness" is discussed on two brief pages, and what he writes about is consciousness as in sleeping or staying awake!

There are an increasing number of excellent books on the human brain written by leading scientists. For example, please don't confuse this book with the far-better and similarly titled work by Joseph LeDoux, called "The Synaptic Self." Read that book instead "Neuronal Man." If you're feeling ambitious, try Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works." If you're into the more philosophical questions, try Antonio Damnasio's "The Feeling of What Happens." Now, that's a book which really connects our minds to our bodies!

I found this a bit of a slog. Needs more helpful diagrams -- color would help -- and a little more life. Despite the mass of info here, I don't quite know how much I really learned from this, although there certainly was a lot in it to learn, but because it didn't really do the trick for me. Better for hard core biology types I expect.

This book provides more confusion and frustration to a student than anything. It ceases to offer sufficient example problems, while the few problems that do exist pertain to the less important theory. Also, the text provides a lack of explaination as to where it gets its values for constants - nearly all chapter problems require the utilization of some type of constant, yet the book has no tables of these values. I actually had to refer to my thermodynamics text in order to finish the questions from this book. It almost seems as if the book was rushed, since it doesn't explain or justify anything. Finally, I would like to mention that this was the most expensive of all my texts. I regret purchasing this text, as I could have learned more about fluid mechanics in my bathtub than from this book.

This book is certainly not intended for undergraduate. But this is a great book if you are a graduate pursuing deeper study in fluid mechanics. To bridge the gap it would be best for undergrad to read other 'introduction to fluid mechanics' book first. And continue to this book after you had a strong background in vector-matrix & tensor analysis. To my opinion i think the fluid static part is still suitable for undergrad - especially the buoyancy part, but its fluid dynamics analysis is far too advanced for undergrad and they should find better understanding in other introductory books.

There is no doubt that Fluid Dynamics is possibly the hardest subject in Mechanical Engineering. The reason, almost all situations in Fluids are non-linear. It is important, for undergrads to realize that this book is not intended for an introductory Fluids class. notice that the title is not "Introduction to Fluid Mechanics", this is a graduate level book! If you are using this book for an intro level fluids book than your professor either has no taste or he is trying to push you to be ready for a graduate level course in Fluid mechanics. Specifically, the author does a great job developing the governing differential equations. In particular the Navier-Stokes Equations. He not only describes how the equation comes about, but he also describes how to take this non-linear, non-homogenous, partial differntial equation with 3 equations (4 unknowns) and simplify it to solve real world problems. For those of you griping about how bad this book is, I suggest you look at "Introduction to Fluid Mechanics" by Fox and McDonald. This book is excellent for the novice, then move up to a "real" Fluids book.

My daughter and I purchased this book hoping to get some insight into the reasons why women are given less than optimum health care in some cases. I was impressed until I got to the chapter regarding chronic fatigue syndrome (an unwise name for this condition) and fibromyalgia. As a sufferer of both these ailments as well as diabetes I wish on behalf of the millions of people who have these conditions to disagree totally with your idea that these are "psychosomatic illnesses". Bullcrap...there is enough evidence out there now that these are very real physical illnesses. I am not ill because I want to be or because in some way there's a payoff for me. I struggle daily to do the things that well people do without a thought. I do not ask someone else to pick up my chores. Although I finally cannot work after over 32 years in the workforce, I do my best to keep up my day to day responsibilities. I am not taking any strong medication nor do I meet most of the other "criteria" for their explanation of why they think these are psychosomatic illnesses. The authors have done a great disservice to people suffering (and I mean suffering) with these conditions. It was very poorly researched in this area and I wonder did they even talk to people who actually had the conditions, go into their home and watch them try to live normal lives or did they just "surf the net" and glean some (mis) information from some of the support groups on it. If you want to read a book that will really tell the story about CFS, read "Oslers Web" by Hiliary Johnson, also a journalist. I feel very disappointed that what could have been a great opportunity to do many women (and also men by the way are stricken with these conditions..which is another thing that seemed not to be mentioned) a great service by bringing this into the open and discussing it in this type of forum, you opted to fall in with the traditional medical opinion (which has now been disproven) that these are psychological illnesses. Shame on you! I hope your next attempt at this type of book will be the result of better research.

With respect to the other reviewers of this book, I find Outrageous Practices to be an excellent introduction to women's health issues as they relate to the larger society. I would like to emphasize the word "introduction", as someone who is well-read in these issues would find this book repetitive and without a great deal of depth.

I do agree with other criticisms that the book often repeats facts and statistics. I think the sometimes flippant and critical tone of the writing leads some readers to feel that the book is biased and "one-sided". It certainly would have been stronger writing if the authors had left their personal interpretations out of the text and let the facts speak for themselves, because the facts are just that - proof of a tremendous bias in society that continually affects women's health on a day to day basis.

Having used this book as a textbook in a college course on women's health, I found it to be an excellent source when combined with other books and articles, usually those concentrating on the history of a given issue. The history aspect is crucial - and by concentrating on scientists and government statistics for their work, Laurence and Weinhouse often leave the reader bewildered as to how our society got to a place where women's health is ignored or endangered by cultural attitudes. This book helps get women angry at their treatment by the medical profession and that often is the first step to understanding and exploring other issues in women's studies. My thanks to the authors.

I'm somewhat mystified at the negative comments by the other reviewers. I read this book in 1994 when it first came out, and it really opened my eyes to the inequities of the medical system and showed me the truth of my own experiences - I've encountered several male doctors who tend to dismiss my own observations of my body or my health as irrelevant or suspect, simply because I'm female. I even had one doctor get angry with me for researching mononucleosis when he diagnosed me with it in college! You would think he would be pleased that I was taking charge of my health and wanted to learn more about my problem, but he seemed to find this threatening. While I agree that race and sexual orientation are also vital factors, I don't think this book meant to focus on them, so criticizing it for not doing so is unfair. I do not claim any special knowledge re. chronic fatigue syndrome, but I can say that when the book was originally written in 1994, and even during the time period of this second edition in 1997, much less was known about CFS than is known now. It's possible they were making judgments based on research at that time or at the time of editing. The bottom line for me is that this is a great book. If I had a daughter in high school, I'd hand this to her as required reading. While funding for women's medical problems such as breast cancer has increased, it is still far from equal. I'd love to see an update to this book - perhaps with chapters that do focus on the issues raised by other reviewers.

I read at least 3 books a week and this book has to be one of the worst I have ever read. Besides the spelling errors, the plot was incredulous. A niece witnesses a murder and then must keep quiet about it or else. Give me a break. I couldn't even follow the dialogue of the first ten chapters at least. It was hard to finish this book and as a matter of fact I couldn't, it was just plain awful.

There was not less than a star for rating or I would have given this book less. I have been trying to "get into" this book for two days. The characters' vocabulary is too difficult to imagine people using. It is a difficult read and I am quitting at page 70.

Tressa Devlin is hiding from her villainous uncle in the house of a man she's never met. When Hannibal, the owner of the house, comes home, he finds a strange household set up, complete with nicknames like Miss Sweet-as-Pie (Doro), Miss Dearie-Dear (Tressa), and Mr. Wrong (Hannibal's cousin Robert). Hannibal is immediately attracted to Tressa who is so secretive it takes a while before he even knows her name. She fights her attraction to him while he first opposes and then approves his cousin's marriage to Doro. But Tressa still has secrets-- secrets that she can't tell for fear of endangering Hannibal's life. And secrets eventually catch up with everyone. A fresh writing style and intriguing characters liven up this tale.

I tried a couple of the spells but nothing happened. I think this book is bogus.

This book (ISBN:0787302643) is purely a book of spells (said to be translated from the German originals)... many spells in fact. But it does not seem to be Eypptian magic and to anyone who knows the works of Albertus Magnus, this book does not seem to be written by him. It is known that there are works that are not written by Albertus Magnus but simply the name was used by the authors (sells better if they are said to be written by a well-known magician). It is more likely that this one is one of such works, written long ago by someone other than Albertus in German.

Example of a spell in the book: "To Stop the Blood"
"Upon Christ's grave three lilies grow. The first is named Youth; the other, Virtue's Truth; the third, SUBUL. Blood stop".

Try to get hold of this book in the library. Read the other spells in the book and I think you will come to the same conclusion.

I have read some of the example pages from another publisher (Kessinger Publishing) of the same title (ISBN: 1564593568). Contents are the same.

This book lacks content, and is deprived of moral constituency

Considering that there is such an enormous godless vacuum for Asian-American voices in ANY medium, and that most novels about 'Asians' are written by non-Asians, just being published earns 'American Dragons' three stars. Notice I gave it _only_ three stars? When I first saw this book at the Berekeley public library I snatched it up quick thinking "Wow! A book of all Asian-Americans writing about being Asian-American? This is sooo cool!" And was quickly disappointed. The writing was sub-par and a lot of the stories revealed internalized anti-Asian sentiments and stereotypes. IF THESE AUTHORS WERE NOT ASIAN-AMERICAN THEIR STORIES WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED. That is not to say that the writing is 'terrible'. As a collection, I think it is WONDERFUL that such a wide array of Asian-American viewpoints and experiences have the opportunity to be shared with such a wide audience. I encourage all Asian-Americans to speak of their experiences and in that respect, this book is a worthwhile endeavor. Also, the problems I have with 'American Dragons' are the same problems I have with many other Asian-American writings which share the same shortcomings (namely political correctness, low writing quality, extremely soft and non-informed stances on society and race, exotification of self, internalized racism, and a somewhat cliche title for starters). HOWEVER-- As far as being a political statement this is not something that I'd label a 'boat rocker'. Politically speaking, I would rate the authors/pieces as a 3 overall. On a political scale of 1-10, 1 being 'I shop at the Gap. I like MTV. If I pretend like I don't see, maybe my problems will go away.' and 10 being 'Arrgh! I am an enraged revolutionary! Down with the hegemony!' Considering the book is edited by Laurence Yep (I really enjoy his writing) and is something of a watershed for Asian-American youth literature, it is a let-down. The best adjective to describe 'American Dragons' as a whole is 'lukewarm' (leaning towards cold). Another description is 'bland'. A third is 'extra mild, hold the revolution' This book was obviously meant to be an inocuous bookshelf companion for teens. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But considering there are so few outlets and resources for Asian-American youth I would have hoped for something that packed more punch. My biggest gripe with this compilation is that it attempts to 'speak of the 'Asian-American' experience' so to speak. But the field of writers it draws upon is too narrow and it holds back, ultimately failing in its purpose. As far as I recall, there are no accounts or viewpoints of 'urban life', teen violence, homosexuality, feminism, poverty, hate crimes, 'liberal' Asian parents (as opposed to the cliche traditional ones), non-conformists, or other realms that are very relevant to, but not often addressed by Asian-Americans. Racism, assimilation, identity-searching, and the ensuing _rage_ and confusion that many Asian-American teens feel but may be unable to verablize are not discussed at all in an emotionally honest, forthright dialogue. There are innuendos and undercurrents but nothing you can sink your teeth into. And in my humble opinion, very little that speaks of how Asian-American teens today must live and interact in a mulit-ethnic society and with mainstream popular culture. Most of the pieces dealt with connecting with the author's 'Asian' heritage. Which is refreshing. It is impressive that the authors come from a wide variety of ethnic and national backgrounds. The stories, likewise, encompass a wide variety of locales and moods. It was worthwhile reading about different Asian-American perspectives. I actually enjoyed a few of the stories, and to be fair the writing quality and styles varied greatly. One of the stories, about a Vietnamese-American boy and his night actually struck a chord with me (even though I'm not Vietnamese) The writing level overall is acceptable considering it is aimed at a relatively young audience. Although I am not thrilled with 'American Dragons', I *am* thrilled that a compilation such as this was even attempted and I PRAY that many more will follow and improve. Hooray for the authors, publishers, and supporters of this book. Even though I find much to criticize, it is because I expect so much from Asian-American 'voices'. Many of the shortcomings I see could have been improved upon by the addition of different authors. I would recommend this book to Asian-American youth. For anyone else, I would not discourage you from buying 'American Dragons'.