America's post-Civil War years brought a renewed interest in the European scene. Journeys
known as Grand Tours led tourists to take ship to the Continent. They fanned out across the
landscape with the intent to "know Europe." Their return home resulted in a flurry of
published accounts. Twain satirizes both the tourists and their writings with delicious
wit. Ever a man to play with words, his "tramp" refers to both himself and the walking tour
of Europe he purports to have made. By the time you've reached the end of the account of the
"walking tour" incorporating trains, carriages and barges, you realize that the longest "walk"
Twain took occurred in dark hotel room while trying to find his bed. He claims to have
covered 47 miles wandering around the room.

Twain was interested in everything, probing into both well-known and obscure topics. His
judgments are vividly conveyed in this book, standing in marked contrast to his more
reserved approach in Innocents Abroad. A delightful overview of mid-19th Century Europe,
Tramp is also interlaced with entertaining asides. Twain was deeply interested in people, and
various "types" are drawn from his piercing gaze, rendered with acerbic wit. Some of these
are contemporary, while others are dredged from his memories of the California mines and
other journeys. He also relished Nature's marvels, recounting his observations. A favourite
essay is "What Stumped the Blue-jays." A nearly universal bird in North America, Twain's
description of the jay's curiosity and expressive ability stands unmatched. He observes such
humble creatures as ants, Alpine chamois, and the American tourist. Few escape his
perception or his scathing wit. This book remains valuable for its timeless rendering of
characters and the universality of its view. It can be read repeatedly for education or
entertainment.

All these volumes are self-recommending except, perhaps, to those poor, misguided people who continue to pigeon-hole one of the world's great writers. Yes, Twain was a humorist who virtually invented modern American English as a literary language. But the sheer range of his achievement is staggering. And the best way to experience it is altogether. And the best "altogether" is this magnificent 29 volume set from Oxford. Other people can speak with more authority about Twain the author. I want to speak a little about how delicious it is to encounter him in these books. They are reproductions of the original American editions and the facsimiles are beautifully rendered. But this isn't important in itself; we're not about to spend [...] for a little bit of nostalgia. Rather, just open any one of these 29 volumes and see what a difference its admittedly antique printing style makes. White spacing between the printed lines is generous to an unbelievable degree, as are the page margins. Your eyes don't tire. You can savour each page at whatever pace you want to set for yourself. Worlds open and invite. This is how people read books a hundred years ago. This is the way to read books!

I have not read Twain since High School twenty five plus years ago but a friend on a newspapers book forums got me to read him again and A Tramp Abroad is the first book I picked. For the current generation this book may drag but for those of us who grew up reading books instead of playing computer games this is Twain at his best. One has to actually read into his writing to appreciate a lot of the irony but when this book is really on like the mountain climbing near the Matterhorn ,Twain makes Seinfeld seem like he's talking about something. A brilliant travel essay and by the way the Penguin Classics edition of this book in paperback is 411 pages long, not 670 pages .

This illustrated biography of one of America's most memorable and beloved authors holds quite a few surprises for the unsuspecting reader. Anticipating anecdotes from Mark Twain's life that would portray him as a kind, altruistic, and loving man, I was shocked to learn he was also an irrascible, guilt-ridden, tight-fisted lover of alcohol and cigars who was often looking for ways to get rich.

He was born in 19th century Missouri and raised during a time when major political, economic, social, and cultural issues were forging America's identity. The rugged 19th century also molded Twain into an outspoken critic of those forces, providing him with an unending stream of material for his cogent and waggish observations.

Amid a collection of excerpts from his novels and speeches, articles and essays, as well as numerous pictures and illustrations, the authors present an insightful analysis of the man best known for writing TOM SAWYER and HUCKLEBERRY FINN. What becomes obvious is the relevance, creativity and importance of all his work, not just the books we were assigned in high school.

This book is a treasure; the kind of book that can be referred to often. It can give food for thought for hours of reflection. It is Highly Recommended.

Finally! A "coffee table" book that has top-quality photos and an excellent text.

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a companion to a two-part, four-hour documentary film, directed by Ken Burns, on the life and work of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and his "famously, irrepressibly rambunctious alter ego Mark Twain."

Ernest Hemingway once said that Twain is "the headwater of American fiction" and called THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN "the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since."

George Bernard Shaw referred to Twain as "America's Voltaire."

William Dean Howells described Twain as "incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature."

Susy Clemens once wrote of her father: "He is known to the public as a humorist, but he has much more in him that is earnest than that is humorous. He is as much of a Philosopher as anything, I think."

In this reviewer's considered judgment, Twain is the greatest literary genius America has produced, a thinker of remarkable depth and substance.

Twain's life was filled with many travels, adventures ... and tragedies. Born in 1835, when Halley's comet made its appearance, he lived for 75 years, until 1910, when Halley's comet returned. He survived, and suffered, the death of his beloved wife "Livy" (Olivia Louise Langdon), and three of their children: Langdon, who died in infancy; Susy, who died of spinal meningitis at age 24; and Jean, who died of a heart attack evidently brought on by an epileptic seizure.

"The secret source of humor itself," wrote Twain, "is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. ... [Our] race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."

Laughter and sorrow: Twain was well acquainted with both. Known superficially to many admirers as merely a humorist or funny man, Twain was essentially, as he described himself, "a moralist in disguise" who preached sermons to "the damned human race."

Twain's literary corpus abounds with excoriating criticisms of racism, anti-Semitism, religious hypocrisy, governmental arrogance and imperialism, petty tyrants, and Philistine culture. His often deadpan humor bristles with barbed satire and withering sarcasm.

In addition to its narrative text, this volume includes five bonus essays: "Hannibal's Sam Clemens," by Ron Powers; "Hartford's Mark Twain," by John Boyer; "The Six-Letter Word," by Jocelyn Chadwick; "Out at the Edges," by Russell Banks; and an interview with Hal Holbrook, "Aren't We Funny Animals?"

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a rich and rewarding book.

I wonder how many people could have led the life that Samuel Clemens did and kept their sanity. He went from riches to rags (even though it was his own fault...he spent money like it was going out of style and made some horrendous investments), which forced him, at the age of 60, into making a 10 month long physically and mentally draining around-the-world lecture tour. The tour enabled him to pay off his debts and regain his financial footing. Unfortunately, money was the least of his problems. The authors do not specifically state it, but it is clear (to me anyway) that Clemens suffered from manic-depression. At various times, and not coinciding with anything bad going on his life, he considered suicide. He had lifelong moodswings, as well as a volatile temper. (His daughters were afraid to be alone with him, as his behavior was so unpredictable. They made sure to visit him as a group.) The authors recount one incident where Clemens, angry over a missing button, opened an upstairs window and tossed all of his shirts out into the street. Saddest of all, Clemens outlived almost all of his loved ones. His beloved wife, Livy, who was almost 10 years younger than him, predeceased him, as did 3 of his 4 children. His one surviving child, his daughter Clara, suffered a nervous breakdown when Clemens was almost 70. A heavy load to bear, indeed, but somehow Clemens bore it and carried on. One thing that helped was his worldwide fame. Clemens was hungry for fame, even as a young man. He became well-known early in life, and remained famous and popular right up until he died. (He was a bit of a "ham." He would purposely time his walks for when people were emerging from church, and would then saunter past in his trademark- pun intended- white suits.) This book is an absolutely perfect blend of narrative by the authors, liberal excerpts from Clemens's many writings, "guest essays," and page after page of terrific period photographs. (The research done for the photographs, alone, must have been backbreaking.) The narrative and essays made this a good book. The addition of the excerpts and the photos turned it into a great book. The excerpts are not just from Clemens's well-known works, either. He was once asked to address an organization which consisted of descendants of the Puritans. The written text is reproduced in the book. Twain skewered the original Puritans for killing Native Americans and for kicking everyone who wasn't a Puritan out of Massachusetts, even though, as Clemens makes sure to emphasize, they left England under the banner of religious freedom. (You have to think that when the organization invited Clemens to speak, this wasn't quite what they had in mind.) One of the many interesting items included in the book is a list of the famous sayings "Mark Twain" supposedly uttered....but didn't. (He was so famous that it was assumed that anything clever originated with him.) Unfortunately, one of my all-time favorites was included in this list: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." On the bright side, he DID say "The rumor of my death has been greatly exaggerated." One caution: the excerpts will make you want to read or re-read all of Twain. I've already ordered a copy of "The Innocents Abroad" as somehow, in my youth, I missed that one. Hats off to Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, and Ken Burns for this wonderful book!

This book has a lot of Oracle tuning tips and advise about some certain plattforms and technologies. Although there's a lot of considerable information about almost anything related with Oracle tuning (including OPS), it doesn't provide with a concise method or guide.

The book is structured to help you at different stages of your Oracle implementation (design phase, production, proactive and reactive tuning, capacity planning, etc). But that good schema looks very confuse when the author starts to make suggestions or tips that aren't sorted by any kind of category (and they often takes a lot of pages)... Those comments are very good, so it needs a bit of more organization.

I recommend this book for instance and database tuning, but not for SQL tuning (the author has another excellent book on this subject). There aren't too many advices regarding the plattform (unix or nt), so, keep in mind you'll need more support.

If your measure of a truly useful technical guide is the amount of time it spends off the shelf and next to your keyboard, then this is a book you don't want to be without. It is filled with practical, real-world tips to tune your Oracle database. It covers everything from tuning your environment to tuning your queries--across all platforms! A must for developers, administrators, and users alike

I have been using a copy of this book for a couple of years now, and I have still kept it as my 'good tricks' bible since becoming being a certified Oracle dba. Ok, so not all the queries run first time as given, and the book is really about Oracle 7, but this is still the first reference book I turn to whenever another dba comes up with a 'I've tried everything to do this, but nothing works' type question. A very good book to read if you want to know how to make Oracle work for you.

Pretty well done. Golf Rules Plain & Simple is a book that I hope only gets better with future editions.

With that in mind, I offer some suggestions that the author or other readers may want to comment on.

Some suggestions:

While there is a footnote that gives the author's opinion as to the more important rules, he doesn't use them to order his book. Rule #1 (for example) is about seeking advice on golf club selection - and of his five key rule situations - the first one drags in at Rule Number 18. Also, it would seem to be much more helpful to put yellow and red staked hazards on adjoining pages for the reader to compare and contrast.

After stating each rule situation, the author gives the most common mistake made (first) before giving the correct procedure. This is not helpful and potentially confusing. When telling someone how to do something - do you want to start with the wrong way or right way? Nothing wrong with pointing out the common errors - just put it at the end.

Some more could have been expected as to the top issues. For example, how to come to agreement with others as to where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard. Things to say to an opponent could make this a lot less trying in match play, for example.

To the author, page 67 talks about a provisional ball played for a ball that you think is lost in a water hazard. Agreed. But the more common argument is when it is unclear. Where is your explaination in the book that if you don't see it land (and stay) in a water hazard - the ball is assumed to be lost? Another point that your book appears deaf on - what happens (for example) if you are playing a match and hit a ball towards the woods bordering the fairway. You don't have any indication that it is a hazard (it looks like normal woods from the tee) - you announce your intention to hit a provisional ball as you may have a lost ball. You and your opponent both agree as to where the ball seemed to drop down. You find your ball but those nice woods actually turns out to be a red stake marked lateral hazard. You have a shot to the green (without penalty) that you would like to try. Your opponent says no. He says, "you can't use the provisional ball rule when a ball lands in a hazard. Lack of knowledge of the hazard's existance offers no help. You need to play your second ball (i.e. no longer provisional)as it is the live ball" (in other words, no five options for a lateral hazard). Is he correct?

Finally, while you give the five options for a lateral hazard correctly, a note that "playing it as it lies" also means no grounding of the club (while covered elsewhere) would be a helpful reminder here.

Hope these suggestions help.

Though the rules of golf are not as difficult as they are often said to be, they can nevertheless be arcane at times, but this book does a good job demystifying them. Knowing the rules can save you strokes, as you can sometimes use them to your advantage. In a format small enough to fit in a golf bag but with print big enough to read easily, common situations are presented, then common mistakes in this situation are shown, followed by the correct way to play. To help even further, one or more pictures accompany each of the 37 situations. All this, along with a modest price, combine to make this an excellent purchase for the golfer without the patience to read the official rulebook.

Like most golfers I think I know the rules, but I don't. Who has the time to read the very confusing USGA rules book?

Mark Russell simply and clearly explains the basic rules of golf. O.B., lateral hazzard, lost ball-these are the rules that 95% of golfers DO NOT understand.

Thanks Mark!

Alan

The advetures of tom sawyer was on of the greatest books I've ever read. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a mischevios adventurerous kids. This book is good for adults because it could most likely to take you back to your own childhood. For kids it could give some ideas to enjoy your childhood.

Tom sawyer is a mischevios boy who always gets into trouble. tom tricks his friends into doing his chores. He falls in love. He wittnesses a murder scene. he runs away to be a pirate. He attends his own funeral. he finds buried treasure. feeds his cat pain killer. gets lost in a cave with the person he loves. Also gets 6,000 dollars.

I've learned from this book the importance of being young. It also taught me don't rush to grow up because you're only young once. IT also taught me what it was like to be a kid 150 years ago.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is one of the best books I have ever read. The language,the thinking,the adventures-all of it was just incredible and enjoyable. The only thing this book needs is more pages! Mark Twain's skill in writing has created a book that all ages should read (or have it read to).Mark Twain reactivates the life and actions of a boy in the mid-1800's,and showed me that kids should be who they are- not what they will be. This is a classic for every generation to read and enjoy.

Mark Twain's,The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, tells about a boy loving and living his life to the fullest. Tom Sawyer is the kid that the world has seemed to forgotten. He is the kid who always get in trouble but continues to have fun with life. In this book, Tom does everything from being engaged, to watching his own funeral, to witnessing a [death] and finding treasure. Twain's creative character finds fun everywhere in his little town in Missouri, as do his friends. The storyline is basic, but it is a piece of the past that everyone should hold on to.

In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I learned mainly two things. The first thing I learned was that you can make life fun with just about anything if you use your imagination. Life is too short and precious to be wasted. I also learned that where you least expect it [help or protection], you might just get it. This book was just amazing-filled with unique characters, exciting events, and how a town can pull together to help those in need.

Tom Sawyer is one of the most endearing characters in American fiction. This wonderful book deals with all the challenges that any young person faces, and resolves them in exciting and unusual ways.

Like many young people, Tom would rather be having fun than going to school and church. This is always getting him into trouble, from which he finds unusual solutions. One of the great scenes in this book has Tom persuading his friends to help him whitewash a fence by making them think that nothing could be finer than doing his punishment for playing hooky from school. When I first read this story, it opened up my mind to the potential power of persuasion.

Tom also is given up for dead and has the unusual experience of watching his own funeral and hearing what people really thought of him. That's something we all should be able to do. By imagining what people will say at our funeral, we can help establish the purpose of our own lives. Mark Twain has given us a powerful tool for self-examination in this wonderful sequence.

Tom and Huck Finn also witness a murder, and have to decide how to handle the fact that they were not supposed to be there and their fear of retribution from the murderer, Injun Joe.

Girls are a part of Tom's life, and Becky Thatcher and he have a remarkable adventure in a cave with Injun Joe. Any young person will remember the excitement of being near someone they cared about alone in this vignette.

Tom stands for the freedom that the American frontier offered to everyone. His aunt Polly represents the civilizing influence of adults and towns. Twain sets up a rewarding novel that makes us rethink the advantages of both freedom and civilization. In this day of the Internet frontier, this story can still provide valuable lessons about listening to our inner selves and acting on what they have to say. Enjoy!

Another reviewer said it best, this is "Conservatism 101." Kirk offers an overview of conservatism and the movement in the 20th century. The pillars of conservatism are an embrace of tradition, upholding limited government and ordered liberty. Moreover, he makes a good point, in quoting Hughes, he purports that conservatism is not an ideology, but the negation of ideology. He offers Kirk offers a bittersweet assessment of libertarians and their limitations and flaws as he perceives them. He elaborates on the Humane Economy posited by Swiss economist Wilhelm Roepke. Roepke stands opposed to the "colossal" mass welfare state of big business, big regulation and the proletariat masses. A humane economy rests on the principles of subsidiarity and distributism (widespread distribution of private property) while the state doesn't displace or usurp the role of civil society and its humane institutions. Kirk writes an obituary for the so called neoconservatives, though this maybe wishful thinking at best, since unfortunately the late Russell Kirk is dead, and well the neocons have taken over the conservative movement. Kirk also brings the ideas of Richard Weaver and southern conservatism to the table. All things considered, this is a good volume and a good introduction to true blue conservatism, though not Kirk's best.

Russell Kirk (1918-1994) was a dominant figure in the post-World War II revival of Conservative thought. Toward the end of his life, he gave a series of lectures at the Heritage Foundation which form the basis of THE POLITICS OF PRUDENCE. Like everything Dr. Kirk wrote, the POLITICS OF PRUDENCE is insightful and also a pleasure to read.

The book is in a sense a summing up of Dr. Kirk's though and also a primer on Conservatism. Kirk describes 10 important events in Conservatism, 10 important Conservative books, 10 important Conservative thinkers, and 10 important conservatives. He also has chapters on the nature of Conservatism, Conservative foreign policy and the Conservative approach to various issues.

Dr. Kirk's version of Conservatism is somewhat controversial. According to Kirk, Conservatism is not an ideology, rather it is an "attitude" reflecting "prudence." Kirk defines ideology as a type of secular religion. For this reason, many libertarians have criticized Kirk for reducing Conservatism to an "attitude" rather than a coherent ideology that is able to confront statism. I don't agree with Kirk's definition of "ideology," but it is important to note that Kirk supported free enterprise, limited (and decentralized) government, and individualism. Although he wasn't supportive of libertarianism (which he critiques here in a somewhat off the mark essay), he was no apologist for the state.

Two essays stand out here. In "The Neoconservatives: An Endangered Species," he makes the now-famous statement that "And not seldom it has seemed as if some eminent Neoconservatives mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States." In "Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy" he criticizes the first Gulf War as a "war for an oil-can." No doubt Kirk would have opposed the recent Gulf War (and been denounced as an "unpatriotic conservative" by the nitwits who now pass as deep thinkers in the conservative movement.

For an even more basic summary of Kirk's thought, see his book THE AMERICAN CAUSE, which has recently been republished by ISI.

This book was the first one of Kirk's books that I read. I consider Kirk being one of the most inspiring writers when it comes to politics, but sometimes a bit unclear. The chapter on libertarianism offers a quite narrow presentation of the libertarians, and sometimes when it comes to practical action Kirk might be too close to the laissez-faire-liberalism that dominate much of the contemporary conservative thought in the US. "Ten Conservative Principles" is a very good consenation of conservative political and social thought. "The Cultural Conservatives" and "Towards a Prudent Foreign Policy" are other great chapters. In it's whole, I think this book is a good introduction to the contemporary conservatism in the US.

A well-written, concise reference covering a diverse range of topics that will be of interest to all who know the frustration of cramming complex OO systems into relational tables.

From a complete design pattern for Object and Object Relational database systems, to design patterns for declarative language symantics; from C++ and Java to SmallTalk bindings; from BNF grammars to compiler models; the book proved invaluable at overcoming the myriad problems presented to the developer implementing an object-relational DMBS.

As a direct result of this reference work I have implemented ORDBMS systems in Java and (can you believe it) JavaScript. The JavaScript implementation provides a complete persistence layer for JavaScript objects running in an ASP environment.

As a result, systems with complex data relationships that would curl the hair on a relational database programmer's head have been implemented simply and with the minimum development time.

I await with anticipation emergence of the JDO from the work of the ODMG.

This story was about two characters, Andrew and Victor (I just read this last week - I can't remember if the name is correct or not...). Andrew and Victor have just made friends, Andrew moving into "town"... they spend most of their summer together... Victor, tho' he seems daft, is crazy about planes, and loves the Lightnings. Andrew is worried about how Victor will take it once the Lightnings are scrapped and replaced by Jaguars...
There were a lot of emotional parts... and I loved reading about the descriptions of everything... I hope this makes sense! Victor and Andrew's mum are comical - I don't know how to do this! I hope it's posted up anyway, and that you all can read it...

A nice try but it does seem to elaborate more on professional installations. It would be more benefical to explain more about half stepping and micro-stepping since most amateur's probably are doing there own automation with a somewhat limited budget. Servo's are nice but they should be for a several thousand dollars. Bottom line is if you envision this book to show you how to make your telescope automatic forget it. Look on the web there's plenty of cutting edge technology to engulf on.

I have recently purchased this book. I found it more geared towards the professional telescope design. It should have been written with the amatuer astronomer/telescope builder in mind. I did find some of the information useful, especially the software hardcopies. The book was somewhat lacking in showing how to remote operate telescopes via phone line, internet, or packet radio such as that found at the Bradford telescope, Apache Point Observatory, and various other systems. I thought the original edition that came out quite a few years ago was better. I highly recommend that the original edition be acquired via library loan to get the most out of this book. The book can further be improved by including more automation systems and circuit designs such as an automatic dome rotation to track your telescope and reviews of the modern automated telescopes for the amatuer such as the LX-200. I think that I will have to write my own book showing the things that I have planned for my small observatory.

I found this book to be insightful, detailed and very helpful. It is the only book I've found that completely and competently addresses the subject of telescope control by computer. Its figures, tables and mathematical formulae are useful, as are the instructions for system configurations.

I highly recommend this book.