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I've incorporated a lot of this book in my own work (a hidden resource that I don't really mention or credit).
At only about 100 pages and less than [$$], how could anyone miss out on buying this book.
Author Robert A. Johnson has a very fluid writing style, and does a superb job
of exposing the archetypal aspect of romance and love relationships by discussing the implications of
the myth of Tristan and Iseult. I found myself strongly moved
by this volume, and it helped me work through some live and
at the time previously unexplored aspects of my own psyche.
This book doesn't leave you feeling torn apart as many analytical
works on love do. It analyzes the emotions and expectations of
lovers in such a way as to allow one to re-examine one's own
love relationships and ultimately one's understanding of what
a love relationship should be. This is a timeless volume, which
transcends the stereotypical types of responses one has to love and love relationships. Western media and folklore have so thoroughly dwelt on this topic that I find it remarkable that this Jungian philosopher is able to significantly add to the tradition, by allowing one to consciously break down the archetypal influences that seem to so powerfully motivate us when we are in love. I found this book illuminating enough that after finishing it I had to purchase a copy for a close friend.
Be aware that this type of progress doesn't happen in a vacuum, so this book may be somewhat troubling if you are a person who has
long cherished views that you do not want to question about love and romance. But if you are willing to subscribe to the author's thesis that love and love relationships can be improved by understanding their core motivations as reflected in myth and allegory, you will absolutely love this book as I did and possibly this book will change the way you look at love and life. Definitely a must-read if you are someone like me who is always falling in love and not knowing why.
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Thanks,
Thanks You;
TM
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Zbuvic uses a device he calls a clock, which consists of a circle divided into wedges; the left side gauging the amount of water on the paper (from shiny wet to bone dry) and the right side gauging the amount of water mixed into the paint, from weak "tea" to "butter" or thick paint. This is rather original, but it does communicate an awareness of the moisture levels in both paint and paper to the artist. One example painting that really stands out is a rainy scene of downtown Melbourne, Australia. The street is lightly washed to allow the paper beneath to create the white shine of a wet street; the buildings and headlight reflections are painted more densely to provide either solidity (the building) or glow (the headlights.)
Most books on watercolor demonstrate a layered method of washes followed by glazes (paint over paint.) The end result can often be muddy for beginners in watercolor. This method is quite different in how it describes laying down washes and glazes, and can help the watercolorist achieve transparent atmosphere effects by paying attention to the water. If you've run into a brick wall with your current method of painting, this might be a great book to give a boost to your technique.
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"The Medieval Fortress" is a nice big (app. 11" x 8.5" or 28,5 x 22 cm), 319p. book, which covers the development of fortified places through out Europe and North-Africa from the early to the late middle ages - when the forts had their glory.
The book is built up of five main chapters. The First deals with the elements of a fortification; the Second deals in general with the different kind of fortifications in different parts of Europe (Islamic, Byzantine, Frankish, British, Norse, Slavic and Magyar (Hungarian)); the Third does the same, but with emphasis on the emerging castle; the Fourth chapter introduces gunpowder and the decline of the high castle walls through the description of several sieges (Constantinople, Rhodes, and siege of fortifications during the Reconquista); Chapter Five goes in depth with some selected fortifications in Europe: Some of the more famous ones and some more obscure. The reader is guided through fortifications/castles in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Low Countries, Switzerland, Holy Roman Empire, Scandinavia, Central Europe (present day Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, and Slovenia) Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Mediterranean, Italy, Spain&Portugal, and North Africa. The appendixes gives the names of some more important builders and architects and their titles in different languages (French, Portugese, Spanish, Duch, Sweedish, and Russian), a chronology of important sieges from 623 (Constantinople) to 1529 (Vienna), a history of medival artillery and a glossary.
There are endless amounts of B/W pictures alongside with even more B/W line drawings and plans of forts, just like on the front cover of the book.
This book is a very good buy!
(Review based on First DaCapo Edition, 2001)
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For those new to the daunting task of writing a novel, this book can pigeonhole you into thinking this is the only way to tackling writing. I came across that dilemma. After getting halfway through the book, doing the exercises and starting to write my own novel I began to abandon my old habits of writing and started to adopt Mr. Ray's. I started to feel that I couldn't put pen to paper UNLESS I completely plotted my novel, developed my characters and set up every scene. This didn't work for me. The natural flow I usually feel when writing was taken away and eventually I completely gave up on the process returning to my methods of writing: sitting down with a pad and pencil and allowing the ideas to flow. Then fine tuning the story only after I have a huge chunk of it written and some idea of what I want to convey. Not all novels are structured in Mr. Ray's manner, not all novels use Aristotle's incline to develop plot and storylines and not all novels can be written in 52 weekends.
Not to say this is a bad book at all. It's a wonderful reference book full of ideas and exercises to help you strengthen your writing. For example, it never occurred to me to create backstories and timelines for each of my characters giving them dimension and realism. Ray also offers exercises to help you set up scenes, write dialogue, write action and plot your novel. I now find that I refer to these exercises to help me develop my writing but I no longer follow the program.
This book is a great starting point for those interested in writing a novel but do not have an idea how to start (one more thing: you definitely have to have some idea of what you want to write BEFORE you start). However, for experienced writers you will find that this book is more useful as a reference guide rather than a program to follow.
First, this book taught me that what really drives a novel is the characters and their relationships to each other and to events. I looked at Grisham and Clancy and thought that smooth prose filled with action would make a novel into a bestseller. Although that is sometimes true, Robert Ray showed me that the real key to a compelling, meaningful story is a stellar character through which the reader can identify. A good character can drive the whole novel.
The second thing this book taught me, which was perhaps the most valuable for me, is that the basic building block of the novel is not the chapter or even the major plot points, but the individual scenes. Robert Ray shows that each scene is like a compact story within your story, with a set-up, a middle part for conflict and development, and a climax which pushes the story into the next scene. The section on scene building in this book was excellent, and it gave me the breakthrough I needed in understanding how to give a story real structure.
Finally, this book helped me understand the importance of the major plot points, and what has to happen in the scenes at these points in order to make your writing tight.
In addition to the above, this book has many basic tips on how to organize yourself, how to approach your writing, and how to work through the major revisions of your story. There's even an appendix at the end with tips on getting published.
For an amateur like me who has never had any classes in story writing, this book was the most helpful guide that I was able to find.
Before I read this book, I wrote lots of short stories and the start of a few novels. I used this book to turn some of my old ideas into the reality of a manuscript.
I felt myself getting bogged down at first by following his program of hashing out the details of the lives of the characters. But I quickly realized the commitment that is involved in writing a novel. It's important to develop meaningful characters/structure before you start writing.
Thanks, Mr. Ray! I highly recommend this book to any aspiring writer.
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One of the great attributes of DK books is that they can be read in short bursts -- the information is concise but thorough, and allows the reader to take in a good amount of information in only a two or three paragraph span. This makes it an excellent book to keep in the car, for those times spent in waiting rooms.
The book is divided into the different varieties of wine based on region: Alsace & Lorraine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, etc and is further exemplified by the various appellations and recommendations regarding producers and good vintages. Each of the ten regions begins with pages about the region with a drivng tour and ends with a discussion of the region's food partnerships and tasting tips. I would imagine that this would serve well on one of the popular wine tours of France.
The book begins with some rudimentary information regarding the process of winemaking, label reading, red and white wine differences, starting a cellar, wine and food . . . it is extremely comprehensive and yet fits well into the 240+ page format --- every page filled with glossy photographs and interesting sidebars.
If you enjoy the popular DK city/region/country travel books, you will equally enjoy this. I recommend this highly for anyone who wants to indulge in a small book with a huge amount of information.
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HPYN2E shines in many respects. The "laws of security" in chapter 2 are accurate and enlightening. Chapter 4 helps teach secure programming techniques by comparing insecure and secure code snippets. Chapter 4 also demonstrates debugging and disassembling code, usually not seen in security texts. Chapter 8 probably contains the most advanced coverage of buffer overflows I've read in a book. By actually showing and explaining stack traces, the authors share a level of detail sufficient to satisfy all but the most elite coders. Chapters on "diffing" (5) and format strings (9) are robust. Hardware hacking, thoroughly described in chapter 14, is fascinating. The author cared enough to include numerous clear photographs of disassembled equipment, and mentioned many helpful external web references.
While these great chapters comprise more than half of HPYN2E, the remainder is not exceptional. I was not happy with the rambling, wordy chapters on spoofing (12) and tunneling (13). Spare us the quotes from Dante's "Divine Comedy"! Still, this material is easily skimmed.
Because HPYN2E is written more from an intruder's point of view, the title doesn't seem to reflect the material. The book isn't exactly a "how to hack" manual, but it expertly illuminates many facets of compromising information resources.
Still the idea was very interesting (information directly from the real experts), and I kept waiting for a new edition.
Well the second edition is now out, and not only fulfills, but exceeds all my original expectations !!
Let's take a look:
The Approach:
Understanding attacks and vulnerabilities, by understanding 'how to hack' (good hacking of course. . . .ahem )
The Book:
Rewritten, expanded and improved, the book consists of 800+ pages well structured into 18 chapters (against 450+ pages and 15 chapters of the first edition).
Well written, well presented, with a real fancy table of contents, the chapters include url's, a FAQ section and a SOLUTIONS FAST TRACK one.
A lot of CLEVER code is included as well as helpful 'Tool & Traps' and 'Notes from the Underground. . . ' outlines.
The new sections (all outstanding) include:
- Hardware Hacking (otherwise only found in papers)
- Tunneling (excellent)
- IDS evasion (very easily explained)
- Format strings attacks
The Intended Audience:
People willing to become network security pros.
Contents:
- Introduction to Security, Attacks and related Methodologies.
- Cryptography.
- Unexpected Input, Buffer Overflow, Format Strings.
- Sniffing, Hijacking and Spoofing.
- Tunneling, Hardware Hacking, Viruses (et al.).
- IDS Evasion.
- Automated Tools.
- Reporting Security Problems.
The Bottom Line:
It is not just a good book, it is the best book among high level network security books, and the only that compares with specialized papers. Only quite easier.
I got more than 60 papers on buffer overflows. None compares with the classical 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' by Aleph One. IMHO, however, the corresponding chapter from this book, does compare and is really easier to understand.
Finally, the 'piece de resistance' of the book, is the chapter about Spoofing. Really enjoyed it, and by the way got surprised reading the innovative (to me) technique to 'Spoof Connectivity Through Asymmetric Firewalls'. Good Job Dan ;-)
As an added bonus, as an owner of this book, you'll find a lot of code files, applications and links...
I highly recommend this book to each person who has a lot of questions about why relationships in our cultures are in a state of epidepic crisis. The author's answers may not be what you want to hear if you are a "zealous" romantic. If you are willing to stretch yourself and change, then Johnson's words are an excellent catalyst for changing your ways and heading in the right direction.
I consider "We" among the most relevant books by Robert Johnson, and among the most relevantt books by any author!