When I was growing up, I never heard anyone talk about wisdom. Knowledge and skills were held to be within our reach, but "wisdom" was something for philosophers, not ordinary people like us. Cynthia Kneen's book is a wisdom book. It is a treasure chest of ideas and stories that demonstrate how each of us can work toward realizing our hearts' most cherished visions in everyday life. Its basic structure is to introduce, in a logically coherent way, a system of teachings known as Shambhala Buddhism. In this regard, you could say it is an intellectual text, one demanding of the reader both concentration and reflection. At the same time, the book contains such poignant and varied anecdotes as to touch even the most skeptical heart. It also relates its teachings to the lives of spiritual warriors readers are already likely to be familiar with, such as Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, and Rosa Parks. On an NPR radio show, Kneen once heard a new immigrant to the US say, "My dream is to have my family live in a peaceful situation, educate my children, contribute to my community and larger society, and help reduce the destructive forces in the world." Whereas my own family have been citizens for four generations, this is my dream, too. Kneen's book reminds me that the resources for realizing this dream exist within ourselves and the diverse world we share. It encourages me to stay true to the yearnings of my youth, confident that I have countless allies who have never given up on human goodness.

This book is for anyone who has ever had the sense that their life might be a path of continual unfolding to the profoundity of being alive, awake, right here, just as we are... Not only has Cynthia Kneen written a classic book on the teachings of Shambhala and a masterful tribute to her main teacher, Ven. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, but she reveals how her own life has been a true example of a commitment to the practice of meditation and warriorship. She shows us the ground, path and fruition of the way toward bravery, a continual willingness to be stay open, no matter what life throws at us. She shows how this simple path of bravery can be ordinary, mundane, day-to-day. Yet sometimes it can manifest with surprise, power, and magic, like lightening striking all around you! This is arguably the greatest book on the Shambhala teachings since Jeremy Hayward's Sacred World. It goes to the heart of Shambhala Buddhism.

Cynthia Kneen has a clear mastery of the topics of Buddhism and Shambala. More importantly, she has translated this knowledge into insight and tools that can help passersby to (more easily) implement these teachings and improve our approach to problems in everyday life.

If books are "food for the mind", this is not McDonalds. Rather it is a 5 course Cordon Bleu feast.

I have used this fantastic book since I was in College Preparatory Center (CPC) at Saudi Aramco. With this book, I was very prepared to the freshman year at my university KFUPM. Things I have liked about this book are:

1-If English is your second language, you will find this book very easy to understand as the authors used very simple level of English language.
2-Concepts are explained clearly.
3-Important Formulas are shaded and boxed.
4-A good number of examples are given at each section of every chapter of this book.
5-Answers to odd questions are given at the end of this book.

I always keep this book in the nearest shelf to my desk so that I can refer to it any time I need it. I am sure that you will refer to this book several times even when reach your senior year. I, also, recommend you to buy the Student's Solution Manual of this book because it will help you very much in solving your homework problems.

This book had exactly what I needed to relax and cath up on some calm reading and peace.

Most C-programming books are very thick and the authors spend a lot of pages in explaining historical and detailed aspects of the C-language. As a chemist I often get frustrated when reading these type of books since it takes about 250 pages before they e.g. explain how to read or write to a file. When you finish the books you are not at a level of solving real problems in C. C programming: The Essentials for Engineers and Scientists by David R. Brooks goes, as the title says, directly to the essentials for a scientist. The book is based on a five-step problem solving procedure throughout the book. This way of structural-thinking, which is often neglected in other books, helps the reader to get a good programming habit in any programming language. Since the book is very problem oriented, the author is able to cover more advanced programming topics than other C-books. The book is designed for undergraduate studies without any knowledge in programming, but may be used by anyone interested in learning C. Many programming examples and exercises are taken from the field of chemistry and physics and thus, the book is perfect as a introduction course in C for chemists and physicists.

I am currently entered as a freshman in college and we are required to use the book. This book helps you show how to work out the problems in the best way possible. They should continue using this book for years to come.

This book and the other one on Advanced programming with Pascal are ideal for beginning computer science students to learn programming fundamentals and data structures. Needless to say, this book is outdated, but then, how many languages are "current" after two years? If you want the plain basics, get this book. If not, go for those monster 2000 page java books... Pascal is beautiful as simple things are.

This algrebra textbook is certainly one of the best guides for college students. It starts with basic skills providing fundamentals ground for student such as me who had left mathematics for a few years. Every new concept is provided with excellent examples for illustration. It's helpful for independent learning too! The book covers the basic real numbers, Equations and Inequalities, graphs, Logarithmic functions, Analytic Geometry and futher topics in algebra for preparation of further math such as calcullus.More importantly, various types and styles of exercises came along after every sub-topic, and with answer at the back. This book is helpful and comprehensive!

Seller got the book to me quicker than expected and no hassle. the only problem was I ordered the wrong book.

Teaches you the basics and on up. Has good text and examples. Excellent reference stuff (ASCII values; color values; summary of every statement) Teaches the basics of a computer, using a mouse, using windows, and an intro to VisualBasic. The only problem: Some of the statements it lists in the summary section aren't mentioned anywhere else, hence there aren't many details and no examples. :( Together with the QB help file and a great website where you can ask other programmers questions (like The QBASIC Forum - just ask Alipha, she knows everything!) you can write anything in no time!

QBASIC is a 'rarely used' .It is still on MS Windows CD, however, and is better then VISUAL BASIC for the hobbyist IMHO. This is a great 2nd BASIC book. Chock full of goodies and tidbits; (some of no value.) Some versions of QBASIC don't seem to act 'just' as the book's tells. Nothing fatal or even major. Not a lot of folks are going to use many of the more remote bits in this physically heavy volume but most of the obscure [but fascinating] info I have not seen in print for 20 years. ... [printing the ASCII number when you know the letter, by example.] A disk comes with the book. I have never used it. This book is the real deal. Heavy-Duty bucks but good card binding and low acid paper ... should last a while.

First of all, I commend the authors on a timely and valuable book. However, a word of caution: this book is full of errors. Every couple of pages I am noting in the margin: did they mean A instead of B? Having encountered so many errors, I am reading every formula with scepticism. The errors are serious enough that I have trouble recommending the book without reservations, but I know of no suitable alternative. I can only hope that the errors will be weeded out of future editions.

I just got this book about a week ago and I haven't been able to put it down since. A great resource, a real treasure full of well presented gems. A large number of topics are well presented with mathematical depth that enables you to understand the code. The code is very well written and concise. Truly a great book and a pleasure to read. I hope to see more books like this in the future. I am interested in medical imaging applications and I know I will be using this book for a long time to come. In addition, the authors have a site ... that presents the code and additional very valuable materials.

This book provides a solid grounding in vectors and matrices, then covers a wide range of 2D and 3D geometric algorithms, such as object/object distance and intersection, boolean operations, BSP trees, convex hulls, and more. It is a comprehensive guide, giving relevant theory, methods, and working code fragments. It's an incredible value for the amount of material it covers. I think it is a must-have for computer graphics professionals (and others in related fields). In the interest of full disclosure, I wrote the Foreword to this book, which I did because I was pleased with how good it is.

Visit Dave Eberly's "Magic Software" site for more about the book's contents.

Schneider presents all of the fundamentals of computer programming and Visual Basic in a clear and logical sequence. I use the book to teach beginning and intermediate programming, and as a desk reference while I develop new applications. VBCCE (included) is adequate for most chapters, but VB 5 Professional Edition is required for database applications (Chap 12).

I found this book to be thorough in taking you through programming basics. It starts at a *very* basic level, describing the keyboard and monitor, no less -- but quickly advances into more sophisticated territory. Programming isn't for the timid, and this book provides fairly clear instructions, descriptions as well as a huge multitude of practice problems to work on. If you feel you fully understand a concept, though, I don't recommend spending your time answering the enormous number of problem sets you're given after each section. But I think these problem sets are an enormously valuable tool for those who need to really "real world" examples before they truly grasp difficult programming concepts. If you're an experienced programmer, skip this book. But if you're a beginning programmer looking to learn VB, this book is for you!

I asked three VB Programmers that I work with what book they would recommend to someone who is just starting to learn about Programming and Visual Basic. All three of them recommended this book to me. I picked it up, and was amazed at the level that it was written at. The book explained everything in such a way that I did not feel like I was being talked down to. The exercises were easy to understand, and to make sure I could comphrend all the items that were being introduced, I went through the exercises at least twice.

This book is definitely going to help me along the way towards becoming a programmer, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is starting out like me with absolutely no programming background or experience. I can see myself going back to the book for review whenever I am stumped on a topic in the real world. I will definitely look for other books by David Schneider, and will add them to my collection.