I spent many years living in China and found too many flaws with this book.

Shapiro obviously has had years of experience negotiating. He writes clearly and it would be a beneficial book for anyone, students or those already in the field, to read. If I were to teach a course on joint ventures, this would be the text of choice.

Anyone considering negotiating any joint venture would benefit from the checklists and other considerations raised by Shapiro who actually negotiated the showcase Xerox-Shanghai joint venture

Hard to know where to start when it comes to my disdain for this book. The fact that it has vampire protagonist and that fact has no bearing on the plot at all.Through a plot contrivance that is so ridiculous and manufactured it has new car smell all over it. The fact that said protagonist is gay and leers after every man in the small village of Snapperton Mumsley. Oh by the way there are no ugly men in Snapperton Mumsley. Just men with delicious musculatures and soulful eyes. The horrible mixing of the protagonist being American from Mississippi but being more British than the queen. The author is a bookstore owner and probably fancies himself a mystery historian thus the book has numerous out-of-place insider jokes, yawn. This book is a cynical mixing of genres that sell, vampires, british cozies,and mystery insiders. It is poorly executed and too clever by half. The only reason he has written a vampire protaginist is so he can indulge in sophmoric puns about being alive and dead at the same time, yadda, yadda, yadda. The fact that Mr. James is a bookstore owner only makes me wonder how this gets printed in hardcover while Charlaine Harris' superior vampire novels are still paperback originals. If you're looking for a vampire novel or a british cozy or a novel about writing mystery novels run away from this and pick up almost anything else on the shelf you'll be doing yourself a favor.

I really enjoyed this book. I've only read a few "cozy" mysteries (Dorothy Cannell's) but this book has made me want to read more. Simon Kirby Jones is a writer of historical nonfiction from Texas who moves to a small village in England as he is a true Angiophile and has always wanted to live in England. He is also a vampire. And he is also gay. He also writes mysteries and romance under two different pseudonyms. Sounds far fetched, but it was really a fun read full of quirky characters all of whom it seems had a reason to want the local postmistress dead. Since Simon was a vampire, I would like to have seen more evidence of his vampirism (is that a word)? But that's a very minor quibble in a very enjoyable read. I didn't figure out who the murderer was until right at the end and thought the author wrapped everything up very nicely. I really did like Simon and look forward to reading FAKED TO DEATH the next in the series.

Dame Agatha would have been right at home in the quaint but cozy English village of Snupperton Mumsley, but I don't know how she would have reacted to the village's latest resident, Simon Kirby-Jones. You see he's a little different. He's an American, but not your typical "ugly" American. He's a delightful Southern gentleman and renowned historian and biographer, who actually earns his keep by secretly churning out historical romances as Daphne Deepwood and hard-boiled female P.I. adventures as Dorinda Darington.

He's also gay, and to complicate matters even more, he just happens to be a vampire. Actually, he's far removed from the cliché "I vant to bite your neck" vampires of the typical horror film. It seems that medical science has finally discovered a cure for vampirism. It's a wonder drug that while it doesn't bring you back to life it does eliminate the rather unsavory aspects of being a vampire - the bloodsucking and becoming a crispy critter when exposed to sunlight. The only real drawback with the drug is the fact that drinking a cup of tea laced with garlic will usually prove fatal. And in this charming English village, that's a real possibility.

That's because all the inhabitants of Snupperton Mumsley have guilty little secrets. So when the village snoop and postmistress reveals that she has a play for the village church restoration affair that will reveal all the hidden secrets of the villagers, it comes as no surprise when she is discovered murdered. That's when Simon decides to use his vampire capabilities and mystery writing skills to solve the murder. That is if the murderer doesn't discover his hidden little secret.

Simon Kirby-Jones is a refreshing twist to the traditional English cozy, cup-of-tea murder mystery sleuth. Dean James has created a witty and totally original concept for a mystery series. I found it totally enjoyable, and since I do believe in vampires and things that go bump in the night I'm looking forward to Simon's next odyssey in Snupperton Mumsley.

Simon has managed to construct a book with a heavy liberal tilt that is both fascinating (insofar as it reveals the Court's recent inner-workings) and well written.

I've read a lot of books on the Supreme Court, from Woodward's "The Brethren" to Lazarus' "Closed Chambers." Professor Simon's "The Center Holds" is a well-written entry that sheds little new insight into the court but provides a good introduction for the student of the Rehnquist Court.

In terms of structure, this book is a little different than others. Rather than proceed chronologically, Professor Simon organizes his discussion thematically. He covers employment discrimination, abortion, federal habeas corpus, and the First Amendment (flag burning, church and state separation) in different chapters. In some ways, this makes a lot of sense, because you get to see the development of controversy over a particular area of law, such as the Reagan administration's repeated efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade. These efforts included attempting to pack the Court with anti-Roe Justices such as Robert Bork (who was not confirmed), and ultimately culminated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case that reaffirmed Roe's central holding (the constitutional right to abortion) but weakened its application.

Like most of what is written about the Supreme Court, there is a slight to moderate liberal tilt to "The Center Holds." What is written is accurate and probably does not paint an unfair picture of anyone, but you also get a clear sense of what Professor Simon thinks of the Court's rightward swing.

In summary, this is a good introduction to the Rehnquist Court, and in some ways, is a good companion piece to "The Brethren." Interestingly, both books end on the same tone: the "moderates" are in control of the Court.

Much of the advice in this book is incomplete, outdated, or misleading. After spending many hours attempting to use these forms to do my own divorce, I was tossed out of court by a rather displeased judge, and wound up hiring an attorney to re-do everything anyway. This might be a good reference for someone who is thinking about getting a divorce and curious about what the process is like and what is involved, but for actually using it to go to court by yourself, I can't recommend it. It caused me one heck of a headache.

the book did not contain all the forms necessary for my divorce, such as the judge signature portion for the pauper's oath.

The book is a little confusing at first, because the subject matter is so complicated, but overall it was very helpful. It saved me a lot of money in legal fees. Anyone with a no-fault divorce should find it very helpful and simple to use. I had no problem with having my divorce granted. I highly recommend it.

This is a valuable book to have in any mass spectrometry laboratory. The texts are well-compiled and edited. Especially for people who are just moving into the field of mass spec, as many proteomics people and biologists are these days, this is a useful book. The problem with technology these days is that it moves at a frightening pace and that the literature has a very hard time keeping up with the latest advancements. This is especially true in the area of biosciences and the instrumentation in use there. This volume was put together in 1990, and since then many new developments have revolutionized the use of mass spectrometry especially for biological and medical research, and those of course are missing here. Having said that: what this volume offers instead is a good coverage of many, many very valuable basics that every mass spectrometrist should be familiar with. The chapters are written by the best in the field, and the referncing is thorough and extensive. Like in all volumes of "Methods in Enzymology" figures are on the sparse side and the overall layout is a bit old-fashioned. With some trade-offs an overall valuable book that hopefully will go into an updated edition soon.

Simon Abelard works for the British Secret Service, also called the ?Outfit?. He is given the job of catching and bringing in fellow spy Julian Theobald Bowling who had turned into a major international drug dealer. Bowling is on the lam, because he stole 9 to 13 million dollars from his associates. Obviously, they want it back. Who is after him? Suspect are Abelard?s boss, Verdun Catwallander, his associates Matson and Field, Judith Stewart from another government service, Graf/Glass who wants money for German political party slush funds, and various other players. With so much money involved - whom can you trust? Where to find Bowling? It becomes a ?Third Man? game, until Abelard secures the help of Bowling?s girl friend Lucy Mary McIver, who seems to work for the U.S.State Department. Bodies begin to pile up. Bowling is found, then lost, then found again, then lost again, and so on. In the end it all sorts out, of course.

This book is written rather badly. Just about every third sentence ends with a question mark. The many asides are not helpful, nor is the constant reference to Abelard as half black. The language does not use the easy going humor of the Harpur and Iles books. This is the first of a projected series featuring Abelard. Let us hope that things improve.

...It represents a new fashion in book publishing, where one author approaches a series of artists to share one of their projects and how they did it... The publishers love it because these books are so easy to do. The authors love it because no one person has to do the work. The result is a badly thought out, mish-mash of techniques and one total worthless book.

Too bad Amazon.com does not have a way to give "0" stars or even a minus category, like "I give this book -5 stars for failing on the most basic of criteria." These people should be drummed out of the profession for such rank amateur...

This book is a weird one. on one hand it's inspiring & not at all like a AE manual which I appreciate. On the other it is also borderline useless. None [bar one] of the projects featured have a simple Quicktime or Windows movie of the final piece that you can view what it is the author actually did. They have AfterEffects working files of which you have to export the movies yourself, BUT each project also uses different third party filters [no demo's on the cd] which throw error's soon as you load the AE project so you STILL can't see the finished product. Just plain stupid if you ask me. Most of the projects seem to have between 100%-50% of the working files missing. in the case of renescant all you get is the finished movie & nothing else. seeing as you are paying for the oppurtunity to 'pick apart' the files & explore I think it's fair enough they hand them over.
Overall I kind of like the book, but it is really on the whole disapointing & frustrating. I doubt whether I will by another Friend of Ed book based on this one. it really feels like a stooge job in the end.
PS I visited the FofED site to try & find files of which I found some for one project. but nothing else.
My advice is steerclear unless you REALLY want this book. I am sure there are others out there that do what this one does ALOT better..

The book has some great examples, which the reader is talked through. Not all of them are great, but a lot of them are, and they're from the sort of projects that form the bulk of AE work. It beats most of the AE books out there hands down (most of the others are just a rehash of the manual). I noticed a few people on the list hated it, but if they're really that advanced, why would they be bothered reading "how to" books? My biggest gripe with the book is that there were not MORE examples in there (books are expensive these days) > but I could say the same for most books I see now. Anyway, the book helped speed up my AE learning time, which is the main thing I'm after - not just an illustrated rehash of the manual.

I was hoping this would be the sequel to the awesome beginners asp database book by John Kauffman. It was not even close. This book trys to cover so many platforms that it ends up not covering anything very well. The examples are terrible and confusion will set in after the second chapter. I have found that with Wrox books, if there is more than one person on the cover, then it will stink up the place.

My favorites were Section 5,7 and 8. The case studies were okay. Good cover on MTS and Novell Directory Services with ASP.

As a reviewer for this book I have read the book from cover to cover. The strong point about this book is that it covers many different aspects of data access. If you are somewhat new to ASP this book will show the ropes on ADO, XML and how to mix data from many different sources. If you are an experienced developer this book covers many areas that will interest you - data warehousing, the use of several different DB other than the very familiar SQL Server and non-realtional data sources. I have taken my copy of this book to work and everyone wants to borrow it.

In a nutshell this is a very expensive 11 page biography followd by almost 200 hundred pages of bibliography. The biography has nothing that is not well know to Simon's fans. The bibliography can be gotten for a lot less money with a good search engine. Even with a casual glance at the bibliography ommisions were apparent.

While the biography is short -- as are all the ones in Greenwood's series -- this is a good annotated guide to information on Paul Simon, with a focus on his work as a songwriter.

Another in a series of books thrown together to capitolize on the ignorance of Olaf Simon's 'Temple Kung Fu' students...
There is literally nothing of value in this book (except to it's author...)
Let the buyer beware...

The author of this book, who calls himself "His Holiness the Dalai Seng Shi", "Celestial Grand Master", "Shaolin Priest"' etc. etc. espouses honor, truth, etc., yet has admitted in court (Alberta 1995) that he has had no Shaolin or monastic training at all, gave HIMSELF his black belt (along with his lofty titles) and taught himself karate out of a book... he has been lying to his students for years.
Never the less, he has made millions selling books, tapes, martial arts lessons, seminars, etc. to unknowing consumers, claiming secret Kung Fu knowledge and a deep Buddhist faith, but has had no training as such. If you still want to buy this book, or others by him, do an internet search for "O.E. Simon" and "Partial Discovery Transcript" --- there are many kung fu forums out there teeming with disgruntled ex-students, instructors, etc.
If this is truly the man you want leading you in your prayers, be my guest.

can't be described. you must read this book by O.E. Simion I have met the man a funny guy with the belives to match the book. "THE WAY" is a book of prayers that is multiadaptive to any religon that belives in building up not taring down ,so if you are jewish o.k. , muslum o.k., christien o.k., if you want a book that will lift you up and out of the every day then i sugest you read this book. O' and he likes adventure you know.