Either I'm crazy, or other people are writing reviews on the wrong books.

The Cure: Wild Mood Swings is a companion piece to the 1996 Cure album release, Wild Mood Swings. There are no stories, no jokes, not even any pictures beyond the front and back covers. This is merely an arrangement of the songs from the album for voice, piano, and guitar.

If you are a Cure fan, you will like this even if you don't play guitar or piano...just because it is The Cure. If you want a book discussing the band during the creation of a particular album, this is definitely not for you. You would be better off finding The Making of Disintegration (I hope I have the title correct) or Ten Imaginary Years.

Here's a little hint for you...something I learned the hard way: If the title of the book is little more than the title of one of their albums, it is probably little more than a songbook.

This book was very helpful in many ways. It discussed the ups and downs of touring life. Included a full biography of the band and listed all albums. A great book for a new fan or a life long fan.

This was one of the few books by blackmen that had good storys that reflect on black culture and done from a spiritual tone. It also reflected the ability of American Baptist to step out and pull something like this together. This is the kind of work that should be done on a yearly bases.

Relevent stories for African-American men. Definitely not fiction.

The approach to writing a history of battles and war varies greatly between authors. Robert Smith has recorded a very personal account from the perspective of one who finds no glory in war, but knows first-hand the honor and heroism in the individual warriors. He tells his tale with none of the sensationalism or self-interest found in too many of today's autobiographical pieces on war. Within his pages you experience the fundamental transition from civilian to soldier, the surrealism of the first encounters with war, and the necessary adapting and surviving through the horrors and the humors that the soldier must endure to survive in war. He did not go to war for thrill or reward, but like so many young citizen-soldiers as a matter of duty and circumstance. He became a medic. To all who have experienced ground combat, the title "medic" has special, and even revered, meaning. The medic's role is without question at once the most essential and terrifying on the battlefield. Soldiers are comforted and buoyed simply by knowing a medic is near. Without recourse or release through individual offensive action, the medic must brave the same extreme life threatening dangers of the battlefield as the fighting soldier in order to bring immediate aid to those in need. He must triage his ministrations to ensure optimizing the survival odds for those likely to benefit, while as circumstances allow affording compassion and solace for those who will not. It is the medic's actions that set the odds of survival. This is the tale that Robert Smith weaves. It's not about the Great Captains, or grand military campaigns, it is about the individual and the space/actions surrounding him that define his perceptions and responses to war. He then draws us back to the future on a journey across the same battlegrounds to discover for all the terror, the waste, and the heroism that the land heals.

Where did we get such men of valor as Robert Smith depicts in his book? America can be proud of such true contemporaries of our parents. The book is a testament to their honorable legacy of sacrifice, bravery, and accomplishments

The author was able to relate and capture the many heroic deeds of men he treated during the heat of battle. The moment you open the book to read you are in trance in the story. Every break just makes you walk away in wonder on how they ever survived such battles.

What spirit America was blessed with men akin to Mr. Smith's generation. They struggled through the depression often looking for food and work. They then came calling to duty, honor, and country confronting fascist Germany, Italy, and militarist Japan. It was apparent from the start that no chains were going to sully them. In the end, Hitler's', Togo's, and Mussolini's plans of prejudice, hatred and cruelty could not overcome such courageousness. One seldom ever heard them complain, whine or claim it was too tough. They just did what they were told and helped each other as the book points out.

After confronting the depression and World War II they return towards building one of the greatest economic miracles in world history. Each one stood steadfast in the face of communism in wars of containment and never surrender to defeat or the philosophy of slavery that came with Marxian/Stalinists beliefs. And now as many quietly retire in the shade of triumphs they set standards few future generations will seldom have a chance to over shadow.

This is a superb book written by an author who himself exhibits the kind of character it took to keep America safe and strong. I highly recommend it!

This book was used as the text for a Construction Law case I took in law school. Overall I found the book to be very good. It was clear, concise, well written, and easy to understand. It also brought a pretty wide range of topics into the mix, and provided a fair amount of places to go for additional information (by way of case law). If I had to complain, and for the purposes of this review I will, I would make two comments: 1) There are areas where a little more depth would be nice. Frankly, I don't think the scope of this book really includes in-depth analysis on anything so this might be a non-issue for many folks. I just found that there were a few times (a very few) when I was looking for more information. 2. This book does a really nice job incorporating definitions for new terms into the text. However, there are a LOT of new terms and a glossary would have beeen a nice addition to the text.

An outstanding work -- easy to follow, yet powerful. It delivers in-depth coverage of current law on hot construction topics. As a General Contractor, I found the book very helpful. I strongly recommend it. The industry has become so litigious that you cannot afford to not know.

The bicycle is now thought of as a toy by most people but in the late 19th century they were the impetus for social change. Robert Smith takes us to a world very few know existed; the world of 19th century high technology and social upheaval due to a seemingly inoccuous machine: The bicycle. At a time when the horse was the fastest thing on the road, a man (or woman, heaven forbid) on a bicyle was like today's high-end sportscar. Business people from piano-makers to bar owners villified the bicycle for taking away their business (piano-makers because the bicyles were bought in place of pianos, bar owners because cyclists in training would not drink alcohol!). Women found new freedom on the bicycle, in both athleticism and in fashion: Bloomers were invented to allow women to ride bicycles with modesty intact. A typical spring day would find thousands of cyclists riding the roads around the major cities. Roads were graded for this purpose, road signs were put up to guide them, maps were made to help them on their way, and restaraunts established to feed them. Does this sound familiar today? Robert Smith has opened a door to a fascinating past that everyone should know about.

I've read several books on the history of bicycles, and I would recommend this as the best. This book contains an incredible amount of detailed information on the development and social/historical impact of bicycling, while being very entertaining to read. It's a shame that it's been allowed to go out of print.

Ward and Smith present a very thorough overview on developing your own custom controls under Windows. Written for the 16-bit Windows interface, they cover static & dynamic controls, subclassing and virtual memory controls. I liked the chapter devoted to writing Dynamic Link Libraries (Dlls). Over 70% of the book is source code examples. A fantastic look at the inner workings of custom control interfaces. A must have reference.

This is a very well written, code-rich book. It is 16-bit based, but most of it (if not all) is directly useable under the 32-bit environment, I have it and use it all the time even though it's rather old now. In fact, it's good it's old, because there's none of the ActiveX/OLE/MFC etc., junk in there, it's all about good old C-API-based development.

OK, that said: what's that Booklist review up there doing on this page? Obviously it's not about this book; it's, I suspect, about a very nice Hammond organs book, which I happen to have as well -- and it's, no doubt, very good -- but why on this page?

This is a somewhat edited version of Robert M. Smith's diary that he kept during his year with the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers). Smith attended college before joining the Army, rather unusual for the time. He joined the AVG for adventure, like most of the pilots and technicians. And he kept a diary, as many of them did.

Smith's diary is especially insightful, and I used it a lot when I was writing my history of the Flying Tigers. He has a good eye for geography; I especially liked his account of driving up the Burma Road to the AVG's home base in Kunming.

I own the paperback; it was chock-a-block with photos, which I assume are included in the Schiffer edition. Good reading for all Flying Tigers buffs.

Robert Smith gives you the lowdown from the air field on what it took to get the Flying Tigers in the air and to the Japanese bombers before they could strike their Chinese targets. Here is the truly brilliant saga of how Chennault's revolutionary combination of ground observation, central data gathering and fighter scramble turned aerial warfare from hunt and peck to dispatch and destroy.

We take these technologies for granted now, but when Chennault first proposed them he was laughed at by the fledgling air forces that stumbled along between the two world wars with no vision. Chennault had the vision of what modern air warfare would become. He proved it with the Flying Tigers by taking an under-manned, under-equipped, and under-funded unit and making it into the bane of the enemy.

Robert Smith puts you there in the radio room, nursing the equipment, listening through static, sifting the reports and making the critical decisions to scramble the planes. The pilots got the glory. Smith told them where the glory was to be gotten.

This is a little known page in the history of aerial warfare that is told clearly, up front and personal, by a man who was right there in the thick of it.

I heartily recommend With Chennault in China to anyone interested in The Flying Tigers and/or air combat history.

This is not a true beginners book. The word "Intermediate" should appear somewhere on the cover. I am divided on this book, some chapters are fantastic, while others are terribly written. On the negative: the authors make constant reference to how easy this is, however they are forgetting that the readers of this book do not have the multi-year experience that they possess. Certain chapters are extemely complicated are clearly intended for seasoned professionals. They also spend considerable time on procedures that would likely never be used in the real world. On the positive: there is a great deal of information here, the chapter on recordsets in sensational. The authors and I agree that recordset (note this is a broad subject) manipulation is one of the most crucial issues in Access VBA development. After employing what I learned into my real world applications, it is clear why this subject is so critical. They did a great job of writing the chapters that cover recordsets (and all of its' subsets) as well as program logic (If/Then, Do/Loop, For Each/Next, Arrays, etc.). If you are truly a beginner to VBA then buy "Step by Step" first. I would warn that the reader should not be taken in by the word "Beginner" in the title. Do not buy this book unless you are serious about application development. If you can understand this book, then you are moving into an elite status. I would not recommend this book unless your goal is to be compensated (to at least some degree) for your Access programming skills.

This is a great book on programming Access from below the covers... using VBA. Although the book says its "Beginning" don't rely on that. This is a great intermediate book, with lots of stuff for the beginners thrown in. Thus, the intermediate programmer must wade through the usual "this is a program" stuff, but it's a trip well worth the time, because the authors provide many unknown secrets to VBA programming with Access. As a VB programmer, using Access VBA can be extremely frustrating because of the things you can't do. The authors solve many of those little things that can hang you up in Access. For example, this book has taught me to link single forms... rather than using sub-forms. It has also taught me to throw away many other commonly accepted "Access'isms". I wished they had covered how to build menus. No one seems to cover the whole kludgy story. Why does Access/VBA make this such a difficult task... compared to VB5? The book is laid out well, with lots of code examples. I hope they come out with an "Intermediate" or "Advanced" version. The author, David Sussman, also teaches a class at ZDU online which uses this book. This is another great book from Wrox press, a publisher that does a great job at covering programming topics indepth. The authors are Scotch, yet thankfully manage to spell "color" without the "u". They also deliver their lessons with a sense of humor.

Over the past three years, I have been able to successfully complete several sophisticated projects in Access using SQL and macros- I stayed away from extensive use of VBA because you use what you are confident in. My new job as a DBA and developer required extensive use of VBA due to the complexity of reporting from several different databases. I needed a "quick-start" to increase my skill-set and this book gave me what I needed. Unlike other books on the subject- the authors provided easy to understand explanations and "hands-on" examples with the CD that came with the book. This isn't a beginning Access 97 reference- it's a GREAT beginning Access 97 VBA reference. You can immediately get techniques you can implement on your job, with results that will impress the end users. More importantly, it provides a good foundation of the basics to build on. THANKS.

A timeless classic, written by Robert Louis Stevenson was a great book for those of us who like adventure. The book begins at the Admiral Benbow Inn, which Jim Hawkins, the main character works. Suddenly, from out of the blue a rough sea faring man appears named Billy. That is when the real adventure begins!! Jim and his mother find a treasure map in a dead customers sea trunk. Jim got a couple of respectable people together and they bought a ship named the Hispaniola and set of sail for Treasure Island, not knowing the problems that lay before them. I think the author wanted the them to be, be careful whom you trust. I fully enjoyed this book and I think you will too. To find out the rest read, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

"Treasure Island," written by the 19th century novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson, is the timeless story about life on the high seas with pirates, treasure, murder, and treachery.

When young and naive Jim Hawkins is given a treasure map from the mysterious old pirate, Billy Bones, adventure and trouble are not far behind. Soon Jim finds himself aboard a ship with a villainous crew led by the cunning and mendacious pirate, Long John Silver. Greed and the lust for gold driving the pirates, they have murder in mind when they reach the dubious Treasure Island.

Skillfully yet simply written, Robert Louis Stevenson gives us an alluring tale that sparks the imagination. With its dastardly plot and mothly crew of rogues and villains, it entrances the reader, and keeps them wanting more. "Treausure Island" is the perfect read for anyone just wanting a good, exciting story.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is by far one of the best adventure stories I have ever read. This book deserves all five stars, it has everything you could ask for such as, suspense, comedy, action, drama and a great plot line. R.L. Stevenson puts a lot of detail into his main characters such as Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins just to name a few. He describes the scenes with such great detail that at times I had to remind myself that it is only a book. I spent more than 2 months reading this book and I enjoyed every part of it. I could RARELY find a paragraph that was dull, the book was very exciting overall. This book is fairly easy to read and I would recommend it to adults and children of all ages. The book moves at a very good pace, not too fast, not too slow. This book is anything but boring, something new happens in every chapter for instance, when Jim witnesses a murder and when he gets into bar fights, those are just some of the many things that happened. I was very surprised myself when I read this book because it seems a little childish but in fact it's quite the contrary. I highly recommend that you go out and read this book!

This play can be read as anti-semitic. In fact, it's pretty hard to defend it from such charges. Shylock is a pretty rotten character and the fact that he is jewish is difficult to overlook (particularly since the other characters mention it on pretty much EVERY page). However, I think it is important to mention that the "heroes" of this play do not necessarily have to be interpreted as heroes. They are by no means perfect and there are many subtle (and some not-so-subtle) instances within the text in which their biases against ANYONE unlike them is illustrated. If one reads the play this way, then Shylock becomes more of a tragic figure rather than an absolutely heartless villain. I don't know. My feelings about this are mixed. There are a few funny parts of this play and the language is, as always, beautiful. The theme of putting a price on human beings is one which has been explored numerous times since. Overall, it is enjoyable, but perhaps not so much so as some of the other comedies. Do not read this play without having read a few others by Shakespeare first. It is an excellent play, but not his best and not his most enjoyable either.

After reading most of the other reviews here, I am fully aware that most of the reviewers didn't read carefully enough (or watch carefully enough if they saw the play.) Now, I'm not saying its not open for different interpretations, but there is one thing I would really like to get straight.

I read MoV for a Bar Mitzvah project on Anti-Semitism. Naturally, my sympathies went to Shylock. However, even if i were Christian, i still would've favored Shylock. What many people believe is that Shylock is a cold hearted ruthless person and only wanted to get back at Antonio because Antonio was a Christian.

Not true. Shylock specifically says something along the lines off, "Why should I lend money to you? You spit on me, and call me a Jewish dog!" I'm not saying that Shylock was a good guy, but I am saying that he is not the villain.

In fact, the "Merchant of Venice," in this story is actually Shylock, not Antonio, contrary to popular belief. My thoughts on the story was that Shylock requested a pound of Antonio's flesh because he did not trust Antonio. Who would trust someone that spat on him? The fact is, Antonio doesn't pay him back in the end.

Now, there's always something else we have to put into consideration. Would the judge had given the "spill one ounce of Christian blood" verdict at the end if Shylock were not a Jew?

This is the mark of a great play. A play that really gets you thinking. But I encourage you, I beg of you, that when you read it or see it, please do not hold Shylock up to being a cold hearted villain. Hold Antonio up to that image. (joking, of course, Antonio's not a bad guy, he's just not a good guy.)

This is a wonderful play - and unless you have seen it or read it you don't know it at all. That's because everything the popular culture tells us about this play is false (for example; how many of you think this play is about a merchant named Shylock? ;-)

The Merchant of Venice is a lively and happy morality tale. Good triumphs over bad - charity over greed - love over hate.
There is fine comedy. Portia is one of Shakespeare's greatest women (and he ennobled women more than any playwright in history). There are moments of empathy and pain with all the major characters. There is great humanity and earthiness in this play. These things are what elevate Shakespeare over any other playwright in English history.

Plays should be seen - not read. I recommend you see this play (if you can find a theater with the courage and skill to do it). But if it is not playing in your area this season - buy the book and read it.