This book had excellent descriptions of tracks and habitats of different animals in North America, but I was disappointed in the photos. Most of the photos of tracks were in snow, not dirt or mud. Also, in order to get a description of track size,you must read the text. There were very few pictures of scat and other signs as well. This is a good book if you want to sit down and read about animal tracks and signs, but a poor reference in the field. If you want a field book, look elsewhere.

Before there was Popeye, Sad Sack, Beetle Bailey and Crock, there was Biltmore Oswald. Biltmore Oswald is the compilation of a weekly series that Thorne Smith wrote for the Naval Journal Broadside. It's the diary of Biltmore Oswald, a hapless naval recuit, and his day to day adventures during World War I.

Oswald, a naive innocent, finds himself in many a compromising situation: Showering in the hotel room of the wife of a murderous, jealous man; observing French men greeting each other with kisses, and being pursued by beautiful women, much to the displeasure of his sweetie, Polly.

This, as Thorne Smith's first attempt at writing, proved to be quite successful for its time, yielding a sequel, "Out 'o' Luck."

Although not as scholarly and thorough as Steven Foster's book on Echinacea, this book is a good introduction to Echinacea.

For what it's worth, I am a female prospector, concentrating on the Sierra Nevadas. Most of my work is done in the Northern, but this summer afforded me a look into the Eastern Sierras and what it had to offer. I was led down Hwy 395, in Eastern California to the lost mines of the Mammoth Lakes and came upon the Lost Cement Mine. Cement mine? That's what I said! But, further investigation led me to this book that gives a bit of the history on the mine. At times, I had a hard time following the story line, especially in the end, but read it cover to cover in one sitting and was anxious for more. It's a fun book that takes you back a hundred or so years to yet more perils of the gold prospector in the never-ending quest for glitter. Thank you, James W.A. Wright, for a journey I have just begun.

This book gives practical strategies for starting and maintaining mentor partnerships in organizations. Written for the business community, these techniques can be used in any setting. A small pocket-sized book, just right for lunch or the train ride home, it's a quick read with humorous illustrations and applicable quotes. Most notably is the three stage model for guiding the mentor through the mentoring process. A process that includes exploring the relationship, reaching new understandings and action planning. Each stage is described and the authors give strategies and methods for working within the stages. In addition, each stage has suggested comments and questions the mentor might say when communicating with the mentee. The authors suggest that the mentor use this model for reflection and planning.

The book falls short in many ways. It does not emphasize the important distinctions between mentoring and managing. More coverage should have been given to this topic since managers/supervisors/coaches are more likely the audience for this book. Also, it glazes over the very practical issue of time by estimating that mentors spend 2-3 hours a month mentoring. The authors do not say what this figure is based upon. Lastly, it does not adequately address the importance of the reciprocity in mentoring partnerships. This book is meant for mentor and mentees, but the mentee's role as guider is downplayed.

Coming up with the right thing to say has always been a challenge for me. I like that this little book actually gives a handful of sample questions and comments I can use. Also, the author gives some good tips for both the mentor and the mentee in the process. An added bonus is the issues and questions section in the back of the book, followed by some blank pages for note-taking.

From the title, I expected this book to be an anthology of mystery and horror tales concerning cats. This book does contain a number of short stories by first-rate horror and mystery authors such as Robert Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft, Wilbur Daniel Steele and Lillian Jackson Braun. A good portion of this book is devoted to cat folklore, nonfiction and occult writings. The folklore is interesting and well-researched. The introductory comments to the folklore selections are very informative. However, the nonfiction and occult writings are just too weird. I recommend this book for the fiction and the folklore only.

In this the sixth, and final, novel in the series, Red Sonja not only battles an evil cult that has managed to capture a shooting star, she also falls in love. As with all sword and sorcery novels, you get the standard fantasy elements. I.E. a witch who can steal souls and trap them in monsterous bodies, power mad sorcerers out to destroy the world, etc. However, the most fantastic element of this novel is that the authors expect us to buy Red Sonja falling in love with her dweeb sidekick. It is just totally unbelievable that she would fall for this sensitive swordsman/sorcerer in training. The relationship is so forced, that it weakens the story whenever the two characters are together, which is about 85% of the time. Having Red Sonja fall in love isn't a bad idea, it just should have been with somebody that the readers could accept for her. As it stands, what should have been Sonja's final blaze of glory, winds up being an ember of mediocrity. As with all Red Sonja novels, this item is no longer in print and requirs some searching for. If readers are diligent in their search, they will be well rewarded, if not by the story, then by the beautiful cover painting by Borris.

Smith does a nice job of showing Hoover as both a politician and a dedicated fund raiser for a variety of charities. He explains in detail many of the problems Hoover faced while in office, and that the depression was not "cured" by FDR as many people would have you believe. Obviously, there is an element of bias in Smith's work given that he is the curator for the Gerald Ford museum and a devout Republican. But, he does provide a balance of Hoover's good and bad points; apparrently he wasn't the easiest to get along with which makes sense given his difficulty in dealing with Congress. I wish the book had more detail regarding Hoover's upbringing, although Smith in the introduction noted that was not his intention. I think more background into Hoover as a child and his religious heritage would help put some of his actions and philosophies into better perspective. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and have gained more respect for this "uncommon man."

The book's description on the back cover doesn't even match the content nor does the CD-ROM. It looks and reads like a thrown together blob of stuff ... can someone tell me where to find the durn spreadsheet widget .. its mentioned on the back cover but not in the index, the table of contents nor on the CD-ROM....

I don't recommend purchase lightly. I've been wearing out its pages for two weeks now, with occasional bouts of furrowed brows and impatient snorting. I've come, though, to a conclusion in which I'm confident: if you're a Tcl user, you should invest in *Tcl/Tk Tools*.

Why? Because you'll use it, and use it well. Almost everyone involved in Tcl has questions (so how do I really compile a Tcl script? How much does it take to do drag-and-drop and tool tips? Are the RDBMS extensions current with vendor features? ...) answered here. Simplify your life by putting these 650+ pages on your shelf.

What is *Tcl/Tk Tools*? It's a collection of descriptions of different popular extensions to Tcl and Tk. While lead author Harrison gives the impression they're written by "the extension authors themselves", there are a few exceptions to this pattern. The book is not written as a tutorial or introduction to Tcl, sagely pointing to John Ousterhout and Brent Welch's books for that role (although I've been thinking of experimenting with putting *Tcl/Tk Tools* in the hands of novices, to see what would happen. I suspect they'd survive in good shape).

*Tcl/Tk Tools* isn't exhaustive. It doesn't include several of my favorite extensions, including Scotty, NeoWebScript, stooop, tclMsql, the PlusPatches, ... It doesn't matter. If you care about only *one* of the extensions described here, you'll do well to have your own copy.

Harrison and his co-authors do a good job of hitting the target of telling "Here's the philosophy behind this package, and here are some examples of how to use it effectively" that he lays out in the Preface. While it's easy to move from one chapter to another, it's not at the expense of the authors and their personalities. D. Richard Hipp's thoughtful precision and De Clarke's care in engineering effective solutions come through, as do the assurance and lucidity those in the Tcl community expect of Don Libes. Less successful is the forward look that Harrison intended, toward "the plans the extension authors had for future enhancements and extensions." I assume this was in part a casualty of the realities of the publishing cycle; certainly many of the chapters appear to have been finished before the appearance a year ago of 7.6's betas.

Two unglamorous aspects of the book multiply its value: the index is sound (that's saying a lot for me; I have high standards in indexing), and Harrison's Chapter 17 on what he calls "Configuration Management" lays out much valuable wisdom that newcomers need to learn. Reading the latter is painful: it has all the important, tedious subjects ("Combining Extensions ...", command-line munging, ...) one wants--but without mention of Win* or loadable libraries! These frailties are inevitable when broadcasting on dead trees, of course. What's disappointing is that *Tcl/Tk Tools* doesn't go farther in joining the Internet Age: although a two-page Appendix lauds news:comp.lang.tcl and lists the FAQs and nine URLs (some of which have already moved, of course), and individual authors take it on themselves to provide appropriate references,
* it's not apparent that there is any page where Harrison and/or O'Reilly maintain errata, updates, new examples, funny animal GIFs, or any of the other resources readers might be expected to exploit--I couldn't find one at the URL the Preface gave, nor elsewhere at www.ora.com;
* some authors supply no e-mail addresses;
* some authors give references ("look in the archives") that will be inscrutable for those not already in the know; and
* there is wide variation in the quality of information authors give about extension prospects, bug lists (a particular sore point with me), mailing lists, and so on.
Understand, please, that I'm not labeling these moral faults; as on every project, the good engineering comes in deciding where to make the cuts, and what definite values to deliver. I personally look forward to seeing books that build a more dynamic relationship with online sources, and am simply noting that *Tcl/Tk Tools* doesn't achieve that standard.

The quality of production is high, higher even than the elevated expectations I have of O'Reilly. Typos, mistakes in word choice, and code errors seem to sum to around zero to five per chapter. Screen shots are judicious and illuminating, rather than gratuitously space-filling. The CD-ROM (with binaries for indeterminate but predictable releases of Solaris and Linux) does the little I asked of it.

Summary: whether you're a full-time Tcl-er or a greenhorn, you'll profit from having *Tcl/Tk Tools* at hand. Whenever you're in a pinch, there's a fair chance the Index and/or Table of Contents will quickly lead you to a useful datum. During more contemplative moments, you'll want to read the chapters in a connected fashion, and the accuracy and insight of the authors will make you glad that you do.

This was the first book I read on Tcl/TK (a mistake), but it was nonetheless helpful. I do refer it often. I particularly found the introduction to Expect useful.

This is the first published biography of Chief Washakie, the legendary leader of the Eastern Shoshone Indians, and is reprinted from Grace Raymond Hebard's original edition, "Washakie: An Account of Indian Resistance of the Covered Wagon and Union Pacific Railroad Invasions of their Territory " (1930). Hebard (1861-1936) was a professor of politcal economy at the University of Wyoming and became enamoured of Chief Washakie and the Shoshones during the early 1900s. Her book is basically an unstructured anecdotal read that jumps around in time and place.

I used her as a resource in my own book, "People of the Wind River: The Eastern Shoshones, 1825-1900," but only with great care and corroborating evidence. Hebard's sources were sons of Chief Washakie (including Dick, Charles, and George Washakie, all of whom were paid informants), the Reverend John Roberts (Episcopal priest on the Wind River Reservation from 1883-1948), Fincellius G. Burnett (Wind River agency farmer & ancestor of former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson), and retired Indian agents and Army officers who had personal contact with Washakie. She also relied on some of the published annual reports of the Office of Indian Affairs (forerunner of the current Bureau of Indian Affairs).

That said, Hebard reveals family stories and legends about Washakie and often quotes verbatim from published government documents. Hers is a good introduction to the the famous chief and his people, but should be read with a cautionary eye. It is not a biography in the modern or scholarly sense, but functions more as remembrances of a cherished relative. Many of the events or actions attributed to Washakie by Hebard cannot be substantiated with other archival evidence and thus her work borders on hagiography. On the other hand, the very fact that such stories exist are testimony to the impact Chief Washakie had on those who knew him. He was a fascinating individual, leader, and statesperson during a difficult time of transition for the Eastern Shoshones.

The author of this book, Grace R. Hebard, was a professor and it shows. This is an awkward book to read. She hops around in space and time and that can be quite confusing to someone who doesn't have her familarity with the history of the region.

What the book lacks in structure, it more than makes up for with its compelling subject: Chief Washakie. I'm sure that few Americans outside of Wyoming have ever heard Chief Washakie's name, yet his accomplishments as a statesman, unifier and leader of his people is unequalled.

He led the Shoshone people through most of the 19th century, into the 20th century. He was a remarkable individual speaking English, French and Shoshone. His charismatic hold on his people only ended when he died in 1900 at the age of 102.

One thing that repeatedly struck me is, in the scheme of things, this was so recent. Another aspect that I enjoyed was that Chief Washakie encountered so many of the characters that we identify with the settling of the West: Kit Carson, Scajawea, Jim Bridger and many others.

The sensibilites of the times described in this book are not what we expect now, and the author brings contemporary (1930) biases to her interpretation. The updated introduction in this edition tries to alert the reader to some of the biases that influence Hebard's comments.

As difficult a read as this book is, I couldn't put it down. As a footnote, Chief Washakie will be memorialized in Statuary Hall the U.S. Capitol in the fall of 2000. He is one of two individuals chosen to represent the spirit of the State of Wyoming.