Long Title, short book! I found this book to be an easy quick read with "real stuff" I was able to use now. I have used the techniques and tools described in the book to get more work done, more effectively from a special team. While the book is not new, Daniels' uses a straight forward language to educate us on the dynamics associated with team behaviors during team meetings. If you need to lead or facilitate team meetings, you must read this book!

our linear algebra class prof. told us that this is the most readable math book, that's why the math dept. switched to this book this year. =)

This book helps to keep our lives focused when all around us is a decadent, ungodly culture. We may stand alone, and be in the den, but we do not have to be prosperous or physically strong to avoid being eaten. I especially liked the chapter about how to keep our minds out of the gutter, and the slippery slope of success. I liked this book better than some of the newer christian books. How Daniel stood strong when the culture and the King was againest him...

Well worth the price for those who want information, not scare hype from those pushing the fringe element buttons. I have personally verified much of the information in this book. If you want to learn more of who is really in control of our lives and future, buy and read this book.

I read the book The Sorcerer of Kings, by Dr. Stein, and have a few comments on it. First of all I found the book very didactic and well organized. It also provides a good source of bibliography for those interested in spiritualism. Some passages are even comic, when you imagine someone in a scene trying to grab a spirit.!

However, in my opinion, the book is highly biased to prove that William Crookes was a fraud. Actually, right from the foreword (by James Randi) one can feel that. The author should rather present the facts, and let the conclusion to the reader. In a book of this sort this is an unforgivable mistake, just because the author tries to show that William Crookes was himself biased to accept spiritual reality.

I feel extremely uneasy to accept that William Crookes was a fraud (being this the main conclusion of the author). At the beginning of the book he appears simply stupid, an easy-to-fool person. His character then slightly changes from stupidity to quackery, which is of course a heavy charge over such a scientific personality. If he was a fraud as a spiritualist investigator, I cannot see why he would be so serious and brilliant as a scientist (before and after those years of spiritualism). I simply can't accept that. I cannot accept either he could have been fooled over and over by the mediums he tested.

So, in my opinion, remains the mystery about Sir William Crookes. I tend to believe that he died convinced about some of the phenomena he investigated, but felt not worth continuing his research, simply because the scientific community wouldn't accept that, and because he had detected trickery in many cases. The book of Dr. Stein does not prove "the truth" about him. Nevertheless, it is a book worth reading by those interested in spiritualism, in general, and in William Crookes.

I.S. Oliveira - Physicist, Ph.D. Oxford/1993

... The layout of the book was confusing and so where theexamples and explanations. If it where not for a great math teacher Iwould have been lost in the class if I was just left to the book alone. I would recommend students and teachers (if your considering this book for your class) to stay away from it... END

Excellent seller. It arrived much faster than I expected.
Thanks a lot

This book is addressed for understanding of the Calculus and not for the traditional teaching that sins for the excess of formalism. It is an excellent book for who wants to understand and to learn Calculus through the application of problems of the Real World. The book also motivates the use of graphic calculators to have a better vision of the problem.

This book contain the highlights of a private's life in the Army of the Tennessee. It talks about Private Beven's travels and life in the army. If you are looking for details of combat, look elsewhere. Book contain a few details of a private's life. Book doesn't have many details, but over 40% of the book is footnotes by the editor informing the reader about event or people sited by Beven's.

Readers who enjoyed Watkins' Co. Aytch will like this too. It doesn't have the absolute spark of genius that the latter shows, but it's an engaging, detailed account of Bevens' experiences in the Army of Tennessee. He includes many interesting and often humorous anecdotes; the only weak section is the very end of the war, because Bevens was lucky enough to be on furlough at that time. The editor has done an excellent job of annotating the text -- at first the format, with the footnotes on facing pages, is a little confusing, but it soon becomes very helpful. Sutherland fills in gaps and explains minor errors in Bevens' account while placing the events in their larger context. The only thing I have to complain about is the maps, which are useless.

The book does not have the in-depth coverage that expert SQL users would expect. If you are a beginner then it may suit you just fine. There are not enough nuts and bolts for people like me who really need the complete reference book.

A very good book on Oracle8 administration, performance tuning, backup and recovery. Full of well organized useful information.

I am primarily a Solaris system admin who wants to learn more about the inside of Oracle and what it takes to keep it up and running. The O'Reilly titles were a major disappointment since most of their stuff usually rocks, but let's hope for better 2nd editions on those along with some good tutorial material. The Oracle Press titles are totally disorganized and a major embarassment! David Austin has put together a great book with Using Oracle 8, and if you have to suffer through NT (and thank God I don't), he has plenty of material on Oracle Enterprise Mgr (all of chapter 4). Then he moves on to the nitty gritty, with a Unix-oriented or at least generic "pure Oracle" approach. I have spent two weeks browsing and reading various Oracle books and good choices are hard to find. I strongly recommend Alomari's "Oracle8 and Unix Performance Tuning" as well.

We used Lonely Planets for holiday travel in southern France for the first (and possible last) time. The recommended restaurant of Peter Mayle fame, Gu et Fils, on Frederick Mistral in Aix was either a typo or non-existent as we located the street but no restaurant to be found. Restaurant Le Merou Bleu of Marsailles was a mediocre tourist trap with despicable service. The impersonal nature of the LP recommendations for hotels merely define the facilities, but do not say enough about the character or level of cleanliness. We checked in (and out of) one of Lonely Planet's recommended two star hotels in Avignon and for about five euros more per night, found a potential three star hotel that was much better siutated, cleaner, bigger and quieter.

Boy was this book a disappointment. Other LP guides weren't this bad. It seems this book only tries to get you to those places every other tourist is at, and only by public transportation. It skips out-of-the-way places that locals know and love, chooses hotels in noisy central sections of larger towns only. Worse, my 2002 edition still didn't give costs in Euro! Thanks to friends living in various areas of France, I was able to visit wonderful places that aren't even mentioned in the book. Restaurants were poorly chosen, and almost always tourist traps. If you rented a car (which is a really smart way as a group) you won't find any info in this book about getting around, or doing such duh! activities as wine-tasting routes, swimming holes, you-pick farms, sound-and-light shows. LP, if you're reading this: ever heard of the Puy-du-Fou? Everyone in Europe seems to have been there!

I expect to use a book like this to help me plan a trip. It should be organized by region so I can decide among things that are close by. And I need the kind of information that goes beyond just listing the sites: is it crowded, charming, dangerous, special?

This book tries to answer these questions with a personal tone. As I read it I start to get a sense of the writers personalities and tastes, so that I can gauge my agreement with their opinions.

I wish the hotel and restaurant reviews shaded towards the high end a bit more. But I haven't found a series (I also have their guides to Europe and Mexico) that I can trust as well as this one.

The format of the book is less useful. I was expecting something closer to a Monster Manual but for traps, and I was disappointed. Each "challenge" is formatted like a mini-encounter rather than a single trap or puzzle explained. Some challenges are 2-3 pages long. I prefer a bit more quick-use format structure so I can just pull out the encounter and plop it into my adventure just like a monster from the Monster Manual. I prefer Traps & Treachery by Fantasy Flight Games which has that type of structure.

While the book presents some interesting scenarios, most of it is rehashed information you can get from a book of logic puzzles or find in the AD&D 2nd edition DM's blue books (namely the Villian's handbook and Creative Campaigning) or even check out the Crypt of Lyranzad the Mad. If you want a bunch of one-shot encounters or traps, this book is fine, otherwise you can get as good ideas by buying a book of logic puzzles or riddles and adapting them as encounters.

The challenges cover a very wide range of levels with suggestions on how to tweak a challenge to make it suit the strengths/weaknesses of a DM's players. The book is quite dense for 126 pages, stuffing each page with detailed information on setting-up, presenting, and solving the traps. The artwork matches the mainstream AD&D adventure artwork, which is to say average to poor. It would be nice to have higher quality artwork to be scanned in to a computer and presented to the players for the clearest possible explanation of some very complex mechanical and magical challenges.

Book of Challenges is very comparible to Legends & Lairs Traps and Treachery series, however the Book of Challenges stays away from the traps a lone thief disarms into an encounter for the party to get involved with. So in the end, a good buy, but room for improvement.