THIS BOOK IS VERY WELL WRITTEN AND EASY TO READ. IT IS MORE FOR THE EXPERIENCED INVESTOR AS IT IS WRITTEN FOR THOSE THAT ALREADY OWN PROPERTIES. IT HAD SOME GOOD INFORMATION ON PROPERTY TAX PROTESTS. ALSO ON LANDLORDS RESPONSIBILITIES. EXPLAINS ON WHAT TO DO WHEN THE TENANTS MOVE OUT. THERE WAS MORE ON LEASES(copies in book) THAN I CARED TO REVIEW, BUT IT ALSO HAD CHECKLISTS ON OTHER TOPICS THAT I BELEAVE ARE IMPORTANT TO THE LANDLORD. I HAVE BEEN AN INVESTOR FOR MANY YEARS AND THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN BY INVESTORS THAT HAD EXPERIENCE IN THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT.IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A BOOK THAT HAS CREATIVE FINANCING ON HOW TO AQUIRE THE PROPERTIES THIS IS NOT THE BOOK THAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.

The author gave a good covering of landlording topics. Most of it was common sense information, but there were a couple of little treasures thrown in. The advice on handling troublesome tenants was interesting, but I have never needed it (so far!). For the beginning landlord, this will provide a wealth of information on topics you may not have considered. For the experienced landlord, there might be a few nuggets of gold, but don't expect a bonanza.

THIS BOOK GIVES THE READER AN A-Z SYNOPSIS OF EVERY ASPECT A PROSPECTIVE AND CURRENT LANDLORD NEEDS TO KNOW,AFTER READING THIS BOOK,YOU WILL BE EQUIPPED TO HANDLE ANY POSSIBLE SCENARIO A LANLORD MIGHT FACE

In a century in which philosophy has been taken over by pedants eager to "analyze" every technical problem ever devised by the perverted ingenuity of the mind of man--technical problems, moreover, which, as Santayana himself once put it, are "solved best by not raising them"--it is comforting to know that at least one major philosopher never forgot what philosophy is really all about: namely, wisdom and love of knowledge. Whereas other philosophers seek to impress by being original or controversial or obscure, Santayana merely attempts to describe things as they are. Santayana is above all a realist, not merely in the philosophical sense of believing that external objects exist outside of man's consciousness, but also in the more general sense of accepting the world as it really is and not as we might wish it could be. So many philosophers seem motivated primarily by a desire to rationalize away the disagreeable aspects of reality. Santayana's approach is different. While recognizing that reality has its disagreeable elements (Santayana was certainly no optimist), he seeks to distinguish, as he once put it, the part of this disagreeable or mixed reality "that could be loved and chosen from the reminder."

In "The Life of Reason," Santayana sought to explain how reason emerges in five separate areas of human existence: thought, society, religion, art and science. Originally, Santayana devoted one book to each subject. In this present edition, all five books have been abridged by the author and made into a single volume. The unabridged version is superior to this one. The abridged version is more difficult to follow, because in the process of condensing five books into one, gaps have been created in the exposition of Santayana's thought. Unfortunately, the original five volume edition is no longer in print.

The best two volumes of the unabridged version were "Reason in Common Sense" and "Reason in Religion." The first of these books shows how men came to discover the external reality of nature and the independent existence of other minds. There are chapters on how thought is practical, on the "malicious psychology" of philosophers like Kant, Hume and Berkeley, on how thought is practical, and on Santayana's contention that ideas are not abstractions. "Reason in Religion" is one of the most interesting books on religion ever published and ought to be read by every atheist and agonistic who regards religion as a mere tissue of delusion and irrationality. Santayana, while denying the literal truth of religion, contends that religion nonetheless represents a sort of poetic and moral truth expressed in symbols that can be grasped on a very human level. "Religion remains an imaginative achievement, a symbolic representation of moral reality which may have a most important function in vitalising the mind and in transmitting, by way of parables, the lessons of experience."

The over-riding theme of "The Life of Reason" is Santayana's conviction that only by recognizing the material world and the "conditions of existence," can the spirit become enlightened concerning the source of its troubles and the means of its happiness or deliverance. There is, I would contend, no philosophical work of the twentieth century that is more sane, that expresses better judgment on the main issues of philosophy, or that demonstrates a deeper wisdom about the nature of things than this classic work.

Santayana was not a stupid man. His only problem was that he was better learned in the tradition of philosophy and could write better than most philosophers. While he shared the intellectual accomplishments of many philosophers of the century--equal to any in the so-called "analaytic" tradition--he did not share their spiritual pursuits. Philosophy for him was a search for a kind of enlightenment that could not be found in the dustbins of "epistemology." If you think "knowing that" is the end of human life, you needn't bother reading this wonderful work.

The Life of Reason is a marvelously executed, exceptionally elegant philosophical tour de force. Santayana refuses to be blinded by prejudicial notions and founds his philosophical hermeneutic on common-sense, logic, and probability. One reviewer here has noted that Santayana takes a myopic perspective on religion. Frankly, this is baffling. Santayana believes that religion is a kind of species of literature and that we should not look to it for scientific insights. In contrast, he believes that religion, in the abstract, has, as all belief systems do, a rational framework, so to speak. In addition to this, Santayana finds much about theology and religious ritual, more aesthetically speaking, intriguing. This is hardly a one-sided view. The Life of Reason will not interest those attracted to the turgid obfuscatory mutterings of Heidegger, postmodernist critics, and other related thinkers. It will appeal though to those interested in analytic philosophy, logic, and scientific skepticism. A wonderful book.

This is a very good book for someone interested in the biology, habitat & distribution of these endangered animals. Excellent illustrations & photographs. I highly recommend this book for someone who wants more than a field guide!

I took a class on manatees and read several books on manatees and I found this one to be the most substantial and informative. I highly recommend it.

Great book! Beautiful pictures and great info!

I spent two months last winter in a mountain cabin far up a back road in Washington's Methow Valley, just below the Canadian border and just east of the North Cascade National Park, where there are many cougars. One broke into my nearest neighbor's house and I found fresh tracks one morning beside the road into town. So with all the cougar excitement in the Valley, I decided to learn more about them by reading two recently published softcover books. Either book is a good place to start if you want to know more about the big cats that are becoming a more common part of life throughout the West.

Mountain Lion (Cox and Grambo) is a medium format photo essay of 99 spectacular color photographs of cougars running, jumping, caring for their young, attacking deer and so forth. These remarkable pictures, mostly taken in southwestern red rock country, give a real feel for how the animals move through their territory. After being stunned by the images, I was a little disappointed to read that they were taken "mainly with captive-bred mountain lions under controlled conditions". Well, the cougars LOOK wild and at least none of them are wearing sunglasses or have their kitty litter boxes visible. The brief text is a well-written essay about the cougar's natural history and human interaction, and there is a bibliography.

A book I preferred is Cougar! by Harold Danz. It is a comprehensive historical and natural history coverage of the cats by a retired National Park Service employee. Besides a description of cougar habits and hunting techniques with each of their prey species, interesting chapters describe the human-cougar relationship from Native Americans and Colonial times, through the bounty hunter years and on to the present.

There is a fascinating section in Cougar! that describes all documented cougar attacks, both fatal and non-fatal, in the U.S. and Canada from 1751 through mid-1998. Danz reports that the only fatal cougar attack in the United States between 1909 and 1974, was of a 13-year old boy traveling on snowshoes near Lake Chelan (not far from my winter retreat) in December 1924. When his body was found it was deduced that the young victim had cut off one of the cougar's front claws (!) while unsuccessfully defending himself with a pocketknife. Contemporary cougar fans may find poetic justice in descriptions of two recent non-fatal incidents where National Park campers were forced by cougars to spend the night up in a tree (!) until someone came to their assistance. There is also a description of historic and current cougar populations in each state (Washington, with 2,300, has one of the largest populations) and Canadian province, as well as the exhaustive bibliography you'd expect from a university press.

I really enjoyed Cougar!, and while the grainy black and white photos don't compare with those in Mountain Lion, it is the much more informative and interesting of the two books.

You can judge a book by it's cover. It's just as beautiful inside as it is outside. Very informative and a joy to read. If you love wildlife or any of the big cats, you'll definitely want to add this book to your collection!

A wonderful book. A joy to read. Rebecca L. Grambo writes well with a sympathetic eye. She discusses these beauties and their plight for survival. The accompanying magestic photos by Daniel J. Cox perfectly match the content from the Author. Since the Nature of Mountain Lions are so shy, I appreciate the wonderful photographs of them in nature which would otherwise be very difficult to photograph. I recommend this book to any cat and animal lovers out there. I hope this book stirrs up the public's interest in saving the Mountian Lion from extinction.

Why not add frogs, snakes and other reptiles? Again the Audubon Society tries to market one guidebook to all of Canada and the US. For comparison Audubon's close competitor in the layperson field guide business uses three guides to cover the same area. Peterson's field guides has one for the Pacific coast, one for the Atlantic and one for freshwater. That's not even including the mammals! This guide is so broad as to be useless to the person looking at anything but the most common and conspicuous fishes. The photographs are often dark and useless, showing only the adult stages of several fishes which makes it difficult to determine what species you might have. The only plus I can give it as that it arranges fish by shape or other distinctive characteristics, this might be useful to the person unfamiliar with fish families. I made the mistake of getting it as my first field guide to fishes. From experience let me say this, get yourself a Peterson's to your local area. The color plates might be harder to learn to use, but they show a lot more.

I've been obsessed with fish for as long as I can remember. I have an entire shelf on my bookcase devoted to fish books, and this is by far the best book on that shelf. It has hundreds of pictures of every importent species in North America as well as Information on most every species. This is the definative guide on the market

Being a fishing charter captian out of Boston Ma. and a fishing enthusist of fresh and saltwater... Info provided in detail on every fish in North America....This book is a must for all fish lovers!

This is a review book for Neurology. It is written in an outline form. It tries to be comprehensive, but fails to review any psychology (which is 33-40% of the boards). It has some nice tables and basic schematics, but no real illustrations or pictures of imaging. Since there are no real review books aside from this one, it fills the void well.

There is a second edition of this book avilable in the market with some chapters revised and some new ones added, released in 2002.
you don't take the risk of going to the boards inadequately prepared or with older information.

This book is an excellent review text for the neurology in-service exam, board exam or re-certification exam. Additionally, it is helpful as a quick reference for neurologic conditions. I highly recommend it.

Poorly written, silly and self indulgent and frankly, bordering on unbelievable ( mysterious naked women ) I found nothing about "soul" in this book and precious little about life.

Pass on this one

This is one of those books that you either love or hate, either it touches you and makes you long for the open road and the adventures beyond the next "twistie" or you throw up your hands in disgust and consider it wasted time.

This is not a novel, on the surface its a simple set of small narrations of what happened during a trip: I took road x, stopped and had x for dinner, slept in motel x, etc. For many people this is all they get from it and its not terribly exciting.

For others, those who have the travelling "bug" this is a thrilling narrative of the romance of the open road. What it feels like to leave work on a friday, all strung out and hit the "twisties" and stop at small places where people call you "hon" and to begin to put your priorities back in order.

Mr. Meyers feelings towards his ride and his enjoyment of the open road, the desire to just start riding, pick roads at random and see where you end up... more importantly his ability to enjoy things that others avoid, like riding in the middle of a storm or right through the middle of a dust-devil..appeal to me, its something that people either understand or look at you funny about. If you understand then this book is for you!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Mr. Meyer does a wonderful job of painting the imagery of a scene. He also has a great sense of humor. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read just for pure enjoyment.

I had been planning to purchase this book for months and finally borrowed a copy from a friend.

Well, I'm glad I didn't buy it. The book is not bad. It it certainly appropriate for the audience named in the intro (1450-1750 USCF). The problem is that it's too easy for the top end and too hard for the bottom end of that range.

What I mean is that the lessons are either rudimentary reviews or terse introductions. Though the book is not formatted this way, it's really a series of very brief problems. If you have seen the problem before, it's a review. If you haven't, there is not enough information for you to get it from the book, so you'll have to work at it on your own. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not what I'd call instructive.

There is a lot of information squeezed into 133 pages. The book is certainly not a waste of money. I think it's most appropriate to someone who was quite proficient several years ago, maybe even a tournament player, and recently returned to the game. If that describes you, this book might remind you of a lot of what you used to know.

For me, however, the book is a disappointment. The fonts, the lay-outs, the diagrams, the binding, the organization--it all feels as if it should be very enjoyable. But for each section I've attempted, I've glided past the problems with which I am already familiar and quickly become mired in details that are over my head.

Similarly, while the book is filled with a great deal of wisdom, very little of it is amply demonstrated for the skeptical.

The main benefits to me were in the 36 combinations exercises (few of which I was able to solve without turning to the solutions) and the 26 endgame problems (which were admittedly somewhat instructive).

I recommend Better Chess for Average Players instead of this book. Or if you're not yet ready for club-level play, try something much simpler.

This book provides an "all-in-one" chess course aimed at students in the 1300 - 1750 rating range. It covers tactics, opening principles, strategic ideas (i.e. outposts, minority attack, weak squares, doubled pawns, isolated pawns, etc. etc), endgames, and practical playing tips (i.e. training, managing the clock, nerves, etc.).

All in all this is a pretty decent book. None of the 21 lessons goes into heavy detail, but rather provides a quick overview on each topic. The motivated student would probably then want to seek out other more advanced texts to further expand on the topics.

This book was written in 1985 and is a collection of 4 lessons each by 5 different British masters (20 lessons in total) covering all phases of the game- opening, endgame, tactics, positional play, and choosing candidate moves. This book bridges the gap betwen beginner and expert and is designed for players rated 1450-1750. After reading this book you would be ready for a book designed for 1750-2050 rated players such as 40 lessons for club player by Kostyev, another excellent self-instruction manual. There are also 80 test positions in total designed to test your understanding of the material in each lesson. This is a very nice work which only suffers from a slight lack of organization of the test materials, hence the 4 star rating it received.

The title of this book WAS misleading. Samantha is not a bride and she never shows up in a wedding dress like on the cover. Just because Will might be looking for a bride doesn't make Samantha one during this book. I picked it up thinking it was a wedding story and it wasn't. It was a little confusing but didn't affect how I felt about the story. The beginning of this book was good. The rest wasn't as good. I started out liking Sam a lot. She was really strong and courageous. As the story went on it ended up being too much about Will saving her over and over. She was the professional not him so it was disappointing to see a book where the man still had to save the woman. The mystery was good. I do wish Sam was kept as strong in the end as she was in the beginning.

This was a great book. But what is up with the last reviewer? Doesn't she know authors have no say in the cover art? Also, once again like the other reviewer stated mystery and bride DID have relevence in this story. Are these ladies even reading these books? Or just skimming? Plus don't most romances have the man saving the woman? I question if these are even romance readers!!

First of all, I hate to contradict the other reviewer, but the hero, Will calls Samantha a "mystery" and he is looking for a bride and knows Samantha is the one, hence the title Mystery Bride. Other reviewer was not paying close attention! Shame on you!! This is a great, fast paced , exciting book. The action never stops, the characters lovable (especially the young boy) and the heroine Samantha kick-*ss!! I read this in one sitting. Highly recommended if you love romantic suspense like I do!