"Skating the Edge" is about hockey and the power it wields over an assortment of people who love the game.
Calvin Daniels' seven short stories look into the hearts of boys and men who skate the edge of hope and fear or winning and losing as they work to achieve their dream of playing in the National Hockey League. Each story examines the hard choices players, parents or fans have to make to succeed in hockey or life.
Starting with "Beyond the Ice," Daniels describes the terrible price a player must pay for acting out his violent impulses. Another, "The Long Road," shows how a twist of fate - a career ending injury - can destroy a dream, but provide another chance for success for one alert enough to see it.
"The Puck" describes the power of a souvenir to trigger memories of a broken marriage and a tragic death, where hockey was the major emotional tie between a father and son. "The Woman behind the Mask" reveals the superstitious nature of hockey players and tells of the unholy bargains some are willing to make to achieve stardom and win games.
Daniels writes stories with heart and each reveals intriguing aspects of players' dreams and fears, and exposes the price they are willing to pay in order to succeed in professional hockey. He writes with sensitivity and insights into people and hockey and "Skating the Edge" is worthy of the attention of all sports fans.

An excellent reference for anyone considering starting a business as an S-Corporation. This book contained all the necessary incorporation forms, as well as checklists that helped you complete the process. I found especially valuable the marketing plan worksheet, which helped determine whether the business idea was viable. The only downside of the manual was the sparse information given on state by state corporation laws. For instance, it would have been helpful to have the Internet addresses for each state's corporation department. The state that I reside in had state specific forms on it's Web page which could be downloaded for no fee.

Sody Salleratus has the feel of an old-fashioned tale from the mountains, with the impatient old woman sending out one family member after another to get the "sody salleratus" (baking soda) she needs to make a big batch of biscuits for all of them--including the hungry, chittery family squirrel. And, after the rest of the family has several rather disastrous encounters with a big bad bear, guess who finally saves the day, and gets most of the biscuits for itself! I loved the rich, lilting language that, along with the lovely illustrations, brings the characters to life. Try this book, and don't forget to try the old woman's sody salleratus biscuits--the recipe's included. They're wonderful.

This new Miller's Guide is a very special one. Leyla Maniera and David Agnew present a various range of soft toys, classified in several chapters as animals, disney characters, comic characters, oddities, manufacterers, care & restoration. Many of the described toys are very unusual and you won't know many of them from other collector's guides. Beside nice photos, the descriptions contains informations about the manufacter, the history of origin and a valuation. This is the only point I would like to criticize: the valuations are not very helpful.

But summing up, it may be said that this soft toy guide is highly recommended!

The precise language of logic has so many uses in computer science, it is sometimes surprising that it is not more widely used. Ambiguity is a recurring problem in writing everything from the initial specifications to the final documentation. The formal statements of logic are by nature unambiguous, which would eliminate most of the problems of imprecision. However, there are two major obstacles to the widespread adoption of the language of logic:

1) Very few programmers understand the formal language and most do not have time to learn it.
2) If logic were to be used, it would require the writing of almost another complete set of specifications. Most programmers don't have time to write or won't write standard documentation Expecting a formal set is asking for more than can normally be delivered.

Despite this stiff mass of resistance, there are uses for formal logic, and many of those uses are described in this book. Most of the standard structures of software modeling are described using formal logic structures. If you do not have some experience in formal logic, then you will find most of this book very difficult to understand. However, if you have had the pleasure of some study in logic, then you will appreciate the conciseness and precision of the models that are constructed. To the initiated, they allow for the creation of some very elegant descriptions of what software is supposed to do.
All of the fundamental areas of logic in application to computer science are covered. Each chapter concludes with a set of exercises and solutions are included in an appendix. This book would be an ideal one for an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate course in logic applied to computer science. To the extent that programming is mentioned, the languages are Lisp and Prolog.
Formal logic is sorely underutilized in computer science. Writing formal descriptions of your models and code demands a degree of intellectual rigor that cannot be achieved any other way. It is clear that the only true path to correct software is to be intellectually precise and the models in this book will help you do that.

This is a fairly comprehensive text that is useful for the professional as well as the graduate student interested in rounding out their personal library. I have used this book frequently over the past three years working on projects in the Pacific Northwest and California. The price is a bit high but worth it.

This book is a great guide to achieving the dream of starting your own business. Once that's done - it's time to start marketing by developing a *personal* publicity plan. To position your new business, you have to position YOURSELF. Bottom line is that people have to know who you are, what you stand for, and why they should do business with you.

Daniel Adams' The Solo Snare Drum came out in the year 2000 from the publication house of HoneyRock Press. This book is 125 pages long. It was written by a composer and percussionist who teaches music at Texas Southern University.

Some music books are for listeners, and others are for performers. Listeners might get a kick out of certain parts of this book, for Adams has a very funny writing style. He describes, for example, the proverbial « inept and perhaps ill-advised snare drummer flailing away in the hind quarters of the junior high school band » and some other images that are either familiar teachers' nightmares or otherwise autobiographical. Also, though most of the pieces that he reviews really deserve to be taken seriously, some of the ones that he reviews, especially the one with the soda can, the television, and the socks, are, if nothing else, surely good for more than a few laughs.

But this book is really a book for performers, and particularly for those who are really interested in relating different styles of music to the snare drum and maximizing what can be done with this instrument. A lot of what the book describes is relevant to a variety of drums, not just the snare. He talks about various systems of notation, the often underestimated potential of the snare in particular ( but what he says about the snare could really apply to a lot of types of drums in general ) and summarizes the « left hand / « right hand » versus « strong hand » / « weak hand » issue in how composers direct drummers, that kind of thing. He also deals with the importance of distinguishing « improvisation » from « indeterminance, » and with such issues as the virtually limitless variety of options that perfomers have in choosing what kind of mallet, if any, to use. Some parts of the book really are for those who are especially concerned with the snare in particular, for example, the chapter « Snare On / Snare Off » pretty much fits this description. One of the most interesting points that he makes about the snare is that it is so often treated as a kind of a step-child, and yet despite this has a unique cross-over potential that really distinguishes it from a whole lot of other instruments. Come to think of it, how many instruments can be in the Symphony Orchestra, the Military Marching band, the Jazz Band, the Salsa Band, and the Rock and Roll Group all at the same time ? What better way to fuse these seemingly incongruous styles together than to exploit the potential of an instrument that is equally at home with all of these genres ? Also, as Adams points out, the snare, when in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, and he cites various composers and performers whose pieces and performances indicate that they do, has some unique qualities that link it with the tabla, the timbale, etc. If you know how to manipulate this one instrument, you can pretty much simulate some of the musical possibilities of others. In other words, for the musician who wants to incorporate the sounds of these instruments without cluttering the stage with a plethora of exotic instruments, this may be just the book.

On the whole, what gives this book its charm is its erudition ( he draws on dozens of snare drum performance pieces in detailing the potential of the instrument ), as well as its exploration of the high level of potential in something that has normally been devalued. It is this « ugly duckling » quality that he does a great job in dealing with. One of the only problems with the book is the lack of historicity to the snare. Where does it come from and what were its original intentions ? This is not dealt with very much. Is this an instrumant that started out as something very different than what it can potentially become, or is this an instrument that at one time had a proud history that has now been consigned to oblivion and that must be revived ? Someone who is dealing with the value of a musical instrument should acquaint those of us who don't know all about that particular instrument with whether it has arisen out of nowhere or some kind of a base origin, or whether it is a kind of fallen aristocrat whose nobility finally needs to be reclaimed. These kinds of things should be dealt with a bit more. But this is really a minor quibble with a really intelligent book that has a lot of practical value to musicians.

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

I seldom get a book which can reflect the rapid change of the design methodology. But I do think other books written by Gajski are very excellent. So, after I reading this book, I will post more detail review about it.