This is one of the most frustrating books I know. The hand-drawn illustrations are highly atmospheric. If you are interested in identifying and understanding ethnic jewelry, it's absolutely useless, because it's impossible to see any detail of the jewelry at all. Try Haberlandt's "Traditional and Folk Jewelry" instead. On the other hand, if you're interested in jewelry in action, you're probably better off with a stack of old National Geographics. When I first read the title, I thought it was written for me, but when I saw the book itself I was deeply disappointed. Not worth waiting for

There is not a single photograph in this book, but that does not detract in the slightest from the book's usefulness in the study of ethnic jewelry.

Instead of using photographs, the author is an artist. Ger catches every tiny detail in his sketches of people wearing not only jewelry but body tattoos and fantastic costumes. In most cases, the sketches were made from photographs, some of which were very old. Wood engravings and objects from private collections are additional sources for his sketches.

The illustrations are grouped together, with only the country of origin listed under the picture. A detailed description of each item precedes the illustrations, so you have to do a bit of flipping from one section to another to learn about each picture. That's OK, though, because you can compare and contrast the styles of different cultures without distraction of text, then later go back-and-forth to learn more.

Because the illustrator is from Germany, he may not sufficiently appreciate the familiar European ethnic jewelry. Only a very few pages are devoted to Europe compared to the many pages for other parts of the world.

Beautiful, frameable drawings. I don't use it for the study of details of the jewelry, I'll admit, but these are beautiful, appreciative, loving drawings of different ethnic groups and fabulous costume.

This book treats the reader as a child. Anyone with any programming experience(including VB), would be better suited reading a book about LISP or Scheme.

The Little MLer takes the Socratic method to the extreme. The book is laid out in two columns, basically a question and an answer, and that's it. The authors make light of their subject matter, which can be entertaining, but the format definitely kills its utility as a reference. The one-page index is not very helpful. The book does take a dramatic turn in complexity around page 81, just short of the halfway point (in a book full of white space, mind you), when the truly useful fundamentals of functional programming are finally taken up, so that the reader with prior experience no longer feels coddled. It would make this book so much more useful if the authors included a reference section at the end, perhaps with the definitions of the SML '97 basis library, with which a professional can now do real-world application programming. This is a nice and at times fun introduction to ML that gives the reader a hint as to the true power and complexity of functional programming, but buyers should be aware THIS WILL NOT BE THE ONLY ML BOOK YOU WILL NEED.

This is an excellent little book that will subvert your programming style (for the better) if you read it at all closely. It teaches quite a bit about ML programming (and indeed functional programming in general) in small snippets.

Highly recommended for experienced programmers and novices alike.

The first problem with this book is the lack of Chinese characters making it virtually worthless for more advanced Chinese learners. Secondly the romanisation is not pinyin, nor any other recognisable system. Thirdly this should be entitled "making out in Taiwanese" as a good 20~30 percent of the phrases in the book would not be recognised by mainlanders.

If you want a book on Chinese slang then get either 'Mutant Mandarin' or 'Outrageous Chinese' by James Wang (China Books, San Francisco) although these include a lot of liumang and Beijing punk slang that doesn't travel well, or Li Shu Juan's 'Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Slang in China' (ISBN 962-238-222-3, Hong Kong) the only failing of which is to not always distinguish Cantonese and Northern slang.

This book is full of useful colloquial slang expressions, as well as good conversational phrases. Its sections are divided by theme (e.g., Basic Phrases, Getting Acquainted, I've Got the Munchies, etc.) which make finding phrases pretty easy.

My only gripe is that the author does NOT use standard "pinyin" phonetics to write out the Chinese words in the Roman alphabet. It seems as though he has modified the standard pinyin consenants and vowels in an effort to make it sound more like real English pronounciation. This is great for someone who has never studied Chinese using the standard pinyin system, but for some who has trained themselves to read pinyin (which is a screwy system to begin with) the phrases in the book are difficult to pronounce, and more importantly, difficult to memorize (through visual symbolic recognition based on already-learned words).

I would hope that a new revision of the book be written for standard Chinese pinyin, if possible.

P.S. The phrases and words related to sexual intercourse are in good number and detail. The author did not abstain from including even the dirtiest of phrases.

I first encountered this book on a plane to the mainland. A group of people were passing it around and laughing almost to the point of tears. They were reading the books contents and making a lot of jokes in Chinese. Later, in China, I encountered the infamous romanization system that they use there and could hardly make out a single pronounciation. Later, I bought a copy of Making Out in Chinese and was so relieved that the author did not write the pronounciations using the inane romanization system. I could actually say what I wanted to say in Chinese and be understood. I would highly recommend the book to those who hate the ping-yin system. I would also recommend the book to those who want to learn Chinese that is not taught in the classroom. A big thumbs up for Making Out in Chinese!

The book name was the adventures of "Benny and Watch".
I think this book would be good for other people to read but it was a mystery story and I don't like mystery stories.

The name of My book is The adventures of Benny watch
The children's Dad died and they were scared of their Grandpa. This is a sad and happy story.

In this first book in the series, you meet Benny, Henry, Jessie and Violet, four children whose parents have died and have no where to go. They find an abandoned boxcar and call it home. The end is more surprising than you can imagine.

This book is very long and not very interesting to read

There does not seem to be any plot at all and there are too few pictures and they are not in color.

good resource, very much encyclopedic, some outstanding authors, could benefit with color photos

It s a encyclopedic book that reviews all the known pathologies in hematology. It s basic for hematopathologists. You need it!!

This book is essentially the details of a single workflow application written with Java agents. I'd estimate over a third of the book is just the Java agents printed out in widely spaced formatting. The first quarter of the book is a very broad overview of workflow diagramming and what is Notes. The rest is the fields and forms they used, some description of the agents printed in the book, and similar things.

The book is more like a companion to the database on the cd, rather than the other way around. If you're looking for a Domino workflow application that's similar to what they wrote or for a sample of one workflow application with Java agents, then it's worth a look. Even though I buy most of my books through Amazon just based on the descriptions, you might want to flip through this one in a bookstore first; it's not what I expected from a programming book. I was through with it in less than 2 hours and I'm not a fast reader.

As a 5 year Notes/Domino veteran, I can comfortably say that I've seen most everything with Notes, the good, the bad, and just plain stupid. This book in itself is well written. It is easy to follow and understand. It gives one distinct approach to programming workflow applications. Most of the stuff in here is a very straight forward out of the box type approach. I would say that it is a good compliment to someone just finishing their APP DEV training, and wanting to get started in development.
Lotus Notes is unlike any other development platform out there. For people coming to Notes with a C++ or Visual Basic background, this book show a good approach in how to do things the "Domino" way. Too many developers out there who are used to C++ or VB end up coding all their Notes apps in LotusScript cause they dont know any better and it is easy for them. I feel that a book like this would good for them.
Okay, now the hard facts. The first two chapters cover basic Notes design elements. There isnt enough to learn Notes, and for someone with a Notes background, it is a waste of time. They should've been eliminated. Second, this book is NOT a reference. If that is what you are looking for, DONT buy it. If you are relatively new to Notes, and want to learn a solid technique, the book IS for you. Some of the techniques are good are things like admin or profile documents. Too many developers hard code everything, and dont make their programs flexible enough for normal business changes. The problem with that is that they move on, and then the customer or next developer has to spend hours trying to find out how it is set up. With profile docs, an administrator could make simple changes like adding new products or branch office to an app, w/o the need of a developer.
The bottom line is that this one approach to design from hundreds of possibilities. It is a good book to read though and do the exercises, but once you are done with it, you will probably never pick it up again.

This is a well laid out book providing a great overview of developing a workflow from start to finish. Several chapters outline the tools and techniques for analyzing the process before you start coding. You'll build a working application as the book progresses.

There is a considerable amount of JAVA code and some LotusScript used. The code is well laid out and well documented.

If you're an up and coming programmer, especially interested in JAVA, this book may be for you. If hard core programming is not your cup of tea....you'll probably want to look at one of the graphical workflow development tools for Domino.

This book is both brilliant and maddening at the same time. As a criticism of contemporary worship practices, it is second to none. Frankforter articulates his faith concisely and his pointed comments regarding the selling out of the Gospel message by much contemporary worship for the feel-good self-idolatry of pop culture is on the mark. The writing style is virtuosic in its biting wit and skilful use of metaphor, particularly the recurring motif of the "stones for bread." Contrary to reviewer C. Dunlop's opinion, Frankforter has a healthy respect for scripture and offers evidence of his breadth of knowledge with several refreshing interpretations. One does not have to be a literalist to love the scriptures.

Unfortunately, the book is seriously marred by what reviewer Fred Holper politely calls "cultural insensitivity." I would go further by saying that anyone who does not share Frankforter's Euro-centric worldview and dark brand of Presbyterian theology is discounted as suspect, illegitimate and insincere. These include "feminist theologians," Catholics who find the Marian dogma essential to their faith, Eastern religions ("Such songs [praise choruses] are not hymns, but mantras. Their purpose is ... to induce stupefaction"), and worshippers who prefer high rituals or boisterous celebrations. The Pauline letters seem to suggest that the early church gatherings were boisterous affairs. And I would submit that African-american gospel choirs produce the most sincere, most joyful expressions of faith around. According to Frankforter, this type of worship merely distracts the worshipper and dulls the senses. In fairness, Frankforter does not cite Gospel music, but he might as well: he is highly critical of rhythmic music as unsuitable for worship. Frankforter contends that hymns that focus on a person's response to God rather than the character of God are also suspect. I guess "Amazing Grace" has to be thrown out.

A book on ecumenism this is not. Sadly, Frankforter's scythe cuts down more than bogus worship practices but also different and legitimate quests for God that also share his concerns.

Daniel Frankforter's "Stones for Bread" fills a needed gap in the discussion of contemporary worship, namely, the sense that something "other" than "feelings" or "relevancy" is at stake in the worship wars. His analysis of the issues at stake in Christian worship is a tour de force, and his writing is clear, crisp and cogent. As I was reading the book, I noticed that he occasionally strayed into territory that was culturally insensitive, but it was not until his discussion of music in the later chapers that I was finally able to put into words what the problem was. In dismissing rhythm as an important consideration in the development of Christian music for worship, he finally betrayed his eurocentric perspective. Too many of us in the so-called mainline Protestant worship traditions have that bias, a bias so firmly ingrained that we can't even see it. I certainly hope that others will read this book, but its promising start is almost undone by the unfortunate cultural bias of the later chapters.

This is an important book on a subject churches need to take seriously. The author goes beneath the surface to show the weaknesses inherent in popular culture and thus the potential dangers of it for the church. Yet he does not argue that the church should never change its methods-he just says it should not do so without first knowing what it wishes to accomplish and then looking at what methods do that best, rather than starting with the methods one wishes to use. He argues from theology, from history, and even from pragmatism (the "fill-the-church-whatever-you-have-to-do" principle is at best a short-term solution; faithfulness builds stronger, more effective churches).

The one weakness of the book-a rather large one-is the author's limited respect for Scripture; his view seems to fall somewhat below infallibility, literal truth, or sola scriptura. Thus, for example, he suggests that important symbols of the church (particularly the sacraments) were based on first-century pagan rituals and given meanings that were useful to their audience, but they may need new meanings today-is that not trading bread for stones?

As to his perspective on "rhythm"-he's pretty clear that he believes the secular, sexual rhythms of rock music can't readily be used to worship God, but that's a legitimate philosophical perspective rather than Eurocentrism.

A stronger book is Marva Dawn's Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, but this one is quite good.

This book is about ten good pages and the remainder is a stream of rambling woofy ideas with very little to hold it together.

Beyond the first chapter, the content varies from the social impact of social sacrifice to how the Greek philopshers would rate modern thoughts on mass consumption.

It has very little to do with WHY people would go to a supermarket and HOW they act while they are there - nothing on causality, just lots of words joined together.

Be careful about buying this book. It's a waste of space as far as a text book to assist anyone in business - it's a first year university book for liberal arts time wasters.

This book contains a personal theory of shopping based on an ethnographic study of household provisioning in a North London neighborhood in the mid-1990s. Miller begins by describing some of the households and some of the results from his interviews on shopping. In the second chapter, he explores the literature on sacrifice, and in the third final chapter, he makes an argument that shopping and sacrifice, if not the same thing, can at least be considered comparable. His reasoning, if I understand it, is that both acts involving giving something of oneself or one's resources for the greater good.

I remain unconvinced, however. I've never given much thought to sacrifice before, but it seems to me that sacrifice involves giving something back to the deities as partial payment for a unearned favor. On the other hand, shopping seems more to be choosing to trade earned resources. For me, the comparison between shopping and sacrifice just doesn't go through, and since two thirds of the book is spent arguing for the comparison, I was a little disappointed.

Some minor quibbles: the book is definitely written from a British point of view, and some terms or expressions used in the book to describe living situations or shops will be unfamiliar to North American readers. Also, Miller puts great emphasis on the fact that most of his shoppers tend to be women, and that shopping in the environment where he did his work is an activity associated with the female gender. He relates this back to his sacrifice theory and also to feminist studies of housewives sacrificing themselves for their families. He gives very brief consideration to the fact that a predominance of female shoppers may be culturally-based, but doesn't seem to consider it seriously. Nevertheless, there are many cultures, particularly in Muslim areas and parts of Asia, where it would be unseemly for a woman to appear in the marketplace, and where men do all of the shopping, even for their families' clothing. Much of Miller's argumentation would not hold in such an environment. Thus, even if he does have something with his sacrifice/shopping comparison, it is only an artifact of the culture where he did his study, and should not be generalized beyond the shoppers of this North London neighborhood.

I couldn't believe it when I laughed out loud whilst reading this text. A strong theoretical base supports this amusing ethnography of shopping - the sort that is done week in, week out, rather than 'leisure' shopping. I highly recommend reading it from cover to cover, rather than trying to skim it as one might other academic texts. It will be of use to anyone studying material culture, social anthropology, and sociology, in that it indicates clearly not only its specific content, but also its methodology. Reading this text makes Miller's classic "Material Culture and Mass Consumption" a lot more accessible to those of us who are just starting to research this area.

I am finishing this book as I write this review, with only one more chapter left to read. My hope was that I could actually install Active Directory on Win 2000 Advanced Server RC2, and intelligently configure a Windows 2000 LAN. This book did NOT help me to realize this goal. Perhaps my expectations were out of line. If you are looking for hands-on examples and practical advice, as well as a conceptual framework for AD, you will NOT find that information here. You will find high-level discussions of many complex technologies, but no real detail on any of them. The conceptual information is barely acceptable, but may satisfy non-technical practitioners. Another reviewer commented on tiresome and redundant repetition of AD concepts, and I did find this to be the case. O'Reilly has an Active Directory title slated for release in January that looks much more promising, assum

To it's credit, this book was helpful to internalize the replication and security principles of AD. And understandably, some people would rather sit down with a book than read online documentation. But like 80% of the books out there, I've read most of Microsoft's white papers on the subject, and unfortunately, I didn't gain much more from this book. While it has many helpful facts, those facts are readily accessible from AD docs. The other problem I have is the fact that certain facts are repeated six, seven, even eight times. The first seven chapters could have been pared down to two. Granted, I'm sure it was a push to get the book done as quickly as possible to keep the info current, but I'm going searching for a better work.

Like all of the Strategic Technologies series titles, Understanding Active Directory Services is a good introduction to a complex topic. Daniel Blum does a good job of taking the reader through the Directory services space and explains Microsoft's implementation strategy. It is a good primer for IT decision-makers and MIS managers in the enterprise. While it is not a step-by-step reference for implementing Active Directory, it does give a methodology and best practices explanation to help organize and prepare for such a massive undertaking.

This book is at the emotional level of a third grader. There is no concept of suspense, realistic events, or realistic characters. The plot moves like molasses and Peaches Dann speaks to us as if she has no faults (besides her cutesy memory problem). There is no emotion in this story whatsoever. Someone killed my aunt, and is trying to kill me? I'm not going to show any emotion or hide out. I'm going to be stupid and hang around investigating! My latest amazement comes from the fact that it ships in 24 hours from amazon - while reading it, I was somewhat amazed that it was ever published. To sum up, the bright spots of the book were a cat and uhh, the other cat.

Peaches Dann is used to her father's paranoid outbursts, so she only goes out to check the pond to humor him. Much to her dismay, she finds that her father was right this time. Her Aunt Nancy's body is lying face down in the water. But who could have wanted to kill her aunt? Or was Peaches the intended victim, since she and the victim have similar dresses. Then another murder takes place, in a trap most likely meant for Peaches. What does it all mean? Peaches will have to use every memory trick she's learned over the years to figure this one out.

With a title like this book has, I went in expecting a cozy mystery and was not disappointed in that regard. The book could have been better overall, however. The plot moves along at a slow pace and I really struggled to get into it. While there are several likeable characters, I also found myself irritated by many of them. The references to Peaches' poor memory (which I didn't think was nearly as bad as it was made out to be) and excerpts from her "book" on memory techniques were also overdone.

Peaches is certainly a pleasant character. I'll probably give the author another try to see if she developed as a mystery writer. Not my favorite book read this year, but I've certainly read worse.

I was saddened to read the above review about the late Elizabeth Squire's work. The person obviously doesn't like cozies. With her permission, I was happy to include a counter review that was posted on Dorothy L recently. This book begins the absent minded sleuth Peaches Dann series, which includes 6 other books, all of which were reviewed most favorably by numerous literary critics and fans. Why else would there be so many! I hope future readers will not be diswayed by the above review and keep the legacy of Peaches Dann and her author alive for many years to come. Just remember ... these are cozies! Enjoy the ride!