Abysmal. Beyond introducing some previously unreported biographical minutiae, this volume adds nothing to what has been previously written about this great artist. It is claimed but not demonstrated that Lester has been misunderstood by "Eurocentric" critics. The book is poorly organized and often badly written-some of it reads like a junior high term paper. Here's the amateurish opening sentence: "Lester 'Pres' (or 'Prez') Young (1909-1959) was without question one of the most influential tenor saxophonists of the twentieth century."
It often seems that author, a professor of history and Black Studies, has chosen his subject arbitrarily. The book is filled with digressions and generalizations about the black American experience; Jim Crow, West African culture, etc. that are not specific to an understanding of Lester Young any more than to any other black musician of his era. That Lester was black does not "explain" him any more than it does less talented black musicians of his era for whom no claim to genius or eccentricity is made. Lester's "alleged inscrutability" is seen by Daniels as a reaction to racial oppression; is it not possible other factors shaped his personality and music?
There is little discussion of Lester's work; most of his greatest solos go unmentioned. The author's lack of comprehension of Lester's style is reflected in such preposterous statements as the claim (p.152) that he brought to the tenor sax the same techniques Lonnie Johnson and Robert Johnson used on guitar. (He seems to be referring to Lester's use of repeated notes with alternate fingerings, not characteristic of either Johnson. Lester has little in common with these guitarists,certainly no more than other saxophonists who played the blues.)
Daniels demonstrates no understanding, musical or emotional, of wherein Lester's greatness lies, or how his playing was a departure from that of Coleman Hawkins.

Unfortunately, this is not the great full, musically, and factually satisfying book I hoped it would be when I bought it. Still if you love Pres, you do need this book.

Everything the other comments say negative about this book is true. I say this as an academic who has written texts that have been used in Black studies for decades. I do find his comments about racism and reception of Young and his attempt to draw on comment on Young in the Black press to be interesting and to the general point. However, to explain why these forces had one effect on Lester Young, and say another effect on Duke Ellington is the real task of a biographer.

Daniels sounds like a neo conservative of the Albert Murray Wynton Marsalis variety. He tries to shoehorn Lester Young into his own beliefs in the strength of traditional conservative Black middle class culture and institutions regardless of the facts. To do this, Daniels goes off on long digressions where any practical information about or reference to Lester Young disappears, and instead we suffer under Daniels's blather.

For example, even though Lester quit school in the fourth grade and always said he hated school, Daniels tries to paint Lester's success as a product of his parents stressing the importance of education (LOL). Even though Lester stopped going to church as soon as he was old enough not to get a licking for it, Daniels tries to paint him as a product of his own fairy tale view of the "Black Church."

There little sytematic discussion of Lester's music, his saxophone playing as it relates to the real art of the saxophone, or of Jazz and popular music. There is no commentary on some of the more interesting studies of Lester's music: Günter Schuler's analysis in his Swing book comes to mind. In fact there is almost no discussion of Lester Young's real role in the Count Basie Orchestra on a musical level. This, the central part of Lester's work, is simply brushed aside.

Aside from the interesting comments about his relations with his family that mainly come from Daniel's hard work locating and interviewing friends and family of Lester Young, Lester Young's personality seems to disappear as the book procedes. What we get instead are excuses for Daniels to launch on 5-10-20 page essays on his views about African American culture, racism in America, the strength of the Black middle class, and other topics.

Even Daniels does not believe the reader can really understand Lester Young by reading this huge expensive tome. He constantly refers to matters that he expects the reader to already know about fully from somewhere else. He leaves out so many things and he has a number of factual errors. He seems to be ignorant of a lot of things that are available in other texts on the subject that would support his arguments as well as stuff that would not

One droll example is that in an interview about continuing swing bands in the 1950s, Pres sarcastically answered, "Bob Crosby is still swinging." Daniels is so ignorant of Lester Young and music that he takes this statement for good coin about Pres's appreciation of the Bobcats. Daniels' is ignorant of the obvious sarcasm in the remark. Pres considered Bob Crosby so square that he used "Bob Crosby" his nickname for narks! If he needed to inform a fellow pot lover to lay low because of a narc, Lester would say, "Bob Crosby is here." If the heat was heavy, Pres would say, "Yeah and his brother Bing too!" Isn't there someone who really knows about Lester Young and loves him enough not to make such mistakes able to get a research grant and a book contract to write the book this should have been?

What is good about this book is that Daniels has unearthed a lot of material about Lester's family, his growing up, and how relatives and other musicians viewed him personally. The portrait of Lester personally is much more like what people I have met who knew or met him have given than what any other book has given us.
He does provide some information, though scant, about Lester's marriages and female affiliations,

Even in this regard facts that are apparent in other texts that would question the picture of Pres as simply a family loving, square representative of Black middle class values that loved family and golf and had a good relationship with his wives all along are neglected. For example Daniels briefly mentions Elaine Swain, the woman who lived with and helped out Pres in every way in the last years of his life when Pres left his wife, home, and kids and moved into the Alvin Hotel in Manhatten. Daniels says nothing about Swain's relationship with Pres. He really doesn't seem to know that other sources indicate that Lester's scene had gotten so far Daniels' picture of Pres's supposed suburban bliss that Swain shoplifted to support Pres during those final days.

Daniel's tries to defend Pres's post war music against those who claim it deteriorated. I agree about that, and find Lester's Last regular recording, Laughing Just to Keep from Crying a masterpiece: it stayed replaying on my CD player a full day after I got it. However, Daniels just doesn't know enough about music to provide a real description of the place of his later music and its relationship to Pres's art as a whole and the history of Jazz. Daniels has nothing to say about Pres's self-destructive drinking other than to say other musicians and Barrymore were alcoholics. Because he is simply ignorant of Jazz and music, he can't really point out the great albums in Young's post war work like that one and The Jazz Giants, or for that matter the great cuts on his work with basie and Billie before the war either!

The information on the family and personal life--taken with a grain of salt and only accepted where Daniels is presenting documented information about Lester Young as opposed to his own general ideas--is useful, but only if it is added to other work on Lester.

Again, isn't there someone else who loves lester young, is really familiar with the literature about Lester Young, knows enough about Jazz music to write intelligently about the music, and who cares enough to write the book this should have been.

Douglas Daniels should be congratulated for digging deep in researching Lester Young's early ways with his father. The Minneapolis days are also explored, as well as the importance of group comradeship in the Kansas City Seven. Interviews with sidemen dispel the myth of a decline after WW II, and I would have appreciated more quotes from these interviews.

Some common themes throughout the book are the impact of race in the south and in touring and booking policies. Pres's integrity, independence, and perhaps stoicism is highlighted. The importance of Lester to swing, bebop, cool, and the "beat-nicks" is obvious in the well-written last "Legacy" chapter. Throughout the book one gets the historical feel of the history of Jazz from Minstrel to King Oliver to Basie to Jazz at the Philharmonic.

There are weaknesses in the book. Young left few written letters and had few interviews, but there are many cases where Daniels infers inner thoughts from external surroundings.... for example "Oliver was a father figure to Young". Daniels' style is academic, and the dryness doesn't always work well for a true individual like Pres. The narrative would have benefited from more antidotes and quotes from Lester, particularly with respect to his relation with Billy Holiday. More emphasis on Lester's musical style and important recordings would have been expected, and a complete discography with sidemen, would have been more beneficial than the over 100 pages of notes.

Consider the following statement from page 256. Here's some "early lessons" from the "new economy":

Dot-com startups as well as clicks-and-mortar strategies can be viable for B2B for B2C ecommerce if the applications leverage Internet technologies AND a marketplace strength.

Aren't you glad you bought the book? You ALSO need a marketplace strength to be successful, not just the Internet stuff. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?

This text has a tendancy to give misleading information or entirely incorrect information. Even in the most basic concepts, the authors misuse terms or create terms used nowhere else in the IT industry. The authors relay their lack of understanding for basic computer concepts in this supposedly 2001 updated edition.

As an example for those who are literate in IT, the authors make statements such as "virtual memory is used only on larger computer systems". Got a 6 year old computer running MS Windows? You've got virtual memory.

If you wish to learn about IT, please find another book written by authors who understand the field, not business professors.

I am finding this book as an extremely useful reference tool for writing my senior thesis at Rutgers University (NJ) on the Internet and B2B transactions. I find it very easy to read and useful, and some of the case studies are very interesting and helpful. Some of the other buyers don't seem to think the book is worth its price but I STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH THEM. I believe the book is worth its price.

This is for beginners only. Examples and explainations are very simplistic and do not provide the detail necessary for creating a real world messaging application. Much effort is expended providing information on using the Visual Basic IDE and on creating a UI. The code examples also demonstrate poor programming practices. I would not recommend this book to anyone. If you would like a good MSMQ reference buy Designing Applications with MSMQ by Alan Dickman. It is not perfect but is the most comprehensive text on MSMQ that I have read so far.

I started MSMQ a month ago and found this book quite useful for novice like me. It starts with concepts and them implement it in the following chapters.

Sometimes find it a bit hard to follow as the steps are not given in full.

Does not include info to set up the MSMQ environment properly as this is also very much helpful for beginner.

Conclusion : 3 stars book. Could be further improved.

The first chapter serves as a precursor to the remaining book. It details the features, functionalities, and benefits of message queueing. The book gives the reader a solid foundation on message queuing in which to build upon. It is easy to read, with examples throughout. It successfully conveys the power of message queuing in an enterprise environment, where it's role is paramount. Now, we are ready for the second book to take us farther into distributed applications as a business solution for complex integration issues. We can expect the sequel when? :)

First off, this is not a book for professional projects. The topics that the author discuss are very basic and not really pointing out any key concept. This book is more appropriate with the title such as 'Beginner Guide to PHP'. There are also typos throughtout the entire book. I spent more time correcting the errors in the code sample than graspping the concept itself. Not to mention that the examples layout on the page are very unorganized, the book doesn't make good use of margin and tabs. The screen captures are not very well prepared. Good book to read for fun or freshing up on PHP, but definetely not for professional projects.

This book is very incomplete. It is very brief on key issues, I can never find what I'm looking for.

This book was a great disappointment! I am building a large application in PHP and was looking for some good project planning strategies and patterns. Instead I found the usual shopping cart examples written as if for a small scale project. The code snippets are full of white space and a few lines of code takes up an entire page, hence it is hard to follow. What little code I did try was full of errors and bad syntax. This book does not have a CD with it so you must type in all the code that you may want to start with. I suggest the book 'Web Applications Development with PHP 4.0' for your true professional projects.

This book is a decent effort.
However, there are more interesting alternatives.

If you are totally new to programming, HTDP ( How to design programs )by Shriram Krishnamurthy , published by MIT press is superb. It is expecially useful if you are using the superb
"Dr Scheme" programming envirnoment.

An online version can be read at ...

If you have programmed before, either Abelson and Susman's
SICP or Dorai Sitaram's online "Teach yourself Scheme in fixnum
days" are both excellent.

As an undergraduate, I was subjected to this book by its author.
We were forced to buy it but never used it.
Wow. Let me be blunt and say that this book is quite possibly the poorest CS book I have ever read.
The book is worthless as an introduction because of its meandering structure and poor code comments/explanations.
The writing style is obfuscated and quite patronizing. Additionally, there is no solutions guide for the exercises, which is essential for an introductory book of this nature.

It's also worthless as a language resource because it doesn't touch on intermediate and commonly used concepts with enough detail.

Unlike some other objective CS Programming Languages books, the bias of the author is obvious and painful and he spends most of his time rambling on about how beautiful the language is and how elegant solutions can be contrived in Scheme rather than presenting concrete and illustrative applications.

If you need an introductory Scheme book, buy "The Little Schemer" by Friedman. Don't waste a cent on this book.
Scheme may be a great language but it is not served well
by this book at all.

THE IBSN AT THIS SITE REFERS TO "SCHEME AND THE ART OF PROGRAMMING" by GEORGE SPRINGER & DANIEL P. FRIEDMAN (IBSN#007060522x). THIS BOOK HAS A NEW REVISION IN 1995. IT IS COMPLETE AND CONCISE ON SCHEME. BE SURE TO GET THE 1995 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY EDITION, AND NOT THE 1989 VERSION.

This Jewish author knows nothing about Syria's history. In fact after looking into his other works and watching this Jewish propogandist on Televesion, I concluded that you will be better off talking politic with your dog. This way,you will have a more objective assesment of facts.

An utter scholastic failure. Pipes lets his unfettered love for Israel get in the way.

Daniel Pipes claims that pan-Syrianism has not received the scholarly attention it deserves because most Middle East scholars focus on pan-Arabism. Pan-Syrianism is defined as the goal of uniting lesser Syria (current borders), Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan (and sometimes Iraq) into what is called Greater Syria. Approximately half of the book is quotations from politicians, writers, clerics, from Syria, other Arab countries, and Europe. The citations have one goal - to show that pan-Syrianism has been a significant ideology in influencing players in Syria and neighboring countries before and after colonialism. The rest of the book consists of a narrative of the British/French/Arab/Maronite/Alawite participation in creating the borders of Syria, the Baath party and other political groups, relations between the minorities in Syria and the Sunni Muslim majority, relations between Syria and its neighboring countries (especially Lebanon), and the coups in Syria. The sheer number of quotes can get in the way after awhile, but the side benefit is extensive footnotes of primary and secondary sources on the history of modern Syria.
By the way, it did not contain too much about Israel, except the claim that minority status of the ruling 'Alawi minority would probably have been indifferent to Israel except for their desire to avoid the charge from the Sunni Muslim majority of been pro-Zionist; and a few quotes from Israelis about pan-Syrianism. I saw nothing that could be construed as anti-Arab or pro-Israel.
Whether one agrees or not with his thesis about pan-Syrianism's importance in shaping the political history of the region, the book was a good introduction to modern Syria's political history.

I am not sure what the authors of this book were trying to do, but they definitely did not succeed in writing a historically accurate guide of Rome. The authors make unsuccessful attempts at humor, and fill the pages of this book with several glaring grammatical errors: Ex: "As the spiritual leader of millions of Catholics around the world, the pope's influence..." The dependent clause in the first part of the sentence is modified by "the pope's influence." How can the pope's influence be a spiritual leader? I don't even want to go into the "humor," because that is even worse. Usually, Let's Go guides are very witty. This guide was NOT funny, and Let's Go should find new authors. The guide had SOME useful info, and enabled me to get around the city okay, but the guide lacked the kind of historical information about Rome that one finds in the Eyewitness Guides for example. As a matter of fact, it appears that much of Let's Go Rome was derived from better-written, more historically accurate guides. There are definitely better guidebooks on the Eternal City than this one.

I loved this edition of Let's Go. A delightful, lighthearted introduction to Rome and its history, the book provides helpful suggestions and clear maps.

I had the opportunity to visit Rome in October 1999, and I took the 1999 Let's Go Rome guide along with me. I've also had a chance to review this one. I was quite happy with the recommendations of restaurants and sights. Except for a single case, all the restaurants were enjoyable and reasonably priced. Make sure you go to Margutta Vegetariano RistorArte (sic), close to the Spanish Steps. This vegetarian restaurant has the most stunning foor imaginable. I'm not a vegetarian, but I could be after that experience. (And I'm not even being paid to say this!) Just one of the treasures the guidebook pointed out. Also, if you're going for a week or two, I'd stay in the city. I spent four days in the Vatican Museum alone, and saw about half of it. There's more than enough to do and see without spending your time on a train going somewhere else in Italy. You might want to save Florence, Venice and other cities for another trip! I highly recommend this book as a thorough guide to the city, rather than the 10 pages you'll find in some "Visit Europe" compendium.

This book is not an introduction book. If you have little or no programming experience, do not buy this book. Other than being overpriced, the author introduces topics that are way too advanced for the beginner. This book is probably better for individuals that have some background in programming. Save yourself the money and find another book. The author should really consider revising this book. I think he has lost touch with the readers of his text in calling it an "Intro" book. I found other books at 1/3 the price that was much better. Total waste of money!

I am presently taking a Java course using this book and I cannot understand how anyone found that this book was well written or easy to understand. The author adds unnecessary elements to most of his examples, which confuses the reader, especially when the example is dealing with an abstract concept. I'm up to chapter 8 now and doing well in the course, despite the shortcomings of this book. At this point I find the book to be mediocre at best. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone, especially if you haven't had any programming experience. I'm sure there are better and CHEAPER books out there on Java.

I am a computer science student and have programmed in numerous languages including BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, HP SPL, C, and DELPHI (PASCAL). The course I am following based on this text is my first exposure to Java and Borland's JBuilder. While the text provides many sample programs, the applications are very specific and rather contrived. If you are an experienced programmer new to Java, you will find this text to be a poor reference. The skills most important to getting started with JBuilder, creating a new project and managing the files, are dealt with very summarily and may end up causing you hours of frustration. If you're planning to learn at home, I suggest searching a bit farther before settling for this book.

While I know what Web Services are and how they could help me, the code examples in the book are really bad. For one, it feels that some of the code was written by one person and explained by another. Also, the lack of continuity in code style decreases after each chapter (obviously from all the different people that wrote this thing). Some of the introduction chapters were well written, only because they didn't talk about code so much. This book's major failure was the lack of case studies. So Wrox.. with no case studies or quality examples, why should we buy your cheap book?

I think it's a nice book, good job! It introduces wide range about the relationship between PHP and the web services, it's a good base to start. However I have to tell, that there are some bugs (or the descriptions are not clear, don't know) in the example sources, for example I've found one in the chapter about security (Chapter 6).

This is a problem, but with it, I still could recommend this book for everybody not familiar with Web Services, and would like to learn all the related technologies. As it is true at other books, too: you can learn all these things from the web, but you can just find these together in this (or other) book, and you can read it conveniently at your bed with your girlfriend. :)

The content in this book simply rawks - all the latest information on how you can do web services using PHP.There is a wealth on information on how you can use PHP and SOAP (using popular libraries such as NuSOAP, PEAR::SOAP and ezSOAP), PHP and SOAP's front-runner (XML-RPC), how you can discover web services using UDDI. Infact, there is a quality library for PHP::UDDI, that was created for the book, and which the authors have very kindly hosted on sourceforge (phpuddi.sourceforge.net/).

This is *the* book on the subject. Check it out today.

The cover art represents a scene in which a hobbit like myself would find comfortable. That is where the pleasure ends.

Hobbits of the Shire (and of Bree) owe a great debt of gratitude to Professor J.R.R. Tolkien for allowing Big People to see and appreciate our world and our lives. This volume shows no respect to the Professor at all, and by extension, shows us no respect as well.

Hobbits understand family and family life. Hobbits understand privacy. Mr. Grotta apparently understands neither, preferring to denigrate the Professor and his family for not providing access to family papers. I'm sorry, Mr. Grotta, the Professor's family has chosen an authorized biographer -- and you are not it. Accept that fact, and make contributions (if you have any) in other areas of Tolkien lore.

I urge all hobbits to stay away from this volume, and suggest that the purchase of Mr. Carpenter's books "JRR Tolkien", "The Inklings", and "The Letters of JRR Tolkien" would be a wiser use of money.

Mr. Grotta is definitely NOT invited to tea.

I must say that as a college student I would like to have my 15 dollars returned to me from the purchase of this book. Although there are some interesting "facts" in this book, it is largely not credible. I believe Grotta used questionable resources in compiling this biography which Tolkien himself refutes in many of his letters. i.e. Grotta writes of Tolkien's garage work shop on Sandfield Rd., which in "The Letters of..." Tolkien himself states that he "...had never written any literary matter in it..." and that the room was only used by his secretary. Grotta was clearly perturbed at his lack of "access" and seemed to want to portray one of the most prolific writers in history as a "lazy" individual. Obviously Grotta has never balanced a teaching post at Oxford, an ill wife, several children, along with creating one of the most fully imagined "secondary worlds" ever created. Hats of to all things Middle Earth and Grotta back to the drawing board.

I'm ordering a second copy for a dear friend. It's an easy read but is perfect for introducing someone who knows little of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, others. I paged through the "authorized biography" (Grotta is not the "authorized" Tolkien biographer) at the bookstore and my first impression was that the "authorized"version was a bit verbose and certainly not as elegant; I also appreciate biographies by authors not given special access by the family -- one always wonders where allegiances lie. If you are already quite familiar with "Tolk" this book probably has little to offer; but as a first book for someone who has been caught up in the recent movie trilogy, this is where I would start.