While the Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving is a very informative book, it is not the "heavy" reading that one might expect from a PADI manual. The terminoligy and concepts covered in this book nicely suppliment what one learns throughout the recreational diving classes -- novice open water dives, advanced techniques, underwater navigation, and rescue techniques.

I recommend this for divers who have gone through open water and advanced classes (and even Rescue), feeling that they did not get all they could out of the classes and textbook. This book is a must for those wishing to seek a professional dive rating (divemaster and higher), or pursue technical dive certifications.

Great book for the beginner who needs to learn the real fundementals of the game. This book uses a lot of pictures to teach proper grip, swings, techniques, and how to correct these when they are in error.

As a guide to Gnu autoconf, automake and libtool, this book is quite useless. It is utterly and totally disorganized, and much essential information is just not there at all. So don't bother with it if you want to learn about any of those subjects. The book is not entirely without merit, however. Its redeeming features are scattered sensible comments about software portability and software architecture.

The authors are obviously very knowledgable and experienced about software. I encourage them to "throw this one away" and try a rewrite from scratch. Short of that, they could provide a road map through their book; first read this chapter, then skip to the second half of that one, etc.

The sad news is that there may not be any good guide to autoconf etc anywhere yet. Like the DNA in your body, all autoconf files are very likely descended by an evolutionary process from a few original specimens.

I had originally bought this book so that I could maintain a GNU autotools based build system for a company I was doing CM for at the time. I was basically a kid, and didn't have any professional C development background, and after reading the first several chapters, I was thinking to myself "This book is unnecessairly hard to understand, I just want to know how to use autoconf, show me a listing of the macros, etc, not this other, preipheral sic shell stuff!"

Months later, and after doing some actual Linux C development myself (a command interpreter, no less), I came back to this book, and was able to get a lot more out of it. Just be aware that it is geared toward someone doing really involved open-source/GPL'd C development.

This book may have been better if each feature of the autotools were discussed in a more abstract way, without following the development of this sic shell. It is interesting, but that kind of orginisation forces you to read it from front to end to effectively understand it, which of course you SHOULD do, but it's at the expense of being a solid reference. It's no biggie, though, because the free GNU documentation fills that gap.

... this is your lifeline.

I sit here, staring at a messy Makefile.am and let me tell you, the future is looking pretty bleak. Imagine the rainiest day, the most miserably cold weather, the most awful meal you've had to eat and say tasted great: for some, the pain of dealing with cross platform Makefiles is exponentially worse.

I thank all the authors of this book every time I try to do something impossible within the constraints of GNU make syntax.

This book clearly explains Makefile syntax. Then, it explains how to automate it all with GNU autotools. Then, it provides a bunch more information. I think this book is clear and well-informed, and I find myself turning to it instead of the on-line manuals. (Note, this book is available on line as well, for free. Buy it anyway.) Some of the details may be lost on people not doing serious, cross platform Unix development, but the read is still highly recommended.

For those still think mulletts are cool, writing Z80 asm is "fun," that women and cooties are inseperable, and that real programmers write their own damn Makefiles, I offer my sincerest sympathies. The first step is admitting you have a problem. The second step is getting this book.

Godspeed.

I am a bit new to the Civil War history ranks, but I have read several books over the last few years. I just completed Grant's memoirs, and decided I needed more information about Lee, hence this book. I could not rate it higher, due to the apparent inaccuracies (too many to detail, primarily with regard to numbers in the ranks and casualties), and the racist attitude that prevails. Taylor was clearly a loyal soldier, and true to his cause, but his mis-guided attack on General Longstreet became tiresome.

Walter Taylor offers a great perspective into the charater of General Lee, the ability of his subordinates, and the fighting courage of the army itself. Taylor's book should be read by any Civil War buff since Taylor was actually there as Lee's adjutant general. While those critical of Lee may find Taylor to be too defensive and loyal to Lee, one can only continue to admire the Greatest General of the Civil War. I like to take in both sides of the issue concerning Lee, but I have found that Lee was an able, moral, and intelligent leader with weaknesses like every human. The only reason I didn't give this book a five is because of Taylor's subtle criticism of General Longstreet, while he does give him deserved credit.

This book on Shakespeare is the obvious result of a lot research from an author who knows his subject as well as anyone. Yet it is a disappointing book as Taylor is simply at war with himself. After a lifetime studying Shakespeare, he attempts to remove from the center of the Canon- with a capital C. He fails. It is a closely argued book, but quite often during the course of it you felt that you were hearing only one side of the debate.

He quotes every whine or weaze at Shakespeare that he can find. For example, he quotes Tolstoy and his famous dislike of the bard. Not mentioning that he hated Lear because he could see direct parallels in his own life. He quotes Shaw, but does not mention that he hated Shakespeare, partly, because he was considered to be the better playwright. Something Shaw could not abide.

Taylor in his desperation to attack Shakespeare uses any weapon at his disposal, including a motley collection of post modern whines and textual gripes.

No one is allowed to be great anymore and while modern English Literature criticism is hell bent on destroying the pleasure of reading and watching Shakespeare, people will continue to do so as academics like Taylor become more and more remote from what they are writing about. Read this and then Bloom for some sensible writing about Shakespeare.

Taylor is at war with himself, and it is a mess of a book.

Taylor's survey of Shakespearean adaptations and performance is engagingly written, filled with little revealing details, and opinionated without being biased. It's certainly NOT a Bard-bashing book, though it's not reverent in its discussions of Shakespeare. It's the place to start if you're interested in a one-volume history of Shakespearean adaptation. The last section of the book, on contemporary Shakespeare and written in an arch tone, isn't as interesting, at least to a non-academic. And one might argue that the book is rather Euro-centric: see Dennis Kennedy's Foreign Shakespeare as a good supplement. Even so, it's an essential book for any person interested in Shakespeare and cultural change. You'll think differently about Shakespeare after reading it.

I have not read this book but I am a real life Eunuch. I had my testicles surgically removed. In an Interview on Salon.com the author says "Castration does not get rid of the sexual drive, get rid of erections or any amount of sexual activity." WRONG!!! How would he know any way? He is NOT a Eunuch. He has had a vasectomy but that is totally different. I can speak from experience; when a man becomes a eunuch his sex drive drops to absolute zero. I had a very strong sex drive prior to castration but it is now completely gone. The only way for a Eunuch to regain his sex drive is to take some form of testosterone replacement. I have never heard of any real life Eunuch who was not on testosterone replacement therapy that had a sex drive. Don't waste your time on this book; the author obviously didn't do enough, if any research. If you want to learn about Eunuchs then search the web. There are a lot of us out there, and our numbers are growing.

If you wish to read something for entertainment's sake, then this book will suffice. Written by an English Professor, this book lacks the sort of critical thought those of us in the science deptartments want for. Purportedly an 'Abbreviated History Of Western Manhood,' it is rather an exercise in academic arcana - an attempt to think of something through its opposite or, in this case, its abuse. One is hardly compelled to reconsider ideas about what manhood means. There is nothing in Taylor's "treatise" to support such nonsense as, "This is a specter that has haunted men for centuries: the fear that manhood will become, or has already become, obsolete, superfluous, ridiculous, at best quaint, at worst disgusting." Really? In whose misandrist manifesto? The concept "Western Man" is, after all, just that - a concept. There is no such unified and homogeneous group and no such "specter" has haunted it for so long. That men should cringe at the word castration is less a mystery than than why women should fear rape. Taylor's analysis of the history and purposes of castration shed less light on the "cultural construct of masculinity" than on the sadistic sexual abuse and humiliation with which males can be threatened and subjugated. Taylor's treatment of castration is typically immature so his readers may think him funny or witty. Today's attitudes toward manhood and males are best understood in terms of our lacking moral sympathies toward them. Taylor's book is no exception. We are not a generation influenced by Freud so much as by feminism. The historical abuse and mutilation of women is a subject deadly serious and pertinent to us while the sexual abuse and humiliation of men is treated like something that never happened - a fictional interpretation - something to be mocked and made light of. Taylor's ignorant belief (not first person, of course) about the sexual prowess of eunuchs is one case in point. Another case in point is Tayor's view that for most of western history castration was a mark of power and divinity and as the ultimate abrogation of sexual desire, had wide spread currency among Christian metaphysicians. Taylor is arguing anecdotally to his own foregone conclusions. He wasn't there to take any polls. Christianity served only to appropriate practices of sexual mutilation already in place - just as Christian nihilism helped to make slavery seem worthy. It did not make such practices any more agreeable. The spiritualized feelings attained by some Christian monks through self mutilation would have appalled the Greeks - the paragons of western civilization - as it has most men throughout all of human history. Gary Taylor's book about castration scores a few points for the concept of cultural relativism on a subject that is uncontroversial if not simply comic to most. Should he chose to write volumes exploring the gamut of humanity's attitudes regarding every other form of sexual nastiness, he will no doubt find endless tolerance to be feted as well. Would he dare?

Gary Taylor's "Castration" is an endlessly fascinating, provocative, and highly entertaining exploration not only of the history of the unkindest cut but of the evolving meaning of manhood from ancient times to the present, and even into the future. Scrupulously scholarly and challenging, the book is nevertheless actually fun to read. Drawing extensively on literature, religion, and psychology, Taylor methodically examines the evolution of castration and its relationship to agriculture, faith, race, gender, and science. I found his analysis of the passage from Matthew's Gospel where Jesus addresses the topic of eunuchs to be especially enlightening. Did Christ really salute self-made eunuchs? Was he really anti-family? This book will not fail to teach you, provoke you, and force you to reconsider your ideas about what manhood means.