GREAT pictures,a cute story too!

Warm lyrics and illustrations blend perfectly. Tim Bower's pictures are colorful and interesting.

I found this to be one of the most engaging books in our daughters' collection!! The illustrations are wonderful, and invite children to explore. This is definitely a bedtime favorite for us. Our 2 1/2 - year old loves to read it "by herself."

What do you expect from a book of Limericks from the long running radio comedy show? Wordsworth?

These constitute the cutting edge of modern limericks from some of the best (or worst, depending whether you like puns etc) wordsmiths in the business. This is the ideal book to set beside your loo.

Well, I'll start out the game with a bold, unorthodox move: Lancaster Gate. Your turn, and please remember that choosing alternate Sunday-only stations are not valid in the Amazon.com championship versions of the game, that Aldwych Station, though closed, is still a valid choice when backed into one of Mr. Garden's patented cross-hatch ploys, and of course I shouldn't need to remind you that choosing Jubilee Line Extension stations is still regarded as hopelessly amateur; should you choose to counter with Canada Water, you will be met with derisive giggles. Your move.

If the above doesn't mean anything to you, you're not a fan of the bewildering game of Mornington Crescent, and this is not the book for you. Go pick up a Bill Oddie birding book instead. On the other hand, if the above inspired you to snap out "Gants Hill" with authority and a smirk, then sprint, don't crawl, to pick up the only *authorized* Mornington Crescent companion (all others are mere shadows).

Seriously (and at the risk of ruining the joke) this is a humor book based on the popular BBC radio quiz show "I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue." British quiz shows like these, far from being a challenge to ordinary citizens to answer tough trivia, are more frequently a showcase for celebrities to show off their comic skills (think "Whose Line is It Anyway" rather than "Who Want to Be a Millionaire"). By far the most cheer-eliciting segment of ISIHAC is "Mornington Crescent," a round-table game in which the panelists must name London Underground stations, and the first to name Mornington Crescent is the winner. Sound simple? Well, it would be...if there were truly any rules other than to be funny while doing so...

If you're a fan of BBC radio comedy and you're in on the joke, this book is a must have, with Mornington Crescent history, Q&As, recipes, profiles, short stories (Charles Dickens versus Lewis Carroll in an especially ruthless and deadly game of MC)--everything a serious player of the game needs to know.

Except the rules.

Well, you can't expect them to give away *all* the answers, can you?

300 pages - not encyclopedic - but a rich, thorogh introduction to Linux system programming and how to go about it using Kylix. Well worth the money.

This one contains so many useful Linux tidbits and "How to get things done" sections, it is always the Kylix reference I pick up first.

I'm a long-time Delphi programmer and relatively recent migrant to Linux. This book absolutely fills the gaps for me in the numerous places where I'm asking "Now, how the heck do I go about doing THIS on Linux?".

It's not about Kylix (although the samples and solutions are in ObjectPascal, of course) so much as about accessing the nuts and bolts of Linux through HLL calls to the OS, MMS and filesystem. Although it is primarily relevant to ObjectPascal it will be a great resource for developers using other HLLs on Linux too. It really fills in the bits that are missing from Linux books, programming books, FAQ forums and so on if your history has been with DOS and Windows and, especially, if you want to cross-plat your Delphi components.

I needed this book a year ago and I'm overjoyed to have it, now that I'm using Kylix 2.

But you need to have a few comercial plug-ins and this means spend money, instead of this you can learn many tricks other people learn with experience and time. I really don't know if the book isn't good enoght or 3D Studio is very incomplete, filling the holes with expensive IPAS.

First of all, I want to say that I'm from Sweden, so please be indulgence with my language. I've read the magnificant book of 3d Studio & Hollywood Gaming Effects. I used both 3d Studio and 3D max for the tutorials, and I was quite impressed. The book is based on examples and tutorials, made by pros'. The examples in the book are very detailed, and are understandble, even for an amateur like me. And the best thing is that, if you dont understand what they're talking about, just put in the CD-Rom (that comes with the book) find the chapter for the example, and run it. There you have it, step by step, all the exaples in the book on the CD-Rom are explained on the CD-Rom too. A book for both amateurs and proffesionals, that increase the flexibilaty you need to become a graphic artist. And even if you're using 3d Max, the examples in the book - and on the CD-Rom - works properly. Since Max and Studio are based on the same system. The examples in the books are well illustrated, and the layout makes it very easy to find and read. You learn new things every time you browse through the book. And just by watching the exapmles on the CD-Rom, you can load a project - and go through it - see for your self how it's build. And in that way learn some useful hints & tricks. A low cost educational book, that you can get useful hints & tricks from, that you cant get from anywhere else. As I said, my English is bad. I sometimes can't find a way to express my feelings in words. But it is a good book. I rated the book with a 9. Now that, is self explained. Happy rendering, Your Friend In The Jungle Of 3D.

When I first picked this book up I was expecting it to be another book on teaching the beginner how to do simple effects. I could never have been so wrong. Starting at an advanced level, the book assumes you not only have lots of experience with 3D Studio, but some additional software tools as well. Then, it shows you, in detail, how to create certain effects, all of which can be easily adapted to your scenes. Some of the effects include overlaying your animation with video so that it 'fits' together, or extended use of 'Bones Pro' and 'MetaBall Modelers'(which are plug-ins for 3D Studio) to create organic models.

For beginners, I recommend "3D Studio Special Effects/Book and Cd Rom" while this book is more for users with a solid grip on 3D Studio.

This is a great book about starting a business and working your plan to be succesfull. I love how the author encourages the reader to tell their own story. He writes "Each of us have a compelling story to tell so I encourage you to write your story if you have that desire. You might notice from my lack of complex sentence structures and possibly the lack of a tight subject focus that if I can write a book so can you! Don't be discouraged by the elite publishing community and their agents. We all can't be Pulitzer Prize writers but we all have a story to tell nonetheless. Tell your story and leave the critics to their own misery."
Now how can you not like a guy who humbles himself right up front.
I was hooked when I read the first page from the first chapter..."Although bright and sunny, the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger launch was an unusually cold morning for central Florida. The combination of the cold and the moist salt air made it a very unpleasant day. The few times it gets cold in the Sunshine State, my body feels it down to the bone. No one had to tell me that January 28, 1986, was the coldest day that NASA had ever launched a manned rocket. For those who witnessed the event that day, it became an overwhelming personal experience for them. For three of my coworkers and I it was even more eventful because we were one of the closest people to the explosion, and Judy Resnik, Ph.D., the Challenger Mission Specialist Astronaut, was a coworker and friend of mine.
A sharp and quick to the point engineer, Judy became an astronaut in 1979 after having been a biomedical engineer and staff fellow in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She was a classical pianist and pilot who didn't tolerate incompetent people in the space program. The Challenger mission would be her second time in space; she first flew as a mission specialist on STS 41-D, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on August 30, 1984. This was the maiden flight of the orbiter Discovery. Judy loved to fly and encouraged me to obtain my pilot's license.
My office was in the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility or DSIF, (pronounced "dee siff" by the locals) located on the east coast of central Florida, on the Cape Canaveral side of the Kennedy Space Center, only a quarter mile west of the Atlantic Ocean. In existence since the beginning of the space program back in the 1960's, DSIF had served as a central data house for all incoming radio signals. It was the building that received the first orbital communication signals from John Glenn and Alan Shepard. The décor was typical government gray with metal desk and matching swivel chairs, rotary dial phones and broken tile floors. NASA employees and their contractors worked in facilities and with equipment which looked like something out of an antique military museum. Only the space shuttle and its spotless clean rooms were new, high tech and state of the art. The majority of the 20,000-person work force worked in a musty, dull gray atmosphere, while a select few, like my group, worked in both the old facilities and the high-tech new. Working in a large government organization can be very compartmentalized although I was fortunate to be part of a group who worked across most boundaries. NASA, thank goodness, was in the process of converting our facility into a more advanced facility, and my colleagues and I were part of the team doing the upgrades. Our facility and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) were a special place to work, guarded by military personnel who wore M16 rifles.
Every morning seagulls hanging out in the parking lot greeted me as I drove up to work. There was a constant light ocean breeze, and a comfortable summer environment. If the wind blew from the east, you could hear the ocean and smell the salt air.
Oftentimes when I arrived at work, I felt like I was going to the beach for a day of fun and strolling down space history lane. Just over the trees I could see the original launch pads used for the Mercury program. The Mercury program began in 1961 when, only four weeks after the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin made the first orbital flight, the U.S. followed with a flight by Alan B. Shepard on May 5th. Shepard's launch took place only a few football fields away from our office.
As soon as I arrived to work the morning of the Challenger mission, I began to listen over the local secured audio loop to the astronaut communications as they began their third attempt at a launch. The previous two launches had been scrubbed for various reasons and the media was starting to point fingers and cause what we referred to as "launch fever" - an emotion that overrides logic and entices people to take more risk than normal. NASA, being a federally funded political football, demanded we keep everyone happy, especially the media. The press wanted a launch, while we wanted safety and quality.
Kennedy Space Center was hectic as usual preparing the launch of the 25th space shuttle. It was Mission 51-L, the 10th flight of Orbiter Challenger, and the first launch from the new launch pad 39B. Because it was the first time a civilian, a schoolteacher, was going into space, the launch was highly publicized. Millions of people watched the historical event on TV because it represented an average person going into space for the first time.

As I continued to monitor the launch countdown process, I noticed some frustration on the part of the astronaut crew due to the cold temperatures. They were having a hard time with their gloves and equipment, and the entire process sounded more unorganized than with previous missions.
A consistent, timely and methodical program was followed for each launch. Organization was key because it reduces the chance for error and emotions. The customary routine for an astronaut on launch day involves steak and eggs for "breakfast" even if wake up time is at noon or midnight. Steak and eggs are served because they reduce body waste. The last thing an astronaut needs to eat before liftoff is something that will upset his/her stomach and make for large bowel movements. The astronaut's goal is to reduce the number of bathroom breaks in space hoping to reduce debris, smell and privacy issues. A birthday party type of celebration follows the breakfast, which includes birthday cake and several top prelaunch workers. Then the astronauts walk fifty feet to an ultra clean white room to suit up in their orange pressurized suits. The astronauts exit the large Operations and Control building and enter the van, which takes them on the seven mile drive out to the launch pad. From wake up call to liftoff is about four to five hours. On the day of a shuttle mission, instead of sitting horizontal like you would in a car, the shuttle is pointed straight up towards the sky so that the astronauts lie on their backs with their feet above them. The time lying feet first in the space shuttle restrained to a giant hydrogen/oxygen bomb is about one hour.
As time drew closer to what is called T-Zero...

Read this book and do it on a weekend when you need a boost and a day full of enjoyment.

If you are looking for a some inspiration to start your next business or complete the one you have started you will love this book. The writer tells a story that is a true page turner. I started reading this book and could not put it down mainly due to the subject matter and the dialog writing style which made it really easy to read. No fluff and long complex sentences to distract you but rather a good book you can read in a couple sittings out by the pool.

I found Launch Fever to be a very inspirational book. I especially enjoyed his experience of starting a medical device company and successfully launching the company securing venture capital funding and bringing on a professional management team. It was extremely insightful that although the author being an engineer he saw the importance of sales and marketing to launching his new venture. His experiences initially with the Boston venture capitalist and their preoccupation on how to take the product to market was very enlighting. I also enjoyed his chapter on Balancing Act. His focus on a balanced life style blending the demands of job and raising a family were very educational. I also enjoyed the homespun philosophy of his mother. Great book! I highly recommend it.

I am new to servlets and found this book very fun to read and helped me learn servlets fast!

The authors did a great job of educating me on HTTP *before* I actually tried to code an HttpServlet! Boy, it really makes all the difference when you understand the specification before you start to code!

I read another review about Core Java Web Server, which noted the great coverage of XML and how to use it in servlets. Inspired by the review, I began to look into XML myself, starting with Appendix A of this book. I had to read the chapter about three times before I actually understood what the heck was going on, but after I understood I became very excited about the new opportunity XML has to offer.

I talked to a member of the Java Web Server team at JavaOne and he said this is the book to buy to understand the Java Web Server and the servlet technology as well.

I thought this was a very complete book on Servlets, even though the title reads "Core Java Web Server".

Yes, it does cover the Java Web Server, but most of the book covers what the Java Web Server is known for- servlets, servlets, and more servlets !!!

Personally, I develop servlets and deploy them on Apache Web Server. Some of the early chapters of this book cover the Java Web Server, but a lot of this material applies to Apache- since you can learn about common features known to web servers in general.

Good coverage of HTTP too! The coverage on HTTP saved me from buying another book on HTTP. I sat at B&N until closing time reading the chapter on HTTP and the HTTP spec and learned lots of good information. Don't forget to read the chapter on Caching too! It will boost your performance and increase your browser's download time after having visited your site for the first time.

I really enjoyed the great coverage of servlets and richness of information in related topics, such as HTTP, XML, security, and other useful topics.

Thanks for such a great book :-).

Core Java Web Server is excellent because it covers, in detail, the complete Servlet API on an experienced level, rather than just the basics, which can be found in the API docs. Both the language and examples show a clear attempt to communicate to readers of the more experienced level. The book is also commendable because it doesn't shy away from errors - any errors encountered by the authors are explained to the readers, with the appropriate workarounds.

The book begins with a discussion of the installation and configuration of the Java Web Server. These configuration comments are also sprinkled throughout the rest of the book where necessary. I particularly appreciated that it was explained how to make each configuration through the graphical user interface, and through text files.

The heart of the book covers Java Servlets. Each chapter introduces a new aspect of Servlets, with descriptions of the classes and methods used in sample code. The examples are working Servlets, all with full source code and documentation, which occasionally build upon previous examples to construct sizeable programs.

The examples themselves are inventive and new. For instance, rather than introduce another shopping cart script, the chapter on HTTP sessions implements an LDAP interface. It greatly broadened my knowledge on an important topic which is becoming a great force on the internet.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to anyone interested in Java or web programming.

Finally, this book does not have tons of API documentation in the appendix that can be found on the developer site (what a waste of paper). Great book!

This is actually a pretty good reference tool. While it is not exhaustive, it is definitely helpful, colorful, and informative. The student who is inchoate in the area of Archaeology will find this volume helpful in several ways. First, it present a basic overview of the field of Archaeology by giving a brief synopsis of various artifacts, sites, and finds, in various locale. Second, it provides the reader with a nice history of the study of Archaeology via typology, comparative sites, interpreting finds, and the various locations around the world where important findings have been discovered. Third, the book includes a wonderful array of pictures, maps, drawing and illustrations. Moreover, the book is very well formatted and organized making it fairly easy to work your way around in it. However, it is a brief book, and is probably not suitable for the experienced student or scholar in the field (but would, I believe, still be enjoyable for the expert). I wish I could have given the book another half a star.

As a child I was always going to grow up and become a famous archaeologist (I never made it - I am actually a psychologist). My young daughter is similarly interested, and this is a great book for someone "starting out" with an interest in ancient times. It looks at all of the famous sites in archaeology, as well as the different eras. In addition it looks at themes as recent as the study of the industrial era, showing that archaeology is not just ancient bones and bits of pottery. For those who want more detail it is probably a little sketchy, but for the average household it is an excellent reference book.

A very in-depth book, however if you're really interested in details about James Taylor's thoughts, reasonings, actions or detailed accounts surrounding his career, you won't find a ton of it hear. The book is over 300 pages but you could probably knock it down to about 50 pages that actually talk about James. Perhaps the author just couldn't get enough out of the private james taylor. Instead of finding out what went on in the early days with respect to his career, music and interpersonal relationships, we get pages and pages of family history and backgrounds of other people or events. The author gives more information about his friends than about james. Just when you think you're getting to a portion in the book that's revealing, the author sums it up in a page. We hear about his songs including vocals by other artists like Jimmy Buffet or Keith Richards - why not expand on thier relationship a bit? He was married to Carly Simon for many years but not much is learned about their life together and the effects they had on each other.

All of this said, the details on the family history and make up does help put a frame around his life. Just don't think you're going to come away with a lot of interesting tales about his thoughts or actions other than some descriptions as to what the songs meant and brief descriptions of certain periods of time.

If I wasn't such a huge fan I never would have finished it.

It's interesting how closely Timothy White's eclectic interests mirror my own. I've read his books on Bob Marley, Brian Wilson, and now James Taylor (plus his book ROCK STARS, which has the best interview ever with Pete Townshend). They are easily the best books on each of these artists and I always learn far more about the men and the cultures from which they came than I thought I would. It's sad that White died so young this year; his work will be missed.

This book on Taylor tells the whole story of JT's life and career, with respect but with few punches pulled. The input of James himself, plus family and friends helps flesh out the portrait. JT's important but often neglected place in the pantheon of popular music is firmly established here. I could have done with a little less of the 400 years of Taylor family history, but it does add an interesting background to the story. Highly recommended.

Veteran biography buffs want the interior life of the main persons in a serious book to come alive. This story makes use of family letters in a way that is special. To read what the mother and father felt, and what the children were actually thinking during important times was very emotional to learn, and the author's understandng of these kind of documents was brilliant. You don't always see qualities like this in rock stories, and it hit hard. Great job. Also, I noticed a comment by a reviewer about Gene Pitney's "Liberty Valance" song. As a Pitney fan, I should point out the guy is incorrect. Because Pitney worked on the song in 1962 while John Ford was still filming "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," and it was in fact the themesong too, but as Ford experts know, the film came out before the song was done. The song still was successful the same year, and helped the movie, too. The things about the Livingston Taylor song in the book are also right in the book. I think the author was saying Livingston included that same song in his last album of the century because it meant something to him to look back again. For me, to read the book and not praise the use of the letters is strange. It's a really cool book.

I can not recommend this book. I agree with the editorial review that the ending does *not* show any growth by the characters in this story and the british slang is difficult to translate. My son, age 16, was born with multiple birth defects and he was very disappointed in how Midgets' relationship to his family, school and community was so very stereotypical. The author shows very little understanding of persons who have disabilities. We weren't expecting a happy ending to this depressing book and still the ending chosen by the author is very disappointing.

Danger, persecution, imagery, and struggle make this story attractive enough to motivate even a busy young reader to finish it ... probably in 3 days. Teachers will appreciate how its complexity invites variety in oral discussion and written analysis. Its practical length fits well into a typical week's cramped lesson plan.