Eddie Faye Gates is a very good author. Her down to earth writing style is easy to read and enjoy.

This is far and away the best book on compulsive eating I have read. Every paragraph contains a nugget of wisdom, a motiviational statement that shoots straight to the heart, or an insight that will leave you breathless if you share this affliction.

If you have a problem controlling your eating -- if you eat from stress, from boredom, from emotion, or if you just find it difficult to resist temptation, or stop when you start ... you HAVE to read this book. Rather than start ANOTHER "diet" next Monday like you always do, grab a copy of this book and start a new way of life.

[for civil/mechanical engineers] This is the classic Metcalf and Eddy wastewater design text. It was superceded by a 'second' edition by Dr.G. Tchobanoglous (chew-ban-oh-gloss) that split the text into two volumes, one on sewage collection, and the other on treatment and re-use. There is now an even newer 'second' edition of the treatment volume, but the 'first' edition of the collection volume remains current. Note that this classic contains design information on older technologies (e.g. Imhoff tanks) that was omitted in the later additions, but are still quite useful to have for designing systems in less developed situations. My dad gave away his copy and I have missed it ever since.

Reading this book was refreshing. If you liked reading "The Hding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom, you will love this book!

Together, the images and words of Robert Eddy and Kathy Eddy share with every caregiver wonderful expressions of gratitude, joy and comfort, speaking in love of the challenges, satisfactions and grief involved in such important work. If you or anyone you know is a health-care worker, or someone who takes care of an elderly parent or a sick family member, or if you are in any sort of ministry, this book will bring fresh humor, great ideas and inspiration through its beautifully paired photos and writings, with beautiful songs, too! A book to dip into for refreshment once a week!

A very relaxing read. Never before have I read a book of true life that was so well-paced and soothing. Harris writes as the river flows: gentle to rough, lucid to terse. With a great sense of personal respect to the reader, "Mississippi Solo" is ther perfect read for anyone who wants to take a vacation in the theatre of the mind. An excellent book for travellers and a must have summer read.

I bought a copy of this book after my own canoe trip down the Mississippi. It was fascinating to compare the experiences of Mr. Harris to my own.

The writing is perceptive, insightful, and entertaining. His observations of the people he met along the river, and himself, come across as very honest. He doesn't portray himself as a hero or an expert, but as the person he really is. His dedication to completing the journey is tenuous, but his appreciation for the lasting value of the experience is sincere.

His perceptions on racial issues were objective and refreshing. Although he had preconceived notions on what he might encounter, (a black man in Nordic northern Minnesota and later in the Deep South) he judged people based on how they treated him, and the vast majority of people treated him with kindness and respect.

His descriptions of the river, towns, weather and scenery are also enjoyable, and the hardships and joys are described with equal eloquence.

I was impressed how such a greenhorn of an outdoorsman would have the boldness to tackle such an adventure. My only disappointment with the book is when he skipped some parts of the river. It was his journey to make, however, and he is honest about any shortcuts he took.

In short, this is a great book. It is worth reading to experience the journey vicariously and for the writing itself. You won't be disappointed.

I found this book at a used bookstore while looking for travel books to read on vacation. What a great book! I'm fascinated by the water and enjoyed the description of his trip down the Mississipi river, but I enjoyed even more seeing how a person who wasn't an outdoorsman or even an experienced boater took on this adventure. His experience with people along the way made me feel at the end that I would enjoy sharing a campfire with him and most of the people he met. Except for the rednecks with guns that is.

Chogyam Trungpa (1939-1987) brought Tibetan Buddhism to our country as the founder of the Boulder Shambhala Center and Naropa University. In the Foreward to this new edition of his book, Trungpa Rinpoche's student, Pema Chodron (WHEN THINGS FALL APART, THE PLACES THAT SCARE YOU) writes: "When I took to heart the teachings presented here, a curious change slowly began to take place. I became far more open to the pain of myself and others; far more open to laughing and crying; far more able to love and accept and see my interconnectedness with all beings. As the years go by, I gradually become more and more at home in the world with its inevitable ups and downs."

In his 179-page book, Trungpa teaches us how to know ourselves through meditation. "Meditation in the beginning is not an attempt to achieve happiness," he tells us, "nor is it an attempt to achieve mental calm or peace, though they could be by-products of meditation. Meditation should not be regarded as a vacation from irritation" (p. 46). While we may believe we are free to pursue our dreams, achieve our goals, and satisy our desires, Trungpa shows us how we are instead enslaved to our habitual patterns and negative emotions such as self-absorption (pp. 23-28), paranoia (pp. 28-29), passion (pp. 29-32), stupidity (pp. 32-35), povery (pp. 35-37) and anger (pp. 37-40). "We must be willing to be completely ordinary people," he observes, "which means accepting ourselves as we are without trying to become greater, purer, more spiritual, more insightful. If we can accept our imperfections as they are, quite ordinarily, then we can use them as part of the path. But if we try to get rid of our imperfections, then they will be enemies, obstacles on the road to our 'self-improvement'" (p. 44). And in this highly-recommended book, Trungpa teaches us how to cut through the barriers separating us from the rest of the world.

G. Merritt

This is the sequel to "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism". Are you gay? Are you a crossdresser? Do you cheat on your taxes? Did you hit one of your children? The point of Trungpa's teaching seems to hammer agin and again at the main human condition. That we are afraid of being human. We are "embarassed" at being human. One woman was reported as having choked to death in a restuarant. Why? Because she was too embarrassed to cough! Through his behavior and his teachings, Trungpa kept hammering this message home at his students. "The Myth of Freedom" takes us from the beginning of the Hinayana Journey (in the Tibetan sense, not to put down Theravada Buddhism which is also called 'Hinayana') all the way to the Vajrayana teachings where there is direct transmission from the Spiritual Guide. Trungpa goes through the technicalities, but you must remember that these are lectures to his students. I shared the same block as Trungpa. He was giving a lecture in LA in December 1980. I was too embarrassed to go inside. I might stammer when I met him. I might "goof up" (as he called it). Maybe I would say something "stupid". I was embarrased. I was embarrassed until his teachings sank in. Then I began to loosen up. Unfortanately, I went back to my "cocoon", as he called it. I've read this book three times. You will love it! Just don't balk when you read other books on Tibetan Buddhism where there are very many rules. The message of Trungpa was "Stop being embarrased about yourself!". And he showed this example by indulging in the worst behavior imaginable. But, yes, you can sneeze in front of a group of people. You can leave your zipper down accidentally if you are a male. Or don't put on a bra if you are a female and then find that you clearly "see" through while you give a lecture! According to Trungpa, it this embarrassment which he referred to as "negative negativity". He pounces on this concept throughout this book and his others. Negativity is alright in itself. I get angry. But then I am embarrassed for BEING angry. So I gulp it down or explode. If we accept the basic negativity, feel it, then this is negativity. But if we shame ourselves for having it - then this manufactures even more anger or Negative Negativity. Which can eventually result in being a mass murderer. Everything is being projected outside on the world. You are not "eating your past" so to speak. This is the message of the book. BUY IY! And buy "Spiritual Materialism". Thannk you (mispelling intentional).

Incisive teachings by one of the most influential Tibetan Buddhist teachers in the West. A central theme: giving up our hopes that meditation will bring us bliss or tranquility or make us better or wiser people or otherwise serve our ego's purposes, and realizing the liberation that is right here within our pain and confusion and neurosis. Trungpa's "Cutting through Spiritual Materialism" seems to be more widely known and more often recommended, but I like "The Myth of Freedom" even better, and I think it's a more suitable book for folks who are new to meditation. (Also recommended: "The Wisdom of No Escape" by Trungpa's student Pema Chödrön.)

I am a physicist and had some interest in what these bio informatics actually do. I must say I am impressed both in the rigor and sharpness of the probabilistic reasoning. This book relies heavily on probability theory (especially hidden Markov models) and is clear enough to be read without a sharp pencil. Don't get me wrong it is not simple enough to be good late night bedtime entertainment. The biological and chemical background is also easy to grasp.
The authors are obviously very active in the field they describe. Their self citations seem absolutely reasonable.

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I picked up this book at the recommendation of a number of colleagues in computational linguistics and speech processing as a way to find out what's going on in biological sequence analysis. I was hoping to learn about applications of the kinds of algorithms I know for handling speech and language, such as HMM decoding and context-free grammar parsing, to biological sequences. This book delivered, as recommended.

As the title implies, "Biological Sequence Analysis" focuses almost exlusively on sequence analysis. After a brief overview of statistics (more a reminder than an introduction), the first half of the book is devoted to alignment algorithms. These algorithms take pairs of sequences of bases making up DNA or sequences of amino acids making up proteins and provide optimal alignments of the sequences or of subsequences according to various statistical models of match likelihoods. Methods analyzed include edit distances with various substitution and gapping penalties (penalties for sections that don't match), Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) for alignment and also for classification against families, and finally, multiple sequence alignment, where alignment is generalized from pairs to sets of sequences. I found the section on building phylogenetic trees by means of hierarchical clustering to be the most fascinating section of the book (especially given its practical application to classifying wine varietals!). The remainder of the book is devoted to higher-order grammars such as context-free grammars, and their stochastic generalization. Stochastic context-free grammars are applied to the analysis of RNA secondary structure (folding). There is a good discussion of the CYK dynamic programming algorithm for non-deterministic context-free grammar parsing; an algorithm that is easily applied to finding the best parse in a probabilistic grammar. The presentations of the dynamic programming algorithms for HMM decoding, edit distance minimization, hierarchical clustering and context-free grammar parsing are as good as I've seen anywhere. They are precise, insightful, and informative without being overly subscripted. The illustrations provided are extremely helpful, including their positioning on pages where they're relevant.

This book is aimed at biologists trying to learn about algorithms, which is clear from the terse descriptions of the underlying biological problems. The technical details were so clear, though, that I was able to easily follow the algorithms even if I wasn't always sure about the genetic applications. After studying some introductions to genetics and coming back to this book, I was able to follow the application discussions much more easily. This book assumes the reader is familiar with algorithms and is comfortable manipulating a lot of statistics; a gentler introduction to exactly the same mathematics and algorithms can be found in Jurafsky and Martin's "Speech and Language Processing". For biologists who want to see how sequence statistics and algorithms applied to language, I would suggest Manning and Schuetze's "Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing". Although it is much more demanding computationally, more details on all of these algorithms, as well as some more background on the biology, along with some really nifty complexity analysis can be found in Dan Gusfield's "Algorithms on Strings, Trees and Sequences".

In these days of fly-by-night copy-editing and typesetting, I really appreciate Cambridge University Press's elegant style and attention to detail. Durbin, Eddy, Krogh and Mitchison's "Biological Sequence Analysis" is as beautiful and readable as it is useful.

This book explained topics I was interested in above my personal expectations. All the mathematics and probabilistic models were explained in detail with a practical approach. I was even able to refine some of those models for specific needs without much previous experience nor knowledge. I highly recommend this book, it is one of the best I ever read.

I thought that this book was great. it told all about the pros and cons of nintendo and how they started out back in the late 1800's. It also tells about there rivals like Atari, and major computer companys. If your like me and love video games form nintendo you love this book. it may seem like a supprise at first since there are no pitures but it is still a very good book. they tell about how they started making trading cards in the east back in Japan, and how they made a deal with disney to make cards for them with pitures on them like mickey mouse. and how they started moving up and made millions of dollars by making the 8-bit classic NES, (nintendo entertainment system)
and where they got the idea of Mario. This video game empire I learned in the book, all started from an ape named donkey kong and a carpender (later turned into a plumber) named Mario. who was a bad guy and tried to save his girlfreind princess peach.

A fine history of Nintendo, one of the largest videogame companies operating today, which parlayed its success with the Donkey Kong arcade francise into its replacement of Atari as the company name ubiquitous with videogaming. The original portion was written by David Sheff, obviously someone with a lot of access to the notoriously tightly-knit inner sanctum of Mother N. It is followed up by new chapters by Andy Eddy.

Everything you would expect is here, from Nintendo's humble beginnings as a Hanafuda playing-card company in 1889 to the release of the N64 game console in 1996. During the journey we are introduced to all of the players involved, along with their facinating bios. From Japanese president Hiroshi Yamauchi, to game design wunderkind Sigeru Miyamoto, to Nintendo of America head Minoru Arakawa...we follow the early stumbles of the fledgling company, and its rise to the top of the vicious, cut-throat videogame market with the help of some Western allies. Game Over delivers both a facinating glimpse into the operations of a Japanese conglomerate, as well as a thrill-ride though the volatile games industry. Author of the original book Sheff adopts an easy-going, if somewhat dry, prose style...but it still reads better than your typical business tome.

You know that any company as tight-lipped and controlling as Nintendo is going to try and put the thumb on any would-be biographer looking for privledged access, and while I won't go so far as to call Game Over biased towards Nintendo, it certainly does lean towards the point-of-view of its subject matter. However, saying this, the book does not gloss over the rather ruthless practices that Nintendo has engaged in, both with its facist attitude towards its licencees, as well as with its battery of high-priced, go-for-the-throat lawyers. Of course, no company can rise as quickly to the top as Nintendo and not fall into the sites of hungry barristers, and Game Over sometimes gets bogged down in the morass of litigation fired at the company. Another thing I found lacking was a real in-depth look at the battles Mother N has engaged in with its two chief rivals: Sega and Sony. While the two companies are certainly mentioned, I was looking for a detailed battle-of-the-systems between them, something that unfortunately never materializes. I had hopes that this might be covered in the added-on chapters, but Eddy's entries are little more than reminises from the people involved.

So, in the end we have a perfectly facinating peek behind the pixel curtain, into the company that created the most kid-recognizable icon since Mickey Mouse. Mario, we hardly knew ye.

This book is an excellent read. I highly reccomend it to all people interested in the video game business. It is very engrossing. Like most people, I enjoy the Tetris section... However, the book is slightly biased. The author does show some distaste towards Nintendo (the previous title was "Game Over: How Nintendo zapped an American industry, captured your dollars and enslaved your children"). He also includes some odd statements about Japan conquering the world through this little NES. But other than that, a truly great book.

Shakespeare's shortest and bloodiest tragedy, MACBETH is also possibly the most serious. Macbeth is a warrior who has just had his greatest victory, but his own "vaulting ambition," the spectral promises of the three weird sisters, and the spurring on of his wife drive him to a treason and miserable destruction for which he himself is completely responsible. The ominous imagery of the fog that hovers over the first scene of the play symbolizes the entire setting of the play. Shakespeare's repeated contrasts of such concepts as fair and foul, light and darkness, bravery and cowardice, cut us to the quick at every turn. MACBETH forces us to question "what is natural?" "what is honor?" and "Is life really 'a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing?'" Few plays have ever illustrated the torments of Guilt (especially how it deprives one of Sleep) so vividly and stirringly.

I have read this play curiously as a child, excitedly as a teenager, passionately as a college student, and lovingly as a graduate student and adult. Like all of Shakespeare's writing, it is still as fresh, and foreboding, and marvelous as ever. As a play it is first meant to be heard (cf. Hamlet says "we shall hear a play"), secondarily to be seen (which it must be), but, ah, the rich rewards of reading it at one's own pace are hard to surpass. Shakespeare is far more than just an entertainer: he is the supreme artist of the English language. The Arden edition of MACBETH is an excellent scholarly presentation, offering a bounty of helpful notes and information for both the serious and casual reader.

"Macbeth" is one of Shakespeare's most powerful plays. Without doubt, audiences always remain guessing as they read the powerful speeches of Macbeth and his wife, who change dramatically during the story. The plot is not Shakespeare's most clever or most genius, but beautiful nonetheless!! And the best part is, thru this play, Shakespeare shows us that people are good at heart, even if corrupted within their lives.

Which version of "Macbeth" to buy? Definitely this one. The right pages provide the original play, while the left page provides definitions for old or hard vocabulary. There are also plot summaries before each scene. In addition to page numbers, each page also indicates act and scene, making the search for certain passages extremely easy. The lines are, of course, numbered, for easy reference (if you're reading this as a school assignment.) And of course, the stage directions are included too. A very helpful edition of Shakespeare's work.

William Shakespeare's tragedies are universal. We know that the tragedy will be chalk-full of blood, murder, vengeance, madness and human frailty. It is, in fact, the uncorrectable flaws of the hero that bring his death or demise. Usually, the hero's better nature is wickedly corrupted. That was the case in Hamlet, whose desire to avenge his father's death consumed him to the point of no return and ended disastrously in the deaths of nearly all the main characters. At the end of Richard III, all the characters are lying dead on the stage. In King Lear, the once wise, effective ruler goes insane through the manipulations of his younger family members. But there is something deeply dark and disturbing about Shakespeare's darkest drama- Macbeth. It is, without a question, Gothic drama. The supernatural mingles as if everyday occurence with the lives of the people, the weather is foul, the landscape is eerie and haunting, the castles are cold and the dungeons pitch-black. And then there are the three witches, who are always by a cauldron and worship the nocturnal goddess Hecate. It is these three witches who prophetize a crown on the head of Macbeth. Driven by the prophecy, and spurred on by the ambitious, egotistic and Machiavellian Lady Macbeth (Shakespeare's strongest female character), Macbeth murders the king Duncan and assumes the throne of Scotland. The roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are tour de force performances for virtuosic actors. A wicked couple, a power-hungry couple, albeit a regal, intellectual pair, who can be taken into any form- Mafia lord and Mafia princess, for example, as in the case of a recent movie with a modern re-telling of Macbeth.

Nothing and no one intimidates Macbeth. He murders all who oppose him, including Banquo, who had been a close friend. But the witches predict doom, for Macbeth, there will be no heirs and his authority over Scotland will come to an end. Slowly as the play progresses, we discover that Macbeth's time is running up. True to the classic stylings of Shakespeare tragedy, Lady Macbeth goes insane, sleepwalking at night and ranting about bloodstained hands. For Macbeth, the honor of being a king comes with a price for his murder. He sees Banquo's ghost at a dinner and breaks down in hysteria in front of his guests, he associates with three witches who broil "eye of newt and tongue of worm", and who conjure ghotsly images among them of a bloody child. Macbeth is Shakespeare's darkest drama, tinged with foreboding, mystery and Gothic suspense. But, nevertheless, it is full of great lines, among them the soliloquy of Macbeth, "Out, out, brief candle" in which he contemplates the brevity of human life, confronting his own mortality. Macbeth has been made into films, the most striking being Roman Polansky's horrific, gruesome, R-rated movie in which Lady Macbeth sleepwalks in the nude and the three witches are dried-up, grey-haired naked women, and Macbeth's head is devilishly beheaded and stuck at the end of a pole. But even more striking in the film is that at the end, the victor, Malcolm, who has defeated Macbeth, sees the witches for advise. This says something: the cycle of murder and violenc will begin again, which is what Macbeth's grim drama seems to be saying about powerhungry men who stop at nothing to get what they want.