Some books have too much information in them and will sit on shelves, but never be read. This book is not one of them. The articles are concise and interesting, and feature helpful recommendations of CDs currently available.

It is a good resource if you want to keep up to date, because the book gives information about many recent composers, as well as those who are already familiar.

I also appreciate the articles interspersed throughout the book on such topics as:
What is a Fugue?

Sonatas and Sonata Form
Composers at the Movies
Development of the Keyboard

The chronological list of composers is also a helpful bonus.

An excellent resource for students, teachers and all interested in Classical Music.

I owned the previous edition of this book. As someone relatively new to classical music, I found the book to be an ideal place to expand my interests. I initial purched th NPR Guide to begin my collection and then the previous edition of this book.
It is possible to find faults with any guide containing suggestions for recordings and repertoire, I have been highly satisfied with the suggestions in the Rough Guide.
As one of its best features the book contains music from the earlest times and includes contemporay composers. The descriptions of composers and recordings allows one a greater appreciation of the music.
This edition contains twenty essays that did not appear in the previos edition on topics as diverse as gregorian chant to atonlity.
This book is perfect for anyone interesed in Classical Music

The ROUGH GUIDE TO CLASSICAL MUSIC is a very well produced book that has several qualities that make it an essential purchase for lovers of music composed in the European ( Western ) Tradition.

First, the book has a tremendous range ( historic and stylistic ), which extends from Hildegard of Bingen ( 1098-1179 ) thru Thomas Ades ( 1971- ). This far-sighted depth is quite useful for the devotee who is not particularly well informed about say, the Medieval or Renaissance periods ( about 20 composers from those periods are featured ) and is more useful still for those interested in "modern" ( or "contemporary" ) music. Where there is a comparative lack of information in other guides ( GRAMOPHONE, PENGUIN, NPR, etc ), the ROUGH GUIDE features a tremendous number of currently active musicians ( some fairly well known and others somewhat obscure ). In fact, with regard to "difficult" music, the ROUGH GUIDE is actually superior to the BLACKWELL GUIDE, which is a volume solely devoted to contemporary composers.

Secondly, the thumbnail biographical sketches, while necessarily limited in scope, are quite informative ( the writers really seem to have listened to the music ). As is normal, it will be a matter of taste as to whether one agrees with the recommended recordings; this reviewer found a number of choices to quarrel over, but that is half the fun with these sorts of books anyway.

The volume is attractively laid out, with clear type-set and a number of a black and white photos dispersed throughout.
To sum up, THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CLASSICAL MUSIC is a fine book filling a particularly important need for depth and substance. It should perform good service to newcomers and long time fans alike.

Like any other recent Wrox titles, this one contains jewels and pretenders. On the bright side, quite a few of the Java and XML chapters are strong, and I particularly liked the ones on EJB, PL/SQL-Java inter-operation, and SOAP. There is also a chapter at the end on setting up the environment to run the book samples. On the not so bright side, the PL/SQL chapters are disappointing, because they cover either fundamental stuff that anyone who calls themselves an Oracle developer should know, or irrelevant technologies like OAS PL/SQL cartridge and PSP (huh?). The chapters on JDBC and connection pooling wasted 60% of the pages by talking about the basic JDBC API and showing the details of a connection pool manager class, rather than talking more about Oracle's extensions to the JDBC 2.0 standard and optional packages API. Finally, there is one glaring omission - MTS (I am talking about the Microsoft stuff here), although it does contain an informative chapter on ASP/Oracle. One more thing: this book covers Oracle8i Release 2, not the latest 3.

With everything considered, you may still want to own this title, as it is the only book under the sun that covers all (well, almost) current distributed programming technologies that interface with Oracle (both J2EE and Windows DNA). It also covers promising Oracle proprietary technologies such as interMedia, BC4J, and Portal (aka WebDB).

One of the best books around for database application developers working with Java/XML on the Oracle platform and who don't nowadays! The book is up-to-date with Oracle 8.1.7 and covers new aspect such as JDBC2.0 and the Java to native compiler (NCOMP). I give it five stars because it covers all important Java/XML aspects in great detail and because it already proved its worth by providing me with solutions for really tricky problems. The only neagtive thing I can think of is its size. But I guess the American authors probably got paid per line.

This book is one of the more comprehensive I have read about Oracle programming. It has very good examples and you will find tips and information you won't find in any other books/web sites/forums etc. This book has been written by genuine Oracle developers and you will get a depth of real-world knowledge and application. I recommend highly it for the serious Oracle, Java and XML developer.

I used this book (an older edition) on my first trip to New York City and I found it very succinct and helpful. If you don't want lengthy descriptions and lots of historical background, this the book for you. It gets to the point about some of the "must sees" and "shouldn't miss", as well as warning you about some cultural differences. The Essential series is also great because it's thin and lightweight, yet some color pictures so that you can recognize some of the sites you're searching the skyline for.

This book had good content, but for someone studying for the CEN exam, it is way too basic. This is an easy to use book and I liked the format, with the answers on the back of the page of questions.

The computer program that came with the book was fun to use and reduced my anxiety about taking the CEN on a computer, but again the questions were too easy.

Very informative in its line of questioning with rationale answers. Offers a variety of questions that coincide with the CEN exam. Could go the extra mile and explain all the chooses given more consistantly.

I found this book to be the most useful book in the market today for reviewing for the new CEN computerized exam. The questions were very similar to the ones included in the exam and the layout of the material, i.e. questions on one page and the answers with rationale on the flip side of the page made it extremely user-friendly. This book is valuable especially for those nurses fearful of computer tests in that a sample test of 250 questions is included on the CD-ROM enclosed with the book. This allows the computer-shy nurse an opportunity to simulate taking the test in a computer setting. I have tossed out all my other numerous review books from over the 12 years and will only keep this book in my review library.

Thomas Mallon has written about Ruth Paine, the woman who found she had harboured one of the most infamous criminals of all time- Lee Harvey Oswald. Whatever you believe about the Kennedy assassination, you'll appreciate Mallon's glimpse at what it was like to be standing right next to one of the most important, disruptive, and tragic events of the twentieth century. Ruth Paine is revealed to be a woman with a very sure sense of who she is and what she stands for, a woman who- almost alone among survivors truly close to the assassination- refuses to be defined by her proximity to what happened that day in Dealey Plaza.

Mallon's skill at conveying a sense of what the world was like in 1963 is remarkable, and very welcome. In several paragraphs, he details just how un-sophisticated a planet we lived on then; it was a day of hand-typed copies instead of Xeroxes and the 8-cent stamp instead of e-mail. As someone who was around at that time, I've often wished that more authors dealing with this topic would take more care to remind readers that the world was a very different place then. Forgetting that has led many assassination researchers and theorists down many a specious and unproductive pathway. One example (which is not to be found in Mallon's work) is Michael Paine's ownership of a Minox camera. Today's researchers have made the most prodigious hay out of that, never suspecting the truth- the Minox was heavily promoted and sold in the early Sixties as a toy for the well-off (which Mr. Paine was, despite his unassuming lifestyle), advertised in 'National Geographic'. The camera- in the context of its time- was no more meaningful than possession of a laptop is today. Yes, both COULD be used for nefarious purposes, but most owners use their laptops for peaceful, private purposes, and so did most Minox buffs. Mallon's work is always scrupulous in remembering the difference between Now and Then, and it is most refreshing.

Ruth Paine seems to have given much of herself to Mallon, and therefore to us. She is revealed to have been very pained at several questions and revelations that came up both before and during the interviews for the book, but she seems never to have cut off the author's lines of inquiry, nor even to have directed them, answering frankly. Touchingly, Mallon's research revealed things to Ruth Paine even she had not known about the central event of her life, and her reactions to them are interesting indeed.

Mallon has not produced a perfect book- there does not seem to have been much direct questioning of Mrs. Paine on some of the topics that assassination researchers raise the most questions about, and so the book will give a great deal of unnecessary ammunition to those who feel that Mrs. Paine has something to hide, rather than clearing matters once and for all. And there are a few places where Mallon does not make clear that he's quoting from previously published material, giving rise to the impression that he interviewed people he did not. While a reader familiar with the subject will be able to discern immediately that, say, Robert Oswald did not grant Mallon an interview, the author waits a bit to let the average reader in on that.

Still, it's a remarkable look at a remarkable witness to history, a woman who has had staggering events roll over her, and like the slender reed she resembles, has sprung back, ready for new life, ready to bend in new directions, respecting the force of the storm, but quietly, serenely confident in her ability to survive it.

Thomas Mallon's book successfully addresses the charges made against the Paines, including the ludicrous attempt to tie them in with the assassination.From beginning to end Mallon intermittantly exposes the charletans who have used this tragedy to promote their own agendas.This book is not for fantasists who continually accept the idea that everyone from LBJ to the Kennedy family were engaged in a vast conspiracy to initiate then cover up the crime of the century.The reader who wants to know the full and true facts about this tragedy can do no better than study this book along with Larry Sneed's "No More Silence" -books written by authors who use common sense and erudtion to explain why and how Kennedy was killed.

I'm currently writing a novel set around the JFK assassination and when I saw this book reviewed in the Boston Globe, I literally made a dive for the bookstore! I've actually read it twice in a row! It portrays Ruth Paine as I've never seen her before--a somewhat naive, but big hearted, generous citizen who tried to please everyone, in some ways to her detriment. (as another reader said, in the tradition of Forrest Gump). The book reads like a heartwarming novel, and the characters are portrayed as very sympathetic--even LHO (whom I believe was a 'patsy' but that's another story.) As told through Mrs. Paine's eyes, the entire tragic episode comes to life and back to us vividly. As the reader, you'll realize that anyone in Middle America can become embroiled in an infamous plot. Mallon did a masterful job of endearing these people to us. Far removed from the documentary, textbookish tones of every book & TV show we've seen on this subject, it's readable, informative, and above all, entertaining....

I found this book to be of no help at all. Seemed to blame the woman for husbands affair. Gave the impression that they didn't work hard enough on their marriage to begin with. What a crock.

I have yet to be able to forgive much less forget. I have been in counseling and he has said he is sorry a few times but there is more I need to hear from him. He seems clueless as to what I need to hear from him. Can it be he so that dumb? He not only cheated, he told her about my personal self. These were things I told only him. I trusted him and now I am suppose to forgive and forget. ??

This book will give you directions to the "road to recovery" from the ultimate betrayal; infidelity. Highly recommended. Read: "Forgiveness: What's it For" at [...]

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The general feeling I had after reading the book was that of a disappointment. Overloaded with handbook information on image encoding, compression algorithms etc., the book lacked substance in vision algorithm applications. Expanded IMAQ manual it is, a good book on applications of IMAQ vision algorithms it is not.

Espessially disappointing was section on DICOM: whole 4 pages with 2 pages of illustration, promulgating third party software, with not much to offer.

The book describes what image analysis algorithms do to image; it does not give hints when we want to use/try what algorithm.
It appeared to me the author was more concerned with money making than with writing a decent text.

The book can be probably useful for the very beginners, as a substitution for poorly written IMAQ manual. Again, then they should not worry of a minor issue of $70 price tag..