Author Lois Hilton Spoon lived every word she wrote. Her courage during her long struggle with breast cancer will motivate and inspire others to trust in God and believe in miracles. Lois's love for God and her unwavering faith in Divine Intervention is evident on every page. With sparkling wit and humor and heart-warming intimacy, her inspiring stories will reach into every reader's life like a trusted friend, offering comfort and genuine concern.

This book is truly a blessing to be treasured and shared by all.

Written by Lois Hilton Spoon with the assistance of Brian Davis and Steve Dixon, Running As Fast As I Can: A Survivor's Guide To Winning The Race Against Breast Cancer is a powerful and personal testament to the strengths of life, hope, and faith. A religious wife and mother, diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, Lois is able to run and enjoy a marathon race one year after. Her personal story, and the meaning of her perseverance, love, and joy in life is revealed in this captivating, candid, inspirational and moving memoir.

What a wonderful, inspiring account of the daily life of dealing with cancer as shared from the heart of Lois's experiences. I have had the privilege of knowing Lois for the last nine years and treasure the time we have spent together. Her honesty, humor and love of life comes through the printed word to touch everyone who takes the time to stop and read "Running As Fast As I Can".

I've created basic database structures and applications for about five years and pledged never to go past writing macros, because I didn't want to be forced to learn VBA. I run a realty and mortgage office and just couldn't spare the time. Now that Outlook and the Office suite is becoming more familiar with my crew and now that we've joined a WAN and some B2B data sharing, the basic stuff just didn't fill the bill. I've bought quite a few books on Access recently (not to mention dozens from the past few years) and have found this one to be one of the best in its presentation and content.

It gave me some real insight on how I should be considering networking and upsizing. I answered more questions I had after spending 12 hours with the book, than I had spent searching the net or reading the other books for several months. I even read though the code and understood it, and contrary to the warnings the presentation still flowed well. I still know little VBA and am now going back to get a Wrox book on Beginnng Access 2000 VBA.

Concise, very detailed, stuffed full of info and reference. I'm a Wrox fan now.

I've been consulting for over 5 years with Access in all it's iterations except 1.0 and I must say that this is the best book on intermediate topics that I have found. There is no "fluff" like in books from other publishers (especially Queue in my opinion). This book is concise with real world examples for real world issues. When I first opened this book and read a bit I realized this book was written by consultants/developers who have gotten there hands dirty and not "feel good" academics who have never written a line of code for a company. Keep this one handy if you're the Access guru at your firm.

Professional Access 2000 Programming is a combination of a training book to heighten your programming skills, and a reference work that will give you a complete overview of Access 2000 and it's related programming environment. It's written in the traditional Wrox style that is so easy to read and usable for developers.

One thing I do miss, is the usual Wrox opening statement where it is described whom the book is written for and if any previous programming skills are assumed. It's not until chapter 3 that you find out VB or VBA programming experience is assumed to make use of the chapter. Don't start on this book without any knowledge of VBA, since it is used in most of the coding examples. If you don't know VBA check out the following books: ISBN 0782123244, ISBN 1861001762 and ISBN 0735605920. An understanding of ADO would also improve on the usability of the book.

To make use of the books fullest potential, have a design plan of your database next to it and make notes or check for errors in your design when you go through the chapters. This helped me to improve on the design of my database.

Not essential, but it would have been nice if the sample code used in the book had been made available to the reader. At one place in the book the author even writes that the sample code is available from Wrox' website, but as of today it is not.

This book has given me the skills and confidence to start working on client/server solutions and integrating SQL server. It breaks down the entire complexity surrounding Access 2000 and database development to sizeable blocks and tools that I can piece together according to programming and design goals. A must have for any Access programmer on his way to become a true professional.

This book is a useful overview of the processes involved in learning to read. It cover comprehension, learning to read, and phonological awareness. This book discusses the different types of reading instruction which is usually shrouded in controversy but this discusses different processes that different teaching methods create, rather than a debate over which reading instruction is better.

This book breaks down the reading process into the foundational pieces necessary for success. It was a valuable tool in helping the parents, that I work with, understand why I do the things that I do, in my classroom.

My son and I have read this book many times, over and over, and it does not loose its "feel good" effect. The message is obvious, dealing with the propagation of kindness, and is presented at a level that children understand and appreciate. Those who have criticized its "execution", either are without children or can not appreciate the fun children have with such a style. My family finds this book to be a delightful gem.

A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated book devoted solely to the best 75 linksland style golf courses in Great Britain and Ireland, thoroughly recommended.

I found this book very enjoyable and it moved well, its not slow on the get go, I also liked the ending, very different from his other books, which usually end with the guy getting the girl in the end, this time they.... enuf said (: And I liked the mention of a New Zealander, Cheers Bova...:

This was a book I just happened to look at because it had a cool cover and decent premise, so I decided to give it a shot. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining and how fast-paced it was - the kind of book you can read in one sitting. In addition, the book has a good, surprising ending - I don't want to spoil it for you. Peackeepers is the kind of book that should be made into a movie - although maybe they should wait a while because, on the surface, the plot seems similar to the movie The Peacemaker with George Clooney and Nicole Kidman (although the Peacekeepers is a much better story, trust me). Either way, even though this isn't Bova' most popular book, it's worth checking out.

Victorian England produced scores of great soldiers and explorers. Three of the most famous were the soldiers Valentine Baker and Charles "Chinese" Gordon and the explorer Samuel Baker. Brian Thompson's Imperial Vanities is a biography which intertwines the lives of these three larger than life characters.

Many books have been written about each of these men. They lived exciting lives crammed with adventure and drama. The three were some of the most colorful characters of the Nineteenth Century. Brian Thompson is a good writer and he does an excellent job of weaving their stories together. However, in the end these three characters lived such rich lives that it is an injustice to try to tell their stories in just 254 pages.

This is a good book for anybody who wants a quick sketch. I would not recommend this book for someone who loves Victorian England and the stories of the men who carved out an Empire.

After reading this quite enjoyable, well-written book, you might be excused for thinking that the British Empire consisted mainly of very eccentric people....who were hyperactive, to boot. You have Samuel Baker banging his way through Ceylon and Africa with his 21 pound rifle, shooting everything in sight (that is, when he isn't killing 300 pound wild boars with his foot-long, 3 pound knife). Of course, when Sam was 32 he did stop off long enough at the slave auctions in the Balkans to buy a lovely, blonde, 17 year old Hungarian girl. This was Florence, who eventually became Sam's second wife, and partner in exploration. (Sam's first wife had died.) The upper-crust back home in England weren't too impressed by Sam's choice of helpmeet, to say the least. Then we have Sam's brother, Valentine Baker, a promising cavalry officer who ruined his career by making a pass at a woman on a train one fine day. She apparently didn't fancy him and started screaming blue murder out the train window. From the evidence, it doesn't appear that Val actually tried to "ravage" her. She testified that he touched her on the leg by the ankle and tried to kiss her. Back in Victorian times, doing that to a respectable woman was all it took to bring dishonor upon yourself. It also didn't help that Queen Victoria got wind of all this and refused to let Val continue serving with his regiment. She had a long memory and never forgave him. (One shudders to think what she would have thought of Bill Clinton's Oval Office antics.) That brings us to Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, who had a famous date with destiny in Khartoum. Gordon was by far the oddest of the lot. (He once survived stepping directly in front of a 32 pound gun in China. When the gun misfired, Gordon shrugged it off by saying that the "inferior races" didn't know how to keep their powder dry.) One wonders how anyone in their right mind could have put him in a position of authority. Just before being sent to Khartoum to try to evacuate the garrison, the very religious Gordon had been so restless that he had been all set to go to the Congo to work for that famous humanitarian, King Leopold of Belgium. (I'm being facetious. Under the guise of bringing civilization to Darkest Africa, Leo was actually turning the Congo into his own personal slave-labor colony. Gordon was so anxious to do something....anything....that he wasn't too particular who he worked for.) Islamic fundamentalism didn't mean much to Gordon. China....Africa.....it was all the same to him. If you weren't British you were a heathen, and that's all Gordon had to know. He thought that Mohamed Ahmed (known as the Mahdi) was just some gangster who wanted to make the Sudan his own personal fiefdom. Gordon was convinced that if he could meet the Mahdi one-on-one he could straighten everything out. Needless to say, things didn't work out that way. As everyone knows, Gladstone didn't send out a relief force until it was too late. Khartoum was overrun by the forces of the Mahdi and Gordon wound up with no head. Those amazing Gordonian eyes could no longer work their magic. Actually, he may have gotten what he was looking for. A pretty good case can be made that he suffered from a martyr-complex. Many other eccentrics appear in these pages- David Livingstone, James Hanning Speke (who enjoyed, in his spare time, measuring the busts and limbs of African girls with a tape) and several who had nothing to do with exploration. One of my favorites was Lord Hatherton, who had estates in Staffordshire. In the parish church he attended, he had the pews for his family taken out and replaced with armchairs and a working fireplace. Hatherton would rattle the pages of "The Times" to indicate when he thought the sermon had gone on long enough. One disadvantage of Mr. Thompson's decision to tell the stories of, primarily, 3 people in such a short book is that, in the end, none of the men seem quite real. We see a lot of action, but not much information concerning what really made them tick. They almost come across as caricatures. Still, the book can easily be appreciated on two levels- as a rip-roaring adventure story, and as a cautionary tale regarding the limitations and responsibilities of empire.

I really wanted to like this book, as I really like British history books and biographies. However, I got the feeling, as I read on and on and on and on (until I quit about three-quarters through), that not only did I find Mrs. Weldon's disatrous life a crashing bore, so, apparently, did the author! Mrs. Weldon apparently found herself and her foibles abundantly amusing, but I got the distinct feeling that even Brian Thompson, the author, lost interest long before he finished writing her biography. This book practically yawns every time it's opened. One more thing: there's something off about the typeface--too small or too oddly spaced.

The Disasterous Mrs. Weldon, The Lives, Loves, and Loves of a Legendary Victorian, follows the life of Georginia Thomas Weldon, an infamous lesser-known celebrity of the Victorian era. Of course, to hear the story from her point of view, letters, and autobiography, you would think the world had revolved around her. She used her feminine wiles and talents, so to speak, to advance herself in society. She moved from disasterous affair and situation to even more disasterous situation with no consideration to the havoc she left in her wake. At one point, unable to deal with his wife any more, her husband petitioned to have her committed. In a stroke of sheer luck, she was able to challange the standing law regarding marriage and property and claim a victory. This book was sparked by the author reading the six volume autobiographical embellished explaination of her life penned by the real Mrs. Weldon. Thank heavens this was a single volume.

I suspect that The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon was written at least in part to take advantage of the audience which enjoyed Amanda Foreman's Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire. On the surface the two women are quite similar (besides having nearly identical names.) Both were headstrong, passionate women who were ultimately self-destructive. The difference is that Georgiana Spencer Cavendish at least had a smattering of social conscience, enough to get involved in politics to help her Whig friends. Georgina Weldon, on the other hand, rarely seems able to look beyond her own immediate need for gratification. The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon is amusing and addictive (you'll be sorry when the book ends) and does point out that not all Victorians were rigid moralists, but ultimately it can't rise above the fact that its protagonist was shallow.