I bought this book on recommendation from my physio in London-I assume that there is no difference between the UK and US editions. I've been suffering from severe lower back pain and, after 8 weeks of working with the book,have found that the change has been fantastic. The exercises are clear and well laid out and having "watchpoints" to make sure you work safely is a good idea. Pilates is obviously very complex and, two months in, I am still learning, but I found the book to be a great introduction. My only criticism is that some of the photos are not very well reproduced, but this is more than overcome by the clear way in which everything is talked about and presented.

A year and a half ago I started getting extremely painful muscle spasms in my low right back, although I was very into physical fitness in what I thought was a well rounded way - as in different aerobic workouts and flexibility work, on an almost daily basis and weights work 3xweekly. Chiropractic helped, but swimming did nothing - this workout did. The explanation of the navel to spine makes you understand how it's totally different to pulling in the tummy the way we all do - stiffening up our whole torso. The hip rolls alone are miraculous for low back pain! I also used the now out of print The Pilates Way, and have now bought The Way Forward (all by the same author) (I also have 3 of their videos but prefer the detailed print instructions). All excellent - if done properly - very gentle but very effective and quite tough.

To the Australian reviewer who found this too @different@ to what he calls the full Pilates method - well, as Brooke Siler confirms in her excellent book The Pilates Body, Pilates' students travelled off all over the world and all developed their own variants, some more therapeutic then others. This is the case with Lynn Thomson's book. It is made to help people with back, neck and postural problems. Lots of isolations where you work on mobilising hips, shoulders, even the feet!, while stabilising the whole body and thereby strengthening it also. I would recommend using this and her other books for quite a while - in my case, a year - before perhaps moving on to B Siler's book, thus ensuring a good stable base for the latter's somewhat tougher and more dynamic method which usually has the whole body in motion although always on the mat.

Last but not least, it's graceful - you end up feeling like a dancer, it instills grace and good posture, whereas some of my past workouts left me feeling like a boxer or something! AND it is such good therapy for the mind, so relaxing - all the concentration leaves you feeling mentally refreshed!

God - I sound like one of these born again types - but really, if I can convert a few people into this method and know that someone, somewhere, is suffering less because of this review, I've done my good deed for the day.

To sum up, I guess I shall probably stick to some form or other of Pilates for the rest of my life - it covers the toning and the flexibility, add in a few brisk walks a week for the cardio and you're set!

Knowing that Pilates exercises had the potential to help stabilize my bad back and trick hip, I bought Body Control after finding Brooke Siler's book initially too difficult to follow. Body Control is easy to understand and get started immediately without further instruction, and an entertaining, engagingly funny read.
The foot exercises are great. I wish I could post "before" and "after" photos of my feet so you see for yourself the magical changes that can take place. I used to have painful, flat, bunion-mangled feet. With flattened arches, my knees had rotated inward, setting me up for injury and chronic leg pain. With the exercises in this book, I literally built arches into my foot. As my gait changed, the bunions grew smaller, my toes unfurled and my knees unlocked. The pain left me, and in its stead, I now have the skills to walk like a goddess.
Thank you, Lynne Robinson, for writing this book! May it help you, dear reader of this review, as well!

Of all the great Victorian era African explorers, Thomson is probably the least feted considering his immense capacity for travel and endeavour. Paradoxical perhaps, as the gazelle most often predated on in literally thousands of wildlife documentaries featuring the central African plain bears his name. It is however unlikely, as this book readily demonstrates, that fame and fortune formed the basis of his motivations. He had a voracious appetite for the new and appears to have simply enjoyed the company of others and the pure excitement of seeking them out. He is feted in circles that know him as being a compassionate man, and one of the few of the traditional African explorers who actually respected those that he met on his many trips - he never fired a shot in anger, or as more often was the case, in contempt.

Rotberg's book is a meticulously researched biopic. His attention to detail and evident respect for his subject shine through the text and can't fail to infect the reader with an enthusiam for finding out more about this remarkable man.

I am totally disappointed in this book. I was very anxious to learn ASP.NET and I wanted to find an inexpensive book to help me get started, but the only thing this book did was frustrate me with horrible examples. Almost every single example in the book contained an error. Very disappointing.

The overall coverage was OK for developers looking to get a glimpse of what ASP.NET is about. However, the publishing of the book was rushed and filled with typos. I downloaded the source code from the Sams web site to attempt to follow along with the examples in the book only to be disappointed with code that did not follow the examples in the book. Even with the typos and inconsistent downloaded code, the book gave me a general understanding of what ASP.NET was about. My next step is to purchase an ASP.NET book from Wrox.

This book has a few typos but if you can overlook those it is full of excellent examples for a beginner learning how to use ASP.Net.

I liked it because the examples are complete, while there are at times better ways to do many of the processes that are featured the examples are written in a manner that assures you grasp the concept behind the process. For example on Web Form Server controls it shows the progression of converting an HTML form to a server controlled form handling the button click in the code behind then it goes on to show you how you would dynamically create that form with tr, td objects in the code behind.

The book covers a lot of beginner information...server controls, validation, security, reading and writing text & binary files, email, debugging... pretty much all of the stuff you would use in a real world implementation of a conversion to ASP.Net. It even covers installation of a security certificate (which is not ASP.Net specific but very handy for beginners nonetheless).

I think it is a very comprehensive beginners book and should be considered for anyone just starting out in ASP.Net. The book also gives some good information on getting your Visual Studio.Net set up and all of the examples are stepped through with the assumption that you are using VSNet for development.

My favorite book is the ASP.NET Unleashed so I suggest you consider them both as you will work your way through this book quickly...