As a new hiker/backpacker I found this book to be very helpful and entertaining. It has 99% of the information that anyone would need to get started hiking and I'm sure there is information for the seasoned hiker as well. There are web addresses and phone numbers for maps, clothing and gear. It's a terriffic place to go for whatever information you need.

Excellent book for network consultants and upper IT management. I am starting to use a number of their templates and ideas on current IT department audits that I am conducting. The book has helped me improve the structure and format used to present my findings to the management teams I report to. Anyone looking to make their IT work look more professional and be more complete will find value in this book.

Sylwanowicz presents compelling arguments that the key concepts of Duns Scotus' metaphysics derive from a common metaphysical inspiration: that essence is by nature self-moving. He contrasts this with the Thomistic inspiration: essence as the passive recipient of an act of existence which it delimits. One comes away from the work with an appreciation of the unique genius of Scotus, an increased capacity to view Scotistic metaphysics from within, rather than through the lens of another system. This is achieved with a minimum of polemical attitude toward Aquinas and ought to be welcomed by all, regardless of philosophical formation. Neither is the analysis for historians of philosophy alone. A reading of this book can only have salutary consequences for anyone who actively considers these issues on their own. Expect to be challenged but to come away enriched.

The adventures of Dashiell Hammett's retired private eye Nick Charles and his rich, and not-quite-as-ditzy-as-you'd-think wife could be called the American equivalent of the mysteries of New Scotland Yard Commissioner of Police Sir John Appleby and his wife, Lady Judith----although the latter doesn't have an ounce of ditz in her personality. However, she does occasionally reveal a playful side to her husband.

At the beginning of "The Crabtree Affair," the reader finds Sir John and his wife strolling along a disused canal, one fine English summer day. They indulge in affectionately ironic conversation, making it obvious that theirs is a long-standing marriage (although as I remember, they also talked that way to each other before marriage---see "Appleby's End"):

Lady Judith: "It's private enough. As we were saying, this country-side seems absolutely deserted. Not a sign of habitation, population, a trace of the modern world."

Sir John: "You're wrong there, Judith. Look south."

"Judith looked south---which was towards what Appleby had called the secondary motor road. All she saw was a momentary glint of light.

"'I think,' she said, 'that I saw the sun reflected from the wind screen of a passing car. Right?'

"'Right as far as you go. What you saw was a silver-grey Rolls-Royce Phantom V.'

"'My dear John, it's terribly vulgar to name cars---particularly astoundingly expensive ones. It's only done by cheap novelists. You must just say: 'a very large car.''

"Appleby received this with hilarity."

Eventually (you knew this was going to happen), the Applebys find a body floating face-down in the scummy canal-water. The quest for the murderer of returned prodigal, Seth Crabtree, proceeds in the leisurely fashion of a Golden Age British manor house mystery. It is leavened, as are all of Michael Innes's novels, with a great deal of erudite wit and conversation. It has not one, but two snobbish butlers, and also features Judith's eccentric great-uncle, Colonel Raven whose life's work-in-progress is the "Atlas and Entomology of the Dry-Fly Streams of England."

If you are a already a fan of Margery Allingham, Edmund Crispin, or Dorothy Sayers, you definitely need to add Michael Innes's mysteries to your reading list. "The Crabtree Affair" is perfect in its class, and you will also learn quite a bit about the English Canal system.

I helped work on the editing of this book during my Senior year of college. That was awhile ago, but the book is great. Many of the Indiana University Students who studied in Rotterdam in 1986 will recognize the case studies.

This book reveals how modern adoption suits should be handled. The answer was plain, simple, and correct--how ironic that the bird which symbolizes America could see it so easily.

This book is yet one of my most favorites. The detailing of this fine writen book makes you actually not want to put it down once you start to read it. The movie is wonderful, but the book takes you to the next level that the movie leaves out.

So if you are a person who craves more detailing in an action and adventure, this is the book for you. No lie, you will not be disapointed. Take my word for it.

Michael Innes plunged off the surreal deep end when he wrote "The Daffodil Affair." Maybe it was because of the war--this Inspector Appleby mystery was published in 1942--or maybe Innes just felt like seeing how far he could venture into the weird and still get published. All of his mysteries contain eccentricities: usually a farcical character or a setting that is just out of true. In this particular mystery, characters, plot, and setting are all seen through a glass, cross-eyed.

However, if you can swallow the premise that an obscenely wealthy individual is stealing paranormal objects (including a counting horse, a witch, and a haunted house) with the goal of cornering the market on the supernatural, then founding a new religion and ruling the world after the current dust-up (WWII) is ended, you'll enjoy this story. It has a Grand Guignol climax on the banks of the mighty Amazon River, that includes not only the cab horse, the witch, and the haunted house, but also the phosphorescing ghost of a murdered man.

It also has the strangest motive for murder in all of fiction.

Inspector Appleby is drawn into the Daffodil affair when a cab horse of that name goes missing in wartime London. Daffodil happens to be the favorite 'ride' of Appleby's elderly maiden aunt. Not only is he a gentle, slow-moving steed, he can also answer numerical queries by bobbing his head the requisite number of times, in the manner of the psychic horse, Clever Hans (although Clever Hans used his hoof not his head).

Meanwhile, another Scotland Yard detective named Hudspith is hard at work on the abduction of Lucy Rideout, a young woman with a multiple-personality disorder. He and Appleby converge on the scent when a haunted house in Bloomsbury goes missing.

The detectives follow the trail of the paranormal captives onto a ship bound for South America, posing as psychic Australian sheep ranchers in order to bamboozle the wealthy collector into abducting them, too. Appleby spends his time at sea philosophizing about the gullibility of mankind and persuading his partner Hudspith to fake supernatural visions.

Innes's C.I.D. inspector is more intellectually morose than usual (remember that the author wrote this story in the midst of the war), but his antic streak also emerges, especially when he is persuading the gullible Hudspith to act out yet another phantasmagoric visitation.

"The Daffodil Affair" is vintage Appleby, in spite of its preposterous plot. It shouldn't be the first Innes mystery you read (try "Hamlet, Revenge!" or "One Man Show"), but once you're hooked you won't be able to stop yourself from enjoying it--supernatural fizz, metaphysical speculations, counting horses, and all.

Drury's work is a classic. It includes discussions of issues in psychiatry and religion by a friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein's, the great philosopher whose works "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" and "Philosophical Investigations" remain controversial and highly influential today in philosophy -- especially analytical philosophy, (the late) logical positivism, and the philosophy of language. Students interested in any of these fields will also benefit from Drury's work, and it can especially recommended to those who enjoy Wittgenstein's own writing, or who are interested in how it might be applied to issues such as psychiatry and religion.

Written by one of the top automotive journalists, this book is widely recognized as the best source for information on the DeLorean automobile and it's gestation process. A very rare book today, a few years after its publication people were refusing the book when offered as a door prize. More DeLorean info can be found at www.dmcnews.co