I am sure the authoress has written extensively about Beethoven, but this kind of mass conspiracy theory book is just a product of her imagination. I would commend first a little reding of the facts - contrary to a previous reviewer's claim, Austria was not a "Police State" (read for example Macartney: The Habsburg Empire 1790-1918 and any book on the Austrian police, whose primary role was simply to convey popular views to the Emperor. The Empire was also not a dictatorship as the Emperor was limited extensively by the various assemblies in the provinces. A little reading would certainly go a long way here.
Then of course, there is the little matter of lead. Why was replaced for water carriage and removed from petrol? Funny really, because it is poisonous - lead posioning was a fact of life in those days and Beethoven was as expeosed as anyone. Then the book gets really silly - Napoleon (a real dictator) died of stomach cancer, whatever Ben Weider might think. Easy one this - arsenic only acts as a preservative when applied externally in large quantities and why would reeading from the same head vary by a factor of up to 64? (clue: arsenic was used to preserve keepsake hair in the 19th century). Napoleon II was a sickly child (the Habsburgs in general were not a healthy lot) and died of TB complicated by pneumonia.
Conspiracy theories sell - but all are based on a failure to actually bother to read the substantive background. Most of the material is not accessible to most people because it is written in German and Metternich is a bugbear for Bonapartists who can't accept M outthought Emperor N at the Dresden meeting in 1813. But so what? easy target.
File it under fiction with Weider, Hamilton-Williams, Graham Hancock etc. and anyone else who fails to produce substantive evidence but dresses a few selected pieces of info up to please those who buy this nonsense.

I was a bit skeptical when I read Ms. Altman's hypothesis suggesting that Beethoven had been poisoned. However, the test results are in, and essentially, she was right. Beethoven's system suffered from a massive ingestion of lead. While another researcher (the one with the test results) guesses that Beethoven was poisoned by his dinnerware or (amusingly) by his "lead" pencil, Ms. Altman's premise that the poisoning was deliberate is well researched, fascinating, and quite plausible. Her book reads almost like a "who-done-it" in what she calls "the crime of the (19th) century." It was amazing to me that Ms. Altman deduced Beethoven's poisoning solely on documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts, and without being privy to the tests on his hair.

The reader of these lines already knows from Amazon's book description that the author explores the possibility that Beethoven was "helped to an early grave" by people who were his enemies or people he thought were his friends. The author looks at incidents in the composer's life during the last 17 years of his life in a completely new and fresh way. She shows us that, unbelievable as it is for us today, in much of Viennese society Beethoven was far from popular. In his times, few years after the French revolution, there were great political tensions between the "establishment" on the one side, and revolutionary and republican ideas on the other. Austria was a police state. Like other artists, the great composer was regarded as a threat to status quo, and with good reason: he often expressed ideas that could be seen as a threat to law and order. Emperor Franz I had reason to fear his influence, just as dictators have always feared popular artists. The book is very thrilling, although it is painful to imagine how the great man in long periods may have been tortured to have him silenced. Involved are many subordinate characters and two more main characters: Napoleon Bonaparte and especially his son "The King of Rome", so it must have been quite complicated to compose the structure of the book, but the author has made that very logic. Maybe this is a book for us enthusiasts who know much about Beethoven's life from before. However, the author explains his situation so well that I think any "newcomer" in the field of Beethoven's life will have full pleasure of it even without any such previous knowledge. I have only minor critical comments. In one of the chapters I did not quite follow the author's reasoning, maybe I would not have been confused if she had summed up and given her conclusion to that chapter in a more explicit way. In my opinion this is the most interesting book about the Life of Ludwig van Beethoven which has been written for many years.

I have been a fan of Mr Howard for nearly 12 years now, which in my opinion, makes me a bit of a connoisseur, and frankly this book was a bit of a disappointment. Undoubtedly the contributing writers are well-respected and immensely able but their writing lacked the Howardian flavour I have come to love. Ghor's sudden personality shifts are hard to follow and the various ideas in the story lack sufficient depth. This book is not the way Mr Howard would have written it. Nevertheless, this should be read because the original idea belonged to the great REH.

Ghor is a nice blend of Conan and the Cthulhu Mythos together. Abandoned as a child because of a deformity, Ghor is adopted by a pack of wolves. Raised by them, he adopts the ways of the wolf, yet when he meets up with humanity joins them. Constantly struggling with his wolf upbringing and his human surroundings, Ghor becomes a mighty war hero wherever he goes.

This is an excellent adventure book that takes a Conan like hero and plots him against all sorts of evil (and good), including some Cthulhu creations as well.

Originally Ghor was an unfinished story by Conan creator Robert Howard. Upon finding this unfinished story, a magazine decided to finish it. What they did was have a different chapter every month written by a different top fantasy writer. It made the reading interesting.

While most of the chapters were great. Some were excellent. Unfortunately there were a couple chapters that I just wanted to get through to reach the next writers' chapter. Overall a really good read.

I WAS VERY SUPRISED ABOUT HOW WELL THIS STORY CAME OFF. THE VARIUOS WRITERS DID AN EXCELLENT JOB IN WRITING AN EXCITING BOOK THAT FLOWED SMOOTHLY. IT DID NOT COME OFF AS A SERIES OF SHORT STORIES. THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK FOR ROBERT E. HOWARD FANS, AND FANS OF FANTASY IN GENERAL.

This is a nice book for a person to get a good overview of iterative methods. The detail is often lacking, however the book is a good introduction to the field. The authors are some of the biggest names in the field and the book shows some insight into the theory and application of iterative methods.

An excellent, concise book for the iterative solution of linear systems by a entire plethora of current researchers in the field. It not only quickly introduces the various iterative methods, stationary and non-stationary, e.g. Jacobi, SOR, Gauss-Seidel, Conjugate Gradient etc, but briefly analyses them in terms of current research whether unpreconditioned or preconditioned. In addition it considers other more specialised techniques involving domain decomposition and fast solvers. All round excellent although the book is available for free from the website. Definitely worth it.

It's an easy-to-understand handbook that can put you on track to a heart-healthy lifestyle. Both my wife and I are following this book's simple guidelines. I'm sure that the indispensible advice we learned will add years to our lives.

This easy to read primer is full of solid information that I'm finding very helpful as I adopt a healthier lifestyle. The quizzes were real eye openers and pointed up areas where I needed to pay attention. As follow-up, the author offers manageable ways to improve diet and exercise that are very easy to implement into my daily routine. I haven't tried all the recipes yet, but I really loved the Broiled Orange Roughy. At first I felt a little silly doing some of the stretches at work, but they really make a difference in the way I feel. This is a good common sense book.

Self-Help books are often a dime a dozen, with as many coming at you as there are day in the year. But what is different about Contented Hearts is that it is very readable to someone who is not well versed in self help books. A book that does not bombard you with technical terms but does actually inform you on the subject is a good buy, especially when the information could just prolong your life.

This book has good stories and bad stories. No, there is no bad written story. There are some stories very difficult to believe, like "Death to the Easter Bunny!" By Alan Ryan. At least, I can read another Stephen King, "Nona". But it is not enough to get a 10. Paulo Sunao

Well this book is a mixed bag. Some of the stories I really liked and were really well written, yet others I just didn't like at all. I loved the chilling story of "Canavan's Back Yard," and I thought "The Rubber Room" was an interesting tale of a paranoid man thinking Jewish people had a conspiracy against him. Also, "Out Of Sorts" is a clever werewolf story. And as other have mentioned, "Down Among The Dead Man" is an excellent WWII vampire story (while that may sound bizarre, it is written so well you won't even notice just how odd this seems). However, like I said, I did not like some of the other stories. Like "Death To The Easter Bunny," for example. I just found this story repulsive (if you've read the book, you'll know what part I'm talking about.) And "The Crazy Chinaman" also seemed very out of place in this book. But in this book, the good outweighs the bad. I would recommend this book to fans of horror in general or fans of any of the authors.

This is a reprint of the Dodd, Mead Gallery of Horror from the early 1980's. There are a number of stories which stand out but "Down Among the Dead Men" by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann in particular. This is a story you will not soon purge from your subconscious. There is also the classic "Canavan's Back Yard" by Joseph Payne Brennan which is one of the master's best. Seek out other collections from Jospeh Payne Brennan, he is one of the unknown masters. This is a collection which deserved to be reprinted although they marketed it as if it was a new collection. Highest marks!

I used this book for a college freshman composition course I teach. I liked it and found the essays useful. The students didn't respond quite so well, but then again, they don't like most anything that requires thought....

Ce dictionnaire est absolument a eviter. Les definitions sont obsoletes et il n'y a aucun vocabulaire un peu moderne. On a l'impression de lire un livre tout droit sorti du XIXeme siecle! Exemple de traduction: all the world over = par toute la terre !

A eviter absolument

This dictionary contains a plethora of easily found phrases, and often have I vainly searched for a word, such as "calmande," for example, and have found in in Cassell's. It is not the most modern of dictionaries, and as a previous reviewer said, for more modern translation, a dictionary such as Collins-Robert is useful. But for reading most French literary works, Cassell's is quite sufficient and often extremely useful.

I disagree with the previous reviews. A bilingual dictionary is rarely of use to a writer, and is of use to a reader only as a complement to a pair of good single-language dictionaries. Although it may fail as a tourist's companion, the Cassell's serves my purposes as a reader well. The many dated idioms/definitions are rarely archaic, and don't detract from the clarity and completeness of the text; what's more, the understanding of a word requires some knowledge of its history. "All the world over," by the way, is translated "dans le monde entier."

As others have mentioned below, this book is so full of errors that I can't believe it was ever edited. The problems are often incompletely stated, and the solutions skip steps so they are difficult if not impossible to follow. The text itself appears to have just come unedited from someone's word processor. I was very disappointed. There are much better books out there for the FE exam (like the Lindeberg books.) It's hard to imagine how this one survived to a 15th edition.

I am very disappointed with the sample problems and exercises in this review manual. While the simple solutions are explained in insulting depth, the tougher questions are hardly explained at all - almost as if the editor was gesticulating "let's just forget about this one and move on." In working example questions, only after checking equations in other sources did I finally determine that this book was in error. What clinched it for me was finding that the answer listed for question 71 of the sample exam is (E) - The choices are (A) thru (D)! Do not waste time or money on this review material.

Thorough review, but topics do not always follow in logical progression -- chemistry and thermo chapters could be ordered better. Errors in the review questions are really frustrating. I wasted lots of time trying to find how I lost a decimal place, only to find the author did instead. Area and volume terms get mixed in the fluids section. etc

Having recently read the book "The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten", I must say it is unbelieveable how biased Karlene Faith is in her attempt to help Van Houten gain her release from prison. She portrays Van Houten as being a helpless "victim" of Charles Manson and leads the reader to believe that "poor little Leslie" had absolutely no control over her role in the senseless slaughter of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. What a crock! Faith seems to forget that after brutally murdering the LaBiancas, Leslie and the other heartless killers went into the LaBianca's kitchen and helped themselves to a snack!! Murdering two innocent people whom she didn't even know certainly didn't make poor little Leslie lose her appetite! The woman didn't have a heart or soul then, and she still doesn't.
She should be paroled from prison when the murder victims are paroled from their graves. It's a slap in the face to the victims and their families that she or the others is even considered for parole in the first place. Justice can only be served when Leslie dies BEHIND BARS!

Writing a biography of a personal friend must be a very tricky business. Karlene Faith met famous Manson murderess Leslie Van Houten almost thirty years ago, and has proven an effective advocate for her eventual release. The relationship between the teacher and the reformed cult member is touching and very real, but it undermines this book as a chronicle of a criminal's transformation from delusional disciple to remorseful, decent soul.

Rather than focus on Van Houten's thoughts and feelings during her three decades behind bars, Faith uses the book as an apologia and rationalization for the prisoner's choices and behavior when a very young woman. The author seems to have only a vague realization of the monstrousness of the crimes committed, and lays the blame squarely on the mastermind, exonerating her subject and casting her as a victim in the same mold as those who lost their lives. Van Houten herself seems to have a clearer view of her own culpability, and it would have been interesting to hear more about this from her own mouth.

The book does cast a disturbing light on the inequity and gross politicization of the justice system. Van Houten's crimes, and her admitted participation in them, should allow for the imposition of a true life term, and so far the system seems intent on doing so. It's shocking to read, then, that all of the other prisoners on death row with Van Houten when the death penalty was suspended were released from prison within a few years. It seems that when no one is watching, the justice system plays by some very inept and unfair rules. Certainly Van Houten poses no further threat to society, while the prison system routinely ejects predators with murderous histories and no sign of reformation.

Though thick with pages full of psychobabble and research into cult psychology, there are enough anecdotes in the book to humanize the subject and make it an interesting read. Van Houten does come across as an obvious candidate for legitimate parole. But Karelene Faith's blind approach to this polarizing subject may be the last thing Van Houten needs.

This is criminologist Karlene Faith's argument for granting parole to "Manson Girl" Leslie Van Houten. If that possibility is repugnant to you under all circumstances, then there's no point in reading either the book or this review. One thing's for certain, though. This work does not, on its merits, warrant the kind of invective being spewed at it on this web page.

Faith, a friend of Van Houten's for many years, unapologetically advocates for her release. She uses this vehicle to make her case. There's nothing sinister or particularly unusual about doing so, by the way. So, the relevant questions become, first,whether her position has merit; and second, whether it's well written.

On the first point, an objective observer could reasonably be persuaded. Van Houten has spent over 30 years in prison and
appears to be, by all accounts, contrite about her crime,
emotionally sound (to the extent possible), and wholly
rehabilitated. There seems to be no rational argument for her being a continuing threat to society.

And she is eligible, under the law, for parole. So the issue is, in a society that purports to consider rehabilitation, and not just retribution, as one of the legitimate objectives of its criminal justice system, why wouldn't Van Houten be given the
rare opportunity to try and re-assimilate into free society?
It's certainly a thought provoking idea that stays with the reader for a while. Even among those of us familiar with the horrendous details of the crimes who might not have, before, seriously considered the propriety of freeing one of the people convicted of participating in them.

On the second question, the book moves quickly and keeps the reader's interest. It is obviously well researched. It would be easy to criticize the author for trying to do too much, skipping around a bit and giving short shrift to a number of relevant or (perhaps) irrelevant subjects. Her fervent efforts to emphasize the "cult" influence of Manson on Van Houten and consequently place blame primarily with him will put off some readers as minimizing the horror of the crimes or Van Houten's role in them. Also, her attempts to analyze legal issues and the motives of participants in purely social science terms strike me, as a lawyer, as indicative of a failure to really understand the adversary system or even as naive.

Parenthetically, it is impressive that Van Houten is able to inspire this level of friendship, over this period of time, in Faith.

This book offers a unique slant on a subject that still fascinates a nation. On balance, it is a good read, and wholly worthwhile.

Here are my thoughts on this book.

Pros: 1. Very reasonably priced as a comprehensive review book and supposedly a money back guarantee.
2. It is current and up to date (as of the April 2003 exam)
3. It has a pretty good variety and quantity of examples and practice problems.

Cons: 1. There are a large number of errors in the example and practice problems. I found at least 50 errors in using this book as a review guide and it is difficult, especially on some of the example problems where I would wonder for half an hour where I went wrong. Some of the errors are obvious, others are difficult or near impossible to spot if you are trying to relearn this material and remember very little. I am sure there are significantly more errors since my review did not cover the book comprehensively and I'm sure I missed a lot as well.
2. The text is not very well written. Some sections go into too much detail while others simply scratch the surface. There were times when I learned more from reading the EIT handbook than from this review book.
3. Lastly, I was a little disappointed when I went to take the practice exam and I found several identical questions to the practice problems provided in the different chapters. The least they could have done was make sure not to reuse questions so that when we'd like to take the practice exam we haven't just seen the questions from review sections.