When was the last time you heard of a 13 year-old who willingly read a 520 page novel written over 150 years ago? Well, if it has been a long time, you may rest assured that it has happened and I am living proof. This book surprised me, I read it voluntarily but I had half-expected it to be a long, unimaginative knights-in-shining-armor story. But I was wrong. The story grabbed me with its flowery old-english, the brave, young, idealist of a hero, and its many surprising twists. I never expected Robin Hood to be a main character, the struggle of Rebecca and her father against the tides of medieval prejudice stirs the heart, and the surprise ending of the last tournament will tickle you. I and my sister's favorite part would have to be the supposed "funeral" of Athelstane, the in-over-his-head Saxon Lord. We were both in stitches as his "ghost" appears just at the right moment...Hehehe. You have to read the book yourself to fully appreciate it, and I would reccomend it to everyone, but especially to fans of G.A. Henty's medieval novels, Jane Austen and James Fenimore Cooper.

This is most definately a book you have to wade through but Scott is such a masterful story teller that the difficult passages are worth the effort. Rebekah (I can't remember which way Scott spelled it so please bear with me) is a brilliant character, an intelligent and independant woman who uses her brain. Most modern books don't have as strong a female character.

THe introduction to my copy says that the book is not accurate to medieval history and was not meant to be. The Normans and Saxons were symbols for the English and Scots. (Scott was pro independance) I don't know how true this is but it makes a good deal of sense. My point is, the strength of the book was not it's historical accuracy but Scott's brilliant characters. Rebekah and Brian de Bois Gilbert are my favorites hgandds down for their complexities but everyone has at least one good scene. (Except poor Rowena who really is a damsel in distress.)

This great book has escaped me far too long, but is now amongst my favorites.

As tales of nobility and chivalry go, Ivanhoe scores a ten. It is superbly written and easy to read. The cast of characters seems nearly endless, as even secondary characters take on great living qualities and consume the reader.

Reviewers may focus on King Richard, his evil brother John, or Ivanhoe, but there are so many strong characters. For instance one "DeBracy" is a stout hearted soldier of fortune and happens to be working for the ill minded John. His knightly character is challenged and defeated by the Black Knight of the Fetterlock and he quickly champions fair play and chivalric form when that defeat, by one more noble than he, rekindles his manhood and loyalty to his vow of knighthood.

Another character, Brian de Bois Guilbert, plays a villain and strong crusader of christendom against any foe of the cross or his own gain. Sir Brian is a member of the Knights Templar and is vexed or enchanted by every worldly thing that he has denounced . His love for a beautiful Jewish girl is completely absurd to all around him, but he is completely consumed by her beauty and purity. Willing to give up fame, fortune, and power for her; we find him nearly mad with his passion so far out of control.

I reccommed this book to lovers of great novels and historians alike. You won't go wrong with Ivanhoe!

This is a flawed book in many ways. It claims to be written for people who know little about basketball, but there are too many diagrams of plays and tips for coaching. There also is too much information about statistics. Nowhere in this book do you find anything that conveys the sheer joy of watching two excellent teams battle it out for the conference championship. It also is a big mistake to put in so many Notre Dame references; couldn't Digger have asked some of his many coaching friends for anecdotes? (And what's with all the plugs for Bookstore Basketball?) The only Dummies here are the people who buy this book!

Digger Phelps' attempt to write a book for the novice fan to player to budding coach is a success. "Basketball for Dummies" may be the title, however any hoop fan or coach will find its contents helpful and useful. Perhaps one of the best skills development sections in print. There's enough good basketball information in there that anyone can benefit from.

Don't be affraid to place this on your bookshelf.

I remember watching some Notre Dame games that Digger Phelps coached. The games were always entertaining and top notch. You could tell Phelps was excellent at getting the most from his teams. This book is a continuation of that, he combines his knowledge and occasionally humor to write an excellent guide about the sport. In an early chapter, he points out that you can play the game almost anywhere and equipment costs are low. Who wouldn't enjoy it? In later chapters, he discusses rules, stats, shooting fundamentals and offense, defense and rebounding, specific plays run during games, the various levels of play (from pickup games up to the pros and international basketball), as well as chapters on coaching and getting into "playing shape." He even lists his choices for "Ten Greatest Games" and "Ten (well eleven) Greatest Players." The book even contains a glossary of terms and drills to use in practices.

Truly a complete "instructional guide" to basketball (if there ever was such a thing).

This book does a good job of explaining the reasoning behind the language's (sometimes strange) behavior--most of the time, anyway. The book suffers from numerous typos in the code fragments. Also, it would be nice to have a nice reference section where each command's syntax is explaned succinctly; this is important, especially because M is not a free-form language, i.e., the white spaces are significant.

This book provides the needed instruction for a beginner with no knowledge to learn the fundamentals of M programming. Combine the book with a free M program downloaded from the internet and you are on your way to becomming a beginning programmer.

M is a delightful applications language. Recently I've been struggling with C++ STL, trying to use the "map" container to get perhaps a tenth of the functionality you get from an ordinary M variable, and, believe me, I miss M.

This is the M book we've all been waiting for, and it delivers exactly what it promises. It is, as the blurb says, "the only source M programmers at all levels need."

The style and presentation reminds me a little of Stoustrup's book on C++: the organization and style are tutorial, but not elementary. It is up-to-date with the current standard.

What I particularly admire about it, and what is all too rare in computer books (especially those written by professors of computer science) is that it displays an intelligent awareness of real-world commercial implementations of M. Too many books either describe a pure-standards abstraction on the one hand, or a specific vendor extension on the other. Walters identifies popular M implementations by name and calls attention to variations where appropriate. Like M itself, Walters' book is directed at real programmers trying to solve real problems in the real world.

There are a few places where one can see that the book is an (extensive) rewrite of his older book, rather than a completely new work. I thought it was harder to locate the "argumentless DO" than it should have been, and I felt there should have been a coherent discussion in one place explaining the (historically weird) relations between the various forms of DO, and when $T is and isn't stacked. Similarly, it is disconcerting to see on page 199 that the "NEW" command is described as a "recent extension... not yet formally included in the standard." These are cosmetic problems that do not seriously mar the book I've been waiting for.

This book is very original.The main characters are Lambert Post,Charles Walter, the murderer and friend of Lambert Post, and Maury Ryan,the reporter.and the story are told by them.

The story involves revenge,hate,murders of course,disturbing behaviors ... That ending was so unpredictable!!!you think you know the murder and the characters well,but actually you don't! read it and see it for yourself!

This book was very original. It's a mystery about a serial killer, although it is told in part by the killer. It forced me to have sympathy and an understanding for the character that is usually hated and feared in these types of books. It held my attention throughout the whole novel, even though I thought I knew everything about the character(s). The end is shocking!

Burleigh recounts a brief but traumatic period of RichardByrd's life based upon Byrd's diary and book "Alone." Foralmost six months, Byrd observed and recorded the Antartic night, while based in a manmade tunnel where temperatures could drop to 60 degrees below zero. What could the man have been thinking about? The intense cold and dark are nicely illustrated by Krudop's somber colors. A good initial introduction, for the younger reader, to the life of Admiral Byrd.

this book takes you into the world of basic pure math. it covers the basic elemects of math such as sets, functions, and proofs. but what is really making this book great and far apart from other similiar books is its elaboration of recursive function and computability, and i find it interesting.

Sir Walter Scott's tale of "Ivanhoe" is an enjoyable story, but it taxes the readers patience many times over. If you can bear with the very lengthy descriptions, and what has to be the driest, most boring first chapter of any book in Western Civilization, you will actually find yoursel drawn into the story. Two quick notes, you may want Cliff's Notes or an on-line equivalent to help keep straight as to who is who, and to help get a better understanding of the often arcane writing style. Second, this Signet classic version of the book really needs to be re-set for a more modern typeset. This book is still using the typeset from the 1962 printing, and it is very difficult on the eye. Most other classic books have since been re-set to a larger print to make it easier on the eye. "Ivanhoe" should not be an exception. (Note: other editions of "Ivanhoe" available in mass market form ARE available in an easier-to-read print, and the reader may want to consider them over this edition.)

the problem with series that attempt to impose an accessible beginners' format on art and artists is that these things rarely conform to method. the Taschen introductions to great artists are all 96 pages long, dividing the artist's life into significant chronological chapters, following strict biography, and using key paintings to illustrate various points made. this is fine in practice, we've all got to start somewhere, and the series is noted for its refusal to talk down to the reader, its clarity of interpretation, and the bounteous range of miraculously mounted, full-colour reproductions, not just of paintings, but line drawings, lithographs, sketches, studies, woodcuts etc.

The obvious difficulty is not that artists are transcendent and wayward figures who won't fit into a neat grid, but that some artists lived to be considerably older than others. the first book in this series I read was Anna Meseure's 'Auguste Macke', the study of a painter who died when he was only 27. Meseure was able to elaborate each development in Macke's work in detail, and to give a proper treatment of biographical background and its influence on the art, if only on the level of subject matter.

Macke, however, remains a marginal figure. henri Matisse is one of the towering geniuses of 20th century culture. He lived, and painted masterpieces, until he was 85; his life spanned two cataclysmic World Wars, a riot of social and political changes, and almost every aesthetic revolution worth talking about in the last 150 years. given the same amount of space to discuss Matisse as Meseure had with a painter a third his age, Essers' study can't help being a cursory skim, with few revelatory anecdotes (we only learn in the chronology about Matisse's pilgrimmage to the aging Renoir; his theatre designs for Stravinsky; or the visit of Aragon to his sickbed during World War Two - such episodes are surely as important as some given prominence in the book), or, worse, few intimations of the blinding raptures that must have seized Matisse at each new artistic discovery and breakthrough. We learn very little about his relation to his cultural milieu, his tacit rivalry with Picasso, or his overall importance in the history of art; discussion of the work is apolitically formalist. Uncomfortable questions - the obsessiveness of his early year despite his family's poverty; his apoliticism during World War Two - are skimmed over.

None of this really matters. Matisse's work travels surprisingly well in reproduction, especially the later works involving cut-outs, simplified forms and bold colours. the colours throughout are done full bright justice to, so dazzling in fact that reading this book for more than an hour gave me a headache. The rich mix of classics ('Woman with the Hat', 'La Dance', 'Jazz') with the revelatory, less well-known (including spare, geometric, near-abstract views of Notre Dame during World War One) allow us to write our own story of this shamanic artist, whose patrician, Freudian mien concealed the colours and curves of a blazing and boundless inner life.

I'm a college student. I am studying auditing to take an AICPA exam. well, auditing is hard for me to study. I think, in order to understand a structure of auditing, reading a book is important. 'Modern Auditing' is helpful to me. A consistent arrangement of context, detailed indexes, lots of figures.... I'd like to recommend 'Modern Auditing'.

I've read many screenwriting books, and this book didn't tell me anything I haven't read elsewhere. Walter has no real insight into the writing process, just some knowledge of the business which you can pick up from the other books. A disappointment.

Richard Walter is, once again, very good at rehashing other people's ideas, whether it's from screenwriters he's talked to, reading the trades, or hanging out with other screenwriting professors. What he can't and doesn't do is bring his own insight and talent to the job, because he's not a screenwriter, producer or agent. This book is no worse than some other books written for absolute beginners, but you can learn more specifics and tricks of the trade by reading books by actual pro's.

This book is not only helpful to screenwriters, but it's immensely helpful to beginning writers of fiction, too! It's one of the FEW I've seen where the author gets right to the meat without wasting page after endless page analyzing films or offering up screenplays of his own or those of students. If you want someone to get to the point about screenplays and storytelling, this is it! A must-read!