One of the most exciting stories of prison life I have ever read. McLaughlin brought me into the cell blocks and corridors with him. Several times I thought he was going to be killed or injured; and I rooted for him while he fought for safety for the officers and inmates. Considering how many were injured during that period, it is a miracle that he survived. This is a movie waiting to happen or will the establishment keep it a secret. A must read.

I very much enjoyed reading this book. The author brought me right into the prison world with him. Not only did I get a first hand look at prisoners, but of the prison system and the impact both of these have on prison guards. I never took into account before the risks prison guards take both physically and mentally. Not only is the book informative but also a very interesting story.

Screw is a fantastic book that details life inside one of the country's toughest prisons. The perspective of prison life by someone who is inside the system is both intriguing and revealing. It is especially significant where so much public discussion of the country's prison system is dominated by politicians, lawyers, and others who do not have first hand experience.

This is a well researched and illustrated book. A very worthy study of Canadian and other Commonwealth aircrew insignia. The author obviously has a wide experience in researching and collecting in the subject and the coverage of particularly Canadian insignia is excellent. As an Australian, I found the treatment of Australian aircrew badges is very good as he consulted appropriate Australian museum authorities. The only criticisms I have are minor. In dealing with naval aircrew insignia, the author gives the impression of not understanding the rather complex British wartime treatment of 'temporary' naval personnel - they were enrolled in the Naval Volunteer Reserve, with different rank lacing on uniforms to regular officers e.g. 'wavy' stripes as opposed to straight stripes on the uniform sleeve. As almost all Commwealth navy aircrew were temporaries, they wore the wavy stripes. Although illustrations of these appear in the book, this explanation is not given. The other, more humorous (hardly a criticism) is the illustration of first world war Royal Naval Air Service Flight Lieutenant E. Stoneman on page 45, in his uniform, together with a lady who looks very much like his mother (or a close relative as facial features are similar). She, of course is dressed in female attire of the time. Our ever exact author specifically identifies the Lieutenant as the person standing on the left of the photograph! As I said, very minor criticisms. A very good book on the subject

In my experience, I have found very few self-avowed Christian writers who interact with cultural studies theory using its terminology and concepts. Warren attempts this in his text and for the most part, I believe he succeeds. He leaps off from Stuart Hall's notions about commodities, production, and hegemony to challenge religious people to consider how they interact with their culture. Although the title would suggest that Warren's analysis is limited to media, he also deals with the related areas of image interpretation and advertising to move people to think about the hegemonic structures of culture in which they live.
The only shortfall of the book was the chapter on metaphor. Although this is an important topic in and of itself, I didn't think that it fit with the overall subject matter of Warren's text.

It's time for church leadership to wake up and see that those they want to reach for Chrisitianity are DIFFERENT than they are! Younger, in-touch with today's communications venues - but yearning for God (just as many of us have been). Slaughter uses vivid examples of how some churches have woken up to this fact. And, in a lively writing and textual font style of presentation brings this point home. As an older (age 50+) church leader my eyes are beginning to open. And,as Slaughter points out, a whole new adventure is beginning. Jesus Christ was, and is relevant - a simple fact not to be forgotten.

I never took the AP microeconomics course offered at my school. I just used this book and the PR book. Overall, this book is great in that it teaches all the information needed to ace the test. However, the questions in the practice test are not reflective of those on the real test. Also, sometimes, this book delves too deeply into the subject. It provides far more information than is necessary to get a 5 on the test. It is also more boring than the Princeton Review book. Information is presented in paragraph forms rather than in bulleted form, making it more unorganized. However, knowing this book back to front will easily get the job of getting a 5 on the AP test accomplished.

I've scored a 5 on the ap microeconomics this year.
And I had the chance to glimpse through this book just before the test. Well, about this book.

The reviews are superb!!!
It's full of economics that you will need on the test day.
Also I liked the review questions in the end of every chapter.
But there was one thing I was not satisfied with...
The sample test... They are terrible.
They're nothing like the test you'll see on the AP.
Apart from that I found this book great.
and to anyone who's studying for the AP economics, I recommend this book.

I bought this book in order to review my long ago endevour into the world of economics. I found it to be enjoyable and comprehensive. I'm married to an economist and am now able to partake, and contribute, to the strange conversations she has with fellow economists (I am an engineer). Not an easy accomplishment for a single book to do that to an engineer. Excellent book!

This is an excellent book if you've never used Interdev and want to see what it's all about.

The chapters on databases are especially well written. It does a great job of showing you how to manage your odbc database from within VID. However, intermediate ASP programmers will find that most of the examples are somewhat simplistic and aren't enough for a real world web application.

The book's heavy emphasis on using DTCs is great but I was left wondering how to modify the code written by the wizard to allow for more flexibility and that's just not covered in this book. However, it's still worth the read--if only for the database stuff.

You simply cannot find a better introductory book than this one on Visual InterDev 6. Michael Amundsen gives an oustanding tutorial on the InterDev environment, then moves on to build a solid understanding of planning, designing, and implementing web applications.

This book will quickly and easily bring the beginning web developer up to speed on Visual InterDev 6, HTML forms, Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), Active Server Pages (ASP), and delivering database content to the web... everything you need for real-world server-side web development.

The author walks the reader through tons of step-by-step hands-on examples with crystal-clear explanations. And the organized format of the book makes it a great reference that I go back to again and again.

When I set out to learn ASP, I wanted to learn the only integrated development environment (IDE) that was built for ASP - Microsoft's Visual InterDev. Take it from me, a professional web application developer... this is THE book to get started with.

This book will provide you with a fast way to get up and going in Visual Interdev. Coverage of the basics of DTCs is excellent. VID has a lot of breadth and requires knowledge of ASP, which you will be better equipped to understand after you read this book. After reading this book I found the on-line ASP docs from Microsoft sufficient. Mr. Amundsen's book provides some very nice information on ADO. You get information on using it both at a low-level and using DTCs. Learn the low-level approach first and the DTCs will make much more sense. The author supports a mailing list and web site with some great tutorials and a FAQ area. The list and site with the author's support constitute a great resource for learning the more advanced topics.

I had mistakenly thought that Wrox books were held to a higher standard. First getting a taste for them going through both of Rob Vieira's two SQL Server Programming books and regarding them as the finest technical books I've ever seen. However this Professional SQL Server 2000 XML is a disappointment. Part of the problem lies with having 12 different authors because it seems a bit jumpy. I think I'll really try to limit my future purchases to single source efforts. Also, no care was taken with the code examples that you can download from the Wrox website. The book shows the source but there is really no way of really matching the example to the source other than guessing the name. Often I've needed to open up all 15 or so files in the directory to realize that the particular example is not included. I'm picking my way through but it is not pleasant.

It is a good book as far as explaning what SQL Server has to offer regarding XML capabilities but it should have covered the case studies fully with the .Net Framework. Also, it covers very good the IIS configuration, and how to manage XML Templates, XPath and Schemas. The book has a migration example from ASP to ASP.Net which does not cover ADO.Net. If you want a rich source on how to integrate SQLXML and the .Net Framework THIS IS NOT THE BOOK.

I looked at two other SQL Server 2000 XML books, but found this one to be the best - covering almost everything on SQL Server 2000 XML. Very well written, nice examples help understand the technology better. The chapter on Updategrams is very useful. I wanted to learn updategrams and this chapter covers it nicely to get started using them in production.

This book came up repeatedly under various search engines for "leadership." I would say it is probably a far more valuable resource for private-sector business folks. The book misses the mark on "leadership" analysis, but could probably be a McDonald's drive-thru success for the business world. I am not a student of business, but it appeared to wildly over-simplify a complex topic. I noted the author's doomsday-ish tone, particularly in sentences such as: "The choice is clear; Reengineer and flourish, or fail to reengineer and perish." The book was not one of the resources in the "leadership" arena that appealed to me.

The book gives a simple, hands-on overview about basic steps of one of the many so-much-talked-about management methods - Business Reengineering. The book uses outline method in describing the main steps to be taken in reengineering process. Therefore it may sometimes lack detailed reasoning of the background. However, with the help of handful of examples and illustrations, Bennis and Mische succeeded quite well in bringing such a complicated subject to wider public. In my view, it would be most useful for CEO-s who are under the time stress for it may be read through in just a couple of hours. I strongly recommend!

I was very excited when I heard the Cupcake Cafe was publishing a book. I have been to the cafe many times, and they make delicious, beautifully decorated cakes and cupcakes. Many of my friends rely on them for all their birthday cakes, etc. As an amateur baker, I've been eager to get their recipes -- especially for the excellent buttercream -- and their secrets for making such beautiful flower decorations. As of yet, I have not tried the recipes, but I am definitely disappointed in the lack of photographs and diagrams. Half of the book is devoted to creating buttercream flowers, but uses only text to describe the process. There are a few pages of color inserts of completed cakes. These are definitely inspiring, but also frustrating, because I still have no idea how to make them!!

I have actually used the recipe for buttercream and it was perfect as well as delicious! All the recipes' instructions are very easy to understand and any problems you may encounter are covered so they are practically foolproof. The recipes are unique and I appreciate that Ann Warren has used actual recipes from her shop and not fudged up something just for a book. My only disappointment is the small amount of colored photographs of decorated cakes. I really wanted more, even some illustrations would have been useful in the "how to" section on making buttercream florals. All in all, a very good book to add to your dessert book collection.

I have decorated cakes for more than 20 years, and have devoured cake decorating books from the early days of Wilton in the 70's to the more recent publications of artists such as Colette Peters. I first learned of Ann Warren's beautiful cakes, unique style, techniques and recipes on a fairly detailed segment of Martha Stewart Living on Lifetime, and saw a couple of short segments on the Food Network -- I tried them and I'm hooked. If I had the privilege and pleasure of spending a day with anyone in the field of cake decorating, it would be Ann Warren.

The book does a great job of explaining all the important details of her unique style and gives detailed recipes and instructions. I highly recommend it. Though there are several pages of color photos of Ann's beautiful cakes, I would like to have seen more of them and more close-up shots of some of the flowers for studying techniques. Perhaps a sequel???

Elegantly written, thought-provoking, abrasive, and immensely informative, Bell-Villada's essay is nonetheless affected by two important flaws: its relative lack of focus, especially toward the end of the book, and its rigid application of a left v. right girdle. Bell-Villada obviously believes that the left is always good and progressive, with the possible exception of Joseph Stalin, whereas the right and the center are innately deficients, both morally and intellectually, for they either call for a return to the past or for a blind defense of the statu quo. The problem here is theoretical. Arguably, the milieu of artists is ill suited for this kind of Manichean mutilation. Many artists, in modern times, have adopted syncretic political dispositions comprising ingredients such as contempt for the statu quo and rejection of dominant values (especially utilitarianism), this leading them either to fascism or to bolchevism, with a great deal of transactions between the two (it is significant that Bell-Villada does not have much to say about Ezra Pound!). Most fascists were also revolutionary and anti statu-quo: in fact, many were attempting to revitalize socialism. Rather than using only "left v. right", Bell-Villada should have added other variables such as "romantic v. enlightenment" and "liberal v. anti-liberal", and use them all with a great deal of flexibility.