This is an outstanding collection of old timey songs and great stories telling the life in music of Doc Watson. David Holt, conducts an interesting interview with Doc and gets him to tell some of the stories behind the music and behind the people in the music. A great historical account but even more so,a wonderful recording of friends making music together with amazing guitar picking and foot stompin' old time banjo. A must album for folk and bluegrass fans. The songs you always want to hear.

I was suppose to read this trilogy from Agota Kristof (The notebook, The Proof, The third lie) while studying French back in school. I am really glad I came back to these books and read them during my recent vacation. I think you should read all three of them in order, to experience the wonderful play of language, the truth, the lies and the amazing powerful story behind the words. This is a must read for any East European as well as for everyone else.

This book is the most condensed, accessible discussion of genetic manipulation techniques and methods around. Armed with this, one can move on and understand any other text in the area.

The Notebook (by far the best of the 3 books) describes the lives of a nameless twins that grow up in a Hungarian border village during the second world war. The are raised by their grandmother, or maybe it is better to say that they grow up despite the presence of their grandmother. The children find ways to survive the war: on the one hand they can be extremely friendly and caring, for example for the girl next door, on the other hand they are 2 extremely awful boys who steal, deceive, betray and even murder whenever they think this is necessary. A beautiful, oppressive book about what war does to children, but also about the capacity of children to survive under extreme conditions.

The Proof describes the life of Lucas, who remains in the Hungarian village after the war. He tries to get a decent life, but every time he seems to have some luck something awful happens which brings him back to square one. At the end of the book a German appears in the village who may or may not be his brother Claus.

The Third Lie consists of 3 parts: one in which Claus describes the search for his brother after his return to the capital. Finally he finds an old, misanthropist poet whose name is also Klaus and who denies to be his brother. In the second part this Klaus describes why he does not want to recognize his brother.

It is fairly difficult to write one review of 3 books, even when these books are a logical sequel of each other. In every new book the perspective changes and the reader is left in doubt. Did this twin brother really exist? Who is Lucas and who is Claus? In the end the common denominator of the three books is the notion that real friendship does not exist, that nobody can be trusted and that every story can be told in different ways, depending on the perspective.

If taken one by one the three parts of this trilogy are good--well written, precise in a terryfying way, emotionally shocking (surely not something to read when in a depressive mood); but if you buy this and read it as one big novel in three parts it's simpy amazing. I can't tell you why, that's part of the fun. The only thing I can say: things aren't exactly what they seem. Outstanding literary achievement by this expatriate Hungarian writer, one of the most facinating literary voices in Central Europe with Thomas Bernhard. A must-read if there ever was one!

I am usually not a big fan of novels. I read them occasionally, in between non-fictions that I prefer, and most of the time end up disappointed. This triology is one of really few novels I was really impressed and loved (another such book was Flowers for Algernon, although quite differen t).The three stories are so finely constructed and intertwined, and make up such a world ... you got to read it.

The author has made almost no effort to describe the French speaking parts of Switzerland. Too Germanocentric and at times a little irreverent. Otherwise, all the official information, transport, employment etc... is well researched and well written.

and some other important details such as when you are supposed to take out your trash and the price of a freeway permit. Hate to say it but as a swiss I was offended by the bluntness, driven to tears by the caricatures and deeply frightened by the accuracy of this book. One star docked as it's a little Germanocentric.

This is a very useful book for anyone who is moving to Switzerland for the first time. I found in this publication many useful pieces of advice for the everyday living in Switzerland. Do not hesitate to buy this book if you plan to stay in Switzerland for a long time. Taxes, health insurance, renting a house, travelling, etc. are only a few examples of the subjects reviewed in this comprensive book.
A good choice.
Marcelo Garcia

I enjoyed reading this novel because it was very interesting. Reading this book was a positive experience for me because if it wasn't for my teacher I would have never read this book and I would have missed out on a very good book.
The author was able to hold my interest throughout the whole book. He did this by always adding some scenes to the book making you want to know what was going to happen next. Especially the scene in the beginning when the mom figures out what Uncle Frank is doing to Marie.
To me the characters were interesting and believable because the way their attitudes are in the book are the same as those as a real person and that makes the book interesting and believe. My favorite character was David Hayden. He was my favorite character because he was the main character and also because of the ways he described things in this book. I think the author did a good job at creating all the characters in the book.
I learned that it's good to do the right thing no matter who it involves, that what I learned from this book. I gain more knowledge by reading this book because it shows you that in this world anything can happen. I would recommend this book to my friends because it is interesting and is a positive experience.

I enjoyed reading Montana 1948 for many reasons. It was a positive experience for me because the name didn't catch my attention so if it weren't for my class, I never would have picked up this book to read it and I really enjoyed it.
One of the best parts in the book was the development of all the characters. They were all described really well in detail and I was able to picture them all in my head. For example David describes Marie when she is sick, he says, "Her cheeks now glowed so brightly they looked painful, as if they had been rubbed raw, her eyes seemed darker than ever, all pupil, black water that swallowed light and gave nothing back."
I would not make any changes in this book because it was great. I liked the story it told as well as all the characters. The author kept me interested through out the whole book. One great part was when Marie got sick then she got better then all of a sudden she died. I liked that part, not because she died but because it was un expected.
In conclusion, I enjoyed this book enough to recommend it to my friends because it fun when you understand it and get into it enough.

The novel Montana 1948 was very interesting and was a positive experience for me. The book is fiction and was written by Larry Watson. This book was action packed and didn't lose my interest at any part of the book. This book has inspired me to read more books. The style of the book was unique and interesting the way the author wrote the book was very captivating I couldn't stop reading the book I even think I might read it again.
The characters in the book were interesting. The main character David is a curios little boy and is twelve years old in the story but he is the one telling the story when he was 50 something years old. In the book he tells about major events that happened in his life. All of the events took place in Montana in 1948 and involved his family members and his friends. The important characters were Wes and Gale (David's dad and mom), Uncle Frank, Julian, Gloria, Marie little solider, and Len. My favorite part of the book was when the grandfathers workers were circling around the house and the mom fired at them. It was favorite part because I liked the suspense of the situation. I would not make any changes to the novel because I wouldn't know how to write it any better.
In reading this novel I learned that all families have their secrets and that I like action in books. I enjoyed reading this book and it was a wonderful experience for me. I would recommend this book to anyone because it was one of the best novels that I have read. The book has every thing action drama and comedy it was so good I plan to read it again.

the book has an odd way of making you feel helpless, annoyed, aroused and fearful all at the same time. i enjoyed the descriptive portions of the story but not the action.

This is one of the sexiest books I have ever read. Alina Reyes's language is poetic and erotic at the same time. This isn't your typical romance novel in which the plot is pretty much out on the open; you have to actually read between the lines and figure out what the scene symbolizes. I love the story of a French woman whose innocence is lost during college vacation. She worked at a deli, and the butcher whispered in obscene detail what he would like to do with her. Despite having fallen in love with a male classmate, the young woman is drawn to the butcher. Alina Reyes will take you on an erotic journey that you can't even begin to fathom. As I've mentioned earlier, you have got to figure out what the story symbolizes. This is a great read. With sensuous scenes, beautiful language and poetic undertones, The Butcher is one of the most profound pieces of fiction I have ever read.

This is a very troubling book. An excellent, sensual read. The tone of it all is so inviting... the kink of book that you read more than once.

A rare book that makes the physical form of man an important thematic element. In the time between nihilistic prophetizing and post-WW dread, Michel (a nerd) experiments with complete freedom after being given a second chance in life. Stripping off the pretense of European scholarship, he tries to gain health in a life free of artificial restrants. Striving towards his goal, but never quite giving up the fear coniditoned into him by his station in life, Michel succeeds only in seeing the possibilities of this life. He is a vanguard for the potentials of freedom. Where Gide leaves us, with confusion and a new burden, Camus and Sartre pick up. This is a very well written novel and should be read slowly (the temptation being to breeze through it).

Many readers of this book are inclined to compare it with the works of Camus. I grant that The Immoralist does suggest existential questions but, unlike Camus' La Chute (for instance), it simply presents the life and actions of the anti-hero without his actual and deliberate existential questioning. This is the subtle richness of Gide's writing. The Immoralist presents a unique disparity in the lavishness in description of setting, and the relatively spare characterizations. Gide does not glorify, chastise nor condemn his Michel. Michel is simply what he is, what he has become. This novel is filled with brilliant writing, lines of which one can't help but memorize. For instance, "The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free, that is the task." and also, "You cannot be sincere and at the same time seem so." Having read both Bussy's pioneer translation and Howard's later one, I much prefer the latter. It's a far more exact translation.

The Immoralist is straightforward in language and easy to read, but more complicated, more complex are its themes: Man's sense of morality towards society, family, himself. What happens when man's values conflict with those of society's? Whose interests should be served? Gide explores these themes through one man's odyssey of self-discovery. The protagonist is the learned and conflicted Michel who yearns for something more than the stable, predictable, familiar life he has always known, but no longer finds tolerable. It is after a life-threatening bout of tuberculosis that these feelings rise to the surface, intensify, and are more keenly felt.

This hunger, still unidentified, takes him on a journey, both literal and figurative, where his search for self-awareness, or self-truth, carries him to distant and exotic locales. New experiences and mysterious encounters give way to a new aestheticism in which weakness, constraint, and life's banalities play no role. Heightened senses, unsuppressed impulses erode age-old human values that were once accepted blindly.

A life less checked, though, can have consequences, as is the case for Michel, and for so many others like him. As Michel becomes stronger, his wife becomes weaker. Indeed, society becomes weaker. How can the newly strong fail to quash the weak in their path? The question one must ask, then, and Gide does, is whether a life without restraint has value. Is there something admirable in the old adage, "To thine own self be true"?

One of the novel's most inspired moments is found in its ending. Without giving anything away, it is the last passage, after the reader has come full-circle, where Michel's journey seemingly ends. Will Michel embrace his new truth? The reader is left to wonder. The Immoralist is told in narrative, in Michel's own voice. It is self-confessional literature at its highest, and should be read by anyone who reads to think and be moved.

With tons of explosions, the only thing you can say about this book is this: boy, does it blow!

In "Crossfire", a clique of distaff Soviets are hoping to pay there way out of the chaos that is the "Former Soviet Union" using a stolen cache of Iranian gold. That's right, another story about fanatic and backward Soviets who don't know the meaning of the words "we lost the cold-war!" First, for reasons that aren't immediately clear (that's putting it mildly - very little becomes clear in "Crossfire") these post-Soviet baddies must ice a retired CIA operative named Kirk McGarvey, Hagberg's hero. Although Hagberg's Russians kill with little compunction, McGarvey's death requires irony, and his downfall begins with the Russians framing him for the bombing of the US Embassy in Paris. Now on the run from just about everybody, McGarvey hooks up with a beautiful woman and decides to track down the conspiracy, which now includes a homicidal Ukranian named Kurshin, a man thought dead since McGarvey thew him into the Mediterranean. Luckily for Kirk, Kurshin is gunning for him as well (that is that Kirk won't have to look that far; "far" being a relative word, considering that this is the sort of novel that bills itself as an international thriller "From Paris to Rio - Washington to Tehran!". At least McGarvey won't have to burn up too many frequent flier miles) In South America, McGarvey tangles with more hired guns as he investigates a sunken U-Boat possibly loaded with Nazi gold. Kurshin, never far behind, cleans up any characters McGarvey allows to live. Some Israelis show up but, appearing in the parts of the book dealing with sunken Nazis, they are the sort of wise and kind (comparatively) Mossad agents who only use espionage to cleanse the world of the evil of the Holocaust; the badass Mossad agents thought employed against Israel's mideast enemies never appear.

With little resolved or explained, the novel shifts to Iran and a shipment of gold that once belonged to the Shah that the US decides to return to Iran. Knowing of the bullion delivery, the evil post-Soviets decide to make a grab for it themselves in an operation that looks doomed from the start (using strategic bombers that need long runways, they'll swoop down in the desert and just haul the gold away. Yeah, that can happen).

Everything in this novel is either unnecessarily complicated or simply suspends your belief. Nothing in the plot even remotely suggests why anybody could believe McGarvey would want to bomb our embassy. Worse - just wondering about whether McGarvey could be the kind of guy to commit wholesale "collateral damage" will bring you to the unsettling realization that McGarvey, for his exploits, is a boring guy - he's like Bond, without the expensive tastes, hot women, gadgets or one-liners. Then there's Kurshin, who seems addicted to killing people - early on, he warms himself by contemplating McGarvey's murder. Unfortunately, like McGarvey, Kurshin is also a bore - murder is basically all he does. He kills those who happen to cross his path while following McGarvey, he kills participants in his schemes once they've outlived there usefulness; he even kills the poor slob who has to drag the Ukranian across the desert after their big scheme fails. He's like the masked killer in any of those teen-slasher pics (and this book is pretty hefty proof that the spy-thriller really needs a shot of the self-parody treatment that we got in "Scream"). "Crossfire" would be bad enough if it didn't recall another book Hagberg wrote under his Sean Flannery alias - "Kilo Option". Like "Cross", "Kilo" involved plenty of explosions, a hunky and resourceful hero, baddies with an unnecessarily complicated scheme, an over-written but under-developed plot, Iranians who are either good or evil depending on how religious they are, and (most annoying of all) a psychotic Ukranian who kills according to compulsion, and can't be killed himself - this one named "Yernin". (see the difference?) Even Kurshin's getting tossed into the Mediterranean by McGarvey in a prior book hints at Yernin's fate at the end of "Kilo". What's the point of having a pen name if you write esentially identical books under both names?

Above all of the book's other flaws is this one - there really is no plot, no story that explains or links the pointless slaughter perpetrated throughout the book. Since "Crossfire" is obviously part of some larger series that will pit McGarvey against Yernin (sorry, I meant Kurshin), I can forgive its reference to other books for needed plot devices. But that doesn't explain how this book lacks a true beginning, middle and end. I mean, how did Hagberg know where to start and end this tedious book? In short, keep out of this "Crossfire".

A good read, but not one of his best. Check out Joshua's Hammer - now that is a great read ;)

Our hero, Kirk McGarvey, makes an explosive comeback in this thrilling adventure which jumps from one place on the globe to another with the speed of a Tomahawk missile. I have long felt that McGarvey was a combination of James Bond, Jack Ryan, Dirk Pitt & Indiana Jones rolled into one...and he is in TOP form in 'Crossfire'.

Arkady Kurshin, who Kirk thought he had 'taken care of' in his previous adventure comes back to serve up a heaping dose of revenge against the one man who has turned his life upsidedown and who very nearly killed him. Arkady is one of those villains you almost root for--ALMOST, because he is so much fun as the bad guy, and gives Kirk such a run for his money that you are left almost breathless as you read along.

I also VERY much enjoyed the addition of the submarine in the plot. WELL done, Mr. Hagberg. I enjoyed virtually everything about this novel...in fact as I look back on it, I cannot think of ANYTHING which I did NOT enjoy. Kirk McGarvey is easily one of the most entertaining characters I know in print today, and as long as he keeps making comebacks in Hagberg's novels, I will be lining up to purchase his books. 'Crossfire' rivals almost anything written by Clancy, and for sheer adventure/action, Kirk can keep pace with Dirk Pitt any day. If I had to sum up this novel in one word, it'd be this: FUN.

Wanting to move up to a more sophisticated WEB language (from ASP,VB) I've bought quite a few books on .Net and C#. However, all of them left me with a lot of questions on how to just get started with the language.

This book solves all those problems. Anyone new to C# or just object oriented programming, can learn from this book.

The way that Karli eases you into the concepts and describes what each line of code does is extremely helpful.

This book is probably NOT for the Intermediate to Advanced programmer as Karli covers a lot of basic programming concepts. However, It also is a great primer for anyone wanting exposure to the language.

I would rate this book as being among the top 3 books out there on C# right now (the other two being C# and the .NET Platform by Andrew Troelsen and Programming C# from Jesse Liberty). The language is clear and each topic is succintly covered without sacrificing content. However this is not the book for advanced users given that the book does spend a good deal of time discussing programming fundamentals.

In order to get the most out of this book be sure to work on the case studies found at the end. These do a great job of tying everything together.

I wanted to learn C# (and learn more about .Net), and I'm coming from a mostly VB and ASP background. I was happy with Wrox's "C# Programming with the Public Beta" book (co-written by Watson), but wanted something that was more complete. At close to 1000 pages, this book certainly FEELS complete. It is also smartly outlined with excellent examples and exercises at the end of each chapter (but where are the answers??). Best of all once you step through the chapters on Windows and the web, there are TWO complete Case Studies (something I love about the Wrox books), and an article about building an Online Shopping Cart Using C#.
This book is similar in quality to Ivor Horton's "Beginning Java 2" books. (Only with better examples, in my opinion).