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"A stranger from the provinces [Augustine] would, of course, go to church to find a girl-friend, much as another stranger, the Genoese, Christopher Columbus, will meet his wife in Seville Cathedral."
And about Augustine's desire to seek his fortune as a rethoritian in Milan:
"He would have been like a Westernized Russian in the nineteenth century, established in Paris."
This ability to move back and forth in time to clarify his points is one of the many joys of reading Brown. He is also a master of the right anecdote and of the enlightening "obscure" fact. For instance, he tells us that in the Fourth century the image of Christ was that of a teacher, a philosopher. There were no crucifixes in the Fourth century, and the concept of the suffering Savior did not exist.
The book is as satisfying as a plentiful and well prepared meal, and like a meal, it is to be consumed slowly and respectfully. Brown makes you trust him about his deep knowledge of the years immediately preceding the sack of Rome and the fall of the empire. He does this, over and over, by his ease with the trivial details and by the depth with which he addresses the important ones. A very fine book for the reference shelf, to read once and to return to frequently.
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Sereny beautifully weaves her story, throwing in wonderful ancillary observations about the Nazi hierarchy. She includes Speer's disingenuous criticisms of Hitler (whom he actually worshipped), as well as his opinions on Goering, Goebbels and Hitler's other minions.
Sereny includes details of Speer's love affair late in life with a much-younger blonde woman and the dumping of his long-suffering wife after 50 years of marriage.
Most important was Speer's assiduous and desperate attempt to disguise the fact that he knew about Auschwitz and successfully (until Sereny) hid it from the world.
Sereny deserved the Pulitzer for this book. Read it and you won't be able to put it down.
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I kind of thought the amount of space devoted to ADO was excessive, since if you're trying to implement RDS, you probably already know much of the ADO they teach here. Some of that space would have been better used to expand on RDS a bit.
The included ADO 2.0 reference (Appendix A) and RDS 2.0 reference (Appendix B) are useful, and the sections on Oracle are helpful if your code has to work against Oracle backends.
One other note: In books like this, I rely on the index a lot to quickly get to topics I need. The index in this book is pretty bad. If you want to reference things for future use in this book, buy yourself a highlighter pen.
Bottom line, if you need to use RDS, bite the bullet (kind of expensive) and get this book. For ADO, however, you might want to look elsewhere.
Good for any programmers working with ADO, as always, Wrox made it possible for beginners to understand the book and for experienced programmers to learn new stuff.
Another must by Wrox and I'm waiting to get a hand on the "Professional Ado 2.5 Rds Programming With Asp 3.0" that should be coming out soon.
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The book was a quick read for me and the subjects were not long or drawn out. Great for reading while on the go. I liked it a lot & have read it a few times since.
I think that this book is pretty good. It deals with topics such as understanding of how to (basically) structure a deal, how to find motivated sellers, make offers & more. It doesn't have example forms/contracts, but then it would be wise to get them written/approved for your area by a professional (CYA - Cover Your Assets). ;>)
If you want dry, boring material, look somewhere else.
With this book I learned that there is another way to make money in the world of real estate investing besides flipping props, rehabs, buy/hold & rental strategies. Think of it as another cool tool. Your only limited by your own thinking.
Of course you have to put some effort & committment into whatever you do to get results. Nothing will fall into your lap if you don't get off the couch, put down the potato chips & apply action.
I give this book 3 1/2 - 4 stars.
p.s. I also enjoyed these books (as a beginner)...
"Investing In Real Estate" by McLean & Eldred (basic REI)
&
"The Income Stream" by Robert Goodman (REI investment analysis)
Having left my 6 figure full-time senior management position for want of a better and fuller life, I stumbled across Peter and David's book in my research on property. What a gem it is!
After reading the first two chapters, every word of it made sense. I have just sold off a property the traditional way and now only have three remaining. However, I'm gearing myself up to implement Peter and David's strategies (or as much of them as possible) for any future deals. Why? Because they make absolute sense and make it the easiest path to real estate investing.
Yes, I agree there are many people spousing themselves as real estate gurus making millions in seminars, because I have attended them. Some of them I have wasted my money. But don't throw out the baby with the bath water, these guys speak experience and have the track record to prove it.
If you look into the follow the evolution of all these seminar gurus, you will find that they all lead back to a few founding people - of which Peter and David are of a handful of those founders. The others are basically copy cats and derived from them.
This book isn't for the faint hearted. If you want real techniques for buying and selling property that will literally propel you, and are prepared to step out into new territory and make some mistakes along the way, get this book. You wont be sorry.
Don't be scared by the "Due On Sale Clause." There is nothing unethical or illegal about selling a property subject to existing financing. This doesn't violate any contractual commitment the borrower has with the lender, it simple invokes a right that the lender has and will probably never exercise because it is simply not to their advantage to do so. As a smart investor you simply must consider the possibility that the originating bank could exercise this right and understand what your options would be.
If you been thinking about starting REI -- This is a good place to start.
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Chronicle of the Pharaohs is a wonderful guide to each and every pharaoh that ruled Egypt during its 3000 year history, and 30 dynasties. The author, Peter A. Clayton, does a fantastic job in not only the chronology, but also in the biographical information, history, and hieroglyhpic translations and transliterations of each pharaohs name.
Richly illustrated, this book is a must for any ancient Egypt fan's library.
Author: Peter A. Clayton
Published: 1995
Binding: Hardcover with Dust Jacket
Pages: 224
Illustrations: 350 (130 in color)
What follows is a synopsis/review of the book.
This book is five major sections, with a number of subsections in each section.
Preface and Introduction. This section introduces us to the subject of ancient Egypt, and we get a good introduction to the place of the pharaoh in the political state, as well as in the religion and mythology of ancient Egypt.
Section One. The First Pharaohs.
This section covers mainly the late predynastic period and early dynastic period. The unification of Egypt is the dominant theme here, when the "two lands" became one. Narmer and the legendary "Menes" are compared.
Section Two. The Pyramid Builders.
This section and subsections covers the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom, from 2700-2400 BC, and covers in particular the pyramid age.
Section Three. Chaos and Rebirth.
This section and its constituent subsections cover the "First Intermediate Period", when political stability collapsed, and there was over 120 years of civil war. This is followed by the "rebirth", and reunification of Egypt in the Middle Kingdom, dynasties 11-12. The "Second Intermediate Period" is also covered, the time when Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos.
Section Four. Rulers of an Empire. The New Kingdom era begins with the expulsion from Egypt of the foreign invaders. Thus begins a pattern of warrior pharaohs, who carve out the first empire in history of any significance.
Pharaohs like Thutmose III and Ramses II dominate the scene here.
Section Five. The Weakening of Pharaonic Power.
This is the Late Period of Egypt, or the "Third Intermediate Period", in which Egypt's power and influence decline for another 1000 years, from the 21st to 30 dynasties. During this time there was mostly foreign rule, but a few native dynasties prevailed. Finally, in 332 BC, Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great, and his general, Ptolemy founded the last dynasty, the one that ended with Cleopatra VII as the last pharaoh of Egypt. Then Egypt became a province of Rome, and there were no more pharaohs.
All in all, "Chronicle of the Pharaohs" is an excellent piece of scholarship, history, biography, and is a fascinating reference tool and a great read. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in ancient Egypt, and history in general.
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'Fake one?'
'Right. We're in a roomful of people, say, and several of 'em probably know more...than you do, but you're being billed as the resident expert...so somebody asks you, uh, "Mr. Doyle, to what extent, in your opinion, was Wordsworth influenced by the philosophy expressed in the verse plays of, I don't know, Sir Arky Malarkey?" Quick!'
Doyle cocked an eyebrow. 'Well, it's a mistake, I think, to try to simplify Malarkey's work that way; several philosophies emerge as one traces the maturing of his thought...'"
- Darrow interviewing Doyle for a job in _The Anubis Gates_, by Tim Powers
For some strange reason the above passage comes to mind when reading _The Wimsey Family_, the 1976 work resulting from Giles' collected correspondence between himself, Dorothy L. Sayers (the famed chronicler of the amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey), and a few other parties who 'discovered' much hitherto unpublished history.
It all began in February 1936, when Scott-Giles - a heraldic expert bearing the title Fitzalan Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary - wrote to Sayers about the Wimsey coat of arms, the blazon being included as part of the Who's Who-style boilerplate prefacing several editions of various Lord Peter novels. (A blazon is the formal description of a coat of arms, not necessarily including a picture; Scott-Giles has translated it into pictorial form in the book before you, along with other 'reproductions' of relevant pictorial bits of Wimsey family history.) Scott-Giles soberly noted that the elements of the blazon seemed to be of great antiquity, and the Saracen supporters of the shield hinted at a Crusading ancestor, so perhaps Sayers ought to clarify that the coat of arms is only by chance so expressive of Lord Peter's bent for investigation.
This led to a lively correspondence between Sayers, Scott-Giles, and a couple of Sayers' close friends, each 'discovering' more and more facts about the family history. Scott-Giles tended to concentrate on the medieval members of the family, and Sayers herself on the Tudor era. (Sayers' friend Helen Simpson, to whom we owe various drawings of Bredon Hall, the family seat, appears to have unearthed the 18th century marriage between the then-Lord St. George, heir to the title, and a hosier's widow, which caused something of a scandal.) They published various essays and even a pamphlet in the 1930s for interested parties, and some of the fruits of their joint efforts went into the final segment of _Busman's Honeymoon_ when Sayers adapted the original play, cowritten with one of her fellow 'researchers', into a novel.
Scott-Giles, assembling this material in the 1970s, notes that he has generally avoided discussing any Wimseys whose history hadn't 'turned up' in Sayers' lifetime. He did, however, address an apparent discrepancy raised by a fellow expert, noting that Lord Peter's older brother, being described as 'a peer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland' in Sayers' canon implies that the title was created after 2 July 1800, but that the dukes (formerly earls) of Denver trace back far enough to properly be described as 'peers of England'. Scott-Giles deftly fielded this by digging up a Duke with an only daughter who married into a distant branch of the family after the heir-presumptive died at Waterloo.
And so on. Betwixt and between them, the original contributors managed to skate past several awkward points, among them the fact that for a considerable period in Tudor times, there weren't *any* dukes in England. In fact, exactly one duke - Denver - survived with his honours intact, having the family gift for withdrawing to the family seat and/or being stricken with diplomatic illness in a crisis.
Each part of the coat of arms turns out to have a story, starting with the original device of 3 silver plates on a black background. (A lord of Normandy, being eaten out of house and home by three hulking sons, presented them with three empty platters that they were henceforth to fill by their own efforts, with a strong hint that joining the Conqueror's army would be a capital idea.) How the device changed to three mice, with a domestic cat as crest, is a Crusading story illustrating the Wimsey strain of cleverness - the family for centuries has come in 2 flavors, mostly stolid like Lord Peter's elder brother Gerald, but occasionally breaking out in high-strung brilliance like Lord Peter himself.
All in all, if you like the bits of family history included in the Wimseys' visit to Duke's Denver at the end of _Busman's Honeymoon_, here's more of the same, in more detail. You could get some of it out of Barbara Reynolds' edited collections of Sayers' letters, but those volumes only contain Sayers' part of the correspondence, not the intervening material from Scott-Giles, Helen Simpson, and Muriel St-Clare Byrne (those last two names grace the dedication of _Busman's Honeymoon_, of course).