A little something for everyone in this text. Discussion of computational issues, references, algorithms, and some convergence analysis. The authors do a good job of covering the subject at an understandable level. A small fault with the book is it leaves you wanting more! Excellent way to learn about these methods on your own.

With this book, Father Barry helped me to come to a deeper understanding of God. However, I feel that if this book was taken a step further it would have been a lot more worth the read.

The book contains 106 pages about growing Bromeliads. There are 6 pages on Bromeliad history, ecology, and horticulture. 7 pages about the general Bromeliad family. 7 pages about common growing conditions. 41 pages about growing specific genera such as: Aechmea, Ananas, Billbergia, Cryptanthus, Dyckia, Hechtia, Guzmania, Neoregelia, Nidularium, Tillandsia, Vriesea, and brief comments about lesser known genera. 7 pages on propagation. 14 pages on biology, variation (variegation), pest and diseases. 4 pages of Appendix. 3 pages of Glossary. 3 pages of Index by species. It also includes 16 full color pages of photographs. Several other B&W photographs are scattered about the book.

The book is about growing Bromeliads, or at least growing Bromeliads in Australia. It occasionally has some local reference to an Australian city or region, but mostly the information is generic. It does suffer from regular references to the metric system and Celsius temperatures. For this reader, being a Yank and living on the frozen tundra up here in Wisconsin, metric & celsius measures don't make much sense.

Facts in the book are modestly interesting and modestly informative. It tends to chase around the facts. For example, "overwatering will rot the plants". Dah - yah think? So, what exactly is the proper amount of water? The book is not always crisp about specifics.

It's a good book, but not a great book. There is much information, but the book's structure makes it hard to find. Plant photographs are not adjacent to their descriptions - you have to page around to find the photo. The text is small and therefore reading gets to be a chore.

I like sections of the book, but other sections could be much improved. The book is inexpensive, and by that measure you get good value. For the money, it's a good introduction to growing Bromeliads.

Barry Williams comes through with the gritty goods on the off-set romances between the on-set Brady kids! Also, lots of interesting and revealing tid-bits about the show and the cast. Williams's honest, no-holds-barred discussion of his early professional experiences is also entertaining. One disappointment is that the audio version doesn't address "Cyndi's near drowning in Hawaii". Nor does Williams' address some of the more controversial personal issues (revealed in the tabloids) of some of his castmates. But all in all, a resounding thumbs up!

Here, in this relatively obscure work, Thackeray is at his ironic and satiric best. Modern critics lightly dismiss the book as a piece of journalistic hack work, but it is much more than that. Redmond Barry, later Barry Lyndon, chronicles in a fairly sophistocated and always lighthearted manner his rise from a poor Irish country boy to the astral heights of polite English society from 1750-1820. Mr. Barry is always Machievellian in his way, and is quick and efficient with his sword. He is Odysseus, Holden Caulfield, Don Juan, and Nabokov's Humbert Humbert merged. In a word, he is very, very entertaining and very, very good. The book's only glaring flaw is it's belabored and uninspired ending. But it is much worth reading to watch Redmond Barry when young

Here, in this relatively obscure work, Thackeray is at his ironic and satiric best. Modern critics lightly dismiss the book as a piece of journalistic hack work, but it is much more than that. Redmond Barry, later Barry Lyndon, chronicles in a fairly sophistocated and always lighthearted manner his rise from a poor Irish country boy to the astral heights of polite English society from 1750-1820. Mr. Barry is always Machievellian in his way, and is quick and efficient with his sword. He is Odysseus, Holden Caulfield, Don Juan, and Nabokov's Humbert Humbert merged. In a word, he is very, very entertaining and very, very good. The book's only glaring flaw is it's belabored and uninspired ending. But it is much worth reading to watch Redmond Barry when young

An extraordinary look back of the 'magic' period of the early '70s, when the world first became aware of this superb orchestra--despite its (then) 80-year history. Solti's demands to tour, combined with what can only be called a vacancy at the top of the American orchestral world, projected the CSO forward--but for the first time ever, it occurred at the speed of modern media.

Heavily detail-oriented, the book spends a lot of time on individual players, which for many players of the era end up serving as memorials. It also lacks a grand overview of the direction of the season, dealing with schedules, tours, recordings and the work stoppage as episodes rather than clearly drawing the arc. But the book is redeemed by its loving depiction of what makes the CSO unique in North America; its extraordinary internal discipline, fierce pride in its Central European heritage and sound, tradition of training its own, and insistence on the very finest world-class first chairs, many of whom would ordinarily have superb solo careers. In explaining the CSO from that perspective, Furlong has written less of a diary and more of a primer as to why no one else gets it so right, year in and year out.

The CSO recently left a prominent first chair open for four years, rather then comprimise on replacing the legendary Ray Still. Despite the troubles that today's rather generic conductors may cause, Furlong allows you to understand the CSO fully: the virtuosity, discipline, and tradition are intact, awaiting only the right conductor.

In the search for the more authentic Jesus, William BArry provides an excellent work for moving beyond the Biblical Jesus to a Jesus with skin on! BArry's chapters start with the familiar and gently challenges with the unexpected. It's as though one rediscovers the amazing qualities of an old friend! It calls us to look at Jesus with new lenses. A book well worth reading for ones own devotional studies, but also one well worth using for small discussion groups, where Christians are searching for a more real and challenging experience of Jesus.

Ho Hum. Another coming out of the closet tale. This one by a bloke who didn't give a darn about the church's teachings. After all, if they were in conflict with his personal desires, so much the worse for the church. One gets so tired of everyone rationalizing their restless sex lives with lame excuses. Is there anyone willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience for the greater good anymore?

I just finished reading "Courage To Love" for the SECOND time (not bad, considering that I only purchased my copy a week ago!), and I have been enthusiastically recommending it to gay and straight friends of all denominations on discussion boards all over the Internet. This is truly a love story. Not only in the "traditional" sense (though it is that too...the love between Leckie and Stopfel comes through loud and clear on every page), but also in a much broader sense. The love of two men for their God and their faith, the love of the Christian people who rallied around them, the love of God for ALL His children...it's all there, beautifully written in a style that makes all the players come alive for the reader. No longer are "Stopfel," "Leckie," "Righter" and "Spong" mere names on a piece of paper...they are real people with real emotions and strong convictions. This is also truly a book about courage...courage that goes beyond even the incredible courage it takes simply to live as an openly gay person in today's society. The stakes for all the players were unbelievably high...loss of love, loss of personal security, loss of faith, loss of power and position. I think that anyone who thinks he or she is alone in the struggle against prejudice and fear would draw strength from Stopfel and Leckie's story. Most of all, however, this is a book about integrity. Despite the seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, Stopfel refused to repudiate either his calling or his being. At any time, he could have left Leckie, or claimed to be celibate, and his ordination would have proceeded without comment. At any time, he could have denied his calling to the priesthood and fallen back on a fairly lucrative career. At any time, Spong and Righter could have done the safe thing and washed their hands of the whole "issue." Instead, all involved found that the need to be true to their convictions outweighed the need to "play it safe." Mostly, this is a book about rights...not civil rights, but God's rights. Specifically, it is about God's right to call whom He will...his right to love and employ all his children despite the box in which society would like to confine Him. As I said, I have recommended this book highly to a lot of people...but mostly to straight people who are still struggling, in spite of themselves, with issues of homophobia. It is hard to read this book and maintain an "us-and-them" sort of dichotomy. The overwhelming message is, all people love and are loved. All people are, when all is said and done, simply people. And God, who made us all, loves us all.

This book does have some cultural/sociological worth, but if you buy it new, you've got gross emotional problems. Buy it used--as long as you can find a dependable seller, and it looks like there's a good one already up here, you'll be much happier for it. Trust me on this one--save the few dollars and the years of therapy.

Four stars seem appropriate for an abridged edition of a work rating five stars for the complete version. For more detail, see my review of "On Our Own Ground" with the same date. The spectacle of Apess delivering his "Eulogy on King Philip" to the descendants of the Puritans who destroyed the Wampanoag leader should cause many Americans to rethink their image of our country's history.

"A Son of the Forest and Other Writings," by William Apess, is an important resource in United States history and literature. The book is edited by Barry O'Connell, who also provides an introduction. Apess (1798-1839), of the Pequot Indian people, was a pioneer Native American writer. In addition to his 1831 autobiography, "A Son of the Forest," this volume also contains "The Experiences of Five Christian Indians of the Pequot Tribe" (1832) and his "Eulogy on King Philip" (1836).

Apess' writing is dominated by his fervent evangelical Christianity, and also by his articulation of a Native American consciousness. "Son" is at times a very gripping autobiography. In it Apess writes about poverty, child abuse, alcoholism, ethnic identity and religious conversion: all topics that remain very relevant over the centuries. This volume contains, in addition to the primary texts, a useful bibliography and chronology. This book is an excellent choice both for the classroom and for the independent reader.