
Used price: $13.50



List price: $14.99 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $4.99
Buy one from zShops for: $9.85



Used price: $5.29
Collectible price: $10.59
Buy one from zShops for: $4.95


This is a beautifully designed small volume, nicely illustrated, from a wonderful series of books.




Used price: $28.38
Collectible price: $37.06
Buy one from zShops for: $28.38



Used price: $8.00
Buy one from zShops for: $19.03


Most of the supporting cast is also wonderful. Hats off to the performances by Denzel Washington (Don Pedro), Richard Briers (Seigneur Leonato), Brian Blessed (Seigneur Antonio), Michael Keaton (Constable Dogberry), and a absolutely stunning performance by Kate Beckinsale (Hero). The exceptions in the casting are Keanu Reeves (Don John), Robert Sean Leonard (Claudio) and...yes...Kenneth Brannagh (Benedick). Fortunately Reeves' role is small. Leonard's performance seems too contrived, to the point of distraction. And even though this is Brannagh's baby, Brannagh himself portrays the role of Benedick with a smugness that is a bit nauseating. If you read the play, Benedick is not smug at all. Though I enjoy Brannagh's other work, he seems to use Shakespeare as a way to show superiority. I have seen this in other actors, and find such action reprehensible. Shakespeare wrote plays for people to enjoy and to indugle in escapism...not to give people an excuse to be a snob.
Having said that, this film is very enjoyable, and I've actually had friends become Shakespeare addicts after seeing this particular film. I, personally, particularly love the Tuscan locations, and the costuming is wonderful! No over-the-top lacey outfits in this film, but rather those that would be suited to the climate. This adds another depth of reality that pulls you into the story.
If you are a fan of Shakespeare, or any of the aforementioned actors, this movie is a must-see. It's actually one of the very few film versions of a Shakespeare play that I own. This particular interpretation allows the viewer to become comfortable with Shakespeare's style, thus creating an interest in his other work. Well worth the purchase. And yes, it's VERY funny!

Kenneth Branaugh, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Michael Keaton give excellent performances in this film that you wouldn't want to miss. Although the film is a period piece and the Shakespearean language is used, you will have no difficulty understanding it perfectly.
The scenery and landscape in this film are exquisite as well. I never thought there could be such a beautiful, untouched place like that on earth. I would suggest watching the film just for the beautiful landscape, but it's the performances and the story that you should really pay attention to.
Anyone who loves Shakespeare would absolutely love this film! Anyone who loves Kenneth Branaugh and what he has done for Shakespeare in the past 10 or 15 years will appreciate this film as well! There isn't one bad thing I can say about this film. Definitely watch it, you won't be disappointed!!!

What he meant by the comment was, humour is most often a culture-specific thing. It is of a time, place, people, and situation--there is very little by way of universal humour in any language construction. Perhaps a pie in the face (or some variant thereof) does have some degree of cross-cultural appeal, but even that has less universality than we would often suppose.
Thus, when I suggested to him that we go see this film when it came out, he was not enthusiastic. He confessed to me afterward that he only did it because he had picked the last film, and intended to require the next two selections when this film turned out to be a bore. He also then confessed that he was wrong.
Brannagh managed in his way to carry much of the humour of this play into the twentieth century in an accessible way -- true, the audience was often silent at word-plays that might have had the Elizabethan audiences roaring, but there was enough in the action, the acting, the nuance and building up of situations to convey the same amount of humour to today's audience that Shakespeare most likely intended for his groups in the balconies and the pit.
The film stars Kenneth Brannagh (who also adapted the play for screen) and Emma Thompson as Benedict and Beatrice, the two central characters. They did their usual good job, with occasional flashes of excellence. Alas, I'll never see Michael Keaton as a Shakespearean actor, but he did a servicable job in the role of the constable (and I shall always remember that 'he is an ass') -- the use of his sidekick as the 'horse' who clomps around has to be a recollection of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where their 'horses' are sidekicks clapping coconut shells together.
I'll also not see Keanu Reeves as a Shakespearean, yet he was perhaps too well known (type-cast, perhaps) in other ways to pull off the brief-appearing villian in this film.
Lavish sets and costumes accentuate the Italianate-yet-very-English feel of this play. This film succeeds in presenting an excellent but lesser-known Shakespeare work to the public in a way that the public can enjoy.



However, the assessment of the local kids is the drawings are "weird." Perhaps intended for a more adult audience, the illustrations are beautiful--I enjoyed them--but their idiosyncratic style may not appeal to the younger set.
The characters pictured in the illustrations are dramatcially reinterpreted by the artist, however this may disappoint some viewers. The Scarecrow will look nothing like any scarecrow you've imagined. The Witch of the North is difficult to identify. This fresh point of view will be enjoyed by some but is sure to disappoint others.
I also felt the illustrations don't tell the story as well as the edition by Michael Hague or the original edition with W. W. Dinslow. (This is more important to the younger, read-to crowd, than the older, I can read it myself crowd.)
My daughter asked that we return the book and get a different edition for her. I would urge you to carefully consider the sample pages, except the sample pages don't cover a broad range of the illustrations included with this edition. The sample pages do include an image of the dramatic and striking cover. Unfortunately, in the judgement of several reviewers from 4 to 40, the other illustrations were noticably more "weird" than the cover and I don't think the sample pages represent the overall reading/viewing experience scrupulously.

The setting of the book is in a magicla land full of little people called Munchkins, flying monkeys, and a wicked witch that will melt if touched with water. The characters have their separate reasons for wanting to see the wizard. As the story goes on, the reader can not help but fall in love with them.
The text gives great detail as to what everything looks like and with those details the whole world of Oz can come to life in the readers imagination.


Used price: $32.00
Buy one from zShops for: $36.00


Refactoring refers to taking existing, working software, and changing it about to improve its design, so that future modifications and enhancements are easier to add. _Refactoring_ is primarily a catalog of 70 or so different kinds of improvements you can make to object-oriented software.
Each entry in the catalog describes an implementation problem, the solution, motivation for applying the solution, the mechanics of the refactoring, and examples. The book's examples are all in Java, but C++ programmers should be able to approach the refactorings with ease. Often, Fowler diagrams the refactorings in UML, so a little Unified Modeling Language experience will help, too.
While the catalog is nice, the kinds of refactorings are obvious is most cases. Even moderately experienced programmers won't need the step-by-step mechanics described. The real benefit, though, is that the mechanics of each refactoring help guarantee that you can pull off the refactoring without introducing new bugs or side effects. They encourage you to take smaller, verifiable steps, than the more gross refactorings that most developers would naturally take. You actually save time doing so.
How do you know your refactorings are safe? Unit testing is the answer that Fowler et al. provide. Java developers will find the introduction to the Junit Testing Framework the most valuable part of the book, more so than the catalog of refactorings itself.
There's more to the book than the catalog and Junit, of course. There's discussion of the history of refactoring, how to evaluate refactoring tools, and how to convince management that what appears to be an overhead activity is actually useful in the long run.
Unfortunately, these sections are all too brief. And there is no discussion of how refactoring fits in with various software development processes. For example, programmers using Extreme Programming (XP) would probably feel right at home with Fowler's recommendations of refactoring in duets and unit testing, but developers stuck with a Software Engineering Institute process like PSP categorize testing as failure time and something to be minimized if not avoided. Cleanroom developers are taught that unit testing inteferes with metrics for quality, and that verifications are what should be done. Should such developers redo verifications after each refactoring? There's no answer in this book.
An unusual chapter, called "Bad Smells in Code," gives overall motivation for the refactorings. These vague notions, such as "long methods" or "lazy classes" humorously provide a foundation for starting your own refactorings. I say "humorously" because (mostly) Beck's and Fowler's odd analogies (classes becoming too intimate and delving in each others' private parts) provoke a chuckle (as if a chapter about "bad smells" in code weren't enough).
Overall, I've enjoyed reading this book and referring to the catalog while putting my own unit tests and refactorings into practice. Fowler's writing style is smooth and fluid, and it's easy to digest the catalog in no time. The book's typesetting is crisp, the figures quite clean, and both the refactoring index and "smell" index are enormously useful.

It covers everything you to need to know about refactoring (improving hidden code whilst maintaining its visible interface). There is advice on when it should be done any many, many examples (templates) demonstrating pretty much every element of refactoring you're likely to need to perform.
Of particular note is the emphasis on testing, testing, testing. Athough it is not a book about testing several pages are dedicated to the subject. An introduction is made to his own mechanism for testing (JUnit) which enables code to be tested several dozen times per day without adding any overhead to the delivered code.
One of the final chapters is about 'Big Refactoring' where whole classes and not just individual methods are involved. It's a good introduction to the added risks and caution required but would benefit by some expansion.
Overall, the book is very well written. I read it from cover to cover and there are few computing books I'd try that with.
Finally, a word for the publishers. I have the hardback version an, as with all my Addison-Wesley books to date, it is well put together and should last a lifetime's regular use without falling apart.

Fowler suggests refactoring a program to simplify the addition of new functionality. The program should also be refactored to make it easier for human readers to understand at the same time.
He also insists that each step is small and preserves functionality, and on frequent unit testing with a comprehensive test suite.
Half of the book consists of a catalogue of refactorings. He gives each refactoring a memorable name, such as "Replace Type Code with Subclasses". He illustrates the design transformation with a pair of UML class diagrams, and has a standard set of sections: Motivation, Mechanics and Example.
The Motivation is a prose section that describes and justifies the refactoring, showing the relationship to other refactorings.
The Mechanics is a sequence of steps needed to carry out the refactoring, shown as a list of bullet points He expands on some points.
The Example is where the value of this book lies. Fowler takes a fragment of Java code, and takes us step by step through the refactoring. The code is small enough that he can show it all each step of the way without overwhelming us, but is large enough to be realistic.
The code is clear enough for non-Java programmers to follow. He explains his code well enough for the book to function as a Java tutorial where the meaning of the code is not obvious. One or two of the refactorings are specific to the Java object model, and do not apply to other languages. Other languages would benefit from similar treatment, but there are very few language-specific refactorings.
The book is very much of the Design Patterns movement, with frequent references to patterns. The aim of a factoring may be to achieve a particular pattern, or it may take advantage of a particular pattern. The book can be used as a tutorial on Design Patterns.
I have a small number of complaints. Fowler advocates the use of refactoring while studying code for a code review. One needs to be very sensitive to the feelings of the programmer here, especially if he or she is a novice. The reviewer should read the code with refactoring in mind, and possible refactorings recommended, but it is for the programmer to make the changes.
Reading this book has inspired me to refactor some of my own code. My mistakes underlined the need to take small steps, and to test frequently. I spent a day building a useful Delphi testing framework from the description Fowler gives of the JUnit testing framework. The one category of code that does not seem to lend itself to this approach is some highly coupled parsing code. While I can extract small blocks of code, they remain tightly coupled with each other, and it is hard to give them meaningful names. The answer here may be to use the top down approach of recursive descent, rather than the bottom up approach of refactoring. Perhaps recursive descent can guide refactoring. Refactoring is largely a local approach. One can almost say a pinhole approach. Sometimes a global view is needed.
In summary, I would say that this very good book would be of use to Java programmers who have some understanding and much bafflement. It is very good for us older dogs who have become a little jaded and need some new ideas and motivation.

Used price: $1.58
Buy one from zShops for: $2.08


I have read this play curiously as a child, excitedly as a teenager, passionately as a college student, and lovingly as a graduate student and adult. Like all of Shakespeare's writing, it is still as fresh, and foreboding, and marvelous as ever. As a play it is first meant to be heard (cf. Hamlet says "we shall hear a play"), secondarily to be seen (which it must be), but, ah, the rich rewards of reading it at one's own pace are hard to surpass. Shakespeare is far more than just an entertainer: he is the supreme artist of the English language. The Arden edition of MACBETH is an excellent scholarly presentation, offering a bounty of helpful notes and information for both the serious and casual reader.

Which version of "Macbeth" to buy? Definitely this one. The right pages provide the original play, while the left page provides definitions for old or hard vocabulary. There are also plot summaries before each scene. In addition to page numbers, each page also indicates act and scene, making the search for certain passages extremely easy. The lines are, of course, numbered, for easy reference (if you're reading this as a school assignment.) And of course, the stage directions are included too. A very helpful edition of Shakespeare's work.

Nothing and no one intimidates Macbeth. He murders all who oppose him, including Banquo, who had been a close friend. But the witches predict doom, for Macbeth, there will be no heirs and his authority over Scotland will come to an end. Slowly as the play progresses, we discover that Macbeth's time is running up. True to the classic stylings of Shakespeare tragedy, Lady Macbeth goes insane, sleepwalking at night and ranting about bloodstained hands. For Macbeth, the honor of being a king comes with a price for his murder. He sees Banquo's ghost at a dinner and breaks down in hysteria in front of his guests, he associates with three witches who broil "eye of newt and tongue of worm", and who conjure ghotsly images among them of a bloody child. Macbeth is Shakespeare's darkest drama, tinged with foreboding, mystery and Gothic suspense. But, nevertheless, it is full of great lines, among them the soliloquy of Macbeth, "Out, out, brief candle" in which he contemplates the brevity of human life, confronting his own mortality. Macbeth has been made into films, the most striking being Roman Polansky's horrific, gruesome, R-rated movie in which Lady Macbeth sleepwalks in the nude and the three witches are dried-up, grey-haired naked women, and Macbeth's head is devilishly beheaded and stuck at the end of a pole. But even more striking in the film is that at the end, the victor, Malcolm, who has defeated Macbeth, sees the witches for advise. This says something: the cycle of murder and violenc will begin again, which is what Macbeth's grim drama seems to be saying about powerhungry men who stop at nothing to get what they want.

List price: $34.99 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $17.14
Buy one from zShops for: $21.99


The book's main strength is in its pictures--there are tons of them, and most of the examples are very good. This will provide the reader with somewhere to start. Unfortunately, the tips are not all that great. Most of what is preached in this book is a matter of personal preference, things like screen resolution and alignment. The authors give good suggestions on how to do things, but they make it sound like it's the only way. It's not.
It's true that you have to follow certain rules of style as you build a website. Color, contrast, and spacing are all very important, and if your site's an eyesore or is hard to use, people won't frequent it. But, all in all, it's called 'design' for a reason. It's your baby, do what you want with it.
That is the main weakness of the book--it's just a little too rigid in its so-called rules. For those who want a book on web-design that is easy to understand, this will prove useful. But there's nothing here that a little experience won't teach you.

For those of you who are still "uhhing", we heartily recommend a copy of this useful tome to cure what ails you. Williams and Tollett offer useful and sound advice for winning the woeful website design war.
The authors start out with a very rudimentary and, in our opinion, superfluous lesson on what the web is, and how to use a search engine among other novice topics. After all, the title says the non-designer's web book, not the non-internet user's design book; we think the basics could have been skipped or the user referred to another beginning internet user’s book. But soon the meat of the book is reached, and boy is it juicy. Williams and Tollett spend considerable time expounded on color theory, good vs. bad design, and other useful topics. (We especially appreciated the tip on how to load large files-very helpful.)
If you are a beginner, we recommend you buy this book, as it will enhance your efforts to become an all-star web designer. If you are an intermediate or advanced user, get this from the library. After you absorb the few new tricks in the book, you find little worth its purchase price.
A caveat: if you are not a Mac and Photoshop user, you will have to take the extra step of translating the tips onto a useable format for you system and software. Including information for those millions of us on Windows and FrontPage or other software would have given this book the five stars we wished to bestow upon it....
P.S.: We must admit that we used The Non-Designer's Web Book in the process of building our site until it (the book, not the site) was dog-eared and coffee cup stained.

Not so! Web and browser technology still have many idiosyncracies, and any serious web designer will soon have to master the actual plumbing works - in all its glorious variations. For that, there is no shortcut to a step-by-step study of HTML and CSS - perhaps the Molly Holzschlag book. She, however, is not technical enough to write it.
Robin Williams shine when she lays out realistic (and above-average) examples and explains why they work (or not). Her chapter on typography was outstanding - she analyzes each of Microsoft's near-universal web core fonts, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses, and discourses on the use of Arial vs. Helvetica (one for screen and the other for printing). No other book goes into such detail. I give her four stars for this chapter alone.
The perfect HTML book would probably be Laura Lemay/Holzschlag teaming with Robin (and maybe Lynda Weinman). Failing that, getting both Holzschlag and Robin Williams is not a bad substitute.