As an avid fan of far eastern food and having travelled extensively in Thailand I was keen to get an early copy of this new book. Sadly, I wasted my time and money. A rehash of well known favourites with few new ideas this book could have been written in a library or my kitchen rather than the Dara restaurant. If you are a devotee of eastern food then stay well away, there are far better texts!

It is unfortunate that this book should be subtitled "Lao/Thai Recipes," implying that there is a general commonality between Lao and Thai (Central Thai/Siamese) cuisine, which there is not. To be sure, there are certain individual dishes that can be characterized as Lao/Siamese because they are featured in both cuisines and their origins are obscure--they probably date back many centuries if not millennia. The Siamese Tom Yum Kung for example is none other than a substitution of shrimp for chicken (or catfish) in Lao chicken (or catfish) soup (a recipe appears in Taste of Laos, p. 45), while the Siamese Ho Mok is simply Lao Mok (a recipe on p. 90) with the addition of coconut milk and curry powder.

As for examples of common desserts, both the Lao and Siamese eat mango with sweetened sticky rice (p. 119), custard in a pumpkin (p. 118), and rice and banana steamed in banana leaves (Khao Tom, p. 121). The Siamese, however, eat prepared sweets in greater frequency and quantity than the Lao, who generally prefer fresh fruit. Partly for this reason, the Siamese dessert repertory exceeds that of the Lao in terms of its variety and development.

The greater Siamese affinity for sweets is one difference in eating preferences between them and the Lao. There are quite a few. The Siamese have a predilection for heavy spices (namely curries) and herbs (particularly "Thai" basil) and rich dishes--many based on coconut milk/cream, with the result that Siamese dishes are often very fragrant, oily, and liquid. This is incompatible with the Lao palate. In general, the Lao eschew the use of coconut in savory dishes, and the curries so popular in Siam never made an impression on Lao cuisine, despite more than a century (late 18th--late19th century) of Siamese political domination. Which is also one reason why traditional French food, with its heavy dishes and creamy sauces, based on flour, cream and butter (not to mention it's complex batterie de cuisine), never took hold, despite half a century of French rule.

The Lao palate is accustomed to grilled or steamed foods--with relatively simple flavorings, and fresh, uncooked vegetables. Lao cuisine, which is very healthful, uses a relatively small variety of herbs and spices, with a particular and distinctive emphasis on garlic and galanga (not ginger, as has been asserted elsewhere).

Hence the author's suggestions that the Lao eat curries is nonsense.

Having said that the Lao like their food simple and light, lean and green, besides differences in taste, there is a more practical reason that the Lao do not eat Siamese food, despite living next door to the homeland of one of the most popular Asian cuisines in North America.

Daovone mentions the Lao preference for sticky rice--which admittedly is an issue of taste, and by now everyone should know (of course they don't) that the Lao are the one people in the entire world who eat sticky rice as a staple. All traditional Lao foods then were developed by people who knew that the dish would be accompanied by sticky rice, which is eaten out of a woven basket, with fingers. Hence to keep the fingers clean and rice out of the various dishes, the dishes could not be wet or oily.

Siamese food, because of the ubiquitous coconut milk and oily curries, is too soupy for sticky rice. Though if you're using a spoon, it is perfect for regular white rice, which absorbs the broth and picks up the flavor.

Most of the rural Lao population, which is most of the country's population, still eat sticky rice exclusively. The urban population eats both sticky rice and white rice, depending on the dishes they are to accompany. Lao dishes would call for sticky rice, while foreign dishes, such as Chinese-style stir fries (which are popular), or Thai curry dishes (which are not popular) would be accompanied by regular white rice.

While the Lao use their fingers to eat sticky rice (the consistency of the rice makes it impossible to do it any other way), they would never use their fingers, as the Siamese and Indians traditionally do, to eat white rice. Neither, however, do they use chopsticks as their Chinese and Vietnamese neighbors (some) do. Chopsticks are reserved for noodles. For white rice, the Lao use spoons.

At times, it seems the author can't decide whether she's writing a Lao cookbook or a Siamese one. Why is Tam Mak Hung (Green Papaya Salad) called Som Tum in the Siamese manner? While this offense is one in name only, the author gives a recipe for Phad Thai, but describes it as "Koa Mee[Khua My] or Pad Thai," as though they were one and the same thing. In truth, they are quite different--the most obvious differences being that Khua My generally calls for beef (rather than the shrimp or chicken typically found in Pad Thai), dark soy sauce (rather than fish sauce) and caramelized sugar (rather than sugar added directly to the noodles).

Taste of Laos is written by a cook--and proprietor of a Lao/Thai restaurant, not a gastronome or sociologist, and hence everything said about Lao cuisine or culture must be taken with plenty of salt, or padaek, for which unfortunately there is no recipe or discussion, except by food guru and one-time ambassador to Laos Alan Davidson in the book's preface.

Neither is there a discussion of Lao cooking methods or equipment. The author's instructions for steaming sticky rice are not likely to lead to good results, because they are very vague and steaming sticky rice requires a little more effort than making white rice. To make the process easier, the Lao invented a special steaming basket and pot, but there is no mention of this apparatus in the cookbook. Nor is there a mention of the deep Lao-style mortar and pestle that is required for a proper Green Papaya Salad (Tam Mak Hung in Lao/ Som Tum in Siamese). The Lao mortar and pestle is indispensable in the Lao kitchen, and can be had for $10 at most Lao, Thai or Vietnamese grocery stores.

Throughout the book, Daovone tries to suggest that Lao and Siamese eat the same food, which is not true. I have already mentioned how much Siamese food the Lao eat. How much Lao food the Siamese eat is another question. Let it suffice to say that there are a lot more Isan (Lao) restaurants in Bangkok than there are Siamese restaurants in Isan (the ethnic Lao region of Thailand), and that "Som Tum" and "Larb" have become standards on Thai menus everywhere

The author's assertion that the Lao have ever been vegetarian ("In the past, most Lao became vegetarians purely for religious reasons.") is ridiculous. Buddhism has rarely exerted a didactic influence on the Lao, and certainly never in this regard. Historical records show that monks themselves in particular consumed all kinds of meats, sweets and delicacies with gusto.

Taste of Laos should have more accurately been subtitled, "Lao and Thai Recipes," because it contains both Lao and Thai recipes from the proprietor of the popular Dara Restaurant in Berkeley, which as a disclaimer I have to say that I have never been to. As one of only three cookbooks in the English language devoted to Lao cuisine, it is obviously of great worth. It is, however, far from comprehensive and not representative of what most Lao people eat. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that in Laos, the cuisine of Vietnam is twenty times as popular as that of Siam/Central Thailand. Light and fresh Southern Vietnamese cuisine, which presumably descended from the people known as Cham, is much more in tune with the Lao palate.

Daovone would have done better justice by including those Vietnamese and Vietnamese-inspired dishes that are so popular in Laos. Though since Dara is a Lao/Thai restaurant, I can understand why Vietnamese recipes have been excluded. Nevertheless, I was disappointed to not find even one Khao Poun dish, and even more disappointed that there is no recipe for Lao Sausage (Sai Oua).

That Daovone is from Xieng Khouang (famous for its Plain of Jars) contributes to the book's value. Lao cuisine often has many regional variations, and Taste of Laos has recorded permanently the Xieng Khouang variations of certain dishes. Also, though Daovone neglects many classic Lao dishes, she introduces a number of new dishes and new sauces, many of which are her own creation. The Vientiane Mango Fool (p.123), for example, is nothing I have ever even heard of, and the Catfish Salad ("Laap Pa Duk," p. 57) is nothing like your typical Goy/Laap.

This book is a keeper. Don't be put off by its ugly cover or the unorthodox Romanization of Lao dish names; get a copy of this cookbook. Who knows when you might find yourself far from a Lao grocery store and having to make your own Sour Pork Sausages (Som Mou, p.30)?

Taste of Laos: Lao/Thai Recipes from Dara Restaurant by Daovone Xayavong ($15.95) is publish

As an voracious eater of Asian food who has also travelled extensively not only in Thailand but also in Laos, I found "Taste of Laos" a delight. The 8 pages of glossary alone are worth the price of the book. The author's vingettes are very engaging and the recipes authenic Lao. I don't know of any Thai cookbooks that include traditional Lao dishes such as ant egg soup or 'Nam Lao, fresh ingredients rolled in translucent rice paper wrapers. Alan Davidson's foreword as well as the Author's "A Word About Lao Food" were very informative. All in all I would say that "Taste of Laos" is a much appreciated addition on my book shelf. I rather doubt the reader from Greenwich Village could have written this book sitting in his (or her) NY kitchen.

...I ordered this book as a gift for my brother-in-law, who's into motorcycles. I thought the book would be exactly what the title said: a celebration of the long, proud history of Harley-Davidson, replete with gorgeous, suitable-for-framing photos of the company's products. The book arrived. I took one look at it, and gave it instead to my friend Bob, who has a taste for oddities. Bob took one look at it, and exclaimed, "THIS IS A COFFEE-TABLE BOOK ABOUT HELL'S ANGELS!" As indeed it is, down to the last bike-chain-wielding bruiser and Jello-wrestling biker babe. Sure, they all ride Harleys, but Harley-Davidson itself is--shall we say--peripheral to the book's actual theme. The photos are very well-done, if suitable-for-framing pix of Hell's Angels are what you want.

Considered a classically American symbol of freedom, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle is captured in 150 full-color photographs and engaging writing in this Thunder Bay Press hardback. "Classic Harley-Davidson" focuses on the machines' emotive power as well as biker lifestyle. Written by Mark Williams. 144 pages.

It's almost unprecedented for me to return a baseball book. It's almost impossible to find a baseball book I won't enjoy. If the book's about the Yankees, the odds of either would be non existent. Well, at least I thought they would be non existent until I began to read this one.

The book contains no new good information & is filled with mistakes. Also, the author's system of rating the players creates a premise that's flawed from the beginning.

If you know enough about baseball to know Snuffy Stirnweiss wasn't an all time Yankee great, then you find this book insulting to your intelligence.

I truly enjoyed this book. Each piece (and there are 50!) takes you back to the particular year! It has all the stats on the individual player in his best season. It has lots of fantastic photos and a terrific section on the 1998 Yankees! At the end of the book, there is a section that allows me to record my own memorable seasons with my favorite team! A must have for every Yankee fan, and those fans of baseball history!

This collection is a travesty indeed. Great poems no doubt, but abysmally read. Furthermore they should have put all the introductions together separate and apart from the poems. It's nice to hear intros the first time around. But who wants to hear the intros everytime you listen to the poems? Sometimes I want to hear just a stream of poetry without any interuptions and this format makes that impossible. It's incredible that such a great concept could be so terribly executed.

I could not get this back to the store for a refund quickly enough. While the poem selection is great and the poem introductions are narrated well, the choice to use "modern poets" as the readers made this compilation utterly unlistenable. The only one that I found acceptable was Anthony Hect--the others were notably bad. In particular, I found Jorie Graham's "readings" to be abysmal. She reads each poem as if it were simply a string of unconnected words, giving equal stress to each, with halting pauses between them, never breaking out of a drowsy monotone. Other readers were not much better.

There are three major flaws in the readings:

1) The readers are no better than the average untrained person, and often much worse. (You've just got to hear them for yourself to appreciate how bad they are.)

2) Successive poems by the same poet are read by different "readers." It's jarring to hear 3 or 4 poems from Poet X, each in a wildly different voice.

3) No regard is given to matching the sex of the poet and reader. In general, it is really annoying to hear your favorite poet read by the wrong sex. In particular, making this mistake on "gender specific" poems (like having a woman read Poe's "Annabel Lee") is unforgivable.

Why is this all so upsetting? Because it is practically impossible to find poetry collections on CD, making this a serious waste of limited resources. If you are looking for a good collection on CD, buy "81 Famous Poems CD" by Audio Partners (ISBN 0-945353-82-0). It's a good collection on two CDs and is read by professionals: Alexander Scourby, Bramwell Fletcher, and Nancy Wickwire. In the meantime, we can only hope that the producers of this collection will eventually come to their senses and re-record the poems with the services of trained professionals.

If you are prepping for the GRE in literature or are trying to gain a basic understanding of literary periods and poets, this audio-collection is a must. It features a brief introduction about each poet's life. It also includes a brief introduction about the theme of each poem. The fact that you have to listen to these introductions before listening to the poem inculcate the poem and aids retention. If literature has turned into a cumbersome and overwhelming task, this collection will not only provide you with a sense of direction but will also make literature far more pleasurable.

"Let The Buyer Beware" applies in this case! The "Book" if you can call it that is a whapping eight pages, an eleven pages of other titles for sale, followed by an order form so you can loose more of your hard earned money.

The number of pages would be unimportant if they contained at least something useful. It was sold as "Hacking Answering Machines". Hacking implies working with and altering the software within the system for your own purpose. My intention for purchasing this book was to learn about how the answering machine works, so that I could hack it, well forget it.

By hacking they mean get the remote access code and redo the outgoing message (hee hee hee). And how do you get the code? Why just ask your victim for it, or look on the bottom of his machine. THAT'S IT the entire hack.

Don't waste your money or time.

This is an excelent book. It has many small things that make it very interesting. My eyes were glued to this book for hours. I am a total newbie to computers but this easilly explained everything. Things that I did not even understand were very interesting because the book was so well written. I strongly recomend this book to anyone who wants a good book to read for pleasure or somewon who wants to find out about fun things you can do with your computer.

Lest there be some confusion about the 2 stars I've given this book: Tacitus is fantastic and fascinating. So don't reproach me for SEEMING to criticize Tacitus, when my target here is the translation. (On the subject of reproach, Tacitus himself wrote: "To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have had it coming.") In fact, I think very highly of the incomparable Roman historian. Gibbon, among many others, loves him and so do I. However, this superficially handsome volume from The Modern Library (containing both The Histories and The Annals), does not do justice to Tacitus at all. These translations cannot be recommended, in spite of the praise lavished on them by the general editor. The Annals is barely acceptable but no more than that, and The Histories is inferior. No, the interested reader would be better off to consult the scintillating translation by W. H. Fyfe (revised by his editor, D. S. Levene) of The Histories, published by Oxford as a paperback in 1997. Tacitus' renown -- looking at his style rather than his content -- comes from his acerbic wit, pithy remarks and lucid analytical sentences. To get a truer sense of his abilities, look to another translation.

Geoffrey Matthews' and Byron Moldofsky's beautiful cartography is destroyed by the greatest error an atlas publisher can make--spreading the maps across two pages. The results are not just ugly; some information is lost in the crack.

I purchased this book because as a fan of both Lewis and Tolkien, I had hoped to gain better insight into the meaning behind their writings. I would say that my search for insight has only been slightly satisfied.

Myth Allegory and Gospel is a collection of six essays written by authors who describe themselves as "fans and scholars" of the works by Chesterton, Lewis, Tolkien and Williams. The essays are:

-Apologist of Eucatastrophe by John Warwick Montgomery
-Chesterton, Madmen and Madhouses by Russell Kirk
-Charles Williams' Novels and the Contemporary Mutation of Consciousness by Chad Walsh
-After the Moon Landings: A Further Report on the Christian Spaceman C.S. Lewis by Edmund Fuller
-The Chronicles of Narnia and the Adolescent Reader by John Warwick Montgomery
-Mythic and Christian Elements in Tolkien by Clyde S Kilby

Most of the essays speak of the Christian meaning of the books as if the reader already knows what the particulars are, so examples of the Christian meaning are rarely given. Furthermore, the writing style of some of the essays are similar to a research paper that I wrote in the eighth grade. Numerous sources are called upon in a disjoined manner in an essay that is difficult to follow. The exception is the essay by Kilby in regard to Tolkien's works and the essay by Mongomery in regard to Lewis. However, only the Kilby essay actually cites the Lord of the Rings to give examples of the Biblical connections that the other essays just assume that the reader already knows.

If you are looking for a collection of essays about the works of these authors, then this may be the book for you. But, if you are looking for more insight into these books, I would suggest that perhaps another book would be a better choice for you.

Make no mistake, William Manchester (1922-), who knew John F. Kennedy personally, can be a great writer at times. His two-volume biography of Winston Churchill (sadly, never to be completed now that Manchester is aging and ill) is superb, and so is "The Glory and the Dream", his history of the GI generation from 1932-1972. But when it comes to the Kennedys, Manchester's objectivity and tendency to hero-worship simply fails him, and has led to plenty of criticism and controversy over the years. In my opinion, "One Brief Shining Moment" is easily one of the worst books ever written about President Kennedy, and is an embarrassment to Manchester's otherwise brilliant career. Manchester doesn't just praise JFK in this book, he almost fawns over him, and it's obvious that he sees JFK as a modern King Arthur presiding over a (White House) Camelot. His chapter titles for this book tell it all - "There thou layest" is his final chapter in which he specifically links Kennedy to the Arthurian legends, and indulges in plenty of purple prose. As in his other Kennedy books, Manchester loathes Lyndon Johnson, and in this work he more clearly links LBJ with Mordred - Arthur's (JFK's) great enemy and the villain of the Camelot (Kennedy) legend - than in his previous Kennedy books. In Manchester's prose, LBJ is little more than a redneck boor, a country hick whose crude habits, such as deer hunting, "horrified" the urbane, elegant, and intellectual JFK. In Manchester's view Lyndon Johnson was the "anti-Kennedy" - this despite the view held by many modern (and far more objective) historians that it was Johnson, and not JFK, who was the critical force behind the great Civil Rights and anti-poverty legislation passed in the mid-sixties. This book repeats virtually every legend and myth about JFK as fact - that the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 wasn't really JFK's fault, but the CIA's, President Eisenhower's, etc. Kennedy's womanizing wasn't anything that his predecessors (and successors) haven't done, so what's the big deal? And, of course, if JFK had only lived none of the massive problems of the later sixties would have happened. According to Manchester, Kennedy would "definitely" have pulled out of Vietnam - hence no Vietnam War, no dead American soldiers or riots on college campuses, etc. If JFK had only lived the civil rights mess - such as the race riots in the mid-to-late sixties - would never have happened, as blacks somehow "trusted" JFK more than they did Lyndon Johnson, and would therefore have listened to JFK's urgings not to riot in the streets. Of course, Manchester offers virtually no evidence to support these claims - he simply writes them as if they were "facts" accepted by everyone. In Manchester's rosy view, Kennedy is simply perfect, with almost no flaws or warts (and those few that exist only "prove his humanity"). If you still believe the Camelot legends of John F. Kennedy's Presidency and still have a romantic view of the man, then you'll LOVE this book, as it takes the Camelot myth and runs wild with it. But if you're looking for a more balanced and fair-minded work about JFK, then this is probably the LAST book you'll want to read. I've read many books about the Kennedys - some favorable and some critical - but this book is easily the least objective and balanced pro-Kennedy account that I've ever read. If you do choose to read this book, I would suggest you then read several other, more balanced Kennedy books. Richard Reeve's "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" is excellent, as is Herbert Parmet's "Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy".

Overall, it is easy book to read but you could really tell that each chapter was written by a different person. Some chapters are good but others are really poor. The end of the chapter tests were way too easy compared to the actual test. It has an incredible number of mistakes and typos especially in the calculation of subnet masking. I went round in circles and wasted so much time trying to figure out why I could never get a question correct. I think this book has a second edition that I hope is better. Avoid this book and you will be a much happier person.

OK! I know there are a lot of mistakes...especially for the beginner like me...I am really confused by this book because of its unnecessary mistakes...but, I really like the chapter 2...it's very easy to understand the ARP...IP or ICMP..However, I got confused on the chapter 5 with the wrong route table...Man, I hope it would be better when it come to the second edition!

I used the book with help from the CBT Systems computer based training and found the book quite useful for the holes that the CBT did not cover. But the book contained too many errors for a training book. I was always looking at the error correction list from the web site to make sure what I was reading was correct. That should not happen on this kind of book. Clean up the errors and it would be a lot better at its job.