I just got back from an unbelievable trip to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. My flight from the USA to Singapore was only $400 round trip. The airlines were charging between $800 and $2000. I stayed in Southeast Asia for an extra month on the money I saved.

I recommend this book for people who want to travel more, but need a good deal in order to do it.

This very useful and tightly written guide explores every aspect of cheap travel, including flight consolidators, couriers, and charters. It's the first book I've ever seen that explains the complex business of airline ticket pricing and arms you with knowledge that lets you beat the airlines at their own game. If you're adventurous and super thrifty, you can even learn how to fly for free!

There's a huge listing of airfare discounters and other dirt-cheap travel resources, arranged by hub city. McColl provides a mini-guide for each locale, along with tips on low-cost meals and lodging, recommended stopovers, and offbeat sights to see. This isn't your standard travel faire, either -- the travel writing is as witty and down-to-earth as any Lonely Planet or Moon-series guide.

Do not--repeat--do not think you can find all this stuff on the Internet.

I know of no site or group of sites that can provide so many low-cost travel airfare strategies in one quick and easy reference. It's a good read -- and it will definitely save you money.

I found this book to be a big help. It gave me more than travel tips. Its real value comes from the author's ability to give the reader an idea on how the travel industry works. Sure, there are the tried and true strategies (i.e., getting bumped) but there are other angles recommended by the author that are less obvious and of great value.

Buy and Keep this book only for thee!

The perfect size book to keep with you to brush up on your Shakespeare. A unique list of illustrations is followed by "At First Brush," which helps you to dive right in to subjects such as: Spelling and punctuation, organization and dating (A list of plays and dates, with revision noted).

The second section is called: The Quotable and the Notable. This area is a larger section devoted to famous phrases. Each phrase is followed by a small paragraph to give explanations and background for say...how Shakespeare wanted the actor to express the phrases. These sections are filled with tidbits worth reading and also help to "set the stage" or point to where the phrase is used in the play.

"King Lear has cut a deal with the two more flattering of his three daughters: he will turn power over to them as long as he can keep the name and respect due to a king......" pg. 131

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!" then makes more
sense after we understand that his "snakelike daughters
represent a quality he feels all women possess."

The section on Household Words explains common and uncommon words coined by Shakespeare. Here the author lists a partial list of words for which Shakespeare is said to be the first authority according to the Oxford English Dictionary. "well-read" is in this list. ;>

Faux Shakespeare is a list of phrases often misattributed to Shakespeare. So, who really said: "Fool's Paradise?" It is interesting how "I wold not be in a flis paradyce." turns up in Love's Labor's Lost and Romeo and Juliet.

Good Enough to Call Your Own is a list of titles borrowed from Shakespeare and many a catchy phrase has turned into a title.

An Index of Words and Phrases and an Index of Characters by Play will make it easy to find phrases and set them in their original context.

Another favorite: Shakespeare's Insults by Wayne F. Hill, however..the quotes are mostly insults. I much preferred this work, but did find the Insult book amusing when I found a quote I just knew I could use!

Similar books by Michael Macrone: It's Greek to Me! By Jove! Brush Up Your Bible!

These are perfect books to carry along with you
so you always have something to read. They fit
nicely in a purse or coat pocket.

A book you could give to anyone who loves Shakespeare or
to those who are just being introduced to the most famous and quotable words and phrases from the Bard!

BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE. By Michael Macrone. With Illustrations by Tom Lulevitch. 235 pp. New York : Harper Perennial, 1990 and Reprinted.

There are many possible approaches to Shakespeare, and in the present book Macrone has hit on the new and interesting idea of giving us, not yet another standard anthology or ponderous critical study, but a lighthearted "tour through the most famous and quotable words and phrases from the bard."

Macrone writes : "We're here to give you a handle on the famous lines you already know are Shakespeare's, and to alert you to our quieter, less conspicuous borrowings. . . . In the meantime, you'll be offered an incidental introduction (or reintroduction) to famous passages, concisely explained. . . ." (page xii).

In other words, to paraphrase Moth in 'Love's Labor's Lost' - 'He hath been at a great feast of language, and stol'n the scraps.' The main body of the book - 'THE QUOTABLE AND THE NOTABLE : Famous Phrases from Shakespeare' - gives us well over one hundred of these glorious 'scraps,' scraps such as Othello's :

"My story being done, / She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; / She swore, in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; / 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful. / She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished / That heaven had made her such a man" (page 108). Each of the passages, which have been kept "as short as possible ... while still providing enough of the context to make the key phrase intelligible" (page xiii), has been chosen to highlight an original usage of Shakespeare - in this case "passing strange" - usages which seem to have set the course of the English language. They are accompanied, on average, by about two thirds of a page or so of Macrone's interesting comments, some of which may hold surprises even for the seasoned Shakespearean.

Despite his light touch, the book is a work of careful scholarship, and is rounded out with several interesting extras : a 10-page list of 'Common and Uncommon Words Coined by Shakespeare;' a list of 'Phrases Often Misattributed to Shakespeare;' and a list of famous 'Titles Borrowed from Shakespeare.' We have also been given two useful indexes : an 'Index of Words and Phrases,' and an 'Index of Characters by Play.'

Truly surprising is the first list. Who would have thought that we owe to Shakespeare such common words, for example, as - admirable, amazement, bloodstained, coldhearted, dewdrop, employment, eventful, hostile, laughable - and a whole host of others?

Finally, to further enrich what is already a rich mix, interspersed throughout are thirty-nine clever and amusing drawings by Tom Lulevitch, drawings which remind me a bit of Tenniel's illustrations to the Alice books, and which add to the cheerful atmosphere of the book.

Macrone seems to have spared no pains in making BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE as pleasing, useful, and interesting as he could. It would make a wonderful gift, not only for those who already like Shakespeare, but also for those who, probably as the result of an unpleasant earlier experience, think that they don't. Macrone's joy in Shakespeare is infectious. His touch is light, and he has the art of teaching without seeming to teach. His book is hugely entertaining, and can be read straight through or simply browsed in an idle moment.

It would, among other things, make a great book for the bathroom, and it might just lead at least a few anti-Shakespearians to rethink their position, and maybe even go on to savor the full feast by reading a play or two. In fact, I suspect that this was probably Macrone's secret aim. He wants others to fall in love with Shakespeare too. Let's hope his Love's Labor's weren't Lost!

This book proves it: William Shakespeare was a brilliant man. I'm a huge Shakespeare fan and I'd love to get the chance to meet Macrone. Brush Up Your Shakespeare is intelligently divided into sub sections including Famous Quotes, Words Coined by the Bard, Words often misattributed to Shakespeare, and Titles Borrowed From Shakespeare. Not only is this book easy to read, it also is concise. It's great for a student who's just curious to learn a little more about Will, who doesn't have the time to pore over hundreds of research papers on him. It was also extremely interesting to me (a Linguistics minor) because of all the lexicography. A great book to own--at a reasonable price!

I have to give all the short story novels 3 stars. There are some stories you won't like but they'll 2-4 really great ones that will make the books worth the price.

... I actually liked three stories in this book. The poem is worthless, and a few more were downright too hard to read and boring, but if I had the desire to stick with them they might have been worthy. Get this book! If not for the stories, get it for the last story written by Weis and Hickman. You will be surprised that a Hero of the Lance makes an appearance! I can't wait to read the next book. Even though the poem in this was horrible, it was better than most early dragonlance books I have read, but I must say Knaak finally has a good story. Unlike his Huma and Kaz books. Bravo Knaak. Maybe he should always write short stories, but he did leave me wanting more for once. GET THIS BOOK!

As I am not a huge fan of short stories, I was surprised to find most of these excellent. 'Colors of Belief' was an further insight as to how the Games of Istar worked after Caramon's experiences in the Legends. 'Kender Stew' was very funny and a nice little story. 'The Goblin's Wish' was my favourite, a saddening tale of how different races banded together to fight Istar. 'The Three Lives of Horgan Oxthrall' was not so good. The scribe's narration is just silly, I think Douglas Niles could've just told the story and got on with it. Far and away the worst story was 'Filling the Empty Places'. I find myself being more and more disappointed by Nancy Berberick's work. Stormblade was okay, but her writing style has definitely gone downhill since. 'Off Day' was hilarious. And finally, 'The Silken Threads' again showcased Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's wonderful talent which puts them at the forefront of the DL world.
Those disappointed by the other Tales books will find this a better one, with more information into a neglected part of Krynn's history.

My English major friends kept raving about the sonnets, so I finally decided to spend a buck to get this least expensive edition. It was kind of interesting. I could tell that Shakespeare was really intense about his issues - but I was lost as to why everybody was so crazy about them. I also did not like having paper that was so thin that my highlighting and notes went right through to ruin the other side of the page :(

Finally I spent another buck to get an (almost as inexpensive) edition (used) - the Signet edition edited by Burto. That helped a lot - with definitions of terms and hints about lots of secret relationships possibly there for those who would dig further. At last I'm starting to figure out why this guy is considered so awesome. To really get an appreciation of Shake's heart and mind, beginners like me really need more than just the poems.

Now I'm borrowing an English major's copy of Dr. Vendler's edition (Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets). It's pretty heady, so I'm just trying to read her introduction. Whew! I haven't tested out all her theories, but is so much incredible care and complexity going on behind the scenes in these poems - it's no wonder people are still boggled after 400 years.

Truly amazing - but unless you're an English major I wouldn't recommend bothering with this doubtful dollar deed. Getting a copy of the Signet or Folger Library editions will make beginners much happier.

The perfect pocket edition of Mr. Shakespeare's sonnets!

Of course, if you are wondering what they mean, and all that, you will have to get yourself familiar with Rowse's edition of the sonnets: A. L. Rowse: Shakespeare's Sonnets.

But once you know who the principal characters are -- Henry Wriothesley, the young Earl of Southampton, Christopher Marlowe, and Emilia Lanier -- plus young Will Shakespeare himself -- then the Dover will do fine for you and yours.

After all, this is exactly the book you could have bought on its first day of publication, four centuries ago!! :-)

ttfn

jimmy

A colleague advised that I assign my college students this edition, and I am glad she did. Rather than reading the few anthologized works together with some handouts, students now own the entire set. For anyone not familiar with Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, this gives an affordable and portable version. For anyone familiar with the works, this book offers them in a beautifully light, compressed format that itself enhances rereading and re-interpretation. The book begins with a helpful one-page background on the sonnet form and on Shakespeare's collection, and ends with an also-helpful alphabetical list of first lines. The two-page glossary of terms at the end may be too little, too late, but the drawbacks of Dover's edition--its lack of notes and its use of roman numerals to number the poems--pale compared with the book's availability. As an enthusiast myself--someone who studied at the Shakespeare Institute, England, writing a 310-page thesis on the Bard--I feel grateful to be able to help others to such an inexpensive and pleasant way to own and explore Shakespeare's entire collection of sonnets. Because I could skim the poems in sequence so quickly and easily with this edition, the interrelationships among Sonnets 113, 114, 115, and the famous 116, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds," for example, struck me in a new way as I reread them in this little book. A highly- recommended edition.

This is a great book. It provides a excellent foundation for learning the basics of: WSH, vbscript, jscript and provides useful real-world examples for scripting: IIS, MS Office, ADO, ADSI, etc. The author even devotes a chapter on how to deploy scripting solutions.

After you finish reading this book get the MS help files on: WSH, vbscript, jscript, ADO, ADSI, other COM, and MS OLE/COM viewer and you'll be ready for scripting in the real world.

I am really new to WSH but this book made it really easy for me to grasp the concepts. It strarts from the basics and moves to harder material. I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to learn not just WSH but VBscript and jscript.

For a programmer who has used VB, Java, or any ASP, this book will boost your skills incredibly with a minimal learning curve. It shows the basics of the WSH objects and an overview of VBScript and JScript within the first few chapters- it is worth buying the book just for those chapters alone.

If you are not familiar yet with the concepts of OOP and looking at object models, you might need a primer found in another book before looking into WSH. It is built purely on objects that your code will refence and it can be a bear to take on unprepared.

It will be interesting to see how the .Net framework will integrate the objects in WSH- there is a significant chance that little in this book will be completely valid after Windows XP and Visual Studio .Net have become standard. Nevertheless, this book is an invaluable tool to the Windows programmer who wants to simplify life by automating as many tasks as possible.

I bought this book with Intermediate Flash skills and intermediate ActionScript skills. This book is far beyond me. That's good and bad. Every chapter can stand alone and the source files are included, but this book won't get me to the next level by itself.

If you are very well versed in ActionScript and the topics interest you as explained in the Editor's review, then this would be a good book for you. If you are an intermediate ActionScripter without the chance to look at this in the bookstore, be cautious, especially if you never return books.

The book does tailor to advanced users, it's just that I bit of more than I could chew. Good luck.

These days there aren't many books out that deal exclusively with ActionScript. There's one from Colin Mook which I like, and the couple others that are out there aren't that impressive. This one isn't worth it's weight in gold but I still find it quite valuable because each chapter is written by a different author, and each of them really seems to know what they're talking about. Assuming that you know your way around Flash, this one won't waste your time going over the usual basics. At times it's a bit difficult to find your way around the sample files, but I'm learning so much just from dissecting them, and the chapters in the book explain reasonably well what's going on. Book looks a bit cheap, but then again, it's not like I'm gonna be using it much once the next version of Flash hits the shelves...

After going through the chapters, I must say there are a few things that disappoint me about this book. The book's layout and design are poor. The information is not well laid out and even though the authors are very well versed, I believe some editorial help on their writing style would have improved the books content dramatically. Understanding that each chapter is written by a different developer, the reader will see that the quality of the explanations varies.

The book has some very interesting concepts and given time and effort an intermediate/advanced flash AS programmer will understand the concepts and theory behind some of the more interesting flash movies on the net.

The authors are true samurai, so if you want to join their clan you're going to need to understand the concepts in this book. If you have your advanced math books from school, you'll want to take them out so you can review some trig and calculus theories, your going to need them.

Novice Flash developers better wait to get this book, trust in my words, you will minimally understand the theories. But if you are adventures, and think you have what it takes. Go for it.

I read "Garage Sale Magic" less than a month ago, and just completed my first garage sale in almost ten years. The last time, I didn't do well and was frustrated. This time, I made well over a thousand dollars, and plan on having a sale each year. The book pointed out many important things to remember - it served as a good checklist for me before the sale. Very easy to read and put me in the right mood before the sale. I recommend it!

I'm glad I read Garage Sale Magic before my latest garage sale. As a result of some of the ideas in the book, I had my largest garage sale by far, even though I did it in only 2 days. The idea about adding merchandise to the sale was very worthwhile. I also went into this sale with a better attitude, and had much more fun during the sale. I've read other books on garage and yard sales, but this one packed the most info in the most readable format. I plan on buying their video with some of the money I made.

I just had my first garage sale last weekend after having read Garage Sale Magic. I thought that the book was not only easy to read, but also gave me the confidence to prepare for my own garage sale. The information was outlined in a step by step format, which made the process easy for me. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in garage sales.

I loved Clark’s “Sex and the Origin of Death” and “At War Within”. By comparison, I was disappointed in Hardwired. It is a serious , very informative book, and I believe you can trust Clark. The earlier chapters, about one celled animals, a worm, and a fly, were brilliant, and a lot about the basis of human behavior may be learned from them. The material in the first chapter about studies of twins separated at birth is provocative. The problem is that once Clark, or was it Grunstein, got to vertebrates, the material was just not well integrated. Too often the book read as a series of summaries of successive findings, some of which were inconsistent. Yes, Clark had some overarching themes, repeated a number of times, but that doesn’t replace a good synthesis. There is much that is partially understood at best, and a lot of research which casts light only on a small piece of the puzzle, making a good synthesis more difficult for conscientious authors, but that just makes their job harder, not impossible. Bottom line: if you are interested in the subject AND in science, including technical details, read this book, until a better one comes along.

This book takes on the really big questions about human existence: Is our behavior controlled by our genes, our environment or both? Is our behavior genetically dictated? If so, what can (or should) we do about it? This book actually makes some headway in resolving these questions and others like them and has the added attraction of giving you a survey of the science in this area.

This book sat on my coffee table unread for six months because I harbored two opposing fears about reading it: On the one hand, I thought that the technical scientific details would be daunting, and on the other, I feared that this was an area that was not capable of intellectual resolution, that nothing of importance to understanding the human condition could be learned in this area. I was wrong on both counts. This book is a great introduction to what science has learned about the role of genes in human behavior and it is presented in a manner comprehensible to the lay reader.

The first half of the book is devoted to the study of the behavior of comparatively simple creatures, round worms, Drosophila, sea slugs, etc. By analyzing simplified nervous systems, the authors are able to explore some simple relationships between genes and behavior. Then, in the second half, these same relationships are explored in more advanced creatures and in humans. The authors make clear the limits of the extension of these principles to more complex settings, but they were able to convince me of the appropriateness of the application of these studies to more complex species.

The conclusions that the authors draw are not simplistic. The complex interplay of neurotransmitters is effectively developed and the possibility of multiple behavioral and neural antecedents to behavior is acknowledged. Still the same the reader will be awed, both by the genetic and neural science and by the implications for the human condition.

In short, this is exactly the kind of book that will rock you back in your chair, stunned by the complexity and wonder that is the human neurological system.

The authors are not your average community med tech or physician but University research professionals. Dr Clark with UC at Los Angeles' Dept of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology and Dr Grunstein at UCLA's School of Medicine and Molecular Institute. The book is just over 300 pages and cover a variety of issues from the evolutionary origins of behavior, genes and behavior, the evolution of learning and memory, the role of neurotransmitters in human behavior, the genetics of aggression, eating disorders, substance abuse, mental health, sexual preference and the environment and free will.

Chapter 13 which deals with The Genetics Of Sexual Preference is interesting since they wisely note what many of us bisexual women have always known, which is that "Women show a much broader spectrum of preferences, with a much higher percentage of nonheterosexual women showing varying degrees of bisexuality." And I was enthralled with the information about Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who coined the phrase "nature Vs nurture." Galton is someone I greatly admire. The notation of the value of eugenics is valuable.

Page 293 "What if we define the alleles of other genes that play a major role in aggressiveness, or criminality, or homosexuality? Almost certainly there will be at least a few individuals who will want to use this new information to manage their own reproductive affairs. Past history tells us that if such people gain political power, they may also try to impose their views on societies as a whole. How do we stop that from happening? ...."

Was bothered they included homosexuality mixed with issues like aggressiveness and criminal issues since sexual pleasure isn't a crime between consenting adults. Anymore that enjoying fine food, wine and music is.

Interesting that you basically ignore native XML DBs. They are the definitive choice in most XML Document Centric environments. While RDBs remain quite strong in XML Data Centric models, they must resort to BLOBs or risk an order of magnitude of sluggishness compared to native XML DBs, such as our GoXML DB. Even with BLOBs, you cannot create a new document from multiple existing documents because of the columnar structure. The lack of a full table of contents when your title is 'Professional XML Databases' is disappointing...

Concerned XML Enthusiast

this is very well written book. the material presented in this book are exhaustive and gets you good insight on how xml would be used with dbms. the chapters 2,3 and 4 are very informatiove as they list ou tthe steps required for converting db table to xml and vice versa.

I read through this book at more of an advanced developer level, so I'm going to treat it from that level.

The chapter on XQuery was great; it answered many of my questions concisely. There is very little information on the web about XQuery outside the W3.org site, so I was surprised to find such high quality information in a book.

XPath is also a newer API that is covered well in this book, giving you enough information to get your project going.

If you're planning to do any kind of development with XML coming in or going out of a relational database, this is an excellent book to buy. I also recommend Professional XML from Wrox and O'Reilly's XML in a nutshell.

Cleopatra may be a somewhat ambiguous female character, but I totally loved her, and Bill's portrayal of her. I don't know if he expected the reader to judge her, but I suspect not. The harshest criticism of her comes from Octavius Caesar, who himself doesn't do a single noble thing throughout the whole play. She is fully aware of the fact that she is a sensual, passionate woman- which has no negative effect on her ability to rule Egypt. Her biggest faults are her violent temper (which I suspect is just part of her passionate nature) and her tendency to lie when it suits her (either for sport or for serious politics). Antony (I feel) is actually kind of a loser compared to her. His insincerity runs deep- he marries Caesar's sister in a political move, although he had repeatedly pledged his undying love for Cleopatra. She forgives him, because she truly loves him, even though he doesn't do anything to deserve forgiveness. Antony never fully allows himself to love Cleopatra. He constantly is overreacting to the slightest indication that she might be betraying him or whatever. It is one of these overreactions (combined with an ill-timed lie on Cleo's part) that ends up destroying them both. Even in the end, Cleopatra's death is more dignified and better conceived than Antony's messy and fumbling suicide.

Shakespeare in this play shows how love is not human but surrealistic. Love does not answer reasonable questions. It is a fundamentally unreasonable attitude that brings the lovers to absurd behaviours negating all logical, political and historical values. Love has no limits even if history will prove stronger and the lovers will be destroyed. Shakespeare beefs up this theme with a language that is so rich that we are fascinated by the words, the symbols, the symbolic value of words and acts. He is particularly rich in his style that is entirely, words, poetry, actions, and even feelings, organized following some simple symbols, particularly numerical symbols. In this play Cleopatra appears as being the core of the symbolism and she carries with her the number eleven that comes from the old English runes with the meaning of fate, of fatal defeat, of a flaw that cannot be corrected or escaped. It is her destiny to bring Antony to his defeat and death, just as it is Antony's fate to be governed by this woman and led to his own destruction because of his love for her. It also shows how the Emperor is able to use this fatal situation in order to capture all powers and to impose his absolute will on the Roman Empire. He seems to be the one who plays not well but with all the assets of the game up his sleeves, and he takes them out one at a time when the situation is ripe for these assts to become the key to is ascension to absolute power by defeating those who may oppose him.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Anthony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's difficult plays, and so I suspect the ratings on the play are low because it's a more mature play than Romeo and Juliet. Here we have two middle age lovers who part of the time are foolish with lust/love and the rest of the time are tough minded heads of state. The "tragedy" is that they can't be both and survive. This is not a play for the young folks, I'm afraid. But if you want some heavy drama where the characters are spared nothing and given no slack, read Anthony and Cleopatra (hint: Cleopatra's suicide is more political statement than a crazy wish to die with Antony). Better yet see it performed by some real actors some time.