This book is one of the best books that I've ever read. It does not concentrate on the stats or indeed particularly on the winners of the World Championship. It takes a personal look at the people, races and years that have shaped F1 from it's very begining. It is a great read for any F1 fan as Roebuck succeeds in not only jogging our memory of the past but also telling untold behind the scenes stories in detail not to mention a tinge of humour. I trully love this book, in fact I think I've read it cover to cover at least 3 times if not more.

Nigel Roebuck, one of the finest journalists to cover motorsport in general and Formula One in particular, presents in this book a wonderful series of sharp vignettes covering the entire period of the modern World Championship. Roebuck begins at Imola in 1994, when, as he puts it aptly, "everything changed" with the tragic death of Ayrton Senna and the introduction of knee-jerk "safety" improvements which have led only to boring racing and have not, as we learned earlier this season, prevented what are, given the nature of the sport, inevitable tragedies. Hard as it is to believe, the "turbo years" of the late 70s and 80s are beginning to look suspiciously like a final golden age, which they certainly weren't at the time, but, given the emasculation of tracks, over-dominance by a few teams, and drivers who do not understand the history of the sport and drive like they're the only man on the track, they're beginning to look pretty good in retrospect. But I digress. Between the covers of this book you'll find incisive portraits of several great drivers (among them Phil Hill, Piers Courage, James Hunt, Ayrton Senna, and Jochen Rindt), car owners (the great Rob Walker, who long after his car-owning days were over wrote wonderful F1 journalism for Road & Track when R&T was still a great magazine), and others associated with the F1 scene (journalist Denis Jenkinson, F1's official doctor Professor Sid Watkins, and current F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone). He also writes of several races - the great slipstreaming duel at Monza in 1971, the first win for Renault in 1979, Dallas 1984 which ended with Nigel Mansell trying to push his car over the finish line in the blazing heat. As an added incentive, there are sections of black and white and color photographs. More and more nonfiction books seem to be doing away with illustrations, and with F1 being the visual spectacle that it is, we can be glad that Roebuck and his publisher resisted this new and unfortunate trend. Turn to the section of color plates and feast your eyes on the first photograph - Fangio in the Maserati 250F at Monaco in 1957. The greatest driver, the greatest car, the greatest race; one picture says it all. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Formula One.

When I first saw this book's title, I nearly gave it a pass, thinking it was just one more in an already well-covered niche. But Nigel Roebuck's name was enough for me to chance it. (If you've read his columns you know he's always interesting.) This book is really unique. Despite the title, it's not an attempt to condense a history of 50 years of racing. It's more like a collection of essays about people and events that are not well covered elsewhere. I've read a LOT of books about F1 (cars, teams, drivers, ...) but each chapter of this book had new and intriguing things to say. It was a really enjoyable read, as well.

I just love this book. From Henry's habit of naming people for their irritating habits (such as Mr and Mrs 'Is-the-Mitsubishi-Scratched-Yet? at Number 42)his contempt for his Pasat and his hilarious and inept attempts to poison his wife, the entire street, and random members of the public, I just couldn't put it down. Then I had to come to terms with how macarbre that made me! But never fear, Henry is saner than he sounds, and that is the beauty of this book, it uncovers all of the mad thoughts everyday people have about their lives but would never admit to, and I think every one of us will recognise ourselves, or people we know, in the very real and flawed people that populate Henry's Wimbledon world. If you love Tom Sharp, Roald Dahl or any other writer whose humour is as black as it is funny, this is well worth a read.

Henry Farr is, to everyone else, a VERY boring man. But really, deep down he has a desire to murder his wife. It's not that he's a sadist or anything, he just can't think of any other way to prolong her absence indefinately.

This is a brilliant and hilarious book. I loved it, and would suggest it to anyone who is looking for a light comedy. Nigel Williams has written a great story about middle aged man going through one of lifes crisis' - the book is easy to read, and really is impossible to put down.

This book is a wonderful journey into the life of a man who can best be described as "ordinary."

It is eloquently and amusingly written, full of splendid observations on life, family, morality and friendship.

It has a great purpose and each character is blessed with a wonderful individuality ... thoroughly enjoyable reading!

Because this is a collection of papers by different authors, quality and style vary from chapter to chapter, but there are few wasted words, and hardly a sentence without a kernel idea worth taking the time to understand. On the other hand, it is a difficult and demanding book to read cover to cover, and most readers will probably prefer to focus on areas of particular personal interest rather than tackling the whole volume at one go.

Chapter 1, entitled "The origin of coarticulation", discusses what causes coarticulation, a history of the investigation of coarticulation, and how coarticulation develops in children¡¦s speech. A series of coarticulatory models is reviewed, including Lindblom's 'target undershoot' model of the 1960s (p. 16), Oehman's observation that two vowels interact with each other across intervening stops (p. 17), Wickelgren's idea that we store not phonemes in our brains but collections of context-sensitive allophones (p. 18), up to Keating's 'window' model of the 1980s (p. 21), in which every feature of a segment is associated with a range of values rather than an absolute target.

Part II is entitled "Research results: components of the motor system for speech". Each chapter features a key articulatory organ or organ complex: the velopharyngeal complex, the tongue, the larynx, the lips, and the lips and jaws.

Part III provides a home, under the catch-all classification of "Wider perspectives", for two chapters that did not quite fit elsewhere, "Cross-language studies on articulation" and "Implications for phonological theory".

The chapters of part IV, "Instrumental Techniques", report on the state of the art of various specialized methods and instruments for performing articulatory and acoustic measurements. The methods presented are: palatography, X-ray, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, electromagnetic articulography (EMMA), electromyography, transducers for investigating velopharyngeal function (including aerometry, electromyography, various acoustic methods, radiography, endoscopy, photodetection, various mechanical devices, ultrasound, MRI, and EMMA), and techniques for investigating laryngeal articulation (including fibreoptic endoscopy, transillumination, electromyography, pulse-echo ultrasound, acoustic analysis with inverse filtering, glottography, and the Sondhi tube).

The final chapter of the book addresses use of the spectrograph and other acoustic tools in studying coarticulatory phenomena. This chapter gives examples of how to do acoustic analysis of formant transitions, the stable portion of a vowel, stop release, fricative noise, nasals, liquids and glides, voicing and tone, and duration and intensity. This is a laudable beginning, but there is room for much more to be done in this area.

While this book is overall very tight in structure and rich in content, it is not by any means the do-all, end-all work on coarticulation. There are a number of areas not covered in this book that I would like to have seen, and hope to see in future works, such as: what really happens between *words* in running discourse?

This book is a good beginning of more serious and concentrated work on coarticulatory phenomena than has previously been seen. Hopefully many more such studies will follow.

This is an important book if you're interested in coarticulation, and if you are, you should definitely have it. Great chapters on a variety of topics, some of which present data, some of which talk about theoretical implications of data, and some of which talk about instrumental techniques for data-gathering.

1992 Formula 1 champion Nigel Mansell is one of Britain's racing legends, his duels with Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet fresh in people's memories. Williams' wheelchair-bound boss Frank Williams writes the foreword, and the two have achieved success hand-in-hand. With the help of veteran racing author Derick Allsop, he has written his most authoritative work on his success. Sections look at his personality and life off the track, which conveys him as a classic family man, the Williams team and what made it tick, the way a race weekend works (fascinating information for all F1 fans), the drives eh has raced against (unsurprisingly his comments on his 'Gang of 4' rivals aren't always complementary) and each race individually. Derick writes a section on his 1992 championship triumph, looking at each of the races in which he emphatically achieved the dream it looked like he would be denied. A great look at a great racer.

I grudgingly shared this book with friends, I loved it so! This is a tale of a man who journeys down the Thames by boat following a tax crisis. It's really a gleeful stickup of middle age crisis, friendship and family ties. I'll never forget several Brit's expressions as I howled in my seat and tears fell while on the bus in London.

Maybe it's just the high expectations I had for this novel that led to my disappointment, or maybe it's because I just finished reading Sharon Kay Penman's excellent 13th century Welsh trilogy, and it's unfair to compare these two authors who are in so obviously different leagues. I found The Wallace very one-dimensional and tedious; a catalogue of military and politary exploits by a very flat character. None of the characters really came alive for me. Not to mention the astounding number of small historical inaccuracies that left a very bad taste in my mouth. The armor described is at least a hundred years too early (there were no visored helmets or steel breastplates in the late 13th century, a jack is very different from a breastplate, etc). Not once was an English knight mentioned as having a shield, when in fact, a shield was actually required equipment for knights of this time period. English knights were depicted not wearing leg armor so they could ride better (hunh? Only cavalry wears leg armor since their legs are incredibly vulnerable). Wallace's sword is reported as being five feet long and a dozen pounds or so; even the over-heavy replica made for the Braveheart movie was only 8 pounds.

Ok, ok, so maybe these historical inaccuracies can be overlooked, they are only details of arms and armor in a novel that is little more than a catalogue of military exploits. But what about the battle of Falkirk? Tranter describes Edward's heavy horse plowing through the staked ropes and snapping the pikes with ease, while according to actual history it is the pikes that utterly defeated the heavy horse charge. It was only when Edward moved his archers up to fire into the schiltroms, making holes in the formation, that the heavy horse could ride in and break it up.

Such inaccuracies could be overlooked if there was a compelling story here, but there just isn't. Even the death of Wallace's beloved wife is described, the impact on Wallace included, in just one page! The entire novel is purely from Wallace's point of view (third-person), so we never know what is going on in Edward's (or anyone else's) mind. What are Wallace's motivations? Yes, yes, freedom for Scotland, but this is never poignantly depicted.

All in all, I was not overly impressed with this novel (especially given all of the 5/5 ratings). Now this wasn't a terrible novel, but it just doesn't deserve the praise it's been getting here. I love history and historical fiction, but maybe after reading Penman ("Here Be Dragons") and Cornwell ("The Winter King"), I expect too much.

2.5 / 5

I have not actually read this yet, but will be getting it, but can I say , I have already read "William Wallace - Braveheart" by James Mackay, And can I say, This book was near to what actually happened, I have picked up on certain things about Wallace, As I live in Dundee - City Of Discovery/Scotland, Wallace supposedly went to live with an aunt - history says it was Mansion House on the outskirts of Dundee, He also went to hide from the english after stabbing a soldier in Dundee and hid out in a house in Longforgan - If I'm correct in this, It was highlighted in my local paper "The tele" a while ago.

But it was an excellent book, but I'm about to get "The Bruce Trilogy" for my birthday soon, Then I'll get the Wallace one.

I look forward to reading it though.

There are three historians that makes history come truly alive, Bruce Catton with this many books on the War Between of States in US, and two fictional writers Bernard Cornwell with this Sharpes and Starbucks, and Nigel Bruce with his passion for Scotland. He wrote many superior novels of dealing with Scottish History, but Wallce is my second favourite, the Bruce Trilogy being the first. When you read this book, you feel as though you opened a door and stepped through time. You see Wallace as a man, not just a legend.

WISE WRITERS AND READERS recommended

this play was ok...it was a little on the freaky side..but it is ok. I had to read it for school and its a lot better than other plays we have read so far...i liked it i guess

This science fiction play by the Czechoslovakian writer Karel Capek (1890-1938) introduced the word "robot" (from the Czech word "robota" for work). Any serious student of science fiction should read this play. A factory on an island produces robots (actually, in today's terminology, the products being made by this factory are androids, not robots) to do man's labor and to grow his food. But, as the years go by, governments misuse the robots, having them replace soldiers. Robots begin to be used in wars everywhere. They rebel and man is exterminated. However, the robots don't know how to build new robots and discover that they are doomed to extinction as well. But, the sole two robots of a later model discover beauty, compassion, and love. They become a new Adam and Eve. Interestingly, one of the characters in the play builds robots so that man won't have to work. Yet, he doesn't build any to do his work since it is something he enjoys doing.

Looking for the first appearance of the word 'robot'? Look no further! Czech author Karel Kapek coined the term in this classic play. It is not only the first appearance of the word 'robot', (though, not the first appearance of a mechanical man), it is also a great sciene fiction story (although 'science fiction' was not a widely used term at the time).
Essentially, the story surrounds a manufacturing company that makes robots, and continues to make them in mass quantities even with the looming suspicion they are out of control. The robots revolt, and humanity is all but destroyed and replaced.
Very humorous and biting satire, R.U.R. should satisfy virtually any taste for a well written piece of fiction. Essential for sci-fi fans, and this edition, printed beautifully by Dover, at a very small price, is well worth obtaining ownership and then some!

Was this a Power Point presentation... gone missing?

First, it's important to realize that this book is part of a series of "Introducing..." books from a UK publisher. So good authors were probably forced to follow a bad format.

That format apparently required glitzy graphics which overpowered the book. Each small page seemed to be on a separate topic... much like a Power Point slide presentation.

There was disappointingly little coverage of the math side of the material. OK, there really was next to none. The saving grace was the coverage of where fractals were being used in practical applications.

Let me tell you a little more on these graphics. They were (professionally done) hand drawn cartoons. Mostly of famous mathematicians having quirky things to say about the subject, on an 8th grade level.

Overall, I think the authors did a fair job of trying to jamb an excellent subject into a stupid book format. The problem lies most likely at the feet of the publisher. This format makes sense for some of their other 8th grade books: "Introducing Feminism"... Freud... Jung... Marx... Einstein, etc. How they were able to pull off "Introducing Math" in one of these small books is probably a story in and of itself. They even have an "Introducing a Post-Feminism" book, if the first one was not enough.

This book was not a complete zero for me, as I did learn many new things. It was a fast read, but I think I have yet to find the best introductory book on Fractals. If you buy this book, you'll never have to pick up a pencil and solve a problem, or even use a calculator. It's just all... a quick read.

John Dunbar

This book was very interesting. It takes a look at fractals and their basic geometric properties and gives a fairly extensive history from their discovery to their current use today. This book is not technical at all and could be read by almost anyone. The best part about this book is that it offers numerous reasons for why we should care about fractals in the first place. It offers an argument that nature is naturally based on fractals and that an understanding of fractals is essential to understanding nature. The book has a comic on just about every page making it an enjoyable and quick read.

Some of the not-so-great aspects of the book are that it is almost too short, not quite technical enough, and has grammatical errors all over the place. I read this book in one sitting and it left me wanting to know more. It makes up for this, however, by listing several books about fractals and chaos theory for you to move on to after reading this book as well as telling you the level of expertise one would need to read these other books. The grammatical errors in the book are numerous. It makes me believe that no one proof read this book before it was published.

Overall, this is a great book to start learning about fractals with. If you are a math whiz, then perhaps you might want to look elsewhere for a more formal introduction to the mathematical properties of fractals, but for the layman, this book is great.

Discovered this book serendipitously- It's easy to read, and the witty illustrations pull you right into it. It's a good book because, while it follows a logical sequence of explanation of fractals, it can also be opened almost anywhere and "read in". I will pass this book on, both to adults and young people I know, and they will get a great introduction to fractals!

This book was introduced by Nigel West and it was done after World War II by Stephenson. It is a government report. The book is in chronilogical order, meaning it is in order the way things happened. It starts when a Canadien arrives in New York city and.....

Reading the reviews for this book makes it clear that there are two camps of readers of this book: those who read it in high school and those who read it later in life. Count me among the latter.

I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book. I was pleasantly surprised by Golding's depth and sharp insight. Despite the youth of its main characters, Lord of the Flies is not some juvenile adventure novel. Golding's bleak commentary on the absolute evil (the "Lord of the Flies") that lies in our hearts, waiting for just the slightest opportunity to throw civilization into chaos is chilling and powerful.

I hope that those people who read this book in high school go back and read it again later in life, especially those who did not like it. Lord of the Flies is not an exercise in finding symbolism and motifs ... it's about understanding the point that Golding makes through his story. Lord of the Flies is clearly one of the more compelling and intense books I've read in a long time. I highly recommend it.

Which is not to say that girls won't enjoy this too, but when it was published in 1954, 'Lord of the Flies' was written in response to the standard literature targeted to boys. Golding was frustrated with the idealistic, happy-ending-every-time formula, particularly in one book called 'The Coral Reef'-there are several cutting references throughout 'Lord of the Flies' to this work. In 'Lord of the Flies,' Golding shows us what he feels would *really* happen if a group of boys were left alone on a deserted island. As the book progresses, we see the boys' attempts at maintaining a civilized society degenerating faster and faster.

The plots and ideas introduced present many questions of the reader. How does a group of British schoolboys, growing up in what they consider the height of civility, turn so readily to savagery? How does the temptation of power make them forget their goal of rescue so quickly? How can they so easily dismiss acts of murder? And, as you read the last three pages and close the book, you wonder...how do they feel about the events that have taken place, afterwards?

A better question than "how" is "why." In the critical note included in the back of the book, there is a quote by Golding that states, in his own words, the theme of 'Lord of the Flies': "...an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature...the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable."

Given the novel's endurance over time and countless praises by the critics, one would judge that Golding succeeded. As a reader, you must decided for yourself, but one thing is for sure: This definitely isn't the Hardy Boys, the popular (yet plastic) product of the Stratenmeyer syndicate that, while it has withstood time as well, can't be said to have had an impact on society. Whereas this novel was carefully crafted to be intense and thought provoking, unflinchingly real...not to mention graphic. As a final word of advice, don't hesitate to read this...but don't read it while eating. ^_^;

Don't buy the Cliff's Notes: read this book for yourself - you will enjoy it and remember it for the rest of your life. And if you watch a movie version, read the book first. The old black and white film version cast with British kids is a million times better than the more recent color version with American kids -- probably because American kids are *already* savage...they have no civilized habits to lose! :-)

There is an incredible scene in the book where some older boys toss rocks at a younger boy who is playing in the water. The author notes the the older boys are careful not to throw the rocks too close to the younger boy: I believe he calls the protective perimeter thus formed the circle of civilization or something. Anyway, it's a great and important passage; look for it. It foreshadows all the madness to follow.

Here's a suggestion for a term paper (it worked for me): The character named "Piggy" wears spectacles that he fastidiously cares for when the boys are first marrooned; however, the spectacles are slowly demolished step by step as the boys descend into savagery. By examining the condition of Piggy's spectacles, you can judge how bad things have gotten on the island.