I thought the original Wind in the Willows and the sequel Willows in Winter were better executed than Toad Triumphant. Toad Triumphant is a little disjointed, the characterization a little unbelievable at times (e.g. mole's depression) and the story sags in parts (although things pick up with Horwood's clever ending). On the other hand, Patrick Benson deserves high marks for his excellent illustrations which accompany the text. I suppose Mr. Horwood wanted to try something a little different by delving into the histories of the river bank animals and bringing romantic love into their world, but I don't believe this approach worked as well. I feel the book is better than average, but as I said, I like Kenneth Grahame's orginal and Horwood's first sequel better.

The authors discuss the role that stories play in the development and maintenance of culture. It is through stories that we learn about our world - what is fact [the literature of knowledge] and what is make believe [the literature of imagination] and how something may move between fact and fiction [or fiction and fact].
Within the topic of imagination the authors discuss two roles - the role to inform and the role to entertain - with the importance of both. If as a society we are only exposed to the entertainment we lose understanding and increase the need for more graphic entertainment - an early look at the impact violence in entertainment has on society.
The book may have been written in 1978 but it still speaks to the need for literacy, a background in the classics, and a good story.

The problem I have with CIW is the certification itself was not developed based on industry standards for professionalism. The courseware is a poor way to prepare for the exam since the mapping is poor. This book is similar to the courseware. The CIW examcram is probably the best. If you want to pass the exam spend your money on the exam prep software which does a better job of covering exam items. I've used MeasureUp and it was quite good

I'm a CIW instructor. I've been using Prosoft courseware in my classes for two years, and have never been pleased with it -- especially the Foundations courseware. This book is written by the same people and it's just as bad. Dry as a bone and full of inane information that none of my students have ever been asked on an exam. This biggest challenge on the Foundations exam for most of my students is the Networking Fundamentals portion and while this book does cover the needed material, it doesn't do a very good job of breaking down some of the most complicated concepts -- such as the OSI model. I encourage my students to get supplemental materials that enhance the material covered in the courseware -- not rehash it.

I found this to be a good book to work with for the CIW Foundations exam. I used this book and the dummies book on the same subject. I purchased this book based on a friend's recommendation of Sybex and my using their book for my Network + exam last year.

This book filled out the information I had read in the dummies book in a well written, understandable format. The sample tests on the CD are mostly the questions from the book, but like all sybex titles I have seen, the 2 CD only tests were a good challenge to see exactly how much I really did understand.

If you are thinking of taking the CIW test, this is a good book to use as a resource.

Mapping America's Past is an attempt at using maps to portray American social, economic, military, and political development. The maps that are included are excellent, but what was included is somewhat puzzling. The general analysis of wars, expansion, and elections are useful, but maps of political party development in the Cleveland area or prostitution in New York City are not entirely relevant to the general American history student. Similarly, many of the accompanying texts offer little detailed insight into the topics the maps cover.

This book should be considered a general resource, but for an in-depth historical atlas, the reader must look elsewhere.

A highly satisfying review of historical topics.I'm often able to read only in 20-minute bites; every spread of this book is a self-contained history lesson, accessible in 20 minutes but worth revisiting many times. Most important topics and events of American history are covered well, and the rendering of complex information (e.g. the six gauges of railroad in 1850 and how this incompatablity affected commerce, population and political power) is truly inspired. This is a superb gift for an American history buff.

What is it not about? : Gossip, lies, boasting, turning the truth upside down, praising one-self (particularely by using pseudo-names and writing reviews about ones own books, yes, that happens very strongly with Patterson). I could go on and on.

"The Gurdjieff-work" has been quite protected until now, but now it seems, that since most of the great followers have died, the the old saying can be applied: When the cat is out, the mice are dancing. Well, here we have quite a big mouse, rather a...

The reviews under the name of Ivan Butovitch and under R. Cazares have the same style. I do not trust these reviews.
The reviews of "Eating the I" by the same author stronly
suggest that this problem is repeating itself here again!

I was very curious about this book, but after reading it, I found that it is basically advertisement for Pattersons workline, and trying to put down others. Clever attempt, but
not for the serious. Patterson gives in to the fascination of
the "rainbowpress", reducing readers and writers to this sort of "sharks, thriving in pecking in the serious work and suffering of people, who are far above them"!

This book is good, but not great. The first two books are excellent after that it gets kind of old. If you are a fan of the series, you can handle it.

The Willows and Beyond is a fine novel. The storyline of it follows the classic characters from "The Wind in the Willows". The river is polluted and the characters go on a journey to save it. It is beautifully written and the story is excellent. It has to many pictures though(although the illustrations are beautiful). I would reccomend this to fans of the original classic "the Wind in the Willows"...

William Horwood truly transports one to the real life of his created animals. I cried a lot and that means it was very, very good.

Nothing about transformation, only self-love, self-importance,
condescension towards women and lots of hidden advertisement.

It's hard to believe that the same man who wrote the brilliant "Struggle of the Magicians" also wrote this thing. We can only assume that Patterson evolved very much both as an individual and as a writer in the intervening years (this is the earlier work). The book is an inelegant string of shameful incidents in the author's life; he merely presents them with a sort of glee at his own ability at objective (in his mind) self-disclosure, without ever mentioning in any detail about how Gurdjieff's ideas ever helped him to use these incidents in transcending himself. You can get that much from daytime talk shows, if you want it. It seemed at the very end that the book had a happy ending, when Patterson seems to be leaving those antedeluvian "masters" like Gurdjieff and Jung behind (having discovered a true anti-guru in Sunyata), but unfortunately for him and perhaps fortunately for readers, it didn't turn out that way. To this day he continues to propagate the Gurdjieff cult in a series of wonderfully well-written books that are easily the best of their dubious kind.

This is an esoteric book that most people won't recognize as such. That's because of the picture most people have of what constitutes an esoterically spiritual person. The pursuit of an ultimate reality beyond the cacophony of mundane life is connected with images of serene meditating monks, of wandering recluses, of wide-eyed dreamers and spooky mystics. To read instead a book full of parties and socializing, office politics, career moves, flirtation and adultery, and ego posturing seems odd. "Real" esoteric and spiritual people are expected to get away from petty socializing, to take vows of poverty and chastity, and to put their all into the pursuit of some strenuous austerity or achievement, as do monks, yogis and fakirs. But this book is about the Fourth Way, in which mundane life is grist for the mill of self-development.

It covers a period in the adult life of William Patrick Patterson. He's a writer and editor in the cutthroat milieu of New York City. He's also married, and tempted by bold, modern women. He rises like a meteor and is shot down by an office competitor. He knows wealth and poverty, arrogance and fear. He finds and honors a rare spiritual teacher. More than one in fact. There's cussing, drinking, verbal clashes, and relationships gone bad.

It's not the bald subject matter, but the insights and principles that illuminate it that distinguish this book from an ordinary memoir. Here is one of many examples: Patterson faces an ugly truth underlying his employment situation concerning the way a boss is using and mistreating him. He withdraws his cooperation from the boss at a critical moment, knowing full well the it will at least create extreme unpleasantness at the office if not result in his ultimate dismissal. He has upset an equilibrium that needed to be upset, yet what will the consequences be? Can he get control and set the situation right or not? There is no way of knowing this at the moment his decision must be made. He is on a fatal trajectory that continues when the co-worker confronts him and demands an explanation for Patterson's absence from an award dinner. Should he appease his adversary by making a phony excuse? "These two "I"'s inside me debate. The one, very rational, mature-sounding. The arguments are so reasonable, sensible. So what if I lie - so what? But then, just at the last instant, a feeling comes of total disgust - disgust for what stood before me, disgust with that whole way of life. And inside that feeling a silent voice declares: I-am-not-going-to-lie-to-him.

I tell him: "No excuse."

"What!" he screams and sags, a look of horror, bewilderment, frozen to his face .......

And something falls away and I know right then: I have broken free of him."

Later he tells his wife that he'll apologize if she really wants him too but is not optimistic about doing it, because: "I feel like there's you know, a big movement going on. Big wheels are turning. I'm at the interval in the octave. all this has to happen. I'm being moved on now."

How right he was. At the end of the book he had moved on and found some peace. With his wife, with his departed teacher the formidable Lord Pentland, and with a new career. No this is not a book claiming that the Fourth Way will make one rich, sexy, happy, or lucky. But it is about what the study and practice of the Fourth Way looks like from the inside of a modern man in modern society, which is where it was meant to be practiced all along.

Horwood's effort, writing a sequel to another author's classic work, fails as one might expect. The characters are wooden cutouts from Grahame's wonderful classic and the humor and charm of Grahame's work is only imitated here. If you read part or all of this abomination, after tossing it out the window, go and re-read Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" and cleanse your mind and heart of this book and as usual with readings of "The Wind in the Willows" of much else as well.

This book was a brave attempt by Horwood to follow up Grahame's Classic, the Wind in the Willows. I enjoyed every page of this book to the fullest. All the misadventures of Rat, Mole, Badger, and (of course) Mr. Toad were just as imaginative and humourous as the first book. This time, instead of automobiles, it's flying machines Toad has his eyes set on!! Some readers may not be so inclined to agree *so I give it 4 instead of 5 stars*. I should leave it up to each individual to check into it. I do highly suggest this book, though. A great read!

What bothered me most about "The Wind In The Willows" (that it ENDED)... is here resolved! From the first line "The Mole sat toasting his toes in front of the fire" I was glad to be once again in the presence of these unforgettable Edwardian animal bachelors. In my estimation, Horwood has done a superb job of capturing again the spirit of the River Bank.
Apparently, he was inspired after acquiring in 1992, several of E.H. Shepard's original illustrations for Grahame's 1908 classic, The Wind In The Willows. Observing them in his study, they began to take on a life of their own... and then "One day, quite unexpectedly (though the drawing had not changed at all), it seemed to me that Mole was off on a journey rather different than his original one. True, he had set off from the same comfortable home he loved so much, but now he was no longer heading towards the comfort and safety of Badger's house, but instead towards the River - the frozen River - and towards disaster. The story of The Willows In Winter had begun."
This is a great book that will appeal to young and old alike. It's full of the perils and consequences of misadventure, the peace and calm of friendly reunion and the importance of forgiveness. Oh ya, and a hilariously inebriated Toad!
I find it funny that Horwood is sometimes criticized for keeping the characters so similar to what they were in the original story. Isn't that what a good sequel does? Keeps things consistent, but brings them further along the road?

this book introduce basic theory of chemical in semiconductor manufucture inductory

I bought the book in order to learn faster about the following: (a) How can (should) I use existing CIM schemas in order to develop CIM schema for my company devices. (b) How to represent all these concepts in XML (c) Relation of CIM to network management and DEN.

I expected to find some examples how all that look and work in real life. This, however, is not a book that I needed. It gives you some background in OO modeling that I did not like and actually did not need at all. I also suspect that somebody without previous OO knowledge might be confused. For example, on page 41, Properties, it is written: "A property is a value used to denote a characteristic of a class; it can be thought of as a pair of functions, one to set the property value and one to return the property value." Property access methods are confused with a property itself !

XML part is very short and general so I still have to go somewhere else to figure out how to implement XML part. Almost the same can be said about DEN - CIM relation.

The authors are obviously knowledgeable in the areas of OOA/OOD, Patterns and Enterprise management. I do not like their presentation but it may happen that I am not a part of their 'target group' for which they wrote the book. That is why I gave the book 3 stars. As far as I am concerned, I have to go to DMTF web site to learn hard way from documents. This book did not help me to do my job more efficiently.