Williams and Torrens have developed one of the best introductory texts on the US health system. The book has clear learning objectives, useful references, and helpful diagrams. The American health system is farily and accurately described, warts and all.

This is not a "self help" book or an easy reading book, but it is very good. It is extremely detailed and reads more like a textbook. As a professional who works with child abuse victims and perpetrators, I found this book to be very helpful in understanding the dynamics of juvenile sex offenders - a rapidly growing problem in our community.

If you, like me, find Canadian justice an oxymoron, then this book will frustrate the hell out of you. Stephen Williams exposes the gross ineptitude of the St. Catharine's police, specifically the new Chief of Ottawa-Carleton Police (!) Vince Bevan. If it wasn't for our friend, Mr. Bevan, rushing to find a way to prosecute Bernardo before the Toronto police, Karla would have never received her "sweet deal". A life even she descibes as "sleeping and sun-tanning".

It is very unfortunate that the big Canadian publishers rejected this finely researched work. As a result, the book is sloppily edited and contains minor factual errors (Winona played Veronica in Heathers, and was really an antihero, not a villian - okay, it's minor, I know, but things like this bug me). These little mistakes, along with some grammar issues, would have been checked by a bigger publishing house.

Williams' anger is so on the surface that his passion makes you wish for more footnotes, an index, just a more orderly presentation. As a result, the book, at times, feels convoluted - but there's no ignoring the content. Justice was blindsided by bureaucracy, bumbling and brazen lies. Karla will get out of prison - and it will be very soon. She'll probably leave Canada, and live out the rest of her life in another country, where nobody will know the evil that lies beneath, and behind, her.

This thoroughly-annotated volume is a necessary corollary to any biographical study done on C.P.E. Bach. It is, however, not by any means as complete a picture as one would like; only four of the 338 numbered letters in Prof. Clark's volume date from before 1760, when the composer was 46 years old; some of the known letters survive only in fragments quoted in old auction catalogues, the originals subsequently being lost; and many of the letters whose full texts survive are to the publisher Breitkopf, with whom C.P.E. sustained a working relationship spanning more than two decades.

Thus a great deal of the book involves Emanuel's communicating his wishes to Breitkopf (Breitkopf's answers are occasionally summarized in Prof. Clark's extensive footnotes) regarding publications which Breitkopf would print on the composer's behalf and then help him distribute. Emanuel's occasional bursts of irritation at the publisher (e.g., "You, shameful compatriot! How can you bring your heart to let me roast in uncertainty over a slow fire, wondering whether you have received my manuscript sent right after the holidays?" [Letter 238, 4 Feb. 1784]) are amusing, and seeing how a composer of the time planned, proof-corrected, and distributed an 18th century publication is intriguing. There are also a couple of letters to J.N. Forkel, the early biographer of J.S. Bach, where Emanuel shares information regarding his celebrated father.

Those who hope for a detailed portrait of Emanuel will likely be less than satisfied due to the fact that so much of the correspondence has undoubtedly been lost. But Prof. Clark's book is everything that could be wished for in a detailed edition in English of this correspondence. My awarding this book less than five stars is by no means to be understood as a reflection on Clark's work, which is uniformly excellent, but to the high price relative to the size of the book--which is just over three hundred pages including bibliography and index--and the specialized nature of the book. General readers should investigate the *New Grove Bach Family* for an overview of Emanuel before tackling this kind of scholarly work.

This quote by Mike Malin sets the scene for the study of the red planet, as dreamed and hoped by mankind - scientist and layman alike. Over the centuries, Mars has confounded our attempts to describe it in Earth-like terms and Sheehan and O'Meara do a grand job of describing the history of hopes, dreams, and disappointments as the reality of Mars is discovered.

The book is set on epic scale and almost any paragraph rings with grand prose. At times this can be a little overpowering, but the canvas of the Authors is, after all, the entire celestial sphere and the history of human endeavour!

For Mars nuts this is a must buy and is compelling reading. It won't be everyone's cup of tea but it is a vital step in understanding how Mars has disappointed us in the past and may do so again.

Of course, I must declare an interest. Bill Sheehan included some of my own stories about dry Mars in this compendium. I am honoured to be included as a postscript to the legends of Mars' history.

In One More Border--escape from war-torn Europe, William Kaplan tells the story of his father, Igor's, escape from Europe during World War II. Igor Kaplan was a young boy when he and his family decided to leave their country for a safer place. With the help of the wonderful author, Shelley Tanaka, William Kaplan's story will intrigue readers. A few pages in the book even give detailed history of World War II. I would highly recommend this book for 9-12 year olds. Although the book isn't overly scary, children under eight may find the subject of World War II too intense, and people over 12 probably won't find the story exciting enough and may become easily bored.

If you enjoy this book, you'll probably love some of Shelley Tanaka's books!

The book READY FOR THE REAL WORLD is an excellent preparation tool for college seniors. The book offers information in career planning, personal life, community responsibilities, financial planning, and alum activities.

Written in an easy-to-read style, READY FOR THE REAL WORLD covers most of the elements that college seniors must consider from the more practical aspect of the budgeting of finances to the often neglected consideration of psychological changes that take place as one goes from the rather protected status of a student to that as a job applicant and employee.

This book is an excellent one for college classes which are offered at the end of the senior year to help prepare students for life after college, but would also be helpful to individuals who are seriously thinking about the transition from college to the "real world."

The book includes checklists and activities that allow readers to assess their status financially, psychologically, and personally. I highly recommend this book.

If you can read history books, this book is really a must for grasping the Deerfield situation from a first-hand perspective.

It is also difficult to read because of the language. But really, it's worth the work to get through it.

Great, moving.

This informative biography tells the complex story of William III of the United Provinces (Netherlands) Born in 1648 at the end of the 30 Years War, William must learn to navigate the fratious system of Dutch politcs which is deeply divided and ant-autocratic, but at the same time must struggle to survive against the encroachments of Louis XIV' France. In order survive the Dutch must allow power to be centralized in the office of the Stadtholder, which by right belongs to the ruling house of Orange. It is during the desperate War of 1672-78 that William is called upon to become States-General, in charge of all combined Dutch land and naval forces. Through sheer grit and determination William manages to rally thre faltering Dutch forces before the seeminly invinceable advances of the French under their talanted generals.

The French under the Duc de Luxambourg and others mainatin the largest and most aggressive army in Europe. These are the years when France seeks to create a greater hedgemony. Population and ecomonic growth has blessed France since it was largely spared the devastations of the 30 Years War earlier in the Century. Now under their highly autocratic monarch, Louis XIV (The Sun King), they seek to dominate Europe. They have impressive resources to do this. Vaubin is the genius of siege-craft. Under his brilliant direction one Dutch fortress after another falls as the French armies advance deeper into the Spanish Netherlands and the Low Countries. Only the dogged determination of William is there to stop them. Each year another major Dutch or Spanish Netherlands fortress falls, but William holds out long enough to wear the French down. Louis begins to tire of the tangled web of Dutch fortifications and William's determination to keep a field army together. The French become interested in bullying the German principlaities instead. William is given a repreive and through various loosely worded treaties which the French constantly keep changing, he manages to save the Dutch Republic. For this alone William deserves to be known as the George Washington of the Low countries.

But fate has a larger story for Dutch William. Through marriage to Princess Mary, the protestant daughter of King James II, William has a direct claim on the English crown. This is brought into play when the English parliament seeks to remove James for his pro-Catholic and auto-cratic ways in 1688. The Glorious Revolution as it is known in England brings William and Mary bloodlessly to the English crown and forever changes
Anglo-Dutch history. William now has a new lease on life and can bring the larger resources of England into his greater conflict againt the dominations of Louis XIV. The Nine Years War will see William first campaigning in Ireland to defeat James II at the famous battle of the Boyne in 1690. This watershed moment in Irish History is little understood today despite numerous pictures of the event hanging in many Irish pubs around the world! William will then return to the Continent and continue the struggle against the French. The battles of Stenkirk (1692) and Landan (1693) are largely inconclusive but prove Williams increasing abilities of generalship over Louis XIV's armies. The siege of Numur (1695) is Williams crowning military achievement. He here manages to beseige and take a fortress designed by the great Vaubin. The myth of French invincibility in this period is finally broken. France, exhausted under Louis's harsh domestic and foreign policies must seek peace for the time being.

William continues as joint monarch of England and the Netherlands. The English will see themselves established as a leading maritime and commerical power, while the Dutch will beigin their descent into non-entity. Yet, for all that William does for the English he is not generally liked by them and is regarded derisively as "Dutch" William. The Dutch will tend to have an indifferent attitude toward him in their history.

Williams place in history covers the histories of two nations (England and Holland) and his influence extends beyond into Ireland, the Spanish Netherlands, Germany and even France. Louis XIV, despite numerous attempts to assassinate him, comes to respect William. The Dutch and English will have mixed feelings, and to the Irish he will become a distant almost mythical figure. There is no doubt that his legacy was the salvation of Europe from a French universal monarchy under Louis XIV. Dutch William may be largely forgotten today, but his struggles helped to shape modern Europe.

This book, while extensive on William' life, is at times tedious. The author's discussion of the complicated court politics and dynastic claims of the period was at times quite confusing. His descriptions of English politics is equally hard to follow. The author can not totally be blamed for this as the dyanstic politics in the 17th century were extremely confusing. The author writes with evident admiration for his subject, and seems to truly admire William almost to the point of excess. While not a great Biography in terms of style and writing, the subject and the historical period are fascinating.
Until a better and more recent work on William III comes out I would strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in the military politics and dynastic history of the 17th Century.

I would be unfair to say that the 883 pages were a total waste, but it wasn't worth it for me.

The title of the Book is "ASP XML", and from this title I choose this book, because I wanted a book that would help me to use XML in ASP. That wasn't the case in some of the book examples.

The book content (without the case study) is only 15 chapter that spans 366 pages covering all different aspects of XML and XML integration of ASP. The information presented is very basic and lacks basic knowledge of XML, for example XSL was covered very poorly in the book ( MSDN was more helpful to me than the book). Chapter 11 through 14 were very useful though, especially chapter 14 that covers useful XML procedure libraries.

The case studies spans around 180 pages, there are 6 case studies. They were very confusing to me and none of them helped me solving any of the business requirements I was tackling.

The rest of the book contains appendices that are useful to have them all in the same book, but you can get them over the Internet for free.

Last word to say is that I was disappointed with this book.

The chapters are laid out properly and are easy to understand. It helped us to learn a great deal about incorporating XML into ASP.We recommend this book to anyone who wants to further expand their knowledge of XML in ASP.The authors did a really good job on explaing XML for ASP developers.The depth explainations of the case studies & examples and XML are really great and relate to real world examples.The chapter explaining about the SOAP is really good which helped us a lot personally to implement an in my current project . We personally thank Dinar Dalvi for his help and support to answer our questions and immediate feedback for our emails.

Excellent! for ones who are pro to ASP and need to intergrate XML with ASP! A must buy!