The author sets out to offer a comprehensive guide to the highlights of skiing and snowboarding the Mid Atlantic. He succeeds thoroughly, presenting the right info in a highly readable, yet matter of fact style. Packed with tons of useful data and pointers, the book is hard to put down, yet easy enough to throw into a backpack or dufflebag before hitting the slopes. A must have for the Eastern winter sportsman.

This book is the best I've found. I ski at every opportunity and this book is chock full of good insight into every ski slope in the mid-atlantic area. I leave it in the car for whenever the ski bug bites and have given it to friends and family too. It's a great stocking stuffer.

The Mid-Atlantic Winter Sports and Ski guide is one of the most thorough and informative guidebooks for East Coast Skiers I've seen. John does a fantastic job highlighting each resort and offering suggests of what's good and what's not.

Who says there's no skiing in the Mid-Atlantic??? Read this book!!!!

Having spent a busy weekend sightseeing, shopping and eating in Lille thanks to this amusing and shrewd guidebook, I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone else travelling in France and Belgium. The book had all the information we needed for using public transport, getting to know the locals and seeing the sights without ever making us feel like hicks or gawping visitors. We will be in Paris this Easter and have already chosen our hotels and at least two restaurants from the same book. Does this guy write about anywhere else? If he knows other cities like he knows this one, I want to read about it.

Laughter and good food make an excellent combination. This book is full of annecdotes and gossipy tips and snippets, yet it also is as mouthwatering as a recipe book. The author reviews restaurants without resorting to fashionable cosmopolitan cliches. Your mouth waters as he remembers succulent sauces and naughty desserts, you smile as he gossips about the waiters and restaurant owners, you want to linger on the salivating detail of every favourote dish and each evocative evening spent in cellars and dining rooms. Yet, when he talks of history, you are as enchanted by the true human nature of kings and artists that he conveys. I love his casual and very individual approach to sightseeing. He can give equal status to a shop selling haute couture for dogs as an art gallery or monument, and he seems to know where all the good stuff is hidden away from the coach trade. I have queued for hours at the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay in Paris, yet this guy knows of a private house with dozens of Monets on view. And best of all he knows where to find the best meals in town without breaking the bank. This book is hot on the practical side of travelling as well. Following his tips, I found out how to travel first class on Eurostar for less than the price of a second class ticket. My only complaint is that this is not part of a series. I travel all over France and Europe and would love to listen to this author's advice on the rest of the country and the continent.

Don't read this book when you are hungry. the food descriptions will make you drool. I used this guide when friends from London came over for the weekend. Mouth-watering restaurant reviews and spot-on opinions and advice about Paris. Useful, good value and sometimes very funny. The book also has full sets of city maps and subway guides, and give very clear directions with every listing. I reckon it would be a great read on the train or the plane as well.

The book is beautifully written and easy to read, with emphasis on geometric picture instead of abstract nonsense. By far the best introduction to algebraic geometry for string theorists.

This is an amazing book with an amazing subject (complex algebraic geometry). Every section presents something interesting and wonderful. I've only read chapters 0 (Complex manifolds, Hodge theory), 1 (Divisors & line bundles, vanishing theorems, embeddings), and 2 (Riemann surfaces). I had had a bad experience with alg geom before this book. Required reading for mathematicians in complex manifolds, algebraic geometry, or string theorists. There are some very trivial typos scattered, but nothing problematic in the least (like capital lambda instead of a big wedge, or indices). If you read the book carefully you will get a lot out of it.

This book is fabulous - it is an indispensable reference for complex algebraic geometry. It is very clearly written and ideas are always motivated by examples and problems. Moreover, if you want to learn modern algebraic geometry, it's imperative to learn the classical case (over the complexes - which in practice is easier to work in) in order to understand the generalisations a la Grothendieck.

Richard Feynman was a remarkable man who lived many remarkable lives, most of which are succinctly summarized in this fast, engaging read. Relying upon testimonials from close friends and associates of Feynman's and mostly from Feynman's own recollections, No Ordinary Genius delves into each of these lives, including Feynman's childhood obsession with finding out how things worked (a trait inherited from his father), his work at Los Alamos both as the keeper of the keys to the mainframe processing the mathematical calculations for the Manhattan Project and as the head of on campus hi-jinx and safe-cracking, his Nobel Prize for developing the field of Quantum electrodynamics (and along the way the now famous "Feynman diagrams" which have become the physicist's graphical tool for "viewing" sub-atomic activity), his very early visionary forays into what has become nanotechnology, and his ability to buck the NASA bureaucracy and quickly get to the bottom of what really went wrong with the 1986 Challenger disaster. Along the way we learn of his love of people (including his two wives, the first of whom died when she was only about 20 years old of TB), of life, and of physics (though probably not in that order), and what begins to emerge is a rare character, a multi-dimensional, and apparently "human" genius-one with foibles like anyone else...but one surprisingly devoid (at least as Sykes's book of recollections would have us believe) of the peccadilloes and neuroses of similarly brilliant historic figures. In fact one wonders whether Feynman's relative "normalcy" may have prevented him from being more widely known outside of scientific circles. This is itself somewhat ironic as Feynman was not just a brilliant physicist in his own right, but was perhaps the greatest interpreter (and hence most accessible) of all physicists who tried to explain how the world really worked to the rest of us.

Feynman was often criticized for not giving greater weight to the moral consequences of the actions of scientists like him who were responsible for creating "the" Bomb. At one point toward the end of the book, and partially in response to this question about the morality of scientific progress, Feynman observes the interesting irony that it's only in the most free, open, and democratic societies (i.e, the U.S.) that computers capable of infringing the most upon individuals' privacy have been developed. I.e., the countries that would have stood to benefit the most from this advanced "snooping" technology (i.e., the USSR, China, etc.) during Feynman's Cold War days, weren't able to produce the requisite technological infrastructure.

Later, towards the end of the book, the Nobel laureate, Marvin Minsky speaks about a feeling he and Feynman shared about man's soul. "Now here you are, a person, and thirty thousand genes or more are working to make the brain, the most complicated organ. If you were to say it's just a spirit, just a soul, just a little hard diamondlike point with no structure, a gift from some creator, it's so degrading! It means that all of the sacrifice by all of our animal ancestors is ignored. It seems to me [any by implication, Feynman] that the religious view is the opposite of self-respect and understanding. It's taking the brain with a hundred billion neurons, and not using it. What a paradoxical thing to be taught to do!"

So at once you have Feynman then specifying democracy and freedom as the necessary precursors to allow for scientific innovation. Then later he's demonstrating his "belief" in the pre-eminence of reason over non-fact-based belief and religion. Though non-Objectivists and spiritualists could debate his point-of-view, it is particularly refreshing to observe in thought and action a true seeker of the way things truly work. In many respects, Richard Feynman was Ayn Rand's John Gault.

This book should be read as a precursor to getting to know one of the great characters of the 20th century. But it won't suffice if one really wants to understand his genius. For that, one has to read his two books of "Six Easy Pieces", his lecture on Quantum Electrodynamics, or most appropriately of all, his Lectures on Physics.

This book made me laughed and it made me cry but most importantly it taught me a lot, not just about feynman but a lot more other stuff like science, life, having fun and reminded me why I got into science in the first place. It was very inpirational as well as fun.

If you want to know a little about what feynman was like, then you must read this book. I said
"little" because there is no way you will ever get to know this man just by reading a book. This book was really good at taking out the really good stuff from other books and integrating it.

I like what his friends and family had to say about him and adventures they had, as much as when Feynman was quoted. It is
really interesting and gives you a really deep insight on stuff he may not had put into his other books.

Even if you don't like to read biographies, or care about feynman, you could read this book like a novel. Its little
stories are so interesting funny (sometimes sad) that you forget that you are reading a biography. I say this because
reading biogrphies usually gets me bored. Not this one however, its and adventure!

After I read this book I felt like I lost a friend and mentor--it was that good or perhaps feyman's life was that interesting--I actually missed a guy I never met before! It sounds flaky, but I guessed Feynman would had liked it that way!

Alex Lee
...

Does a book on the one of the greatest person to have lived need a review. Even a badly written book about Feynmam would be fun to read ! and this is one of the better written one. My only wish is that every person gets to read about this fascinating person.

I just finished reading "A Peaceful Retirement". Just like her other books, it was excellent reading. I was sorry when the book ended because I wanted to read more. Few years ago I wrote Miss Read a letter stating I loved all her books. She was kind enough to write me a handwritten letter in reply. After a hetic day, I look forward to reading her books and revisit the loveable characters in the quiet town.

Miss Read's novels capture the best aspects of the small town provincial novel--the sense of connection, the wry Austenisms--while leaving the sentimentality and pollyanna-ism sometimes afflicting the genre to her lesser imitators. A Peaceful Retirement brings us another step--perhaps a final step--nearer to the end of this series. I recommend this series, and this book within the series, to anyone who wishes that a novel might have both a 20th C. awareness and a somewhat 19th C. sense of perspective....Most people have not discovered Miss Read, and one somehow wonders if "most people" really ought to. But I am certainly glad that I did....

I enjoyed this book just as much as I have all the other books written by Miss Read. The reason that I enjoyed this book so much was that it was like catching up with old friends and being transported back to the Village and all the surrounding scenery which captures my imagination. I recommend that you read not only this book but all those that Miss Read (Dora Saint) has written for anyone that enjoys people and a very descriptive story which includes the lovely countryside that one can only imagine. I will miss my friends very much. Thank You Dora Saint for giving me many hours of pleasure.

Always my favorite painter, I was lucky enough to see an exposition of his work at the National Art Gallery in London in 1999 and his more famous works on constant display the Louvre in 2000. While his historical and allegorical paintings are impressive, his talent with portraiture is unmatched. I am particularly struck by the detailed imagery. It feels like you are looking at a photography, the realism is so intense. Yet as the book demonstrates, numerous studies were done before each painting, trying to determine how best to capture the subject.

The book is a large format, with numerous full color, full plate images. Personally, I did not find the accompanying essays particularly interesting but thought that the notes on each specific work more compelling. The choices of artwork included in the book is primarily restricted to portraits, but not only paintings but paper drawings and minatures also.

Portraits By Ingres: Image Of An Epoch showcases odalisques and dramatic historical scenes painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) and are justifiably considered to rank among the master-pieces of nineteenth-century French art. The superbly reproduced paintings are enhanced with informative contributions on Ingres' life and work by Philip Conisbee, Rebecca A. Rabinow, Christopher Riopelle, Robert Rosenblum, Andrew Carrington Shelton, Gary Tinterow, and Georges Vigne, as well as drawing entries by Hans Naef. With its photographs of the artist and his sitters (and caricatures from contemporary journals) Portraits By Ingres is a seminal, scholarly, beautifully presented, landmark publication that will secure Ingres in his proper place for students of art history.

I have been waiting for a first-rate work on Ingres portraits for many years and now it is finally here! This book is a MUST HAVE for anyone who admires Ingres. The book was published in conjunction with the wonderful exhibition of Ingres portraits which played in London, New York, and Washington DC. I attended the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and this book does justice to what I saw in person. Since not every work of art was seen at each venue, the book provides reproductions of several works which were not made available for viewing in the United States (such as the great Rothchild portrait). I have the books on Ingres by both Robert Rosenblum and Georges Vigne. Although both of those books were good, this new book surpasses them due to the quality of the writing and the superb reproductions. There are enlightening essays by both the exhibition curators together with outside experts such as Rosenblum and Vigne. The reproductions are plentiful and very good quality. In addition to the oil paintings, there are dozens of high quality reproductions of the superb portrait drawings. Each portrait is accompanied by an essay together with the provenance and exhibition history of the work. The book also deals with the thorny issue of collaborators. Although the book is fairly expensive, it is well worth the money. Perhaps one day we will have similar books published on other great portrait painters such as Holbein, Moroni, and Bronzino. Anyone in the museum or publishing world listening?

For the past several years there have been several books written about the scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church.

Unto Us A Child is another one of these horrendous stories only this time with a different twist.

New York Times best selling author Donald R. Phillips relates in Unto Us A Child how an entire family of seven children were placed into an orphanage and subjected to unbelievable acts of cruelty at the hands of some of the nuns and priests who were the administrators of this orphanage.

More particularly, it is the story of the Albert children from Kansas, who, when they were very young, were placed under the care of a Catholic run institution because their parents were too poor to feed them or care for them.
While living in the orphanage they were constantly subjected to vicious behaviour on the part of their caretakers.

How can you rationalize the molestation of the Albert boys by an alcoholic priest...?

Where is justice where another priest had a continuous ... relationship with one of the under-aged Albert sisters eventually leading to her impregnation and probably the cause of her suicide years later?

This same priest today is no longer a member of the clergy; however, he is presently living in a Catholic retirement community, and was never brought before the courts for the crime of [being] with a minor.

Ironically, it was this same priest, who with the alcoholic ..., made sure that the scandal was all hushed up and that the child born out of wedlock was put up for adoption.

Phillips was apprised of this inconceivable and painful story when one of the grandchildren of the Albert family, who worked for him, related this tragedy and asked him if he wanted to write about it.

After careful investigating the various facts and interviewing the Albert brothers (two of the sisters were already deceased), Phillips decided to pursue the matter and "tell all."

There will probably be howls of anger after readers have the opportunity to ponder over the gravity of the crimes committed.

The damning evidence meticulously exposed in the book uncovers lies ... and injustice that underline the enormity of the problem that has beset the Catholic Church in recent years.

No doubt, many readers will shake their heads and ask themselves, how could members of the clergy break the sacred rule "do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

This is such a sad story, but one that needs to be read. To think that the Catholic church is so callous is heart-breaking, but we have read enough of these types of stories recently to know that it is true. The hierarchy within the church are not only callous but are self-righteous and even hateful, in my view. This family suffered so terribly and unnecessarily, each and every one from the parents down to the 9 children and beyond, that it is a heartache.
This book is so well researched and written, it certainly deserves a higher priority in the bookstores! I just happened to come across it on a table of "new books" in my local bookstore; I am saddened that it won't be widely read, because it needs to be. We cannot continue to blindly trust huge establishments, such as the Catholic (or any) Church; and we must fight injustice all the way, as this family did. Unfortunately, outdated laws are preventing the remaining family members from any sort of justice, let alone compensation, but maybe laws will be changed down the line and these people will find the courage and strength (not to mention money and time) to continue their battle. I am ashamed of the Church. I have come to despise it. Please read this book and see what they have done to our children and to it's members who have taken a wrong step when they were minors......

I agree completely with the review from New York.

This book was not an easy read. It is very disturbing. I have read (and heard on TV) many stories about abuse in the Catholic church, but never one that includes so many members of one family. Of course, the Catholic church felt there was no truth to these stories (and the priest who determined this is now the Bishop in Dodge City, Kansas). I am not sure how he could come to this conclusion since there was a baby that was born after one priest sexually abused one of the daughters from the age of thirteen (Eventually the priest was defrocked after another paternity issue arose).

The Catholic church must address these issues. They WILL NOT go away. The victims deserve justice.

I can see this book being made into a movie. It is truly the most disturbing story I have yet to hear involving abuse in the Catholic church.

I am a senior engineer for network security operations. I read the Windows 2000 Security Handbook (W2KSH) to learn how to advise clients on improving the survivability of their Windows 2000 platforms. Like its predecessor, Tom Sheldon's excellent "Windows NT Security Handbook," W2KSH delivers practical content in a digestable format. I recommend Windows 2000 system administrators read and heed this book.

Good operating system security books are thorough, educational, and honest; W2KSH is all three. The authors are not mindless Microsoft prophets -- consider this sample from page 501: "It seems that Microsoft just does not get it when it comes to the need for robust auditing/logging of services... the logging configurations are totally inadequate." To deal with these and other deficiencies, W2KSH provides installation, configuration, and deployment recommendations. This advice, on topics like Active Directory, user and group management, and file systems, equips system administrators to survive hostile network environments.

As an intrusion detector, I was most happy to read how the Microsoft security model operates, and what components present the greatest vulnerabilities. I appreciated explanations of system and discretionary access control lists, and how to effectively employ them. I learned Microsoft includes Web, FTP, SMTP, and NNTP features in Internet Information Service (IIS). I also became aware of best practices for secure deployment of a Microsoft infrastructure.

W2KSH has a few problems. Like Microsoft products, its "backwards compatibility" revealed weaknesses. For example, some text was lifted directly from Shelton's earlier book, but necessary background material was omitted (see pages 86, 88-90, 148). This issue was awkward but minor. I also did not leave the book with a strong understanding of the different types of groups in Windows 2000. Such complexity is not the authors' fault. They show that the OS' dozens of options leaves plenty of room for misconfiguration, leading to compromise.

If you're familiar with general security practices, skip Part I (TCP/IP, threats, countermeasures, and policies). I recommend the authors mention these topics briefly in the introduction and move the bulk to appendices. Start with Part II, and keep your highlighter handy. W2KSH gives balanced insight into the workings of Windows 2000, and helps system administrators and security personnel better understand the opportunities and liabilities of running this operating system.

Can you imagine a book on Operating System Security actually being a good read? This one is just that!
As a SQL Database guy finishing up my MCSE 2000 with the "Win2K Security Design - 70-220" exam, I sought, and found, a resource to solidify and integrate all of the Win2K security concepts covered in earlier exams. I sought a book that was very readable, and I was willing to allow that, by itself, it need not be completely exhaustive as a MCSE exam #70-220 study guide.
Bottom Line: This book was a home run for me. My comfort level with concepts of IPSec, PKI, EFS, threat types, auditing and firewalls has risen remarkably. On the down side, the book is relatively basic and the fairly lengthy coverage of Active Directory, group policies, etc., may be overly ambitious for this book, and is probably better learned elsewhere in a dedicated AD book. In a larger sense, however, this book really delivered the goods, as specified above.

Now I need to identify another resource with which to complete my Security Design studies.
As a sidebar, I have found the first 75 pages of Coriolis' "Exam Cram: Win2K Security Design" to be so full of wordy fluff-speak as to abandon it.

I've read many books on Windows NT and Windows 2000 security. Most did not live up to my expectations. They were difficult to read and you needed a Computer Science/Engineering degree to understand them. In my opinion, this book is THE best book on Windows 2000 Security. Mr Cox and Mr Sheldon wrote a very easy to read, easy to understand, and most importantly, an easy to follow recipe for securing your Win2K systems. This book should be in every adminstrator's library. If you don't have this book, you deserve to be hacked! I teach system security, and this book is a valuable tool and resource, not just for me, but for my students. This is money well spent!...

I wish this book had existed when I was in high school! The chapters are very brief, so it's easy to read one a day or re-read one for a quick review. The example sentences used in the definitions not only clearly illustrate each usage, but cover a wide variety of topics. This is a user-friendly book whose informal teaching style will hold your attention.

Mark Phillips' The Wizard Of Oz Vocabulary Builder is a unique vocabulary building guide, which teaches readers 1850 words through reading. The classic text of the memorable fable "The Wizard of Oz" is filled with literate terms, which are presented in bold with their express definitions at the bottom of each page. A recommended and unforgettable skill-improvement tool, The Wizard Of Oz Vocabulary Builder is especially recommended for the fans of Frank Baum (creator of the Oz books) and would prove a useful tool for building an impressive vocabulary for aspiring and professional writers...

Mark Phillips has hit upon a very engaging way to build your vocabulary. You don't have to be a Wizard of Oz fan to get an enormous amount out of this book...his retelling of Baum's classic is actually all the more interesting for the manner in which he introduces the vocabulary, but my favorite part of the book is the wry sense of humor he brings to the definitions of the words on each page. His rather left-of-center political bias brings a smile and often an LOL, surely a rarity in the world of vocabulary building. I'm giving a copy to the head of our English department at the school where I teach. I bet he uses it. For his students, I mean.

This book really was a bucket-load of belly laughs - C J Philips has collected some gems over the years. I am afraid to say that the book loses a star, though, as it overlooks the fact that around 90% of graffiti is poorly spelt invitations to ........ trysts with men who, in all probability, are not being entirely candid about their anatomy. Let's hope this imbalance is addressed in the next edition.

A very entertaining book. Plenty of duds, but also tons of great one liners and graffiti "conversations". I noticed that "people who have bought this have also bought:" includes Harry Potter. This being bathroom graffiti, a lot of it is unsuitable for children. But for adults, tons of great laughs.

Funny books like this can do wonders for people in need of a lift. I'm a nurse and I show it to a number of my patients who generally love it.