However, at least there are notes and that fills out for what the author leaves out. The photo sections of this book are excellent, in many cases there are beautiful photos that I have seen nowhere else of the various people mentioned in the text.

Worthwhile buying if you want to complete a collection of Romanov recollections, but not if you want a literary gem, because this book could never be called one. However it does provide information on a lady who rarely gets mentions in the 'great events' histories so from that angle can be very interesting.

I added footnotes - and needed to some rewriting (grammar), but nothing was changed or added or deleted ...

But if you're a information-hungry "techie" who is relatively new to F1, you will enjoy the book. It serves as a valuable reference guide to the recent (mid-90s) history of F1 technology. It helps you put things into perspective, explaining how current F1 technology arrived at its present state.

This book is worth buying for its documentation of one really superb point, to wit, that the U.S. is in fact entangled in too many alliances requiring too much money and too much manpower to support, all of which in the aggregate hand-cuff the Nation and drain its resources. Right on--we should start with getting out of Korea and cutting all military assistance funds to the Middle Eastern nations.

Unfortunately, the book strikes a very libertarian and somewhat naive tone in suggesting that a Fortress America approach to national defense is both possible and desireable. Although published after 9-11, and by an author who is surely aware of the 32 failed states, 66 nations with mass migration issues, 33 countries with starvation, 59 with modern plagues, many with water scarcity and ethnic conflict--18 of which have degenerated into genocide in recent times--he marches blithly on without reference to the inherent vulnerability of the US--not just US forces, but US businesses and US citizens and US children in the heartland--to terrorism, disease, illegal immigration, and countless other threats to global stability (and therefore to US prosperity and security here behind the water's edge).

On balance, I do not regret buying this book. The author provides a tedious but worthwhile examination of why so many of our entangling alliances should be brought to an end--including NATO--and on this vital point we are in agreement. This is not, however a strategy--it is a policy, and only a half-baked policy at that, unless it is accompanied by a larger consideration of ends, ways, and means that will prevent the rest of the world from imploding in a manner most threatening to the USA.

Mr. Olsen does a good job pointing out how this approach, by necessarily focusing on homeland defense, would better protect us against terrorism; presents an informative summary of the full extent of our "entangling alliances" around the globe; and documents our Allies unwillingness to pay the bill for their own defense. He covers all regions of the world in a plan for a retreat from our forward military deployments, including a discussion of Korea.

You don't see this kind of well-reasoned attack on our foreign policy underpinnings in the mainstream media very often, and I found it timely and interesting. It is up the reader to try to reconcile this approach, with say, a well-argued case for intervention and globalism in a specific case such as Iraq (Ken Pollack).

An intellectual mystery, Kurzweil fills this book with bizarre lifestyles, obscure linguistics, arcane bibliophilia and a bunch of other peculiarities. You gotta like that kind of stuff to enjoy this one, but if you do, it's a fine read.

Being a librarian I enjoyed the arcana, but thought most of the characters were two-dimensional and unsympathetic. The author contrives intriguing plot devices and writes decent dialogue, but neither devices nor dialogue reveal much beyond plot advancement. Type is big and white space is plentiful. A fast but clunky novel that does not meet the expectations it raises in the first three-quarters of the book. I probably won't buy the author's first book, but if someone gave me a copy I'd read it.

I wanted to like this book, I just didn't. Since reviews are mixed, perhaps you should read some sample pages to decide for yourself. Unfortunately, sample pages can't save you from the sense of ultimate disappointment some readers have felt at the dispirited ending.

Alexander Short, loves the fact that Jesson is an intellectual/literary show off, and he falls under Jesson's spell.

I suppose that at its heart the book is a sort of intellectual thriller, with mysteries inside mysteries.Where is Marie Antoinette's stolen timepiece, The Grand Complication? Does it really exist? Is it what is learned along the chase that is as interesting to the protagonists as finding the watch? I also love the fact that it refers back to the author's previous novel, A Case of Curiosities, without in any way being a sequel.

This is the kind of novel I love to read during those luxurious-feeling summer moments.

Morris' "Vanished" was one of those books that when I read it I was astonished at how the language lay over the story like clear water, no distortion at all, just magnification and clarity, like a fantastically vivid dream. I couldn't put that book down -- this one I couldn't pick up without a sigh of "Jeez, look how LONG it is...".

For example, the text refers to a name 'DoorController' but the diagram (Fig 7.28) only has 'DoorControllerIF', 'DoorControllerWrapperA', and 'DoorControllerWrapperB'. What the hell does it refer to?

In Fig 7.30, the interface has 2 methods - 'Operation1()' and 'Operation2()', but all subclasses of it use the names 'Operation()' and 'Operation2()', instead. Does it mean 'Operator1()' and 'Operation()' are 2 different methods?

The source code in P280 uses the type name 'SurveillanceMonitorIF' but there is no such a type ever found in the text - the closest match is 'surveillanceIF' only!!!!!

This *could* be a great book provided that the author/publisher pay SERIOUS attention to the importance of consistent naming.

Other than that, it is probably the best book after GoF. Remember, if people can't see your point, they get's frustrated..