Atkinson's book is a good introduction of the material. The book is written is such a way that someone who is familiar with Galerkin finite element methods for partial differential equations can quickly gain some understanding of numerical methods for this class of integral equations. For a more complete review, see Ian Sloan's review in the March 1999 issue of SIAM Review.

Robert, uses trends in society. He also uses the "Elliot Wave Principle." It was very interesting.

The book is set-up like a interview. It's easy to read. A introduction about Prechter and his techniques and how he times the market.

I learned of Prechter from a Tony Robbins interview.

Mr. Kendall does an excellant job in his research and his theories, but he is a tad too repetitive. He gives terrific analagies, but could have consolidated many of these and made easier to read. Some places are tedious to read. but the subject matter is so interesting that you plod through and are never disappointed. Great theories and his research is incredible. I only wish there was more DNA research available for this book. Great book.

This book has been used by many college institutions as the basis of their Sociology instruction. The book contains many real life sociological issues and presents them to the reader in a way that is both modernized and easy to understand. The author of this book has many years of experiance in the Sociological field and has authored and co-authored many sociological books. This specific book provides an extremely good fundemental basis for individuals seeking a strong basic foundation for a focus on Sociological education.

This is a simple, straight-forward explanation of the Suzuki method for those unfamiliar with it. The purpose seems not to persuade the reader but simply to explain how and why it works, as well as sharing the history of Dr. Suzuki and how his "method" came to be. It is interesting and quick reading; it can be read in one sitting.

I recommend Bourne and Kendall's text for anyone that is somewhat familiar with vector concepts and wants to delve a bit more deeply in vector analysis. The authors use a component analysis approach and even introduce tensor notation early. Emphasis is placed on transforms between cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical coordinates. Occasional reference is made to technical applications, but this book focuses on the mathematics, not the technical applications. However, a short chapter looks at potential field applications. My review is based on an early edition; more recent versions contain a chapter on Cartesian tensors.

I liked the way in which the authors introduced related topics like Jacobian transformations, scalar invariant operators, and differential geometry topics. Although the earliest edition is now a few decades old, the notation (del operator, coordinate suffixes, etc.) is current.

For an introductory text that is particularly suitable as a self-tutorial I highly recommend H. M. Schey's Div, Grad, Curl and All That, 3rd edition, available in paperback.

A wonderful compilation. Kendall is a very intelligent and entertaining writer whose agressive anti-Liberalism will annoy some. I should be one of the annoyed, but I much prefer Kendall to the partisan hacks and water-carriers who pass for conservative intellectuals today in Conservatism's ascendancy. Part of Kendall's appeal is that he had a sense of proportion and a sense of humor which served him well while doing political battle against the overwhelming Liberalism that he saw all around him.

For me, the two highlights of the book are "John Locke Revisited" and "Thoughts on Machiavelli." In "Revisited" the author discusses Strauss's Locke, Kendall 1941's Locke, Laslett's Locke, and Sabine's Locke. Here is a funny and instructive sentence from "Revisited": "Sabine, of course, would not himself touch a 'value-judgment' with a ten-foot pole; but the reader will not miss the point: Hobbes was the bad guy, Locke the good guy."

"Thoughts" is a review of Leo Strauss's book "Thoughts on Machiavelli." We are guided in the eight-page review to catch sight of true greatness. When a man of Kendall's obvious intelligence and scholarship expresses his awe, we cannot help but become awestruck (even if only by reflection). Here is an excerpt:

Certainly [Strauss] nowhere tells us, in "Thoughts," how the mischief the Machiavellians have done can be undone. But Strauss's silence on this point is perhaps as explicit a statement as the "situation" and the "quality of the times" call for, and what it says is: the mischief can be undone only by a great teacher who feels within himself a strength and a vocation not less than Machiavelli's own, who possesses a store of learning not inferior to Machiavelli's own, who will take the best of the young, of this generation and future generations, and, leading them by the hand without arguing with them, habituate them to the denial of Machiavelli's denials.

i had the pain to use this book for my undergrad. coursework for a 200 level class at Cal Poly. Contrary to the other reviewers, i believe the exercises are mediocre, and the material presented lack depth to provide a solid grounding to numerical analysis. Codes are inconveniently written in fortran-97? instead of the more readable pseudo-code. It may provide a good application supplementary for engineering students, but i strongly advise against it for mathematics undergrads. No fun. Lots of handwaving and smoking mirrors.

The author presumes that the reader has an advanced knowledge of calculus even though the book is intended for use by undergrads.the content in the chapters of the book are not enough to solve the questions at the end of ech chapter.if you are looking for an introductory course in NA dont even think of using this book.

I'm biased because i had the good fortune to take Intro to Numeric Analysis from Ken Atkinson himself. I beta-tested this edition of the text, so my copy is in a loose-leaf binder.

Some reviewers have complained that the book is difficult because examples are in FORTRAN rather than C. I disagree. The real meat of the book is written in mathematical form; what source he provides is merely a convenience. When i took his class, most of the students (myself included) implemented in C rather than FORTRAN. No problem, because he was looking for correct results, not reviewing code.

And yes, this book assumes a solid knowledge of calculus, linear algebra, basic differential equations, and discrete logic. Did you think you'd be able to code mathematics without *understanding* it? If you understand the math in the first place, his implementations are very clear. If you don't understand the math, no amount of clarity will save you.

The real beauty, for me, was how he logically built a progression of topics, with each step providing the foundation for the next one. It was like seeing two years of college math in miniature.

book I've read in some time. As another reviewer said, it reads like a hokey wartime story. There is no sense of place and no character development. Tapon's sophmore effort is stilted and uninspiring. This would make excellent bedtime reading-for an insomniac.

I have no idea what these other reviewers think is good writing. First of all, Tapon obviously does not have a command over the English language. In so many places there are mistakes with nuances and slang language. Secondly, the story is just a mess. There is a long interlude into the mind of the daughter while at her mother's house in the country, and then no other balance to it - one simple reference towards the end. The characters are completely unbelievable and abstract. I thought it was one of the worst books I've ever read. I cannot imagine what anyone else found in these books. Maybe they are used to trash novels, because this is what it was close to.

The NY Times gave a great review of "The Mistress" when it first came out. It concluded: "Reading 'The Mistress' may feel like a guilty pleasure, but Tapon has nothing to be ashamed of: it's a fine, wicked book."

Of course, that may not be what you're looking for. As a result, some people might dislike it. After all, many of the characters are hard to like. But that's the point of the book.

It follows a French family trying to live during the German occupation during WWII. The family is a wreck, partly because the father is having an open affair with a mistress. The kids suffer as a result. Then there's gold that the family must hide from the Nazis, and other challenges that they face.

If you're looking for an exciting book set in WWII, with a cast of characters that are quite devious, then this is it.

Unless you're intimately familiar with the software development process, look elsewhere for an explanation of UML. The author's writing style is much too abstract, leaving the reader wondering what he is talking about much of the time - a major waste of time. Time and again he introduces unfamiliar terms, then "explains" them in yet more unfamiliar terms which are meaningless to those of us "outside" UML.

This book starts pretty well, but then you realize that it won't really take you anywhere. He abuses the use of "references to previous and future chapters" over and over, many of them are absurd, it almost seems that he had no material and wanted to "fill" the page.
He does use a language that is "readable" to people with no computer background, but that is exactly were is going to leave you: with no real UML background.
If you are looking for quicker and solid results check out "Sams: Teach yourself UML in 24 hours", I normally don't by any "short cut" book meaning "24 hours!", but the way this book was written is an excellent way to provide a good background, foundation, hands-on, technical and practical use of the UML. If you don't have an Object Oriented Design background, this books gives you a good start on it as well.

I have the UML User Guide, UML Distilled and this book. I got this book the last, and I only wished I had it as my first UML book! The other UML books are very technical, dry and boring. They package two much information in two few words. Sometimes I feel like I have to read each sentence several times to figure out what they are trying to say. Don't get me wrong, I am no novice OO (object-oriented) programmer: I have more than five years of industrial experience with OO programming (that's not including my experience with these languages in college and graduate school) and I have two industry-recognized certifications. Also I have use Rational Rose (if you are looking at this review, you should know that it is for). However, I never finished reading the other two books as I always either got bored or frustrated after reading a few pages. I knew most of the concepts in UML, yet I still felt that some concepts were still somewhat fuzzy to me and that's why I bought this book.

Reading this book, on the other hand, is a breeze. It is like reading Harry Potter (OK, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit). Once I picked it up, I just couldn't put it down. It is very concise (just 129 pages), but covers almost all the important areas of UML. It defines every term (there are so many of them in UML!) in a clear, easy-to-understand manner. Yet, it is not dry or boring: it uses a real-life example throughout the book to make all the terms easy to grasp. I finished reading the book in less than a week. Now I feel much more comfortable with UML, and I will certainly keep this book as a reference. This is simply the best UML out there, as I said, I only wished I read this book first so I wouldn't waste all those hours in frustration and boredom.