One of the keys to successful trading is recognizing that the market is not a combatant. It is not a bloodstained arena, a boxing ring, a firefight, or even a physical thing. This book also helped me confirm something I have always suspected: trading should be easy. This is to say, the journey is hard and grueling, but once you get there the sense of conflict and adversity should be gone. Before-During and After-Hours. Congratulations!

Conflicts, contradictions and paradoxes in thinking can spell disaster for even a highly motivated, astute and well grounded trader. Through simple exercises, traders will learn how to think in terms of probabilities, and adopt the specific beliefs necessary to developing a winner's mindset. After-Hours and More!

An excellent book on after-hour trading and technical analysis that cuts through all the hype surrounding this subject. Save yourself a lot of money and read this book BEFORE you make your mistakes!

Is the writer a man?, one would think so with the reading of these books. No woman worth her salt is going to put up with the arrogance and conceit of these men. The women are stong in their own fields, yet they become marshmallows at the hands of these men, get real. While the reading is easy enough, I found myself putting the book down because I would get angry. Yes, I'm aware that it is just a book, but if I'm going to spend my money, at least I should get pleasure from reading it which in this case I did not. If this is a sample of Palmer's writing, I won't being wasting my money anytime soon.

This indeed includes the proper people it is advertising. The Justin, Colhoun, and Tyler book is dark blue with a dark texan on the cover (I own it and have read it several times, so have my friends) We are part of a book group and we absolutly enjoy her writing. I find my self rereading almost all of them!

These reviews are for another book - this book is about Calhoun Justin and Tyler - not Emmet Regan and Burke - what is going on here?

Certainly one of the most ingenious commanders of the Civil War, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson provides an interesting profile for a biographer. He was a brilliant commander, and led his troops on grinding marches for days at a time in order to secure gallant victories in the face of insurmountable odds. When he died Robert E. Lee lamented that he had lost his right arm, and indeed Jackson's loss was deeply felt by the Confederacy.

There was more to this man, however, than just the brilliant military strategist. He was also a devout man of God, humble and ever-willing to submit to the Divine will and give Him all the glory for his many victories. Behind General Jackson there was Jackson the believer, and the latter is just as much a part of Stonewall's history as the former.

Burke Davis does a decent job of narrating Jackson's life, though not extraordinary. The battle sequences are vague and difficult to follow, and the maps provide no assistance whatsoever. Davis frequently assumes he knows what Jackson was thinking, and often tells us just how Jackson felt about something. Sources are not cited, and we are left to wonder how much of the story is actually based on fact, and how much on speculation.

Davis's biography is satisfactory, but it does not do Stonewall's military actions justice. Some of the maneuvers he made and the victories he had were downright brilliant, and Davis leaves much to be desired in this respect. Still, the biography gives a decent portrait of Jackson's life. There are many biographies on Stonewall Jackson out there, and I would recommend this one only if none of the others are available (as in my city's library).

A very enjoyable, well written biography on the man they called "Stonewall". Without prior knowledge, the lack of maps makes it hard to get a full grasp on the 62 Valley Campaign and other battles. If not for this, it would have definately been rated at five stars.

This is a well written and easy to follow book on the life of "Stonewall" Jackson. The book not only covers Jackson's military genius, but probes into the mind of the man himself. You come away from this book with a deeper understanding of Jackson, his strong religious convictions, his military fierceness, his strict discipline and his gentle side as well.
Upon reading this book, one realizes that Jackson was a complex man. Highly recommended reading for all Civil War buffs!

It is difficult to learn slang from a book, even when the book is well written. Learning it from this book is to do yourself a disservice...ask anyone who speaks French as their first language. And David Burke's recorded voice is always annoying.

From Paris, France, and a teacher of French at at all levels, (including adult courses),I think I am qualified to grade this book.
This is exactly the pronounciation that I try to have my students understand. Even if they cannot pronounce correctly, at least they are able to understand the French when they speak!

Many of the non-native teachers of French can, more or less, speak academic French (some can't!), but faced with a native French speaking person, they can't understand most of the conversation.
I am definitely going to use this booklet as part of my teaching material,along with some other ones.

There is one great thing about the "Street French" series that has been neglected: it is not only a great introduction to "slangy" French, but to conversational French in general. Most of the material in books and tapes that purport to teach conversational French is usually quite stilted. The vocabulary is usually not very large, and diction is much more precise than is actually spoken by the French themselves. "Street French" includes a lot of information that does not even deal with slang. For instance, there is a lot of material about contractions and colloquial constructions that one rarely encounters in college textbooks, even those that take a conversational approach.

There are tapes available (must haves) from the publisher that include all the dialogue in the series--in *real* conversational style. They are spoken very quickly, and are difficult to master at first. But the hard work will pay off !! After using these books and tapes, I can finally understand a lot of dialogue in French movies that I could just never figure out, since I didn't know about the constructions unique to the spoken language.

If the axiom ‘Write what you know’ is at all true, then James Lee Burke must have some truly frightening skeletons in his closet. It isn’t so much the subject matter, as it is the passion and intensity with which he pours the narrative onto the page. Burke’s characters live and breathe corruption, and ignorance, and violence, in a manner most of us would scarcely think possible. But he draws us in, into a world so vividly sketched that part of our being yearns to visit it again and again.

A SHINING WHITE RADIANCE is vintage Burke, another steamy and scintillating exploration of crime and corruption in New Orleans. His familiar hero, world-weary police detective Dave Robicheaux, is unwillingly enveloped in the twisted lives of the Sonniers, a local family with a history so unnerving that it’s a wonder any of them got out alive. Following the brutal slaying of a police officer in Weldon Sonnier’s home, Robicheaux is swiftly sped along a road of clues and red herrings, stopping at various points to involve late-night tele-evangelists, local crime bosses, past loves, Air America, drugs, and the AB (Aryan Brotherhood).

Burke has so far (as far as my readings of the Robicheaux novels are concerned) avoided the pitfalls that can trap the author of an ongoing series. The temptation must be great to simply graft a plot around the characters, and let it all just slide by. Burke takes the effort needed to not insult his readership, never content to let the characters simply act as they have in the past. Burke comes up with new ways to reintroduce us to the characters, allowing for new developments that expand what we thought we new about his universe. Robicheaux’s past experiences in Vietnam are brought in as integral elements of the story, not simply ‘character filler’. His deep self-loathing for past mistakes, his never-ceasing battle with personal demons (both internal and external), and his ceaselessly evolving relationship with his wife Bootsie, adopted child Alafair, close friend Batist, and even closer friend Clete Purcel, keep the tale rooted in reality.

Burke can also compose one fine episode of menace after another. Just watch Robicheaux’s prison-cell conversation with Joey Gouza. Burke teases the reader, never showing his hand too early, and climaxes the scene with a harrowing interlude of incipient violence. The vignette is all the more striking for its lack of outward activity. The suspense is completely internalized, and mesmerizing. Only afterwards to you realize that you’ve been holding your breath.

Burke can also pen descriptive and atmospheric language with the best of them. His characters all speak with the accent of local patois, adding to the laid-back (but not lazy) environment of Burke’s New Orleans. His finesse with the undercurrent of racism permeates every moment, and his depictions of the backwoods swamps and seedy taverns are vivid. Maybe this New Orleans doesn’t exist in real life, but it feels like it does.

Does it all wrap up satisfyingly? No. After all the set-up, the promising situations, and the pacing that is both leisurely and break-neck, the ultimate denouement is somewhat lacking. But in context, perhaps it’s the only ending that would fit. As Robicheaux himself comes to understand, not everything in life is fair, and not everyone gets what they deserve. Evil will continue, but so will good. How we react to it, deal with it, is what defines us. If we’re still standing at the end of the day, then we’ve won.

Burke's descriptions are so vivid and well written. And some excerpts really are like poetry. His characters are real. You care about them. This is the fourth I've read in the Dave Robicheaux series. I think they are all very good. This one is great.

This is the fifth Robicheaux book I have read. I think this one was the best so far. It had lots of action, a good mystery going on. Dave is great as usual. I really like Cletus and his loyalty to Dave. I like the language that Burke weaves into the book. Batist is also a very good character. Burke lets you feel the pain and hurt Robicheaux has for himself and his love for Bootsie and Alafair. You can nearly feel the heat lighting and the dust from the roads. Many good characters, much suspense, a good ending. If you like Burke you will like this book, if you have not read him before I think you he will become one of you favoite authors.

In this book there seems to be no notion of causality in history; Burke just meanders from person to person, invention to invention. I loved both Connections and The Day the Universe Changed on The Learning Channel, but this book did not measure up to those. I was very disappointed.

I've been a big fan of Burke for many years, and his web theory of history is a fascinating way to look at the past. But that said, I think that Burke may just have explored all the really good paths through the knowledge web already, and is starting to get stuck for connections. 'Connections' and 'The Day The Universe Changed' really give you a sense of cause-and-effect links through history. In the former, we see a natural and logical progression toward modern technologies, and in the latter, toward aspects of modern society. In 'Circles', though, what we have is just a narrative of a series of coincidences. The things he tries to relate aren't really related -- at least not the way he relates them. Whereas in 'Connections', most of the connections were of the form "In solving problem X, they created problem Y", in 'Circles', the connections tend to be less sound: "One of the guys who was working on problem X knew a guy who was working on problem Y." Unfortunately, this is symptomatic of a lot of Burke's later work, and Circles is more reminscent of Connections 3 than of the early work. It is a fun read, and while Burke's supply of historical connections may be running thin, his supply of wit and literary competance hasn't. But if you're looking for something closer to serious history, stick to his older stuff.

When I read the first chapter of this book, I was amazed at the way that James Burke connected so many different pieces of information, and was able to come full cirlce in his thinking at the end of each chapter. The research that went into the creation of this novel is incredible. There are thousands of fun facts that Burkes somehow found a way to relate to one another. Although the transitions from fact to fact were sometimes confusing, I learned several little tidbits of useful information, ranging from the building of the Suez Canal to the development of the air condintioner. Overall, I thought the book was fun and informative, and contained plenty of fun and wacky facts.

This book is not what I hope for. Although it has been out for a couple of years the author has not even aknowledged some of the major typos in the book (see O'Reilly web site).

Although nicely written in a style that can be fairly easily followed, it is missing a substantial amount of needed reference material. For example in the section on conditional statements it refers to boolean expressions. Nowhere does he provide a list of operators or build-in functions available. You either have to build your own incomplete list gleaned from his examples or go find a good reference book.

O'Reilly authors generally do a better job.

Focused too heavily on dynamically created XML being transformed to HTML.
I am interested in the power of XSL for transforming business data between disparate systems. Simple code examples from the web site often didn't work. No complex examples in the book.

I was very disappointed to find that the "XSLT Quick Reference" in Appendix C consists of syntax requirements straight from the W3C spec and single line references for where to look in the W3C spec for a "Quick Reference".

Example:

For

The "Quick Reference" provides the following ...

See XSLT specification section 5.6: "Overriding Template Rules."

Author does a nice job introducing XSLT and XPATH.

There is much in O'Brien's book that is interesting, original and insightful. But it suffers from two fatal flaws, one stylistic/structural, one substantive: (1) It is a mess. It is part personal biography, part intellectual biography, part annotated anthology, all mixed together in a confusing and unsatisfactory hodge-podge that may have been deliberate, given Burke's (and therefore O'Brien's) aversion to systems and abstraction. It is as if the author set out with a firm intention to portray Burke a certain way, collected up all the relevant facts, but just couldn't pull it all together in the end. It reads like a work-in-progress, several drafts short of completion and in dire need of a good editor; (2) It seriously overstates its case, and is therefore simply not reliable as an account of Burke's thought. O'Brien's Burke is a pluralist liberal, one of the "good guys" not to be classed among the "reactionaries", as Isaiah Berlin has done. But as Berlin points out--with far too much courtly politeness--in his exchange with O'Brien (reproduced in the appendix), the author has simply turned a blind eye to those aspects of his subject that make him appear illiberal. Most liberals at the time supported the French Revolution, at least in its early phase, and with good reason: it destroyed a confused mass of privilege, injustice and corruption that served the interests of a largely hereditary elite, which Burke vigorously defended. Most liberals since have supported it too. Few (if any) liberals today would hesitate to condemn someone who defended tradition, hereditary privilege and deference to authority as Burke did. To say that Burke was a liberal just doesn't wash. Granted he had SOME liberal tendencies, but he had many other tendencies that liberals have always found repugnant. It is a crude and one-sided portrait. O'Brien subscribes to the old-fashioned Cold War liberalism of Jacob Talmon, who interpreted the struggle between liberal democracy and "totalitarianism" in the 20th Century as a replay of the struggle between liberalism constitutionalism and the Terror. O'Brien's agenda in this book is to accept this dubious and anachronistic framework and to place Burke firmly on the "correct" side in it, with a demonic Rousseau on the other. THE GREAT MELODY was probably out-of-date before O'Brien wrote a word of it, just as much of Burke was when it appeared in the eighteenth century.

"The Great Melody" by Conor Cruise O'Brien is not your traditional biography; there is little here concerning Burke's personal and family life. Instead, the work concentrates on Burke's political career and thought and, specifically, how they relate to his Irish heritage. The result is a fascinating look into the mind and personality of a man who suffered from a conflict of emotions over his Irish heritage that included his father's conversion to Protestantism while his mother and wife remained Catholic. Burke himself was torn in different directions his entire life; loyalty to Britain and also his Irish ancestors and friends suffering under the Penal Laws, loyalty to the British constitution, but also a deep feeling for the need of justice for the oppressed people at home and abroad.

O'Bien's book takes an in-depth look at Burke's career in parliament and as a member of the Whig party through an extensive analysis of his letters, speeches, political relationships, and writings, specifically, as they relate to his struggle on behalf of the American colonists, the struggle of the Irish Catholics, the people of India suffering at the hands of the rapacious East India Co., and the French Revolution.

The work can be a little dry at times and tends to quote in an overly lengthy manner, but the immense erudition and scholarship and the insightful picture of Burke that emerges more than compensate for this. I do wish, however, that O'Brien had spent more time on "Reflections On The Revolution in France," but he feels that since it is so readily available to the reader there is no need. Finally we see an Edmund Burke as he really was and not the "old reactionary" that is so often depicted. We come to understand that Burke always believed that "the people are the true legislator," that Burke did not want to see Americans in Parliament who were slave holders, that he was a life-long opponent of increased powers for the Crown and the corruption such power entailed, that he was one of the few who consistently fought against injustice toward the American colonials, that he found all authoritaianism abhorrent, and that he opposed commercial monopolies and the abuse of power in all its forms. But, because he opposed the overturning of society and its reengineering on the basis of "metaphysical abstractions," he was often portrayed as a reactionary by later pundits. Lewis Namier and his followers are particularly taken to task by O'Brien for this tendency. In the end we see a Burke who always supported basic human rights, but remained constantly aware that real life circumstances must make social and political change possible if such change is not to lead to chaos and violence. Burke's fear of radicalism based upon abstract theory was real and the destructiveness of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Nazi bio-racial religion more than sufficiently proves his point. A reading of O'Brien's fine book can only lead the intelligent reader to a renewed respect for a great man, a decent and liberal minded man, and a man of immense vision.

Everyone knows Edmund Burke's most famous quote: "for evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing". As a former lecturer in political science, I was mainly familiar with Burke as the founder of Anglo-conservatism (infinitely more nuanced and modern than his equivalent in Franco-conservatism, the Count Joseph de Maistre). I had also read an early work, namely "An Enquiry into the nature of the Beautiful and the Sublime", which I thought a brilliant little jewel. But there's much more about Burke than that.

O'Brien, the great man of Irish diplomacy, shows in this extraordinary book that Burke, whom recently history has shown as a fawning servant to the political leaders of his time (Rockingham and Pitt), was at the heart of the great fight between George III's royal absolutism and the emerging English democracy. Burke was on the right side of virtually all the fights he picked. He advocated equality before the law for the Irish subjects of the king, first tolerance and then freedom for the American colonies, the end of the colonialist abuses of the East India company, and a quarantine on the infectious ideas of the French Revolution. The later one is still a contentious affair. Zhou En Lai famously opined that it was still too early (in the 1970s) to judge the French Revolution. Burke would have had none of that. As early as 1790, in the "benign" initial phase of the revolution, he foresaw the Terror, the execution of the Royal Family, the Consulate and the Empire, and the French banner covering all of the Europe, in the name of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity".

O'Brien shows the extraordinary situation of an Irish Protestant (always accused of crypto-Catholicism) having great informal influence on the politics of Great Britain, while holding menial offices or representing various "rotten boroughs" in Parliament (this is no aspersion on Burke's memory- that's how politics was done at the time, and anything that gave Burke a pulpit couldn't have been all bad). The "Great Melody" of the title provides the underlying themes around which O'Brien organizes the public part of Burke's life. Far from tiresome, this is a useful device that provides unity and coherence to Burke's thoughts and actions. O'Brien's attacks on mid-century historiography are perfectly adequate, given that much of what was written as that period was designed to regress Burke into irrelevancy, as a sycophant and a lackey. He never was that. He was a good and a great man, and O'Brien does him justice in his book. Perhaps the only fault that I could find in it is a tendency to assume the reader's prior knowledge of the arcanes of Irish history. But these are quibbles. If you can stomach a history of ideas, full of events and studded with memorable characters, this is the book for you.

When this book was published it was hot stuff. A decade later it seems rather tame. Why did Burke write it? He seems to have no rancor against Kennedy and admits that everything Teddy did, he tried to outdo so the question is never really answered. The portraits of Joan Kennedy and Rose Kennedy are gentle, almost tender ones. The best part of the book is when Burke gets out of Kennedy's bedroom and starts talking about the political goings on behind the scenes. The chapters on the failed 1980 campaign and Kennedy's relations with the Carters are fascinating.

Burke tells an exciting story in a book that is hard to put down. I was unaware of Teddy's sexual and otherwise illegal exploits, so if you were like me, this book will prove to be very informative. Burke reveals much about the character of the man for whom he worked and worshipped.

Richard Burke provides highly personal look into the life of Ted Kennedy during the years he spent as a staffer for him. He describes what it was like to work for Ted Kennedy in their professional and personal relationship. He also talks about the personal side of Kennedy's 1980 primary race against then President Jimmy Carter.

Kennedy was a hero to Burke and although he sees Kennedy for what he really is and at times, at his worse, he still doesn't try discredit the man or put him down for what he's done. Burke sometimes tells about how he tried to save Kennedy from himself in his overindulging in drugs, sex, and drinking.

Sometimes you might wonder if its all true though, but Burke admits that during his years with Kennedy, he was no angel either making it more plausible. Its not really a dirty little kiss and tell book. Its more of a personal look at Ted Kennedy by someone that was close to him and knew him well.

In the end, as Burke says, Kennedy for all his flaws cannot do a lot of harm as the respected Senator that he is now, so long as he doesn't become President, but his chance has already passed.

This book (Shoeshine Girl by Clyde Robert Bulla) is about a girl named Sarah Ida that moved to Palmville to vist her Aunt Claudia. Sarah's parents sent her to Palmville because her parents could not take care of her over the summer. While she was on the train Sarah Ida wanted to start her life all over because her life was miserable. Sarah asked Aunt Claudia for money, but her mother said "No" because Sarah needed to learn the value of money! Sarah found a job. It was at a shoeshine store. Do you think Sarah learned a lesson in the ShoeShine Stand? So that's why the title is called the ShoeShine Girl. Do you think Sarah learned the value of money? What do you think Sarah spent her first day's pay on and why? How do you think Sarah feels working in the ShoeShine Stand?

We like this book because we can relate to Sarah at the begining of the book. One time one of us was on the train going to school, and we didn't feel like getting off. Similar to Sarah she didn't want to get off on the train because she wanted to change her life all over again.

Our opinion for this book is really good because every chapter tells you something new. For example in chapter 4 it was very suspenseful. We were thinking that she was going to steal the money and spend it. Maybe she would get caught and would have to look for another job instead of working at the ShoeSineStand.

So now you know about this girl named "Sarah Ida" who works at the ShoeSine Stand. We would like to recommend this book to people that like reading realistic fiction books!

The book is called Shoeshine Girl by Clycle Robert Bulla. This book started with a girl named Sarah Ida who was told to get on a train to Palmville but she didn't want to. She had no choice but to go. She planned on staying and did she get off? Well....read the book and find out. They got the title of the story when Sarah went to find a job and found one in a shoeshine stand and one day Al, her boss, went to buy some shoe polish. Do you know what happened afterwards? Al got hit by a car and was sent to the hospital. Sarah Ida kept the shoeshine stand open and polished people's shoes all by herself. Do you think it's good so far? Do you also think that Sarah Ida is a responsible person for taking care of the store?

We learn that if you want money, you need to earn money yourself. We like this book because it talks about character's feelings. For example, Sarah felt hurt when Sarah wanted money and Aunt Claudia didn't give her money because she said "Your mom told me not to give you any." We disliked the part when Al got hurt. We like this book because it was good and because it was talking about her life. Her life changed a lot throughout the story. She use to be with people that are so awful. It was awful because she had friends that would take things. What we think that changed her life was being with Al and her aunt because they taught her how to cook, the value of money, and how to polish a shoe.

We think that this book would be good for people who want to find a job. We also recommend this book to fourth and fifth graders.

I remember when I was in third grade, I would go to my grandmother's house and ask for her to read me The Shoeshine Girl over and over again. This book is great to help children understand the importance of unselfishness and responsibility with money. Sarah Ida's character in the book starts off being a cold and uncaring little girl, but through her experiences with living with Aunt Claudia and working for Al at the shoeshine stand, she becomes a responsible and loving child. I would highly recommend reading this book with children, it is a great story and they will learn the moral of responsibility from it too!