This fantasy novel is set in a parallel world modeled on 1700s Austria; it's a conversation and society-building story, as opposed to a blood-soaked sword and sorcery tale. In this world, witchcraft works, and the talent is passed from mother to daughter at the moment the daughter is no longer a virgin. The daughter's lover takes possession of a five-pointed talisman from the young witch, the blue star, and with it can read the true thoughts of anyone by looking into their eyes. Rodvard is an ineffectual clerk in the government geneaological offices. He becomes part of a secret organization called Sons of the New Day, who want to destroy the whole corrupt Empire and build a totally new system. He is pushed into seducing a virgin witch named Lalette, so he can use her Blue Star to enhance their political schemes. Neither of them really care for the other. The whole affair quickly goes wrong, and they are both forced to flee an empire that barely tolerates witchcraft. This is a quiet story, though not without its moments of adventure. It will take some effort on the part of the reader, but it is very much worth it.

I have used this book for the past 3 years in an undergraduate database design course. The book addresses the major issues associated with database design without obscuring topics with a lot of the underlying math/relational algebra details. The book serves well as a backdrop for the course material. Its use of MS Access for examples works well for the typical database designer/user. 'Hardcore' database students/professors/developers would probably want a more detailed treatment of the subject.

Corto Maltese, worldy-wise adventurer, travels through the Africa during World War I in this neat set of tales by the late Venetian cartoonist Hugo Pratt.

Corto rides with Lawrence of Arabia to Tuban in the first tale, where a group of British prisonners are being held by the Turks. Next he is at a British outpost in North Africa when it is overwhelmed by Arab warriors. His comrade from the previous adventure, the Danakil warrior Cush, rescues him and the pair travel to Ethiopia where an aged sorcerer - or fallen angel? - helps them resolve a dispute between the parents of a Moslem boy who loves a Christian girl. Finally Corto winds up in East Africa, where he avenges the murder of the brother of an old comrade with the aid of an African secret society.

Pratt's style is not for everyone - the graphics are somewhat crude, but have a subtle appeal. The stories are little gems, however, and display an aesthetic unique in comic books.

Hugo Pratt is great and the short tales of "A Mid-Winter Morning's Dream" probably sum up all the classical Corto themes. All are set in 1918. The title story is a clever interweaving of myth and historical romance: 'Harps and Dynamite' is an amazingly effective evocation of the Irish resistance in the post-Easter Rising period. There is a neat wartime-caper fantasy, an espionage tale (the weakest of the stories) and best of all a magnificent consideration of the death of the Red Baron with all the brilliant characterization for which Pratt is famous.

This was the textbook used in my database class. Mr Adamski, one of the two authors, was my professor.

The book is a very handy reference after college once one is in the career field. I keep it at my desk and use it often with my work as a web developer developign web pages that rely heavily on databases.

Richard Pratt has a wonderful grasp of the bigger picture of Scripture, and he does a fantastic job here of relating some great truths in very clear, interesting, and applicable ways. Questions at the end of each chapter make it ideal for personal devotions or for study/discussion by small groups.

The Fugitive was a magazine published between 1922 and 1928 in Nashville, Tennessee. The collaborators centered in and around Vanderbilt University and included such luminaries as John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, and Laura Riding. The magazine served as a refiner's crucible for these and other intellectuals who would later influence the Southern Agrarian movement. The themes of the Southern Agrarians appear in poetic form in many of the works included in this fine collection. A reluctance to concede to the spiritual demands of modernity, a distrust of the machine-age, and a wistful remembrance of an almost forgotten Southern sensibility strike the reader with the force of a blow. These poets, while attempting at times to render a specific regional voice, more often than not delve deeper into the "mannishness of man." Their poems are realistic, conscious of the fallenness of the South and those who live in it. Particularly powerful are the poems of Ransom. "The Equilibrists" is perhaps the finest poem written in America about the regrets of lust, sin, and stoically held honor. Ransom's poems about death, and there are many of them included here, evoke the sense of family, loss, and the cycles of the living as surely as do his portraits of decrepit mansions and overgrown gardens. These poets also self-consciously upbraid themselves and each other for the arrogance of youthful intellectual and artistic promise and the vanity of a life whose hopes are pinned on words. The Fugitives were reactionary in their use of the classical tradition. The reader may have to refresh a working knowledge of Ovid and Virgil in order to fully enjoy what is a remarkable collection of poetry.

Layout of booklet. 83 pages long. Section 1. How and why people lose at Keno, Playing Kitchen Keno, Section 2. How to make a keno ticket and a keno way ticket. Section 3. How to read a rate book, odds chart. Section 4. The right tickets to Play. Section 5. money Management. Section 6. Picking the right numbers. Section 7. General info. to help you win. SEction 8. Alternate play plans, playin keno in NV, Normal play plan summary, Glossary, blank keno tickets to copy.

Good book to read on junket or any airline on the way to VEGAS! If you are New to Keno good book to read! Light weight. Paperback. Fonts larger sized than most books. Easier read. Explains the best way he can!

This book is best for casual birders who want to know about Hawai'i's ramarkable avifauna, but for whom birds are not the primary focus of their trip. Written in a straightforward interesting style, the book gives an overview of native and introduced birds, with some history about how the native birds have been decimated by human interference. Jack Jeffrey's photographs are breathtaking. Pratt, no mean photographer himself, has teamed with a true master of avian photography to produce a lovely little book.