When I saw this well-priced Book which was originally published in two volumes, at higher cost with a slip cover, I had to have it. I am a collector of Dali Books and was hoping that this Book would be the Catalogue Raisonne of Dali's paintings I had been looking for for so long. In this respect the Book was no disappointment with a total of 1,648 illustrations, but a closer look at the book revealed some serious faults.

The worst fault by far is that the printing of the paintings is consistently too dark. Three examples: The blue colors of: "Myself at the age of Ten when I was a Grasshopper Child" (p.202) are much too dark. It is even worse with: "Ghost of Vermeer of Delft which can also be used as a Table" (p.222) Here the figure of Vermeer is in points indistinguishable from the backround and the sky is much too orange, instead of yellowish. The worst example is that of "The Last Supper" (p.488) where the apostles on the extreme left and right of the painting can barely be distinguished. There are many other examples of this. I made this comparison using several other books and exhibition catalogues, and have also seen the three paintings I mentioned as examples in person more than once.

A close examination also reveals that both paper and binding are not of high quality. I have a feeling this book will not stand the test of time. One way to tell a good Art Books when the paper is a higher weight. Judging from the paper, I have a feeling it will yellow in a few years. This is, incidentally, true for other Books that I own published by Taschen. Also, a book this heavy should really have a stronger binding.

Annoying also is that there is no alphabetic index of the paintings. Unless you know the year a painting was created, as they are in chronological order, there is no way to find it except by paging around.

Despite these complaints, I still like the Book because it includes paintings I have never seen before. If however, you want to see the paintings of Dali as they really look, get "Dali: The Work, the Man" instead. It suffers from none of the faults I have descibed, but is not as comprehensive. It's worth the extra money. In collecting Art Books I have found that higher quality Books stand the test of time.

a beautifully sized book that contained excellent text about the painter's life and superb reproductions of his work in the book

Being the owner of many books based on the works of Salvador Dali, which includes "Dali The Work, The Man", I admit to being somewhat skeptical about yet another "complete" edition; that it would probably have pretty much the same information and reproductions of his art as my other books. I now admit to being incorrect, because this is a well made edition with a truly fantastic bargain price. I have paid well over a hundred dollars for what I'd hoped was a book containing all of Dali's paintings with detailed biographical information, when I found that this is the book with all of that for around ($).
You will not be disappointed with this book and I think you'll agree that the quality is excellent, with a solid binding and beautiful reproductions of all of his paintings in chronological order. There are also a great deal of photographs (and paintings) that I've never seen before, and I thought I was a huge fan of Salvador Dali.
"Dali, The Work The Man" is also a very well-made book, which may be printed on a slightly heavier grade paper, at the most. However, the Taschen book is far more detailed and also excellent quality. "Dali, The Work The Man" costs ten times as much and only has half the content.
I truly thought there must have been some mistake when I ordered it.I still question the price as being far too low, so I advise you to hurry up and get this before the publisher realizes their huge mistake. Perhaps we are dealing with a publisher who really isn't greedy at all--that's my impression here.
I couldn't be happier with my purchase of this book and highly recommend it.

Let me quote the Wrox website: "The exercise answers to this and several other books are not amongst the files we've been able to recover from the old Wrox servers, yet. We're still trying to find them, or to recover them from some other source so we can repost them."
It is two months later and there is still no code for the exercises at the end of the chapters. The sample code is still available, however.

This book is outstanding! I never thought I would change over from Visual Basic but I am convinced C# is for me! This book covers everything from the basics of the .NET framework, all the way up the ladder. I would highly recommend this book to the Visual Basic crowd!

Great book if your are new to programming. However, it is, just like the title implies, designed for beginners. If you have any C++ or Java experience you might want to skip this book and go straight to Professional C#.

This book is a thorough approach to women's weightlifting and addresses many relevant topics from safty, where to workout, pregnancy, diet, and complete instruction with pictures on how to perform hundreds of lifts.

Anja Langer includes workout routines for the beginner, intermediate and advanced bodybuilder. Also information on losing body fat, and diets to follow wether your goal is simply to get in better shape, or to become a competitive body builder. This is a guide I turn to whenever I feel like changing my workout routines, and what is best for me at any given time.

This is the only bodybuilding book I have kept for years.
One of the things I like about it the most is her no nonsense approach to exercising during pregnancy. I also appreciate that she's not as "hard" looking as other women bodybuilders, why this matters, I don't know, maybe she's easier to relate to.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is very well put together and informative. I found the advice and the illustrations to be among the finest in any bodybuilding book I have yet seen. Langer gives straightforward information that is practical for any level of fitness. Both men and women can use the advice in this book. It was well worth the price I paid for both my wife and I.

Have you noticed something strange here? All the previous reviews on this page are for another book and another author, just the same title. This review is for Sweet Valley Twins #17, "Boys Against Girls". I hope that clears up some confusion. I Really liked this book when I was in the age group; it played out a lot of frustrations I had with my brothers! The twin's class has a new teacher who always taught boys before. He makes some unwelcome changes and the girls go on the warpath to prove they are just as good as the boys.
By the way, is there a place where I can review the reviews?

I think this is a pretty good book overall. I doubt adults would like it, but kids my age would. This is a book for both, boys and girls. I liked how the book was written because there were three boys in a family and three girls in a family that lived by each other. I liked how the author put in both sexes so it's just not a boy book or just a girl book.
In a small town, there lived two certain families, the Hatford and the Malloy family. The Hatford family consists of three boys, the Malloy family consists of three girls.
The two families were neighbors and they loved to these each other, so the Hatford boys thought they had a great idea by going to tell the girls that the animal, the Abaguchie, exsisted and was spotted close where they live. The Malloy girls believed the guys, as the Hatford boys just keep on playing along with them like the animal really exsisted and it was close to their house.
(...)
Overall, I would say this book was pretty well written for a kid my age.

I read Boys Against Girls for a book report. It is the best book I have read. Wally and his brothers think they are smarer than the girls when they built an Abaguchie( the monster in the town in the book) trap. But that night they herd the bell that they connected to the trap. Did they catch the Abaguchie. You should read to find out. I really enjoyed this book. There are alot of things adults wold laugh at. If you want a funny book, this one will keep you laughing for hours. Please read this book. If you think it dosen't look good from the cover. you should use the saying " Never Judge a book by a cover." I really enjoyed it and you will too. Read Boys Against Girls.

There is a good deal to recommend this book. It is for the most part well-written, and the idea behind the book is outstanding. However I have quite a few problems with it. The opening tale by John Tynes is somewhat too short to overcome by backstory and characterization a rather ugly incident that takes place within it, equating experience with the Deep Ones to a version of combat syndrome, and that taints the rest of the book. Other tales fare somewhat better, and have some very thought-provoking concepts, adding a bit of science fiction to the world of the Mythos. One can become a ghoul, for instance, by reading a certain book, and a certain Great Old One can tear holes in the spacetime continuum in order to attract males for her followers (kind of silly, but effective within the tale). On the whole, I liked it, but for me that is the crux of the biscuit-I wanted to love it, and did not. Fell far short of the expectations that were engendered in me by the blurbs on the back cover and the front cover recommendation from Lucius Shepard. Can't give it a thumbs-up, but worth looking at if you have the money. Slim for the price.

I really enjoyed reading this book. As with any collection of short stories, I liked some more than others, but there were none in here that I didn't like. There were a couple that I consider to be real gems. My only real complaint is that it's not much book for 12 bucks. It's about half an inch thick, with eight stories in it. I guess maybe it's priced higher than most paperback books because of the cost involved for a small company to have smaller quantities of a book like this printed, but I must admit I was a bit disappointed with it in this respect.

I have always been a fan of way-out-there lunatic sci-fi/horror but unfortunatly most of the sci-fi and horror out there is just really insipid banal mainstream garbage. This book is different, the stories pull no punches and will blow you away. There is some violent violence and BIZZARE sexual stuff in this book so it is probably NOT for kids. Highly recommended and far better than the other Delta Green fiction "Rules of Engagement."

Like the Visual Dictionary for The Phantom Menace, this comprehensive collection of all the main characters, vechicles, droids and creatures is another fascinating book for Star Wars fans. Starting out with a summary of the plot for Ep.2, this book includes character profiles of Padme Amidala, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, Jango Fett, Mace Windu, Yoda, Zam Wesell and many others. One of my favourite Star Wars companion books

The Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Visual Dictionary is a fascinating diversion for all the fans waiting to see the film again. loaded with stats on Anakin Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, Count Dooku, Yoda and tons more characters, endlessly informative trivia and an assortment of great photos from the film. With so much detailed info it's almost overwhelming. Regardless, Star Wars fans (myself included) love this stuff, and it's a must-have for anyone who loves the films set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

This book gives anyone who loves to draw the Star Wars characters invalulable poses and views of all of the hardware and characters. I have been using these books to create my own Star Wars posters and you can't get better detailed photos anywhere else.

I'm a huge fan of the book that WROX has put out over the years (the 2 Beginning VB 6 books are phenominal). They've taught me virtually everything I know about programming. However, I must say that this book falls far short of my expectations for this publisher. It started out great; the examples of using RUP and UML were very helpful. I also learned a lot about MTS, XML, etc. that I did not know before. However, when it got to to actually writing the application, I had to take charge. Repetitive logic, misaligned object architechture, and not enough descriptions made me so frustrated that I only finished the book so I could rewrite the application more efficiently. Now, I'm a far cry from a professional programmer, so maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture. But, when I read a book to lean a new technology or method, I don't expect to be saying things like "Why did they do it this way?" or "It'd be much more clear if they did it this way." These, among other things, were said while reading every page in the sections dealing with writing the app. All in all it was very disappointing, but I won't hold it against these guys; they're still my favorite.

The first third of the book deals with subjects covered in other WROX publications. The treatment here is cursory, but enough to be usefull. However, once the code is covered things get messy. Properties are all named with Get (not good practice) and several properties should be coded as methods, for which the authors seem to have little use. ADO should get more attention, but the authors just go ahead and hard code database connections. The same parameters are sometimes treated as variants, then strings or integers. The stored procedures for the T-SQL database were all named with an sp_ prefix (which is a no-no), and so on... On the whole it's a usefull book, once you clean up the authors' mess.

In my opinion, this is how every book that attempts to teach computer programming should be written. Most books on programming tend to teach bits and pieces that leave the reader hanging in mid-air. You learn the "alphabets" and the "parts of speech" of a programming language, but you are not taught how to put it all together into a beautiful prose, right?
Not this book. "Beginning VB 6 AppDev" takes you, as it were, by the hands, and leads you through the tunnels, the caverns and other subtleties of application development. What you have at the end is a superb application, and a well enlightened reader. It is very rare to find a book this good: a single book that covers virtually everything needed to develop a fully, functional scalable application. Yes, it covers the whole development life cycle of a multitiered application.
The authors did a very good job. I gave it five stars because it is worth five stars. If you are not convinved, get a copy, and study it.

Together with Professional C# Web Services, also from Wrox, these books will give you a solid base to really understand Web Services and Remoting. The basics are quite simple but you will also learn some useful advanced topics. I've always liked the Wrox style of writing, I think it's easy to read and follow the code examples. The only criticism is the number of authors. Some smaller parts are repeated and the style is not always consistent.

I read the book several times. I did some of the examples. The examples worked with no changes necessary. On the [web page], the book has an errata list, which is pretty small. The source code for C# and VB are on the wrox website. This book is for EXPERIENCED programmers. Don't even try to read it if you have no prior knowledge of web services.

The book has an excellent introduction to ASP.NET for web services. It probably is worth just going over the first two chapters to get a flavor of web services. Word of caution, I downloaded the VB samples, and they were a bit buggy. If you are a C# developer, the code in the book was fine. The VB code was not...

The first few chapters teach you the basics, most of which I knew already, but it is the later chapters which are really great. The chapter on SOAP security (a subject about which I confess I knew very little) taught me everything I am ever likely to need or want to know about that subject. There's also loads of great examples to get you going. To sum up - it's great!

This is the third volume of Braudel's 'Civilization and Capitalism' The third volume is about the capitalism as world economy. This is the reason why Braudel says that capitalism is premised on market economy. But market economy is not capitalism. To grasp this point, we should pay attention to Braudel's conception of time.
Braudel sees three levels of time. Events time is the immediately observable. But the event doesn't explain itself. They have to be placed within the context of what Braudel called conjunctures, or the set of forces that prepare the ground for events. Conjectural time is medium term; the span of an economic cycle, of a certain configuration of social forces, or of a certain paradigm of scientific knowledge. At the deepest level is longue duree. It involves structures of thought (mentality) that are very slow to change: economic organization, social practices, political institutions, language, and values. These structures are all cohesive and interdependent, yet each moves at a different pace. Conjunctural changes that become consolidate and stabilized could signal a change in the longue duree. Events are conditioned and shaped by the structures of the longue duree, but events may also cumulatively challenge, undermine, and transform these structures. The explanation of history involves the interaction of all three levels of time.
Three levels of time correspond to three layers of economy. capitalism has the longue duree as its modality of time. But Braudel use the term, capitalism a bit different from Marx's definition. Braudel defines capitalism as world-economy. There have been several world-economies throughout history. Capitalism is only one of them. World-economy structures (or organizes) the space as a hierarchy of division of labor. At the top of the hierarchy lies a center. Several world-cities surround it. So world-economy is about patterning space around a central city. This is the point Braudel meets the world system theory. In fact, Wallerstein, the proponent of world system theory borrowed Braudel's idea. American world system theories centered on Wallerstein and the SUNY's Braudel Center.

Where the first two volumes of this trilogy covered living standards and the evolution of market mechanisms and capital accumulation, this one completes the picture with detailed historical examinations of the policies of the most successful cities and nations in the development of capitalism.

In fascinating detail, Braudel starts with the trade system of Venice, which allowed that tiny and resourceless city-state to dominate the world trade economy for centuries, and which culminated in the golden age of Amsterdam. THese cities, he argues persuasively, pushed commercial and financial capitalism to new heights, that is, with a combination of banking and control of trade routes, they created monopolies that benefitted themselves largely at the expense of their trading partners. They did so with a combination of readily mobilisable financial capital, clever warehousing (particularly in Amsterdam, which was like a perpetual market fair) that allowed them to control supplies and hence sell items at the right time for the higest price, domination of shipbuilding technologies as well as naval prowess (i.e. state piracy), and the control of the origin of their supplies, as in the Dutch East Indies for the spice trade. Braudel argues that it was a conscious policy. He also deliniates how Spain and then Portugal were beaten.

He then moves on to the birth of industrial capitalism in England in the late 18th C, which the loss of the American colonies - and hence ended its military obligations there while trade increased - facilitated. The great difference here, which he argues is a creative extension of the other long-existing forms of capitalism rather than its true beginning as many claim - was that investment was made in new technologies. It is similar to what the U.S. and Japan have done as major economic powers with different industrial systems: the U.S. had the largest national market, while Japan created cartels that could control prices (going after market share rather than immediate profit).

Braudel also examines basic questions of how an economy is successfully "revolutionised." What makes inventions take off in one society and not another? Is it one factor, or many acting together in concert? In particular, he compares the cases of the newly de-colonised United States and Latin American, in which the former was able to place itself at the center of the world economy and compete while the latter were weak and hence consigned to a subordinate role by the superpower of the day, Great Britain. He also examines the case of France, which was never able to enter the first rank of commercial and industrial nations prior to the 20C because, he argues, Paris (an administrative and not a trade capital) dominated the country and never learned to respect entrepreneurs.

These arguments are truly fascinating and presented with the perfect amount of detail: not too much as is often the case with Simon Schama, and not so little that only specialists can understand it. While it is sometimes difficult to follow his thread of logic, there is so much to learn from this book that I will consult it for the rest of my professional life. As a measure of its interest, I kept a marker in the footnotes, where I loved to look for references on virtually every page.

Nonetheless, as a 2000-page book that I loved, I am glad that it is done! It took me nearly two years to get through it all and I wished at times that it was more succinct. I found myself fliiping through it to see where illustrations would shorten the text. The conclusion, which attempts to offer persoective on the present, is also badly dated.

All in all, this is the most interesting and best economic history that I have ever read.

Historians, they say, are either lumpers or splitters: the former seek to make generalizations while the latter seek to refute and refine them. Braudel strikes a balance between these approaches, at one time examining the economic point of view (and related theoretical controversies, such as the ideas of Schumpeter on innovation), while searching for historical examples that support or obliterate them. He is a true master scholar.

This volume adds to the first, moving from living standards to the establishment and functioning of trading and banking systems, both by capitalists (holders of sufficient resources to manipulate markets) and the merchants and craftsmen who operated within these markets. It is a crucial distinction that demonstrates how simple-minded the ideological argument of "free markets" can be: the rich can and do design economic systems to function to their advantage. You follow the development of international trading networks by Italians, Jews and Armenians; the evolution of banking and the handling of paper money; and even the influence of social hierarchies on economic growth.

While Braudel concentrates almost exclusively on Europe in this volume, which lessens the universality of his approach, it is utterly fascinating from page one. The economic systems he analyses were somewhat incomplete, though evolving rapidly. An additional limit to his approach is the exclusive focus on econimic life. At times, he views the building of chateaux and the commission of great works of art from the Reanassance to the 19C as a reflection of the lack of wealth-generating investment opportunities during a time of economic revolution!

And that is just a few of the issues covered. Each section of the book is like an essay on some basic economic notion. As such, the book assumes a great deal of historical knowledge in the reader, though Braudel often explains what he refers to briefly. For me, this added to its appeal and density, but it is often hard going. However, the book is leavened by wonderful and fascinating illustrations, which eases the task of getting through it at times.

Highly recommended.

In "The Last Great Weeper" from this collection of essays Reynolds Price says that he often cries these days when somebody gets something right-- a flawless dive from Greg Louganis and a perfect A above middle C from Leontyne Price. The same could be said of most of these fifty-two commentaries from National Public Radio: he gets it right.

Mr. Price has opinions on most subjects and certainly doesn't hesitate to express them. Even when some of his subjects do not particularly interest me, I as always feast on Mr. Price's language. There's something for almost everyone here. I was moved by his essay called "Wheelchair Travel," and also liked "The Great Imagination Heist," where he laments the evils of TV exposure on today's students, and "Private Worship." Mr. Price avoids the typical white church in America today which he describes as "The church as country club" and, like Emily Dickinson, keeps the Sabbath staying at home. Sound familiar?

I'm really writing this because I have to respond to the reviewer who thinks the title comes from Homer. Reynolds Price wrote and read about the two lines that give the title of this collection. He cites the Latin poet, Horace and says that the English poet, A.E. Houseman translated the poem. It is beautiful but Price writes beautifully also. I like the first novel the best, I think.

I'd read Reynolds Price's autobiographical A Whole New Life a year or so ago. That book, about his long battle with spinal cancer, impressed me with the man's courage, honesty, and depth of insight. When I saw Feasting the Heart, I grabbed it instantly and read most of it the same night. Jacques Maritain said once that truly creative people go deeper and deeper into an inner silence and extract everything the Source there has to give them, until finally their own heart is used up. I thought of Price when I read that. Not many modern writers struggle so hard with their own sense of integrity or go so deep they would ever risk using up their own hearts. Price does, and I always leave his books feeling that I have feasted my own heart. This collection is a treasure.