I can just hear the theme music from "Bonanza" as I leaf through the recipes in these books. Hard-working cowpokes will adore these baked sweets from the American West.

This baking book is composed by the operators of Breteche Creek, a 7,000 acre cattle ranch. The recipes are original, and divided into five chapters: Cowboy Cookies, Breteche Bars, Comforting Cobblers, Crisps and Custards, Surprise Endings, and Restaurants. The Index includes a list of noteworthy restaurants and inns of the Northern Rockies. Each recipe includes a list of ingredients, paragraph-form instructions on how prepare the recipe, and a short description of the finished product. There are full-color photographs of 24 of the recipes.

My favorite recipe in this book is the Breteche Blondies on page 29. The authors note that the brownie is a distinctly American recipe. The Breteche Blondies call for easily accessible ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, butter, chocolate chips, coconut, and pecans. These bars are dense, moist, and delicious. My husband has already deemed them a "keeper." Whenever I bake them, it is always a challenge to see if they will make it out the door!

This baking book includes recipes from restaurants and ranches. Examples include: Warm Chocolate Soufflé with Chocolate Glaze and Mascarpone Cream from The Snake River Gill in Jackson, Wyoming, Buffalo Bill Cody's Red, White, and Blue Berry Shortcake, named for the founder of the town of Cody, and Chocolate Banana-Mousse Cake from the Spanish Peaks Brewery in Bozeman, Montana.

Go ahead, watch "Bonanza" as you imagine yourself ringing the dinner bell for your hungry cow-hands!

An intriguing tale of a man's struggle to reclaim his soul while on an expedition of higher learning. A culture may survive physical hardships, but can it survive offers of help? Soon a predatory envinronment develops that makes the jungle look tame. Mark leads us through the volital world of politics and guerrilla warfare in his fight for right. "The Treasure of Silustani" allows an insite into the cultural and political influences from internal and external elements shaping the development of South America. This book has diverse avenues of interest for the reader; written with directness and compassion for his characters. Anyone interested in off-road travel, history, politics, romance, or adventure will find something to enjoy.

The book is dated but fascinating. It introduces the notion that much of what we argue about is really not an argument about facts but one about definitions. It is fascinating also to note the players in the 1930s and to see what their predictions became. A wonderful introduction to semantics with the caution that if you let an enemy select the terms of the argument, he has already won it.

Sixty-five and a widower, retired New York City homicide detective Nicholas Chase enjoys owning and running the Happy Smoking Ground, a Cambridge, Massachusetts shop. He becomes excited to learn that Melvin Chandler, multimillionaire owner of Cigars Smokers magazine, plans a book signing of his new autobiography at Nick's store. Not everyone is happy over Melvin's appearance. The Stuff Out Smoking group hates the symbol that Melvin represents and plans to disrupt the proceedings.

The day Melvin arrives at Nick's store, a riot breaks out but no one is seriously hurt. That night at the Mayflower, a maid notices a fire in Melvin's room, puts it out, and sees that the occupant died. With Nick's urgings, the police consider murder with a member of SOS as the prime suspect. However, Nick remembers what Melvin told him about the index in his book containing his most likely killer.

The third "Nothing Satisfies Like a Good Cigar" mystery is an entertaining police procedural that fans will enjoy because, though no longer a cop, Nick is a key member of the investigative team. The story line works because Nick and his cohorts, especially Professor Woolley, seem genuine so that when the star begins his own inquiries they seem real. Though a red herring or two add little to the plot except trying to unnecessarily fool the reader, UP IN SMOKE is a superb tale, but my spouse still needs to step outside when he puffs on that cigar.

Harriet Klausner

This book is a pretty good primer on XML. I bought it to learn about XML Schemas (XSDs) and XML Transformations (XSLTs). I read about a third of the book thoroughly, and haven't read any other XML books (yet).

The author's tone and pace are great. The back of the book says that the author is an experienced trainer, and it shows in the book. I have seen many a technical book that talks down to its audience, and this isn't one of them. If you're actually learning the subject and not just browsing, you won't be skimming through pages of fluff. The book doesn't assume that you've read three other books covering the subject already, or assume that you have a Master's in Comp Sci.

The book's coverage is remarkably broad and recent (as of March 2003 anyway). The author doesn't seem to have any bias towards any particular language or OS, and presents his examples in every language you're likely to want to use. There are primer-style review questions and exercises at the end of each chapter, and they are actually useful.

In general, the author does a very good job of explaining the subject. I didn't give the book five stars because in my opinion that level should be reserved for later revisions of books written by the acknowledged leaders in their fields. For a first cut of close to a thousand pages, this is excellent.

A couple shortcomings -- the example files aren't available online as of this writing, and I wish that the XSL Transformations chapter more explicitly described how the processor processes a template.

This book is for programmers with substantial experience with OLAP tools with syntactical development capabilities. Experienced programmers who may not have used OLAP technology but who have a good grasp of advanced technical issues related to report generation will benefit from the book too.

The book is written in a dense academic style with poor organization. (You will see this right away in their first chapter when they start discussing more esoteric design issues while giving the reader minimal context as to why they bring up these points at that time.) However, the authors know their stuff so readers experienced in the areas just described will be able to muddle through.

As a side note, this book is fascinating in a way the authors may not have intended. Microsoft, in this person's opinion, has been quite successful in selling developer technology (e.g., Visual Basic, SQL Server, Access) where a developer with a small to medium amount of knowledge of the specific technology can go pretty far without "plateauing". This book, which is subtly critical of the product, describes a product where that plateau is hit relatively quickly. It is very odd that an OLAP product, which most developers will not use every day, is designed this way. Similarly, this design rules out this tool as something for the non-IT "power user" to use for developing anything more than relatively simple applications. - Anyway, it would have been very useful if the authors would have been more overt in their criticism of the product. Yes, it might have been biting a hand that's feeding them but in the long run it would strengthen the technology.

OLAP is a very large topic by itself. No single book can adequately cover everything that everyone wants. The authors did an extremely good job of covering the topic while adding enough detail so that both novices and advanced users will find it extremely useful. The beginner may need to read it several times to grasp the concepts, but it is definitely worth the time and money. I haven't found anything even close that covers MS OLAP Services. If you are using OLAP Services or plan to, you need this book.

This book is what you really want if you are serious about developing using Microsoft Analysis Services. Today with Microsoft Analysis Services ranking as the most widely implemented OLAP/analysis solution this is the best source to get started on Microsoft OLAP services from none other than Erik Thomsen the OLAP guru and George Spofford. The authors were kind enough to answer readers queries by email that makes a big difference to somebody getting into a new technology. The book points the strengths and limitations thereby preparing you to have workarounds for the limitations. I rate 5 stars for the completeness, presentation, honesty and responsiveness of the authors. They do not try to sell a product to you but provide the technology - a very small breed you find these days you will bang your head for days with a product for a limitation that was not known and later learn to live with it but here you know upfront what they are and how to avoid them through proper design and implementation. My only request to the authors when Microsoft SQL Server - Yukon the next major release of SQL Server which will be available in 3 months time will redefine and make SQL Server more stronger in database, OLAP, ETL & data mining segments I would appreciate if the authors post a electronic appendixes to the book to explain the new features in Analysis services and MDX in the new release of SQL Server.

There really isn't much to say about Chief Justice Rehnquist's book. _Grand Inquests_ is an inquiry into the impeachments of Justice Chase and President Johnson but the inquiry is done without any real depth or serious historical research. It's a bland recounting of basic facts of the cases that, as Richard Bernstein has already pointed out, ignores most of the relevant studies of this subject. Basically Rehnquist presents a great deal of the immediate detail but fails to place the events firmly in the context of the times. Also he regularly adds in completely irrelevant material, such as in the discussion of Chase's actions as a trial judge he cites his experience in litigation during the 1950s and 60s, which can have practically no bearing on the subject of the trial procedures of 1800. If you're looking for a long winded presentation of the details of individual charges and descriptions of testimony heard by the Senate during these trials than you may enjoy this book. Otherwise any competent constitutional history can provide just as good a discussion in only about ten pages.

I reviewed this book for the JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY when it first appeared, and nothing that has happened in the seven years since 1992 has changed my mind. Chief Justice Rehnquist writes clearly and well, but his research and historical perspective are sadly outdated. For example, he accepts the hoary myth that there was no good reason at all to consider Andrew Johnson an appropriate target for impeachment, despite Michael Les Benedict, THE IMPEACHMENT AND TRIAL OF ANDREW JOHNSON (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), a fine study showing that Johnson deliberately violated many Congressional civil-rights and Reconstruction statutes validly enacted over his veto, that he also sought to gut efforts to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, and that ultimately he deliberately provoked the 1868 attempt to remove him from office. Moreover, Rehnquist's analysis of the impeachment and trial of Justice Samuel Chase fails to situate it in the context of the previous year's impeachment, conviction, and removal of U.S. District Judge John Pickering, or the larger battle between Jeffersonian Republicans and Federalists over the control of the nation's judiciary -- a context without which the Chase impeachment is all but impossible to understand. Readers seeking light on this subject should consult Richard E. Ellis, THE JEFFERSONIAN CRISIS: COURTS AND POLITICS IN THE YOUNG REPUBLIC (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971; Norton paperback, 1973).

Chief Justice Rehnquist's book extols executive and judicial independence -- unexceptional and unexceptionable positions, to be sure -- but he also implicitly denounces the actions of democratically-elected legislatures -- a position more open to question, even as it is consistent with much of his constitutional jurisprudence as shown in Sue Davis, JUSTICE REHNQUIST AND THE CONSTITUTION (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).

Ultimately, perhaps, readers may value this book for its potential illumination of the presiding officer over the Senate's trial of President Clinton, but it adds little or nothing to our understanding of the history and law of the impeachment process. -- Richard B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School

It's obvious to the reader that Chief Justice Rehnquist has a good command of the subject he is discussing, which are the political and the historical implications of two very important impeachment decisions in the U.S. My only criticism was really that the book delves into a lot of history and one begins to wonder why, but then the relavence to the impeachments is made clearer as the reader progresses through the book. History enthusiasts may find it somewhat redundant in that respect, but the conclusions are well drawn and the American political system is shown for what it has always been- alive with partisanship and designed, through the constitution, to put at least a small roadblock to allowing one branch of government or party from completely dominating.

ASP is not as simple as HTML. Speaking from experience, I can say learning ASP can be frustrating. For example, not all web hosting sites will support ASP. Still, in my experience, ASP from Scratch does a good job introducing the beginner to the subject. Before devoting too much time to ASP development, it would be prudent to ask the hosting service how their servers handle interactive programming. Once you know for certain AS Pages are supported you can get started in earnest and "ASP from Scratch" is a good tool to start with. To use this book, you should have a familiarity with HTML. Nicholas Chase walks the reader through the interactivity of ASP from simple to complex very well. The book is well organized and his writing is clear and understandable. Still, due to security and other issues, a web hosting site may require a programmer to use some site specific syntax. Again, a few good questions to the web host's technical support people will serve the reader well. Overall, I can recommend this book to any serious ASP programmer. There are a few typos that the author has corrected and posted at his web site. There aren't many, but a few minutes to insert these corrections before you get started will make your use of the book easier. If you take the time to read and study Mr. Chase's work, you'll learn a lot about ASP's. I have. RJones

I personally love "by example" books and this book is certainly that. What better way to learn than having ASP concepts explained in the context of an actual web-site? Nicholas Chase has done an excellent job in defining what you are going to do, explaining how to do it, and then stepping you through the explanation. It's a perfect starting point for learning ASP and VBScript.

An excellent and productive beginning!

With all the anti-Microsoft sentiment flying around these days, few of us appreciate and understand the joke. Make it simple, dummy! It is easy to make it hard, but very difficult to make things simple. And, in the world of simplicity, NT is above UNIX, ASP is above pearl or JSP.

In line with the 'keep it simple!' philosopy(which actually makes your rich as well), is Nicholas Chase. His book, Active Server Pages 3.0 from scratch, has allowed me to be productive in interacting with my web server and databases within days. If you are interested in being productive very fast, Nick's book is the one. People don't have the time for cryptic codes and gigantic books, they have business to run. This book will definitly allow you to do just that.

The pen is surely mightier than the sword!

While the author does an admirable job of thoroughly outlining one particular version of the history of the ecological/conservancy movement and of the fallacious assumptions in the popular spiritually-overtoned meanings of "ecology" and "ecosystem" within the USA, obvious flaws in this book include the lack: of evidence for his own assertions, of positive elements in the history, of any alternative suggestions to the efforts he critiques, and of any acknowledged culpability for man due to man's science-enhanced unnatural fecundity and destructiveness or man's innate avarice.

While Chase does an admirable job here of blending a whole lot of intellectual history with a modern clash of ideology, one can't help but wonder who he is actually writing this for. At times insightful, others discursive, but always readable, it seems that the main point of this book is to sway the fencesitters and romantics in the big cities to not be so quick in sending a check upon viewing a demonstration on the evening news. Ultimately, Chase shows his hand by portraying the loggers of the Northwest as the victims, while the 'Earth First!ers' are their hedonistic nemesis bent on growing marijuana and making love in their idealized wilderness. These nefarious 'eco-terrorists' are the bad guys here, and the poor loggers clinging to the vestiges of family values are the tragic heroes of perseverence. Not exactly the critical analysis one would hope for. Nevertheless, if the reader transcends the obvious bias of the author (which seems to stem from left-over dissatisfaction and anger with liberalized 60's university politics) there are other, deeper messages well worth noting.

The main strength lies in his analysis of ecological 'science' and uncovering many of its inherant fallacies. The reader will do well to expand this theme in taking from this lengthy tome the lesson that far from being based on immutable laws, Science as a whole is as subjective as philosophy. Indeed, Science is in large part determined and shaped by philosophy. As such, while Chase spends much time debunking the environmentalists by discrediting the foundations of ecology, he ultimately hurts his own thesis by conveniently appropriating Science in justifying the plight of the logger. It is a catch-22 of sorts that Chase hides well, but he can not escape from it entirely.

All in all, it is a good read and certainly houses something for all. Those simpathetic to the logging industry will find little to disagree with, while those whose hearts lie in the ideal of pristine wilderness will come away feeling as though they've been chastized by their stodgy uncle. Somewhere in the middle is where this book has the most value as, despite the ubiquitous timbre of distaste towards environmentalists, it offers an intriguing critique of man's overdependance on 'Science' and his ability to manipulate it for whatever his or her ideals demand. Ultimately, the recognition that Science is inherantly a human construct shaped by our own capacities of comprehension demands that we stop and reconsider our motives for either cutting or saving trees, rather than simply relying on some numbers to make those decisions for us. That is the message that makes this book worth reading: Think, people, think....then act.

Alston Chase has written a wonderful book for those who want to know the truth about the environment, it's myths and realities. This is a scholarly book written like an adventure novel. It is obviously well researched and documented. . He tears through the myths and pseudo science and romanticism which has taken a theory bordering on a new science to a quasi religious/political philosphy. A man with impeccable credentials and the facts he cuts through sentiment and the dangerous dogmatic ideology of ecology looking for what the truth is re the environment. What he uncovers is a tyrannical mind set based on little more then romanticized nature worship. Without a clear and logical thought process in the search for the truth it will be difficult for future environmentalism to be relegated to anything but a "know nothing" philosophy demanding strict obedience to unproven bad science which in the end will work against saving the environment. He is right on when he says what we need are "livable communities", not enclaves of nature crammed next sprawling development. He also suggests that modern environmentalism is its own worst enemy and the very thing it does not want, unchecked development, is what it will get unless it becomes less romantic and more realistic. I have read the book 3 times and get something new each time. For those who want the truth and not propaganda. Be prepared to have some of your favorite environmental theories blown away. Enjoy the ride. I did.