The game references in BCO2 are from the late 1980's. In an age when opening theory seems to change weekly, one cannot afford to rely on old news to prepare for an opening repertoire. Keep your old BCOs -- they contain interesting ideas that will be deleted from future editions, but if you must buy it, don't pay too much for it.

Published in 1989. Authored by Garry Kasparov and Raymond Keene. Certainly not the most up to date material on the wide variety of openings it covers, but it does explain each opening rather well. Over 400 pages with a good Index at the back. I have referenced this book dozens of times and have found it very helpful. Contains several variations for all the main openings.

An openings book is always a gamble because the moment you buy it, it is already out-dated. So why even bother buying this old book? Because it contains knowledge that is still current. However, as with ANY other openings book: Use a database to check your analyses, why not?, a chess engine.

Nowadays I still go back to this book to check variations in my pet lines or obscure things I face from time to time and the BCO's still serves me well. What I like the most is its impecable format. Any variation you wish to find can be found efficiently and the evaluations are fair.

Is it a good book to learn openings? No, it is not... This is an outdated encyclopedic manual about openings.

Is it worth buying the book? Yes, if you don't mind it being outadated... See, some lines that are no longer fashionable are not included in the so up-to-date manuals and what if those are your bread and butter? This happens with BCO's in my case... And, since I check it with databases I don't see a problem with BCO's...

This book is really good. Usually, I give 5 stars to Nancy Drew books, but I thought this book could've had more mystery in it. It was *very* suspenseful, though, and it had a good plot. But, honestly, it didn't interest me very much. I got bored with it after a while, because there wasn't much mystery. But read it anyways. You might like it!

i liked this book because it was VERY suspenseful and full of surprises. usually i give 5 stars to most of the nancy drew books that i read, but this one probably just deserved 3 stars. the reason is because to me, it didn't have much mystery in it. i mean, it did have mystery, but honestly, i just don't think that it had enough. but, every person is different, so read the book if you want to and see for yourself how you like it!

Nancy is on a tour of Europe and discovers that their leader is on a secret mission to help 10 refugee children. This is more of a spy mystery but it was very good anyway.

will anyone tell me the brief summary of "Cutting Edge". My e mail address is yousufs@gem.net.pk

I WILL BE VERY THANKFUL..... YOUSUF

I really liked this book a lot! It all starts with a girl falling on the ice. The fall shows up to be a result of a sabotage: someone had dropped something on the ice! Nancy starts to investigate the whole thing, and soon she understands that there is more then a sabotage. But those "accidents" becomes more and more dangerous. A girl, Yoko Hamara, is chrashing into the board with her head first after a triple Lutz. Soon Nancy understands that someone has removed the screws in Yoko's skatingshoe! It was an attempted murder! I strongly recommend this book.

Nancy and George are really excited about being able to go to Chicago to watch the ice-skating champonionships, because of George's boyfriend, Kevin Davis-a sportscaster, inviting them. Eveything is really fun until the excitement takes a nasty turn. A skater is severly injured on the ice. Unfortuneately, that is only the beginning of the apparent sabotage of the contest. Stolen computer chips, stolen skates, and even attempted murder are just a few of the things happening in this case. All evidence points to a skater named Trish O' Connell, but she doesn't really seem like a culprit. Nancy better figure out the solution to the case before this dangerous saboteur does any more!!!!!!!!!!!-Preethi

If you like Nancy Drew and dancing,this book is definitely for you! Even if you don't like dancing or ballet, it is awesome!It is a can't-put-it-down book, like most of the Nancy Drew Mysteries.There are some clues and suspects that don't mix and it's hard to try to figure it out on your own. This book is really good and I really reccomend it!

I really enjoyed this book because it was a very exciting mystery. I had a hard time putting it down. It had an amazing outline to it. I still have a hard time believing that one person could think of a story like this one.
One of the main characters was named Nancy Drew. I liked her a lot. She was the one, with some help from her friends, who solved the mystery. She never gave up, even if she ran out of ideas to solve the mystery. Nancy always kept going. That is the main reason I liked her.
I think the best part of this book is when Nancy Drew and her friends figure out who is doing the crime and why. You will never guess who it is.
The ending of this book was very exciting to me. It was amazing how it all tied together at the end. The ending was also a little disappointing. The story stoped at a bad place. Even though the mystery was over I wish it would have kept going for a little more longer.
I personally think that anyone who is interested in a great mystery story should try this book. I am glad I did.

Follow Nancy and her friends as they solve a mystery at a dance school. Who's lieing, and who's truthful? This book will keep you in suspense! Figure it out when you read The Scarlet Slipper Mystery!

Nancy finds a clonation of her herself in trouble, and go to the resuce, not knowing she is entering a dangerous mystery.
WHAT DID I LIKE
I like the parts when when she save tersea then helps her then causes troubles to tersea attacker. I like when the author dscribes the actions everyone does with in this book.
WHAT DID I NOT LIKE
I dislike all the parts when the villan takes over.
RECOMMANDATIONS
If the book wasn't too much of a teenager book, people would like to read it.

This Nancy Drew has more politics in it, so if you're into that kind of stuff, you'd probably like this book. There's a lot of action and suspense throughout the story. And if you like this one, be sure to read its sequel, "Pure Poison", #29. It's even better than this one!

Nancy bears a striking resemblence to tennis star Theresa Montenegro- and for this, her services as a detective are required by a senator. I enjoy politics, and this is a political Nancy Drew quite unlike others. The romance is minimal, the danger great, and there is a politic-related death. It's a quite good book, but I wouldn't recommend it for those under the age of nine or ten, depending on your child's maturity level.

I expected a lot more form Ms.Keene's creations. This title is O.K. I feel there's isn't much of importance given to the mystery ( is there really a mystery????)Well, the book talks about Nancy's feelings for her father. She is not crazy about his grilfriend-Avery, and feels uncofortable, while she was in her own home!! And she meets Ned, who underatands her fellings, while Jake doesn't. Well , though jake can be more understanding, Nancy should get back with Ned.Thats what i personally feel.

The book was really great! Jake didn't understand her, so he was really never right for her. But ya' know who is?! FRANK HARDY!!! If Nancy would only pair up with him....

I think that Nancy's father having a girl friend is sweet.He's moving on.Can't Nancy be happy for him? At least Jake under stands,but Nancy's being to immature to under stand what he's saying.Over all it's a good book.

This book is an attempt to create an opening repetoire for the developing player which does not require hours and hours of study, yet provides the aggressive player with reasonable attacking chances.

In my opinion, the author succeeds for the most part. It is very difficult for a book this size to provide a complete discussion of the nuances in each of the opening systems presented. The approach in the book is to open each chapter with some "light talk" about the variation chosen, followed by a few representative master level games.

Players rated below 1300-1400 may not have developed the requisite skills to understand the material presented, while players rated above 1800-1900 will find that the book doesen't cover the variations in enough detail to fully prepare them face opponents rated 2000+.

Like most chess books, there are a few typos, but in general I feel that this book is a good value for a player fitting the attacking profile rated 1400-1800.

This book is a reasonable attempt to piece together an opening repertoire that on the one hand is aggressive, but on the other hand does not require 100's of hours of preparation time.

I actually used the variations suggested in this book for a period of about 2.5 years in actual tournament play. I had very decent results (I am currently rated around 1800 USCF).

The lines selected are fairly forcing and unbalanced. There are a few places where the book is somewhat weak. I noted the same problems as one of the other reveiwers in the section on the pirc/modern defense. (There is a game that leaves you hanging in a terrible position, but seems to imply that you winning - it makes no sense at all. In fact, the side they are trying to convince you to play ends up losing very badly in the actual game.)

Other than that, I must say that the authors really have done a decent job of trying to "fit" a repertoire within the parameters ascribed.

I would estimate that it only took me around 5-10 hours to play over all of the games and footnotes in the book. I remembered them fairly easily, and went on to win a very respectable number of games.

I would recommend the book to players rated between around 1400 to around 1800. I don't feel that there are enough notes for players below around 1400 to really understand why certain moves are made. For players over 1800, much deeper preparation than this book provides would be required.

In particular, I have had incredible results with the openings chosen from the black side. They are openings that I would not have even considered playing had I not read this book. (Scandinavian and Chigoran).

There are better, there are much worse. This is not a bad addition to your library.

This book taught me how to prepare an opening repertoire. First I adopted all the suggested opening lines for black and white, and then I improved and accommodated them to my own playing style. It is a book I consult regularly. Although I bought this book in 1997, I still keep on reading it. It is a very good book.

Having read Dean King's recommendation (as he is usually accurate), I was expecting something above the average - especially as it is included in a series of Classics...
Sadly, not.
Written in typical 19th Century style, it tends to verbosity and skirting around, instead of coming straight to the point.

Considering that Marryat was a disciple of Cochrane, there is remarkably little action and little detail of that... a few shots are exchanged, the enemy is boarded and the prize is taken in one easy lesson - none of the tension, tactics and strategems that feature so large in other nautical tales. Nor do we get under the skin of any of the characters, there is no fleshing-out of the personalities, so we end up not caring what happens to them.

Our Hero Percival stumbles from one lucky accident to the next in true Victorian story-telling style, but there seems to be no central theme to the plot, apart from his estranged father's aloofness and disguised patronage.

I kept expecting some surprise or twist in the tale, but only the expected happened.

Marryat displays his colors in his usual fashion: "normal" people, real characters, and the tang of salt air in your nostrils as you read.

The unacknowledged son of a post captain, young Percival strives to do his duty to achieve his father's/captain's respect. Adventures ensue.

Easy to read. Less social critique than Mr. Midshipman Easy. Less gruesome reality than The Privateersman. Not his best, but it is still a good yarn!

A truly wonderful British man of war seafaring novel. Marryat is a wonderful story teller. Good characterizations a little mystery. One difference in the Marryat novels is the stories he tells about the pranks that some of the sailors and officers get up to onboard ship and ashore. And of course this is a usual part of shipboard life but the other officers such as O'Brien don't give us as much of this side of life at sea. Some of the pranks had me laughing nearly out of control

Required book, very useful. However explanations can be hard to understand at times. The physical layout of the book is well thought out. It is binded together which would be great if you could fold the pages like a notebook, but unfortunately you cant.

This is an excellent grammar handbook. The sections on "Common Writing Problems" and "The Basics From A to Z" are most useful. Even a well-educated and experienced writer should find it a handy reference to answer grammar or word usage rules that have been forgotten--or never learned. However, some of it is a bit simplistic. We are told "The apostrophe is a small but important mark of punctuation." Which other small marks of punctuation are not important? And are all large marks of punctuation important just because of their size?

If you are politically correct you will especially like this book. It's a celebration that the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-everything America of Bill Clinton's dreams has arrived. You won't find Jack and Jill here. Luigi,Heinrich, Sean and many other western European names are also missing. The examples are about Chayyal, Juana, Shanelle, Mustapha, and La Shonda. Hopefully, the authors will receive a letter from "Conjugates-With-Alacrity" complaining about the lack Lakota Sioux names.

PC gender politics are evident in the examples "Captain Janeway found the universe to be bigger than she had thought" and "Darla left the house because of her husband's violence." Four pages are devoted to "Biased Uses of Language."

There is an entire section devoted to "ESL (English as a Second Language) Writers," who are all immigrants. Little world symbols throughout the book highlight points of special concern to ESL writers. Bad grammar is "nonstandard English" rather than bad grammar. Those who use plantation English like "She love him until he die" are admonished to "include the standard endings when you are writing." How about when speaking during a job interview? Apparently the authors would rather be PC about not offending those who speak this way than to condemn this as bad grammar on all occasions.

Much of this book is for students but that is not revealed in the title. The sections on writing school papers and ESL are about half the book. Those extra pages and the plastic spiral binding are probably why it costs about twice as much as a grammar handbook should cost. If you need a book that will remain open at the desired page while you use both hands to cook or repair your motorcycle then it may be worth paying for spiral binding but it is unnecessary in a grammar book.

Unless you plan to carry it around a campus in your backpack, you would do well to compare this to The Chicago Style Manual of Style before buying.

I just started my Masters program and found this book helpful in my writing style. I found the book easy to reference material with and it made sense of things so that you could understand easily what the author was explaining. I recommend this book for all levels of education.

This review concerns the original 1940 edition. The trunk which Nancy takes with her on a cruise to South America, along with a similar trunk owned by another passenger, appear to be at the center of a mystery. This book was alright, but I found that it really didn't have a mystery to it until the last few chapters. The first part of the book concentrates on the efforts of the mother of one passengers to keep Nancy from sailing. Ultimately, the mystery is somewhat dull and predictable and the book lacks much action. The book is probably worth reading, but I doubt that it will be one of many people's favorites.

This is one of the best Nancy Drews! the other one is the Tolling Bell. Anyway, in this one, Nancy meets Nelda Detwiler (N. D., same anishiles) and she has been acused of stealing a dimond braclet! A mysterieous trunk appears that LOOKS like Nancy's but is not. (They can't find Nancy's, so she has to use Bess, George and Nelda's close) Anyway, I can't tell you much more. Oh, and they are all on a cruse ship, so Nancy has to solve the mystery before it's over. BUY THIS BOOK OR GET IT SOMEHOW!!

I have read many of Nancy Drew books and like this book. Although this is not in my top list but it still good. This book is worth to read.