This book has some amusing moments and maybe a couple of real laughs, but after a bit it gets monotonous. The writing doesn't really flow naturally and it becomes difficult to read. I prefer Vicki Iovine's books and sense of humor.

I was Jan's undergraduate advisor at the University of Connecticut in the mid 1960s. Even then she had a keen, quick-witted sense of humor. It is nice to see that after 35 plus years, three marriages, two divorces, two sons, and two grandkids, Jan has not lost her "edge." She simply has that much more material with which to work!! This is definitely her best book yet. A good read, even for males.

This was a difficult book for me to read. It is in the first person style. I can hear their voices. I did an interview three years ago. It is on tape. Yet i can not listen to it.. Such a difficult time in our youth, in our lives. I recommend this book. This one voice speaks for so many.

it made quite an impact on me. emotionally draining. how Alina kept her sanity is remarkable. Stark did not try to editorialize. instead as painful as it was, he let her tell it in her own way, regardless of syntax. i have never read anything like it...in only three hours i experienced an unforgettable voice.

This is a very comprehensive text. However, make no bones about it; the prose reflects a highly technical style of writing. If you have limited knowledge about differential equations, logic, and statistics, you will struggle to stay engrossed past the first few chapters. Hard reading is an understatment. I was hoping that this would be the book that could boil down what real options are and give me a straightforward approach to their applications. Reading this I feel like I am back in an astrophysics class at MIT.

This is an excellent book. I had been initially surprised by the critical reviews for Copeland et al. and Kulatilaka et al. (Copeland, especially, has strong credentials,) but now, having looked at those books, sadly I have to agree. Then I bought this book and found a gem. The approach is fresh and we are not just presented with the same familiar textbook routes; the best part of which is that real problems are not hammered into available but inappropriate analytical solutions. The structure of the book is unusual too: 4 chapters with the foundations (including some maths but fully accessible to managers - good diagrams and plenty of intuition), 6 chapters of case studies (one, "Dixpin" by Stark, written to link with Dixit & Pindyck, the others new and based on consulting/research - nice to see non-standard cases and also more than one underlying variable!), 4 more chapters (the title of the last, "Summary for executives", speaks volumes about the authors' helpful approach, even if you're not an executive!), and 5 appendices + glossary, etc. The appendices and cases are written in the same style as the chapters of main text and the result is a very flexible resource which, I think, will be helpful for beginners, thro' 2nd year MBA and up to quite advanced practitioners.

Even when standard techniques are shown they are given innovative explanations. For example, see pages 266-269 in Newton's Appendix 4, on numerical solution, which I believe is a genuinely new way of taking the well-known mathematical relationship between the Black-Scholes partial differential equation and the heat conduction equation but explaining it using common sense appreciation of heat and temperature (amazingly, he manages to obtain the combined call option payoff and stock price diagrams using a thought experiment in heat/temperature which I could actually understand!). In this single appendix are both the intuition for understanding the evolution of option prices and the details of finite difference calculations which any reader can readily reproduce. His explanation of the random walk for beginners (Appendix 5) is the best I have ever seen (I even liked the very British story about a drunken sailor taking a random walk near Her Majesty's Royal Naval Dockyard - fortunately, the book does not often digress with funny stories, but this one helped).

I am always wary of books with many co-authors (this one has seven) but here you could believe that one author wrote the whole book. Howell is the editor and presumably the author of the chapters which are not attributed; other parts are by different combinations of the seven. All are in the Real Options Group at Manchester Business School, England (Patel is at Cambridge) and that may explain the cohesion of the text.

In many ways this book is technically ahead of the game but you can tell that these guys are at a business school rather than a conventional university department - they know how to communicate with managers as well as students.

A good book, to be sure, but not one of Stark's best. Parker is hired to plan a robbery focusing on an entire town. The heist goes off without a hitch, but unforseen circumstances come into play, and Parker has to fix the problem his own way. About equal with Backflash and Firebreak.

Richard Stark ( Donald E Westake) gives us the ultimate in heists with this terrific early Parker novel. When Parker hears of a plan to rob an entire town, he's leery of the inside man and the number of thieves needed to pull off the caper. Nevertheless he is brought into the scheme and together with 11 other fellow thieves, they pull off the dream caper until the double cross inevitable in a Parker novel. In the meantime, the inside man acts on the plan that he formed for vengeance. Grofield (Stark's actor/thief) falls for a hostage and a teen leaving a night of passion at his girlfriend's after curfew also throw monkey wrenches into the story. When the team makes it to their hideout after several deaths and an inferno, it further unravels as the group waits out the police search. This is Stark at his finest. Granted it's a little dated and the plan wouldn't work today. The townfolk have to place out-of-town calls through operators at a central switchboard and the switchboard operators are covered by the team. Imagine the problems in today's cellular world. Nevertheless, this pulls together several of Parker's cronies from previous capers and introduces new ones. We get the usual scenes of plan, payoff,doublecross and Parker's efforts to escape the consequences of the doublecross. These are set pieces in any Parker novel and Stark works them like a pro. If you're just discovering Parker through his new capers, this is a must have from the original series.

This is a good book for parents who are anxious about their children's sexual development and who want them to have strong morals, but who aren't sure they know just how to go about doing it. Stark assumes parents can get the "plumbing lesson" elsewhere, and focuses on the most important parts of sex education: creating an open, honest atmosphere in which children may grow, surrounded by well-modeled examples of loving behavior. To this end, the book asks parents to take a hard look at their own lives: are you providing a good example for your children? If you aren't, how can you change that? In addition to short explanations about developmental stages (from infancy through teen years) and answering a few sample questions, Stark provides a framework on which families can build a healthy attitude about sex.

Patty Stark has 2 teenagers (who I know personally) and has used her experience as an approachable mom to help other parents keep the lines of communication open. All too often today, when sex= genital pleasure, our young people loose out on the spiritual aspects of sex that make it truely unitative and life-enhancing. Patty tells parents to give their children more than just "the talk." (and to speak of these issues more than just once!) What makes this book so different is its focus on what is healthy and normal (like what a fun date looks like instead of fixating on date rape, encouraging good dating habits instead of listing all the contraceptive options, stages in a healthy relationship as opposed to self-gratification). I give this book less than five stars because Patty, since the book was published, has changed her views on mastrubation.

To know something about long distance hiking, is to know Henry Stark is accurate when he presents the scenario between himself and his partners in Sierra Story. What was it in their personalities that attracted them to each other in the first place, and why such unspoken animosity and rancor that leads to the dissolution of their friendship? Mr. Stark's assessment of national park policy on black bear management, is also an interesting read. They have turned what is instinctively a shy and solitary species, into a scrap food dependent, pack traveling, harassing animal. You will enjoy reading Sierra Story. The author's lessons on adapting can be applied to a new job, new home, or nature's environment. Long distance hikers speak of a "brain drain" during their trek. Their mind clears of all it's material encumbrances, focusing only on the essentials. Mr. Stark's epiphany, on a pine scrub precipice in the Sierras, was enough to so change his life that the details are clear over twenty years later.

I really enjoyed this book, right from the opening paragraph which hooked me and left me wanting more. There is an exciting mix of adventure and history as Stark and two acquaintances set off on an expedition to the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. The initial plan of a routine hiking holiday is soon disrupted as the three inexperienced friends face a series of hazardous events, both animal and environmental, in an extremely remote area. Before long, it's a quest for survival, of self- preservation of both body and mind.

Intertwined with the thrilling adventure narrative are the author's personal thoughts and feelings on the foundations of friendships (which are certainly put to the test on the trip) and marriage, of the environment and its preservation. Alone in the wilderness, he has time to reflect. This makes very interesting reading and certainly made me assess situations in my own life.

The subject matter will be of interest to a wide range of readers. Stark's picturesque descriptions of nature are appealing to all ages. There is plenty of background on the places visited to feed the historian. Conservationists will empathise with the plight of areas of natural beauty which have stood untouched for generations but which are now threatened by commercialism. Also, expeditioners beware: the three friends made certain errors in preparation for their trip which novice hikers would be advised to take note of!

All in all, a gripping tale with plenty of food for thought. The narrative is illustrated with some nice stills which give you a good feel for the events over the course of the trip; although I thought that they would be even better in colour.

Having taken a spacecraft course that utilized Fortescue and Stark as its primary text, I can say that I thought it was a horrible choice.

While the bulk of the material is an excellent overview of the topic, introducing subject matter in all areas (attitude control, propulsion, orbit manuevers etc.), the theoretical proof in the text leave much to be desired.

The text offers virtually no examples of the math it introduces, and thus, makes it very diffcult to apply any of the information that it presents. It is well developed for almost liberal arts type reading, but I did not feel it served very well as a science and engineering text.

I am about fifteen and I am very interested in engineering, so I bought this book. I will tell you that this has tought me so much about engineering and the importance of math. It contains equations for everything from life support systems to propulsion systems. I would reccomend this for anyone interested in working in the field of spacecraft engineering or just has 70 bucks to spend on an interesting insight into what it takes to build a spacecraft. I have talked to some engineers and they told me that this book will get you on your way to a carrer in this field. It covers all systems and in great detail even if you want to build your own minicraft(science fair, worked too. Well that is all.

The perfect complement to be reading during our hiking trip in Lycia, spring, 2002. Challenged by the meagerness of the historical record of Alexander's progress along the Lycian coast, Stark set out in the 1950s to retrace and discover his most likely trail. Alexander had come to Xanthos, then after starting to the north, towards Gordium, suddenly made a sharp change of direction towards current day Antalya. Stark travels the route in reverse, driving from Antakya to Antalya. Today, several modern roads allow easy access to the historic sites she visited - Selge, Termessus, Phaselis, Phellus, Xanthos and others, but she journeyed by jeep and donkey, often on indistinct tracks. She mixes historical ruminations with the journal of her travels among Turkey's ever-hospitable people. Some of the things she described now seem as far away as Alexander, but much of her description serves as an apt guide for today's traveler especially those who get off the roads and walk along the recently created long distance path, The Lycian Way. ...

She speaks of Alexander as the first to dream of a united world "We have wandered to the unity of the world from the city state which was all that the Lycians could have known when the Macedonians came. These valleys had a culture of their own since the Bronze Age, but the most they had reached was a federation of separate units, which the Lycian League seem to have invented independently in the valley of the Xanthus. It was efficient enough to maintain their freedom... It was easier to love such places than the union of mankind. This fact is, I suppose, the origin of all wars and most of our troubles; and one can only attain the more universal view by travelling in body or in spirit and noticing how deeply most places are the same. This Alexander did; and the Transition must have been working in his mind along the Lycian coast, with the possibly unexpected kindness of a half-oriental world about him."

For a far less generous and romanticized view of Alexander, check out Victor Hanson's histories (his basic view is that 'adolescent thug' is too kind)

I got this book by mistake, because one of Donald Westlake's pseudonyms is "Richard Stark." With this hilarious operatic travesty, the real Richard Stark has far surpassed the man behind his namesake. Let me explain.

One of the funniest Westlake novels is "Dancing Aztechs." Perhaps five times in the course of a first reading I had to put it down because I was laughing so hard I couldn't go on. "Screaming and Yelling," by way of comparison, reduced me to the same helpless state two or three times *per chapter*.

If you're musical you'll love it; if you're not, you'll love it anyhow. Buy, buy, BUY!!

(Carping cavil: Stark needs a proofreader. The typesetter uses "principle" for "principal" and "de rigeuer" for "de rigueur"; punctuation is annoyingly random, with plenty of unbalanced commas and sentences reaching full stops before arriving at their verbs. This is distracting. Often the reader must stop reading to figure out what he meant. I'm sending the author my own proofread copy, which I hope his publishers incorporate in the next printing.)

--Anders R. Sterner

In the 20th century the airplane became the primary platform for aerial reconnaissance, and the experiments of earlier years developed into sophisticated strategic operations. This book details several of the most important operations in World War II from the perspective of the impact of photo-reconnaissance and imagery intelligence on operations. World War II operations covered include the Dambusters Raid, Salerno, Market Garden, Monte Cassino, the Normandy landings, the hunt for and destruction of Germany's V-weapons, and other episodes. Each operation is described in detail, with all the relevent information on how photo intelligence was (or was not) used to influence the mission. "Allied Photo Reconnaissance of World War II" provides a detailed analysis of the nexus of PHOTINT and operational planning and execution. It would serve well as a class text in teaching photo interpretation. If this volume has a major defect, it is the absence of discussion of camouflage, denial, and deception; it is recommended that this volume be read along with Roy M. Stanley II (Col, USAF, ret.), "To Fool a Glass Eye: Camouflage Versus Photoreconnaissance in World War II."
"Allied Photo Reconnaissance of World War II" identifies all the air surveillance and photo reconnaissance units associated with each operation. Illustrated with ground level photography, 200 b/w original air reconnaissance photographs and detailed operational maps, "Allied Photo Reconnaissance of World War II" is a valuable addition to the literature on aerial surveillance, intelligence operations, and the history of World War II.