WOW!!! The pictures of the roses in this book are unmatched by any other publication. I have for many years been a Hybrid Tea Rose fan, but after reading this book and after visiting several gardens with Austin's roses in them, I have been converted. I just ordered over 20 bushes and I cannot wait for their arrival next spring. I agree with a previous reviewer who commented that the writing is self serving at times, but Austin's passion for his plants can be understood. Austin's comments about group plantings and his recommendations concerning minimiums for plantings of each species, I found invaluable. I believe this book is well worth the price and will win you over to a relatively new breed of rose.

This book is what started my passion for roses and transformed me into a true gardener. I carried the book around with me for days, amazed that nature could create such beautiful flowers. Within two months I was watering my new English Rose garden comprised of 16 roses from the pages of this beautiful book! If you even think you love roses, you must get this book!

This book is a really beautiful book full of glorious photos of Davids Roses. We are given a brief family history on each rose and a rating for the overall assesment and fragrance of them. Full to the brim with color shots, this book would make a terrific gift for anyone who loves roses or as a special treat for yourself.

This novel is somewhat slow reading, perhaps because there seems to be an excess of extraneous details, e.g., you may learn more than you want about baking fruitcakes. On the other hand, some details related to the case never seem to be fully explained. The plot is somewhat transparent for a whodunit, i.e., you can guess the identity of villains before they are exposed.

The setting is London in 1889. Five years earlier a brutal murder had outraged the public. Police were previously criticized for not catching Jack the Ripper. Pressures for an arrest in this case led to the conviction and hanging of a Jewish actor. Anti-semitism had run high with attacks on Jews and Jewish owned businesses. Now questions have been raised.

A Justice who had served on the appeals court for the case is looking into it again. When he dies during a theatre performance, Inspector Thomas Pitt is assigned to investigate, and he re-examines the old case the Justice was reviewing. There is strong pressure not to rock the boat. A reversal in the five-year old case would embarass many people from individual policemen to Justices of the appeals court. Some surprising facts are revealed as the case draws to its conclusion. As a sidelight, Charlotte's maid Gracie acquires a young admirer.

Like other novels in this series, we are provided with a picture of Victorian era society in London. The novel has some amount of violence and some references to sexual encounters.

If you are looking for a good book, I suggest getting this book, because I have only read 2 chapters and I am already captivated! I also suggest a book by Jill Jones, Bloodline, WHICH IS THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!

The murder of a judge is wittnessed by the Pitts. It leads Thomas to open a five year old case, a murder for which a man was hung. Step by step the author leads us through a 19th century maze of prejudices and social barriers. An additional murder ups the stakes. Charlotte has her own problems. her mother has fallen in love with a Jewish actor fifteen years her junior and to make matters worst he is a suspect in the murders. As always Anne Perry is letter perfect in her depiction of the period. Her plot is particularly puzzling. I enjoyed the twists.I highly recommend this book.

I found this book not only boring, but absolutely not suitable for anyone under 18 because of the (to me) gratuitis and explicit sex scenes involving, woman/woman, man/woman threesome, etc. I absolutely had no expectation of this when I began reading. Also, the book is very boring, very little in the way of any "action", mostly a lot of (I presume) the author's philosophy. I skimmed through to the end, in hopes of something interesting occuring, but to no avail. I will not buy any of his books in the future!!

I'm really giving all 3 books in the series the same rating (not just Matadora)since the storyline and quality are pretty seamless across all 3. I simply cannot believe that these books are no longer in print! Martial arts, meditation, gizmos, weapons, revolution, politics, spirituality & sex. What more could you ask for in a series? Steve Perry writes tight, fast, action-packed science fiction. Yet the characters never suffer. The Matadora series gets my highest recommendation.

what a read the man who never misses and matadora absorbing and entertaining .Rowie ktrow@bigpond.com

This is a great book, but it suffers from a few typing errors. For instance, on their tear out guide, the maximum values for floating point variables is listed twice. Other than that, the book presents the material in a well thought out, organized manner.

A very good book for someone beggining Visual C++. The Authors do a good job of keeping your attention and this is the least boring technical book I have ever read. I strongly recommend it for someone wanting to learn Visual C++. I am 14 years old and I read it in three weeks.

this book is excellent for beginners to the world of programming, not just new to C++. it teaches you everything from general concepts of how code works, but it works you up to advanced programs. the layout of the book couldnt be better. it has 12 units (hence the title) divided into sections. the last section in a unit summarizes what you have learned during the unit. anyone that is looking for "the perfect C++ book", this is the one!

This is the sixth novel in the series and Inspector Pitt has to deal with the naked body of a young gentleman found in the sewers in a very bad part of town. The trail leads him into a web of deceit involving homosexual prostitution -- quite a different matter among Society than the usual sort of prostitution -- and accusations leveled against the tutor of the deceased, who is tried and condemned to hang. With Charlotte's help in the drawing rooms, Pitt must try to sort out who did what to whom and then overcome the protectiveness of the families involved in order to prove it. As with the others in this series, Perry has a good deal to say about life in Victorian London away from the realm of polite society.

Perry hits another run with this one. I was guessing until the end. Some with more modern day views might find her references to homosexuality offensive, but taken in an historical context they shouldn't be.

According to the list in the book, this book (copyright 1984) is the fifth in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. And it's the best so far. BLUEGATE FIELDS is complex in both plot and characterization, with distasteful subjects reminiscent of a "Law & Order: SVU" episode. Set in Victorian London at the time when telephones were just beginning to show up in some of the "better" homes, it presents a very strong sense of place and time. The character of Pitt becomes much more filled-out. I liked the way he and Charlotte worked together this time. The plot has tentacles. Hard to put down! A GREAT read!

Link's book is well written and is a very interesting account of one segment of Chinese life during the early years of China's reform process. However, it is also very narrow, looking at the circumstances of the elite intellectuals and occassionally overstating his, or his close Chinese friends, importance or experiences. The book doesn't come to address the conditions or lives of the typical urban citizen of Beijing or any other Chinese city and thus is lacking. It seems Link just took much of his personal interaction with Chinese intellectuals and turned it into a book. Overall, he is successful in capturing the experiences of many Chinese who went overseas to study and returned in the late 1980s, though circumstances have changed a lot since then. Further, he is able to capture much of the discontent among intellectuals which ultimately becomes the base of the Tiananmen protests.

Having spent countless hours over the last six years reading on modern China's predicament as an East Asian Studies major in college, I can't believe I just recently found this book. It's a fresh read, delightfully accessible in execution, intelligent in its treatment of these literati voices, and often profound in its prodding of the historical underbelly, suggesting many points of fissure and acute sensitivity in an often hardened, decayed lining. The book documents and analyzes the opinions of Chinese intellectuals during the relatively open period leading up to the Tiananmen incident in 1989. Link's arranged collection of anecdotes and quotes, along with his own comments, provides insight into a period that will no doubt become more and more significant in the coming years because the questions and issues on the minds and in the words of Chinese intellectuals remain largely unresolved and simmering beneath the happy surface of glorious riches.

One valid criticism of the book made already by another reviewer is the conspicuous paucity of common voices--i.e. voices of those outside of the Chinese intelligentsia. However, in defense of Link's work this objection requires far too much additional background and study to answer. Chinese intellectuals have always enjoyed a privileged position within social and political debates. While the voices of non-intellectuals would give a fuller picture, the focus on intellectuals underscores yet another tension plaguing modern China; that is, the inability of intellectuals to relate to the masses, or their lack of trust in them. This gap was made patently clear during the Tiananmen protests when students dominated the political theatre and often refused the help of, or just simply ignored, the workers.

But taking this premise for granted, Link's work is highly charged with meaning and relevance, even to a much richer China almost a decade and a half later. Most interesting are his explanations of official language, or public language, as opposed to private, personal language. While we may complain to no end of the duplicity, fakeness, and hypocrisy of politicians in the democratic world, it is sobering to think of the degree to which language meaning must be bifurcated in China. How do you make sense of a world where there is the official story, often sweetened or fabricated to suit political ends, the truth of which is defended by the government and military with threats of social alienation or physical harm, and the unofficial story, which can only be shared privately, whispered by friends and neighbors within the safety of their own homes? What does this do to one's perception of reality?

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Link's portrait and feel that it will be a significant piece of history which will continue to inform our thoughts on China as it continues to stumble into its own.

With the recent opening of China's market, it is hard to deny that the Chinese will be major players in the world's economy in the twenty-first century. This book by Perry Link offers an exclusive look into life of the Chinese throughout the 1900's. It examines the culture, history, and politics of China during this period. Link will propose questions (for example, "What are some of the reasons that production was stultified in China during Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution?") and have the intellectuals who were alive during those events answer the questions themselves. It is an extremely effective strategy because not only is it informative, but it is also a page-turner. Moreover, Link gives his own first-hand accounts of experiences he had while living in China. Both the Chinese citizens' and Link's stories can be frightening, disturbing, and enraging, but they are always complete and written in a language that is highly readable. This is a thorough, well-written book by a brilliant professor, but it is also invaluable because few individuals have had the contacts and the language capabilities that would enable them to write a book like this. It cuts through the surface and tells its readers what the Chinese government does not want other people to hear --- the truth.

Having just finished the tedious Next Gen novel Ghost Ship, Perry's Planet was just what the doctor ordered. The Bantam novels in general were much more simple, streamlined affairs than the Pocket novels to follow. No space wasted on character interaction or inner monologues - just a bare-bones story (pun not intended).

Perry's Planet is almost magic in the way it evokes the original series. The novel sounds and feels uncannily like an episode. The plot, like so many of the original series episodes, is a recycled hodge-podge from other episodes, including a Landru-esque society and computer program, and a pacifying virus akin to the spores from "This Side of Paradise." A Klingon death vow starts the novel off with a bang but otherwise does not live up to its promise. Wonderfully concise, Perry's Planet provides a couple of hours worth of mindless, enjoyable entertainment.

The crew of the Enterprise is dead-tired and badly in need of shore leave. As they pick up scientists for transfer, they prepare to head to Starbase 6 for needed rest and repairs. While stopped briefly to make some adjustments to the failing dilithium crystals, they are suddenly attacked by a Klingon warship that seems to come out of nowhere. When the threat is averted, the Klingon captain appears on the screen, and swears a blood oath to kill Kirk in revenge for killing his brother.

With that now hanging over his head, Kirk must divert to a planet in an unsurveyed sector, that has sent an application for admission to the Federation. As it is deemed that this must be answered without delay, the Enterprise is diverted there. After beaming down, Kirk and company find themselves unable to commit the smallest act of a violent nature. A virus has been created on Perry's Planet, which acts to disable the individual when the biochemical buildup to violent action is begun. With the Klingon ship in wait for them, the consequences could be disasterous.

Jack Haldeman is the older brother of Joe Haldeman, noted science fiction and Star Trek author, and an accomplished short-story writer on his own merits. Haldeman crafts a strong if short tale here, which seems to have been padded some from a short story length. Haldeman effectively uses the characters, and keeps them IN character, including giving some time to Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. The writing is not soaring, but it is solid, and the story will keep the reader interested.

This is one of the great 'non-episode' Star Trek books. This is one of the few books true to the spirit and style of the original stories. It's funny how many times other Trek fans have mentioned this one as one of their favortie Star Trek novels. It keeps coming back into print and I would love to see it re-released - say in a collection with some other Star Trek classics. If you are a fan and you haven't read it then this is a must have. It will really take you back to the old days.

This is the fourth novel in the Charlotte and Inspector Thomas Pitt series of high Victorian mysteries, though I've read several others out of order. All of them seem to be a mix of police procedural and social commentary, in which Pitt has to delve into the depths of London's underclass while Charlotte wades through the unpleasantnesses of Society's drawing rooms. Sometimes the latter is better written and more interesting than the former, but in this case the mystery is interesting and also funny in an oddball way. The recently buried keep turning up out of their coffins -- sitting in hansom cabs, or in church pews, or leaning against their own tombstones. All were apparently natural deaths, so Thomas isn't even quite sure for much of the book whether any serious crime actually has been committed. Meanwhile, Mr. Carlisle, an avid and politically astute social reformer, is making converts to his cause of reforming the workhouses by dragooning his social acquaintances into visiting the slums and rookeries. Charlotte (who married down) is a likeable enough character, and her sister, Lady Ashworth (who married up), is well done, but Thomas himself seems to emote too much. Aunt Vespasia, on the other hand, is a marvelous depiction of a grand and starchy old lady who's smarter and more socially aware than most of her contemporaries. Although Perry repeats her bad habit of nearly blowing off the solution to the mystery in favor of sociological commentary, this is a pretty good read.

RESURRECTION ROW is the fourth in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series that begins with "The Cater Street Hangman." Once again, Perry creates a fairly strong sense of place with very few details. She uses interesting twists and turns and colorful characters, and once again there's a certain amount of -- let's call it "unpleasantness." Her books aren't pretty. This time we get more insight into Thomas's character, because Charlotte isn't involved as much in this one. And, as with Perry's others, we get a good look at all levels of the class system in place in London at the time. The plot is fascinating and the conclusion is very satisfying.

Exceptional. All of the Pitt series is good, but this may be one of the best. As an avid reader of mysteries, I found it wonderfully frustrating to get into the last chapter without actually knowing who the killer was. Better, Perry did it without cheating. Once you get to the solution, you realize that ever clue you needed was right there all along, and each false trail was masterfully done.

My only complaint in this book is that Perry padded large sections with irrelevant musings, and several were actually out of character for the person musing. There is a section with Thomas mulling all of the dead ends in a dispassionate mental voice that is completely different than in any other part of the series, and another with Charlotte using the same cadence, rehashing discarded leads. It feels as if her publisher came back and demanded about twenty more pages, and she scrambled to cram them into an otherwise tight and well-crafted book.

On the other hand, her mastery of the period is incomparable, tossing the assumptions and mundane details of the day into the story in a way that draws you fully into a remarkable and fascinating point in history. The characters are perfect and well-realized, as always, and this book introduces one of my favourite bit players--Aunt Vespasia, the Lady Cumming-Gould. Delightful, insightful, intriguing and unconventional, just like this book.

The content is probably good but it is very disjointed in many places. Large print is good. Mitchell Parry's book "The Road to Optimism: Change Your Language, Change Your Life" is less disjointed. I think that the content could be written better if only one author was writing it. I found the first half of the book was much better in content and flow than the last half of the book. It didn't flow for easy understanding. I find that a good book makes me want to read it again. I have little interest in reading this one a second time. NOTE: I only read non-fiction books.

The basic idea of this book is to look at your business from the same perspective you may have looked at sports. Sports are fun, why isn't business fun?

This book tells you how to systematically and consistantly put yourself in a peak state. I used to be a very competetive cross country runner, and this helped me translate the things I did instinctively to put myself in the best mental state for competition to the sales setting that I've been in in the last five years. I've read it several times, and I'll probably read it several more. It's just good stuff.

Just one caveat: This book does assume that you have the technical competency to perform your task. I've given this book to new salespeople who still weren't totally clear on exactly what to do, and by virtue of that fact the book was pretty useless.

So, assuming that you know the rules to your game, this book will help you get in the best mental state to play it. And it will teach you how to have fun doing it.

This book tells you how to systematically and consistantly put yourself in a peak stake. I used to be a very competetive cross country runner, and this helped me translate the things I did instinctively to put myself in the best mental state for competition to the sales setting that I've been in in the last five years. I've read it several times, and I'll probably read it several more. It's just good stuff.

Never have I seen such a poorly proof-read edition of so fine a book. It's criminal. Page 61 has legendary mountain man Hugh Glass being killed by hostile Indians in the "winter of 1932-33." That would have made the poor guy over 140 years old at the time. And that's just the beginning. There are over 15 typos in the first five chapters alone, which would disqualify this publisher (Comstock Editions) as the operator of a Quick-Copy franchise.

Great book! But you're going to have to track down a much earlier edition in order to appreciate it.

This book chronicles the fur trade era from 1822-1834 through the eyes of William Ashley's men and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Such giants of the times like Jed Smith, Jim Bridger, the Sublettes, Tom Fitzpatrick and many others are given thorough examination of their roles in attempting to capture the fur trade business, along with their exploration accomplishments of the American west. The cutthroat competition from the Hudson's Bay Company, Astor's American Fur Company and the Missouri Fur Company, not to mention Indian hostilities, hunger, thirst and the always present forces of nature, made the fur trade business a precarious way of life. If one is not familiar with the geography of the west, it would be helpful to have a map handy as there is not one in the book. There were a few typos which can be overlooked, but there is one historical blunder I must point out. This is on page 50. It is mentioned that Vanderburgh and Carson were exempted from Leavenworth's criticism of the Missouri Fur Company's handling of the Aricara battle. This is NOT Kit Carson as the index states it is. This man was Kit's older half brother Moses. Other than these few discrepancies, the book was presented very well and was a pleasure to read.

Having long ago lost my original copy from the '70's, I'm glad to see this classic back in print. Fully rounded with details of Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass and others on the world economic canvas painted by John Astor, Berry gives us the complete picture. It should be on the short list for any course in American history along with the Lewis and Clark journals.