Having been both a player, coach and referee for many years, I found Dr. Brown's work to be a complete text on coaching youth soccer. This handbook takes the reader through the basics of developing a new soccer club, working with parents and the players and provides a comprehensive understanding the roles and responsibilities of the the coach, players and parents. Included are indepth descriptions (with diagrams and photographs) starting with basic soccer movements and going through complex team drills. If one had to pick only a single book on the game of soccer, this handbook would be it.

Zagat's Hawaii is the bible for fans of fine dining. The rankings and reviews are almost always right on. A great guide for anyone who really enjoys the diversity of Hawaii's cuisines

This book was on a shelf in my family home for the past forty years, but it was not until last week that I actually read it. I can recall a number of adults referring to this book when I was a boy in the 1960's and 70's, but I now realize that most of these people somehow did not understand the book and failed to perceive its extraordinarily prophetic warnings. The point of the book is to show how much good Americans in the foreign services can do, not how much damage they can do to other cultures, and, in an ironic twist, the "Ugly American" of the title provides the most sterling example of this. But the most remarkable thing is how correctly the book presents the facts that were almost certainly responsible for our country's later disastrous military failures in Southeast Asia. I'm not sure I understand why, but it is a chilling lesson to know that so many Americans could have read this book (it was a best seller in its day) and still have allowed the country to descend into the disaster of the Vietnam War.

The Ugly American is a must read for anyone travelling outside of the USA. It perfectly epitomizes most american's attitudes toward cultures and lifestyles not their own. This book shows how americans are the most generous and genial people in the world and at the same time highlights some of the mistakes we as a people and a country make when abroad. The Ugly American inspires us all to travel and ensure that our reputation becomes polished and not tarnished.

Having read "THE UGLY AMERICAN" when it first came out I was not preconditioned to that expression being paraphrased unendingly over the last 4 decades. I was preparing for a career in agriculture extension and identified with the unattractive civil engineer (the "ugly" American in the book) and his family. I appreciated Burdick's and Lederer's contrasting the civil engineer's heartwarming ways with the more typical condescending attitude of most Americans overseas, then and now, whether tourist or professional.
The Peace Corps has alleviated some of this stereotype, but unfortunately we have had patronizing Corpspeople as well.
As luck would have it, I ended up working in forestry and agricultural outside of the US. In my 25+ years in working in private as well as volunteer and governmental work in SE Asia I have always remembered the "ugly" American. Following his example, I tried to devote my efforts to not just helping and teaching local people but learning from them as well. It isn't hard and you wouldn't believe the things I have learned from illiterate but highly intelligent local farmers and forest dwellers in Borneo, Java and Malaysia.
Read it yourself, taking special note of the "ugly" American and the stereotyped "UGLY" Americans we see and hear about all the time. Which would you rather be??
It also reminds me of the shallowness of many American's reading habits when I hear the phrase "Love is not having to say you are sorry" from "Love Story". Could it also have been confused with "Love is not HAVING to say you are sorry"? (Caps are mine.) Believe me, if I have Love, I say I'm sorry because of the Love, not because I HAVE to or NOT HAVE to!
Thanks and have a good read!

This book is the Bible of Internal Medicine. Anyone considering a career in medicine should have this book in their library. Comprehensive and well written, it is the gold standard of medical textbooks.

This book is a medical tradition, and it is as important to doctors as their stethoscope.
It is very complete, there is no doubt about it. Every subject of medicine is covered, and for a reference book is a must-have. It is also written in an easy-to-read way, but some chapters are more difficult to understand than others, and like a good meal, in excess it can get heavy and occasionally become a brick, so slow-reading is advised. Also worth to mention are the atlases, that give a lot of pictographic information.
I would recommend it only as a reference book, because for the USMLE, or as a course textbook, it is impossible to read it all, especially if time is scarce.

I have been using the 14th Edition of the main textbook for over two years now. The sheer size [and weight] of the book does not allow for easy carriage, especially when you have limited space. Moreover, I often had to leaf through reams of pages or read through several paragraphs when looking for information on specific topics. The companion handbook makes all these unnecessary. It is easy to carry around unnoticed in a small bag and, when there is need to double-check that elusive info, it is right there. Of course it is not as detailed as the parent text, but as a companion text, it fulfils its role very well.

'The MFC Answer Book' has helped me tremendously. The style of the book is exactly what most people need. The table of contents is a list of questions in the form of 'How do I ...?' or 'What is the ...?' In the text of the problem you will find a brief explanation followed with step by step instructions on how to solve the problem. In just a short amount of time, I added the following features to my application:

1. A custom dockable tool bar to my application.

2. Docked the tool bar beside the default tool bar.

3. Added dialog controls to my tool bar.

4. Added tool tips to the controls on my CFormView.

5. Added UPDATE_COMMAND_UI notification to my CFormView.

6. Changed the font of a dialog control.

I just wish I had an excuse to apply more of the book to my application! Too bad that Microsoft doesn't provide help like this.

Audience: Intermediate and above.

Chapter 0 - Terminology and Conventions

Chapter 1 - Document/View Architecture Backgrounder

Chapter 2 - Documents and Document Templates

- Managing Document Templates

- Managing Documents

- Managing the Recent Files list (MRU)

- Miscellaneous Items

Chapter 3 - Views and Frame Windows

- General Topics

- Opening and Closing Views and Frame Windows

- Managing Sizes and Positions

- Managing Caption, Icons, Cursors, and Backgrounds

- Form Views

- Splitter Windows

- Switching Views

- Miscellaneous Items

Chapter 4 - Dialog Boxes

- General Topics

- Managing Controls in a Dialog Box

Chapter 5 - Property Sheet

- General Topics

- Managing Tabs

- Embedding Property Sheets

Chapter 6 - Toolbars and Status Bars

- Toolbars

- Status Bars

- General Control Bar Topic

Chapter 7 - Menus

Chapter 8 - Printing and Print Preview

Appendix A - Utility Functions and Classes

This book is not about teaching MFC basics or fundamentals, it's all about hints and tricks that answers the question ... have you ever wondered how to do this in MFC? I sat down over the week-end for about several hours looking though the book and found it to be very helpful. It doesn't bog you down with large sample code, but it gives you snippets of code that just goes straight to the point.. Be aware this book is not for beginners, but you don't have to be an expert on MFC to understand this book either. This is definitely a keeper for me and I suspect that some time in the future will come in handy as a good reference book.

Eugene, I cannot thank you enough for writing the "MFC Answer Book". As a Visual C++ programmer with 10 plus years experience, it's great to see a book as unique as this one. It saves my life at least 3 times a day and has saved me countless hours of development time.

The format is excellent and not only helps me out with my projects but it is an incredible learning reference that is easily understood.

thanks again...

p.s. One request. Write more books

I read the play when I was 19. I stumbled upon it on a dime rack at the library. One day, I was moving and had some time on my hands until the movers arrived to haul away my stuff. I pulled out my copy and was never the same again. I sat on the floor and read from the late morning to dusk--when the light was no longer sufficient to read by. I hadn't noticed that my shoulder had begun to ache or that my throat was screaming for water, I was absorbed in the play as if I was receiving a vision. Anyone who claims that the play is not well-written doesn't understand literature, nor have they seen the staged production. (I'd highly recommend the movie with Katherine Hepburn). The honesty of the playwright will put you through an emotional ringer that is difficult to detach yourself from long after the reading is done. The fog horn, the deception, the cutting words of the players all haunt your dreams. This is a masterpiece.

There are many themes in this story - drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, egoism, and blame. What makes the play so powerful is its ability to show us a family with horrible problems and horrible habits, but still make that family likeable. We still hope for them. A heroin-addicted mother torments herself with the past. Her egomaniac husband, a washed-up actor, postures and struts to cover his feelings of responsibility. Their sons battle depression and alcoholism, and neither ever feel good about themselves. A cycle of blame makes its way continually through the house, a run-down affair often shrouded in fog. This fantastic (if depressing) play is a meaty, moody work that is almost as good to read as it is to watch.

I haven't actually read a play since college and I picked this up because I am going to see the Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night", starring Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Dennhey,and I always find that I appreciate shows like that more if I am familiar with the play itself. It was an enjoyable genre change for me!

What makes this play particularly interesting is the autobiographical nature of the plot (so disturbingly autobiographical, in fact, that O'Neill would not allow its publication and production until after his death!). O'Neill dedicated the play to his wife, basically stating that writing this was his way of coming to grips with his own past and the "4 haunted Tryrones" of his life. I imagine that when this first appeared in the theaters in the 1950s, it struck a sensitive and somewhat controversial chord amongst the public since issues such as drug addiction and alcoholism were not common topics in popular entertainment at the time. I also enjoyed all the literary references to the likes of Shakespeare, Baudelaire and Swineburne (and so forth!). It made me want to acquaint myself with such literary talents once again!

This is another example of a piece of literature that reaches across the decades with timeless themes such as familial love, loyalty, jealousy, guilt and betrayal, as well as depression, addiction and greed. While I pitied and even despised some of the qualities I saw in these characters, I couldn't help empathizing with Mary's nervous addiction as well as James' feeling of disappointment in his past failures. In other words, these characters are all so human, that I couldn't help being drawn into the realistic pathos of their lives.

The key difficulty in reading this influential dystopian novel is that virtually everyone who cracks the cover, does so having already read 1984 and Brave New World. To a very large degree that is a pity, since this work predates those considerably-Orwell cited it as the key influence on 1984. However, once you've read those, Zamiatin's work has little new to offer, and unfolds in much less readable language. Our book group read it and discussed it with great vigor, but ultimately concluded that we wouldn't recommend it to anyone who had already read Orwell and Huxley's works.

The story is related through the diary entries of D-503, a rather important cog in the machine of a future city state which has hermetically sealed itself from the wild and primal outside world that is left after the Two Hundred Years War. The staccato form of the entries makes for rather cumbersome and occasionally confusing reading. The society is strictly regimented, everyone wears the same uniform, and follows set schedules throughout the day, and literally lives in glass houses. The aim of the society is to scientifically manage everyone's time and energy for maximum efficiency and smoothness, a notion Zamiatin extrapolated from the writings of Frederick Winslow Taylor, the founder of modern scientific management principles, who was highly influential in the early part of the 20th century. However, this "perfect" society-where happiness is considered inversely proportional to freedom-has yet to figure out a way to eliminate that most primal of urges, sex.

This achilles heel is what sets things in motion, as D-503, who is the lead engineer in the construction of a rocket ship being designed to expand the society to other worlds, falls for a dishy rebel who has access to the outside world. This sparks emotions and feelings he's not familiar with, the discovery of a soul within him, and wild mood swings within him as he grapples with the implications of all this. Zamiatin seems to be indicating that in our most primal urges are also the last vestiges of our individual souls. Clearly the novel is meant to attack both the rise of modern industrialism, and totalitarianism in general (not Stalin specifically though, he didn't consolidate his position until almost a decade after the book was written). Zamiatin was a revolutionary, and was jailed by the Czar's secret police on several occasions. He never renounced the revolution but did have plenty to say about those who hijacked it and created the world's most brutally efficient police state (for a good short history of that, see Martin Amis's Koba the Dread). Ultimately, this is an important novel, but not a particularly enjoyable one to read.

Though not the first dystopian novel (Jack London"s "The Iron Heel" dates from the 1900's), nor the most famous (ever hear of "1984"), it is indeed the most influential. It is the father to all literature which bases itself on a world worse than the one we live in today, based on the trends we are currently experiencing. For Zamyatin in 1924, that meant the rise of Stalin and the concurrent decline in liberty. Zamyatin wrote in obscurity the same things Orwell would become famous for 25 years later when he was critiquing the post-Hitler Europe that still smoldered from half a century of war. Zamyatin's take was that society was hopelessly becoming too logical, and that all work was done to uphold the One State. Now, the parallels to propoganda and totalitarianism in Soviet Russia are obvious. But it goes to the extent that logic and order defined unquestioned beauty. Mathematics becomes poetry. Art is superfluous if it doesn't glorify logic as its god. But Zamyatin's novel has a soul. Below the surface pamphleteering, there is a love story. If there is a thesis statement, it's that love prevails, even over deified logic. The hero, the builder of the very vehicle designed to take the One State's logic to other worlds, fails himself in the most human of ways--he falls in love. Now, the hero has a girlfriend so to speak, but its within the rules of society. He meets another woman he initially hates because of her carefree attitude and mannerisms, yet falls for her for the same reasons. Hence, he has internal conflict, and how better to portray what drama goes on in one's head than through a journal? Hence, the style of the book. At the very least, it's interesting to see how dystopian literature develops because of "We". It's interesting how you can see Huxley develop his orgy-porgies and how Orwell came up with brainwashing brutality by reading this novel. The final sentence sums up the futility of trying to rage against the machine--"Be! cause Reason Nust Prevail." Orwell wrote "He loved Big Brother". Same effect.

This is my second endeavor into the famed distopia trilogy. Unfortunately, I should have read this one first. I loved Brave New World, but I think this is in a class by itself. I read somewhere that Brave New World was written without knowledge of this book, which would make the similarities uncanny. Anyway, This story grabbed me from the very beginning with the effective use of numbers to substitute characters names. This let's you know right off the bat that this future society is not joking around. The intertwining fashion used between dreams and reality was especially appealing, giving this novel a surrealistic feel. The thing that hooks this novel into masterpiece status is the ending. Unlike Brave New World, this was one I was not expecting. Also, the fact that a man living in communist Russia wrote this novel really enhances the experience and shows you the nightmarish visions this man derived from his way of life. Platinum.

For those of us who watched the space program unfold in the 60's & 70's, this book will bring back some wonderful memories. For those who weren't around at that time, it's a wonderful first person tale of the trials and tribulations of our quest for the moon. Andy Chaiken whetted our appetites with "A Man on the Moon" and Tom Hanks gave us a wonderful 12 hours on HBO. Captain Cernan takes us back to the early days of Gemini and his spin on Gemini 9 [which really fascinated this reader] right through Apollo 17. Some of these stories have been told before in other books [some 25 years old], but it's refreshing to read them from Cernan's point of view. The ego-trips, the family problems, the wonder and the excitement are all there. I read this book with a smile on my face and, at times, a tear in my eye...as this book brought me back to a time when we knew all the astronauts by name and they were our heros during a very turbulent time in our history. Thanks for the trip down memory lane! I think I'll read it again.

As a hard-core Mercury-Gemini-Apollo history buff, I was extremely eager to read Gene Cernan's story of his days with NASA. What a story! The inside scoop on crew selections, scientist-astronaut super-egos and personalities, and the technological gambles that result in spectacular wins and tragic loss.

"Geno" tells the story like a youngster, amazed and energized by the surreal dynamics of space travel. He adds to this a mature and insightful look at the ambitious personalities that propelled the super-achieving astronauts to the moon.

The irony I found was in Cernan's starry-eyed view of the celebrities he mingled with during his career. The professional pretenders from Hollywood and the song-birds of Broadway are interesting to myself only as diversionary escape. Astronaut Cernan wrestled atop the summit of man's technology against the Russians, the deadly environment of space, the politics of NASA, and his own self-doubts. By the end of his struggle to achieve super-human goals, he commanded a spaceship and crew that left earth to explore another world. He did this not only as an accomplished academic and aviator, but as a courageous explorer of possibilities. The pretend world of John Wayne and Hollywood, to me, look pale in comparison to such adventures.

Cernan exemplifies what humanity can achieve when the will is strong and fear is harnessed.

I have read every astro-bio book published, and this one MOON-ROCKS!!

I have read a lot of books about the space program and I consider this to be the best I have ever read. Eugene Cernan depicts the horrendous Gemini 9 spacewalk, the Apollo 10 cursing, competition for seats on Gemini and Apollo flights, and the Apollo 17 moonwalk beautifully. As for the reader who gave the book 2 stars, I'd have to say he was being way too critical. Cernan describes the flight of Apollo 17 in a few pages? I believe he describes the mission in chapters 28, 29, and 30-depicting the lunar rover and ALSEP deployment, Jack Schmitt finding orange soil, and his feelings as he left the surface of the moon, among other things. It was a great book.

The version of this classic I read was a translation into modern English by Nevill Coghill. As you can see above, I awarded Chaucer (and the translation) five stars; but I do have a criticism. This translation (and many other publications of Chaucer) do not contain the two prose tales ("The Tale of Melibee" and "The Parson's Tale"). These are rarely read and I understand the publisher's and the translator's desire to keep the book to a managable size. Still, that should be the readers decision and no one else's. I had to go to the University library and get a complete copy in order to read those sections. As I mentioned, this copy is a translation into modern English. However, I do recommend that readers take a look at the Middle English version, at least of the Prologue. Many years ago, when I was in high school, my teacher had the entire class memorize the first part of the Prologue in the original Middle English. Almost forty years later, I still know it. I am always stunned at how beautiful, fluid, and melodic the poetry is, even if you don't understand the words. Twenty-nine pilgrims meet in the Tabard Inn in Southwark on their way to Canterbury. The host suggests that the pilgrims tell four stories each in order to shorten the trip (the work is incomplete in that only twenty-four stories are told). The tales are linked by narrative exchanges and each tale is presented in the manner and style of the character providing the story. This book was a major influence on literature. In fact, the development of the "short story" format owes much to these tales. All of the elements needed in a successful short story are present: flow of diction and freedom from artifice, faultless technical details and lightness of touch, and a graphic style which propels the story. In poetry, Chaucer introduced into English what will become known as rime royal (seven-line stanza riming ababbcc), the eight-line stanza (riming ababbcbc), and the heroic couplet. His poetry is noted for being melodious and fluid and has influenced a great many later poets. He has a remarkable talent for imagery and description. With respect to humor, which often receives the most negative responses from a certain group of readers (as witnessed by some of the comments below), there are at least three types: good humor which produces a laugh and is unexpected and unpredictable (for example, the description of the Prioress in the Prologue), satire (for example, the Wife of Bath's confession in the Prologue to her tale), and course humor, which is always meant to keep with the salty character of the teller of the tale or with the gross character of the tale itself. I am really stunned at the comments of the reviewer from London (of June 21, 1999). He/she clearly has no idea of the influence of the work nor on the reasons why Chaucer chose to present the humor the way he has. T. Keene of May 17 gave the work only three stars, presumably because it was once banned in Lake City, Florida. (Does that mean it would get fewer stars if it hadn't been banned?) Perhaps our London reviewer will be more comfortable moving to Lake City! Another reviewer suggested that "The Canterbury Tales" was only a classic because it had been around a long time. No! Chaucer's own contemporaries (for example, Gower, Lydgate, and Hoccleve) acknowledged his genius. My goodness, even science fiction books acknowledge the Tales (for example, Dan Simmons' "Hyperion," which won the 1990 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel of the year, is based on the Tales). These brief entries are too short to review all of the tales. Let me just descibe the first two. Other readers might consider reviewing the other tales in later responses. In "The Knight's Tale," the Theban cousins Palamon and Arcite, while prisoners of the King of Athens (Theseus), fall in love with Emelyn, sister of Hippolyta and sister-in-law to Theseus. Their rivalry for Emelyn destroys their friendship. They compete for her in a tournament with different Greek gods supporting the two combatants. Arcite, supported by Mars, wins but soon dies from a fall from his horse (due to the intervention of Venus and Saturn). Both Palamon and Emelyn mourn Arcite, after which they are united. It is the basis of "The Two Noble Kinsmen" by Fletcher and Shakespeare. "The Miller's Tale" is a ribald tale about a husband, the carpenter John, who is deceived by the scholar Nicholas and the carpenter's wife Alison that a second flood is due. In this tale, a prospective lover is deceived into kissing a lady in an unusual location. And, recalling the response from our reviewer from London, apparently this Tale should not be read by people from London (or Lake City)!

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the first great works of literature in the English language and are good reading for a number of reasons. They are written in "old English", however, and read like a foreign language for most of us. Barbara Cohen's adapted translation gives us four of the tales in contemporary English and therefore provides an excellent introduction to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Cohen's tales retain Chaucer's colorful insight into fourteenth century England including life as a knight, the horror of the plague, and the religous hypocrisy of the age. The illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman are vivid and tell a story all by themselves. I use Cohen's book as a supplement to teaching medieval history and literature to 7th and 8th graders.

The biggest hurdle in reading Chaucer is the language. Trying to read his work in Middle English is impossible without really good footnotes, and some of the "translations" are even worse--they're written in a high-blown, pompous style that takes all the fun out of the stories.

All this being so, I was delighted to find the Puffin Classics version retold by Geraldine McCaughrean! The tales are told in an easy-to-read, flowing style that captures the bawdy humor of the originals, without being over-crass (this is a children's book, after all.) I found myself often laughing out loud, and wishing I'd found this version much sooner, because it makes Chaucer fun to read! I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to try Chaucer but feels intimidated by the scholarly-looking versions available in the "Literature and Classics" sections. You won't become expert in reading Middle English, but you WILL see why The Canterbury Tales has such a wonderful reputation!

I grew up in a fundamentalistChristian home, and -- dare I say this! -- the Bible has often bored me. It was stuffed down my throat as a child, and now as an adult I feel, "Wow, I've read this so many times. Can there actually be something relevant in here for me, now?" Yes, there is, and this book helps me see that clearly. Don't be misled, though -- this isn't a "version" of the Bible, it is one man's paraphrase. Serious, scholarly research couldn't, of course, be done with this book. But how many of us need the scholarly research in our daily lives? Not me, not usually. What I do need is to be reminded that God is alive and real and right here, right now, and "The Message" does that for me.

I will point out that this is a very "Americanized" book, and that is unfortunate because it is limited only to an American audience. People in other countries, even those who speak good English, would have difficulty with so many idioms. But putting that aside, this book has helped me feel God's reality in my life once again.

THE MESSAGE is a great addition to the Bible translations commonly accepted today. His writing is enjoyable and the common language used really lets the reader see the text in the light that it was written in.

The back of the book jacket says that the Bible was not written in scholarly Greek, but in a common, conversational tone -- in the language of the streets and the marketplace. The way The Message was written makes the New Testament infinitely more accessible.

I believe Eugene Peterson _did_ translate directly from the Greek, and not from another English translation of the New Testament, therefore, I think this translation rings very true to the original text. (I'm not a Bible scholar, however).

One characteristic that occasionally bothers me is the overabundance of idioms -- English cliches. Phrases like "you can't see the forest for the trees" distract rather than inspire me. It should also be noted that verses are not numbered, as in traditional translations, although the chapters are designated. This isn't a complaint, but an interesting feature.

I highly recommend THE MESSAGE -- it's a revolutionary way to read the Bible. You can read it on its own, or with another translation of the Bible as a companion. If you know someone who is having trouble "getting into the Word," then definitely let them know about The Message.

Every Christian needs at least two Bibles versions, one for study and one for reading. While the New International Version is still the best choice for study, The Message is now the best choice for devotional reading. It belongs on every believer's bookshelf.

The Message is not a translation, but a paraphrase. A paraphrase is not as accurate as a translation, but is much easier to read and to understand. The Living Bible is a tremendously popular paraphrase of the past. After decades of use however, it has become dated and is now difficult to find. The Message is clearly its successor for the English-speaking church.

With the plethora of study Bibles on the market today, it is easy to get lost in all of the notes, graphs, charts and other helps. As a result, one can lose the joy of just READING the Bible. Study Bibles with all their helps play an important role, but for simply reading God's Word devotionally "The Message" is by far the best choice.