Advice: Don't purchase this book unless you already have sufficient programming background so that the introductory chapters are really "review" and that you can distinguish what is important from what is secondary.

The book also covers the best places to shop (and there are SO many in Rome), where to get good deals on leather and other wonderful things. The book give you wonderful ideas on how to see the city in a limited time or really enjoy it if you are there for more than a few days. The book also covers things to do that many tourists might over look as well as telling you what is worth your while and what to skip.

The book also covers customs, money changing, travel information - you name it! This is one of the best guides available on the market.

The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.

Specifics:
The guides are organized as follows:

How to use this guide
Introduction to Historical and Geographical information
Geographical Regions
............Introduction / History of Rome
............Specific City Areas
........................Introduction to street by street area
........................Detailed pictorials of area buildings
........................Architectural drawings, pictures, cut-aways of buildings
........................Specific stops, historical monuments, churches, buildings, etc.
............Six guided walks

Travelers Needs - includes full list with rankings and notes
............Hotels
............Restaurants
............Shops / Markets
............Entertainment
............Rome for children

Survival Information
............Local Info.
........................Tourist info., Etiquette, Personal Security and Health
........................Currencies, Telephones, misc info.
............Getting to Rome
........................Planes, trains and automobiles, signs
........................general map, sectional maps with index
............Travel Info.
........................Maps, tours, currency, etc.
............General Index
............Phrase Book

Discussion:
The book begins with "Introducing Rome", including a complete map, a review of Rome, Rome's history, and Rome thought the Year - including events, etc.

Areas with an "At a glance" overview, then has subsections of specific blocks, or forums, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.

The really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
............Very complete
............Easy to read
............Beautifully and artistically completed
............Good shopping, safety and other tips
............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.

Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly.

The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I used the reviews on hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, etc. and found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions

The books are so well thought-out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.

Conclusion:
Each book in this series is a great help, and beautiful collectible resource. As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location. We have used some of these books to augment our research to investigate cities for our groups.

It is also great that this author gives so much space to the voices of residents of Greenwich Village. It is astounding to hear the people in positions of power who work for the business improvement disticts, and what they --especially the woman who runs the Village Alliance -- have to say about the homeless. I was shocked to hear her say that where she thinks there should be a change in the law is that the first amendment should not protext street people. Wow! These are the kinds of things that never get said publicly but which secretly motivate efforts to get marginal people off the streets.

The book ends with a brilliant afterward by Hakim Hasan, one of the vendors. This alone is worth the price of of an otherwise extraordinary book.

There is a reason why this book is still continued to be used today in classrooms as it is on its sixth edition. The authors use of layout in the book is well thought out and organized. His vast use of pictures, graphs, and tables streamline with the text of the book. In addition, the companion CD and web site provide the reader with an even greater study guide-- using interactive flash programs and video to further explain biological processes.

Further, in addition to the basic Biology taught in classrooms, this book goes one step further and explains some advancing fields in the Biology Profession. For example, chapter 20 covers the use of computers in analyzing biological data and gives prime examples from the current Human Genome Project. Further, every section of this book covers an interview with a specific individual in that profession. Such, if one is not aware of what exact field one wish's to pursue, interviews that cover some of the daily activities of these individuals are provided.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is seriously interested in Biology.

There is a reason why this book is still continued to be used today in classrooms as it is on its sixth edition. The authors use of layout in the book is well thought out and organized. His vast use of pictures, graphs, and tables streamline with the text of the book. In addition, the companion CD and web site provide the reader with an even greater study guide-- using interactive flash programs and video to further explain biological processes.

Further, in addition to the basic Biology taught in classrooms, this book goes one step further and explains some advancing fields in the Biology Profession. For example, chapter 20 covers the use of computers in analyzing biological data and gives prime examples from the current Human Genome Project. Further, every section of this book covers an interview with a specific individual in that profession. Such, if one is not aware of what exact field one wish's to pursue, interviews that cover some of the daily activities of these individuals are provided.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is seriously interested in Biology.

If a student uses this textbook he\she will be very prepared for other classes such as biochemistry, ecology and even some organic chemistry because this book is SO good in expressing the fundementals of basic biology and relating those fundementals to other sciences and disciplines. Additionally this awesome textbook has clear, colorful and beautiful art and photographic illustrations with EXCELLENT explanations underneath them that can help the student understand biological processes and mechnisims. I'm in pharmacy school right now and I still use this book as a reference guide for some basic concepts in biology that I may have forgotten.

It is big, fat and chock-full of great information on the basic concepts of biology. Don't let the large size of this book intimidate you. It is big for a reason. It is big because Neil Campbell and his collegues care about the making sure the student is exposed to what he needs to know in order to advance into higher levels of biology, chemistry, medical and pharmacy school.

An EXCELLENT BOOK!!! This book explains the hardest concepts of fundemental biology so well that even a drunk in a bar can understand it throughly. A great book.

It's a 5th edition book. From the looks of it, I don't think these guys need to make a 6th edition book unless they need to update it with new biological discoveries.

Contributions for this outstanding 375+ page work were supplied by individuals such as the late Norman Vincent Peale, Corrie ten Boom, Dick Van Patten, Charles W. Colsen, Gary Smalley, Joan Wester Anderson, and Dick Van Dyke.

All stories are presented in a very readable level in which the reader can relate to the themes discussed and are short enough that single stories can be read in a session and then pondered. Your life will be more spiritually fulfilling and be more positive upon completion of reading this book if you take these stories to heart.

Do yourself a favor... A MUST read!

Complaints: This book gives very short shrift to big O notation IMO. And Lafore really takes the easy way out with heaps - he uses an array (Ugh!). Come on, Lafore, you should have used a tree for this ! He doesn't cover AVL trees at all so you'll have to look elsewhere for that. Also, ... the source code isn't 'generic' enough - he implements many data structures to hold a specific type instead of allowing them to hold generic Objects. There are no end of chapter exercises so I don't know if it could be used as a regular class text. The applets on the disc are instructive, though.

If you could combine the topic coverage of T&G (along with just a bit of their formalism) and Lafore's readablity you'd have the perfect teaching book on data structures using Java.

However, the assessment of the local kids is the drawings are "weird." Perhaps intended for a more adult audience, the illustrations are beautiful--I enjoyed them--but their idiosyncratic style may not appeal to the younger set.

The characters pictured in the illustrations are dramatcially reinterpreted by the artist, however this may disappoint some viewers. The Scarecrow will look nothing like any scarecrow you've imagined. The Witch of the North is difficult to identify. This fresh point of view will be enjoyed by some but is sure to disappoint others.

I also felt the illustrations don't tell the story as well as the edition by Michael Hague or the original edition with W. W. Dinslow. (This is more important to the younger, read-to crowd, than the older, I can read it myself crowd.)

My daughter asked that we return the book and get a different edition for her. I would urge you to carefully consider the sample pages, except the sample pages don't cover a broad range of the illustrations included with this edition. The sample pages do include an image of the dramatic and striking cover. Unfortunately, in the judgement of several reviewers from 4 to 40, the other illustrations were noticably more "weird" than the cover and I don't think the sample pages represent the overall reading/viewing experience scrupulously.

Rilke's overall message throughout this novel is that one can become anything they want to become as long as they do not give up and have confidence in what they do. If one cannot think of anything else to do in the morning but sing, then they are a singer. If one cannot think of anything else to do in the morning but write poems, then they are a poet. Rilke's concept of life displays a great enthusiasm that encourages his audience to go for their goals, and I believe this is the greatest message any author can ever send out to an audience.

With that said, I found the book to be the most inspiring I have ever read. The most inspiring letter was the fourth one. This letter touches me most. It opened inside of me thoughts and feelings I did not know I had. This letter alone explores everything from sex to Life to being a poet. His fourth letter, written from Worpswede, just shocked my system to the core. In it was everything I had questions about and nothing in the world was left out of it.

This whole book inspired me to begin writing poetry. I had never even thought of the idea before, but now I know it makes sense.

I knew as I read the book that this man was one of few greats that we have in our history. He is not widely known outside of the poetic circle, but should be. His works, especially Letters to a Young Poet, should be read by everyone.

This book forced me to look at Life as I never had before. This new outlook gave my Life a direction. Now I am soon to publish my own poems and I never would have started such a thing had it not been for this book.

When you live your Life as you think the world would like, you tend to become close-minded. Not on purpose and perhaps you still believe yourself to be an open-minded person. I did. This book showed me that I was wrong, but that there was someone and something (Rilke and Letters to a Young Poet) that had answers my soul sought, but I knew nothing about.

I read this book again and again and find things hidden within it I had not seen before. Each of these things opens my mind to an even brighter and more vast universe.

In this book, Rilke reminds us that God cannot be lost like a stone that one puts in one's pocket. This book will tell you how to live, will show you, through the power of one man's love and honesty in the face of the life he had chosen to live, how to live the life you have chosen. I have had more than one friend find answers to plaguing questions between the covers of this book. It is no self-help pablum. It is Rilke, a genius of the human mind, and you owe it to yourself to introduce yourself to his work.

I first read Slocum's account ... while riding ... on a ferryboat. My experience with boating is basically limited to... that ferry ride,... I certainly cannot review "Alone" on any sort of technical level. I just know that it's the ideal escape fantasy. Here Slocum travels the world on his own terms, emphasizing all the pleasures of reading on an empty sea by day, while making the difficult parts (the storms, the pirates) seem like amusing diversions.

The leaden 19th century prose is probably the biggest obstacle to enjoying the book. A narrative of the same journey written today would be far more action-oriented. However, the reader can fill in the parts that Slocum makes seem harmless -- the illnesses, the fear of sudden death, the near madness after 70 days alone on the Pacific -- for a truer taste of just how harrowing the voyage must really have been. And then there's always the pleasure of dining with island governors, and the hobnobbing with celebrity (Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson has a large role), and unintentional amusement as Slocum describes, and bypasses, the island where a recent series of "Survivor" was filmed.

When the nautical urge strikes me, this is the book I read.

Those who want to play with the mathematics itself will find other books more helpful. See, for example, Flake's book, "The Computational Beauty of Nature", which contains a description of Waldrop's frequently mentioned "boids" in enough detail that a reader can create similar systems. Flake also describes the details of many of the other systems alluded to in Waldrop's book, mercifully at the "how to do it"level, rather than the rigorous "theorem and proof" level. The two books fit well together.

Waldrop's writing style is clean, clear, literate, and unobtrusive. Read the book for what he says, rather than for how he says it. If you enjoy reading a technical book both for the what the author says - and for how he says it - try almost anything by John McPhee, particularly his loose series on the geology of North America.