This book attempts to put the the theory of 'maternal impressions' into the context of 18th century society and medical thinking. In particular, it recounts the case of Mary Toft, a woman from Godalming in Surrey who claimed to give birth to numerous rabbits! It is clearly the result of considerable research, but the author is very far from a 'natural writer' and bores his audience throughout. A generous helping of turgid sociological commentary throughout does not help matters. I can now understand why this book semms to have sunk without a trace soon after publication.

This book is a undiscovered treasure that deserves a much larger audience. Todd is an extremely gifted writer with a talent for dry understatement. His style is perfectly suited to his story, which, in a lesser writer's hands, would read like an 18th century supermarket-tabloid tale (which it is, in many ways!). The stylistic subtleties appear to have flown straight over the head of the first reviewer. Never mind. This book is solidly in the tradition of W. J. Bate and Simon Schama: a scholarly work written with an elegant fluency that's far too rare among scholars. It will appeal to all kinds of readers, in the academy and far beyond.

I was able to locate a paperback edition that was much cheaper than the hardcover, but apparently is out of print. I urge the publisher to reissue the paperback, and find this gem the audience it deserves.

As an avid player of Vampire, a history major specializing in the ancient near east as an undergraduate, and now as a graduate student studying biblical studies, I was very excited when I got my hands on Jerusalem by Night. Jerusalem certainly is a great place to set a vampire game, and I thought this book would open up the door to a lot of ideas for a campaign.

However, the book is lacking in many key areas. Most specifically, the history section of the book, in which over 2000 years are summed up in a few dozen pages, is some of the most dry and uninspiring writing I have ever read in a white-wolf product. Concepts are sketchy at best, mostly glossed over, and of questionable accuracy. In addition, there is almost no attempt by the author to tie vampires into the history--only some feeble mentioning of vampiric activity that was misinterpreted as acts of God or the introduction of a character only to say that said character came to the city at this time. The vampires do not seem to manipulate Jerusalem as they do other cities.

Another complaint I have is the way in which the author defines the religious groups of mortals who live in the city without going into detail on any of them. We don't know who controls the groups, what they want, how they operate, etc. And some ways in which they are defined is not only incorrect, but offensive to those groups. Take, for example, the name by which the author refers to Jews. He routinely calls them "Followers of Yahweh". While technically that may be correct (as God's name is given as Yahweh in the Torah/Old Testament), Jews are forbidden to use the name of God in speech and would refer to him only as God (in Hebrew: Elohim) or Lord (Hebrew: Adonai). If they were reading God's name, they would say only "The Name" (Hebrew: ha-Shem). When referring to them, you should say Hebrews, Israelites, Children of Israel, or Jews, depending on when in their history you are referring.

My final complaint is that in one of the oldest cities in the world, the author does nothing with the myriad of possibilities tying vampires to the religious world. I am not sure if he was afraid to offend or if he just lacks true vision of what could have been.

All in all, this book takes what could have been a great concept for a campaign and does not do anything with it. It is dry and inaccurate, and doesn't really give you too much to work with. The only value I see in it is that it does give you some non-player characters to steal for your game, but that is not enough to make it worth it. Do yourself a favor, if you want to run a game in medieval Jerusalem, go and by a basic history book on the city and make up your own stuff about the vampires who populate it. Your money will be much better spent.

I must admit a book like this has been needed long ago. I myself prefer to play Vampire, the Dark Ages over Vampire, the Masquerade. The book shows Jerusalem as the center of faith in the dark ages, which is somewhat true since to all of the three main religons in the world, Jerusalem is a city of holy importance. How can a vampire survive with all this faith around? How much of the vampire's faith is twisted for the character to survive? The book gives a decent picture of the past situation of the religons involved with some twists. Highly recommended.

I'm generally a fan of Terry Bisson's work, especially his short stories ("Bears Discover Fire" is great), but this novel-based-on-a-movie-based-on-a-short-story is just embarrassing. The film was a mostly incoherent rendering of William Gibson's very good story (even though Gibson himself wrote the screenplay); I suspect Bill's stuff just doesn't translate well to the screen. This novelization (why bother?) has all the film's confusion and none of Gibson's trademark style and atmosphere. Worse, Bisson throws in some minor bits and pieces of his own invention. I couldn't get more than one-third into this before quitting in annoyance.

When viewing the film, I always thought that Johnny Mnemonic could have been more. The script laid out a world as amazing and dark as BLADE RUNNER, but the film itself was a cheap piece of trash.

With Terry Bisson's novelization, we can see the world missing from the film. Wonderful characters. Gritty surroundings. Cyberspace.

Bisson's prose is as rich as that of cyber-guru William Gibson (who wrote the screenplay). He even borrows a few frazes and slangs from Gibsons other works.

Don't see the movie, it'll be a waste of your time. But this book just might teach you somthing.

I bought this book for my kids and it was a complete and total waste of time and money. The advice is as shallow as it is boring.

My wife hated it. My kids couldn't relate to a single tip the 'author' offered.

Save your money and look to better authors than Searls.

This book has everything about teaching kids about money, banking, chores, savings and investments. It's easy to read and apply. It's gotta be in the hands of every family in America.

I had high hopes for this book because the subject vitally interests me. But I was greatly disappointed. It is mainly a compilation of stories gleaned from author's counseling practice, with very little effort to generalize from the stories to make points that could be useful to a broader audience. Authors very occasionally cite names and dates of other research, but there is no reference list on which to check those citations. Seems very unprofessional. Sketchily written; seems like author just gathered his years' worth of notes together, outlined, and made a minimal effort to integrate them. Once again, what may have made an interesting article in a magazine has been padded out to get a book.

An absolutely phenomenal book about the various relationships among and between brothers and sisters -- all ages, all kinds, from twins to blended (step-) families. The author uses illustrations from his own family of four brothers and a sister for a personal touch. He has interviewed scores of sibling groups and interweaves their stories to make his points about the importance of siblings in each of our lives -- even those who died young or were stillborn! I must admit I wept over some of the tales. He points out that the sibling relationship is the longest-lived of all in our lives, from the cradle to the grave -- and beyond.

I have used the Friends of Ed books in the past and found them to be excellent tutorials. The Foundation Flash book and the Flash MX ActionScript aare well-rounded, and cover the ground they set out to do, albeit wwith errors here and there.

I bought the Friends of Ed Macromedia Flash MX Studio, expecting similar coverage reflecting advanced concepts for design. Much to my regret, I found this to be a book on ActionScript. The examples are essentially trivial tricks done with ActionScript, with descriptions that suit some aspects of game design.

To contrast, the Flash MX ActionScript book published by FOE focuses on many of the concepts used to build Flash applications... and is a book that would be useful to designers who wish to use Actionscript when developing a Flash Project.

Macromedia Flash MX Studio was a waste of time and money.

I own previously owned 7 friends of ed books, and i'm used to their style of writing so i had high expectations.

This new release gets you right into to bussiness this time, no usability lecture or do's and dont's. It handles all the new features in MX illustrated with in depth excercises or complicated case studies.

If you are a solid flash 5 user, it gets you up to date !
(But DON'T BUY this book if you want to GET STARTED WITH MX)

This is the first release so there are still mistakes in some scripts, but that's a plus, IT MAKES YOU THINK why it doesn't work !

It's the best advanced MX book to upgrade to MX !

This book belongs in the children's or young adults section.

"The three co-authors have put in a sterling effort to come up with a work of commendable simplicity and style, giving you a peek into the structure of the Web, how it works, and the design fundamentals for creating web pages. The book is designed in a way that would seem to suit classroom study but for its coffee table magazine look and feel it can also be your ideal self-study guide at home.

"The 155-pages should be a breeze if you have some background knowledge of computers or the Web, but anyone, including rank newcomers, can gain a lot of knowledge of what Cyberspace is all about and help you effectively make your presence there.

"The book focuses on the Web page as a practical tool to captivate Web audiences and includes critical analysis of Web page organization, design, and functionality. And, true to its word, it connotes essential preparation if you intend using any Web page design software.

"After setting the foundations in the first section through a simple yet thorough understanding of the Web and the basics of hypertext markup language, the books dwells on its central aim of Web design, before rounding off with the requirements of preparing your own Web site in the last section.

"Two appendixes on 'Understanding RGB and hexadecimal for Web-safe colors' and the glossary of common HTML terms add to the book's appeal."

(A Review...)

This is Mr. Grimson's first book and it is rotten. I am sorry to say this because I am a huge Grimson fan (Stainless and Brand New Cherry Flavor are two of the greatest books I have ever read). In this ne'er do well novel, a doctor swallows pills and deals with weird, insane requests from his equally weird, insane patients. It's unmoving and the purpose of the novel is lost on the reader. It lacks all the glamour, sadness, tragedy, and rock'n'roll rebellion of his better writing efforts, Stainless and Brand New Cherry Flavor. Perhaps this one should stay out of print.

Having an "open" marriage, a sissy kid, and a big head can't be easy..and it's not. This book is about an ER doctor who takes perscription medicine to cope with his job and all the "fakers and junkies looking for 'scripts". Very interesting hospital scenes. Semi-interesting rambling thoughts. And a bit of life thrown in. not altogether a bad combo.

I found the material in the "Rappin Zebra" very well put together but it is not appropriate for the age group that it is intended for (3-8 years). The book, along with the tape (music) is great for older students. I am a teacher and, from experience, I know that most children (in the afore mentioned age group) would have a hard time keeping up with the content of the book. Being that children in this age group are not "fluent" readers, they would have a very hard time keeping up with the rap and the words in the book at the same time. It makes keeping up with the pages even harder because there is no "turn the page" signal for children who are not readers. I am familiar with the works of Cynthia Todd and love her work, including "Rappin' Zebra" but it's just not appropriate for children 3 to 8.

This book is pretty dated, but the colorful wording and quirky topics are still worth glimpsing.