I was really looking forward to reading this book. I had heard it was really great and it sounded like it wa really well told, if a little complex. But still, when I got it, I found the first part awful. It was just boring. I guess it just wasn't like the other books I'd read in the series. It was more indian than american. It got better once there was some excitment, after Sarah Nita's family was taken by the soldiers, but It still had an element of boredem in it. I really wouldn't reccomend buying it, but if u can get it off a friend to borrow, i guess it's worth reading.

The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow was a pretty good book. I really liked it toward the middle and end. I especially liked getting a Navajo's side of the story, not the American soldiers that did it's because they [the soldiers ] thought it was okay. The Navajos went through a lot and you never hear their side of the story.

This book was about a thirteen-year-old Navajo Indian girl on the Long Walk in 1863-1864. It showed how terrible the Native Americans were treated back then, even more than My Heart is on the Ground, another wonderful Dear America book. I highly reccomend reading this.

I bought the book after (and despite) the review of the Reader From Austin, TX; and I was not disappointed by this book. Martin covers all aspects of U/W photography in a concise way, giving just enough examples and explanations. It provides a lot of feedback on using common contemporary housed systems, which not many other presently available books do.

I agree that it offers little in terms of complete basics; and it will not stretch the professionals. But hey, I'd like to think that I fit in the middle. And I do not want to waste another 20 rolls of expensive slide film before finding out where I went wrong. Martin's book has warned me in advance about some of the pitfalls.

The only possible criticism is that the book could have provided more than just a couple of examples for each described situation. However, this would make the book big and pricey. And as it is, you can even take this reasonably slim volume with you on the liveaboard.

I have always said that underwater photography is not something a rational person should consider.

It is expensive and at times very frustrating, but when you get some good results it rewards you with a great feeling of satisfaction.

As someone who has persevered with underwater photography for nearly 15 years, I have bought many books on the subject in an attempt to learn why I keep making the same mistakes. Until reading Martin Edge's book I felt that only Howard Hall's book came close to showing me the answer.

Martin has managed to produce a book that is not only interesting and easy to read but really gets the message over. He covers all the aspects you need to know about, without the commonly made mistake of getting tangled up in the technical & equipment issues.

Sure he talks about the equipment, but the clear message is that you take the photograph...the equipment is just what you use to do it with.

If you are serious about underwater photography, then you need this book!

I have read this book over and over again to absorb all the information! It is so good and contain a wealth of information. Comparing it wit the books by Danja and Annmarie Kohler, Mark Webster and Jim Church's book on composition, this one comes in as a clear first. Mark Webster's book is a relatively close runner up, but it is Marin's book that always join me on my trips and elsewhere. Photography in all books is good but Martin provides the most and best information. Jim's book is a waste of money compared to the rest. Overprized with very little hard info. Just a ton of mumbojumbo. The book by Koehler is ok, but way behind Webster, and in particular. Edge's books! Get it and love it!

First of all, this book is incredibly well written! To give such a clear and seamless presentation of such a turbulent and complicated period of history is a truly remarkable achievement. This account, far beyond being simply "readable," is exciting and engrossing, progressing much as a mystery novel or detective story, where more and more clues are presented to the reader as the story progresses. And what's really astonishing is that, all the while, the book remains scholarly, very carefully citing its sources, discussing divergent theories, and providing evidence for its assertions, all of which allows the reader to participate in the action, rather than just sitting passively by. I found myself savoring this book, reading it slowly and carefully, not wanting it to end, which is the sign of a great book! It is obvious that Turner is a very capable historian and has a remarkable grasp of nearly every facet of the early post-Roman history of Britain, and he uses his extensive knowledge to present a very convincing argument for the true identity of the historical Arthur. But the facts aren't incontrovertible, and it may be that some of his guesswork is wrong. But even that being so, this book is a pleasure to read, for it raises some fascinating possibilities that will undoubtedly remain lodged in the reader's head for a long time afterwards. And, to cap it all off, the book has a great bibliography and a truly comprehensive index -- a great aid when re-reading and for further research! All in all, this book offers something for everyone, both a unique perspective on a timeless story, and a wonderful starting point for further exploration of an extremely fascinating historical period.

and particularly refreshing in it's lack of hype about discoveries of secrets leading to some revealed truth that are all too common in this sort of book. It is simply an attempt to dig through the historical record and construct a consistent and reasonable history of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries, and of the Romano-British military leader Lucius Artorius Castus, and how his story could well have become the story of King Arthur. I found it quite readable. The book is careful to document the references it draws on without drowning in footnotes, and it does a good job of balancing the historical presentation with discussions of how the stories could later have transmuted into the literary tradition of Arthur.

Turner has done a masterful job of assembling, analyzing, and interpreting the extant material about THE REAL KING ARTHUR. He presents a coherent, comprehensive, and scholarly opinion. He suggests the last Romano-British Imperator, Lucius Artorius Castus was the man we know today as Arthur. He says Arthur not only preserved the Romano-Britannic culture for two generations following the demise of the Western Roman Empire, he decisively shaped modern Scotland, and modern Wales, which still flies his 'Red Dragon', is his legacy. Although the invaders from the continent (Anglo-Saxon) eventually conquered most of the island, they did not subdue the Celtic culture which can still be found in the western parts of the United Kingdom.

Turner's book is complexly written and filled with detail. Scholars will recognize his sources...Patrick, Gildas, Nennius, Bede, the Mabinogian, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, etc. In addition, Turner draws on recent archeological evidence to support his work. His knowledge of Latin, as well as the ancient Anglo-Saxon and Celtic (Welsh, Irish, Scots) languages is impressive. Using language as a tool, Turner first identifies and then links the relevant puzzle pieces. For example, he suggests Arthur's sister Anna Ambrosia (known as Mawr-anna or "great Anna" in her lifetime because she was the sister of Arthur) and the Celtic war goddess Morrigan became conjoined in the transmission of the Arthurian tales until, by the time of the Middle Ages, the French Romances characterized her as Morgan le Fey-traitorous sister and necromancer.

Arthur's stepfather Aurelius Ambrosius was the "utherpendragon" (overall big dragoon or "chief war leader" in Celtic) or "Magister Militum" (Latin). He married Ygerna, Arthur's mother after he slew her husband Gorlois (Arthur's father) in a battle for supremacy in southwestern Britain. A more recent example of this Celtic practice occurred when the Welsh Henry VII (red rose) married Elizabeth of York (white rose) after he slew her brother Richard III, thereby uniting the royal households (Tudor Rose). Turner suggests there was no prior connection between Aurelius and Ygerna and that Anna was Aurelius' daughter by a former wife. Aurelius, lacking a male heir, adopted the adult Arthur just as Julius Caesar adopted Augustus Caesar, his sister's son. Geoffrey of Monmouth did not understand the Roman practice of adult adoption so he used the wizardry of Merlin to explain the inconsistency between Aurelius' and Ygerna's wedding date and Arthur's birth date.

Probably the most interesting sleuthing Turner does involves the identity of the real Lancelot. Apparently, Anna's son and Authur's nephew Medrawd (Celtic) or Medrautus Lanceartius (Latin) was a brilliant horse soldier known for his skill with a lance. The gallant Mordred was left to guard the home front while Arthur was away, and he became restive and adulterously involved with Arthur's second young wife the beautiful but bored Gwenhwyfar (Findabair or white phantom because she was blonde). Understanding his uncle would probably kill him for his actions, he plotted Arthur's destruction which sadly led both to their deaths at Camlann in 542 A.D. In the Middle Ages, the Romancers could not grapple with the complexity of a man who was both good and bad, so they divided Medrautus Lanceartius into Mordred and Lancelot.

This was THE book that was supposed to take the lid off the secret SUPREMES. While it delivers in the sense that it offers
up some juicy bits of backstage gossip, it sheds no new light on
the rise and eventual fall of the legendary girl group. The
first two thirds of the book gather momentum at breakneck speed
only to stall in the last chapters. The famous third act curse.
Berry Gordy was the brains. Diana Ross did what she was told.
Mary Wilson partied and boyfriended her way around the world.Flo
Ballard whined and drank.Curtain.The end.What's missing is the
"final" final chapter on Florence Ballard. Briefly addressed in
the book, Flo Ballard did NOT die broke. She agreed to a "secret"
settlement with "someone" and was well on her way to her former
lifestyle. If Mr. Turner was the fixture in her life he'd have us
believe, he should have REALLY delved into that. Where was he then? Someone should write a book about the real egomaniac who
caused all the trouble. It wasn't Ross. How about a REAL Mary Wilson book?

This book is a great read for all Supremes fans. It's a fan's view (Tony Turner)on the story of the original Supremes, the REAL Supremes, and the group's founder, the great Miss Florence Ballard, forget about the Return To Love Tour mess. This book is funny, touching, sad and most of all, great fun. Mr. Tony Turner was so fortunate to have lived such an incredible experience, and so lucky to have met such a dreamgirl, the late Florence "Blondie" Ballard. Get this book, and get it TODAY!

How exciting it must have been to have known Florence Ballard the way Tony did. His experiences with Flo, Mary, and the other one were incredibly great reading. I have been a Supremes fan forever it seems, and this has to be the most insightful book I have read about them yet. The way that Flo handled herself at such a young age may have been misguided, but she stood up for herself, and not at the expense of others. Throughout the book I felt that Tony showed what life at Motown was really like, and if you weren't willing to play the game, you got burned. A must read for any Supremes fan, especially those with a warm spot for Florence.

This is a good book but in my oponion, photos make the difference between a good cookbook and a great cookbook. Yes, Ms. Gand is a grand pastry chef but when I look for a cookbook, I want to see pictures, lots and lots of accompanying pictures. There is a mid-section with a selection of photo's of certain desserts but it doesn't mean much if out of many recipes, only a few are selected for a visual tour. I want to see what I am preparing to create; the recipe titles sound good but how is it supposed to turn out? I own over 500 books and I truly feel that photo's make the sale; if I was a professional baker, then I suppose I wouldn't be needing them. But I am a home baker, and that's basically who these type of books are for.

I have to say the ideas in this book are so ADORABLE and fun, several made me laugh out loud and hope I have girl children one day. I made one recipe (Lemon Cream Daisies) w/no problems & to great acclaim. But today I tried Lemon Angel Food Cakes w/Lemon Confit, & found a possible typo - ? - or just a mistake: The cake batter recipe is supposed to make 24 mini-muffins. For me it made 24 mini, plus 24 regular muffins! (I can only guess they're supposed to be all regular size?) At least they do taste good. Anyway, add this to the caution from another person who noted wrong amount of butter in the blueberry shortbread recipe... Questionable editing, I guess, but I still think the author is a sugar genius.

This book is fun to read and really makes you want to bake. However, when I made a recipe this weekend, I did find an error. The blueberry shortbread recipe calls for one stick of butter but needs two. I made the recipe using one stick and the dough didn't come together at all. Something was obviously wrong. So I checked a similar recipe that Gale Gand contributed to Baking with Julia and it called for twice the amount of butter. I added another stick and the cookies turned out great.

All in all, though, this cookbook is worth getting just for all the great ideas. But if you make the blueberry shortbread, double the butter.

I caution against this book. I found it quite patronizing and takes forever to get to the point. Some of the economics are quite dubious and I don't like it's continual use of analogies; this is an excerpt explaining how stock market cycles are made up of smaller cycles.

"Here's an analogy. This book is made of many chapters. Within each chapter are separate sections that, when strung together, create that chapter. The sections are made of a series of paragraphs: the paragraphs are built of sentences , which are formed by words. Each word, sentence, paragraph, and section is a complete unit in and of itself. And, when looked at as a whole, they form the complete book. Get the picture?"

If you don't mind paragraphs like the above (and there are a lot of them) then there are some pearls of wisdom in this book but I find the style quite distracting. If you are serious about trading this might be a good first book but I strongly suggest going on to read some more serious books.

This was a well written book in easy-to-understand English. I am new and green to trading and trading terms. The author made complex subjects easy to understand. Before this book, I looked at stock charts, threw my hands up in the air and screamed out of ignorance. Now, having read the book, I can read stock charts with ease.

This is a great introductory book for short-term trading. After this one, you'll be more knowledgeable and able to advance to the more complicated books.

Toni Turner, thank you for this book.

I believe anyone who is even considering this book has heard of the horror stories of day trading and wants to learn and TRY to avoid all the pitfalls so many have before. Some people review this book as incomplete or too vague. However, I believe this books takes the beginner and walks them through the critical areas they need to understand before placing one trade. She covers enough to make you aware of the most common indicators that traders use. The basics on what you need to start your trading experience on the right foot. Then you can develop further with experience and learning.

Charlie Trotter is probably the greatest chef in America. I'm quite sure that no restaurant in NY can match the unbelievable perfectionism of his Chicago establishment. This cookbook, however, is not for everyone. It will appeal to two possibly overlapping types: those who will leave it on their coffee tables and occasionally peruse its brilliant presentations, and those with the determination, skills and experience to actually follow its recipes.

The latter will be a very limited audience. These are very hard dishes to reproduce, typically involving dozens of ingredients and hours of preparation. Perhaps the book functions best as advertising for CT's restaurant; although it's one of the most expensive in Chicago, it starts to look like the deal of the century when you realize how much work goes into these dishes.

None of these recipies are easy, but if you are willing to sacrafice time and money, the results are pretty amazing. I find CT's Vegetables to be his most versitile book, where Charlie really shows us his most spectacular innovations.

I've cooked successfully out of this cookbook for 4 years, and have come back to it time and time again, when I'm in need of something truly smashing - and in particular, when I'm feeding vegetarian friends.

A word to the wise, buy this book to cook from only if you know your way around a kitchen and the standard resturant vocubulary (he's not going to tell you how to blanch or julienne). Another word of warning - don't try any of this if you're trying to take care of small children at the same time - the recipies demand all of you attention.

Show stoppers are the glorios carmalized onion and potato tart, the chilled cucumber soup, the blue cheese souffle (the brioche is out of this world), the asparagus terrine, and the grits-filled morelles. ymmmm.

I have had this book for past two years and have tried a lot of the recipes. As a vegetarian, I have always had a hard time to find a book that has recipes that very tasty (I am not a big fan of meat substitute), simple, and beautiful. His books provides them all. His soups are pathetically easy...cook, blend, strain, and serve. He does spend sometime in decoration but these are usually not neccessary (I only ocassionally do that, eliminating them will not impact the overall taste). Unlike other readers, I have not had a hard time finding ingredients but then again, I live in Chicago and shop at numerous places for groceries. Although, Whole foods and Treasure Island (chicago area only) carries every single ingredient he calls for (some obviously are seasonal). It is an excellent book for people who love to cook seasonal vegetables (he breaks his recipes by months).

His dishes are laid out for course meals so the portions are small. I eat very small portions so if I cook the soup (the entire recipe, suggested serving is four) with some bread on side, it is enough for my friend and I.

I disagree with anyone who says that the recipes are hard to use. The time consuming part is roasting, baking, or cooling time (which does not require you spend the entire time in the kitchen, I generally spend that time to go do something else). I usually don't have the flavored oils that he calls for but I just substitute with one of the oils I have or just really good olive oil. I think if you have the time than go for the entire recipe but skipping the oils, or very small amount of sauce is not going to hurt the taste of the dish.

If you are intimidated by his book, I suggest your start with his soup recipe (for example, his Tomato soup recipe calls for taxi tomato...if you don't find taxi tomato, use big yellow tomato or even good quality red tomato).

When was the last time you ate at a divine restaurant? When was the last time you ordered something that you couldn't pronounce? Have you ever savored that perfect bottle of French Merlot? If you have a taste for the exquisite, an eye for artistic flair in cooking, and a passion for the culinary arts, this book is your nirvana.

Each recipe is thoughtfully organized into sections:
Serving Size, List of Ingredients, Method, Assembly, and Wine Notes. There is also a full-color picture of each completed dish to accompany the recipe.

The book is organized by ingredient. Tomatoes, Potatoes, Mushrooms, Salmon, Scallops, Tuna, Rabbit, Squab, Lamb, Varietal Meats, Grains, and Desserts. Examples of the recipes are: Truffled Exotic Mushrooms and Root Vegetable Tart with Red Wine Butter Sauce, Timbale of Salmon Tartare with Osetra Caviar, Avocado, and Lemon Oil, and Peach and Creme Brulee Napoleon with Green Tea Creme Anglaise and Peach Juice.

This book is a beautiful example of gourmet cooking at it's height of finesse. This book is not for the beginner or the faint of heart. The tools and ingredients required in this book are extensive, and not always readily attainable. If you are an aspiring gourmet chef, or merely an officiando of the fruit of their labors, you will thorougly enjoy this book.

When I first encountered Charlie Trotter's books, I actually laughed - how could even the most dedicated home chef even hope to create these dishes? Some recipes even required ingredients that were in season at different times of the year!

Since then, the book has grown on me, and I've grown with it. His approach to food has opened a new chapter in my efforts to become an excellent chef, and his vision has gripped me with a mania that borders on the religious. Coming up to speed with his culinary style takes a lot of work and a lot of money, but once I found sources for the necessary ingredients, and stocked up my freezer with preparations like fennel oil, pinot noir reduction, and cubes of sauteed black chanterelle mushrooms, I am able to whip up a three-course Trotteresque dinner in just a few hours. Notably, I have never followed one of his recipes literally; it is impossible. Instead, you must draw from his techniques and improvise, using whatever excellent ingredients are available in your area at that time.

In short, this is a landmark book that has completely changed the way I approach food. It is NOT for the casual chef, however. His cuisine should be approached with the kind of practice and discipline one might apply to, say, learning to play the piano. The path is long and hard, but the results are worth it.

If you care - REALLY care - about becoming a truly great chef, then buy this book. If not, it's still worth it just to drool over the pictures.

This book is fantastic. The quality of the pictures and recipes are extremely high.

The culinary masterpieces created in the mind of Charlie Trotter push the outer limits of creativity and innovation. This book focuses on every aspect of a gourmet meal: from visual presentation to taste, texture, and usage of seasonal fruits and vegetables. I am a big fan of this book. While I will not make every recipe in it, it has caused me to experiment more freely in my kitchen and opened my mind to new possibilities, food combinations, and presentation styles. There are several recipes that call for extremely exotic/hard-to-find items...don't bother with them...Improvise and use what you have.

This book is not for the novice chef. A solid understanding of several cooking techniques is required for each dish...but with some practice, you will be rewarded tenfold. If you have the means, I highly recommend his namesake restaurant in Chicago. It is an utterly overwhelming experience.

I'm surprised this book has been so well received. As an experienced java guy and web developer, I feel I should have been able to read a book like this through and end up with a good working knowledge of Struts, but this isn't the case. For a start, there is a lot of filler in this book just taking up space (a lot of it, double-spaced with wide margins). For example, not only are there plenty of source listings in the body of the text (including some from the struts source, to give you a "look inside") but there are chapters such as number 4 on the HTTP protocol and 5 on JSP and servlets. Not only is this sort of information widely available elsewhere, it is pretty unnecessary in a book obviously targeted at people with a working knowledge of web applications and java in particular.

The other chapters did not do a good job in my view of explaining the struts framework. There was ample description of the example classes (such as beans, with all their getters and setters printed in the book) which was very easy to follow, but the coverage on bringing it all together was poor. For example, from the chapter on struts-config.xml there's only one sentence on what the "input" attribute to the action tag means: "The input attribute allows the action to redirect back to the form that was used to enter the form values by specifying its path." I feel this could have been explained a little better! Why devote 4 or 5 pages of the book to listing the source of a trivial javabean and then shortchange the reader on the descriptions of the actual subject?

I'm going to buy another book, I suggest you also might want to think about starting elsewhere.

I disagree with the other reviewers that are complaining about the example applications or lack of advanced features. I think books that have examples that are too complex or advanced get away from helping you learn the basics because the examples are too complicated to read quikcly when you are in a hurry. With Struts Kick Start, I can go right to the place in the book that explains the specific thing I'm looking for quickly.

I've looked at all the available books on Struts and I own three of them. Struts Kick Start is the one I have found the most useful in helping me learn because it provides the best coverage of the basics of Struts and has many more coding samples for the struts tags than any of the others. The others refer you to the site for struts tags or just seem to replicate what is already on-line. Struts Kick Start explains each one in detail and gives sample code that you can cut and paste to use on your own. It also provides some great examples of unit testing and build scripts that I've been able to put to use without too much pain.

This is a great, useful book.

I disagree with the other reviewers that are complaining about the example applications or lack of advanced features. I think books that have examples that are too complex or advanced get away from helping you learn the basics because the examples are too complicated to read quikcly when you are in a hurry. With Struts Kick Start, I can go right to the place in the book that explains the specific thing I'm looking for quickly.

I've looked at all the available books on Struts and I own three of them. Struts Kick Start is the one I have found the most useful in helping me learn because it provides the best coverage of the basics of Struts and has many more coding samples for the struts tags than any of the others. The others refer you to the site for struts tags or just seem to replicate what is already on-line. Struts Kick Start explains each one in detail and gives sample code that you can cut and paste to use on your own. It also provides some great examples of unit testing and build scripts that I've been able to put to use without too much pain.

This is a great, useful book.

OYSTER is a mesmerizing book about secrecy, complicity, and the power of personality. Outer Maroo isn't on any official Australian map; it is an insular world where foreigners arrive but never leave. The people in this small, rain-starved town all know a secret of which they can't speak, even among themselves. When Susannah Rover, a teacher brought in from Brisbane, dares to speak the unimaginable, she sets off a series of events leading to the ultimate disaster. Janette Turner Hospital has an unfailing ear for language as she paints the outback with opal veins, mirages, roughnecks, and the followers of Oyster himself, a guru who arrives soaked in blood and carrying three priceless opals. While this book is not a page-turner, Hospital's descriptive language and poetic eye create an Outer Maroo that feels both mythical and real. This book lingered in my thoughts long after I finished reading.

Set in Australia at the end of the 20th century, Oyster explores the hysteria & resulting consequences of end-of-the-world cultism. In hallucinatory prose, Janette Turner Hospital weaves flashbacks into the (almost) present-day story, as if one is drifting in and out of consciousness.
It is interesting to note that although Oyster is the name of the messianic cult figure who brings his followers to the (intentionally) forgotton mining town of Outer Maroo; he, as a character, does not figure too prominently in the story. Rather, it is the actions & reactions of the other characters to Oyster & his disciples that make up the main narrative.
It's a bit rough to get through, but some passages sparkle like the opals that the townsfolk & cult members mine.

Hospital has penned a fascinating yarn. In the wake of Heaven's Gate and the Branch Davidians, this novel is an interesting tale of the conflict between religious and secular socities. Hospital does a wonderful job in presenting life in the Australian outback. I actually felt thirsty reading this book. If you are at all interested in a thriller with a religious twist you should check out Oyster.