If your are struggling with money-- read this book! If you are fighting with your spouse over money-- read this book! If you are clueless as to how to get out of your current finacial situation-- read this book! If you want to grow in your undersating of the meaning of your life-- read this book! If you want to keep drowning in debt, if you want to keep reaching for that better car, or bigger house-- then DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!

I have read this book three times, and each time I do I pull some great nuggets of golden wisdom out of it. This book is an overview of the Crown Ministries study which works to implement biblical principles on money in churches. If you are able to participate in a Crown small group in your local area, I would highly recommend the 12 week study...The book promotes a balanced biblical view of becoming a faithful steward in the areas of spending, saving, giving, investing, seeking counsel, working, avoiding debt, honesty and teaching children.

The chapter on honesty at work is particularly convicting. He writes that most people define honesty as what we can get away with, but the Bible always defines it as absolute faithfulness to the unvarnished truth. I really enjoyed the part of the book about work and becoming focused on a calling from God.

Dayton studied for two years the 2300+ verses in the Bible on money. He writes with candor and humility. I like that he challenges Christians to look at their lifestyle based on being faithful to God, and not automatically raise it with their income. Greed the silent sin is one of the most pervasive sins in our culture, he says.

For anyone that is interested in becoming more faithful to God with their money, and would like to experience the peace and joy that comes from learning contentment, I would highly recommend this book.

Ashley Hodge, CFP
Southlake, TX

This book was organized and an easy read. I found it very helpful in shaping my view on money. I also felt a great burden was lifted from my shoulders, do to the references given from the bible on spending, saving, earning, and giving. It will also prove to be a great reference book for the future.

Finally! A "coffee table" book that has top-quality photos and an excellent text.

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a companion to a two-part, four-hour documentary film, directed by Ken Burns, on the life and work of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and his "famously, irrepressibly rambunctious alter ego Mark Twain."

Ernest Hemingway once said that Twain is "the headwater of American fiction" and called THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN "the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since."

George Bernard Shaw referred to Twain as "America's Voltaire."

William Dean Howells described Twain as "incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature."

Susy Clemens once wrote of her father: "He is known to the public as a humorist, but he has much more in him that is earnest than that is humorous. He is as much of a Philosopher as anything, I think."

In this reviewer's considered judgment, Twain is the greatest literary genius America has produced, a thinker of remarkable depth and substance.

Twain's life was filled with many travels, adventures ... and tragedies. Born in 1835, when Halley's comet made its appearance, he lived for 75 years, until 1910, when Halley's comet returned. He survived, and suffered, the death of his beloved wife "Livy" (Olivia Louise Langdon), and three of their children: Langdon, who died in infancy; Susy, who died of spinal meningitis at age 24; and Jean, who died of a heart attack evidently brought on by an epileptic seizure.

"The secret source of humor itself," wrote Twain, "is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. ... [Our] race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."

Laughter and sorrow: Twain was well acquainted with both. Known superficially to many admirers as merely a humorist or funny man, Twain was essentially, as he described himself, "a moralist in disguise" who preached sermons to "the damned human race."

Twain's literary corpus abounds with excoriating criticisms of racism, anti-Semitism, religious hypocrisy, governmental arrogance and imperialism, petty tyrants, and Philistine culture. His often deadpan humor bristles with barbed satire and withering sarcasm.

In addition to its narrative text, this volume includes five bonus essays: "Hannibal's Sam Clemens," by Ron Powers; "Hartford's Mark Twain," by John Boyer; "The Six-Letter Word," by Jocelyn Chadwick; "Out at the Edges," by Russell Banks; and an interview with Hal Holbrook, "Aren't We Funny Animals?"

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a rich and rewarding book.

This illustrated biography of one of America's most memorable and beloved authors holds quite a few surprises for the unsuspecting reader. Anticipating anecdotes from Mark Twain's life that would portray him as a kind, altruistic, and loving man, I was shocked to learn he was also an irrascible, guilt-ridden, tight-fisted lover of alcohol and cigars who was often looking for ways to get rich.

He was born in 19th century Missouri and raised during a time when major political, economic, social, and cultural issues were forging America's identity. The rugged 19th century also molded Twain into an outspoken critic of those forces, providing him with an unending stream of material for his cogent and waggish observations.

Amid a collection of excerpts from his novels and speeches, articles and essays, as well as numerous pictures and illustrations, the authors present an insightful analysis of the man best known for writing TOM SAWYER and HUCKLEBERRY FINN. What becomes obvious is the relevance, creativity and importance of all his work, not just the books we were assigned in high school.

This book is a treasure; the kind of book that can be referred to often. It can give food for thought for hours of reflection. It is Highly Recommended.

I wonder how many people could have led the life that Samuel Clemens did and kept their sanity. He went from riches to rags (even though it was his own fault...he spent money like it was going out of style and made some horrendous investments), which forced him, at the age of 60, into making a 10 month long physically and mentally draining around-the-world lecture tour. The tour enabled him to pay off his debts and regain his financial footing. Unfortunately, money was the least of his problems. The authors do not specifically state it, but it is clear (to me anyway) that Clemens suffered from manic-depression. At various times, and not coinciding with anything bad going on his life, he considered suicide. He had lifelong moodswings, as well as a volatile temper. (His daughters were afraid to be alone with him, as his behavior was so unpredictable. They made sure to visit him as a group.) The authors recount one incident where Clemens, angry over a missing button, opened an upstairs window and tossed all of his shirts out into the street. Saddest of all, Clemens outlived almost all of his loved ones. His beloved wife, Livy, who was almost 10 years younger than him, predeceased him, as did 3 of his 4 children. His one surviving child, his daughter Clara, suffered a nervous breakdown when Clemens was almost 70. A heavy load to bear, indeed, but somehow Clemens bore it and carried on. One thing that helped was his worldwide fame. Clemens was hungry for fame, even as a young man. He became well-known early in life, and remained famous and popular right up until he died. (He was a bit of a "ham." He would purposely time his walks for when people were emerging from church, and would then saunter past in his trademark- pun intended- white suits.) This book is an absolutely perfect blend of narrative by the authors, liberal excerpts from Clemens's many writings, "guest essays," and page after page of terrific period photographs. (The research done for the photographs, alone, must have been backbreaking.) The narrative and essays made this a good book. The addition of the excerpts and the photos turned it into a great book. The excerpts are not just from Clemens's well-known works, either. He was once asked to address an organization which consisted of descendants of the Puritans. The written text is reproduced in the book. Twain skewered the original Puritans for killing Native Americans and for kicking everyone who wasn't a Puritan out of Massachusetts, even though, as Clemens makes sure to emphasize, they left England under the banner of religious freedom. (You have to think that when the organization invited Clemens to speak, this wasn't quite what they had in mind.) One of the many interesting items included in the book is a list of the famous sayings "Mark Twain" supposedly uttered....but didn't. (He was so famous that it was assumed that anything clever originated with him.) Unfortunately, one of my all-time favorites was included in this list: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." On the bright side, he DID say "The rumor of my death has been greatly exaggerated." One caution: the excerpts will make you want to read or re-read all of Twain. I've already ordered a copy of "The Innocents Abroad" as somehow, in my youth, I missed that one. Hats off to Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, and Ken Burns for this wonderful book!

I bought Elements with my wacom graffire 2. The OTHER painter program that came was no longer supported, (painter classic)and I had been shopping for an intracate paint program for my digital arts. I also have Paint shop pro7. I found Elements to be very close to fluff as PSP7. it can do anything I can do...and then some...It is certinly not a Jr. program by any measure.
Elements has tons of brushes, all the effects you could ever put to use, an animation studio, and many cool tricks that others don't. The only mere complaint I would render is with the blending tool...which is 'the' determining factor in so much of what I do..
The panoramic picture wizzard would have to be my favorite wizard in this program. I say this is a must have...and the price is an even better asset. I would have paid "more money" for it and felt I was getting a deal.

I have used the Photoshop Wow styles in making quite a few
of the things on my website.

We at the Designer's Bookshelf have just awarded this book a "BEST BOOK" award for 2002. These awards are given by the editors and staff at the Design Bookshelf, DT&G Magazine, and the Graphic Design network as top choices for all those involved in the design, publishing and visual arts fields.

I looked at the cover of this book, saw pyramids and crystals and thought "von Daniken meets stargate". Despite this, I thought I'd give it a go, and it turned out to be a well written and well thought out story.

5000 years ago a survey team from another human world came to Earth and landed in Egypt. Their home world was for all intents and purposes destroyed in their absence and a string of unfortunate events left them stranded on earth.

5000 years later, the people left on their home planet desperatly need the technology that allowed the survey team to get to earth at faster than light speed. So they send their own team to retreive it....things get interesting on earth from that point onwards.

This is just a brief outline and does not do the story justice, you'd have to read it to see what I mean. But, if you enjoy stargate you may enjoy this new twist on ancient history.

The Kinley sends their first faster than the speed of light craft with a live crew to conduct a survey of planet Earth. The ship Champion lands on the planet at what would be local time as 2601 BC. However, while the Champion successfully completes its trip, the feral Lucien attacks and devastates the Kinley, isolating the Champion from its home.

Five millenniums later, the Kinley continues the slow process of recovering all they lost during the Lucien debacle. However, the Lucien do not sit idly by and allow their enemy to regain its former foothold and perhaps more. They plan to eradicate the Kinley, only keeping genetic data in case a specimen or two needs development to serve the master race. Now the Kinley has thirty-five years to find a savior and theyíre only viable hope is a champion from a ship they have not heard a peep from in thousands of years.

RESURRECTION is an intelligent but complex science fiction novel filled with action. The story line is faster than the Champion was and reminiscent in many ways of Battlestar Gallactica. The characters are an interesting group, but especially fascinating in a sort of Spock way is Pruit. Arwen Elys Dayton provides genre fans with a strong novel that will send the audience including this reviewer to read her previous tale SOVEREIGN'S HOLD

Harriet Klausner

A beautifully conceived and well-written story - Dayton gives us a speculative narration of what might have happened in ancient times if an advanced race came in contact with Earth. The Kinley survey party inadvertantly (at first) are mistaken for gods thousands of years ago in Egypt. What is at first an accident then spirals out of control as two of the alien Kinley assume the roles of the gods Isis and Osiris. As interesting as this thread is, Dayton ups the ante by taking us into the future where the Kinley are desperately fighting for their survival against another race called the Lucien. The Kinley send two people back to Earth to retrieve the technology that allowed their ancestors to travel through space at light speed. Dayton presents the many layers of story and character clearly, simply, and very effectively. I look forward to her next work.

Picking up where we left off in "Have Tech, Will Travel," this series of short stories of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers is collectively titled "Miracle Workers."

First, the "Interphase" tale is completed, and I was quite impressed with the tone and pace of the second half of the story. It had a rare amount of nostalgia to it that didn't suffer from being trite or overwrought. As always, the characters shine - again proving that in the Star Trek universe, the depth of the character is what matters, not how much screen time they might have had on the television shows or movies.

From there, while there are less stories in this package, the tales are of such high quality that you don't suffer from the lack of them. Nog, as a lieutenant from the DS9 Books set in the "Avatar" and "Abyss" timeline, guest-stars in one of the stories, and doesn't distract from the overall story. The authors really have a deft touch with these shared characters: I have never noticed a character to act out of character from previous stories - quite a feat!

The only negative I can mention from the reading was the inclusion of the "Androssi" as a villain race that the S.C.E. have previously battled - but we have never seen. It was a bit awkward, and made me wonder if I'd missed a story somewhere - the aliens were spoken of as something I should know, but no real details were given. I enjoy good backstory, but there was too much left to backstory in this case.

The inclusion of a "Minipedia" - an encyclopedia of all the information from the various stories in the S.C.E. series, and it was well received by this reader. It was good to look up minor characters and events and have them on hand.

Grab it folks, Trek fans of all kinds will be happily surprised...

'Nathan

I was fortunate to pick these stories up via e-Book format long before it was published in paperback. Currently they are on Book 16 "Oaths" but buying the paperback version saves you [money] if you want to wait (not including Palm Pilot batteries) . The story lines include a gay character (Bart Faulwell) which is refreshing for me, not having seen anything remotely homosexual in Star Trek ever (Gene said there would be, but sadly he died before we got to see gay characters). Books 17 & 18 "Foundations Books 1 & 2" will tell the tale of the beginning of the S.C.E.. ...

I can't say much in this review of Book 2 of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers that I didn't already say in my review of Book 1. That is, it's great! Well-written, believable, and very entertaining, with nods to continuity throughout. If you're not reading these, or the DS9 re-launch, then you're missing out on some great stuff.

An added bonus in the back of this publication is the S.C.E. Minipedia, written by one of the good ones, Keith R.A. DeCandido. Set up like the Star Trek Encyclopedia, it contains all you'll need to know and more about the persons, places, and things in the S.C.E. universe, which includes, of course, plenty of the canon stuff we've come to know and love. And for those of you who favor nitpicking, there's an e-mail address where you are invited to send in errors, corrections, or comments if you wish.

Win-win, if you ask me.

A facinating look at several advanced techniques in photoshop, and a re-examination of commonly used ones. Topics include; channel masking, carving, beveling, photo-retouching, plus a bank of images to spark inventivness...

Overall, it reads like stereo instructions, with a step-by-step description for each of the many lessons. ***

If you don't have this book and you leave this site without buying it, you are the toughest sell in history. The techniques and projects in this book are so well written, that anybody with a little experience in Photoshop can start producing super-professional images in a matter of days. Absolutley AMAZING!

This book is a MUST-HAVE!!! I'va had it for over a yyear, and I take it with me everywhere!!! In fact I'll by another one for the shelf.... It has great techniques, stunning artwork and explains it all sooooo well... I owe most of what I know about Photoshop to this book! I am waiting for the 4.0 version and looking for the 2 version!!! Do yourself a favor... BUY THIS BOOK!!! it is worth sooo much!!!

This was my first English written book and it scared the hell out of me. The writer tells the story mainly thanks to the victims who survived this creep. If you read the pain and torture + everything else he put them through,unbelievable!
I like this book cause it has so many details, for example all the stories of the ppl who survived, their family, the family of the victims, how the cops worked and how he finally was caught. Mister King is a great True crime writer in my eyes.

I found this book to be one of the most fascinating books I have read recently. As an avid reader of true crime, I appreciate a well written story. The detailed accounts of survivors of this monster are almost unbelievable. I too, wished there were more details about his family, and input from the killer himself, but overall, I really enjoyed it. What struck me as odd, is that this isn't a person that you hear alot about. It's always the more publicized killers like Gacy or Bundy, however, this guy certainly ranks up there with the rest of the weirdos.

This book was written with no holds barred...It was at times very hard to read the things that this animal did in some cases i had to skip through because i couldn't stomach the brutality of this maniac's terror he caused these poor women...Its hard to imagine that we have these lunatics running around our world but they are out there and every story that becomes public is pretty damn scarry...For a true crime reader the book is really hard to put down....

Mr. Duncan sets out on a journey that registers on the odometer but fails to touch the raw nerve of the West. Tours of museums aren't exciting road stories, more like your bald uncle's excruciating vacation stories to Buena Vista. The Reagan-era "John Wayne" America is in full display here, with Native American issues handled with bizarre insensitivity considering how close he gets to them. God bless factories and tenderloin, we are supposed to cajole! Forget this book and its banal understanding of American history (I'd rather return to an 8th grade history class for better insights) and western life. Read Rick Bass or Abbey, Stegner or McCarthy, for the real stuff.

Duncan's Out West is an immensely enjoyable read! His humor, insight and detail make the book one of my all-time favorites. I grew up only ~3 miles from where the cover photo was taken, I have since relocated. This book takes me home.

When a review copy of Dayton Duncan's "Out West" arrived in the Ohio newsroom where I worked in the mid-1980s, I snagged it and devoured it within days. I knew right then I'd have to make the trip myself someday. When I got the chance to write a guidebook to the trail in the early 1990s ("Traveling the Lewis & Clark Trail," also available via amazon.com), "Out West" rode shotgun with the Lewis & Clark journals on my pickup seat. "Out West" is among the best American road books ever written, full of insight about the Lewis & Clark Expedition and how America has changed in the 200 years since then. From Duncan's "road rules" to his insider tips on the best cafes and most colorful characters along the way, you can't go wrong going "Out West" with Dayton Duncan.

I had passed on trying this new series in ebook format but now that I've had a taste of it I will definately be reading more.

SCE, Starfleet Corps of Engineers, is a fresh and extremely interesting new series of books. Set within the world of Starfleet but with unique missions and adventures "Have Tech, Will Travel" is a perfect way to be introduced to the characters.

This volume includes the first four books of the series. Each was distinctly different but equally enjoyable. Each by a different author. My personal favorite was "Hard Crash" which is a touching story about friendship and loyalty. Each individual book is short enough to be read in one or two sittings but long enough to tell a complete tale.

Overall pretty satisfying reading, with great characters and interesting plots. I would recommend it to any SciFi or Trek fan.

This is the first book of a new series of Star Trek books, focusing on the "Starfleet Corps of Engineers", basically a group of troubleshooters who go in whenever there's a mechanical or alien technology problem that either can't be handled by a regular starship, or (more rarely) that COULD possibly have been handled by the regular starship, but there's actually enough time to call for specialists (usually, these things are sufficient crises that if the regular ship CAN handle them, they have to.)

This book was composed of four mid-length stories (longer than "short stories", but not novel-length) each written by a different author, which together follow a continuous time-line and thus more or less make up one book's worth of story. The writing is surprisingly even, given the different authors; the handoffs from each author to the next are seamless, and the writing itself is quite good. The characters are well-developed, a good mix of minor characters from various episodes on TV and new characters (although the first book begins with the Enterprise-E and crew for an introduction, and Geordi LaForge continues through the first three stories.) The plots, while not the MOST original I've ever seen, are good, workmanlike concepts, and the basic SCE concept is in many ways a marvellous return to early science fiction concepts, where there may be action and combat, but the ADVENTURE is in the discovery and the science.

So why is the rating only four stars, given how much good I have to say about the book? (And in fact, I thought harder about whether to knock it down to three than I did about granting it five.) Because the "ending" ISN'T one; they cut the last story off in mid-action in order to make a "tune in next week" cliffhanger to attempt to manipulate the reader into continuing to buy the following books of the series. I will do so, because I enjoyed the book as a whole, NOT because they left me hanging. I consider that a sufficiently cheesy scam to be worth the loss of AT LEAST one star, and demonstrates that they had no confidence in the quality of the series themselves (or they wouldn't have needed to use such a cheap scam.)

As is probably obvious from my previous Trek book reviews, I'm a fan of the Trek universe and the stories therein. The various "New Worlds" short story collections I've enjoyed, but this was the collection I've enjoyed the most. For one, the characters are sharp: this is no strange melange of aliens we've never seen before, one of the weaknesses of the "New Frontier."

As usual, there are the cameos: Geordi LaForge beams aboard for the first three short stories, and then departs - almost a "bridge" to the new group. Sonya Gomez (of "spilling Hot Cocoa on Picard" fame), and Dr. Elizabeth Lense are two other names that are familiar from previous shows and are aboard. The rest of the group include only one unique previously-unseen alien, a Bynar pair, and an otherwise wonderful cast of very well-written characters. Included in this list is something we see far too rarely in Trek writing: a gay crewman handled plausibly and intelligently. First "The Best and the Brightest," then "Rogue," and now "Have Tech, Will Travel." Thank you, Pocket Books!

The flaws are few: now and then there's some writing word-choices that made me cringe ("stunningly spectacular" for one), or some passages that confused me. If I could, I'd "4.5" star this one, but those little errors are enough to knock it down from a perfect score. But only just.

One of the stories, "Hard Crash," was actually moving: passages were very impactful, and I was quite stunned to have that occur with a Trek book. This is fine emotionally coherent, intelligent writing, folks. Don't hesitate.
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