This was quite a surprise for the price. I am quite picky with my needlepoint books and what I bother to purchase. This was done differently than any other of them I own. Usually there is discussion for inspiration and the chart. The entire book may have the similar theme, page after page. This book by Sue Hawkins is really interesting in that it covers various themes- Tudor, Tunisian, Victorian, Shakespearian, Orient, 16th century, patchwork, and even a bargello. There are photographs of the items as usual, but often instead of only charting the needlepoint, there are actual full sized drawings to transfer to canvas easily so that is very neat I think! I bought this sight unseen- a dangerous practice indeed- but am very happy to own it.

This is the only needlpoint book I have ever bought that had more than one or two designs that were worth making. The Magic Carpet, Tunisian and Oriental designs are all stunning and the author offers suggestions for multiple uses and colour schemes. I can't wait to get started!

This combination coloring book/ story book has been written for siblings of premature babies. Katie expresses her feelings of jealousy, sadness and concern after the birth of her premature brother, Christopher. Finally, Katie is invited to visit Christopher in the NICU and looks forward to his homecoming. Although slightly outdated this book does a nice job of addressing the feelings of siblings of premature babies. The illustrations are clear and simple for coloring by children of all ages.

There is an updated version of this book available. This is more of a storybook with black and white illstrations inside. Much of the original story is the same. The new pictures are sweet and effectively depict the events of the book. Together they provide a glimpse inside the NICU that is informative and capture the gamut of emotions that siblings of premature babies experience.

"Nannies & More" provides basic and realistic information on establishing and maintaining relationships with household help based on the author's previous experience as owner of a domestic employment agency in Arizona. The work appears to rely solely on this experience, spending an undue amount of space on anecdotes.

Be aware, there are no references to web sites, none. The book is dated or lacking specifics in several areas, i.e. availability of background checks, IRS matters.

If you are new to the role of employer (or have had negative experience in the past) the book provides a good primer, and mirror for contemplating your expectations of possible employees and your approach to them.

"Nannies, Maids & More is enjoyable and informative reading. I found the book to do what the title says, it DOES provide a complete guide to hiring household help. I appreciated the very practical approach...With the increasing need for household staff and the lack of other publications on the topic...your book will meet an important need...Nice work!

Howard Nemerov, in his essay included here, says something to the effect that his essay is unnecessary as there is more than enough commentary on Dante, and what could he say anyway?

Nemerov can say plenty and say it well and I would tend to enjoy anything he wrote on any subject. He is a fine essayist.

But his point is valid. There is little here that is new or even very interesting, though the line-up of contributors is stellar, from the standards whose commentary is now classic--Pound, Eliot, Singleton, Yeats, Auden, etc.--to new essays commissioned for this volume--Heaney, McClatchy, Hirsch, Williamson, Charles Wright, and others.

The problem: Dante truly does defeat us all. His imagination and genius make commentary superfluous. And most disappointing are the new essays--they truly fail to impart their passion for the poet.

It is true that there are good pieces here: by Borges (collected in Seven Nights--go buy that!) and Nemerov in particular.

And my favorite gave me exactly what I was looking for--the sense of a poet involved in poetry and involved in the moment. Robert Fitzgerald discusses the work of a sadly forgotten translator, Laurence Binyon. Fitzgerald reproduces letters between Pound and Binyon about the work that Binyon was doing. Pound's enthusiasm is infectious (as well as Fitzgerald's) and one wants his translation immediately in front of one. I fear one may have to look for it in used bookstores

This seems a good idea, but in the end it is disappointing.

Hawkins and Jacoff have compiled a volume that is crucial to Dante scholarship, which has never and never should be primarily about commentary. It's about the way Dante strikes us on a personal level, the way literature can influence and change our perspective and our thinking. Could you ever ask for a better chorus of voices! From T. S. Eliot to James Merrill, their inspirations will inspire anyone who has felt the power of literature in their lives.

I have been programming for over 20 years and have always found these books interesting, however they never go into enough depth on the tools available on the market to prevent coding errors in the first place. Parasoft and Rational have decent tools for this, but I have not found a more useful tool than DISCOVER from Software Emancipation Technology, now Code Integrity Enterprise with MKS Inc.

My programmers over the last 8 or so years have saved countless hours by using DISCOVER and the tool has only gotten better, adding impact analysis to detect all the areas of our code base that will be affected by a proposed change, saving hours of rework or damage to the hours already spent programming.

If you're working with spaghetti code, have just been brought on board to fix your new company's code base or are required to keep management informed on your progress (and keep them off your back ;-)), I would recommend this book, and the tool I mention above.

Cyclomatically speaking,
Mark

Examples in standard C++ and Java code fill the pages of computer programming expert Brian Hawkins' Preventative Programming Techniques: Avoid And Correct Common Mistakes, a thoroughly "user friendly" guide filled from cover to cover with solid general wisdom for programmers who work in all computer languages. From being wary of premature optimization; to avoiding making one's code to complex or too simple; to learning the most efficient and effective code documentation; and so much more, Preventative Programming Techniques is a truly first-rate resource and self-teaching tool for becoming a more skilled programmer. An accompanying CD-ROM contains examples and sample programs.

I have used Rough Guides and similar travel books for years.Information about buses and trains is well researched as are descriptions of youth hostels. That of other accomodations is sparse.A good index is a must in a travel book you carry with you. The index is totally unacceptable.Many important sites are described in detail but are not listed in the index. The maps are good, but it would be frustrating to use this book as a guide while traveling because of the index.

Don't be put off by some of the less-than-glowing reviews of the Rough Guide to Ireland, for this, the sixth edition, remains without question the best in a long line of books geared to the Eire-bound traveler.

Yours truly has traveled to Ireland for eight of the past nine years, and the Rough Guide has been a consistent and consistently helpful travel companion. The recently updated (May 2001) sixth edition is a candid and comprehensive guide, as it covers all the well-known and little-known aspects of the Irish landscape. What distinguishes the Rough Guide from Fodor's, Frommer's, Let's Go, Lonely Planet, et al., is its writing: frank, literate, hard-to-put-down. This reader has all of the aforementioned guides to Ireland (and more), and it's the Rough Guide that receives the overwhelming bulk of my attention. It's the one guide that I turn to again and again, and the one guide that accompanies me to Ireland.

Beyond it's highly literate style, the Rough Guide is particularly strong in the areas of Irish history, and its relationship to the sites that dot the Irish landscape. In recent years the Rough Guide has increased its emphasis on dining and lodging options (this guide is no longer content with hostels as the only way to go). Indeed, the Rough Guide now caters to a broader geographic. In other words, it's not only for those who want to "rough it." Another noteworthy improvement in recent years is the Rough Guide's expanded index, and, even more noteworthy, is its "Contexts" section, which is a wonderful, most informative 75-page section devoted to numerous things Irish: history, wildlife, books, movies, architecture, and more. The contexts section, come to think of it, may alone be worth the publisher's asking price. As for maps, however, this is one of the Rough Guide's shortcomings. While there are more than 40 (and they are clear and helpful), this dedicated reader would like to see more of a particular region. Three pages of maps for all County Donegal, for example, doesn't do justice to a chapter that runs 45 pages. In the future, it would be helpful to have more detailed maps of, say, southwest Donegal, western Donegal, and the like.

Minor criticisms aside, the Rough Guide's sixth edition is a must-have for the serious traveler to the Emerald Isle. While not nearly as slick as some other guides (i.e., Eyewitness), its depth of subject and highly literate style more than compensates. Perhaps it's the ideal guide for the traveler who intends to return to Ireland again and again.

As the title suggests this book has four chapters,one for each season. For each season there's a sampler and simple but practical, functional projects and a number of colorful,playful almost childlike designs: scarecrows, ducks, flowers,fruit and angels to name a few. The winter season includes an interesting Santa stocking and some tree ornaments. This book is suitable for different skill levels,but mostly from simple to medium, the charts are color coded, , but I think the price is a bit too steep for the patterns offered. The "501 cross stitch designs" book is more packed.

I have been a cross stitch addict for about 30 years and have always been a Sam Hawkins fan. This book is full of designs that really show Mr. Hawkins' skill as a cross stitch designer. From small simple and easy to stitch motifs, to 4 large absolutely beautiful pieces of fine art stitchery for each of the 4 seasons.
These 4 (detailed and intricate) patterns to me were worth the cost of the book itself. I cannot express enough the beauty of these designs and found the price to be very much worth it to me. A very excellent selection of designs for all seasons. THANKS AGAIN TO SAM HAWKINS FOR A GREAT DESIGN COLLECTION.

This book is very helpful to both beginning scholars and experts in the area, because it exposes (and maps many of) the complexities involved characterizing the notion of social Darwinism.

This extensive exploration of Social Darwinism by Mike Hawkinsshould be regarded as another step, one of arguable modernity thoughpotentially groundbreaking, in the field of recurrent re-assessments of the impact of Darwin's theories on contemporary civilization. The challenge facing Hawkins is certainly no easy matter : defining a happy medium between so-called revisionist approaches (cf. Robert Bannister et al.) and more familiar, if not classic, approaches (cf. Richard Hofstadter). From this perspective, Mike Hawkins' work deserves much attention and interest as a new thought-provoking basis for further research on Social Darwinism. Hawkins' theory, however, can hardly be regarded as radically modern since it fails, and not only by using the conventional lexicon of Darwinian rhetoric, to establish itself as a specifically new interpretation. For instance, his argument that the various turn-of-the-century appeals to Social Darwinism were not always intellectually coherent, as shown by the way socialists and pacifists alike used it, actually supports the theories developed by Robert Bannister. Conversely, one may detect a number of Hofstadter-like lines of thought aimed at fending off "revisionist" approaches. Hawkins more often than not tends to reshuffle the cards rather than to propose a truly new game. This, however does not mean that his interpretation is uninteresting : Hawkins' great merit is also to assemble fragmentary conceptions scattered in time (cf. his analyses of 20th developments) and space (cf. his contributions to the study of European versions of Social Darwinism). His theories will certainly confront most readers' own understanding of a number of aspects in Social Darwinism, which certainly represents a progressive approach to such a widely debated issue. In the end, Mike Hawkins proposes a sensible, intellectually honest approach by simply revisiting Dawinism rather than forcing an empty theory at all costs. One may disagree on fundamentals (which is my case), but Mike Hawkins' study is certainly worth reading. Don't pass it by.

Nicolas GACHON

This book is tremendous on communication, companionship, and commitment, especially in todays uncertain world. Great exercises to evaluate what level of intimacy, and honesty each spouse is at....

This book is broken down to include deep communication from commitment and companionship which are at the root, and God's design in todays relativistic society. Also, the book has quick exercies in scripture verses to test your level of marital intimacy. The book is more biblical and relevant than todays pop psychology,books.

1 am wating this book , now I teaching this book for my student in Assiut unversity in Egypt I prefer chapter about information tecnologly in agrricultural extnsion ,it is very good dr.ahmed saleh