I've have studied of fair number of books about design. This was the first I read and it's a good thing because it's not too hard to follow but it is definately informative about helps to understand design terminology and how a boat will perform based on its characteristics. I think I would have been frustrated had I begun somewhere else (such as Chapelle).

The focus is fairly broad. The designs are those most often seen on the water during the last 50 years (no brigatines, viking ships, or submarines). They are both power and sail, and both displacement and planing hulls. The size mostly seems to be boats of the "yacht" size (20 to 100 feet). Topics covered include styles of hull shape, line drawings, keels and rudders, layout, safety, construction materials...

This book will help you understand WHAT characteristics of a boat affect performance (and I don't just mean speed, because there is much more to it) and HOW they affect performance.

After reading and understanding this book, you will be able to better determine what to expect from a boat by just standing next to it and sizing it up. You will also figure out a few of the goofy things production companies do these days because they are focused on making boats that will be easy to sell, and not focused enough on making a boat that sails well. Make sense? Many modern designs have goofy characteristics that make a boat look good on paper and in an advertisement, but detract from performance, seaworthiness, reliability, and practicality when out on the water.

Bottom line: This book includes what I believe it should based on the title and the fact that it is ~150 pages long. It is very useful to someone want to own a boat, or get into boat design.

This book certainly must be part of any boat design collection. Brewer covers all aspects of deisgn from hull to deck to power to storage space. It serves as a complete introductory resource covering the important aspects of each topic without burdenning the reader with details that the designers and builders must understand.

However, as an introductory book, it is missing some friendliness for the beginner. Brewer could improve on the technical definitions early in the book; in particular the description of prismatic coefficient left me seaching the web for a clearer definition. Brewer uses plan drawings to introduce hull shapes, but not teach the novice how to read such a drawing. Finally, some of Brewer's own designs are displayed; however, they lack detailed drawings and their minimal descriptions do not explain to the reader why the design was chosen or what tradeoffs were made, which would be particularly educational. Instead it just appears as a catalog of some plans Brewer hopes a reader might purchase.

All in all, I highly recommend this book, but hope the the next addition improves on this already valuable text.

This book is fantastic for the curious. Those who are unaccustomed to the language of boatbuilding will quickly get a grasp of the same in reading this book. It is short and easy to get through.

It is not one of those books I would say is necessary (like Chapman), but it is savory food for the curious mind.

Upon beginning my first project from this book, I was taken aback at the number of mislabelings, wrong dimensions, incorrect drawings and unclear (or downright confusing) instructions. Since this book is meant to appeal to woodworkers with little or no previous experience, it surprises me that so much misinformation found its way into print. A second, corrected, edition could make this flawed first effort into a truly useful resource.

I took my first furniture/carpentry class at the local community college and built the garden sofa pictured on the front cover. I'm a woman and had never tried such a project. The instructions and pictures were terrific and my completed project now has a place of honor in my garden. I highly recommend this book if you're a beginner.

I bought this book for my husband who had no experience with building furniture and little experience with power tools. He has made every project in this book, and several from other "2x4" books with terrific results. The instructions are simple and clear and everything has turned out as pictured. I have recommended this book to everyone who admires our patio furniture and is surprised to hear it's home-made. We have even added decorative painting to some pieces and given them as gifts. Anyone who has taken junior high shop class could handle these projects.

In a deeply recursive labyrinth of irony and its handmaiden: self-loathing, the hero, the book, the author and idea all try to draw life from the corpse of a celebrity. The best phrase in the book: "kill your inner hemingway." Unfortunately, it is the best phrase in the book.

This seems to be an assiduously fleshed out premise invented in a beer haze during a literary workshop venting session...a self-referential tour de force in a mileu so exceedingly small that its only member spends all his time trying to see the back of his own head without using a mirror.

Hendersons' idea of a roman-a-clef is to disguise "Geraldo" as a character named Yugo, AND still have Geraldo in the book. Talk about killer misdirection!

The phallic obsessions reveal an undigested freudian premise despite the throwaway Jungian catch phrases. As bitterly self-deprecating as it seems to be, it still is worthy of bitter deprecation. Even hemingway, whose world was so flat that nematodes ducked when they crawled through it, doesn't get any lower.

If you really hate Hemingway, don't read this book, because you will feel genuinely sorry for the scoundral afterwards. If you like Hemingway read this book, and you will hate Henderson and his cohort of patronizing, one trick lit-flitters for their disservice to the very idea of the word, indeed.

Some very funny stuff, but the ending is weak and completely unsatisfying. Good effort at creating female characters falters in every case, and no one but the protagonist is more than a few centimeters deep.

Damn good book! Henderson masterfully epitomizes the academic love/hate relationship that must occur between the failed scholar and the great author. The protagonist, Elliot McGuire, does an excellent job of self-antagonizing over his near miss with greatness as a Hemingway scholar. McGuire believes he has finally overcome his past and wants to publish a book of his own about his new form of therapy and empowerment -- "LifeForms". McGuire's publisher lays waste to his dreams of pop psychology. Eric "Pappy" Markham claims to have killed Ernest Hemingway and has sent off a badly written 5 page teaser, outlining details of the supposed murder and claiming the reasoning behind it was that everything Hemingway had ever been was because of Pappy. McGuire's publisher can't wait to put the book (a guaranteed best selling biography!) on the market and sends him down to edit. We'll just say that "editting" takes on a whole new meaning while Pa! ppy sets off McGuire's "Hemophobia" and other bleaker aspects....

Henderson manages to take a poke at every aspect of popular culture, from best-sellers to TV talk shows to academic elitism. I found it all to be wickedly on the money. A must read!

This is simply great stuff. Henderson's protagonist, Eliot McGuire, is a recovering Hemingway scholar/alcoholic, and he's not only fallen, he's plummeted off the wagon on both counts. Stuck in the quagmire of negotiations with his publishing company for his barely cohesive life-improvement system, LifeForms, Eliot, hoping to sneak his way into their good graces, opts to do the company a quick favor by flying down to Key West to bid on the tell-all memoir by one "Pappy" Markham, a shadowy figure of the "Lost Generation" set, who claims that Hemingway died not by his own hand but rather by Pappy's shotgun, payback for plagaristic treachery supposedly committed by Hemingway long ago. Eliot soon finds that the supposed manuscript is no longer than a page, and takes the opportunity to ghostwrite this doubtful story for a quick buck. Henderson realizes the synergistic possibilities of his themes (the way men treat each other, the way the publishing world seems to mistreat everyone, the way everyone has treated Hemingway's legend to the exclusion of his real persona) and utilizes them to full effect. Bold posteuring gives way to deceitful maneuvering gives way to more success and more psychosis than Eliot ever bargained for. An incredibly fun read

Hmm...unfortunately, I read this book, borrowing it from someone, and it's not like other Dawson's Creek books. Being a gigantic fan of the popular series, I thoroughly disliked it, as the other books, since the show is better. "Lighthouse Legend" did not have an interesting plot, nor were the characters well introduced, as to someone who may have never seen the show before.

This was A great book. There was romance, humor, and it also kept you guessing what would happen next. There was some unanswered questions but it was still a great book. Everyone should read his book.

I really liked this book, it's the first one in a new suspense series of Dawson's Creek books. The characters sound like they do on the show but the situation is new. Joey is haunted by the ghost of a little girl who haunts a lighthouse where the gang are working for the summer. Whenever the ghost appears it is REALLY creepy. Her friends think she might be seeing things. It makes sense that Joey would be in tune to the ghost because they are both seperated from their parents, but I won't say more. Read the book!

The author manages to hide an interesting story in a dull book. It reads like a scientific paper. No doubt the author knows his material, but he can't tell an interesting story. The history of Athens during the time of Socrates and Pericles has all the ingredients of a spell binding saga, but the professor's detached style conveys almost none of the excitement. Danald Kagan's book, "Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy" is much more interesting.

Declared as an attempt by the author to understand the work of Thucydides, this history of the world of democratic Athens in the generation after Pericles is a low key yet gripping account of the maelstrom into which this great seminal era of political evolution passed. The great detail of the account matches both the magnificence and yet the somber context of the reality behind the usual glorified summary accounts of the world's first brief experience of true direct democracy, whose actual facts are at certain points almost an alarming eye-opener, from the immediate collision of class struggle in almost canonical form to the duress of empire, and the outcome of civil war. The work of Aristophanes, and its direct echoes of this period, especially stands out better understood in this blow by blow, as does the ambiguous division of history just here, with respect to its democratic ideals and its first dissenter, Socrates. The work brings home a claim to the solution of the mystery of Thycidides composition, that the rise of note-taking in this era vindicates the relative accuracy of the speeches long thought to be imaginative recreations. It is a strange account, rendered eerie in the author's meticulous drumbeat march through the labyrinth of recovered details.

Mark Munn has written a superb study of late fifth-century Athens focusing especially on the protracted struggle between the democrats and the oligarchs, and the effect which Thucydides' HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR had on those men involved in that struggle. What is new and unique here is the importance Munn assigns to the role of history and memory in Athenian society. He shows how the Athenians' view of their past colored and shaped their political struggles. The Athenians were probably more sensitive to religious and political scandal in their own time than we are in ours. Munn writes in a very engaging style-especially in his account of the controversy surrounding Alcibiades. At last we have an answer to the question: When did Thucydides write his HISTORY, and why he left it unfinished. The SCHOOL OF HISTORY is a must read for anyone interested in Athens, Thucydides, or Alcibiades!

Good book for getting started... after reading and using it you may want to get a more complete education in Sign Language.

This is very helpful for those wishing to learn some basic sign language.

This book is great for beginners. It shows you alot of signs that would get you started and on your way. However, our class has learned that because all of the signs are not 'universal', we needed an ASL dictionary to go along with it. The discriptions of the signing actions need to be read a couple of times in some instances to understand what you are susposed to do. But is is good for a beginner to get the basics.

This book was highly recommended to me by a top British Archer when I asked if there was a book that would help me understand the Physics of the sport. Neither he nor Al Henderson, the author, seem to know what Physics is, because this book is about the amateur psychology of archery. It's the kind of thing that will be popular in the US, but is probably not a lot of help to the rest of us, except if you find this kind of work funny. I roared all the way through it: "When I get a chance to talk about that great human game called "passing the buck", I get get right up on a soapbox and cut loose."

The book is just crammed with anecdotal advice from this old boy, whose English comes with the twang and syntax of upstate Arizona: "It takes backbone, not wishbone, to succeed at anything."

Al tries to prepare the prospective archer for the possibility that they may not win (mere participation not being the object of sport for many in the US), and even quotes that pillar of American society, OJ Simpson, who advises, "Give it your best. If it doesn't work, it just wasn't your day that time."

To be fair, although there's nothing at all in the book about understanding archery, it might help you understand your own approach to any sport, and has, in fact, helped me improve my groupings by getting me to look at myself a little closer. For this alone, it was worth the asking price, and if you can get through it without flinging it in the fire, then you just might find that Al's annoying advice will help you , too

This book is not for the person who doesn't know how to shoot. It's for the experianced competitive shooter who wants to win, hence the title Understanding WINNING archery. Archery is full of advise on equipment and form so it's great to read something from another point of view. Henderson coached some of the best recurve olympic shooters in Pace and McKinney so unless you are winning everything I would buy this book if I was you.

Al understands the mind of the serious archer and puts his coaching techniques in print. Many books talk about the mechanics of archery but this book was unique at the time since it dealt with the mind. I've read it several times and get something out of it every time I read it... Highly recomended for all levels of archers.

Trying to follow the electrical diagrams in this book will reveal its limitations. Other sections seem a bit brief also. However, with the exception of the Volvo factory books, this is the best general reference that I have found. The factory books are purchased seperately, and are meant to go into a binder. To buy all the factory books for the 740 would cost over $3000, making this book a bargin!

Although there have been a few things that I was interested in that were not included in the book, for the most part it's a sufficient repair manual. I'm a very inexperienced mechanically, but I've been able to do quite a bit of work on my 740s using this book. It does cover stuff that I wouldn't even think of doing though---including pulling the tranny apart...

I searched the entire book and found no infomation on how to service or troubleshoot the high beam switch. I did see the turn signal portion but no information on the high beam switch.

In his comic play, Lysistrata, Aristophanes provides a fantasy account of the Peloponnesian War between the Spartans and Athenians. The women of Greece, disheartened by all of the bloodshed and damage caused by the war attempt to take the matter into their own hands. Led by Lysistrata, the women of Sparta and Athens band together and institute a sex-strike which will continue until the men agree to a cease-fire. Henderson is very liberal with his translation, which stands in contrast to some of the pruder translations from the Victorian era and even ones from this century. The play is filled with graphic sexual innuendos, which were repressed in other editions, but are fully presented here to retain the original comic power of the play. The vernacular used is modern and uninhibited, and is not recommended for young audiences (University level minimum).

this books gives you the sense on how women wee treated and how they made themselves stand out and been heard using special tatics to stop the war between the athenians and the trojans. Although they say that women are the weaker sex the men are weaker with out sex.

Clare Francis's new novel, "Betrayal" is about Hugh Wellesley, a well-to-do English businessman who is very much on edge. One reason that Hugh's nerves are frayed is that he is in danger of losing the family business that he inherited from his father. Worse still, Hugh hears that Sylvie, his former lover, has been stabbed to death. Hugh knows that sooner or later the police will question him about the crime. He does not want the police to delve into his personal life, and he wants to avoid a public scandal at all costs.

Hugh's fragile wife, Ginny, is an asthmatic who does not handle stress well. Soon, she is caught up in Hugh's troubles and the police start to question both Hugh and Ginny about Sylvie's death. Did Hugh or Ginny kill Sylvie? Or is there another person who had reason to want Sylvie dead?

Francis effectively depicts Hugh's torment and guilt over the mess that he has made of his life. Not only has Hugh neglected Ginny in order to expand a business that may now fail, but he has embroiled his wife in a homicide investigation. Even if Hugh is not charged with Sylvie's murder, he may not be able to salvage his marriage or his business.

"Betrayal" works much better as a character study than it does as a mystery. Hugh is basically a decent individual who has made some very costly mistakes, and Ginny is a beautiful but insecure woman who wants nothing more than to win back her husband's affections. The author depicts Hugh, Ginny and a large cast of secondary characters deftly. The lively characters are a major strength of the book.

Unfortunately, the mystery element of the novel is not as strong. "Betrayal" is replete with red herrings, but an astute reader should be able to figure out the solution long before the end. Nonetheless, I recommend "Betrayal" as an engrossing character study of a desperate man trying to save himself and his family from ruin.

Betrayed by his business partner and harried by a hostile takeover of his family business, Hugh Wellesley has betrayed his fragile, high-strung wife with Sylvie, an old flame burning anew, now murdered and thrown into the river near his family's summer cottage in Devon. Insisting to the police that he hardly saw Sylvie that summer, he falls under increasing suspicion as the web of lies begins to unravel.

Between interrogations, frazzled conversations with his wife, brusque exchanges with his country doctor brother, sympathetic advice from the doctor's wife (and his former business partner's sister), and cut-throat buy-out negotiations for his family glass company, the reader learns that Hugh was obsessed by Sylvie, betrayed by her and without an alibi.

But Hugh's wife, Ginny, and his brother and sister-in-law cover up for him so thoroughly that Ginny is arrested instead. Unable to cope with his business reversals, Ginny has been tearful and touchy all summer, possibly unstable, even suicidal. Murder is not out of the question.

The betrayals mount as the psychological tension builds. Suspicion cripples intimacy and stifles communication, undermining a deeper core of strength and resiliency which adversity has uncovered in their marriage. Francis ("Deceit") ratchets up the suspense as the atmosphere grows more claustrophobic and the secrets crawl out of dark corners. Veteran mystery readers, however, will see the solution coming and may be a bit disappointed in Hugh.