I foun this book funny yet stupid. You have to like all types of books to like and understand this book. Some people will disagree with me. You have to read it for yourself to decide if you like it or not.

This book is one of the best books iv'e ever read. If you like Austin Powers than this is the book for you. It Austin Powers mad libs, trivia, and much much more.

It would please me very much if you would order this book today!

I think this book is the best book I have ever read and I am a girl But the funny part is I never actually read it!!!!!

This is the book I check first when I have a question about an English Rose. The organization is great, the photography is beautiful, and the plants are described by someone who has grown them in the US. This book is therefore best for those growers who live in Southern California, but still, it's better than if it was written by an English grower. This book also describes the negative aspects of varieties, which is one of the most helpful things. One thing that would improve this book is a photo or description of the plant habit so to provide information on where to plant in the garden. E.g. is Abraham Darby staunchly upright, graceful, floppy? This book isn't all-inclusive, and of course there are new roses being released every year, but if you've got to have the latest, does it matter? Check out also 100 Old Roses for the American Garden, by the same author. Also a great book.

This is a great and detailed book about David Austin's roses. It is especially helpful since it gives realistic descriptions of the roses including disease resistance or lack thereof, how long it takes for a plant to establish itself and produce blooms, and what pitfalls exist for each rose. I think these are really important things to know since rose catalogs often only tell good things about roses and are a bit misleading. This book has great photos that are realistic, simple and beautiful, which also make you want to grow each and every variety. The companion to this book, 100 Old Roses for the American Garden is also excellent and features more disease resistant roses. The review below is actually about the 100 Old Roses book (with the cover photo of Austrian Copper) and was mistakenly put under this book about Austin's English Roses.

I stumbled onto this book because it was featured in the Washington Post in a column written by Adrian Higgins (Henry Mitchell's sucessor). A photograph of the Austrian Copper rose accompanied the article (the cover), and I'm a sucker for burnt-orange, so I followed up on the book. I am very pleased with it.

Although the cover is paper, it's a plasticized paper and a sturdy book. I mention this first, because I will refer to the book often, it feels pleasant to hold in the hand, it's easy to carry, and it can get a little moisture on the outside and not crumble.

I'm tired of having my roses eaten alive every spring, so I decided to pull out all the hybrids and fall back and regroup. This book takes me back to the old roses that are a little more hardy and can put up with Washington DC weather patterns.

The book is nicely laid out. A front section entitled, "What Makes an Old Rose" describes how old roses came to be. The next section is a "field guide" to help you distinguish roses at the nursery. This is followed by 168 pages of roses and text from 'Alba Semi-Plena' to 'Zephrine Drouhin.'

What makes this book unique as well as useful is the layout. Each rose is covered in a two-page section. A text description is on the right-hand page, and a closeup photograph of a specimin of the rose showing the bloom, buds, and leaf and branch structure is on the left-hand side. Because it's an actual photo, one can identify the rose in question more easily.

The text is useful. Not only are you provided a nice historical write-up on the rose, you are given the 'demographics' including the uses, fragrance, and suseptibility to diseases. Many of the roses appear to be relatively disease free and fragrant--and I found all of them except the "green" rose beautiful.

The back of the book contains a list of mail-order houses and gardens where the specimins can be viewed. Since I live in the DC area, I have acces to the U.S. National Arboretum and Woodlawn Plantation, but locations for viewing old roses are located in most states.

WOW!!! The pictures of the roses in this book are unmatched by any other publication. I have for many years been a Hybrid Tea Rose fan, but after reading this book and after visiting several gardens with Austin's roses in them, I have been converted. I just ordered over 20 bushes and I cannot wait for their arrival next spring. I agree with a previous reviewer who commented that the writing is self serving at times, but Austin's passion for his plants can be understood. Austin's comments about group plantings and his recommendations concerning minimiums for plantings of each species, I found invaluable. I believe this book is well worth the price and will win you over to a relatively new breed of rose.

This book is what started my passion for roses and transformed me into a true gardener. I carried the book around with me for days, amazed that nature could create such beautiful flowers. Within two months I was watering my new English Rose garden comprised of 16 roses from the pages of this beautiful book! If you even think you love roses, you must get this book!

This book is a really beautiful book full of glorious photos of Davids Roses. We are given a brief family history on each rose and a rating for the overall assesment and fragrance of them. Full to the brim with color shots, this book would make a terrific gift for anyone who loves roses or as a special treat for yourself.

This book may be ok for a phone sex consumer or someone looking for a cheap thrill, but as a professional phone actress it was very disappointing. I had been looking foreward to getting this book and after reading it twice it went in the trash. Austin talking about getting hot and bothered with callers doesn't ring true in my experience or any of my acquaintances in the business. The most preposterous claim in her book is being successful with a character that is supposedly asian, but using a whiny New York accent. Several phone workers I know and myself as well, have asian and other ethnic characters, when clients call them they want an exotic experience and expecting a very genuine accent. Although Ausin's writing is adequate and even marginally witty at times, her accuracy and take on the business is very sadly lacking.

All kinds of readers will be glad they've read *Phone Sex* by phone sex worker Miranda Austin. Want to try your own hand (voice?) at the job? This book will tell you how.

Always wanted some hot-and-kinky-and-twisted-and-downright-weird sex, but so far haven't had the nerve to try? This book will tell you how to take one safe, easy step by sharing your fantasy with a phone sex worker.

Want to use phone play to spice up the sexual life of you and your partner, whether long-distance or in the same house? This book will tell you how.

But in spite of the solid information, the happiest readers who will read *Phone Sex* will be those readers who enjoy funny, sexy, thoughtful writing. This book is a page-turning pleasure written by a woman with a pitch-perfect ear for both dialogue and absurdity. Of even more significance is Ms. Austin's blend of tolerance and self-knowledge, a blend that makes the book as thought-provoking as it is amusing and informative. A keeper, and an auspicious debut for a sexy new writer.

As a phone kitten - I definitely have to say that this book is right on!

I have to say I was nervous when I received this book - as most books make us girls look so freaking sad - this book seemed to celebrate phone girls, and the job!

And the part about the guy who fantasizes about the Author dumping him for a guy with monsterous biceps? I talk to him al the time! LMAO...

Way to go Miranda!

I was very impressed with the entire story!

I thought the characters were fantastic. The spiritual insight given to Eli, particularly, was deep and inspiring. It shows Lynn Austin's understanding of how God works in and through all circumstances, both good and bad.

Although it is a work of fiction, it seemed as if it could well have been a true story. I was even challenged in my own trust in God as I read about Caroline's courage to follow her convictions no matter the cost and surrendering 'Thy will be done' to God, as well as the slaves' deep love for God and their faith in His sovereignty and love for them in spite of very unjust suffering. (Not to mention that I enjoyed the history lesson of the Civil War.)

I thought it was a wonderful book of loyalty, courage, selflessness and forgivenss in a world of injustice, pride, prejudice and bitterness. I really enjoyed this book - so much so that I just purchased another from the same author.

Having grown up in Virigina, and being well aquainted with our Civil War history, I found Lynn Austin's story telling to be beyond excellent. The words she uses paints a facinating picture of not only Richmond, but of life during those times. This story of Caroline grips you from the first page, and never disappoints. Thanks for a wonderfully written story. I can't wait for book two in the series!

I actually had a hard time putting this book down, and it was a really well written book.....very reminiscent of Gone With the Wind - some scenes especially - I loved the book and am glad I read it, but there was a nagging thought in my head that, yes, in retrospect, it WAS God's will for the North to win, and for slavery to be abolished since that IS what happened. But it bothered me that is seemed God approved of Caroline's obvious betrayal of her government and her family when God's word says to obey governing authorities, and I wondered if this could send a wrong message about being faithful. As a Southerner I was a little bothered by her betrayal of the South, too. But the story is well-told, and probably parallels the truth of someone's life back then, even though this is a fictional account, and it did give me a different perspective of the civil war and the realities of the day. I could not put this book down once I started it.

Versatile, convenient, informative, and easily understood. These are the four adjectives I would use to descibe this wonderful book. We are all educated people, we know that we need 3-4 days of cardiovascular work (walking, jogging, step aerobics, what have you) at 20-30 minutes a pop to help with fat loss. However, if you are thinking that just cardiovascular exercise will do it, you're wrong. You need to strength train your muscles, and this book is the bible for it. If you want long, lean muscles, buy this book. Having lower back pain? Wait for the pain to subside, get the dr.'s okay, and then buy this book. There are back strengthening exercises in here for all of us Linda-Carter-Wannabees (a.k.a. Wonder Woman) who conquer college, career, marriage and children. You need this book to feel better, look better, and gain that confidence you had when you were 16 in the dance recital. You need this book if you are a beginner, an intermediate exerciser, or an 'ol pro. People have mentioned that this book is detailed....that's an understatement. This book gives you explicit information on breathing during exercises, proper form, and the speed at which to execute the exercises. Yes, it's that good. Just as others have mentioned, Denise Austin's heart is in the right place. However, during her videos (of which I own at least 10), she may do 16 repetitions on the left leg, and then quickly change to the right leg. On the right leg, however, she may only do 12 repetitions! That annoys me, thus, I tend to shy away from the videos these days. However, with the book, YOU control the repetitions. You don't have to pause and rewind...you don't have to wait for cues that won't come, and finally, you don't have to deal with beats and rhythms (Denise has a hard time following those, too). So, on a final note, I give this book the ultimate praise. Run to your nearest book store and purchase it, or buy it right here, right now!

I have been using this book off and on for over 2 years now. I keep going back to this book when I need to lose weight and tone-up. The exercises are easy to follow and can be as challenging or low-intensity as you make it. I have trouble following other exercise books/videos and really recommend this to anyone who wants to lose weight and tone-up different areas of their body. Of course to lose weight you have to add aerobic exercise (fast walking/other) as she stresses in this book. I recommend this book for any age, but I'm 40 and find this book one of the easiest to follow and the best, so far, for me.

I own all the 'Hit the Spot' videos and have used them for years. This book has more or less all of the same great exercises. There is a lot of variety- she gives many variations to work the same muscle so you can pick and choose what you like. She also shows all different levels so you can start with this book as a beginner and still use it at an advanced level.In her videos, Denise often does an imbalanced set between right side and left side. She also tends to jump to the next exercise without any break. With the book I can work at my own pace and do the proper sets. Some complaints: the book doesn't stay open easily. I took the pages apart and put them in report cover sheets and a binder. Also, find out how to stretch all your muscles after you've worked them. This book shows stretches but does not cover stretches for all the muscles you work. This book could advise more about proper breathing and the pace to work at. But just find that out somewhere else and you'll be fine.

Frei does a marvelous job of telling the story of what truly was the GAME OF THE CENTURY. You may be surprised as to who suggested tha the game be moved from it's normal date to become the last game of the year. It was a time when Arkansas and Texas dominated the old Southwest Conference. Much went into the preperation and much came out of it. Frank Broyles, AD at Arkansas and the head coach at the time of the 1969 game has NEVER watched the tape of the game.

Excellent book not only for the coverage of the players and the game, but also for reminding us of the social issues of the time. A must read not only for college football fans, but anyone interested in the era.

Unlike reviewer Star (who for some reason felt compelled to slam the book because he didn't like the teams involved) I found this to be a great book about a unique era in college football. The book is well researched and the author doesn't take sides. The detail of the game itself and the coaches thinking is very interesting for those who weren't watching college football in those days.

Obviously Texas fans will enjoy it more than those from Arkansas, but they still might be interested all the same. After all, it was an epic game. For those Penn State fans who are still bitter about finishing #2 to Texas, answer this: Why did Penn State avoid playing Texas in the Cotton Bowl? Notre Dame was the bowl committee's second choice. If you don't want to play #1, you don't get to be #1.

Detective Martin Beck is back at work after a near-fatal event at work. A team of colleagues is attempting to solve a series of bank robberies that they are convinced are related. Beck is in the process of solving another case. His work and conclusions are more intriguing than that of the others and finally solved but not prosecuted. All crimes eventually can be all tied together even though they are not officially solved. The crimes are set in the Stockholm of the 70ies and integrated in Sweden's social problems of that era.

While I was expecting a masterpiece along the lines of Henning Mankell's criminal investigator Wallander this book did certainly not live up to my expectations. The stories are very fragmented, the sudden shifts from one story to the other are deliberate but destructive to the reader. I did not get hooked onto the book at all - because of its fragmentation it totally lacks suspense. It is hard to relate nowadays to the social problems of the time and they seem to overshadow the story lines in many instances. I concluded for myself that I could not get interested because of too many contemporary references, which will not make this mystery a classic of its genre. While Martin Beck fills the role of an interesting inspector he is pushed to far into the background even though he is supposed to be the novel's hero.

I have recently become a fan of this series of twelve detective novels, written in the late 1960's and early 1970's in Sweden by husband and wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Wahloo, who died in 1975, did some reporting and the no-nonsense style of these novels reminds one of good reporting.

The Locked Room is somewhat unique to the series, in that the authors frequently shift their focus to the minor characters and criminals, in omniscient narrator style, giving the reader more perspective than is usual. The novel involves two crimes, a bold bank robbery in which a bank customer is killed, and the discovery of a retired man's decomposed body in his apartment, which appears to be locked from the inside. Beck, who recently returned to the force after recovering from a shooting, is assigned the locked room case and we see him trying to fit the pieces together of a seemingly impossible crime to solve.

A NY Times critic has recently praised the grim realism of these novels; if Beck drinks too much coffee on an empty stomach, his gets sick. After a broad daylight bank robbery, the police get starkly different eyewitness accounts, leading to a morass of seemingly unrelated clues, some of them way off. The reader is constantly reminded that in the real world, this is how crimes are really solved by big city police forces.

Some readers are a little put off by the Socialist leanings of the authors, which rises to the surface occasionally as they discuss current events of Stockholm 30 years ago including strikes, poor health care/benefits for workers, etc. However the rantings never seemed to me to get in the way of their story, and the novels are all written in a lean, sparse style with few wasted scenes or verbal flourishes. I recommend the series highly, beginning with the great Roseanna.

The seventh Martin Beck novel. Recovering from his misadventures in "The Abominable Man", Beck takes up a seemingly unsolvable case: a friendless, elderly miser, shot one time in the head in a one-bedroom apartment, with locked doors and locked windows, and no gun in sight. Meanwhile, his colleagues are investigating the high-profile shooting of a security guard during a daring bank robbery conducted, apparently, by a beautiful blonde woman.

Although the authors begin to get a little too heavy-handed in their social commentary, this is still one of the better Beck novels (in fact it is regarded by many as the best, though I think its predecessor is better.) The dual plot structure and the improbable connection between the crimes make for a great thriller. The characters are engaging, and the ending is wonderful. Read it.

I got the original Born To Sing tape set as a gift 10 years ago, and found it more helpful than all my years of voice lessons in high school and college! Now I direct a church choir and am using the techniques with them. I Just ordered the 4 CDs + Book version of the Born To Sing Deluxe and their ABCs Of Vocal Harmony course. I can't wait to receive them.

I didn't think you could learn to sing. You had to be born with it. I really love it so I took a few lessons and that helped a little. When I found Born To Sing - WOW! I really made some major progress and I showed it to my voice teacher and she got her own copy and tells her other students about it. Try it - you'll love it!

I am impressed! This Born To Sing voice course teaches all the stuff I needed to work on and then some. I gained so much confidence & I really love singing more than I ever thought I would. My high range increased by 5 notes and I can hold notes longer than my friend Casey and he's a really great singer. So thanks for this great training. When I'm in Los Angeles, I would love to have some lessons with the masters, Mr.Austin & Ms. Howard.

It is difficult to write a book for a technical as well as a business audience. Tom Austin has accomplished this task in his book PKI. Rather than simply present an in-depth technical discussion, Austin brings the technical arguements to a business audience and, for the technical audience, an overview of PKI technology and the business case for such an approach.

The book has five major sections. Security Basics places PKI within a larger information system security framework, introducing central concepts of cryptography and related functions. PKI Technologies examines the fundamentals of the PKI approach, including certificate authorities and hardware mechanisms. The PKI and Business Issues section cover a range of issues, such as acquiring PKI and enabling legacy applications. Then he presents Case Studies, where he shows how several large organizations (Bank of Bermuda, Perot Systems, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Reusch) made their business decisions in support of PKI and the implementation of PKI solutions. In his final chapter, PKI Efforts: Present and Future, the author discusses laws and standards as well as biometrics and PKI.

I plan to recommend this book to my consulting clients and those who wish to better understand the importance of PKI. If Tom Austin's book is an example of the Wiley Tech Brief series, I look forward to reading their other offerings.

Sanford Sherizen, Ph.D., CISSP

I must say that this book was the right book at the right time for me. After (re)-searching for some time for a book on PKI and finding really not much that could make the subject clear without being readable only by people who are already deploying, developing, or using PKI based solutions, i.e. the book starts on the ground floor; what is it all about, why do I care, and how can I plan for PKI. This book was an easy read on an increasingly important subject, its illustrations worked well for me, and the level of depth for a technical but first time reader on the subject was more than adequate. It is a PKI Brief not a PKI Bible and prospective buyers should keep this in mind. I bought 5 additional copies for managers and technologists in my company to get them started on the subject and to ground future discussion on the subject. Well-done Mr. Austin. I am looking forward to your next tech brief.

Part of my job at an Internet security company is educating prospective customers on the mysteries of Public Key Infrastructure. I know from speaking to hundreds of customers that this is a technology that is foreign to many. In this book, Tom Austin does an excellent job describing, with good examples, each of the fundamental areas of PKI. Along with the well-written text, the book is richly illustrated and will clearly help the reader acquire a firm grasp of PKI. I'd like to leave a copy of this book with each of my prospective customers.