This book falls below what I would expect from Oxford (at least the traditional Oxford of yester-year). The pictures are nice as well as a lot of the text. The main problem with this book is the chapter "The Vikings in History and Ledgend." The author of this essay insinuates that those who take pride in their Viking heritage are Nazis. This chapter is full of inappropriate partisan politics and hurts this book. It reads like propoganda straight out of a typical ADL hate tract.
One reader has obviously fallen for this line (see below).
There are far-better books on the Vikings out there. Go for Gwen Jones for a more balanced account.

This is one of the best books on the Vikings I've ever read (and I've read dozens!). With numerous contributors from many universtities, each chapter is written with detailed authority and offers a fresh perspective. The chonology at the back of the book is a bonus feature. My only criticism is that, depspite chapters on exploration to the west (what I consider to be the most important legacy of the Vikings), Sawyer still tends to let the British perspective of victimization by the Vikings dominate the book.

Some races look at an Ocean and think about whats over the horizon, and some races look at the ocean, think, and build a boat and cross the horizon. (and some races think about pulling ants out of a log with a blade of grass) Our ancient ancestors settled the world, Russia is named after the Rus Vikings that settled there, they traveled to North America 500 years before Columbus traveled to South America. In fact, it is believed that Columbus got the idea to travel across the ocean after a visit to Iceland. The Vikings even traded with Asians. This is proven by asian artifacts found in Viking archeologcal sites. Vikings were aggressive in their actions but that is a part of our European Blood, we are all aggressive, As European Decendants, we love a good fight, unless of course you're one of those Neo-Liberal Pussies.
Anyway, buy this book, learn about our Norse Ancestors. Even if you're not a direct Norse decendant, as European decendants we share a common Celtic Ancestry with the Norsemen.
Oxford has a great, well deserved reputation for quality books, and this is one of them.

Bowles' autobiography "Without Stopping" has been referred to as "Without Telling" by Burroughs. Invisible Spectator follows it step-by-step, especially with regard to the early years. Additions to what Bowles fans want to know are largely limited to some speculations about Mr. Bowles' sexual relationships and a bits of new information from letters, interviews, and obscure publications. Historical context should have been provided given that Mr. Bowles was born in 1910, almost ninety years ago.

The last few decades are glossed over, especially considering the blow-by-blow account of the early years of career-building and travel. Again, these events are known largely from Mr. Bowles' autobiography and Invisible Spectator adds little. Little light is shed on the later years after Mrs. Bowles' death in the 1970s. These years have been highly productive for the subject, and much more interesting to this reader than the virtually prehistoric youth of Mr. Bowles. From the Beats on, the biography serves up the skimpiest information. If you have never read anything about Paul Bowles you will be entranced as his life is fascinating. If you have, there's little new here. The author is a fan, and a biography by a detractor would be much more fun. Regardless, cheers to Mr. Paul Bowles for letting the biographer have access to personal information. I wish he had done a more interesting job with it.

Paul Bowles lived in Morocco for a reason, he embraced the mystery of it,perhaps enjoyed losing his western self in it, and there is no solving in any easy rational way the mystery that is Paul Bowles. But this is a great gathering of the known facts. I appreciate the lack of speculation and reading into things ....the author allows you to accompany him through this life decade by decade, sticking to what is known. And Bowles, however good your guide, remains a territory for the most part unknown.
It may be worthwhile to compare this to Paul Bowles own autobiography Without Stopping published in early seventies.
In this biography you get a picture of Paul as a child, as well as a restless young man who cannot resist the call to Europe. You get Paul as composer of numerous film scores, poems, and a general idea of this middle period before that better known period as writer marked by the publication of that first book Sheltering Sky. Also there is an interesting portrait of Jane, his talented and troubled wife. And a picture of Paul at work with his protege Mohammed Mrabet whose oral tales he transcribed(including:Love With a Few Hairs, Lemon, Boy Who Caught Fire, others). This will give you a very good idea of Paul as glimpsed by an outsider as it is a competent and readable dossier of facts and dates. There are more speculative works about Paul Bowles available but really I think the fiction is the place to go. There you will find the most interesting Bowles, the composer of tales and mysteries, even riddles of what it is to be human. The story of Paul's life is interesting and perhaps it will help some who like to interpret stories with the support of biographical data but ultimately the facts in this case anyway do not go very far.

I have not only read the book, but taken the test portions that go along with it. It gives a good history of internal auditing for those new to the auditing field. It is also helpful to those with a moderate degree of experience. However, you will need to take the course from the USDA in order to find out what the chapter review answers are. I speculate 90% of them are just to vague! Other chapter review questions will not known until after you have read a chapter ahead. Example, some of the answers to chapter 2 review you will find from reading chapter 3. In chapter 23's test review if I recall, most of the answers come from chapter 22 etc. I did find it in my heart to give the book a 3 star because the information was helpful, but I would wait until 5th edition. As far as I know the course is not worth any college credit but should be good for CPE credit.

THIS IS A MAGNIFICIANT BOOK FOR CIA.

This book is a humorous and enjoyable book. I liked the way the author made Tom a little rebel. Tom also did whatever he wanted when he wanted. He made his Aunt Polly disipointed in him all the time. He never really told the whole truth to anyone, about anything. If someone asked him a question, he would tell only some of the truth or stretch the answer a little bit. Tom and Huck made a good combo. They had the same intrests and were daring in everything that they did. I liked the book I would have to say that it is a must read on everyones list. The author is awsome and made the book fun and enjoyable to read. I can't wait to read another Mark Twain book.

the book was ok because it is so hard and it has some long parts in it! so i would not let kids under 8 read this unless they are real good! and other then that it was GREAT!!! then i would give it 50 thumbs up!!

This book is pretty well written. It has some intro pages discussing the merits (and demerits) of the opening. This is followed by chapters sorted by variation.

Each variation is illustrated by a number of actual games with light annotations.

The progression of games is interesting - the author starts out with some of the less critical variations (i.e. the practical over-the-board responses that a player who is "winging it" would play) and builds logically to the most testing lines (i.e. the variation that the stronger player who is prepared will play)

The author claims a 77% kill rate, according to his database. This is a truly impressive statistic. The author is careful to explain that the high percentage of white wins includes some games played by club level players, experts, and a few masters.

At the GM level, where defensive play is a fine art, the results would be far less positive.

I have played the advance French variation for years as white (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 ? ) as an attempt to cut down on my study workload as white. The problem is that quite frankly I have found the resulting positions to be very boring - not something that I could sink my teeth into.

By playing the Alapin French, 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Be3? ) You save a lot of study time for white by forcing black to play your chosen game. At the same time, the positions get very tactical and exciting fast, which will appeal to most players under the Master level.

I picked this book up and though it is more expensive than most pattern books, very much worth it. Our community center instructor, who has worked in stained glass for over 20 years, was so inspired by the book that she borrowed it to copy the patterns. It really offers clean, simple lines for creating show pieces in your home, windows, doors and transoms.

In the Southern California town of Camden lies a retirement home that is not an ordinary place because Angela Benbow and Caledonia Wingate are two of its residents. These two senior citizens are filled with energy and wit that is the envy of many a younger person. In at least six homicide cases, the feisty duo has been at the epicenter of the investigation. No one, including Lt. Martinez, has been able to keep the intrepid pair out of the case.

Lately, there has been an influx of new residents who have decided that Camden-Sur-Mer has more to offer them than the town's other retirement home, the Golden Years Retirement Home (also known as "the Geezer's Factory"). Shortly after the new residents arrived, one of them is murdered and the police are clueless as to who the culprit is. Angela and Caledonia decide to solve the case and not even an attempt on Angela's life can sway them from their course. However, things look bleak when Caledonia is caught snooping in the wrong place by the person she and her partner are trying to catch.

The Geezer Factory Murders out-cozies the best of the subgenre with a gentle who-done-it filled with comic relief, and an insightful, thought provoking glimpse into a retirement community. This approach works. Corrine Holt Sawyer is a terrific story teller who has the special ability to define the hearts and souls of her protagonists; thereby, allowing the reader to care for them as much as the author obviously does.

I found this book very useful & concise. It gives you the most important issues in points rather than full text, which increases your efficiency with little effort! Its USMLE-case-type questions focus more on the treatment. I wish there could be more questions to give us more practice for the exam. It includes introduction to Anesthesiology, but unfortunately not Urology & Orthopedic surgery. In addition, it doesn't have many pictures or diagrams e.g. x-rays, diseases mechanisms.

There are some usable guidelines for requirements gathering, though I feel common sense would give you many of them. I think this book is watered down heavily to fill 350 pages; the content could have fit in 50 pages. The book was not thought out.

The inclusion of a section dedicated to Requirements Engineering of Safety-Critical applications was a big plus and a differentiator when compared to other books on Requirements Engineering ..

I found this book very insightfull, but it needs to have a first idea about what is the requirements engineering and how it's processed. Once you have this idea, this book helps you. You'll find here, essentially pieces of advices which looks like process patterns (in my opinion it should even improve the book to show these advices through a pattern form) to tackle specific problems whith requirements engineering. Moreover, these advices can be read separately. For the beginners, it mises a strong frame along the book to know what is exactly requirements management and so on. But I think the authors are right to do not try to satisfy everybody. As a weakness, I don't know why, but this book seems to be a bit old, where the edition date is only 1997, through a lot of details I feel to read a book written in the early 1980s. But this book is not about technology, so it's not a big weakness.