John Waters Books

Although dated, this is a good book on whitewater racing. Eric Evans was a member of the US whitewater team from 1967 through 1979, winning the national slalom championship 9 times and the wildwater championship once in 1972. John Burton was on the national team several times through the same period winning the national C2 championship in 1970 and the national C1 title in 1971. Both competed in the 1972 Olympics and together the two authors provide a wide overview of whitewater racing disciplines. While the techniques are somewhat dated, aspiring racers will find some interesting tidbits and the book is of historical interest. In addition to covering K1 slalom this book also gives significant coverage to C1 and C2 paddling and includes a chapter on wildwater racing. For a more up-to-date reference on whitewater slalom check out Scott Shipley's book, Every Crushing Storke.

Smith Island is the preserve of some of the most individualistic Americans to be found anywhere. Cowboys of the Bay. Isolated and dependent upon small boats for commerce, transportation, livelyhood and as a cultural icon, the Smith Islanders have produced a variety of watercraft that are much like the Islanders themselves, cranky, idiosyncratic but subject to the tides of change. The text leaves much unsaid and unillustrated such as the Hooper's Island drake tail, a boat fashioned after the fantail of early destroyers. Building details are well illustrated but limited and the history of deadrise workboats, bugeyes, catrigged crabbing skiffs and the infamous gunning punts are not that well explained. The advent of the new wave of crab boats such as Buddy Evans BHM hull and the role of Robbins, the Jones Brothers on Hooper's Island and Markleys are poorly represented. Otherwise this is the best treatment of Smith Island since Chapelle's.

This is a very easy to read book that delivers a 'Readers Digest' version of the major religions of the world. It covers the following:

1. Christianity
2. Islam
3. Hinduism
4. Buddhism
5. Sikhism
6. Judaism
7. Confucianism and Taoism
8. The Baha'i Faith
9. Jainism
10. Shintoism
11. Zorastrianism
12. Primal Religions
13. New Age
14. Atheistic Beliefs
15. New Religions

If you dont want to get bogged down with heavy religious volumes then this book will be a great introductory to the origins and belief systems of each religion. The great thing about this book is that it refuses to show bias and simply presents the facts as they are and leaves the reader to make up their own minds.

I really enjoyed the book Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. It is very well written and very easy to follow.

This is a 'must read' for every man and woman, even if you think you understand your partner very well.

This book changed my life. It was the first relationship book that made sense of how men and women communicate with each other.

Some things never change and that goes for the way men and women think. That is why this book remains popular today. Men and women are wired differently. It's as simple as that.

John Grey gives us actual tools we can use to understand each other. These tools work.

Through the years, I have gone back again and again to reread this book. It's a must have in understanding the opposite sex. Nancy Marlowe

I got this book to attempt to understand the differences between men and women after repeatedly beating my head against a wall in my dealings with the opposite sex.

I found it extremely insightful into the way each gender thinks, and understanding what my partner wants will definitely be useful in all of my future relationships.

I strongly recommend that if one partner reads it, they both should.

There were a couple of remarks (ie: about the woman's kitchen) that I found a bit bemusing (I'm female and I loathe the kitchen). But they hardly mar the book's quality.

Go on! Read it!

The fact that millions of people believe the advice in this book is astonishing.

First and foremost, John Gray is NOT a phD from an accredited university. It is a certificate from an online school that was closed down by the state of California for "running a degree mill." In fact, if you do your research, you will find only his high school diploma is accredited. Do I think that only an accredited phD has valid advice? No. But anyway you slice it, slapping phD all over book covers when you aren't is extremely deceitful and misleading.

That being said, I found this book to be very degrading to women. Statements along the lines of "When the Venusians (women) first saw the Martians (man) they said 'We need you for your strength and power!'" and "women find value in being cherished by a man" are infuriating. Everything about this book insinuates that women need men to take care of them and only feel valuable in the long run if they have a man.

I did find some valid, insightful information in this book, but why John Gray has to pinpoint these insights to either the man or the woman and not on people as a whole is beyond me. Also, the constant referral of men and women as beings from other planets is tiresome and completely unnecessary. We get it. The genders are different in more ways than our reproductive organs. Speak to us as though we are adults, please.

In my opinion, this book is not a book I would give my daughter or son for relationship advice. Instead I would suggest a book that offers advice that is directed to different personalities...not genders.

I had to get this book for a class and I find it so informational and helpful at my office that I am reading it cover to cover. It may look like a textbook but it is a great tool for structuring an office enviornment or fixing one that needs fixing. The dos and don'ts of people structure of an organization. Very informative.

This was my textbook but I found it so useful that I decided to retain it. I'm a project manager and most of my projects created change and transformed business processes. This book explores and explains human behavior within an organizational framework. It leans a bit much on theory but that's essential if you want real understanding of the rationale behind practical application.

The authors present their material effectively. The book has an abundance of contemporary real-world examples. The exercises and case studies impart lessons that built my skills progressively. It gave me insight to design effective strategies that gave my deliverables a more open reception.

I need this for a class and this book was exactly what I needed.......and the shipping was very fast.

It's a helpful book to have a better understanding of organizational behavior.

I enjoyed this textbook in my Leadership and Organizational Behavior class. Explains concepts well. Definitely a text to keep in my library.

This is a good stat guide but an average strategy guide. Most of the information in this guide can be found in a FREE internet guide/FAQ. Aside from some tips on the Butcher, King Leoric & The Final Battle... everything is common sence. The book also has a handfull of obvious typos & misprints. This had become a pattern with pattern with Prima. On the plus side, it is easy 2 understand, most of the stat tables are in tact & it has an interview with the game creaters to geek out on.

Yes, the book is useful. It is not fantastic, beautifully written, crucial to success, or even 100% accurate. This book, with all of its typos, feels as though it has not been proofread more than once. Some of its tables have incorrect values or are poorly organized.

But it is useful.

The book is accurate about 90% of the time, and the quests are well outlined - though I certainly don't believe the quests are difficult enough to require this guide. The primary use of the game is in its tables (when they are accurate), and in their explanations of the actual mechanics behind the game (such as how the game chooses which quests are included in a particular single-player game).

Though all of the information in this guide can be found with a moderate amount of replay, this guide makes it available immediately. I would not use it as a strategy guide, I would use it as a quick reference to keep open while you are hunting for something in particular.

To be fair, I don't believe Diablo requires a strategy guide at all. The game is fairly straight-forward, with none of the mind-boggling complexity of some real RPGs (i.e. Final Fantasy).

The Prima Strategy Lie, as it's know amongst the popular Diablo community, is riddled with technical and strategic inaccuracies and tonnes of misleading information. Do NOT waste your money on this guide.

This book allows you to look things up as you play. You don't have to put to memory what certain weapons are used for.

There is absolutely no need for a strategy guide for Diablo! Diablo is a hack and slash game, go around, beat up monsters until you are strong enough to beat up bigger monsters, rinse and repeat.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with hack and slash games, especially not Diablo or DII, they are my favorite games, but my little brother can beat Diablo without help from a strategy guide, and he was 8 when he did that.

Familiarity with the Civil War will make this a much better read. It can be dry at times, but overall I found it very interesting. I learned many new things in this book.

A Confederate spymaster who also fought in Cuba

Fishel, Edwin C. 1996 The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War. Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York ISBN-10 0395742811, ISBN-13 978-0395742815 This is an excellent and interesting book, which provides novel material on intelligence activities during the US Civil War and places it in clear and applicable context. While seeking information on Thomas Jordan, who would be for a time the senior general in Cuba's 1868-1878 Ten Year's War, I found this book to be very useful. This work (pp. 59-76) not only tells of how General Jordan was once General Beauregard's adjutant at Manassas, but details with great care Jordan's role as a spy master and sage evaluator of secret intelligence prior to this battle. General Jordan, although not mentioned in the Fishel book went on to lead an important victory over Spanish Forces at Guaimaro in January 1870. Antonio Pirala's history of this war Anales de la Guerra en Cuba (Published in 1895, 1896 and 1874 by Felipe González Rojas, of Madrid) gives a detailed account of Jordan's war record in Cuban. However Fishel's book, again without mentioning Cuba, provokes the interesting and surely polemic question: Were Jordan's actions in Cuba free from an intelligence gathering role for the US? Interestingly enough General Thomas Jordan wasteful military tactics in Cuba during the Ten Year's War have been soundly condemned by Cuban Mambí Brigadier General Calixto (Garcia-Iñiguez) Enamorado Cabrera, a part Taíno son of Major General Calixto Garcia). Calixto Enamorado's narration thinly veiled as novel was published in 1917 as Tiempos Heroicos Persecución, by Rambla, Bauza and Company of Havana.

In 1959, the author uncovered a previously unknown collection of U.S. government documents describing intelligence operations during the Civil War. These papers became the basis for his epic study of Civil War intelligence. Writing on Civil War intelligence is challenging, since the U.S. military's philosophy on intelligence was primitive and vastly different than today. The U.S. Army had no specialized intelligence structure, doctrine, training, personnel, equipment, or concept of operations.

While the theory of intelligence or "know thy enemy" dates back to the dawn of warfare, it is unfair to compare modern views of intelligence with the 1860's. Despite this challenge the author fairly balances his analysis of both the Union and the Confederate use of intelligence.
The author deserves credit for attempting to take a holistic view of intelligence and not simply talk of spies and secret operations. Extensive analysis is conducted on the use of observation balloons (early airborne reconnaissance) and stealing enemy flag signals (very early signals intelligence). The author even talks about the Union's attempt to condense, combine, and refine intelligence from various collection methods (early all-source analysis).

While most Civil War accounts focus on battle, this work, like most real intelligence, focuses on the time between the battles. Civil War generals spent very little time actually in battle, and spent the great majority of the war either on the move, trying to figure out where the enemy was, or what the enemy was trying to do next.

Be warned the book is not a quick read. The author's addiction to detail is so deep that I believe it near impossible for anyone to attempt to produce a more complete history of Civil War intelligence unless a second collection of unknown intelligence documents is discovered.

operations. It really is a facinating book for the real history buff who has tolerance and maybe desire to really know all the ins and outs of how information was gathered in those days.

Though covering 594 pages of material, I did not find the material as plodding or as painful to read as some of the other reviewers. I don't disagree that this is not a book for the common reader. It is for those individuals very specifically interested in the Civil War or perhaps the early development of America's intelligence operations. Fishel's book is very intriguing and I specifically find his treatment of General Joe Hooker very fascinating. Indeed, I now look at Hooker in a far different light, conceding that he was a much better general than I gave him credit for. I certainly agree with most assessments that he was not a great commander of the Army of the Potomac, but I do believe he was very effective at division and corps levels, positions where he could physically direct the action of his men. At higher responsibility levels, he simply couldn't not move the battle pieces around without seeing them. He needed to be on the battlefield to be effective. But, he was the first general, and is credited with, building the military's first concept at all-source intelligence reporting. He built the Military Bureau of Information so he could have an office that could collect intelligence from citizen-scouts, cavalry, prisoner interrogation, slaves, and spies and then synthesize the data into a collective strategic picture. No other commander, nor the War Department, had ever done this. It was this concept that allowed him to get his stolen march on Lee. Fishel points to evidence of the Union Signal Corps transmitting a fake message that was picked up by Lee's Signal Corps that resulted in Lee dispatching JEB Stuart on a ride to pursue a phantom force. Stuart's departure left the hole that Hooker used to get around to Lee's flank. How often is this discussed in books? It isn't. Hooker reorganized the cavalry, consolidating them into one corps, another logical and new concept. He rode in intelligence balloons, further showing his interest and understanding of the importance of intelligence gathering. No other general really understood the importance of intelligence gathering like he did. His work and understanding of it dwarfed all others. He would have done great service if an intelligence bureau at the War Department was created and he was placed in charge of it. This new dimension of Hooker is what Fishel brings forth in his work.

Fishel documents his facts well; his footnotes cover 82 pages. There are also 25 maps. Fishel analyzes all forms of intelligence utilized in the war: cavalry, the signal corps, citizen-scouts, spies (women and men), slaves, freedmen, clandestine actions, deserters, POWs, and double-agents. His efforts span primarily the events from 1861 through the battle of Gettysburg. It is a remarkable work that a student of the Civil War should find most intriguing since it adds a new dimension to think about regarding the prosecution of the war's campaigns. I'm perplexed how one reader comments on the book's lack of worth when he states he didn't bother to read very much of it after finding the author using phrases such as "may have," "possibly," or "could have." The intelligence game played by the Union and Confederate side is not consumed with extensive amounts of documentation. Confederate Treasury Secretary Judah Benjamin destroyed many of his government's secret service and intelligence files. Thus, it is up to authors to try and piece together what is available to do the best to tell the intelligence story. If one keeps this in mind, the material should not be offensive, but insightful simply because the author is attempting to explain what hardly anyone has ever bothered to write about. Many authors today put their own spin and interpretation on the war. Fishel is no different and he's dealing with far less information to build the story.

Strange for a book on this topic published in 2005 not to mention live-rock or the chemistry that goes on in the various in vogue substrate filtration systems.

Very informative on beginning a new salt water tank. Information on what equiptment needed to provide the type of tank I wanted. Different habitat need different water and light conditions. Very helpful.

Good book for beginners maybe. Generally covers all important topics but on very entry level. I didn't find here anything what couldn't be found in public resources on the web.

book was very much into the chemistry...it did not help with the regular issues we have with water in marine aquariums....no mentioning of issues related to presence of chemicals in water....may be people with knowledge in chemistry can try....

A small book cramed with info. Tells the beginner everything they need to know.

This is my first E.J. Pugh mystery. It was a very fast read, the mystery kept me guessing, and I liked the characters of the four sisters. The memories of E.J. and her sisters while they were growing up greatly helped in understanding the dynamics of their dysfunctional family. The mystery itself was good, clues were there, but not obvious. I will read the other books in this series with enjoyment. If you are looking for an easy fast read, this is it.

This was the first book that I've ever read by Ms. Cooper. I picked it up intially because I had been to St. John, U.S.V.I. a few times in the past, and wanted to see which sites were mentioned.

I liked this book, but I found the writing style to be a bit spare. I have no real mental image of what the protagonist and her husband look like, or whether or not I would like them if I met them. The story itself was interesting, and the sibling problems added a nice twist to the story. Actually, I probably would have liked the book better if the family relationships were the sole focus of the book (Ms. Cooper seemed to handle that well). The mystery seemed to be a secondary issue here, and the whole treatment of the crimes that were occuring seemed too lackadaisical.

Although I liked the book, I don't yet know if I care enough about the characters to read the other stories. I'll have to think about that for a while...

This book combined mystery, humor and travel. Anyone visiting St. John will recognize Cruz Bay, lush hills, abandoned sugar mills, and lazy afternoons with fritters and rum! Her relationship with her sisters was real and hilariously funny. She often would go back into her childhood and relate events that explains her love-hate relationship with her sisters. The time she was locked in the bathroom and left on the family road trip made the reader understand her often stormy relationship with her sisters. The murder was the focal point of the book, but her descriptions of St. John, her hilarious characters, and her family relationships kept me turning pages into the dark, humid, tropical night!

We've read all of Susan Rogers Cooper's delightful stories, including the six Sheriff Milt Kovak books, the (very difficult to find) two Kimmey Kruse stand-up comedian stories, and the previous six EJ Pugh mysteries. Obviously we like Cooper's great writing ability; one would swear she can turn a soccer practice carpooling chore into an event of note with her descriptive and insightful commentary on everyday life. All of her characters tend to be a little low profile, humble practitioners with an overdose of curiosity that leads to solving crimes, sometimes almost unwittingly. Unlike her sheriff, who of course was paid to catch killers, Kimmey and EJ are strictly amateurs who depend on cajoling friends and policemen into helping move along reasonably good plots.

In this story, EJ is far from her home (Texas), and is re-united with her three sisters (with spouses/partners along) in a contrived vacation in St. Johns cooked up by her mother who wants to see the girls "get along". Much of the story revolves around their childhood goings-on and/or their perceptions of each other's adult lives and situations in society. Hence, the plot is almost a little secondary to the mental and verbal meanderings in the Virgin Islands setting. There is a murder or two to solve, and even if a bit improbable in total, we're hooked enough by a few real clues mixed in with several red herrings along the way to feel some suspense. Indeed, we thought the ending fairly surprising, and hardly anticipated the ultimate culprit at all.

While we'd readily give almost all Cooper's books 4 stars, we don't think this one was one of her best -- maybe the unusual setting (although entertaining in itself in some ways) put our author off her usual game plan; and with none of the regular supporting characters to help out, we didn't know anybody here either. Still, the faithful will want to read this; and while many of her others seemed better to me, all 15 books are fun, worthwhile "reads" without demanding too much from us the reader but "enjoy". Why not ?!!

This is the first book of the series that I have read. I found it thoroughly enjoyable. The dynamics between four very different sisters on vacation were very well drawn. The characters are very real, the mystery interesting, and I found myself laughing at the situations the characters found themselves in at points.

For a small book, this dictionary covers a lot. Unfortunately, many of the definitions use terms that are not themselves defined elsewhere in the dictionary, breaking a reasonable and inviolate rule that definitions should give a clear, freestanding explanation. Spending a little time to cross-reference the definitions themselves, to see that they are also in the text would be welcome. Some definitions are so short as to be useless to anyone who is not already an "old salt." The illustrations are welcome and well done.

Thanks for taking my return. The book was not well written.

You suck for writing your own "customer" reviews (three of them no less). I bought your book anyway though.

A very good book. The only critical thing I would say is that it lacks boat building terms and does not use WoodenBoat magazine as one of its many fine references. I saw the book advertised in the WoodenBoat catalog and assumed it would help in my new boat building project. I am still looking for a resource. It still has 2000 other terms. Not bad.

I have this book and it is a good book. Just the right size too. Not too big. The production is high gloss boards which protect the book from water splashes. The customer who wrote about the author reviewing his own book is out to lunch. There is a limit of 1000 words per review AND the author simply added 2 different reviews of his book for two different sources. Both reviews were very positive. The author was not dishonest, and he could have been. He signed his reviews. This unconscious reviewer probably couldn't comprehend that part. I am adding this review to balance out the single star review that this yahoo left. I guess every sport and endeavor has it's morons.