Beginners Books

I had recently read this book because of a Creative Writing assignment. The reason I chose this book is because reading it took me way back to when my mind was early in the stage of the exploration of literature. I owned this book as a child, and reading it gave me another small perspective on how our own life and time itself progresses.
Robert Munsch uses humour in alot of his books and this is another one of those cases. For example, at the end of this book, the child's father is suspended in the middle of the kitchen by his toe with a long rope.
Munsch also uses a form of anticipation to ensure that the child >wants< to turn to the next page. For example, most of the pages in this book have sentences that end like: "He looked in the kitchen, it was empty. He looked in the bathroom, it was empty. He looked in the garage and..."
Not only can I look at this book from the perspective of just an ordinary reader, but also as a child; the intended audience of this book. Because of this, I can say the Robert Munsch did a wonderful job of creating literature that will intrigue children for many future generations

I liked the book 50 Bellow Zero. It is a very funny book.I liked when the kid started sleeping on top of the refrigerator.It was also funny when the dad was sleeping out side. I studied this book for seven months. After we studied the book we did a play on it.I would recomend this book to a little kid.

I read Robert Munsch's book 50 below zero. What did I think of it? Well I thought it was great! When [my reading buddy] and I read them 50 Below Zero, they loved it! They'd say stuff like..."That book was funny, good, and exciting!" [My reading buddy] and I also thought that the book was great too.
If I recommanded this book I'd recommand it to parents who sleep walk because the whole story's mainly about the boy getting his father back to bed, because he sleep walks.

Robert Munsch is a funny author with an easy style for the kids to master. If they learn to read one book they can read them all. Parents and teachers won't mind re-reading it over and over again.The illustrations are great, and the humor is funny.This author goes crazy with a sleepwalking dad. Great for teaching prediction,and easy to read to a class. The words are on one page and the illustrations are on the back so you don't have to read sideways(an important detail for tired teachers).He has over twenty books for sale and each one is better than the last.Check his picture on the back cover.He's a wild and crazy guy!

Engaging rhymes and recurring numberical refrain made this book a favorite of my 3 year old. Fun to read and replete with follow-on exercises building on the concept of "doubling". Highly recommended.

This charming, beautifully written and illustrated story helps young children understand the concept of "doubling" numbers. Each time the ants revisit the picnic, they bring more ant friends(in fact, exactly twice as many) to help haul the goodies back to their ant home. The simplicity of the story and each successive illustration with the ever increasing ant army subtly teaches the "doubling" concept. This is a must for any home library.

My son and daughter - aged 5 and 7 love this beautiful little book. The concept of continuous doubling of the number of ants that keep returning to the nest intrigues them. Although the book stops at 512, my children insisted that we keep doubling the number "up to infinity". Well, we kept on doubling until we ran out of paper!! The illustrations are wonderful, complementing this terrific children's treasure.

my four- and five-year old children love this book. it's one they request over and over again when it's story-time at home after dinner or at bed time. they love the little ants who invade the neighborhood picnic and discover a treasure trove of treats that they eventually haul little bits back to their labarynthian home. each time they make the trip they bring more ants, each time doubling their number. my kids very painlessly learned their first multiplication lesson - doubling the number each time. a very cleverly conceived, thoroughly enjoyable book.

There's lots more in this book than just recipes--great info on giving a cocktail party, etc. I especially liked the author's personal touch--like the stories about her younger days and learning that there's more to drink out there than just "house wine" or beer. Good appetizer recipes, too.

Someone gave me this book as a gift and it was a great surprise. It's almost as much fun to read as to make a party around. It's funny and packed with terrific drink recipes. Try the high-octane Havana Delight. It's like a Frappaccino...only much better!

I got this book so I could figure out how to make a mint julip for a Derby Day party. We had so much fun, we decided to work our way through a few of the other recipes.

Let me recommend the Chocotini -- chocolate liqueur and cocoa. Almost better than sex.

Meanwhile, the cosmopolitan, which gets a lot of attention on Sex and the City, is sweet and girlish for a woman who usually drinks scotch neat.

Anyway, if you're looking for basic bartending instructions or just a good time, I recommend this book.

Someone just gave me this book as a gift and it was a great surprise. It's almost as much fun to read as to make a party around. It's funny and packed with terrific drinks. Try the high-octane Havana Delight. It's like a Frappaccino...only much better!

This book prefaces itself in that its intended purpose is not to cover all types of firewalls (e.g.corporate), but just personal firewalls. There are some great dives into previously unanswered questions I had:

1. Would I run a SW firewall if my DSL router already says it has a firewall built-in (answer is yes for a home LAN or a DSP WAN connection, no for low-speed dial up...)

2. How do various SW products (McAfee, BlackIce, ZoneAlarm) compare.

3. How do various HW products compare (DSL modems vs. Cable modems).(From a security viewpoint, there is a clear winner--you'll have to buy the book to find out though or else if I told you Time-Warner would send out someone to unplug my cable in retaliation)

4. How do I test these things once I get them installed? This topic was worth the price of the book alone...he emphasizes doing both Before & After tests to verify that insecure connections just become changed to secure connections. How many people might just install the SW or HW & then wonder "Did it really work? "What's different now than before?")

Overall, more useful information than I ever expected to find in this little book!

In the current environment where cyberbaddies are lurking everywhere, anyone who connects to the Internet without protection are a direct danger to themselves and an indirect danger to everyone they communicate with. There are many ways in which a user can find protection, and one of the primary ways to be protected is to install a firewall on your system. A firewall is either a software or hardware device that scans traffic to and from the system and flags or blocks any that is deemed suspicious.
Written for the beginner, the technical level occasionally rises up beyond what the absolute beginner can be expected to understand, but that is not a negative. As most system administrators will tell you when they are overcome with a fit of honesty, the ignorance of users is the greatest single security threat. Therefore, in my opinion, if a user cannot reach the point where they can understand all of the material in this book, then they are a threat and a prime target for a cyber attack. I consider the material in this book to be an expression of the minimal level of competence and commend the authors for being right on the mark.
The initial segment of the book is a set of explanations of what firewalls are and why they are needed. In the second segment, some of the most widely used personal firewalls are described in detail, including how to install and configure them. The third and final segment is a discussion of general security concepts and tools you can use to test the security of your system.
An excellent introduction to the critical role of firewalls in securing computer systems, this book should be read by anyone who does not know the basics of protection using firewalls.

This books leaves a mixed impression. First of all, although the book is called "for absolute beginners", it is not written as a book for housewives who never saw a computer before. It is interesting, informative, and the reader is assumed to be knowledgeable and capable of making informed decisions. In fact, one has to have a certain understanding of Windows (yes, it is not oriented towards Mac users) and TCP/IP to understand what the author is talking about. The author obviously has very extensive knowledge of internet security, and the book includes much of his practical knowldge. The negative side is that less than 1/3 of the book is generic and applicable to any firewall, i.e., discusses why home networks need to be protected, and where are the potential areas of vulnerability. The rest is step by step description of how to install and configure several commercial firewalls. Frankly, I do not understand who needs all these details since installation/setup guidelines are always included in the software manual which one gets in printed or electronic form together with the purchased program, whereas it is an obvious fact that any particular version of the program gets obsolete very quickly. I doubt that any of the descriptions of software from the book remains relevant two years after the book came out in 2001. I would rather prefer to see more generic (and less dependent on the software version) discussion of how to take advantage of the features present in most firewalls (blocking certain protocols, applications, IP addresses, etc.). All this said, this book is "beginner's guide" only because it does not get into too many details of what exactly firewalls do, and how they do it. However, those few items which are discussed are covered in significant depth and on a good professional level.

If you have a high-speed always-on cable or DSL connection then you need a personal firewall to protect yourself and your computer or home network from Internet hackers. This book covers both hardware and software based personal firewalls, including ZoneAlarm, BlackICE Defender and McAfee. You'll also learn how to lock down Windows security and test your computer's defenses by using any of a number of free Internet scanning services. Best of all, with this book you don't have to be a security expert or even know what a personal firewall is to get started using one. Highly recommended reading!

I have been using a Tablet PC for a while, but haven't made full use of it's capability. This book has helped unlock some good tools and tricks to make best use of the Tablet.

I found this book to be really helpful. It has some great information on how to use the Tablet PC with all sorts of software and hardware, making it more useful than I would have guessed.

If you have a Tablet PC, or are thinking of getting one, this is the book for you!

Not only does it talk about some of the basic softwarepackages available for the Tablet PC, it also deals with some esoteric packages, as well as lots of hardware add-ons to make your Tablet PC hum.

If you want to know how to use your Tablet PC to best effect, the section on Usage Scenarios is really helpful. In this section, Mathews shows about 20 different job roles (Attorney, Technician, CEO, Engineer, Consultant, etc.), how each person uses the Tablet PC, and what applications and hardware options they can best utilize.

Since Tablet PCs are all about portable computing, there are also chapters on using wireless networking, and some of the neat new tools such as Microsoft OneNote. Speech recognition and handwriting recognition is explained and tips are given to get the best results.

And if you want to play with your Tablet PC, this book even talks about games and graphics packages that make your Tablet PC more enjoyable in Coach class.

I've read all of the Tablet PC books, and this is the best!

I am in love with my tablet pc. I am a medical student, in clinical rotations, and just love this toy. I wanted to know more about it, and therefore ordered this book. It seemed to be the best book available for my purpose. I am very happy I bought the book.

This book has all the information a new Tablet PC user needs to make the Tablet PC a powerful personal computing device.

The book starts out with the basics, then throws in Usage Scenarios, which show how different people use Tablet PCs. Then the author goes on to explain how to use the various features of the Tablet PC to the max. Finally, the book finishes with Office 2003 and OneNote coverage, then a review of various software and hardware that complement Tablet PCs.

All in all, this is a well-written book that's complete in coverage and easy to read.

Highly recommended!

I have a new three level house and wanted to connect all the family computers onto one network. Drilling holes in the floors and running wires all over the place is definitely not my thing, so I started to look around for another solution. After learing about wireless networking (wi-fi), I can't imagine why anyone would use anything else.

This wi-fi book answered all my questions. Even though I was nervous about opening up a computer and putting a wi-fi card in, this book took me through it with steps and pictures. I've looked at the other wi-fi books at the bookstore, but this one definitely stuck out. Lots of good pictures and directions.

I read this book knowing little about wireless networking, but over the course of the book I learned not only about how to set up my PC and my home for Wi-Fi, but also something about the technical details of Wi-Fi and where it will be going in the future. Although I knew enough to know that I wanted Wi-Fi in my home, reading this book definitely helped me choose the right products and learn to make the most of them. Thanks Harold -- without this book I'd still be working within a twelve-foot radius of my cable modem!

It was with a little trepidation that I decided it was time to go Wi-Fi. Being a Harold Davis fan for some time, I picked up a copy of his book. Good decision! To start with he helped me decide whether to get a wirelss card for my old faithful laptop, or to get a new one. I went for a new machine (SONY VAIO TR3A). Setting it up was easy. With his book's step-by-step instructions, it was almost as though I had the author at my side. Highly recommended.

If you want to find hotspots, connect to hotspots, or set up your own wireless network, all using Wi-Fi technology, this is the best book for you. Everything in this book is very simple, but you find information here you will not find elsewhere. So this book is useful and also lots of fun. I highly suggest.

This book is terrific and is worth much more than the price of ordering it. The writing is easy-to-understand and yet the book is so thorough that it is appropriate for all user levels. The book is full of many tips and helpful illustrations --and doesn't weigh a ton either. I highly recommend this book to anyone thinking about using WordPerfect and even for those who have used it for years. Well done, Ms. Acklen!

What I like about the book is the useful Table of Contents and the great Index. Being an experienced user these help me to find the information that I need fast. I really like that.

When I get to the subject I am looking for, I find a step-by-step explanation as you would expect. What makes this book so easy to use is that these explanations are easy to read and to follow, no use of excessive or complicated words but still everything you need is there. The layout helps too, it is nice and balanced, with interesting tips and notes that add to the joy of using this book.

The title "Absolute Beginner's Guide" is correct, new users will find everything they need to start using WordPerfect. But it could also have had a subtitle like "Experienced Users Allowed". The detailed descriptions, notes and tips in the book have already learned me quite a few things even though I consider myself an advanced user. When I am using WordPerfect, this book is not far away!

If you want to know about it, it's here.

And easy to use.

And splendid value.

What more could anyone want?

This book is Very helpful. It is easy to read and understand. It tells you everything you need to know and then some about WordPerfect.Another excelant job!

Our Primordial Soup...steamy, smoke filled speakeazies. Jazz, Pims, crazy Italian suits...expresso e un biscotti, gratzi! Gauloise? Non, Gitanes, merci!!!
The Conductor Of The Groovy Juice Symphony.

A must have for anyone interested in youth culture, swinging london of the 1950s and 60s, and the Mod scene... Something of a youth exploitation or confessional novel, but nonetheless an excellent picture of the generation born in post-world war II England, the first (and possibly one of the last) to be better off than their parents, the children of Britain's baby boom, obsessed with Italian fashion and American Jazz and all night clubs and coffee houses-- this is a portrait of one such youth and his life... It's the best piece of this type to come out of this period and seen by many as MacInnes' best work. Of further note by MacInnes are the other "London novels", Mr. Love and Justice and City of Spades. What a shame it is that no publisher has cared enough to keep these great books in print.

The thing to keep in mind about London in the late 1950s is that it wasn't cool. London wouldn't become one of the capitals of youth style until 1963 and later (brilliantly recounted in Shawn Levy's READY, STEADY, GO!). In this great novel, Colin MacInnes paints the portrait of an age that has received little attention, a time when England did not yet possess a full-fledged youth culture, a creature whose time was coming round at last, and was slouching towards Soho to be born. In the depiction of teens in search of self-authentication and self-realization, the novel is very much an English equivalent of Kerouac's ON THE ROAD.

Like the Kerouac novel, ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS is brilliant not for its story, but for its characters and the almost sociological and anthropological quality of its chronicle. Above all, it chronicles the social upheaval that was already taking place in London, with the central place that drugs, jazz, sex, and alcohol was more openly playing in youth culture. There is also a new and heightened consciousness of race, as well as an absence of the values that had been the mainstay of the previous generation. Although it wasn't yet the sixties, you can feel it coming throughout the book.

I don't want to mislead a prospective reading by promoting this as one of the great classics. It isn't. But like the central character, who is an aspiring photographer, the novel serves as a fictional photo essay on a neglected and under-romanticized period of English life. I can't imagine anyone not truly loving it.

The novel was in the 1980s made into a fairly decent musical (with an absolutely astonishing opening sequence) starring Patsy Kensit and with a host of musical performers in minor roles, including David Bowie, Ray Davies, and Sade. But I would definitely recommend the book over the film.

MacInnes's novel, set in 1958, London, demonstrates the status of the teenager as a new economic class is demonstrated early on when the narrator tells us: "This teenage ball had had a real splendour in the days when kids discovered that for the first time since centuries of kingdom-come, they'd money, which had always been denied to us at the best time in life to use it, namely, when you're young and strong. ... it had a real savage splendour in the days when we found that no one couldn't sit on our faces anymore because we'd loot to spend at last, and our world was to be our world..."

The narrator is a free lance photographer who takes pictures of the night life and of anything depicting the new London and its denizens, hoping for an exhibition. He loves jazz music, is integrationist, and against class. He lives in a slum named Napoli because he enjoys the low rent and how he is accepted, no matter what he does, and no one questions his background, educated or class. He wouldn't be treated that way in Belgravia, the fashionable, upscale district of London.

He has a bunch of interesting friends, such as the very friendly Fabulous Hoplife, who swings the other way, and the Wiz, a huckster who wants to make it into the bigtime, realizing there's a goldmine with the economic prosperity and renewed London. He wants to get there via illegal means, much to the narrator's chagrin. There's Big Jill, a big and friendly les to whom the narrator confides to about Suze; she's kind of like an older sister to him.

But he's really after his dreamgirl Crepe Suzette, or Suze, a pretty girl who's getting her kicks by sleeping around with every black she fancies. He's very upset when she tells him she's getting married to Henley, a fashion designer in his forties for whom she's a secretary. "I'm marrying for distinction, and that's a thing that you could never give me," she tells him. Despite her importance, she's not one of the most interesting characters here.

But when the narrator learns of the racial tensions going on and reads an anti-immigrant tirade in a news article condemning the Commonwealth Act, which allowed emigration from the former colonies to the UK, he sadly says "I don't understand my country anymore. ...the English race has spread itself all over the world...No one invites us, and we didn't ask anyone's permission... Yet when a few hundred thousand come and settle among our fifty millions, we just can't take it."

The generation gap between three groups are interesting. There are people like the narrator, growing up when the war was already over, and thus progressive, anti-Empire, and accepting blacks and Indians. People like his oafish stepbrother Verne and Ed the Ted, in their mid-twenties, lived through the war, were more patriotic, pro-Empire, and are spiteful of teenagers. And people like the narrator's father like the 1950's because they lived through the hell of the 1930's, unable to find good work, starving, and seeing the war as a godsend for the employment opportunities.

MacInnes's historical novel is a look at a post-war Britain, defanged of its empire, and having experienced a political faux-pas in the Suez Crisis. It also examines race relations in Britain ten years after the Commonwealth Act, and how British commercialism got roaring with the newfound prosperity. The tensions between whites and coloureds came to a head in the Notting Hill race riot, which takes place in this book. The movie that was adapted from this cut out most of the thoughtful parts of the book, but it's one of my favourite movies, and I see this book in a new light.

This is a compelling story, and very well written. It should be reprinted.

I like the book Across The Grain, I think it really puts you in the book. It is about a boy who moves to the desert from Cali. I think it shows what some people go through when they move to a new area. It is a emotional but funny book. I'd give it five stars anyday!

I have read many books, and I thought this was good. It really showed how a friendship should be. I think Will matured through-out the book and became less focused on his sister, Paige. I wouldn't have changed anything about this book, and I recommend that you read it.

Across the Grain was a wonderful book about friendship, care, and fun. Will, Mike and Sam, become close friends, and share their creativity, hearts, and their lives. Through hard times and good times, they comfort each other and it will create a smile on your face. This is much like life and you will be amazed how the author wrote it like it was about her and her friends. I recommend it to teens in 7th, 8th or 9th grade.

My own two boys and numerous classes of my kindergarten children have truly enjoyed this book! It is the wonderful tale of a new friendship that starts out with a very bumpy beginning. This book lends itself quite easily to dramatic readings which my kinderkids thoroughly enjoy. I am delighted to find that there are two more books about Addie!

Addie and Max is a great book for all the little ones around your house. This book shows that you can't judge someone (and their dog) before you get to know them. You never know, they could turn out to be your best friend. A good lesson to be learned from this little book. For that reason I rated the book a five.

Addie and Max is a great book for all the little ones that you have around your house. This book show that you cant judge someone (and their dog) before you get to know them you never know they could turn out to be one of your best firneds. I rated this book a 5.

No big time social messages or sensitivity lessons here. Just a story about two kids who are new neighbors and who each have normal levels of healthy goofiness. Great illustrations, contemporary settings, simple story with a plot but no tension, drama, or irony. An easy reader for the advanced first grader or the average second grader. I've also read it aloud several times and found that my kids do not tire of these endearing characters. There are other books with these characters in the series.