Natural Language Books

Only buy this book if you want a very technical book about this subject. I bought this book because I was generally interested in this research field... and I never read it. If you are a researcher or a student studying this field, then this might be a good book. Otherwise, there are books that you will probably enjoy more.

This is a good book for people who are interested in computational linguists, machine
learning experts who are looking for new application domains and in general for someone who wants an introduction to statistical computational linguistics.

The book is self contained and very well written. It treats most of the general statistical approaches to language processing such as language models, smoothing, etc.. in an excellent, but introductory manner. The book is a good start for any one looking to enter statistical nlp, however for advanced readers who would like to see the cutting edge of statistical computational linguistics they should look somewhere else.

I have never received anything so quick buying off the internet. Few days and I had the book in my hand. I was pleasantly surprised.

this is an import pre-req to any research/inquiry into this field.

Compared to the slightly overrated Jurafsky and Martin's classic, this book aims less targets but hits them all more precisely, completely and satisfactory for the reader. That is, just to give you an idea on what to expect, instead of attacking 200 problems on 2 pages each, this book attacks only 40 problems on 10 pages each.

So, read the TOC before you buy the book: if you find your topics there, you're done, you are saved, buy it and be happy. In contrast, you can buy Jurafsky's book without caring to read the TOC: your problem is likely to be mentioned there but it's quite unlikely to be detailed enough to satisfy you.

Some introductory chapters take too much space and some advanced topics are missing. But the book is actually named "Foundations of..." so it seems to deliver precisely what it promisses, which is a precious and rare accomplishment by itself. I recommend this book.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3A80YKC8W7UEE New Chronology is a theory validated by astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient manuscripts that asserts: that Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th centuries. Human civilization is barely 1000 years old!

New Chronology complies with the most rigid scientific standards:

- It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know;
- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion;
- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically;

New Chronology goes by the following basic axioms:
- Chronology is the basis of history;
- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;
- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history are fantasy and hoax;
- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;
- The closer in time is a given manuscript to the events described the less distortions it contains;
- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Fomenko asserts: There was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by over two centuries of yoke and slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a trilingual state with Arabic and Turkic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that official Russian history is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scholars brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs. Their ascension to the throne was the result of conspiracy, so they charged these imported historians with the mission of making Romanov's reign look legitimate.

Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate Godunov rulers and the ambitious Romanov upstarts.

As Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, he successfully removes a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one: the Ancient Rome: the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the 14th century A. D., the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece.

The Ancient Egypt: the pyramids of Giza become dated to the 11th to 14th century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less. The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the 11th to 15th century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone, like enormous Dendera horoscope that hangs in main entrance to the Louvre museum in Paris.

He was the first one to decipher and date unambiguously all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case.

English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the book "History: Fiction or Science?" portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such ancient history. Period. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the 17th 18th century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them otherwise.

Islam with all its key figures appears as late as 15th-16th century A. D. as a branch of proto-Christianity. This is amply illustrated by imagery of Prophet Mahomet, archangel Gabriel, Heaven and Hell of this period. In today's Islam all imagery of the things living is taboo.

Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th 17th century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a proto Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian!) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.


The history of religions according to Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the 11th century and Jesus Christ ), Bacchic Christianity (11th to 12th century, before and after Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ Christianity (12th to 14th century) and its subsequent mutations (15th to 17th) into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on..

Saint Augustine was quite prescient when he said: "be wary of mathematicians,.. particularly when they speak the truth."

Henry Ford once said: "History is more or less bunk!"

Prominent mathematician Anatoly Fomenko not only proved it for a fact, but as true scientist tried to upgrade it into a rocket science.

This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.

I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.

We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:

a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;

b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;

c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.

Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:

It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.

- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.

- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.

Fomenko goes by the following axioms:

- Chronology is the basis of history;

- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;

- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;

- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;

- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;

- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?

The Russians:

Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.

The Westerners:

Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Chinese:

Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.

The Arabs:

Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.

The Divinity:

Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.

According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.

St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Like Erich von Däniken, the Creationists, and the legion of sensational conspiracy theorists, this book makes huge claims based on speculation founded on the most superficial and selective reading of the historical record.

Most insulting to one's intelligence is the claim that C14 dating could be so far off the mark. This method has been tried and tested for 50 years. It is based on the known decay rate of an unstable isotope, that occurs in fairly predictable amounts. Calibration merely raises the accuracy from around 10% to 1% error margin. Even without calibration, the measurement of various isotopes has given civilisation a history of thousands, not hundreds of years.

Tree rings are a well understood phenomenon in biology. These can be used to obtain accurately dated samples more than 4000 years old. C14 dating can be calibrated with these samples to adjust for slight variations in C14 levels due to the solar cycle. This enables us to date to within a couple of decades samples dating back to early classical times.

If you want to understand the science of dating, read Nature's Clocks: How Scientists Measure the Age of Almost Everything.

However, this is only a part of the evidence, there is layering of earth above sites, known geological events like volcanic eruptions, traces of natural and human activity all correlated. How do we explain Pompei? If we want to apply Occam's razor, is it really easier to believe in a huge medieval conspiracy, that was able to construct a consistent history, complete with archaeological evidence that had not yet been found? And that all of the thousands of scientists involved in dating have been misled?

I can only conclude that this book was written as a money spinner to hook the gullible, like so many other conspiracy books.

Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.

I really liked this book. It is well organized and easy to use. There isn't a lot of hype about SPAM, just the essentials and exactly what you can do about it! If you have to deal with EMAIL get this book.

This is an excellent reference book for system administrators. I was able to set up a mailing list using the cook book instructions in a matter of minutes. I was also able to install my initial SPAM filtering using the instructions in the procmail chapter and had it up and running with little effor. Geoff is to be commended for writing a book the makes these things simple to do!!!

This book is easy to understand by the new listserver admin. It provides information sources throughout that are very useful. I am not familiar with the unix type platforms, and yet this book helped me wade through the plethora of pitfalls and find the answers. A real headache saver

Here is a book worthy of the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover." In this case, you may judge this book to address the general topic of email spam, processing and filtering. Not so. This books focuses on the unix tools, sendmail and procmail. If you are looking for a book to guide you through the process of installing and configuring sendmail and procmail, this may be the book you're looking for. I couldn't tell you because I quit reading at that point. But, if you are looking for a general source on email spam and techniques for reducing or eliminating it, look elsewhere. A better title for this book would have been, "Sendmail and Procmail: Installation and Configuration."

I bought this book for the procmail chapter (Chapter 3) but the other chapters, on sendmail and mailing lists, are also very useful. There is also an enlightening chapter on the history of email. The bulk of the book is a collection clear recipes along with explanatory text, in a practical how-to-get-tasks-done approach. In contrast to other encyclopedic books (in the case of sendmail) or disorganized masses of inconsistent web information (in the case of mailing lists), this book cuts to the chase and gives the key information you need.

Unfortunately, however, in the chapter I needed most (and the chapter I have scrutinized most), I found there are serious flaws. For example, the first two procmail recipes given under 3.5.2 on page 102 resulted in several days worth of my email getting deleted; they simply do not work as described on my system; when I removed these two recipes my email again worked fine.

If you are going to buy this book, wait for the author to put up an errata page, and then be sure to check that page before relying on the recipes in the book. In the meantime I still think the book has its merits since it explains things clearly.

I picked up this book because I am mentoring someone who wants to overcome their fear of public speaking. While I have extensive experience as a public speaker, I did not have any references to help my protege.

After reviewing several books I chose this one because Ivy addresses some areas which I consider important including the physical aspect of public speaking and not merely the preparation of a speech.

I laughed as I read this book because what she recommends I employ in my public speaking. The one topic I did not see was controlling nervous habits such as verbal fillers and physical twitches.

Overall, highly recommended! I am encouraging my 12-year old daughter to read it to strengthen her school presentations.

I found this book to be immediate help, I would recommend it to anyone new or experienced at speaking before a group. Part 1 was the most helpful, many books cover how to speak in public but this is the first one to cover where the fear originates and how to over come it.

This is a very strong tool for those looking to improve their public speaking skills. The author is evidently very experienced in this area, and she offers very valuable insights into the tools, tricks and methods of success in her profession.

One thing I did not like about this book, is that the author continually tries to connect a speaker's anxiety or poor performance to some traumatic episode that occurred in their childhood. For example, a business executive who, as a child had his parents continually remind him that kids "are to be seen and not heard" had trouble being confident and articulate in front of an audience. This is great for those who have such experiences, but leaves many of us out in the cold.

I have had no such traumatic experiences, but still get anxious before and during a presentation. Although this "natural anxiety" is not covered in much detail, the author does do a good job explaining how to channel the anxiety into a productive energy, and she does well explaining the importance of rehearsing before presenting.

This is the 3rd one I've read on speaking and it really turned my head around. It has such a fresh style! Its also the only one where I felt the author was speaking to me. Speaking in public always been tough for me and I actually feel charged up for my next presentation. Tons of tools, tips, stories, etc. Loved it.

Great book. The thing I really like about this book is that it helps the reader identify all the reasons for why we all get nervous and gives us a blueprint for getting past them and/or working through them. The nervousness profiles are terrific - I had a presentation a few weeks ago and normally I just "wing it" but this time I realized I didn't know the material as deeply as usual and it was pretty technical. I had a bad experience presenting a few years ago under similar circumstances so I started getting nervous and dreading it. I used the profiles to narrow down my type, followed the recommendations and it worked! The methods for preparing and organizing are first rate and there's a gold mine of tips of all kinds. The author's real world experiences are often amusing and those of her clients are insightful. The book has a delightful tone that keeps it light and easy even when uncomfortable topics are discussed. As a senior manager, my responsibility is to guide others to improve and I'm recommending it to my team. I think just about anyone who speaks or gives presentations could benefit greatly by reading this.

This is a great dictionary. It's been helped me to improve my skills in English. It's not a dicionary for use when you are reading. It's more helpfull when you are writting.
I have just one compliement: the quality of the paper. I bought the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English as well. The quality, and the color of the second one is far better.

I study English on my own and I have always been trying to find a tool that could help me write (and speak) natural English. It is very hard to accomplish this, especially living in a foreign country (I am Brazilian) and to make things worse I don't live in a big city which would present far more opportunities to enhance my knowledge and practice. So, in order to improve my knowledge I try, as far as I can, to embed English language in my every day activities. I work in a bank and have to be constantly reading manuals to learn procedures, etc. So, all notes I make, since they will be for my own purpose, I write in English. The problem is translating them into authentic English. As an example, I needed to write some important details about giving the customer an overdraft limit. Overdraft limit in Brazilian Portuguese is written "limite de cheque especial", which literally translated would be something like "special check limit". I am sure neither British nor American say it that way. I searched through Longman Language Activator and I didn't manage to find a definitive answer. I found the word "overdraft" in the OWE keyword. There isn't a keyword such as "BANK". If you look up the index for the entry "BANK" you will find the following reference (LINE 6; SIDE 2 it won't break the bank; CHEAP 1). But I also have a copy of Longman Essential Activator and this book does have an entry named "BANK" where I finally found what I was looking for: the term "overdraft limit".
Longman Language Activator is not the suitable book if you need words related to a particular situation such as being in a HOTEL, AIRPORT, RESTAURANT, etc. There aren't even such entries in the book. But if you'd like to say how BAD something is, what terms could be used in the sense of "PREJUDICE", for example, this is the book for you. It could be compared to a thesaurus apart from the fact that this book has tons of natural examples with sections that describes another related senses of the term. If you find the entry "IGNORE" you'll know how to express these ideas in a variety of ways: 1) to not pay attention to what someone says or does; 2) to rudely pretend not to notice someone; 3) to ignore something bad, even though you know it is wrong.
This book really deserves a 5 star review because it is very good if you know how to use it. It isn't fair to review it with a low rate only because it is not suitable for your current needs.

For centuries, ESL learners have been familiar to use the traditional or "passive" dictionary but things have changed and things will be changed with the publication of this innovative or "active" dictionary. It gives the leaner the helpful tool to SPEAK and to WRITE actively.

I totally agree with a reviewer's statement that, we, as intermediate and advanced ESL Learners, always have the feeling that there must be at least a better/more suitable word to express exactly what do we really mean in a given situation, in writing or in speaking. We all have wondered where to find that word and more importantly, why to choose that word. This dictionary helps me get rid of that feeling by giving me the exact words I want to convey in every particular situation.

I strongly recommend its "lower-level" dictionary - Longman Essential Activator to intermediate or upper intermediate students. In building our strong vocabulary we all know that, for some words we only need to know its meaning but for some essential words, we must use actively and more importantly, make them our OWN words. All the words in the Longman Essential Activator are the crucial bricks which helps us build our strong wall of English vocabulary. In addition, this dictionary also has many word banks i.e. bank of basic words for popular topics. If you are an intermediate learner, buy this one, and believe me, you won't regret!

I believe this kind of dictionary has a bright future and it paves the way for other dictionaries of the same type in the future.

Do you have a good dictionary, a good thesaurus, a good idiom book, and a comprehensive grammarbook, and are you still fighting with the usage of words and phrases? Then is is probably the missing piece on your bookshelf, but make sure it doesn't stay there because this book is an indispensable tool for writing and even speaking. I am an ESL student and I bought this book two weeks ago. It's a great help and I use it often. It helps me to write what I think in concise English. This book goes beyond everything you can find in this category. Check it out, it's fantastic!

Longman Language Activator is fantastic. Other dictionaries are useful when you're reading a book and don't know the meaning of a word. But when you want to write, they're useless.
With Language Activator you can find the right word for what you want to say. For instance, you want to say "X is guilty" but you're looking for a better way to put it into words. So you open your dictionary and find an entry for "guilty". You are presented with a lot of words and expressions to choose from. Guilty, responsible, culpable, the culprit, incriminate and so on. There's an explanation to help you choose the best word to express your ideas. Now you can confidently write "X is the culprit" or "X is responsible for...", whatever suits your ideas well. I use it all the time. My book is falling to pieces.

Here is another wonderful resource for frugal homeschoolers. This book teaches how to teach spelling, teaches children how to study spelling words, has suggestions for advanced and struggling spellers, and has lists all the way from 1st to 8th grades, with Greek, Latin, and French roots included. It is a great, affordable, easy to use resource. I think this will get more and more popular as homeschoolers spread the word.

This product is easy to use, understand, and incorporate into a learning at home lifestyle. The word lists are sensible and reasonable. Many different grade levels can be taught useing the one book.
I love it.

This book has great spelling lists, grouped by grade, along with spelling rules to be learned at different stages. It covers 1st-12th grade spelling in one book and in non-consumable - so it is a great buy!

I've had trouble with the homeschool spelling programs offered in the past. This has been an answer to my prayers. The Natural Speller outlines how lessons should be done each day. It has word lists for all levels at a glance. This is a great feature for a mom schooling 4 kids. It has been a tremendous help to me as a teacher. A lot less frustrating than other programs I've used.

...page after page of word lists; instructions basically are to practice writing and spelling the words until they are learned...I see NOTHING "natural" about the method...great ONLY if you want the child bored and miserable while learning to spell...however, many more useful, interesting and fun alternatives exist...recommend Steck-Vaughn's "Spelling -- Linking Words to Meaning" as well as the "Word Wisdom" series from Zane-Blosser.

The delightful rhymes and simple illustrations sum up summer perfectly. This is a must for a young child's library.

My three boys, all under 4, love this book. It's loaded with ice cream eating, marshmallow roasting, firefly catching fun. If your kids -- or kids you know -- love to swim, eat watermelon, play with pups, or swing up high, they will love this book. My four year old has memorized many of the rhymes and loves to add his own twists. The others are not far behind. The drawings are big and colorful with lots of smiles. Pup always seems to be in a situation the kids find hilariously funny. Whenever we need a dose of summer, we read this book and summer is in season -- even in the dead of winter.

I am such a fan of Roy Mckie's illustrations. This is a similar book to 'snow' which is also illustrated by McKie using the same two children. In this book, Summer, they explore the lovely things to do in summer, things like Watermelon, going to the beach, swinging and catching fireflies.

The pictures are enormously appealing to my 2 and 4 year olds, and my 4 year old is beginning to enjoy early reading attempts. The rhymes are simple and so are the illustrations.

There is also a bit of nostalgia for a bygone era, of hay rides and horses.

I was happy with my purchase at first until I realized this book is missing two pages that the original version has.
I have an original version I just wanted a newer book to read to my grandchildren. The two pages that are missing ended up being my granddaughter's favorite parts. She was very disappointed

This has been my son's favorite book since he was 12 months old. He carries it around the house and brings it to me to read to him. We can bury this book in a mound of others and my son will still find it for me to read. It's the only book that he hasn't damaged in some way. He's 18 months old now and will sit in my lap quietly while I read this to him.

The writing is superb and easy for the kids to follow. The pictures are gorgeous and colorful. Kudos to both the author and the illustrator!

A previous reviewer asked what Thoreau might think of how society has developed commercially since he wrote this book. I have to also wonder what he would think of the ridiculous (in my opinion) and jingoistic cover of this current edition? The person who chose the cover design should have read the book. The cover is offensive, given the ideas the book contains. Penguin should be ashamed.

This is a classic novel. It's value as literature speaks for itself.
I received the product in the condition advertised, in two days.
I am completely satisfied with the purchase and service.

Thoreau is more than simply a writer who produced a great American classic. He exemplified the idea which perhaps as much as any other has come to be at the heart of the American creed. "If a man does not keep pace to his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Throreau when he went into the woods of Walden Pond on July 4, 1845 , a journey in solitude which would last just two years and two months, was the archetypal American individualist. He was the man 'doing his own thing' living in accordance with what only he could know was right for himself. This idea of 'radical individualism' has become part of the American common faith. Its abuses are legion and may be disastrous, but it also has brought about not simply 'better mousetraps' but a whole vast world of innovations and innovators, the like of which Mankind has never known before.

Thoreau as he writes in his introduction went to the woods to explore not simply the natural world, the outdoors he so much loved. He went to the woods to truly go more deeply into and know himself. As he says in his introduction:

" I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me."

Thoreau in that enigmatic, epigrammatic aphoristic style, he shared with his great mentor and fellow pioneering poet- philosopher, Emerson connects the world within with the world without , connects the Concord woods with the Cosmos . He creates a work in 'Walden' of singular beauty and of its own special economy and principles in thought.

Thoreau was too an abolitionist, an opponent of the Mexican war, a civil disobedient who refused to pay the poll tax-, a pioneer
whose followers would include Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

But in his close looking at the world of nature and the world of himself he was first a great explorer of life and reality going out alone in his own way- however geographically close he may have been to home.

His words and his wisdom waken us even today to the hope of new and better worlds i.e. he also embodied the spirit of a great American optimism.

The great individual teaches us even in dark hours to find new worlds in ourselves outside our own darknesses. " There are new worlds yet to be born" he writes, " The sun is but a morning star"

Thoreau lived for two years and two months at Walden Pond. He said the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. Henry Thoreau asked hard questions.

He related that when the Masschusetts Bay Colony was founded, earthen houses were built. They were convenient and suitable and they had the advantage of putting everyone in a position of equality and not making the poorer inhabitants feel discouraged. It distressed Thoreau that a good deal of the money spent for shelter and dress was for show, uneconomical.

He farmed organically because he was only a squatter. He found that by working for about six weeks he could meet all of the annual expenses of living. He claimed that memorable events transpired in the morning.

Thoreau went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately. The sounds of the railroad penetrated the woods. Visitors were frequent during three seasons. In the wintertime basically he had only himself for company and some of the animals.

In any season, the woods were surprisingly dark at night. Because he had no helpers or animals to assist him in cultivating the fields he felt that he ws more intimate with the beans in his beanfield. Songs have suggested that husbandry is a sacred art.

The scenery of Walden was on a humble scale. The first ice was especially interesting. He reported seeing fox, jays, chickadees, and red squirrels in the the winter.

In CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE he asserts that in a government that imprisons unjustly, the place of a just man is in prison. Thoreau underwent an overnight jail stay when he failed to pay a poll tax.

Isn't it a little bit incongruous to desire to detach yourself from society, seeking self-reliance, and then write a book about it? Just an observation...

While Thoreau is a curious individual - sort of a poor-man's G.K. Chesterton - he always seems to come up short. The Virtue of Civil Disobedience reads more like self-satire than a serious attempt at political philosophy. And while Walden is rich and fulfilling, it is ultimately just a vehicle for Thoreau to make baseless claims predicated upon his treasury of tidbits and odd knowledge.

Had Thoreau been blessed with living in the modern world, he could have just written "Living by a Pond on Your Own For Dummies" and saved himself (and us) a lot of trouble.

Instead of "Civil Disobedience," I recommend anything by Lysander Spooner (particularly "No Treason")

Instead of "Walden" I recommend "Two Years Before the Mast." It's both more relevant than Walden, and a heck of a lot Closer To Nature.

Well, not was I was looking for. I would like to find something more than a description of what modules do, and that's mostly what it does. The last chapter is a smorgasbord of light descriptions of modules such as Text::Balanced, which have little or nothing to do with parsing, or with pro, and the chapter on XML processing looks like just a filler with little to add to the rest of the book or to the literature on XML+Perl.

The first 108 pages of "Pro Perl Parsing" deal with basic parsing concepts and give examples on how to use a CPAN module to define parsers. It's not quite accurate at times, though: The author uses the terms 'precedence' and 'associativity' interchangably, although these are orthogonal concepts. And the parser on page 82 has a design flaw (hint: try parsing "(5*(3+4))+1)", which yields 40, ouch!).

Then come 30 pages with a manual-page style explanation of Damian Conway's Parse::RecDescent module, along with some interesting tidbits here and there.

However, I would have expected to read a better explanation of the underlying parsing theory, like a distilled and simplified version of the "Dragon" book (Aho, "Compilers"). I would have liked to read how to write a custom parser from scratch in Perl, like in Mark Jason Dominus' "Higher Order Perl". Also, I would have expected more practical examples on how to tackle common parsing problems.

However, the second half of the book starts with an explanation of the HTML language. We get to know how titles and lists and links are done in HTML. Then we learn how to fetch web pages with Perl. Also, we learn about web services via SOAP and XML-RPC, about formatting output in Perl and are getting a chapter on "data mining". These topics aren't related to "parsing" at all, though.

There's an example on page 202 on how to parse command line arguments by lumping them all together to form a single string and then firing up an expensive recursive descent parser to tear them apart. Experienced Perl programmers would solve this common problem elegantly in a single line of Perl, using the Getopt::Std module.

So, I'm somewhat ambivalent on this book. Since there's not many books on Perl parsing, I was excited about it, but I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of depth, accuracy, and the filler-style second half of the book. I would have liked to read more about parsing in Perl and less about how to use CPAN modules dealing with parsing-related topics. Had the book maintained a strong focus on plain "parsing", it could have been a slam-dunk five-star. So, it's only three -- worth reading, but not a potential classic.

Christopher M. Frenz has put together a real how to manual for those who use Perl for parsing.
Grabbing the data you want from a file can be tricky but Frenz has taken parsing from the top shelf
and placed it where any Perl programmer can use it.

The opening chapter is great for anyone who has had trouble understanding how to use the regular expressions
as built into Perl. He explains Pattern Matching, Quantifiers, and how not to be Greedy with your pattern matching.
However, the book goes far beyond the basics of regular expressions in Perl to various libraries which can be used
for parsing HTML, XML, RSS, and any text based file.

Chapter 2 of the book seems very heady as he discusses the use of Generative Grammars which is foundational
for anyone wanting to truly understand parsing. From Chomsky's grammar to Type 1, 2, and 3 grammars,
he details these structures and how to use them.

Perl modules GraphViz::Regex, Regexp::Common, Parse::Yapp, Parse::RecDescent, HTML::TreeBuilder,
XML::LibXML, XML::SAX, and XML::RSS are all discussed in this book and clear examples are given on how
you can use them to parse files to get the data you want.

In the end of the book is a section on Data Mining well worth the read dealing with Descriptive Modeling and
Predictive Modeling. For anyone doing data mining work from Web based data or from Relational Databases
this section can be very helpful.

This is one of the easiest to take in and most informative books I've come across for a while. I freely admit to not being a Perl guru. I generally don't know ten different ways to perform a specific action in Perl - let alone have ideas on which way is best. But I use Perl daily to make my life easier. A big part of that is parsing information - in HTML, XML, from the command line output of tools and applications and from files and logs. Pro Perl Parsing pulled together and made much clearer many of my own hastily learnt techniques and processes, taught me some new ones and explained some of the odd results I've gotten in the past. The only criticism of the book is that it wasn't long enough - I'd love to see a 2nd Edition with a greater focus on parsing command line, configuration files and other 'administrative' style activities - it's not just programmers who parse. :)

Wow! I do a lot of data parsing and this book is one of the best finds I have ever made. I should point out, however, that it is not for the average reader. This book is very technical in nature but absolutely fabulous if you are technically inclined or already proficient in Perl or have some experience parsing using another language. It seems that I am always finding strange problems that create a need to parse large amounts of data to extract only the relevant information and present it in a usable form. Author Christopher M. Frenz covers the whole gamut of parsing and does so in a very logical progressive manner. First he starts with the use of regular expressions and does a great job including some complex example of just what can be done. From there he moves to generative grammars and how they can be used to determine relevant data of interest within a text, XML or similar file. Then from there he builds on your understanding by discussing specialized modules that can be added to your Perl implementation and how they are used. And, of course, he discusses data mining and how to efficiently use this information. This is an excellent technical book that is a required resource for anyone using Perl to parse documents. Pro Perl Parsing is highly recommended.

This is an excellent book with allot of detail. Every page is full of valuable information and a great resource. It is worth reading this book at least twice. It also covers some tcp/ip issues as well as routers issues that were a little fuzzy in the past.

Very pragmatic and focused. Ward has done an excellent job covering the important aspects of successfully connecting to the Internet.

This book covers lots of network terminology without much detail. This is really a book for beginners or for those who want glossaries. The price makes it attractive though.

The content combines issues of sys-admin and basic technology issues of network design, security, VPN, and management and presents them in one coherent book.

I was pleasantly surprised by the content and format of this book, having quickly bought it after a few minutes perusal. This is an excellent primer covering most relevant design and security issues relevant to getting a network interconnected/Internetted. The most salient point about this book is that it is one of the true consultant-friendly offerings I have seen and provides terrific overview of necessary issues for bona-fide consulting gigs, particularly with issues of design, security, laying an infrastructure from scratch, and the sort of qualitative design questions you will expected to answer from companies seeking someone who really knows their stuff. By no means is it thoroughly comprehensive, and that's not the point. Use this for a launching point, then utilize in tandem with other offerings such as Chris Brenton's books ("Mastering Network Security," "Multiprotocol Network Design"). Also, this book is NOT for the day-to-day sys admin/contractor/tech in an enterprise environment with extensive infrastructure already in place performing routine maintenance. On a final note, if you're one of the few and brave setting up shop and venturing out as an independent (despite the overwhelming aggregation of the networking services market towards the big corporate/ultra-airhead cattle-call contract/temporary agencies the past several years), you'll want this in your briefcase for additional armor...