Computer Science Books

Thanks for sending the book among others that I ordered along with it in good condition, and sooner than I had expected. Its a simple and straightforward book that orients itself around the MacOSX Web Objects application. Good value for money a worth while buy.

Let's cut to the chase. Josh Marker's new WebObjects 5 book rocks the house. Trudging through Apple's WebObjects API documentation can turn ones eyes red and bleary, so where do ya start? Well, I say start with Marker's new gem. pple's WebObjects is a best kept secret as it derives from the brilliance of the geniuses at NeXT, and who knows why Steve Jobs doesn't market WebObjects more aggressively? This book helps get a person (particularly the WebObjects newcomer) to get down and jiggy with WebObjects. The world is not always Microsoft and so don't let Apple's genius scare you. Start out with Marker's book and then go from there. You won't get lost and Marker keeps things easy to understand. The only thing missing from this book with slight disappointment is coverage of WebServices which was introduced by Apple in WebObjects version 5.2. Otherwise, rock and roll!

I ordered this book expecting it to be a more advanced WebObjects book than it actually is. Unfortunately, most of the material covered in the first 11 chapters CAN be gleaned from Apple's documentation accompanied by some experimentation (which I've done over the last year or so). For me, those chapters were a rehash of stuff I knew, although I did pick up some good advice and tips from those chapters.

However, for a Java developer (the book doesn't pretend to teach you Java) who is new to WebObjects, those first 11 chapters are a a godsend, filled with well-written text containing a huge amount of practical advice and illustrated with extensive screenshots. Reading this book and doing the exercises will save you literally dozens if not hundreds of hours of "doing it the hard way."

Chapters 12 and 13, on the other hand, are filled with bits and pieces that are NOT easy (or sometimes possible) to get from the official documentation and can only be learned by finding a more experienced developer to mentor you. For me, these two chapters were worth the price, and for a computer programming book, the price is quite reasonable.

A big thumbs up for this book as an introductory WebObjects tome, and here's to hoping that some publisher will contract Mr. Marker to write a follow-up "Advanced WebObjects for Mac OS X" because I'll be first in line to buy that one.

This is the best beginner WebObjects book ever! Examples are clear, concise and easy to follow. It has made me a believer in this technology.

I'd like to agree with the previous reviewers. This book finally made the progression through WebObjects clear and understandable. Its power is apparent and the gotchas are clearly highlighted as you go through the book. Mr. Marker also wrote the excellent Apple document on WebObjects web applications. (Un)fortunately, the Apple document is only about 100 pages, so this book nicely moves on from it. Technical overview by mmalcolm only lends further credibility to this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Great read for kids, you can make a correlation between kids playing video games today and making their own fun like we did way back when

I love this book and so do my children, I would love to find more from this author, Your child will love it too. Buy it you'll be glad you did.

D Bradley

I read this book with a class of kindergarten-aged children. They repeatedly ask to read and re-read Charlie McButton, and enjoy it every time. The rhythmic quality of the book makes it fun to read and easy for the children to remember what is going to happen next. The children relate amazingly well to Charlie McButton and both his dilemma (the power went out and he can't play video games) and the way that Charlie interacts with his little sister (first with disdain, then with a cute and playful understanding).

I read When Charlie McButton Lost Power by Suzanne Collins. I would recommend this book because in the book Charlie lost power and he went crazy. It was very funny. In the book I read "He looked left ,he looked right, his heart filled with dread. The TV, lights, and his clock were all dead." This helped convince me that it was a good book.

I read When Charlie McButton Lost Power by Suzanne Collins. I liked the book and would recommend this book because when a storm came in the power went out and Charlie was left in the dark. In the book I read that Charlie McButton loved video games so much that when the storm came and the power went out . He could not play video games anymore. This helped convince me that it was a good book .

nocesito el software de cobol orientado a objetos. le agradezco me escriba a la brevedad posible y me envie las condiciones de pago

I have been a programmer since April 1969. Even though I have programmed in most popular languages (c / c++ / smalltalk, java , algol, python, PL/1, many different assemblers etc), COBOL is still the MOST used language in the corporate world. As IBM says, "80% of the world's data is still on mainframes, 80% of the world's programs are still written in COBOL. I am contracting to a large corporation now, and they are having to retrain their young java programmers in how to write (NEW not legacy) COBOL applications!

With that background, I now get to the point (finally)! Buy this book. It is excellent. Also buy COBOL Unleashed; it too is invaluable.

...

Very well put together, clear, concise. Not a beginners book by any stretch (assuming there are still people learning COBOL) ? But, its a great reference book and like the last review, it helps you remember all the stuff you'd forgotten over the years doing COBOL. Intermediate to Advanced level....

As a C++ programmer working on a product with 2 COBOL components (2/90), I found this text to be an indispensable COBOL reference. The author classifies language constructs into essential, sometimes used, rarely used, and archaic. The text is comprehensive including reserved words, program constructs, tables, indexed files, dates, Y2000, report writer, and client-server architecture (one exception is limited coverage of CISCs transaction processing). Both PC and mainframe COBOL environments are covered. Organizing COBOL code into paragraphs, sections, subprograms, functions, and classes (object-oriented is not yet standardized) is demonstrated.

The text illustrates each COBOL feature with either a code fragment or a sample program. A well-conceived programming style for COBOL is recommended using structured programming. A coherent discussion of archaic programming styles helped me comprehend areas of our COBOL code where periods are used instead of END-IF statements.

1) Positive aspects. Complete (as far as I can judge, because I never read it from cover to cover), detailed and nevertheless concise enough to be my daily quick-reference. The book covers mainframe as well as pc-Cobol. 2) Neutral aspect. Not recommendable as a course book and not recommendable for beginners, I would say. But quite well fit to rehearse parts of Cobol knowledge that slipped away from my memory. So the title of the book is quite appropriate. 3) Negative aspect. Only one way of spacing for subscripts is presented, without further comment. But it is the pc-Cobol way of spacing, it doesn't work that way under MVS. Which is a very slight shortcoming however, to my opinion.

Long before Korten began writing about 'the Great Transition,' Goerner wrote this beautiful, eloquent, and sweeping study of what she described as the emergence of the Integral Society. Unfortunately, this book was published in britain (american publisher's didn't take it) and has not gotten the circulation it richly deserves. While there are many other books out there looking at this Transition (including Hawken) and it is almost common knowledge in many circles, I still recommend this book because of its theory of social and cultural changes. Unlike Korten, who sees this current epoch as going back 5000 years, she accurately looks at the multiple shifts in world view in the West and how those have taken place in the past 2000 years, and demonstrates the integration, complexification and evolution of these ideas. She also presents a concise yet thorough understanding of systems theory, science of complexity and interdependence, chaos, biological changes, and 'new' scientific world views, etc. Alas, her last few chapters make several statements that are questionable, and it is difficult, without being an expert in the field, to really know how much weight to give her social predictions.

If the modern world seems confusing read this book. This book helps me keep perspective when I see the turmoil of world events. It is a guide to the major intellectual and social transitons happening all around us. Most of us can see that our particular part of the world is in trouble -- look at any profession or social institution and the cracks in the foundation are evident. Sally Goerner's thesis is that we are undergoing the biggest social transformation since at least the middle ages and probably since the beginning of known history. The driving force behind the transition from medieval to modern was the development of a new mathematics, physics and astronomy which fundamentally changed how people saw the place of man in the cosmos. These intelectual tools eventually led to the development of the industrial society in which we now live. In the past 30 years there has been similarly powerful new developments in mathematics and all other sciences which Sally calls web dynamics. You may have heard of chaos theory which is one aspect of a much larger way of understanding complex systems which develop out of the operation of many forces. This new understanding is changing the old competitive, isolated, reductionist and individualistic social structures in favor of an understanding of the world based on complex, self-organizing systems which evolve cooperatively as well as competitively. It has implications for every aspect of social, poilitcal and intellectual life from physics and biology to medicine and education. This book helps us see the much larger patterns which are often obscured in the choas of world affairs and gives some hope and direction for making a positive difference in the outcome.

Ms. Goerner has managed to integrate the disparate cultural, scientific and intellectual trends of the late 20th Century into a cohesive and comprehensible whole. One could say that she has transformed chaos into order, at least for this reader. Bravo!

This is an astonishing and truly revolutionary book.

Dr. Goerner builds a practical picture of the transformation that we must choose to take if we are to flourish or even survive. Her basic concept begins with the now familiar concept that civilizations undergo periodic "Big Changes," that involve changes in the way that they view the world. Not just how the intellectual elite sees things, but rather the general population. She thinks, and I am sure that she is correct, that we are on the cusp of one of these "Big Changes," which will involve the replacement of the Newtownian ("Clockwork") view of the universe, with a "Web" view, that sees the universe as a series of intricate interconnections. This "Web thinking" has been around for a while, but has so far not really taken root, because it has not always been expressed very clearly, many people have failed to see it's relevance to everyday life and it was not linked to any deeply felt, motivating vision.

This book is an important step in rectifying those previous failings. She introduces a helpful term: "Intricacy," which she defines as "the order which arises from interweaving."

My only disagreement is with her use of the word "Energy," of systems, when I think it would be more accurate to use the term "Information."

Highly recommended.

If the modern world seems confusing read this book. This book helps me keep perspective when I see the turmoil of world events. It is a guide to the major intellectual and social transitons happening all around us. Most of us can see that our particular part of the world is in trouble -- look at any profession or social institution and the cracks in the foundation are evident. Sally Goerner's thesis is that we are undergoing the biggest social transformation since at least the middle ages and probably since the beginning of known history. The driving force behind the transition from medieval to modern was the development of a new mathematics, physics and astronomy which fundamentally changed how people saw the place of man in the cosmos. These intelectual tools eventually led to the development of the industrial society in which we now live. In the past 30 years there has been similarly powerful new developments in mathematics and all other sciences which Sally calls web dynamics. You may have heard of chaos theory which is one aspect of a much larger way of understanding complex systems which develop out of the operation of many forces. This new understanding is changing the old competitive, isolated, reductionist and individualistic social structures in favor of an understanding of the world based on complex, self-organizing systems which evolve cooperatively as well as competitively. It has implications for every aspect of social, poilitcal and intellectual life from physics and biology to medicine and education. This book helps us see the much larger patterns which are often obscured in the choas of world affairs and gives some hope and direction for making a positive difference in the outcome.

When having to solve problems regarding algorithms, this book is one of the frequently used books. It shows besides the interesting details also the larger overview, which certainly adds to your better understanding.

I found this book at a university book shop back when I was 14 years old and bought it to learn more about certain algorithms. The reason I bought it was because it looked like it would provide very concrete advice on how to achieve an implementation while not requiring more advanced mathematics than I knew at the time.

Now, many years later I have to say that I can't think of any algorithm book I've come across that manages to balance theory and concrete solutions so well; and I own quite a few books on algorithms. (Some might object to the fact that the book uses Pascal as the implementation language, but I think I've seen this book tailored for other languages too).

Also, for a general book on algorithms, Sedgewick managed to pick a very good mix of topics to cover. According to a friend of mine (whom happens to know Sedgewick personally), the book just represents a cross-section of what Sedgewick himself was interested in.

This book was very useful to me when I was a teenager starting to understand bread and butter algorithms, and it continues to be a good reference still to this day. I would recommend you buy this book if you need a good book on fundamental algorithms.

(Also, the typography is very sober and clean, and the illustrations to most of the problems are very clear)

This text covers the most useful material presented in Knuth's seminal series, but is much more readable in Pascal than in Knuth's notation, which was based on programming language concepts of the late 60's.

The example code is actually run by the typesetting system to generate the graphs showing the operation or efficiency of the algorithm, so you have a high confidence factor in the example code. Too bad it's in Pascal -- which is probably why this book is out of print.

I was very surprised at the low ratings awarded by reviewers to the paperback edition of Sedgewick's "Algorithms in C" -- yet there were good reviews of the hardcover edition. Evidently the example C code didn't meet the high standards of the Pascal version.

Sedgewick provides a very clear and intuitive exposition of the essence of many algorithms.

The book covers a breadth of topics, from sorting and searching, to computational geometry and mathematical algorithms. It is an extremely well-written book. Each algorithm has been carefully implemented in Pascal (you may also want to have a look at the editions of the book for C++ and other languages). It is an excellent book, both for practitioners and programmers, as well as an introduction to the theory of algorithms!
Highly recommended!

This book presents an interesting challenge. It talks about algorithms yet it does not present algorithms, nor does it define algorithm as anything more than a "problem-solving method suitable for implementation as computer programs[p.4]." Instead, it exhibits programs which are the implementations of algorithms and discusses them as if the algorithm is apparent. The reader is left with the challenge of learning to discriminate between what is essential about an algorithm, and how to preserve that in an implementation, versus what is inessential to the algorithm and introduced on account of the implementation and the use of particular programming tools.

I am concerned that this approach, while well-motivated, is not successful. My evidence is in the criticisms of this and later editions that dwell on the choice of programming language and on stylistic matters in the use of the chosen language. This places too much emphasis on code. Although code rules these days, I remain unconvinced that this simplification is a good thing. For me, one of the great insights in development of software is identification of layers of abstraction for conquering the organization of complex application programs. Separating design, algorithm and implementation is a critical first step toward that mastery.

Meanwhile, "Algorithms" serves up a handy set of recipes for a variety of basic computing situations. The 45 sections cover fundamental methods of widespread application in computing and software development. The presentations are straightforward and illuminating. The compilation bears re-examination every time one sits down to identify key methods for a new application.

I recommend supplementing this material with the practical methods of Kernighan and Plauger's "Software Tools" and the insightful explorations of Bentley's "Programming Pearls." Most of all I encourage development of enough sense of the material in Donald Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" to be able to read the discussions of algorithms and problems there, even if you never use the particular implementations.

This book has been very helpful to me in my personal study of statistics. It is practical, with everyday applications, as well as explanations behind the formulae. Be sure to buy one with the CDROM. It is essential to solving the problems suggested in the book.

I really just had to take the class to finish my masters. The book explains the theories behind the formulas. Having an instructor was very help to understand it all.

I have a large library of math texts from many years in school and I have never read one that was so much fun. This book is really interesting and practical. Finally a statistics book that does more than scare the wit out of somebody. I would highly recommend that more professors choose this book for their students.

Incredibly useful book, easy to use. Contains all the Excel information you will even need in a basic statistics class.

I have used this book in my classroom for the last 3 years and found it very illustrative and simple for students to comprehend statistics. It covers theory with practical examples and therefore keeps it 'real' for students. I have used other books in the past, but students found them theoretical and 'brain show-offs' by authors who really did not care for student comprehensions unless they were math majors. This book is far different and even beginner students can easily relate to the hundreds of practical examples that the author provides.

The Excel examples are easy to follow and my science students usually pick up many practical models from these examples. The regression covered at the beginning level in Chapter 3 is fully covered in multiple regressions in Chapters 17 &18 in a way that makes it easy to teach...

Of the 40-60 stats books I have in my office, this is by far my favorite....

Dr. Bjarne Berg
Assistant Professor Lenoir-Rhyne College
School of Math and Computer Science

I enjoyed the authors' book on logistic regression analysis in 1989, and this book is just as good, or better, with many extremely practical suggestions on building regression models for survival data. Happily, the authors summarize, compare, and contrast several major texts on survival analysis which have appeared in the past 10 years. For example, they discuss different names used by different authors for score residuals. They present a helpful appendix on the counting process approach to survival analysis, which will make more advanced texts accessible to students; thus, anyone who wants to use survival analysis, at any level, should consult this book, even if he has already studied books by Miller, Lee, Collett, Fleming-Harington,Andersen, et al, etc. An unfortunate drawback to this book is that the first printing contains many careless errors, some of which may affect student learning: for example, the definition of a survival function is misstated. I recommend that you insist on the second or third printing when buying this book, and you will be quite satisfied.

The authors provide a really nice, non-technical survey of the landscape for Cox Proportional Hazards models. A nice aspect of their treatment is the care they take to reference all highly technical texts and journal articles. For example, if you'd like to find out more about goodness-of-fit tests for survival models, the authors provide ample references to the Counting Process Theory of Martingale Residuals.

The first chapter discusses the basic characteristics of survival data, including the notion of censoring (in all of its various forms). Examples of the principle types of censoring are included. The chapter also includes introductory material on the general survival model, including a nice description of the log likelihood function. Curiously, the rigorous definition of the hazard function has been omitted, probably to avoid intimidating readers who are not familiar with formal limits.

Chapter 2 continues to build up the general survival model and introduces the relationship between the survivor function and the cumulative hazard. Pointwise estimators for the survivor function are discussed, including the Kaplan-Meier estimator along with the various variance estimators. Test statistics for comparing two survival populations are introduced, including the Log-Rank and General Wilcoxon statistics. The reader is encouraged to read the counting process treatments of these statistics to see why they produced defensible hypothesis tests.

Chapter 3 is devoted to the Cox Model and Cox's partial likelihood function. Tests for significance of the coefficients are introduced, included the Wald test, log likelihood ratio test and the score test. These are used heavily in the later chapters as the basis of a model-building methodology.

Chapter 4 is a very short, but nicely written chapter explaining how to interpret the values of each regression coefficent. It also describes covariate-adjustment techniques for model diagnostics.

Chapter 5 is just a wonderful chapter which outlines classical model building techniques. This is a great chapter for anyone who has ever been thrown a ton of data (with a bushel of possible covariates) and asked to "fit a model to this stuff".
Readers who have done a lot of purposeful fitting of linear regression models won't find the basic techniques new, but use of survival specific residuals and selection criterion will probably be an eye-opener. The section on assessing the functional form for continuous covariates is also nicely written.
However, the section on Best Subsets Selection was a little too "cook-booky" for my taste.

Chapter 6 is another very nice chapter on goodness-of-fit. It discusses analysis of the various residuals and their use for analysis outliers, testing proportional hazards assumptions and overall Goodness-of-Fit.

Chapter 7 discusses the standard extensions of the Cox model, including stratification and time-varying covariates. Chapter 8 discusses parametric survival models, and is a good introduction to the SAS procedure LIFEREG. The generalization of the Cox model to recurring event data (also know as Aalen's multiplicative intensity model) can be found in Chapter 9.

My only complaint is that each chapter was designed to be read in one sitting. Individual ideas, topics and formulas can be buried in a seemingly unbroken chain of paragraphs. The lack of sub-sub section titles,etc, makes using the text as is somewhat cumbersome to use as a desk reference. I've gotten around this limitation by marking key concepts, etc., in the margin in order to give a "quick search" capability enhancement to the index.

Applied Survival Analysis is an excellent book for someone seeking a non-mathematicial explanation of survival analysis. The book covers the motivation behind the development of survival analysis, estimation of survival curves, the Cox proportionial hazards, and some parametric models. The book also covers the major methods used in variable selection, model building, and diagnostics. Someone with an undergraduate background in statistics and econometrics will understand the book. The book relies on text to discuss the methods and uses mathematical formulas only when absolutely necessary. Numerous examples are used to highlight what the text covers. The math that is used is easily understandable. This book is ideal for someone who needs to learn the tools of survival analysis but not how they were derived.

This book provides a good, clear, concise explanation of Cox's proportional hazards models. For someone seeking a non-mathematical description this is a great guide. The original datasets from the text examples can even be downloaded and you can go through the same process yourself. Because of some mistakes in the text, I would recomend looking at other sources as well.

Hosmer and Lemeshow have given us a clear, nontechnical introduction to using survival models. The book strikes a good balance between covering the basics and addressing the most recent, state-of-the-art techniques, including repeated events, frailty models, and others. They also do a good job of addressing practical issues, including estimation details and available software. While most of the examples are drawn from medicine and biostatistics, this book could also serve as a useful starting point for social and behavioral scientists interesting in learning the fundamentals of these models, as well as a useful reference for applied researchers.

Volume 2 of "The Art of Computer Programming" is about random numbers and also about relearning one of the three Rs from grade school, viz. arithmetic. Each topic gets one chapter.

When you generate random numbers in Excel, or VBA, or Perl, or C using functions packaged with the software, you are really using a deterministic algorithm that is not random at all; the results do however look random and so we call them "pseudorandom".

Chapter 3 contains four main sections. First a section devoted to the linear congruence method (Xn+1=(aXn + c) mod m) of generating a pseudorandom sequence; with subsections on how to choose good values for a, c, and m. Second we get a section about how to test sequences to find if they are acceptably random or not. Third we find a section on other methods, expanding on linear congruence. Finally in a particularly fascinating section, DK provides a rigorous definition of randomness.

I haven't looked much at chapter 4 yet, on arithmetic. In it Knuth covers positional arithmetic, floating point arithmetic, multiplication and division at the machine level, prime numbers and efficient ways of investigating the primeness of very large numbers.

Again, DK is thorough and methodical. Again this is not a for dummies book. Again it is about theorems, algorithms, mechanical processes, and timeless truths. Again the exercises are a fascinating blend of the practical (investigate the random generating functions on the computers in your office) to the mathematical (he asks readers to formally prove many of the theorems he cites). And yes, again Knuth uses MIX, that wonderfully archaic fictional 60s machine language. But that should not stop readers; I use Perl.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

I recently modified a program I wrote so that it would do operations on polynomials with multi-precision coefficients. For this, I turned to Knuth. This 3-volume set is a great starting point for learning how to implement mathematical calculations on a machine.

Don't listen to the "Reader" from CA. This person obviously has a bone to pick with Knuth. Maybe (s)he failed one of his classes. Maybe (s)he should write his/her own book on the subject.

Of course this is a classic programming text, but the book is fascinating from a mathematical point as well. The discussion of random number generation is worth the price alone. Also neat is the discussion of why numbers with lower initial digits are 'more common' in practice than those with higher initial digits, a topic I've never seen treated elsewhere.

This book is the bible of coputer programming

It contains algorithms on pseudo-random sequences, algotithms on aritmetic operations on number, matrices ect.

The only drawback of this book is that all algprothms are writeen in MIX - some kind of assembler, that make them hard to read.

This book offers a stringent treatment of random number generators and algorithms not found anywhere else. It is particularly valuable for those that deal with encryption and the analysis of cyphers. The exercises add admirably to the text. References to other books in the field are extensive. The book is written in a non-wordy, but still very readable style, making it accessible to serious computer scientists at all levels. A mathematical background is necessary.

I really have nothing to add to the other reviews of this book. I've never learned as much from one single book as I have reading this one. Love it!

This is probably one of the best computer architecture books I have ever read. The thing I like about this book is that Reis does not fall into the same trap as other authors and fills the first seven chapters of the book with lessons on what binary and hex is and how to convert between the two. I have always hated when technical authors begin an advanced technical book with freshmen level topics such as number systems. Real does not repeat this typical mistake. He actually teaches advanced topics such as how the JVM actually works, or how to write a simple compiler by using simple examples and that one can build on. He is obviously very knowledgeable, but uses non technical language in order to reach you. Kudos for a job well done Mr. Reis.

I rank this book at the same level as the Patterson/Hennessy book on computer organization. P/H is more advanced on the hardware side (perhaps too advanced for a first course in this area) but much weaker on the software side. Reis' book is better for a first course. The software that comes with the book is well designed and works well. It allows you to work with the computer at both the machine and micro levels. I've been using the Linux version. Versions are also available for DOS, Windows, Sun Sparc, and Macintosh OS X.

This is one of the greatest books about assembly you can buy...

I will tell you why:

The most of the books (e.g. 'Assembly Language Master Class' of Wrox) which you can buy about assembly are about topics like 'how to paint a bitmap on the screen', 'how to write to a file', 'how to read a character from the keyboard', and so on.

This is nice if you only want to know some little tricks and learn (nearly) nothing about assembly.

If you want to learn something about assembly buy this book! This book covers nearly everything you can imagine in depth.

The nice thing is that is starts like a typical B.Sc computer science computersystem/architecture class: what are numbers, what's hex, what's binary. What about negative numbers? This is a really nice book for someone without formal CS education which want to jump to that level (and beyond).

It covers number theory (hex/bin/etc), Logic units and ALU, etc. etc. This book covers really everything: Virtual Memory, OO programming in Assembly (yeah read it right), different processor architectures, instruction sets, codegenerating by compilers, writting an assembler (yeah cool! 'an' not 'in') etc. etc.

So: if you are looking for a tips and tricks book look somewhere else. This book starts pretty easy, so a lot of people can read this text, but after you finished this 800 page pounder you will have more insight in low level programming than a typical B.Sc/M.Sc in Computer Science (like me).

This book is the best book I've seen in assembly language/architecture. It's very clear, thorough, and concrete. It is really superb in how it teaches system concepts. And it shows how C++ and Java works, in addition to how computers work. It has a great chapter on the JVM. It also covers the SPARC and the Pentium. By means of the included software, the reader can design, implement, and test new architectures.

This book is a great resource. While I could give teachers the link to THWT website, passing around a paper copy has led to even more discussion, collaboration and interest. We had a copy out in the faculty lounge, and teachers from grades k-8 all found resources that were useful. Clear, well-organized, and easy to read, this is fantastic for teachers who want to spend 10 min. scanning or those who want a weekend of reading. It is helpful on both specific content links and more general resources. Get a copy for your library or faculty lounge!

Mobile technology does some wonderful things; forcing us to read through Internet pages on small screens while worrying about battery drain is not one of them. Tom Daccord offers history educators, library media specialists, and other interested readers a solution to this very problem with the most mobile, functionally-reliable technology of all: a good old-fashioned book.

Mr. Daccord's Best of History Web Sites is the perfect guidebook to help you plan and succeed on your journey through the varied and often challenging landscape of historical resources on the Web. Anytime, anywhere, the book's pages are yours to flip through, mark up, highlight, dog-ear, and re-read as you peruse the robust compilation of well annotated Web resources. Furthermore, the introductory chapters offer simple, concrete, and productive steps that you can take immediately to begin making your journey through history on the Web an easier, more efficient, and more engaging one.

Whether you consider yourself an adept online researcher, a novice Googler, or a bona fide Luddite, you can learn from this book and bring your skills with identifying and utilizing history Web sites in education to the next level. If only there were a book and accompanying Web portal like this for every subject!

Tom Daccord has done a strange, but incredibly useful thing; he has delivered his tremendous online resource, www.besthistorysites.net, in book form. It is seemingly odd because you have to ask yourself why you would purchase a paper version of a website that you get for free online. The first couple of chapters, Locating & Evaluating History Web Sites and Integrating History Web Sites in the Classroom, cover very important ideas that are in tune with his other web site, Teaching History with Technology (www.thwt.org). This part of the book offers great overviews on how to seek out, vet, and use online resources for any teacher regardless of the subject. Mr. Daccord also discusses how to teach this in class. The meat of the book is valuable because it really lends itself to how teachers work.

I work as a Technology Coach for an elementary school district in a suburb of Chicago. As part of my job I am always trying to build connections with classroom teachers. One of the best ways for me to do that is provide them with easy-to- use resources that they didn't previously know about. When I got Tom's book I emailed all of our middle-school social studies teachers. I told them about Tom's book & suggested that if they had any upcoming units for which they wanted more online resources than they already had I would be happy to look them up in The Best of History Websites & pass them along. Within a few hours I got replies from almost every teacher with request for various topics like ancient civilizations in Egypt, Rome, & Greece, WWII & The Holocaust, The Cold War, The Middle East China and its culture, religion, economy, geography, history, government, and present status, various topics focusing on Europe, Vietnam, Civil Rights, Watergate to "New World Order" , The Post 9/11 World, and the second industrial revolution/ growth of cities late 1800s/early 1900s.

The next day I had teachers stopping in to borrow the book - and that's where I think the real value is in The Best of History Websites. Teachers do a lot of planning & note taking in places where they don't have access to the web, but this book makes thousands of web-based resources for teachers available for lesson planning at any time. As mobile as computing technology is, it's still lags, at least a bit, behind a book. And yes, I found one link that needed to be updated, but out of the 75 or so that I checked, that's a darned good ratio!

For teachers looking for new ways to integrate technology in the classroom Mr. Daccord has hundreds of helpful links, ideas, & suggestions too. There are specific lesson plans, online maps, teaching guides, and activities that extend outside the classroom. This book is a real goldmine.

I'm sure that anyone considering purchasing this tome has already become familiar with the remarkable "Best of History Website." The question that immediately comes to mind is why the oxymoron of a book about websites? There are three reasons: One is the comfort of reading through a book rather than scanning webpages. Anyone who flips through the 400+ pages will immediately be drawn in by the breadth and depth of the sites reviewed. The PBS, the BBC, the Library of Congress and The New York Times websites are well represented, but there are also many obscure, yet fascinating, sites included. The extensive index is a shortcut to discovering hidden gems. The second value of this book is as a step in the conversion of the technophobic social studies teacher. I brought the book to my faculty meeting and passed it around. It was wonderful to hear the little gasps of excitement from some of the, shall we say, mature teachers who didn't know that there were so many wonderful sites on Mesoamerica or The Great Depression. One colleague tried to abscond with it! The third value of this book is the excellent chapter "Integrating History Web Sites in the Classroom." This section summarizes the best-practice use of the internet in the classroom and gave me a number of ideas of ways to make better use of computers in my class.

It is so helpful to have one resource that lists such a comprehensive
collection of online links for our teachers, in a volume that can be
marked up and passed around. The descriptions are accurate, and the
selection of resources is varied and valuable. Thank you for creating
such a wonderful resource!