Languages Books

This was truely an amazing book, I've read many .NET books, all of which assume zero knowledge of programming, or very little. So when I skipped the first few chapters, or skipped them (Since I've been a Java Developer for several years), I missed valuable differences between Java and .NET.

Be sure you do know your stuff in Java, or else this book will seem over your head. This is not a beginners book. But if you're a Java developer, or have similar programming experience, this book is 100% for you.

My only quirk with this book, is that at times, it's more of a refrence/comparison, over how to use several key .NET features. And it seemed to jump around a little. So actually I'd probably rate this book a 4.75...but rounding up gives us a 5, which it pretty much deserves.

I highly recomend this book out there for anyone who is NOT a beginner programmer, or comes from a Java background. This book is a MUST read for you.

After about 5 years as a java developer, I took a new job as a .NET / C# developer. This book was a great starting point for me. Going from java to c# is a relatively easy transition, but this book makes it much easier and quicker. The book compares the two languages and highlights the differences which made it easier for me to pick up. I'm not a person who reads many books, for work or pleasure, so I don't have much to compare it with. But out of the 10 or so books in my work library, this is the second best book I've used. (The best I own is Effective Java. I'd really like to get one like that for c#.)

As an experienced Java developer who was "forced" to move into the C# and .NET world, I turned to this book to help me make that transition. I am very glad I did so. This book provided nearly all of the background I needed for that transition, and it still serves as my primary C# reference a year later. (By the way, working in the C# and .NET world is not as bad as I feared it would be.)

If you are accustomed to Java and new to the world of .NET and Microsoft books in general, you will find the majority of these books to be written for a less sophisticated audience than you are used to. My advice is to be very cautious what you spend your money on, as many of the books about Microsoft programming topics are not worth the investment.

This book, however, is very much worth the money you will spend on it.

This books hits the spot for java developers, the intended audience. A one page description on delegates, for example, has all the information you need to get started with delegates. The Oreilly book has a long winded chapter on it and the essence was lost in the obtuse example provided.

i could have sworn this book was from microsoft press. This book did a *great* job of being unbiased, and presented "just the facts". It did so in such a clear manner as well, straightforwardly laying out the similarities and differences between java and C#, and each's strengths and weaknesses (briefly).

definitely recommended!

Begin with Hero Archetypes and learn about the Chief or the Lost Soul or the Warrior. See what might make them tick.

Move to your Heroine Archetypes to visit with the Free Spirit, the Nurturer or my favorite the Spunky Kid. Learn how they got to be who they are.

Then you will learn how to use the Archetypes to Create Characters. As most writers understand, great characters are not one-dimensional and flawless. It is their layers that make them truly intriguing. Indiana Jones' fear of snakes made him believable.

Finally play with Archetype Interactions and see how the Waif might react to the Professor type. What if the Waif were layered with the Librarian and the Professor had a bit of the Swashbuckler in him. What would these two encounter? Where would they take your story?

Tami et al's book is invaluable to me. If I had no other book on characterization, I would be fine. My only quibble is that we didn't get the Villains, but Tami teaches a Villains Archetype class online as well as face-to-face. I just recently had the pleasure of taking that class with From The Heart Romance Writers.

Put this on your "must have" list if you want rich, complex characters.

In the quest of refining character, I have devoured a number of psychology texts and writer's guides, and I do believe that this one may be the best book on that topic I have ever discovered. I would quibble with Cowden, LaFever and Viders in their assertion that the 16 Master Archetypes are the only archetypes, but it's such a small point that it doesn't detract from what they present. Peppered with easily accessible examples, their book breaks down character into strong, clearly sketched components and then discusses how the palates may be blended--in individual character development and interpersonal relationships. I don't know if I would ever use any guide to create a character from scratch, but I'm always happy to find something to help me ensure that my characters behave consistently once they've been created. I expect this book to prove valuable for that, and I highly recommend it.

The book is a great tool for aspiring writers and screenwriters. It offers great insight into the different archetypes. That information is presented in a dictionary type form. Anyone can look up a personality type and find its virtue, flaws, style and background. I highly recommend the book to all aspiring writers.

I started using this book for my writing the very day I received it. It's great--I can't recommend it highly enough

I can't say enough good things about this book. Fantastic character profiles. I wish it had been available when I was studying Sociology at university! I own two copies so I can always have it at hand when I need some help. My ONLY complaint are the pop culture references as archetype examples. But, overlook Dr. Spock and Ally McBeal and this book is priceless!

The New World Spanish/English English/Spanish dictionary is very helpful in learning Spanish. It has a pronunciation guide and a listing of all irregular verbs. It is very comprehensive for a paper back dictionary.

This Spanish/English dictionary is the best I've used, primarily for the reasons that it is very comprehensive, and it gives Spanish pronunciations, oddly lacking from other such dictionaries.

I have purchased at least 6 different Spanish/English dictionaries and this is the one I always come back to. I am currently using my second copy since the first one fell apart. This one is held together with tape, lots and lots of tape.

I almost always find the word I am looking for, and the definitions make sense, and I am picky.

I have purchased at least 4 more of these as gifts.

So, my only complaint is that the binding is poor quality - the pages easily come out. Fortunately, they can be taped back in, which adds to the character!

I am a high school ESL teacher for new immigrants to the U.S. Our school buys the Merriam-Webster English-Spanish in bulk so each student has one that is easy to carry around, and because they are cheaper. But after experimenting with various dictionaries, I find that I much prefer to keep The New World dictionary right beside me at my desk, when I'm standing at the overhead projector, when I am circulating around the room to help students. I find The New World easier to read and easier to use. For example, when looking at multiple meaning words such as plot or setting, it is easier to pick out the language arts/literary definition in The New World dictionary. It also offers more in the way of support for people learning English or Spanish -- for example the section that helps Spanish speakers understand English prefix/root/suffix is very useful to ESL students and teachers in a high school setting. This year we are going to buy several for each classroom that has ESL students in it.

I have been teaching English as a Second Language for many years and I have become fluent in Spanish. This dictionary for Americans (North and South) is the best for the money. It has many words that are American Spanish and American English whereas many other more expensive dictionaries use European words and sometimes spellings. It is not a good dictionary for travel but then I don't think most are. I don't use a dictionary when on the road. The paper editions wear out rapidly with moderate use but they are cheap enough. Do not waste time and money on smaller dictionaries such as the Chicago. This one not only has American language, it has many idioms, and a reasonable grammar section. I hope this little gem never goes out of print.

An English major's best friend. What did I do without it? It's fun to pick up and read snippets but mostly it comes to the rescue when I have literary term questions or am stuck on a poetry problem. I ordered it from Amazon since it beat campus prices.

I've had this book for almost a month now, and I have to say that I am very impressed. I bought it because it was suggested as an extra source of information in my English Literature class. I am still waiting for the recommended text (Abram's 'A Glossary of Literary Terms'), so this one has definitely come in handy. Each time I look in it, I find new words and phrases to learn about (including the ones I 'have' to look up), and it is a delight. My mother used to tell us that her mother's frequent recommendation was 'Make a friend of your dictionary!'and I have. I like knowing which 'big' words I can use to truly express myself, and Cuddon's 'Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory'(published by Penguin in 1999 and revised by CE Preston), is going to be a very good 'friend' indeed! In my opinion, it is on a par with Abram's text, in fact it might be more accurate to say that they complement each other. I definitely recommend it to anyone studying English Literature, and anyone who just likes to read.

This book is an excellent and indispensable resource. I've used it quite often to look up and correctly apply different terms when writing essays and looking up references. However, it's also a fun book to look through and to pick out random entries in learning more about the wide range of literary terms, concepts, and histories that are comprehensively covered in this text.

This is a handy inexpensive reference book with much more than a dictionary on some interesting items but less on lots of other things, so it is very specific to literary purposes giving special help in history of literary terms. Since it works more like a history of those terms it gives J.A. Cuddon a wonderful opportunity to display his research skills and demonstrate interesting connections that otherwise would be missed. It works well as a required text for entrance level literature classes in the undergraduate level.

As an author, have you been guilty of "log-rolling?" According to "The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literay Theory" complied by J. A. Cuddon, this literary term is: "The practice by which authors review each other's books. Vulgarly known as "back-scratching." Being retired tree farmers we have a different concept for the term.
Extensive, forthright annotations and great essays take the browser on a delightful tour of the literary arena. From Abby Theater to Zhdanovshchina, Cuddin uses both irreverence and erudition to teach us that the words and phrases we use seldom mean what we believe.
An excellent reference for the writer's bookshelf.
Nash Black, author of "Qualifying Laps" and "Taxes, Stumbling Blocks & Pitfalls for Authors 2007."

Delivery was super speedy! The product was exactly as the seller described! I would definitely do business with them again!

The product was as I expected it to be according to the product description. Very satisfied.

Cuanto me alegra que haya una autora que cuenta parte de la historia dominicana. Me encanta como Julia escribe. Este libro esta muy bien hecho pero ojo: Julia Alvarez escribe en ingles no en español. Aun asi, me parece que la traduccion de esta historia esta estupenda.

Me quedé muy impresionada con la historia y literalmente me lo devoré. Está basado en hecho reales, lo cual fue un factor para que me gustara más. Lo recomiendo.

Es una historia interesante y entretenida, sobretodo para aquellos latinoamericanos que nos interese la historia. Aunque es una novela, tiene mucho de fondo històrico. Los personajes son agradables, bien logrados. Me dejó el interés de conocer màs sobre la historia de Trujillo. No llega a la excelencia de La Fiesta del Chivo de Vargas Llosa, es una buena Historia

Lois Lowry has really saved the day in this house more than once with her great Gooney Bird books. In this book, the first of the Gooney Bird series, Gooney Bird is introduced to her new class. She's confident and smart and has a good time in life and the class does an effective job of welcoming their new member. The "conflict" in these stories is some intellectual problem that one or more of the characters needs to solve, rather than having conflict with each other. This is perfect for us, because we have one daughter that doesn't care for conflict between characters in her fiction. The fact that Gooney is such a great character is stupendous (she likes big words and her dictionary!).

This is a clever book that will keep the parent entertained as well. Well worth every penny and then some!

Lois Lowry is a gifted writer of fiction who is passing on that gift to young readers with Gooney Bird Greene!

Children will learn the art of creating a story as they are enthralled by the tales told by Lowry's funny, pig-tailed heroine.

This book is tremendously entertaining and valuable as a teaching tool!

Another great children's book by Lowry! This book is absolutely hilarious and educational, too. Great to integrate into an English lesson(s) about writing stories. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves Lowry or anyone who loves the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary.... the books contain great energy & lots of humor.... all with some lessons learned along the way. :)

I teach second grade and love to use this book as a read aloud to inspire my students to write interesting stories. After we finish the book, we then write our own stories from our life, and use all of Gooney Bird's tips for writing. I also like to use it as a visualization lesson, where we draw the picture in our head before Gooney Bird tells a story, and then the picture in our head after she finishes her story. (very different)Gooney Bird also has some great characters to analyze, as we learn about the different classmates through their interaction with Gooney Bird as she tells each of her stories. It is a treasure!

I read this book to my fourth graders, and they loved it! Gooney Bird is an original thinker who always tells the truth! We had fun speculating exactly how her "wild" tales could be true, before we read on.

Gooney Bird also discusses the ways to make writing better, and kids can learn from that as well. The book would be good to use in writing classes. Plus, it's just plain fun!

Hello, I'm an American student of German. I have taken two college courses before picking up this book. I am a big fan of German music. I enjoy German bands that play schlager, Rock, Euro härte, Euro Techno, and even more traditional music.

I have not finished this book yet. Although, from my initial look. I see a very complete set of rule of German grammar for the English speaker.

This book is very dense. I would suggest, for most that have just started learning German, to consider a good overview of German before looking at this book, and consider reading it latter as a review or reference.

This book is a necessary addition for any English student's library seriously studying German.

This book is seriously AMAZING. Any problem you can possibly imagine with grammar is included! Really glad I bought this, probably the best book on the subject I own. Highly recommended for any German student (I'm in my 3rd year).

As other reviewers have already emphasized, this is an excellent English language resource for German grammar. An incredible amount of detail is given, and attention is paid both to general rules and specific exceptions, even down to the most obscure and archaic. Both difficult and simple grammatical terms are explained through examples in English, which makes this book an excellent tool for coming to a deep understanding of the German language.

As mentioned by others, this is no book for beginners. Only high-intermediate and advanced students should look into using this grammar, as it assumes a rather high level of proficiency on the student's part. However, for more advanced students, the explanations and detailed examples are priceless, shedding light on even the most complicated German passages.

A word of caution to teachers: please do not merely have your students read and memorize sections of this textbook. Hammer's Grammar is very complex and includes a large amount of exceptions, a number of which are no longer in common use. Classmates I've had have expressed frustration over having to memorize exception after exception to a rule that seems rare in itself. This book is best used as a reference for advanced learners, and ought not to be the setting in which general grammatical rules are taught. Rather than reading and memorizing, it would be better for students to study this book topic by topic, complete with class discussion, re-mastering the principles before moving on to the many exceptions.

There are also a number of slightly odd English sentences in this book that might confuse the reader. Beware, and proceed at a slow, steady pace.

This is an excellent book for those working on learning German. * HOWEVER * If you are like me and were never able to gain a firm grasp of the English language while in high school you should get this book and a book called "English Grammar for Students of German" to use along side of this one to help you understand the basics in basic terms. You generally need to have a decent grasp of the mechanics of the English language before learning a foreign language. This book goes into great detail and is absolutely packed with information on the mechanics of the German language. Getting the workbook that goes with the book IS A MUST, as just reading about German is worthless. Get the workbook and work the exercises on a separate piece of paper. This makes it so you can rework the exercises again later if needed. Be diligent and work in the workbook everyday. As you go through out your day and have thoughts pop into your head try to think of how you would write a sentence in German that would equal that thought.

I am glad I bought this book as I will have to stretch myself to get through it. It's a great learning tool.

I commenced learning German in college and concluded with enough credits to earn a minor. Two summers were spent in Germany taking intensive German language classes (Munich and Mannheim), while two additional summers were spent working as an intern with Deutsche Telekom in Frankfurt. Upon concluding my Masters in EE, I married a German and subsequently lived in Germany for 10 years. For 5 of those years I was general manager of my own consulting company. All of our business was in German.

Inspite of this background, on any given page of this manual, there are tips and tricks to assist me in refining my language skills. This book has it. If it is not there, you in all likelyhood don't need to know it. The themes are logically laid out. Any and every topic is easy to find. This book is highly recommended. Beginners should not resist having this gold mine in his library.

Ok, it's important to note that Japanese is not the first language that I've studied. That being said, with this book I had learned the entire Hiragana in less than twenty four hours. I still had some trouble with stroke order, but that only comes with practice.
I realize that most people will not pick up the Hiragana as quickly as I did, but that is still impressive. I would estimate that anyone that had not studied a foreign language before would be able to learn the Hiragana in about one to three weeks depending on the amount of time and effort they were willing to put in.
Again, this is an excellent product that I would recommend for anyone just starting to study the language.

This has to be the best way to learn hiragana! I learned all 46 hiragana syllables in about 3 weeks, and then it only takes about a day to get the dakuon and handakuon down, because its just a voiced change and adding two small lines or a circle. The yoon take even shorter since really it's just a smaller version of ya, yu, or yo. This book is perfect for learning Hiragana! Kodansha always has great japanese learning books. I recommend the second one in this "series", "Let's Learn Katakana". These are both great ways to learn Hiragana and Katakana (respectively).

I learned the entire hiragana characters in 2 months thanks to this book!

Very simple, explanative and easy to follow!

I recommend!

While taking a Basic Japanese course I was having difficulty remembering my hiragana. The lessons are helpful and easy to complete. The crossword puzzle was a great challenge! When I finished this book I aced my written and oral tests. I even began to read Japanese magazines and books with basic hiragana. Along with my class lessons this book helped me a lot!! Now I'm doing the 'Let's learn Katakana' book. They should make a 'Let's Learn Kanji' book!!

Ok, believe it or not, Using this book, I mastered reading Hiragana in 3 days. Of course, I couldn't put it down, and I also bought hiragana flash cards too which helped a lot as well, but still, the books was AMAZING. if you are trying to learn Hiragana in a flash, this is a great book. I can now read hiragana just by looking at it, and I can write it too. It's a great book and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn hiragana easily, and in a way, kinda fun too!

Very good book, lots of useful info that goes beyond the normal documentation.

The content reveals a lot of details of RS. However, I had a hard time to make the samples running.

I found this book to have lots of information, but if you learn best by hands on examples, this is not the book for you. The author shows you a report already done and gives a quick explanation of how he got there. It is not a step-by-step type of book. As a lot of the examples shown do not have a how-to to go with it, I found this book not a good place to start. There are others that are more hands-on and step-by-step which are easier to learn from.

Having said that, if you've had some Reporting Services experience and are just looking to brush up on techniques and/or learn additional techniques, then this book will probably save you the tediousness of having to go through a step-by-step example that you have already done in the past.

Being a Microsoft trainer, and needing to get up to speed in a hurry, I found this book - luckily. This book was able to give me the answers to the "how do I do..." questions I had, and then enabled me to explain these concepts to my students.

Teo's style is easy to read, and he makes it easy to see how you can apply his examples to your reporting needs.

If you need to get up to speed on Reporting Services in a hurry, and need a book you can refer to in the future, this is the one.

The project: create a secure, distributed, Internet-facing, interactive ASP.Net reporting application for a Very Large Customer. The schedule: short. The budget: low. Amazingly, we got it done, and I credit Teo and this book with helping us meet our requirements.

The Microsoft Reporting Services 1.0 documentation is not very useful to the newcomer, and with 7 months' experience now, I can also say it's not very useful to the rising journeyman. The product is quirky, with surprising gaps and baroque security features. Without expert guidance from someone who has worked with the RS dev team I don't see how anybody would get much done with Reporting Services 1.0.

Teo Lachev worked intensively with the Microsoft dev team and the book shows it. Perhaps one of the reasons other reviews here gripe about the examples is that the most useful examples are the non-trivial ones in the second half of the book. Report authoring is the easy part! Delivering your reports to your users in the ways they demand is the hard part, and in my opinion this is where Teo's book shines.

It is no exaggeration to state that without Teo's book, and in particular his discussion of custom security extensions for Reporting Services, we would have failed to deliver the goods. But we succeeded... thanks Teo.

This is a great book to promote vocabulary buliding with young children. It has real photos which makes it more realistic and easier to use and build background knoledge. Kids love this book they engage in dialoge and adults use it to learn a different language as well!

I highly recommend "My First Spanish Word Book". This book has GREAT pictures of everyday items each one labeled in English and Spanish. A MUST HAVE for any children (or adult) learning Spanish, or learning Spanish to English.

My nephew just loves this book! I find myself learning so much with her and it supplies plenty of laughter. This book instills plenty of confidence as the words are learned and new words are tried out. Plenty of fun.

Ann Clarke, author of People Are So Different! based on tolerance and understanding.

my son liked the book. i wish it told you how to enunciate the words.

My native language is English, and I speak Spanish fairly well at a conversational level. I am speaking Spanish to my young son so that he will be bilingual. Much of my Spanish vocabulary is business- or government- related, so I got this book to learn words for everyday things. When chosen for that purpose, this book is wonderful. To give one example: beginning Spanish students usually learn "camisa" for shirt and "pantalones" for pants. This book has two large pages of words for specific articles of clothing (pajamas. shorts. raincoat, sweatpants, etc.) As other reviewers have mentioned, the pictures are outstanding and I'm sure my son will like looking at the pages when he's a little order.

You do need a basic grasp of Spanish, and a good Spanish-English dictionary, to use this book most effectively. It does not have a pronunciation guide, so you need to be able to pronounce the words (which isn't hard, since Spanish reads phonetically). Also, most of the words are nouns or verbs, so to really be able to practice using them you need to know how to construct a simple sentence in Spanish.

Be careful and check with a native Spanish speaker or with a dictionary if something doesn't seem right. As another reviewer has mentioned, the usage in this book seems to be South American (I would guess Mexican, but I'm not an expert.) I've found a couple typos ("el peinilla", for example, which should have been "la peinilla"). Also, it pays to check translations of unknown words in a dictionary. For example, there is a picture of a beaded bracelet with the English word "beads" and the Spanish word "pulsera". "pulsera" doesn't mean beads, it means bracelet.