Languages Books

This book provides excellent coverage of the subject. I found it to be accurate and to contain the details I needed.

This is hands down the best book I have ever seen on the topic of Windows debugging. Whether you are chasing tricky synchronization issues, reverse engineering, or probing for security flaws, you'll do well to have this one handy. A bit pricey perhaps, but worth every penny.

Simple review here:

If you're a developer working on Windows who sometimes needs to debug and diagnose complex / intermittent app failures, BUY THIS BOOK!

There is simply NO other book that delves so deeply into how to debug using WinDBG / KD and it'll be some time until someone creates a book that supersedes this one.

Very well written and containing information that would normally take YEARS to come by on your own, this book will save you MONTHS of hard work.

BUY IT NOW!

If you do nothing more than read the initial 4 chapters you will probably learn something. If you can get through Part II and Part III you will improve your knowledge of Windows programming and good general debugging techniques no matter how experienced you are. This is one every developer should have sitting by his PC.

I have little to add to the effusive praise of previous reviewers. This is a one-of-kind book. An instant classic.

Beware, however. As others have noted, this is definitely an _advanced_ book. If you're not comfortable with arcane command syntax, bits and bytes, and such this will be painful to incomprehensible for you. On the other hand, I dare say you will never be a true Master Debugger until you have a good grasp of this material.

You would do well to start with Debugging Microsoft .NET 2.0 Applications or the now-unavailable Debugging Applications for Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Windows. Both will give you an easier introduction to WinDbg. The latter, older volume has much more information on native code debugging than the newer version. As they also cover the Visual Studio debugger in detail, most developers need go no further than one of these.

Note that WinDbg _can_ be used with SOS and ADPlus to do some pretty fancy .NET debugging that isn't possible with Visual Studio alone. For that matter, the .NET CLR on Windows is implemented using the same Windows API as any native application. I've seen WinDbg used to trace bugs through C# application code down to find that the defect was actually in the CLR or Windows itself. John Robbins (author of the previously mentioned books) states in Chapter 6 of the latest version that "in our consulting work at Wintellect, which as you know works on the toughest bugs, we use WinDBG nearly 70 percent of the time."

Don't ignore this book just because you program in .NET!

Watch out for the font used in the listings though. Not being a master myself, I've been stumped for quite a while because the letter 'l' looks like the number '1' in the font they use. (I've been assiduously following the examples line-by-line).

I also recall being stumped because of an error or two in the text, though I admit I can't find them now. These as you can imagine could be a serious problem given the arcane and undocumented nature of quite a bit of the material. Just make sure you check the errata periodically. Ironically, the errata web page for the book is not functioning at the moment...

This is a wonderful book -- but the price is ridiculous. I purchased a paperback copy of "The Awk Programming Language" about 15 years ago, and its price was in the $20 range. Times change, and prices go up, but $73 for a 200-page book, even if it is a hardcover, verges on outright theft.

Which is a shame, because this is a great book, written by the men who developed the language. In addition to a lengthy tutorial, it contains many examples of sophisticated programs that can be constructed from the simple tools provided by Awk. Anyone who supports computers for a living, whether in the Unix or Windows environment, can find valuable ideas here.

But the price: c'mon guys, you've got to be kidding. This book has been in print for 20 years now. You've long since made back the initial costs of publishing it. The authors are famous in computer science circles, and have written many other books. I'm sure they don't need the money. So I have to conclude that this is just a cash cow for the publishers.

If you're looking to learn about Awk, and you're on a budget, I would suggest "Effective Awk Programming" by Arnold Robbins. It's available in PDF form as a free download. If you'd like to support the author, buy a printed copy of the book, as I did. Published by O'Reilly, it's available in paperback at Amazon for about $26.

And if you can find a reasonably-priced copy of "The Awk Programming Language", by all means, grab it. It's a classic. Thanks to the publishers, however, it's a classic that's out of most people's reach.

I am torn about this book. My primary complaint is that this book costs so much. Its only a 200 page paper back book. I'm a sucker for classic books though. This text appears to be the original 1988 version by the authors. The actual text of the book is very good and being written by the authors of AWK, provides a certain view on the language and their intent that was well received. I do carry this book with me as a reference which I have found invaluable in my shell scripting endeavors. This book will give you a solid overview of the language. Be prepared for example references to the world of 1988 such as the USSR. Despite my complaints about the price, I have to admit that I enjoy owning this bit of Unix history and having the authors own words about AWK. From a practical standpoint however, I think that you can learn every bit as much about AWK by learning from freely available internet content on GNU/Linux versions of AWK (gawk). Since I have worked with Unix since about 1984, I have to concede being blinded by a bit of nostalgia. However, AWK is still a vital tool for anyone's shell scripting bag of tricks and this book will help you further develop your skills with AWK if you have only used it lightly in the past.

This is my choice for the answer to the question "If you were stranded on a deserted island and you could have only one programming book which book would you choose?". Over the years I have periodically returned to this book to read or work through for fun. "The AWK Programming Language" may be from 1988 but it is still outstanding! It has an incredible amount of depth for a book of only 200 or so pages. Well-written, concise, with great examples. Truly an enjoyable book to work through.

I've become a big fan of Awk. Some people may tell you that Awk is outdated and no longer useful; not with other languages such as Perl and Ruby available. Well, Awk does one thing and does it well. It does it "fast enough" most of the time, and does it with a very small language.

Perl and Ruby are fine, but if you lean towards "small is beautiful", you must learn Awk. For times when you need it, it's a Godsend. I've used it recently to automatically generate SQL insert statements from some flat files and to do automatic code generation for larger languages.

Some of the best tools have survived the test of time.

In this book, I feel like I learned all the things I need to know about Awk - all the way from beginner to advanced. It's a classic. Not a lot of books get five stars for me. This book fulfills it's goals perfectly, so deserves a perfect rating.

In Unix today, several scripting languages exist: awk, perl, tcl and python. Awk is a small, easy-to-learn, yet powerful programming language, and is language of choice for quick, think- and analyze-on-the-fly tasks. This book is written by the inventors of this wonderful language. It provides an excellent introduction to the language, with many practical examples for day-to-day use. Over many years, it has also served as a good reference to the language. In addition, this book gives concise introduction to numerous fundamental algorithms in computer science (interpreter, calculator, parser, sorting, graph algorithms, ..), which I consult for complex tasks even today.

Always a joy to read! Highly recommended.

There are many editions of Roget's Thesaurus, but this is one of the best. The print is large enough to easily read, and in each section there are several alternative words or ideas suggested. For example, if one looks up the idea "event" other closely related ideas are listed, and when one goes to the word section that reflect the idea of event, several alternate idea selections are listed with their corresponding number location (not just the word, but the word idea and its number location). This makes researching the concept much easier.

All in all this is the best thesaurus I have seen. Other thesaurus's which are more dictionary-like simply do not have the range of words and concepts that Roget's reflects. Believe me, if I had taken the time to research a few words for this review it would have been a lot better!

If you need a thesaurus get a Roget's, and this is one of the best Roget's you can buy. Plus, the price is good.

AD2

Bartlett's Roget is such a useful resource for me I recently bought a second copy. Unfortunately, the second copy proved to have a number of missing pages, a sad fact discovered after my 30 day return had expired. Enjoy the book - it's marvelous! - but check that it has all it's pages before you dig in.

The Thesaurus literally arrived the next day (and I think I ordered after the 12nn deadline). I was pleasantly surprised. I would do business with them again.

Upon first seeing (and hefting) this volume, I was impressed by its size and hopeful of its contents. After all, it has 1400+ good sized pages, and weighs... well - a bit! "Wow! What a resource!" I thought. Turns out: only 848 of those pages are the actual thesaurus, the other 567 are an index. To be fair, that Index is a useful addition; as I, for one, haven't mastered the left-brain heavy savoir faire apparently necessary to navigate the typical thesaurus. Likewise, the volume itself is useful. I looked long and hard before buying it, and think it is certainly one of the best on the market. This is by no means your `quick and dirty' Roget's Pocket version. It provides a lengthy treatment of most words I've had occasion to investigate. With Bartlett's, I bought The Synonym Finder as what I intended to be a supplemental companion volume. Using them together, however, I find they very often duplicate the exact same synonym lists. The major difference is that - for me - the latter is easier to use. To be fair, Bartlett's does have some special interest sections, such as a 4 ½ page list of Phobias: listed by name and type; or a list of "Children's Games and Party Games," etc. To be honest, as well as fair: in the year+ that I've used this volume, I've never had occasion to use that feature. To be positive as well as negative: in that same period of time, I've never sought a word and not found it listed in either volume. That's not `less than impressive' as I write for a living and do so on an advanced level, so the words I seek are not common fare. Finally: to be practical, the price tag attached to this item is quite reasonable, in my judgment. My advice is this: Both Bartlett's and The Synonym Finder are excellent volumes. Buy whichever one your brain will find easier to use. But don't buy both.

As a student, translator, and writer, this thesaurus has become one of my best friends. It is organized in a very creative way, with an index in the back referring to the various sections of the book's body, where terms are grouped by topic. In the index, you look up the word for which you need related words, and then you choose between the many terms under that heading, each with a distinct variation in meaning. You can thereby turn to the section that best relates to the meaning you are looking for.

Once you've turned to the section referred to in the index, you not only find an extensive list of synomyms for that term, but you also have, on that same page, words that are related but which fall in different parts of speech. That has been very useful for me. And since the terms are grouped by topic, you can look through neighboring entries and pages of entries, finding all kinds of similar and related words, whereas, in a traditional thesaurus layout, the only thing adjacent to your entry would be those words that start with the same letters.

In short, what makes this thesaurus so wonderful is that you have access to an extensive range of word power, since the words referenced in the entry you're interested in are not limited to the space just below the word itself: they are spread throughout the book in logical groups, and the index quickly directs you to the sense of the word that you are interested in.

This book was an oasis in the desert of COM/CORBA obfuscation and confusion. This is the most fair, useful and easy to comprehend overview of these two models that I've come across. The author has the ability to convey the material in a way that makes it almost painless to comprehend...buy the book NOW.

Though not explicitly meant to be this book might also serve as an introduction to both CORBA and COM: quite an achievement. The authors waste no words and keep a neutral standing between the poles. I hope the next edition will contain some information about Microsoft.Net too.

A concise and comprehensive analysis of two technologies that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Mr. Pritchard did an excellent work of dissecting each one and at the same time, achieved a perfect balance between theory and code examples that is so rare on this field. If you need to decide between COM and CORBA on your next eBusiness or back-office integration project, this book will set you on the right path.

If you're in the process of architecting a new system or planning to rearchitect an existing system, this book will prove invaluable in helping you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Even if you're just interested in both technologies and want to dig deeper into each, this book is a sure bet!

This book is quite thin, and yet it includes so much. The open mind towards competing technologies is important, we should all look at facts in an objective way. The book gives an excellent view on COM, CORBA and the differences between them. It also shows programming examples (not in depth) and explains things like "push" technologies very good. I would expect the first book in this subject (side-by-side approach) written by a technician, to be too detailed, with a poor language and not very educational. I was very wrong. An amazing book!

my husband and I knew Daisy. She would be so glad to see us, especially Bill, as he helped with her baths.When you looked into her eyes [and Daisy looked into yours] you could see eternity. Everything Helen wrote about really happened. We gave her book as gifts to five people and each one read it and each one learned something new. This is a must read for anyone who loves animals and for anyone who is curious about life, death and the afterlife.

Anyone who loves and respects, and has a close bond with animals
can not help but love this book. Helen Weaver tells a heartwarming story of loss and then continued communication with her beloved dog Daisy. People who don't "dig" this book are really not in tune with animals. It stirs all the good emotions in those who do.
Bernard Wasserman, D.V.M., author of The Dog Who Met The Queen and Other Stories.

This warm and sentimental story on the subject of animal communication is a must for all Animal Lovers. As we think of the love given by our four-footed and winged friends, we must realize that there is an intelligence there to be respected and cherished. The author has given an important slice of her life,
expressing a sensitive and caring attitude toward her dog, Daisy. Anyone who has ever owned a pet will understand the feelings involved.

This is a must for dog-lovers and particularly meaningful (just ask its many fans) to people who have loved and lost a dog.

Weaving, no pun intented, though Daisy's story is the story of her remarkable person Helen and Helen's remarkable mother.

The Daisy Sutra suprised me in its exploration of human-dog relations. I was touched by the humor, pathos and finally metaphysical reach of this little gem. I have bought 5 for gifts. Deep, rich, rewarding read.

I'm an ESl teacher and thought this book would be pedagogical. It's mostly about the current state of bilingual education in the US. It is informative about the history and legislation of ESL and bilingual ed. I would recommend it for anyone in the field who needs to polish their knowledge base or those interested in entering the field.

This book is great! It is very informative; it answers varies questions about ELLs. It provides a lot of knowlegde about ELLs, very detailed!

This book addresses all your questions about English Learners in a practical and concise book! It's also written by two incredible authors that are always up to date and informed about bilingual education. Everyone should own this book!

This quick reference covers all the basic facts behind educating English Language Learners (ELLs). It is good for educators who are new to educating ELLs. This book also is great for supporting educators learning to become advocates for ELLs with colleagues in their communities. This book provides quick answers to the most common questions from scholars known for their advocacy for ELLs.

This brief, well-documented outline of essential research information is invaluable to parents, teachers and policy makers.

"Firmin" is Sam Savage's debut novel, and was first published in 2006. It's also one of the very few books I've ever read where the lead character has been a rodent.

Unusually for a rat, Firmin is a very well-read character - one with the soul of an artist and an eye for the ladies. He was born in the basement of Pembroke Books, a bookshop on Scollay Square in Boston in the early 1960s. The location was something of a last resort for his mother, Flo - a fat, twitchy drunk who didn't cry over spilt beer, but drank it instead. Flo made her bedding from "Finnegan's Wake" - and that proved to be the making of our hero. Firmin was the runt of the litter - the thirteenth child of a mother with twelve teats. (He picked up whatever leftovers he could, lapping up just about enough to survive). Eventually, he started eating his bedding - an act of desperation that, for a while at least, subsequently became an addiction. Few can have devoured "Finnegan's Wake" in the manner Firmin did and he believes his early diet led to his "unusual mental development". When, as a young rat, he decided to add a little variety in his diet, it involved finding - and eating - other books. Soon, he notices that each book tastes slightly differently and, before long, that there's a correlation between the taste and the flavour of the pages and the quality of the writing. (Interestingly, "Jane Eyre" tastes like cabbage). As he grows older, he spends more time and more reading the books and scavenging his meals from around the Square.

In time, his siblings grow up and move on - much like Flo, who is the first to disappear. Firmin is the only member of his family to stay on in the bookshop. He loves being able to watch the comings and goings from his vantage points - "The Balloon" (a crack in the roof) and "The Balcony" (a hole in the wall) - and the conversations he overhears keeps him up-to-date with the outside world. How Firmin views himself, however, is in a constant state of flux...possibly because he seems to feel more human than rat. While he has no real problem with his intellect, he detests his appearance and longs to be able to speak. At various points, he refers to himself as a dreamer and a hopeless romantic...and, yet, he'll still shudder at the thought of the "monster" in the mirror. On his first trip outside, he'd fallen head-over-heels in love with the women in the poster on the Rialto's wall. (The Rialto is the Square's cinema - it shows classic, old-style movies during the day, and porn all night. Firmin loves it there - he often dines on discarded popcorn and chocolate bars, and he spends many happy hours drooling over his 'Lovelies'. Unfortunately, he shows no subsequent interest in ogling any lady rats - and, since the only female rat he'd ever ogled up until that point had been his sister - he also views himself as a pervert and a freak). Given his devotion to the female form, then, it's maybe a little odd that the two most important people to Firmin are male. One is Norman Shine - the owner of Pembroke Books - and the other is Jerry Magoon - an author who rents an apartment upstairs.

The Square is the world to Firmin, with the bookshop and the Rialto between them catering for his head, his heart and his belly. Naturally, though, disaster is on the horizon : Boston's Mayor sees the area as a rat-infested blot on the landscape, which is badly in need of a bulldozer.

A very enjoyable, very easily read book - Fermin, despite his appearance and his low self-opinion, is a hugely likeable character. Comfortably the best book I've read this year, totally recommended !

This is a concise and touching story about a rat in Boston who can read. Really, the book is a tightly written allegory about human life and struggle. Absolutely enchanting and creative.

Sam Savage is a genious. There are few books that can be with you for your hole life, and Firmin is ONE OF THOSE books. A read with diferent levels, a masterpiece for all ages. A great fable, a good fun, an outstanding tragedy. Read.

An engrossing tale about, of all things, a sweetly cynical and most sympathetic rat who is a cross between Frodo Baggins and Holden Caulfield. He is befriended by a writer, Jerry Magoon, who is surely an autobiographical rendition of the author, and reminds one of Charles Bukoswki. A wonderful urban fantasy, even for those who hate the Boston Red Sox!

Sam Savage has come up with a very unique and enjoyable premise for his debut novel, with one of the most creative uses of fantasy to probably come along in ages. Firmin, a big-thinking rat who you'll totally love, grows up in a used bookstore in a run-down Boston neighborhood. Forced to eat old books after losing the battle for real food to his bigger siblings, runty Firmin somehow learns to read and absorbs a world of human knowledge. In a classic exercise of the "outside observer" literary device, we learn of Firmin's unique emotional longings and rat-like views of human society. With a human intelligence stuck in the body of a rat, Firmin lives a life of the imagination, based on scenes from his favorite books, and befriends a non-conformist struggling writer who is a real comrade in arms. This masterful book is full of whimsical humor, a true appreciation for classic literature, winning insights into humanity, and momentous sadness, as Firmin watches his human friends and his beloved neighborhood slip away. This is an outstandingly well-written story and is recommended for fans of insightful and empathetic literature, and offbeat new directions in fantasy. [~doomsdayer520~]

I admit, I was skeptical. I've never believed that tapes or cds of someone droning phrase after phrase actually had any use to someone learning a language, but my friends told me that the Pimsleur Program was different. I'm fluent in German so I checked the first level out of the library. I figured that since its a language I already speak I would be able to tell if it was actually teaching anything worthwhile. I was completely amazed! The pimsleur program doesn't just tell you how to ask where the train station is, it gives you a knowledge of the language that can be expanded on. You're not just mimicing, you know what you're saying. I was so excited about "discovering" Pimsleur that I went out and bought the Norwegian course and am having much success with that!

We've tried 5 other audio language programs for our family, and I took a conversational German class at a community college. I wish I'd found this program before I'd wasted so much money on other programs (and before I lived in Germany for several months!)... In just a few lessons, we are UNDERSTANDING the language better than we ever could have with other programs, are more confident about speaking, and excited about learning more. Everything is introduced in context, making it easy to remember. The program continually builds on what has been learned, so review is built in but not boring. The question and answer format forces one to THINK about what they have learned instead of just repeating phrases without figuring out what each word means and how it should be used. We'd like out children to have mastery of several languages, but with the next language, we won't be floundering trying to find a good program. For spoken language, we'll go straight to Pimsleur!

I already speak more German in FOUR WEEKS than I have been able to speak French in FOUR YEARS of classes using this method.

For the first time, I am actually learning to speak and understand another language (rather than just reading and writing). I thought I was a dunce at languages! Turns out, it was the education system. I recommend getting a few books to supplement what you learn in this method, but I would wait until you begin Pimsleur German II to do this. Get the spoken language down first, and then learn to read and write.

I took German in high school and college, but wanted to brush up on it.

I just completed German I, and I was pleasantly surprised. To achieve spoken competence requires a hugh amount of repetition and drilling to internalize the patterns. But different people have different learning styles; some respond well to reading and practicing grammatical principles and paradigms, others are more ear-oriented. At first, the endless repetition was frustrating; I must have heard "Would you like to drink something with me?" about 40 times. And "Where is Goethe street?" about 30 times. For someone who remembered some of his school German, it was a little much.

The pace picks up in later lessons, and it began to get a little more interesting and challenging as new vocabulary and grammatical structures are added.

All in all, it was an enjoyable experience, and I think a pure beginner would do very well with these tapes.

If only they weren't so hideously expensive. Fortunately, my library system carries all 3 levels of the German series, so I'm all set. Before paying for the full set, you might want to pick up the smaller 4-cassette version to see if it suits your learning style.

I have been using this program for about 2 months. After a couple of weeks I kind of forgot to listen to the cds for about 2 weeks or so. I thought I would have to start all over again from the beginning, but I was surprised when I realized that I had remembered everything I learned.

I think the reviewer(s) who gave this program 4 stars instead of 5 only because it didn't cover all of the months of the year and/or days of the week is being a bit unfair. Maybe it is fair if you have had a German course elsewhere and have somewhat of a head start. But seriously, how many of us are there out there that can read and write in a foreign language [at least a bit] feel completely lost listening or at worse trying to converse in that language?

This program is easy and it works! If you only want to learn the grammatical structure and/or expand your vocabulary obviously this program is not for you. If you want to begin [a very good head start] to learn German then you are very well on your way.

I have reviewed a lot of Java Books. And finally I found a book which was detailed and complete in all respects. It covers from the very basics and leads up to Advanced Java. I would recommend this book for anyone who needs to learn Java on their Own without any external help. This books has complete Examples with source code which is also made available on the accompanying CD so you donot need to type a single line of code to review the examples. So any folks interested in learning Java should definitely buy this book. This book can also kept as a good reference book for those who are already familiar with Java.

There is no other book which is so complete and student oriented like this. It is worth any penny of its price. It covers programming from the basics and it takes you to an intermediate level of knowledge. The presentation of the ULM stuff in combination with OOD/OOP is super.

If you want to learn Java from scratch this is the book!

Used this book for a hybrid Introduction to Java Program Course. Didn't need to e-mail the professor at all for help on assignments or online tests. I recommend either jGrasp or Netbeans for your compiler. Used both and they were both extremely helpful.

This book is a soup to nuts coverage of the Java programming language. I used it to learn (we primarily use C/C++ in Electrical and Computer Engineering) and code Java for a Senior Programming Project. It's a fantastic reference and I highly recommend their C/C++ book if you're learning those languages (that's how I knew to look for a Java version). Deitel makes fantastic books.

I purchased this text for my class on Java Programming. I never had experience with any Object Oriented Programming (OOP) languages such as C++, C# and Java before. I love the way that this text introduces the concepts "Object" and "UML" and tries to familiarize you with complex terminology and structure of Java. Sometimes you feel confused with terms such as method, class, argument, identifier adn etc., but the way that this text presents and gives the examples for each of them is excellent. Case Study examples are complete with thorough explanations and are "oriented to objects".

No doubt that I am confident in giving 5 stars to this text. However, I must mention couple cons I encountered in the text and I hope Authors will take'm into consideration in future editions:

1) "Error Prevention", "Good Programming Practice" and other tips occur in the middle of the text quite frequently and therefore are sometimes a bit distracting when you read the text. However, sometimes they do contain very important concepts and definitions for terminologies which are very pricy to ignore or skip (sometimes I did so in order to focus on the main text:-( ). Therefore I would urge the authors to incorporate those tips into the text so that readers would neither skip those concepts nor be distracted by frequent occurance of the tips.

2) I personally had difficulty in installing the JDK and JRE's latest versions and the directions in the text are not user friendly.

3) The "Examples" folder in CD does not have Appendix M.

Nonehteless, these cons do not affect the overall quality of the text, and again, it is highly recommended to own one!

Once you get past the strange layout (described in other sections), this is a great edition of Henry V. It is easy and fun to read and offers valuable insights (not just for students either). Well worth a flutter.

This play more than any others in the histories glorifies Englishmen and England. His characters in this one are larger than life, but each has their own limitations and flaws. The play covers the time of the Battle of Agincourt when the French King Charles was so sure of victory that he sent a messenger to Henry to ask him to give up and to pay a ransom before the battle. On the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, the English were outnumbered five to one, Henry's troops were on foreign soil and riddled with disease. The scenes where Henry dons a disguise and goes out amongst his troops to bolster their confidence are great. The English managed to triumph in this battle where all was stacked against them mostly because of Henry's leadership. This is such a sweeping story that it is hard to condense in a few words, the plot of the play, but it is a wonderful example of Shakespeare's skills as a writer.

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.' What more need I say? Henry V is an imortal classic of western literature. And this edition is complete and accurate. See the film if you want, but be sure to read the words at least once. They are inspiring.

"Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it."

Particularly poignant poetry in these times of pompous presidential sabre rattling and wars based on questionable facts.

This play is best known for the St. Crispian's Day "Band of Brothers" speech given by King Henry just before the battle at Agincourt. It is a powerful speech that rallies people at all times and everywhere. Sir Lawrence Olivier made a film version in 1944 during WWII and Kenneth Branagh made another as recently as 1989. You can count on there being more versions. Epecially so when computers can help them make spectacular battle scenes (that aren't really in the play) with less expense.

Audiences love this play and they should. There is a lot to like and enjoy. I think upon repeated readings Henry becomes a more equivocal character than he seems at first. And readers of the King Henry IV plays will know him before he became King Henry and know something deeper about his personality.

And of course there is the whole bit about the drive to France being sponsored by the Church to avoid confiscation of property by the Crown. Moreover, there is the slaughtering of the French prisoners, and his treatment of Falstaff (who dies offstage in this play). This isn't revisionist stuff, it is right there in the play, but it is easy to miss the first time you are trying to take in the play.

In any case, this Arden edition is the one to buy and read from. Why? Because it has the most authoritative text, but that is only the beginning. It also shows variants between the early sources. The notes at the bottom of each page of the play are simply fabulous. The editor includes not only helpful notes explaining what might be obscure in the text of the play, he provides sources Shakespeare probably used such as Holinshed and makes for some very interesting study. There are also some helpful notes on how various scenes have been performed over time.

And to make this sound more like an infomercial, you get more! The introduction provides great background material on the play, its sources, and how it has been performed throughout history. After the play, there is a photo reproduction of the first Quarto from 1600 and it is fairly readable. There are also a couple of maps showing the path of the English Army from Harfleur through other towns on its way to Calais and makes clear how they had to pass through Agincourt.

There is also a helpful genealogical table so you can see the confusing claims used by Henry and the French nobility to make their claims. And there is a doubling chart so you can see how theater companies can perform all the roles with fewer actors.

This is a great edition as are all the plays published by the Arden Shakespeare. The amount of work collected in these volumes is stunning and they will enrich your experience of the plays tremendously. I can't recommend them enough.