Macintosh Books

Unfortunately I ordered this product on May 10 my class started on May 27 and still no book. I have not even received the book. I received the diet analysis cd but that's it. I have submitted a claim.

The book has no damage when I received it. And the price is decent for a new book. Thank you!

Thank you so much for this wonderful item. It was in great shape and very useful!!

The book itself is fine, however the access code is no good and when you contact the company for help, they never respond to your email. If all you need is the text book, go ahead. However, if you are taking this course on-line like I am it's essentially useless with a non-working code.

All jokes aside, while students may gripe about having to shell out the bucks for this textbook, it is well worth the money. I've got an earlier edition and have used it a lot in the past. I found the later editions to be very up to date and quite useful as a reference for some of the clinical questions I encounter while working with patient education issues. In the days of picky insurance reimbursement, it's vital that all the stuff we do be based on sound clinical information showing that what we do is indeed effective.

Easy to understand, and a well laid-out text with many good illustrations, there's a good reason why it's a standard in the field. Can also recommend The Sixty-Second Motivator for people who have trouble sticking to a healthy diet. After all, what good is nutritional advice if no one is motivated enough to follow it?

I've had my Palm TX for almost a year and knew I wasn't using it anywhere close to it potential. This book is a wonderful source of information that is delivered with a good sense of humor, making it an easy read. I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about their Palm device and how to get better use out of your investment.

I have recently upgraded to the Palm TX. Having exclusively used the Microsoft OS before using the Palm OS (and being totally unhappy with the Microsoft approach which is why I switched to the Palm), I wanted something that went way beyond the normal manual to explain in great detail why certain operations were done and in what order, etc. This excellent and very thorough and very readable book does a very thorough job of explaining the Palm OS development history and consistently presents some well known and even many little known facts about the day to day operations of the fine Palm devices in all possible categories that may be of interest to users (word processing, spreadsheets, creating slides, games, storage cards, batteries, etc.). It is the newest, but hopefully not the last edition of a fine book going back to the 1990's. I highly recommend it.

well written (little too much "sidenote" jokes for my taste). Explains the basics very well. I really they covered using a Palm with a Mac a little more. The authors did not cover using a palm for GTD though...

"How to Do Everything with Your Palm Powered Device" Sixth Edition has been a big help to me with my palm TX. After owning the palm TX for about a year I thought I knew most of it's capabilities. Boy was I wrong! When I purchased the book I quickly learned many additional things my palm could do and how to use it more efficiently. I refer to it often and would highly recommend it to all Palm users. If I lost my copy I would immediately purchase another one!

I think this is a great book.

Just recently got to the point in my life where I need to get and use a PDA and decided to buy this book to go along with it. As someone "new" to this, it was exactly what I needed to hit the ground running with using my new Palm gizmo. I found it extremely well written and easy to read.

Before buying this book, I read over a lot of the reviews here on Amazon, and noticed that some of them are less than positive, and I'd like to address that in light of my own experience with this book. Most of the complaints seem to fall in the area of being, "Most of this stuff I already know.....". And that is probably going to be true for most people who have been using a Palm PDA for awhile. This book mainly covers the "Basics", stuff that someone who has used one of these devices has already figured out. There might be just a few bits here or there that an experience user might find new or interesting. With a title of, "How to Do Everything with Your Palm Powered Device" - I expected the book to cover just what it did - "Everything", which to me basically means the entry level stuff, the intermediately level stuff, and a smattering of advance user stuff. As a new user, there was a lot of basic information that I needed to know, and which this book covered in detail - the bulk of the book is dedicated to doing that. As I gain more experience with using the device, I imagine that I'm going to appreciate more of the intermediate stuff as well.

So my advice, if you need to know "Everything" as I did - this is the book for you. I'm guessing it knocked more than a year off my learning curve for using my new PDA. If you are familiar with the basic operation of one of these devices, there may be some stuff that you might find interesting too - but most likely not a whole book worth.

This is not a review, but a clarification for shoppers like me hoping for something else.

I had thought (hoped) this book would show really advanced stuff like, how to mod your ipod or change the color scheme of the menus, that sort of thing.
But it appears it is just an alternative to the book called "The Missing Manual"

I suggest you check it out before deciding on this book. Though I personally think this book is better because it goes into more advanced stuff than the other one.

This book is great for the novice user. Lots of good info and easier to use than the Apple website I think. If you are looking for a lot of inside info and hot tips it's not here.

I have read 5 books on the ipod and Itunes. This book is by far the best at explaining the AMAZING power of Smart Playlists. The examples show you how you can really manage music in a way you had never thought of.

In addition, though I thought I would hate the one page per subject concept in the end I admit it was excellent. Succinct, to the point and very useful.

I reference it all the time to find some of the useful tips.

I just received a iPod for father's day. I am retired and when not shooting clay targets I read therefore I immediately downloaded two audiobooks and started reading. I also loaded my favorite song from the fiftys. Since I am a novice I purchased the iPod book and it is everything I need to learn how to use my iPod to the best advantage. I highly recommend this book.

Very helpful book . Give lots of how to advice but written with humor and not just another boring How to book . The book is easy to read and understand .. you will enjoy it and learn a lot about your ipod without the mannual hassle .

I have been trying to use all the resources - bundled manuals, vtc, lynda.com since 2005 to learn filemaker/a database from scratch. I chose filemaker for 2 reasons - ease of use and support for OS X technologies like Applescript. I found it a bit challenging to understand concepts in Database design but with this one book things were more clear than ever before. I have finished this book and am planning to buy the latest version for filemaker 9.

If you are a newbie in database programming and need to get a well explained book to help you through building your own database. Get this book. It is well worth it.

BTW thanks for this book, I have a fully functional database to manage information related to my studies and research.

This manual has everything I ever needed to know about Filemaker in it. Easy to understand and a great tool for those who are new to Filemaker (as well as people who aren't so new, but don't know it all).

Why software cannot come with good manuals anymore is a mystery. This is exactly as advertised, the missing manual. Some other books will show you how to build bigger, more sophisticated solutions, but this one covers every aspect of how Filemaker works, which is what a manual should do.

Oh, and by the way, Filemaker is an amazing, underappreciated tool which helps manage a mailing list or build an entire database system. You cannot go wrong with it.

I hesitate to write negative reviews because I always suspect that the errors I find are my own misunderstandings. In this case I felt COMPELLED to write one. I bought this book wanting it to be great and having high expectations based on the reviews I read. I doubt many of the reviewers OR the EDITORS read this book very closely. There are so many mistakes (small and large) and examples which flat out DON'T WORK, that the book has almost driven me mad. I've wasted HOURS trying to get things to work the way the authors described. The errata posted on the oreilly.com site lists maybe 1/4 of the errors. There is ONE posted review on Amazon.com which took notice of this, but all of the others seem to miss it completely. Kudos to Raymond Smith!

Two perfect examples (in case you want to save yourself a few hours of struggle):

1. The Invoice Finder tutorial on page 372 simply doesn't work using the "minimum amount" field as they describe. It will work using the date range criterion, but when you add the minimum amount match, it fails. I built a file following along with the text and thought it was MY file that was broken. Then I tried the files supplied with the Missing Manual "CD". The authors' files don't work either. They SEEM to work with the data already in them, but if you add an invoice, it doesn't work. And if you simply open the "options..." definition of the Total Due field on the "Invoices" table, then OK the dialog box, all the existing data fails as well. It must be some kind of indexing problem, but the fact that it slipped by the editors is almost impossible to believe.

2. The Repeating Fields for Multiple Results on page 417 is totally wrong. The formula they supply will not work at all, and in fact, unless the "Price" field is a repeating field as well (which they don't mention at all), you can't do any calculations using the "Get(CalculationRepetitionNumber)" that will work the way they describe. Not to mention the fact that in the second mention of the calculation they call it "Get(CalculatedRepetitionNumber)" which is wrong and won't even take. The text suggests that you "test this calculation with a few numbers", but I doubt that any editor tried it. AND THIS IS LISTED IN A POWER USERS' CLINIC.

I don't know if this is an author problem or an editor problem, but either way, it is a REAL problem for readers.

What a disappointment and a waste of many hours... Don't listen to the majority of reviews on this book. They have clearly come from people who read it but were not actually trying to learn from the DOING the examples in the text. The book is written in a friendly easy style, but there are too many errors to make it valuable. And it's been out for TOO long for these things not to be listed in an available errata or supplement.

I was disappointed by this book, especially considering the high reviews that it has received. I would consider myself an advanced computer user and intermediate in working with programs like FileMaker. (Though database programs I have used before have had less features). This book uses an example of building a database throughout the book that involves customers and invoices, etc. The problem is that in later chapters the ongoing example database begins to interfere with the presentation of the material. If you have the time to work through the example database in detail (for a few hundred pages+) you might have a decent understanding of Filemaker-at least within the context of the example. Or if you have that kind of time, you might just want to take a class. I started with the beginning of the book when I began to build my database (which does not involve customers and invoices). After doing the initial planning/building work, I tried to skip to other parts of the book that were relevent to what I needed to do. Unfortunately, most of the descriptions are based on the original example--this made it difficult to apply the information to my own project. If the functions had been just described clearly at the beginning of each section, without relying on the example it would have been much better. There are a few mistakes as well-small but they cost me a bit of time. E.g., the book states that the "missing fields" problem can be fixed by changing a setting in preferences. This is not necessarily right--in my case it turned out to be a layout issue. I've had better results with trial and error than on relying on most of the book. Also, the language is not as clear as it could be, and precision is important in a book like this, especially for those of us who are not advanced users. Most importantly, I would have preferred a book with more straightforward descriptions and instructions.

Although there was a little of version upgrade after 4.0B, versions do not matter much because whichever version you use, you can still figure out the changes and you can always find the screens and tabs since the transaction codes doesn't chang much.
I think this book still gives comprehensive knowledge about core functionality of R/3 Sales and Distribution module.

Estube viendo varias opciones y sin embargo en mexico no hay mucho material de buena calidad por tanto me reocmendaron este libro el cual viene en ingles y me parecio bastante atractivo el hecho de que cubra perfectamente cada uno de los aspectos que mi perfil requiere, se los recomiendo ampliamente.

saludos

Marco Pérez

Whether you are new or already working with SD, this book is immensely helpful. Lately I saw that the author is coming up with the new updated version based on ECC 6.0. Still it will always be a handbook for any SD consultants.

This is the best book to have the glimpse of SD, in some cases detailed too. But once you are into SD, there is hardly any thing new that you can know from this book.
The author presents the concepts in a clear crispy way so that one can understand easily with less Business background.

I suggest this book if you want to start learning a topic but not to master it.

I can rate it 5 * for an SD Novice but a single * for whom who knew the concepts.

This book is very good to get understanding of SAP SD structure. Book arrived before it was scheduled to arrive. So I am really happy with in time delivery and quality of the product.

I've found this book a good introduction to C, it has refreshed my forgotten c knowledges with good explanations and examples.
But I haven't learned about Mac programming. Just one chapter and not in a depth way.

I've found this book a good introduction to C, it has refreshed my forgotten c knowledges with good explanations and examples.
But I haven't learned about Mac programming. Just one chapter and not in a depth way.

Now this is what a programming book for the mac is supposed to be! From the beginning this book takes you on a tour introducing you to the mac and how to program it, with useful source code and good exsamples.

The only minor about this book is the fact it`s nearly 6 years old, but it`s not a big problem. It`s well written, and I can absolutely recommend it to everyone.

There is a new (February 2005) edition of this book available as a PDF from Spiderworks. It's an update for OS X, using the XCode software that comes free with OS X. Otherwise, the book is unchanged, including a few minor errors carried through from the 1995 edition. I don't know of any other resource for learning C on the Mac, but I don't hesitate to recommend it. It could use more programming exercises; I recommend supplementing it with Oualline's "Practical C Programming". After you've done this, read the ObjectiveC primer that comes with XCode and use a Cocoa programming book by Hillegas or Anguish.

I have to admit, this book was very good at teaching me the concepts of programming (structures, pointers, variables, algorithm design, etc) but for learning the C language it was terrible. Very little Macintosh programming is covered at all, it's just the dry ANSI C. Needless to say, I did not know how to program after using this book. However, it was a useful guide (albeit a bit confusing at times) to learning the basics of programming.

Are you getting the most out of your iPod? If you're not, then this book is for you. Author J D Biersdorfer, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that has easy to follow graphics, crystal-clear explanations, and guidance of the most useful things your iPod can do.

Biersdorfer, begins by showing you what lies underneath all of the menus on your iPod or iPod Nanao and what each item does. Then, the author focuses on introducing you to iTunes most basic and useful tools. Next, she shows you how to make playlists of songs you've added to iTunes. She also looks at how much you will spend in the iTunes store. The author then spotlights the video side of iTunes. Then, she shows you even more ways to use your iPod. The author continues by explaining the simple procedures for playing your iPod songs through the woofers and tweeters in your life. Then, she explains what to do if your iPod's acting weird. Finally, the author kicks it up a notch and gives you some ideas of what else you can do with iTunes and the iPod besides just watching and listening.

In this most excellent book, you'll learn how to install iTunes. Perhaps more importantly, this book will show you everything from turning your iPod on, to charging your iPod without a computer.

Lucky enough to get a 20 Gigabyte 4G iPod, I wanted to know how to do everything on it as quickly as possible. While I had used iTunes before getting this iPod, I found this book useful and very readable to discover how to use my iPod for more than playing tunes. I appreciate all the shareware and freeware mentioned in the book is on the book publisher's website. Most are fairly small downloads that won't take too long even on a dial-up connection.
Yes, the information is dated as this book gets to be a year old now, but still it is a useful reference book and hopefully a newer edition will be out later this year. I found many websites to supplement I do admit I just borrowed this book from the library, so my expectations are lower than someone who forked out money to get it. I picked up Guy Hart-Davis's "How to Do Everything With Your iPod & Ipod mini second edition" and while it does cover some things the missing manual doesn't, it is less readable and even more out of date, not to mention a condescending lecture on stealing music. So look through this book and consider waiting for a new edition and/or try out some online resources.

Many of the missing manual books are excellent, but this one, in my opinion, falls sadly short. Surely people who are interested in a technical insight to a technical device want useful details, rather than reiteration of the obvious and endless "soggy' jokes.
The book isn't without some merit, and I would recommend borrowing it from a library or a friend so you can flip through it. But, I would wait before buying it in the hope the author updates it and puts more "meat" into the text.

I bought this book at the same time that I bought my iPod. I was taken in by the "Missing Manual" part, hoping that the book would give some basic information on how to use the iPod and the related software. It does no such thing.

To illustrate my frustration with this book, let me relate a couple of exeriences.

The iPod idea is not really meant for classical music, since classical music pieces are not organized around "songs." I happen to be interested in classical music, and, with time, I have been able to work around the iPod's limitations and make it serviceable for Beethoven, Bach, and the rest. But this book was of NO help in this. Instead, it tells the reader that if he is a classical music buff, he will just have to suffer for his art.

Keeping in mind my first lessons in computing, back in the 1980's, I know that the three basic laws of all computing are backup, backup, and backup. When you work with an iPod, backup is even more important than for ordinary computing. This book is of very little help with that. Again, I had to learn by myself, without much help from this book.

On the other hand, there are things in this book that are interesting. The way to use this book is not as a source of answers to questions you have (that would really be a manual), but as a source of ideas and facts that you never knew were there. So I won't throw it out in disgust; I'll read in it from time to time. I have gained some insights from it and will no doubt do so in the future.

Because we bought an iPod mini recently, I thought it would be smart to get some insider's information how to make use of all its features. So I first checked some magazines, but they were kind of expensive. For just a little more, I might as well buy a complete book, I reasoned. But then I checked some often mentioned ipod related web sites. I already found some interesting information there, but I still found them not as complete as I had expected. So I checked Amazon to see if there were some good books. After reading reviews of different books, I had the impression that "iPod & iTunes: Missing Manual" was not just a good and complete book about the iPod. It was probably also the best around.

But when the book was delivered and I started reading it, I immediately noticed that I had stepped into that trap again: there are no good manuals for frequently updated hardware and software...

I should have sticked with trying things out by myself, perhaps checking some of the web sites once in a while.

Having read the book, I should say it's outdated (why bother about the old MusicMatch software for Windows?) and very superficial. I would have expected many more smart tricks (like how to create smart playlists). Overall, I think at most 10% of the book has some value. But to call this book a manual or reference is way too much honor for it.

I almost did not find any really surprising insights in this book. If you're not too stupid to be able to try out the iTunes software for yourself (going through all its (sub)menus once to see what it does), you don't need this book at all.

Anyway, this book proved to me (once again) that one should never buy books like these, unless it's your hobby to support their authors/publishers.

Poorly organized and no clear target audience. Save money and trees.

Good Book. Even though I bought a MAC when first brought out, I am not a techie and it provides good backup for the manual. I refer to it frequently.

This is the Jaguar Edition of a book that used to be called "The Little Mac Book," but at 800 pages and about 2 inches thick, it is anything but little. Just don't let the size intimidate you. This is one of the best books for beginners of Mac OS X, and the Mac in general!

So ... all you folks out there thinking of stepping up to OS X, get this book. It will help you understand what's going on. Ms. Williams covers everything a beginner needs to know, from how the whole "users" thing works, to organizing your folders, font management, file sharing, all things internet, what the "drop box" is for, etc.

There are (semi-circle, gray) tabbed pages designated for beginners. Robin gives you easy-to-understand explanations of the Macintosh user interface, including mousing and the keyboard. The beginner pages are sort of a built-in tutorial that not only directs you through the OS and provides exercises to use for practice along the way. There is a quiz at the end of each chapter, to help you understand the key points. The beginner's section ends with a terrific section about how to use the World Wide Web. Check out page 9, where she cleverly shows pics of the Finder menus, with page numbers for the sections that explain every item in the menus.

Page 709 has "Where did It Go?" for experienced OS 9 users, so you can easily see what replaced the Chooser, etc. I think this should have gone near the front of the book, but its placement is a minor flaw. This is a great Mac OS X beginners tome. What little is missing can be found in a new Peachpit Press book called The Little Mac iApps Book.

Robin sprinkles humor throughout its pages. There is URL, the friendly cartoon rat, who follows you along on your learning journey.

There is a great section on networking. Its a snoozer subject in most books, but Robin makes it simple, providing everyday network settings. What is provided is just enough to get any beginner up and running.

Everything else in the book is called "Beyond The Basics." However, Intermediate users will not find any sign of Unix, software gizmos or hacking, minimal troubleshooting, and not much under-the-hood coverage of the OS. She does tell you how to enable root user. I'm glad this book doesn't try to be all things to all users. There is just too much to know these days to do that.

REVIEW: ROBIN WILLIAMS MAC OS X BOOK

Robin Williams Mac OS X Book Jaguar Edition is probably the best book to recommend to a new Macintosh user with little or no prior computer experience. It describes how to use Macintosh OS X simply and clearly, and tells the new user what results to expect. It does not, however, talk down to new users. If an example shows a document, the content of the document shows some creativity and class.

A follow the dots tutorial skips around so the new user can learn the essentials in just 186 pages. The dots are half circles that bleed to the edge of the page so they are easy to find, and the information is still organized so that you can find it later with more advanced information on the subjects. A beginner who completes the 186 page tutorial will have a better base for using a Macintosh than many more experienced users.

In sports, coaches spend a lot of time going over the basics, the fundamentals, even with professional athletes. Robin Williams Mac OS X Book Jaguar Edition provides thorough coverage of the basics that will improve the performance of any user. I have twenty years of experience with Apple computers, am probably an intermediate user, and have read other Mac OS X books, and Robin Williams Mac OS X Book contained many very useful ideas that were new to me.

An example of the thoughtful instructions for beginners, "When you see and instruction like Command + Shift + B do not type the pluses."

An example of something I had read before, but not used as I should, in any finder window view you can quickly go to and select an item by keying the first few letters.

An example of something new to me, you can create a new icon for a file and the Macintosh will adjust the image size to fit.

The Robin Williams Mac OS X Book contains clear easy to understand information about Mac OS X features such as the login process and login options. I like the way Robin writes and makes a friend of the reader.

I liked Robins description of the font collections available in programs written specifically for Mac OS X not for both Mac OS X and OS 9. "Whoever made up the names for these collections certainly did not know anything about type." Following her directions and examples, I have reorganized my collections.

I have recommended David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual to all kinds of readers, as I am sure many other user group members have done. But, after reading Robin Williams Mac OS X Book, I would recommend it as the first choice for new Macintosh owners without a lot of computer experience. I still recommend David's book as the first choice for experienced users. It is worth buying both books, or at least reading both from your user group library.

I own Mac OS X: The Missing Manual Second Edition(by David Pogue published by O'Reilly) and would not part with it. I have ordered my own copy of Robin Williams Mac OS X Book using the Peachpit Press user group member discount. ..

Some would say that no manual can answer all the questions, but for 30 bucks, it should come close. Mac's are great machines, but Apple can't seem fit to include even the barest user manual at purchase. For almost 2 grand, this is a major omission. William's book showed promise, but as a novice user, I found it quite lacking. There's nothing included that spells out what to do when things don't work well, and Apple's in the same boat as Microsoft--it don't always work well. More troubleshooting would be helpful. (ie: what's a Fetch error. Had to call Apple on that one.) Too many examples to write about in this short space. Her visual example of the screen does not match what's on my flat-panel with OSX and that's frustrating. I recommend trying someone else's book if you're new to Macintosh. Better yet, write Apple and let them know they need to publish a good user manual for novices or PC switchers if they want to keep their market share.

It's a thousand-fold improvement on both the GoLive manual and online help. But it has many lapses of its own. Although the authors have tried to clarify some of GoLive's user-unfriendly procedures, in some cases they muddle things up more. They even had to clarify some of their own explanations on their Web site.

Speaking of which: the Web site promises much but delivers little. And forget about ongoing support: the site now supports only their latest book, REAL WORLD ADOBE GOLIVE 5.

My advice is to buy whichever book covers your version of GoLive, but expect to cross-reference everything with GoLive's own online help files....

I purchased this book in order to learn how to create web pages using Adobe's GoLive. After a few hours, however, this book turned out to be the major obstacle in this enterprise. The book of Carlson et al is neither a text book nor a reference book. It is basically a blown-up manual where you only incidently will find and learn what you are looking for. The order and the arrangement of topics is confusing, some references are incorrect or simply do not exist, basic information has been left out.

The reader is guided from one keystroke to another without knowing at that time what he is doing. You will not get the whole picture. You will not be told how page and site design and construuction works. However, at least once on a page you are reminded that the return key on a mac keybard is the enter key on a microsoft keyboard and that the control key on a microsoft keyboard is the command key on an apple keyboard

But the worst is yet to come: obviously in order to make up for their incompetence in writing a book, the authos tried to be funny. Paragraphs such as 'Zat is not my dog' or phrases such as 'some browsers had a tendency to crash if you even mentioned the word "frames" within earshot of the computer' would have warned me if I had have the chance to review this book before purchasing it.

Several times you will be reading how 'pretty cool' the point and shoot method is. But which file of two is the reference and which file is citing the reference after you pretty cool pointed and shooted is something you have to find out yourself. And that will give you the chance to find out by yourself how to remove unwanted references.

At least half of the text is garbadge of that kind, stuff everyone knows or sruff nobody wants to know. Even if a certain informtion is part of the text the average reader won't find it. The avarage reader does not have the time and patience to read all that complacent, childish, sometimes embarresing amateur poetry of regard their playing with computers as being the 'real world' (the title of the book).

Carlson and his friends should have written another book. I am not sure which one. Probably a book about the wonderful world of computer toys with all its pretty cool programs and funny features where there is, however, 'never enough coffee' but definetly enough fun all day long.

I bought and read Real World Illustrator 8 by Deke McClelland and Really enjoyed reading it. But I must say that I do not enjoy reading this book. In the preface of the book the authors explain how they learned a lot while writing the book and I just wish that they would have already had a good grasp of the whole concept before they began. The book tells you everything that you could possibly want to know about the program but it does not join it all together in a way that is easy to understand. If in fact you were to study the book really hard I have no doubt that you would master the program as the authors have, but you will have spent a lot of time doing it. I wish the authors would have stuck with one subject at a time instead of jumping around so much.

This book is excellent for anyone wanting to get into GoLive and really make it work. Since going through the book and using the additions from the web site I have more than doubled my output capabilities with GoLive. Some complain about no CD but all you really need is your own creativity and the money (which is well spent) to buy this book.

This book has quickly become indispensible. I've been building sites with GoLive for several years, and like every really deep program (Photoshop for example) GoLive is full of hidden features, mysteries, and more than the occasional frustration. Real World GoLive 4.0 has answered questions that have plagued me from day one. It is an easy to use reference work, not simply thorough but clear.These guys write well about a difficult subject. Their humor helps, but their well distilled and well organized knowledge helps even more. Bravo!

This book is easy to read,and is filled with plenty of information to advance your games. Joe Andrews takes you through the basics,intermediate, and advanced play in a unique way which can not help but improve your game. This book is well worth the read!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For an appetizer, I enjoyed the history of Spades, especially in relationship to other card games and the terms helped me understand what Spades players were speaking of. As the main course, bidding strategy is throughly covered, as well as defense and play. The side dishes; conventions and partnership agreements are interesting and helpful. For dessert, a good review of where to play and learn the game of Spades. The book is seasoned with humor, example hands and offerings from other writers. An enjoyable and informative book. "Bon Apetite"

A better title would be, "Win at Spades, Beginner play and Strategy: Techniques and Tips for the Beginner," because its unhelpful past that point. I found this book to be extremely disapointing. I expected it to have many conventions, strategies, and advanced logical thinking techniques to help one at the table. However, I found this book to only contain 25 deals, and everyone of them contained atleast one mistake. The most irritating part is that Mr. Andrews goes to a special point to mention every single card someone plays, wastes space talking about the wrong things, and he also writes in the passive voice. Most of his card logic is also ill concieved for the game of spades (perhaps more applicable to bridge only). The only advanced technique he mentions is finessing, but he offers no guidelines or helpful lines of thinking when on considers a finesse. In fact, most of the finesses taken in his 25 deals are practice finesses.

I found this to be an excellent book and would highly recommend it to all spades players. Each page gave me more insight to the game,stategies and technigues. I have seen a marked improvement in my ratings already. This book will remain on my bookshelf as I find myself reviewing it consistently as my game continues to improve.

Please don't be deceived by the title. This book alone is excellent. However, the newest book by this author, "The Complete Win at Spades: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced" is practically identical to this one. There are only minor additions that have no relevance to the strategy sections, I counted only maybe 20pages maximum of difference. NOT WORTH IT. All pasages are word-for-word identical. Please disregard this book and look for the new one. Thank you for your time.