B Books

I ordered the Junie B. books for my granddaughter. She loves them! I personally have never read them but I can let you know that at 6 years old and having this interest in reading speaks for itself.

Therefore, I recommend this series.

I bought the first, second and third boxed sets of Junie B Jones books for my granddaughter, who is 5. She can read them, but also likes for her mom to read them to her at night before she goes to sleep. They are funny, interesting and just a whole lot of fun for one so young!!

i purchased this set for my granddaughter. she loves this series and was thrilled to get this.

When my two granddaughters, ages 6 & 7, showed me how excited they were for these books, I was glad to get them for Christmas. Anybody that excited about reading made it a pleasure to buy them.

I bought this set for my granddaughter for Christmas and am already aware that she really enjoys these books. I imagine she will want any continuation of this series.

I honestly don't know what to say about this book. It's written by a prominent Christian philosopher, Thomas Morris, who draws on Pascal's Pensees to give an analysis of faith, reason and the human condition. The writing is clear and conversational, the topics are profound, and some sections -- such as the discussion of skepticism -- are gems of lucidity. But boiled down to its essentials, the Pascal/Morris argument goes like this:

-- People without faith in God are unhappy and wretched, and spend most of their time covering up and denying their unhappiness and wretchedness;

-- Therefore, God must exist, because believing in Him makes people happy, if only because it ensures that they'll be cared for in the afterlife;

-- In fact, God must be the Christian God, the father of Jesus and one of the Trinity, since hoary old "miracles" and "prophecies" attest to the authority of the Bible.

That's Pascal's argument in a nutshell. Really. It's that flimsy. All the focus is on knocking down atheism as an untenable way of life. Once that's accomplished, a fairly doctrinaire form of Christianity is treated as the natural default position. No consideration is given to other religious options -- even though most religious traditions can boast "miracles" and "prophecies" of their own. No consideration is given to the possibility of forging an atheistic life of courage and decency. Bad faith reigns supreme: Pascal appeals to Christians looking for practical reasons to keep up Christian practice even though they suspect Christianity is false.

I love the Pensees, but their elegant aphorisms and sharp insights can obscure the absurdity of the total argument. The same is true of Morris's book. It's a good reminder that Christian philosophers should keep their philosophy separate from their Christianity.

this is a very insightful philosophical/theological book dealing with the plight of humanity in relation to faith in God and the meaning of life. There are a few things herein that will no doubt be disagreed with by many readers, but the many deep insights otherwise are well worth it.

This is a great book, which takes diverse sources such as Pascal and Woody Allen and probes the reasons why most of us waste our lives on trifles and baubles, distracting ourselves from our mortality and avoiding life's big questions. The book is part fun, part serious as it makes Pascal's inquiries into human nature very readable. The Christian and nonChristian alike should enjoy this study of how people waste their lives and how they can find meaning. Two great companions to this book, though more secular, are Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving.

Tom Morris is a gifted writer and philosopher. This book amplifies Pascal in ways you may not have thought about before, and it clearly intriques the critical mind about the possibility of the Truth behind Christianity. The leap from mind to faith doesn't seem all that large after reading this enticing book.

Making Sense Of It All is one the best books I have ever read on the topic of Christian philosophy and apologetics. This book is unique both in its organization and content. Morris utilizes some of the scientific, philosophical, and apologetic statements of the great Christian thinker Blaise Pascal (from Pascal's book Pensees) and shows how faith in Jesus Christ is the unique answer to mankind's deepest yearnings for meaning, purpose, significance, and life eternal. This book skillfully and successfully answers many of the existential objections that people give for not believing. Morris weaves together many of Pascal's brilliant insights into a significant and powerful Christian apologetic work.

Though covering a lot philosophical and theological ground, this book is remarkably readable and at places quite humorous. It addresses philosophical, theological, and apologetic issues with tremendous clarity and in an engaging style. This volume provides deep insight into why people living in today's world avoid thinking about ultimate issues. I only wish the book contained a bibliography and/or notes for further reading.

Thomas V. Morris has been called one of Christianity's finest contemporary philosophers (former Notre Dame professor). This book is indeed evidence of his first rate philosophical ability.

I found this book well written, researched and presented. It is an academic work that reads easily and has application and relevance across many platforms including many that are not mentioned (e.g. health care). The examples are clearly presented. Like many books written along these topic lines, the examples are represented in iterative formats to draw out the specific issues. To many readers this may appear repetitive but it does enhance the understanding for those that wish to develop more depth.

Weick and Sutcliffe provide exceptional insights into high reliability organizations (HROs) and how lessons learned from HROs can be applied to other organizations that are not satisfied with just being good. The authors address the five hallmarks of mindfulness that distinguish HROs from all other organization types. The authors provide detailed checklists through which company leaders can audit and assess organizational readiness for dealing with unexpected events. The authors address the critical value of organizational culture in dealing with unexpected events and how organizational leaders can build the capacity to "manage mindfully". The text is well-documented and well-indexed. Each of the six chapters is summarized for rapid review; however, with ony 173 pages of substantive text, this "must read" can be completed in only a few hours. Knowledgeable leaders who are interested in creating resilient organizations should also read Ian Mitroff's "Crisis Leadership" (John Wiley & Sons) as an accompanying text.

This book is to be read by anyone really interested about how organizations work.

The main point could be explained in a single sentence: We can get valuable lessons if we pay attention to organizations who work in high risk and unpredictable environments.

This is my own view and, actually, I tried to show this using aviation as a kind of learning field. That is why I hope the authors will be lucky. My own experience was unsuccessful and that itself shows that the authors are right.

When I started to get conclusions from aviation to business management, I found that the more interested people came precisely from aviation. I'm afraid the authors could suffer the same experience and people interested in their concepts could come from air carriers, nuclear-powered plants and some other examples they use.

The authors could be three or four steps in advance of the present situation in business management. They try to extract the right lessons from other fields. However, they would not be surprised if their intent "bounces back" and it is picked-up precisely from the fields that they try to show as examples, not from business management.

In this well written, easy to read, analysis of organizations in highly complex and dangerous settings that persistently have less than their fair share of accidents - High Reliability Organizations - Professors Weick and Sutcliffe provide the recipe for a `learning organization'. Noting that HRO's share the hallmark of "mindfulness", the authors' define this characteristic as consisting of five key elements that every organization can use for dealing with the unexpected. The authors' call these five elements:
1. Preoccupation with failure - treating any failure (often small ones) as a symptom that something is wrong with the system, they are continually updating their understanding.
2. Reluctance to simplify interpretations - ensuring a more complete and nuanced picture, simplifying less and seeing more.
3. Sensitivity to operations - paying attention to relationships at the front line, where the work gets done.
4. Commitment to resilience - maintaining a deep knowledge of the technology, the system, one's coworkers, and one's self as avenues for improvising and keeping the system functioning.
5. Deference to expertise - cultivating diversity to do more with complexities, they push decisions down to the people with the most expertise, not the most rank. They also move issues around/across the system, migrating problems to someone with the knowledge and capabilities to address them.

Together, these elements give the organization `mindfulness', and this organizational mindset allows it to handle the unexpected with more responsibility and thus a higher probability of success in the face of change. Although the HRO's analyzed (aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants, and others) operate in more dangerous environments than the average business, today's rapidity of change causes the unexpected to happen to every organization and it would seem that the five elements of mindfulness could benefit nearly every organization today.
Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"

I was please with the writing of this book. Not only is it a good easy read, but Weick presents the material in an intersting fashion. SO far, it has been most helpful in understanding the components of managing a situation that is completely unexpected.

The book "Maverick's The Big Story of Big-Wave Surfing" by Matt Warskaw is one of my favorite books. This book is about surfing and its mishaps and adventures. The title of the book is Maverick's, this relates to the book countless times because it is a gigantic storm of waves in California that come every year. There are many different stories, some that are good and some that are sad or not that interesting. This book talks about how surfing has changed over the years. Also how far it has come since 1914. It has some very fascinating stories from surfing a 25-foot wave to drowning and having your last ride. I would rate this book a 5 out of 5 because of how interesting it was. I would also recomend this book to all ages because it is such a good book.

This book gives you a feeling of "look at that wave!". If you really want to get an idea of big-wave surfing, find an IMAX theatre showing "Extreme". Then read this book. The photographs are good and the historical information is presented well and has some depth to it. You also get to see pictures of one of the biggest wipeouts ever!

Growing up in Montara just a few minutes north of Mavericks, no one I knew even talked about surfing there. The surfers from the coast surfed the Jetty, and the stronger surfers went to Montara. There were many places around that one could surf, but no one considered Mavericks a surf mecca. No one mentioned it's name.

Seeing is believing. If you have NEVER seen big wave surfing except in pictures you are missing out!...

Enjoy the book. It is a great piece of history about the location and surfing in general!

Look for DVD's and Videos of Mavericks at [their website], taken by locals Eric and Kurt at Powerline Productions.

Not just a nice coffee table book, but also a great story about big waves and big wave surfers. Some of the shots are absolutely spectacular. And what would a book on big waves be without a chapter on Greg Noll - what a character.

This is a fascinating look at the history and sport of big-wave surfing, focusing primarily on Maverick's but also discussing some of the other big-wave spots in the world, such as Todos Santos and Cortes Banks. If you have fond memories of the classic travel and surf-bum movie from the 60s, "The Longest Summer," about great surf spots around the world, you'll probably enjoy this book.

My review concentrates mainly on the dangers, since I was interested in researching that, but overall it's a beautifully illustrated and well-written account of the sport. The author starts with the early history back in the mid-1850s (when a legend has it that a Hawaiian was supposed to have ridden a tsunami back to shore).

I was interested because I used to live for many years near Maverick's, one of the premier big-wave surfing spots in the world, and I was curious what it had to say. I've never been a board-surfer myself, but grew up in southern Cal and did a lot of body surfing when I was younger. One time, I foolishly tried to body-surf a storm-driven 18-footer at Gillis Beach in southern California and got ground into the bottom and held down long enough so I thought I might not get back up to the surface in time. But I survived, and am now older and wiser.

I've had a few other misadventures, such as having been pulled out by a couple of riptides (including one that pulled me underneath the water briefly), so I've always had respect for the ocean, and I figured big-wave riding must surely be even more dangerous. Photos of lone surfers dwarfed by enormous waves have always amazed me and sent shivers up my spine, as I remembered my own scary encounter with a wave. Oddly enough, the author goes to some pains to dispell that notion by recounting various statistics and many anecdotal stories about the sport.

For example, although it's possible for a big-wave to hold a surfer underwater long enough to drown, this is very rare. More likely is for a surfer at the more crowded small-wave sites to get knocked unconscious by someone else's board who wiped out and to drown that way. Or there's the possibility of an unsupervised and inexperienced surfer drifting into a strong riptide. And as the author says, "No big wave surfer ever tested the odds as boldly as the untrained, pot-bellied, beer-staggered, citizen body-surfer."

Mark Renneker, a UCSF physician and avid big-wave surfer, gathered data and compiled statistics on injuries and concluded that cheerleaders were injured more often than big-wave surfers.

Peter van Dyke, another big-wave fan, had some other comments, pointing out that in one recent year, a half dozen Grand Prix racers were killed but not one surfer, and many more bull-fighters were killed. He said that big-wave surfers were so unconcerned about their fitness that they trained on "cake, Kool-Aid, ice cream, and cigarettes." He also pointed out that the last surfer to die at Waimea was Dickie Cross back in 1943. By 1994, no-one had yet died at Maverick's (although that would soon change with Mark Foo's death).

The book also contains a full chapter going into the events preceding and following Mark Foo's death. One of the things that becomes apparent there is that surfers aren't so much killed by the waves as by occasionally getting their ankle straps caught in underwater reefs so that they can't surface. Although no-one to this day knows what killed Mark Foo, it's possible this was part of it, and one of the other surfers had the same thing happen that very day, although he was able to get free just as he was running out of air and get to the surface.

Still, because of the perceived dangers, out of 5 million surfers world-wide, only about 100 are regular big-wave riders.

But as I said, the book also contains a more general discussion and history of the sport from the early days to the present, using Maverick's as its point of departure. There are many spectacular photos, including a fantastic two-page spread of Mike Parsons riding what's thought to be the largest wave ever ridden at Cortes Banks, an open ocean reef 100 miles to the west of San Diego.

By the way, I agree with the previous reviewer about possible huge waves up in Alaska. In fact, in Puget Sound they sometimes get 60-foot waves, and they can get 20 or 30 foot waves at the mouth of the Columbia river in Oregon, where the Coast Guard trains captains in the heavy surf handling of boats. Also, off the tip of South Africa there is an area where, because of the way the ocean currents travel up from Antartica combined with a sea floor that funnels the wave energy, it's thought that 100-foot waves can occur. (In fact, it's one of the few places in the world where large ships occasionally disappear, and it's suspected huge "rogue waves" may be responsible). There was also the finding of the underwater quake that caused a tsunami to go 2000 feet up the mountainside at an uninhabited bay up the west coast of Alaska. No-one saw it but the devastation was so dramatic it wasn't hard to figure out the cause when it was discovered later.

The largest wave ever recorded (at least by a reliable observer) was by the USS Ramapo back in the early 1930s. The ship was about 120 feet long and completely fit on the side of an enormous sea wave that passed under it in the mid-Pacific, and was estimated to be 134 feet high. Now that's a wave any surfer could envy.

I'm 23 years old now and thinking about this book just makes me smile. It was my favorite book growing up along with The House That Jack Built. I could read these books OVER AND OVER again every day of my life and be content. It's a great book to not only learn to read, but a good lesson in accepting differences among each other. And that's a great lesson to learn at that age!! If you're looking for great book for your youngster, THIS IS IT!! (along with the whole series!!) :)

This book is absolutely wonderful. I remember loving to just look at the pictures before I could read! I cannot say enough about it. My favorite book of all time.

I use this book every year to introduce ACCELERATED READER to my students. I introduce it as a "read-aloud" and we discuss the text and pictures as I read. Students "act out" the various things that Morris does and students even sit ON their desks when Morris does. There is always a lot of laughing and giggling as Morris learns many things on his first day of school. Morris Goes to School is a great book to show your children how involved they can become when reading.

THEN....... they get to go take a short 5-question AR test on the computer. It's a great book and a great introduction to AR.

My 6-yr-old son loves Morris the Moose and this book was just as funny as the first one. Morris gets confused because he can't read or count, so he goes to school. My son can read it himself and always laughs out loud at Morris' silly antics. Highly recommended!

I picked up this book to read with my son, and I have to say that we didn't find it particularly funny. Certainly not as funny as the other Morris books. We had about two chuckles in 64 pages. Which is not to say that the story is bad. It hangs together well and provides some very good kid-friendly examples which show why it's good to attend school. Morris, for example, is shown fumbling around town, not knowing which store is the candy store because he can't read. And Morris is also stumped when it comes to figuring out how many gumdrops he can buy, because he can't count.

The publisher suggests this book as a practice reader for those in first grade or younger. My experience convinces me that this book is a little too hard for most children in this age range. For one thing, there are 64 pages of text, which is quite a bit for newbies to sit down and read at one time. And the vocabulary is fairly advanced with words like: wrong, sting, meant, interrupt, couldn't, sandwiches, cream-cheese, piece, fruit, hamburgers, arithmetic, antler, count, make-believe, and forest. And in fact, the Accelerated Reading designation for this book is 2.0 -- which means that those experts feel that the book is suited for entering 2nd Graders.

[The AR designation is a general "guide" that rates books on a relative scale of difficulty. Children can certainly read at levels above or below their group range, so that this number should only be used as a aid to help choose books that are appropriate and not frustrating.]

Three Stars. This is an okay book which shows why learning is necessary. In my and my son's opinion it wasn't as funny as the other Morris books. The Publisher suggests this reader for ages Pre5 to Grade 1. The 'official' Accelerated Reading (AR) designation, however, is 2.0.

New Orleans is my favorite season of Real World thus far, and i am a little disappointed in the contents and layout of this book in comparison to editions for later seasons (ie, chicago and las vegas). Instead of putting cast member information in an orderly fashion, they throw around the facts over various pages. castmember david's fact sheet is also suspiciously missing. I didn't like the rw reunion junk at the back of the book to pad its length. they should have included the floor plans of the house and more photos taken by the cast instead of this.

If you watched the Real World New Orleans, this is a great guide to what you didn't see. If you DIDN'T watch the show, well, then there's no reason to buy the book!
My favorite part about the book was the information about the Kelley/Danny and Melissa/Jamie "feud." With quotes from the sources themselves, it adds even more drama than was on the show! VERY interesting!

This book is amazing!! anything you ever wanted to know is answered!! It even goes into a bit of stuff from other seasons, with pictures of Rachel(S.F) and Sean's (boston)wedding! as well as tonnes of pictures what they're doing now etc....etc.....
You will really enjoy it!!

I liked this Real world book a lot in fact I like most of them, all except Seattle which was incredibly boring . But this book gives you a lot of insight into what the camera didn't show. Some of the things mentioned don't seem to make sense b/c when you see the reunions on tv they don't act towards each other they way that you would think w/some of the comments that they have made about each other in this book. Besides that it is well worth your money and time to read it.

It's amazing how much is told in this book that wasn't revealed on the show. This book gives the show and the cast (which I think is the most interesting cast yet) more depth. The thing dealt with most in the book is something that wasn't hardly dealt with on the show, and that's Kelley and Danny's dislike of Melissa and Jamie. There's way more content than that, but that is what's focused on a bit. 'Unmasked' also put to rest the answer of some questions, such as "Why was Kelley not in the house a lot?" and "What did Matt really think of Julie the whole time she crushed on him?". All the cast members let out what they really thought about each other, and some of the results could be surprising. All in all, I found that this season and this book is the best ever. Can't wait until next season!

My kids both love Todd Parr's books--they love the kooky illustrations and they can recite the text by heart.

Todd Parr's colorful drawings and positive, imaginative text are some of my 2 1/2-year-old daughter's favorites. This one in particular cracks her up.

This book is absolutely wonderful. It's wonderful because the pictures are simple and really catch you eye with the bright colors. The message behind it is fantastic. Sure, some of the things are a little strange like putting fish in your hair, but there's a great message behind it that it's ok to not be like everyone else. What an important message to kids in todays society. I just love this book and would highly recommend it.

My kids love to read and laugh with this book. The pictures are fun and the colors are so bright. I am about to buy the 3rd copy, a board book would work better for my 2 year old. My 3 and 1/2 year old loves to prend to read to her brother. Fun for all. We also like Things that make you feel good and things that make you feel bad, it is great for play acting out the book.

In the "Okay Book," Todd Parr uses simple drawings with vibrant, primary colors to illustrate his supportive and educational messages for kids. The messages fall into 4 categories. We have the pro-self-esteem messages: "It's okay to be short," "it's okay to have freckles," "it's okay to wear glasses," "it's okay to wear what you like," "it's okay to have no hair," "it's okay to be skinny," "it's okay to be big." Second, we have emotional/behavioral themes: "it's okay to be scared," "it's okay to share," "it's okay to try new things," and, in a paraphrase of the great Rosie Grier, "it's okay to cry." Third, we also have the tolerance/broadmindedness messages: "it's okay to come from a different place" (illustrated with a martian in a UFO hovering outside Saturn), "it's okay to live in a small house," and "it's okay to be a different color." Finally, there is a fourth category of silly, cutesy messages which are sprinkled in to enhance the kid-friendliness and keep it from being too heavy-handed: "it's okay to wear two different socks," "it's okay to eat all the frosting off your birthday cake," "it's okay to hang out in the rain," "it's okay to sing out loud," and "it's okay to put a fish in your hair."

That last one troubles me. Every time I see it, I have a visceral reaction to that. In my mind, it is actually not okay to put fish in your hair. However, take that with a grain of salt. I have been criticized for missing to point of kids books in my reviews when I make comments like that. In fact, in response to my review of "Chimp and Zee," where I called for primatological correctness (Chimps are not monkeys and they don't have tails!), Mr. Anholt emailed me and said, in part, "I defend the importance of creative invention and I am rarely sloppy - I hope you are not being dogmatic or literal-minded in your judgement. (sic)" I should also note that the overall tone of Mr. Anholt's letter was very congenial and charming, and I do recommend his books.

The "Okay Book" is a very nice book, particularly for preschoolers. It delivers important messages of tolerance and acceptance but strikes enough of a balance between goofiness and preachiness to not feel like a lesson. It concludes well with a nice sendoff, "it's okay to dream big."

I've read quite a few of Jim's works over the years, and he has never failed to impress me. This book should be required reading for any project manager!

My initial pre-read perception of this book was that it was going to be just another perspective of agile methods. I was wrong. Coplien and Harrison have dissected development teams to identify the key criteria leading to successful efforts and high-performing teams. Beyond process, this book identifies the organizational structures required to make the processes work.

From an organizational perspective, roles and responsibilities within your development teams are a primary success criteria for your agile (or any other process) adoption. This book presents how and why key roles within your teams work and why teams without these key roles don't work. The way they have presented the material provides for a quick cross-reference when you are looking for solutions to help your teams.

Beyond the organization patterns themselves, I believe some of the richest material in this book is presented in the last few chapters as they present the history and importance of organizational structures, roles and responsibilities in applying process - "Process emerges from structure, and structure emerges from values". There is great value in this book beyond most software development process books.

As project managers, most of us who've been in the field working for a while come to realize that successful project teams are more the result of "good" ongoing social engineering of one sort or another rather than just dumping an almost randomly selected group of people together, coming up with an MS Project Plan and saying "do this" (the Death Star approach, all to common in large traditional process-driven IT shops). After this has happened to you, painfully, you begin to come to the realization that perhaps there's more to project management than the mechanistic "people are interchangeable resources" PMBOK-style approach.

If it hasn't already, it begins to dawn on you that the "soft" side of project management (client relationship building, communication within the team and between teams, team dynamics and team morale, motivation, empowerment, commitment, a human-style of project management) are as important or even more important than the technical work and the technical skills required. Most of us have run across teams with prima-donna's who think they're the cat's whiskers, be they project managers or technical personnel, who have the personal graces of a warthog and who are incredibly destructive to team morale and team performance. They continue to exist, sadly, and because they often deliver, albeit at the expense of everyone who works for them or with them, they continue to survive in "Death Star" style IT shops where delivery is all important and the style of successful delivery means nothing or is short-sightedly disregarded. OK, so that's my rant.

Now for the book. We've all seen successful projects and successful teams (or at least, I hope we all have). Some teams gell and perform way above the norm. What this book does is distil over 100 successfully applied organizational patterns of one sort or another from real projects in real software development groups. These patterns are broken down into logical groups (Project Management Patterns, Piecemeal Growth Patterns, Organizational Style Patterns & People and Code Patterns) which are dissected and explained, with examples provided. What the authors have done is to identify and describe key organizational patterns which are used by successful teams - not processes, but organizational structures of various types that are needed to make processes work successfully. A large amount of practical experience has gone into the content - over ten years of research experience from the authors alone.

I've read a lot of books on Agile, but this is the first I've come across that sets out organizational patterns - and does it so effectively that you'll wonder why all the stuff in here never occurred to you before. As you read through the book, you'll see patterns that will make sense, the kind of "ah-ha, that's what the problem is and this is how I can dom something about it" sense. You'll find this book useful in that the contents can be taken and applied right away. It's easy to pick what is most useful for your team, what can be applied immediately and what would be nice later on, once some of the basics are in place. The content is practical in that you can easily identify what your problems are and what pattern would help fix it, why the pattern is intended to fix it, and there's good advice on how to introduce new patterns.

With over 100 patterns, there are a lot, but they're set out concisely, a page or two to each pattern. There's no fluff, it's well-written, there's no appreciable bias, there's a lot of material, including some good coverage of the importance of effective organizational structures in applying process. As we all know, all the process in the world will not a great project team make. The book's structure is coherent and well-organized, the patterns described can be used individually or as groups and the authors give you some pretty good ideas as to what's immediately useful.

And the pictures all the way through the book are great! A nice humorous touch that helps make the point each time. Overall, I'd recommend this book very highly as a resource to anyone managing a project / team, whether Agile or not. There's a wealth of practical advice in here that any project manager could take and use, although the orientation is towards Agile Projects. An added bonus - unlike many technical books, this one won't date quickly - organizational patterns that work don't change much over the years, unlike programming languages. From a practical point of view, I've applied some of these patterns to teams I work with and the results have been positive - I've also shared the book with co-workers and they've all found it both illuminating and useful.

This book has to be The Grand Unifying Theory of Software with respect to managing the people and processes involved in software production.

To anyone who has worked in the software industry, this book is clearly the product of an enormous amount of practical experience in both management of people and projects as well as the development of software.

Coplien and Harrison have written a book which both the project manager and software engineer will understand and will immediately be able to apply to their respective work environments: This is because the book cunningly captures essential organisational concepts using a framework that is familiar to software engineers. Thus, the concepts will be by recognised by staff trained in business as well as those trained in software and systems.

I strongly feel that the material covered in this book can achieve a common communication basis between managers and engineers, and can help business developers understand the nature of their people and organisation.

If I could insist that all people in software read this book I would; but without the policing power, I can only highly recommend this book to those involved in all facets of software.

OK, I have to admit, this is the first book review I've ever written on Amazon and having read a lot of good books I should probably get off my a** and write more :-)

As a former developer and now a software development manager, I have come to realise that the "soft side" or sociology of software projects (communication with clients, communication with teammates, project management, team dynamics, cultural issues, morale, division of work, remote collaboration, etc) is considerably more complicated than the programming work itself.

Over time, you start to see patterns emerge such as "start a large project with a small experienced group and gradually phase people into a project as time goes on". This book does by far the best job of cataloguing and explaining dozens of these patterns related to (1) software project management (2) structuring, building and nurturing software project teams and (3) organization and division of development tasks to maximize the effectiveness of the team as a whole.

Highly recommended to anyone involved with software development at both the management level and in the trenches. Have fun!

If you are as nuts about nuts as Sally Sampson is then you'll love this book. Then again, if you're not into making a LOT of different nut recipies you might want a general cookbook. Personally I found the recipies to be as good as one would hope and the presentation was solid (even if nobody would ever serve nuts in a martini glass).

Like the recipes and the ideas of how to roast nuts. This book started a great adventure for my family into the world of us roasting nuts for a great TV/movie night snack. You can get the whole family involved and the kids love to get involved with the flavors.

This has a lot of old and new nut recipes. Trying to duplicate a great nut snack you had somewhere? Sampson probably has it in this book, or you can take the techniques she sets out and experiment. A good little book that I'm glad to have in my collection.

This book has a recipe for every occasion. I do feel that several of the recipes are very similar in terms of the spice mixtures used, but the Balsamic Shellacked Pecan recipe alone is worth the price of the book. A great asset for hostesses or anyone that loves recipes.

This book is full of fabulous recipes. My son especially loves the "Holy Mole" nuts. But the book fell apart almost immediately - I would re-order it as I use it over and over, if it were spiral bound or soft-cover. As it is, I have to keep the pages now separately in a file folder!

This book presents a way to combine prayer and meditation with simple art production. I have been using ideas gleaned from it for over two months and find myself eager to pray each day. I have also bought three other copies to use as gifts -- a good indication of how valuable I have found it to be.

I read a summary about the book in Christian magazine. I did not purchase it for myself, but for my mom-in-law. I gave it to her for her birthday. A few weeks later she told me it was "right up her alley". That tells me that it will be a blessing to her.

Thanks!

In meetings or in church I doodle constantly. It helps keep me focused. This book has bought a new dimension to prayer and doodling. As soon as I received this book I started to put it into practice. I spent over 15 minutes colour praying for my 29yr old son and it was a time of great joy and rejoicing. I've found that these visual prayers stay with me through the day so that I'm beginning to understand more what it is to pray without ceasing.

This book is good.. i mean really good.. (Hey everyone, come look at how good this book is)!.. i love it.. its very creative.. and im not.. so its fun.. and its cool to look at old prayers you drew.. sweet..

This book offers a very creative way to use simple drawing materials and doodling as a form of prayer. Using color, shape, and lines makes it easy to stay engaged in prayer, whether on behalf of others or for oneself. The finished product is a visual reminder of the prayer.