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It's encouraging that this is the #1 book on the topic of 9/11 in Amazon. It deserves to be. Not content with depicting the terrible events of 9/11, Wright brilliantly and logically draws out the origins of the nihilist religious movement that formed the ideological motor of 9/11. The roots of 9/11 are twofold: in the writings of Egyptian expatriate Sayyid Qutb, who ironically wrote his most inflammatory works while an academic guest in Colorado (some of Qutb's works form the Mein Kampf of Islamic extremism); and the toxic Wahhabi Muslim sect in Saudi Arabia. When you finish the chapters on these topics, you will thoroughly understand the repellent underpinnings of Saudi-specific culture, which in fact have very little to do with the humane face of Islam.

Obviously, the central figure in this book is Osama Bin Laden, and you will also find yourself knowing more than perhaps you really wanted to know about this unusually prolific mass-murderer. In Qutb's and Bin Laden's world, the deaths of innocent Muslims are of no more value than blowing your nose in a Kleenex.

The ultimate issue exposed beyond debate in this book is the calamitous incompetence of the CIA, coupled with the hidebound bureaucratic stupidity pervading all levels of the FBI, with its institutional rigidity and lack of acceptance of technology. The lion's share of the blame for the failure of the United States to forestall the attacks really has to be laid at the doors of President Bill Clinton and his CIA directors, who were responsible for the policies disallowing the CIA from sharing any intelligence information whatever with law enforcement authorities inside the US. Secondary blame has to be laid at the door of the Bush Administration, who had ample warning of impending attacks and had absolutely no interest in proceeding even with the lamentably weak anti-terrorism policies of the Clinton administration.

But, ultimately, as I've noted, the CIA is really to blame as an institution for allowing the 9/11 attacks to succeed. It leaves an indelible impression of decadence and decline in America, and that particular institution should be disbanded and those CIA functionaries who did not share vital information with the FBI really should be thrown in prison for the rest of their lives, starting with ex-Director Tenet. There is no excuse for such meretricious incompetence. Absolutely none. My fondest hope is that one or two of the people mentioned in the book as having committed these acts of arrogant stupidity will read these words or those of others on this page. These CIA people have as much blood on their hands as Bin Laden, as far as I'm concerned.

Can you tell I'm really, really angry with these people? You will be too, by the time you finish reading this book. The final chapter, "The Big Wedding," painstakingly describes the attack on the USS Cole and its aftermath, and clearly draws a direct line between that attack and the one that single-handedly (and ironically) ensured George Bush a second term. The book climaxes with a strikingly brief but utterly visual and devastating real-time narrative of the attacks as the ex-FBI man John O'Neill (another central figure in the book, who reminds me strongly of Tony Soprano if Soprano was a big-time FBI man) experienced them. This book will be read and discussed a century and more from now. It is an essential work of our time.

Looming Tower should be required reading for all Americans. It is by far the best book about Al Qaeda and its antecedents. While it is extremely comprehensive, it is never boring. I find it extraordinary how Wright was able to develop such a book so soon after 9/11. It reads more like a book written 20 years after the fact rather than just 5 years.

Wright is particularly good at "developing the characters of his story." In this it reads more like a great novel, rather than a typical non-fiction book. Wright creates fascinating portraits of Sayyid Qtub (the intellectual founder of modern Jihadism), Abdullah Azzam (the cleric who gave a fatwa calling on all Muslims to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, Ayman Al Zawahiri (the intellectual and organizational founder of Al Qaeda) and finally Osama Bin Laden (the financier and symbolic leader of Jihad), Jamal Al-Fadl (the defector who first told the incredulous FBI of the existence of the Al Qaeda), Ali Mohammed (who infiltrated the US Special Forces, copied their manuals and started the How to wage jihad encyclopedia).

Particularly interesting is how all of these radical leaders came from the upper-crust of Arab societies. One might expect that their anger and violent rhetoric came from very poor people, but that is not the case.

Also interesting is how Al Qaeda's strategy and organization gradually evolved out of a serious of historical accidents - the visit of Qtub to the USA; the imprisonment of Zawahiri after Sadat's assassination; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Zawahiri's work in a Kuwaiti hospital with radical Jihadi doctors; the near destruction of infant Al Qaeda in one small skirmish with the Soviet army; squabbles within Al Qaeda after the Soviets withdrew resulting in the assassination of Assam; the inability of the Arabs to return to their country after the war due to government hostility against the very people they recruited; the coup in Sudan which gave Al Qaeada a base just when they were losing their old one in Afghanistan; the USA passing up Sudan's offer to extradite bin Laden due to lack of evidence to prosecute him.

Wright also dismantles the myth that Al Qaeda brought down the Soviet Union by destroying their army in Afghanistan. This is a foundational myth for Al Qaeda and key to understand their seemingly irrational desire to attack the USA. Wright shows that only a few hundred Arab troops were actually in combat, and they did so mostly after the Soviets started withdrawing. Arab troops did not come in large numbers until after the Soviets completely withdrew, and they spent most of their time fighting against Afghan Muslims and each other. Even by the end of the war, the organization was just one of dozens of almost irrelevant radical organizations.

Wright somehow manages to maintain an objective perspective despite the murderous rhetoric, thoughts and action of his subjects.

wright prepared an excellent book. it's written as engagingly as a novel, but it is choke full of detail which has been corroborated. this was a fantastic page-turner. it did not provide the kind of detail that i sought regarding the actual attacks of 9/11, how individuals were trained and supported, etc. - it provided a comprehensive background on what was going on and who was involved. looking at the pages of interviews, pages of references, i am convinced of the thoroughness of the author and i appreciate why this book was the winner of the pulitzer prize. outstanding work!!!

A must read for any informed U.S. citizen. We all need to recommend it to our legislators for their reading..

I have read extensively about Islamic terrorism and Al Qaeda and The Looming Tower is by far the most compelling and comprehensive book on this subject. It clearly lays out the social, philosophical and theological progression and foundations that led to 9/11. Though you may not agree, by the end of the book you clearly understand the radical extemist's rationale and the historic time line of the people and events that led to 9/11. Though it provides history, The Looming Tower reads like a novel which I could not put down. It is the seminal book on this subject.

I purchased this book for my daughter. She read and finished the book and told me that it was well written and that it was very interesting reading. I didn't read it so I would be hesitant to recommend.

I loved this book! My heart goes out to Sharon Rocha and the rest of Laci's family.

I was pregnant with my 3rd son when Laci went missing and was so devastated to hear how she went missing. As time went on, and I looked at Scott on TV, I could tell he was guilty. He was blank, cold, and detached looking. I felt so sad for Laci and her son. She was so beautiful and looked to be like such a sweet loving woman. I was drawn to the story, and waited for her mother to write a book about her. I realized it might not happen, but was happy when she finally wrote this book. I read the book by Scott's half sister, and really enjoyed that book. I also read this book and cried like a baby at certain parts. I was confused how Laci could have been so trusting of Scott, as most women (or at least I thought) have women's intuition that would tell them something was wrong. I am happy that her mother wrote this book. I always wondered what went on with Laci's side of the family during this whole tragedy. Even though I cried many tears while reading this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

When the story of Laci broke news, I thought it wouldn't be as sensational as it turned out to be, I mean how many people go missing, or are murdered;my husband thought the same way. I began reading the books about Laci and the investigation, which covered forensic, and mental health issues, but no emotional feelings until I read Sharon's book. It's powerful in its own right. A must read!

This is a compelling book which reads very quickly, as it is hard to put down. Sharon Rocha paints a lovely portrait of her daughter Laci. You can't help be empathetic as evil moves in around her. I have an incredible amount of respect for her and the search-and-rescue fund/foundation she created. This tugs at heartstrings and elicits tears. I can't help but cry.

This is a wonderful story and a great book I was able to share with my students. The only drawback with the book is that the pages are not in color, but the extremely low price allowed me to purchase the books for my students out of my own pocket.

Katherine Woods' translation is the only English-language version of The Little Prince which captures the beauty, simplicity, clarity, and profundity of the Antoine de St. Exupery's classic, penned in French.

(The newer translation is appallingly horrid and bland, mistaken, and frankly perplexing.)

This is really not a children's book, although older children will appreciate it.

Don't measure the value by the thickness of the book. De St. Exupery, himself a WWI pilot, writes with a great economy yet produces here the most beautiful poetry with a delightful playfulness and childlike innocence -- a fresh vision which thus sees clearly and does not obscure the profound.

Mr. Fred Rogers used to quote from de St. Exupery, whose image and illustrations once graced the 20-franc note (in the days before the euro).

There simply is no other work like this one. It is an exceptionally rare treasure, a masterpiece.

Be sure to read Katherine Woods' translation. Read it privately, when you have time to savor each word. And keep a box of tissues nearby.

The Little Prince has often been heralded as a youthful book, required reading in elementary and high schools alike. In delivering it this way I think The Little Prince is missed by the only audience that is likely to truly appreciate it, that is adults. It is not an uncommon misconception that this is a children's book. Indeed, I keep the pictures stored on my computer, and am often asked where they came from. I reply that they are from one of my favourite books, and without fail the response is along the lines of, 'I don't mean to be rude but is that a children's book?'. 'No', I explain, 'it is not'.

The Little Prince is most needed, I think, by adults. It is easy to be caught up in, as De Saint-Exupery describes it, 'matters of consequence' and forget that it is not these matters which bring meaning to life. By pointing out the futility of professions practised endlessly and in isolation of other people, it becomes clear that the Little Prince, with his rose, is the only character with a life of consequence.

This book is beautifully written and translated by Katherine Woods. It speaks volumes through its simple tale, strange though it seems that matters such as these only become clear when they are somewhat removed from reality. Matters such as love, innocence, imagination and priorities. The Little Prince is a gentle and stirring reminder to never forget to see the boa constrictor from the hat.

I was an adult when i read this book, and i really appreciated the lessons in life that Saint-Exupery shares through the Little Prince.

A great book, full of beautiful illustrations, easy to read, while fun and sad at the same time.

I personally read it as if Exupery is sharing with us the conversations he has with his own inner child, in the image of the Little Prince. That is why the Little Prince would ask many questions, but rarely answer the ones he was asked. Like all our inner children he's been hidden inside and kept silent for a long long time, and now that he was given his chance, he will speak. And we better listen, for he is an integral part of our psyche, who will take us through the most unbelievable adventures.

I popped in to a bookstore to buy this book and noticed that it was a new translation. New translation? Fortunately I had the foresight to thumb through it. I promptly left it behind and went straight to a second hand bookstore to buy a copy of the original translation. How could the publisher eliminate the wonderful poetic language? I read The Little Prince as a child ( which by the way wasn't so long ago) and I loved the language. Antoine De Saint-Exupery's work is all about painting pictures through language. This watered down mess is no better than an edition of Cliff Notes. I actually apologize to Cliff Notes. At least with Cliff Notes would have explained the intention and nature of the language. I am sorry to see that this publisher allowed the dumbing down of this beautiful classic.

I passed my NCLEX using this one fantastic book. It is comprehensive in detail and leaves nothing out. The questions at the end of each chapter are as close to those on the board as you can get. The included disk has thousands of questions and various testing and quiz options. After practicing with the "test" mode on the disk I found taking the actual boards easy to handle. If you want to pass the first time then BUY THIS BOOK. Make sure that the disk is included or you will be losing out big time. Good luck to all of you nursing students and recent graduates!!! Think positive thoughts and don't waste time doubting yourself....You Can Do It!

I've only had this book for a few days, but I already love it! I only wish I would have bought this at the beginning of nursing school instead of the end... I just graduated from nursing school, and I'm now studying to take the NCLEX. I can't begin to describe how helpful this book it. It has tons of questions and the reviews are perfect... just enough information without overwhelming you. I would recommend to others to buy this book when you are beginning nursing school, to review concepts & study for the tests. The companion CD is also great. You can choose between quizzes (short) or tests (long) and take practice NCLEX style tests. The review function is also great and tells you how to eliminate answers to get the correct one, and what book to look in to review the concept if it was something you couldn't remember. Good luck to all you nursing students out there, and get this book! It's definitely worth every penny!

I purchased this book on the advice of my neice, an ICU nurse. I was having trouble studying for the tests in my nursing classes because there was so much material. I started using this book the moment it arrived and my test scores bounced up dramatically. I've had this book one month, and my test scores went from a C, to completing the course with a B+. What I love most about this book is that it has a review of all the systems and information in a complete concise manner giving just the information related to nursing, so I don't have to wander through all kinds of narrative to get to the facts I need to study. Best study guide I found.

This was an great help with Hesi test &: ATI's. I love the disk that came with it....it has hundreds of test questions & the book gives a very detailed review for each topic. I love it!!

execellent learning tool. If you want to enhance what you've learned in the classroom this is the book to have.

I read this book as a child and searched for years for a copy to give my daughter. It is a wonderful fairy tale, with very good moral values. Share this with your kids!

First loved this story 53 years ago and have been looking for it ever since. So glad that it was reprinted. I enjoyed the expanded, but the first one was not and loved it anyway.

i'm thrilled that this book is back in print..my sister and i have fought over our copy for years...our kids have loved it also...they need to write more books like this

What a pleasure to see this charming children's chapter book back in print. It was a favorite of mine when I was grade-school age, and an old, taped-up and battered copy still sits on on my bookshelf. In this tale, the lives and adventures of a family of fairies and half-fairies are paraded before the eyes of Lucy, a little human girl who has wandered into the borderlands of their world. A mysterious young man named Michael takes Lucy to a deserted castle where the shadows of past inhabitants can be seen on the walls of a tower room. As Lucy watches the shadows move about, Michael identifies each figure, and recounts their adventures of long, long ago.

The stories of the fairy princes and princesses, and their human and non-human relatives and associates, are told a simple but descriptive prose that young readers should find appealing. For children still a little bit young for the vocabulary of Harry Potter, but too old for Dr. Seuss, this is a perfect read. The illustrations are delightful as well--how I loved the pictures of beautiful Princess Meira and her friend, the dragon Branstookah!

This compelling fantasy is back in print after many years, and would make a great gift to any 7-11 year old. It was my mother's favorite growing up, then mine, and I have this expanded edition to my 8 year old niece who says it is better than Harry Potter!

I have been reading nutrition books for over a decade. This book relates back to studies that are proven. It really boils down what the best foods are and why. The book recommends how to cook and eat these foods.

Best book I have read to date on nutrition for the lay person.

SuperFoods is a great leap in the right direction for anyone looking to improve his or her diet.

Positives: the format and suggestions are some of the best in the diet class. It's easy to follow, the suggestions are not too expensive, and the book includes a great deal of scientific explanations and references.

Negatives: the author suggests consuming beans, oats, soy, and dairy. These foods are generally beneficial for one's health, however after reading The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat by Dr. Cordain, I learned that human bodies are not properly engineered to consume such foods.

Conclusion: this book is a tremendous foundational guide to proper nutrition. For those who want to take it to the next level, I would recommend The Paleo Diet instead.

I've been a vegetarian for 21 years and thought that I followed a balanced diet... well, this book opened my eyes. I loved it because it explains how each of the superfoods contributes to your health, the recipes are very easy to make and since I started putting it in practice, I feel a lot better and more energized :-) Great purchase !

This is an excellent book to help learn more about making beneficial food choices as part of a healthy lifestyle. It is not a fad diet or gimmick to lose weight fast. In addition to the 14 suggested "Super Foods," the author identifies "sidekicks" for each, which offer similar benefits. The author also provides recipes, offering guidance on how to prepare these foods using healthy cooking choices, too. (I've already tried a few and they're fabulous!) Finally, throughout the entire book the author supports his information with research-based evidence, with references, from peer-reviewed journals.

Although the focus is not on losing weight, when you take the advice of the author and begin to eat all of the foods necessary for a long, healthy life, you have little room left to eat the garbage that keeps on the extra pounds!

This is not just a book I recommend to friends and family - this is one I've already purchased several copies of for friends and family!

My doctor recently diagnosed me with diabetes in addition to my longstanding problem of high cholesterol and high triglycerides, which was also affecting my liver. I was quite overweight but didn't really care until that point - there's always tomorrow to lose it, right? He put me on a cholesterol and triglyceride lowering medicine and told me I needed to lose weight. This time I took him seriously, and I also read SuperFoods Rx and SuperFoods Healthstyle. I started exercising (walking) and eating healthy by following these two books' recommendations. So far I've lost 31 pounds without feeling deprived or going on some weird diet. I feel great, my diabetes is well controlled, and my cholesterol, triglycerides and liver function are in terrific shape now. The Super Foods have found a permanent place in my diet, and exercise a permanent place in my lifestyle. Thanks to these two books I believe I've saved my life and will enjoy better health over the long term. I've sent them to my brother to help him make the changes he needs for the same reasons. I highly recommend SuperFoods Rx and SuperFoods Healthstyle!

There are some hard parts to get through describing the fire, but you'll appreciate the Chicago history, the history around the event, what it did to the surrounding neighborhood and how it changed fire codes in the U.S. and likely the world. Your children are safer today because of what happened to these kids.

The book also made me replace all of my smoke detectors!

This is one Chicago tragedy that resonates with me strongly. My former attorney, recently deceased, was a survivor of the deadly fire at Our Lady of Angels Catholic School.

Despite our shared interest in history, he never spoke of the fire during the twenty years in which I knew him. Last year, I found a web site maintained by survivors of the fire and questioned him about the inclusion of his name and that of his sister on the list. His sole response was that the entries were correct. Both had attended school on December 1, 1958, the date of the fire. Our brief conversation proceeded no further. My friend was visibly uncomfortable and I did not make press him with additional inquiries.

Having read this well written account of the fire and the arson investigation, I can understand why my friend preferred to change the subject. This book is compelling, but it is not for the faint of heart. The descriptions contained in "To Sleep With Angels" will haunt and disturb you. You may not be able to read the book without pausing to weep.
I could not read the book in a single sitting.

It is difficult to forget any of the tragic events described in "To Sleep With the Angels." In no particular order, the random images include a father, who rushed to the school with a ladder to rescue trapped children, watching his own son perish in a cloud of toxic smoke as the ladder was too short to reach a high window; a sick ten year old girl had a premonitory dream, but within a few hours the same child felt much better and asked her mother to let her attend school after recess; from an upper floor window, frightened children recognized an adult neighbor, the owner of the local candy store, and began shouting at the woman and begging her to help save them. The terrible list goes on and on as the authors relate the individual memories and recollections of many of the survivors, the families of the victims, the witnesses and the investigators.

More than ninety persons perished that on that cold December afternoon. In addition to ninety-two students, three nuns were also killed in the burning building. A majority of the victims succumbed on account of smoke inhalation. In the aftermath of the fire, a national campaign was launched to improved fire safety at schools throughout the USA.

Almost as painful as the fire itself was the ultimate fate of many of the survivors. Following the tragedy, many local residents began to move away from their formerly beloved parish. Some people would describe the exodus of the families from the blue collar West Side neighborhood as white flight, but others believed that it was simply too painful for many parents and children to continue living in close proximity to the school where their loved ones had died. They needed to find new surroundings in which to live rather than be reminded of the tragedy on a daily basis. There were far too many unanswerable questions: How many additional lives might have been saved if a set of doors had been closed? How many children would have been spared if the fire had occurred fifteen minutes later after the three o'clock dismissal bell? Why wasn't the fire alarm bell sounded at the school more quickly? Firefighters felt that they could have saved many more lives if they had been given the correct building address and had arrived on the scene four minutes sooner.

No one was ever prosecuted for the crime of arson in connection with the suspicious fire. A juvenile offender set the fire, but he could not be tried under Illinois law since the crime occurred before his thirteenth birthday. This same minor was subsequently tried and convicted for a series of arsons committed in suburban Cicero, where his family moved after the fire at Our Lady of the Angels. The authors posit that church and civil authorities sought to shield the identity of the boy on account of his minority. This explanation is wholly credible.

After my friend's funeral, his two sisters related that their brother regularly attended memorial masses held to honor those who died in the fire at Our Lady of the Angels. The elder sister, who had also attended the school on the day of the fire, exited the building safely. Her brother was also escaped without serious injury. Their father heard a radio broadcast concerning the fire while driving his car and he was permitted to enter the police cordon to look for his children. He was unaware that they had arrived home safely during the confusion. There was a great deal of crying when the children and parents were reunited at their home that afternoon. These personal stories are not repeated in the book.
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In a bizarre and equally disturbing development, one of the authors of this book was convicted of arson after setting a fire to a storage building opposite St. Benedict's Catholic Church on the North side of Chicago in June of 2005. Thankfully, only property damage resulted from the fire. David Cowan was said to be despondent after losing his janitorial job. The defendant, who was also a former suburban firefighter, was sentenced to serve a three year prison term in December of that same year. He has been paroled. Ironically, he was also the author a book entitled, "Great Chicago Fires" and had reported on fires for various newspapers.

This book was given to me to read when I took my first fire fighter class. My instructor loaned me her copy and I ended up buying my own copy. The tragic events detailed in this book led me into teaching fire prevention and making sure that a tragedy such as this never happens again.

I have recommended this book to several people both in and outside of the fire service. Everyone that I know who have read it have been touched by this story. I have also given this book as a gift to several students taking their first steps into the fire service so that they never forget the impact a tragic fire can have.

I love to read and I feel that this is one of the best books I have ever read. I am also a firefighter and decided to read this book because it had to do with a historic fire, little did I know that I would love this book for much more than historic and educational reasons. This book was very well written and showed all aspects of this event from the firefighters to the victims themselves. I would recomden this book to anyone who wants a good read, as well as to anyone who is interested in fire history.

This was a fascinating book. I bought it to read on a trip, because of the excellent ratings. We were stuck in a plane on a runway in Dallas for 6 hours. The wait seemed much shorter, because I was thoroughly involved in reading this book.

I highly recommend it.

The is a wonderfully, great, terrific book! They need to re-release the Great Brain movie from 1978 starring little Jimmy Osmond! Also, if I may suggest, try reading the Adventures With Boys book series-- Just as good!!!;)

I poured through these books continuously in my youth. I would beg for a trip to the library so I could find just one more I hadn't read.

I had all but forgotten about them until my oldest showed a keenness for reading. Now I'm ordering them for her for Christmas. I hope she gleans as much joy as I did from them! I used to love to pretend that Papa was handing out his sage advice directly to me.

This is such a wonderfully written series for young readers. You really can't go wrong with them, and hopefully my daughter will review this for you some time after Christmas!

This is a wonderful book for all ages. Its about a 10 year old boy that is always thinking of money making schemes!!!

I hope AMAZON reads this, but the ages of 4 to 8 years is not correct. I think they mean 4th-8th grade, not years. My son is in 5th grade and is just getting where he can read it. I read it when I was young, one of my favorite books...but not for K-2nd grade!! Amazon, if you read this, you may want to change the Reading Level! Thanks!!

This book reminded me of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It is so well
written. It is full of wit and heartwarming understanding of the workings
of young boys. I enjoyed it as much as any book I have read all year and
would highly recommend it to any age group.

Very handy cookbook reference for my office bookshelf. I've used it a number of times, and it's more than paid for itself in expediting regularly-scheduled inquiries of our AD structure here at GEICO HQ.

Excellent reference if you work with AD on a regular basis either as an admin or a developer. Each "how to" offers methods for manually performing a specific task as well as (where possible) how to automate the task using code. Should be on every Windows admin/developer's desk.

Overall, this is a great book for reference.

There are a number of areas where I think the book falls short - all of the scripts are very hard coded scripts that don't tell you how to do some functions that would make their scripts actually useful (like "pull the list of users with attributes from a tab-delimited file and create them" or something similar, this would make mass creation of users actually useful, instead of "create user1, user2, user3, etc..."). I think that the writers expect you to be a VB expert (or at least close to it) if you're going to actually make the vb scripts useful.

Most of the scripts are "How to use a script to do the same functions that you can already do in AD with ADUC or another MMC", but I think that the most important thing for me about the book is what it inspires me to think of doing. Things that MS doesn't necessarily expect you to do. I'm still not seeing a way to add sidHistory to an object (MS does it with another applet - there is a way...), but there are so many things in the book that just have me thinking about how you can implement changes to an environment that MS says you can't do. What they really mean is "You can't do that with the GUI tools that we provide you".

I am so glad that this book was recommended to me by a guy I took a class on scripting from. I use this book everyday (almost). I even took it on vacation with me for light reading.

Hard to say in words to adequately describe how much I like this book. I highly recommend to anyone who works with AD.

Quick enjoyable read. Some interesting commentary on team dynamics and the social problems teams encounter. I wish more solutions/suggestions were offered.

Nice reminder on what should we do during project.
We all know these things, but often we forget on them.

I expected the book to contain practical advice. The book covered many undesirable situations and business settings. There were no recommendations made on how to improve a bad situation. The book merely reported on the bad environment. If you are in an unpleasant work environment and want to know there may be others worse off then you, you may like this book.

This book is a collection of short essays on how real people's productivity in software industry is affected. It is about human aspects of software development. There is a great variety in the material for such a small volume (about 250 pages). For example, it covers this:

1. The key to software development is people. People are not drones nor they are easily replaceable. They work by themselves and require not constant pushing, but careful motivation. If you don't trust your people you are in trouble. People are a capital investment.

2. Mind-intensive jobs require concentration, hence a private and quiet environment. Breaking the worker's flow leads to frustration and dive of effectiveness.

3. Teams require efforts to form and keep running, but the effect could be miraculous. There is nothing that could stop a running team. (Btw, I tend to call this a locomotive force myself).

4. Methodologies (the big-M ones) don't matter, same for the processes. Technologies and stuff, they never replace people who really understand and love what they are doing.

The book is of most interest to project managers or even upper level managers (may all our managers follow these advises please ?).

What can you do with the book being a software developer ? Not much, just look around and see if you like it where you work now. And take actions.

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If you've smiled ruefully at any of the characterizations in this book, it's time now to stop smiling anf start taking corrective action. ... It's supposed to be productive, satisfying fun to work.
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The second edition differs from the original book in that an all new part VI is added, a few short chapters. Written many years later in a perceivably different tone. It's not just that the authors admit in its preface

[quote]
The first five parts were written by two yongish middle-aged consultants who spent most of their time working at the project level, part VI is written by two gnarled and grizzled old consultants who now spend appreciably more of their time working at organizational levels. ... Part VI is concerned with with the design of entire organizations that include development work.
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but it is also that it is written in less confident and undoubted way. I see it as good, after all there is no universal truth, it is all just a food to the reader's thoughts.

And this is a great food too.

Providing an overall rating for this book was extremely difficult, and writing this book review was not an easy task. This difficulty is due to the nature of "Peopleware". This DeMarco work enjoys what appears to be a solid 5-star rating, and to some degree this is a very reasonable collective assessment. Without discussing at length all of the reasons I think this book should instead be assigned less than 5-stars, I think my reasons fall into two categories: (1) the original work was penned in 1987, and due to the industry pervasiveness of many of the ideas presented by the authors, a lot of the material can no longer be considered extraordinary, and (2) the cohesiveness of each chapter and the flow from chapter to chapter is less than optimal - in other words, it is a bit choppy. Now I realize that there exist many in the software industry that can gain great strides in their respective workplaces by reading this book and understanding how best to apply the provided advice, which is why I give this work 4-stars rather than 3-stars, but I must say that I was just disappointed by all the hype about this book, from a year-2007 perspective. And simple math obviously will conclude that 20 years have passed since the original publication. The 8 new chapters added by the authors in 1999 really do not communicate many ground-shaking ideas. In my opinion, Chapter 33 is the only one of these new chapters that personally provided me any insight. And the premise of this lone chapter is simply that "the ultimate management sin is wasting people's time". The simplistic line graphs that accompany this chapter provide some substance to the discussion about project staffing, but again this chapter still seems to be geared toward individuals who do not bother to keep up with the insight shared in industry periodicals. Despite all of these drawbacks, however, there are some strong areas of the book that are worth reading by all software industry professionals. These strong areas are more comparable to the content of timeless classics like "The Mythical Man Month", "Waltzing with Bears" (also by DeMarco and Lister), or "Death March" (see my reviews for all of these books), and are worth reading even if just to provide discussion starters within your organization. These chapters include "Vienna Waits for You" on working smarter and project deadline pressures, "Quality-if Time Permits" where the authors state that "Quality, far beyond that required by the end user, is a means to higher productivity", "Parkinson's Law Revisited" on estimations and productivity, "You Never Get Anything Done Around Here Between 9 and 5", "Brain Time Versus Body Time" on understanding the work day of a technology worker, "The Self-Healing System" on process, and "Teamicide" and "Open Kimono" on team jell. Realize that there are 34 chapters in this book. The bottom line is that this book on productive projects and teams, targeted at a software industry audience - although perhaps not overly impressive from a holistic perspective - is still heartily recommended.