Adam Books

This is a great textbook for people wanting to learn the basics of programming computers.It logically presents ML,Java and Prolog.The first sentence states,"Computer programmes are practical magic.".It absolutely is ! You will enjoy reading the historical background on programming too.The ideas really are not difficult to fathom .If you have a desire to learn the foundations of computer language design.For an advanced computer student,this book will be repetitive and frivolous.Yet,i found this basic programming book to be enjoyable and insightful.

This is one of the most clear and enjoyable Computer Science books I have ever read -- and being a CS Ph.D. student I've read quite a lot! The examples are at the right level of complexity, and the exercises at the end of each chapter are actually (gasp) fun! Alternating theoretical and practical chapters makes for a very balanced reading, where abstract concepts are explained by linking them to real language features.

The book smoothly moves the reader through Standard ML, Java and Prolog in a concise and pleasant manner. Although it doesn't go deep in any of these languages, it provides the reader with enough background to create simple programs and utilize the power of each language; the interested reader can go on to learn advanced language features with the confidence that all the basics have been covered. The book draws clear distinctions between all three languages, each of which represents a different way of thinking about programming. If you are looking for an excellent book on programming languages, or you just want to get a feel about different programming paradigms, this is your book!

I just finished using this book teaching our Programming Languages course. We easily covered the entire book in a 15 week semester while adding additional material on Formal Semantics and Concurrent Programming. I really loved the book; the writing was engaging (I'm not kidding, this is the best textbook I've ever seen) and the supporting materials were extremely helpful. The greater-than-usual attention to functional programming languages (Webber covers ML, Java and Prolog) was initially the most important feature for me.

The only possible complaint about the text is that it doesn't go into more detail on a number of topics. The next time I teach the class, I would be happy to use it again while providing supplemental material, although I am considering Friedman et al's Essentials of Programming Languages.

I first came into contact with Mr Greedy when I was seven, and I haven't looked back. He's truly changed my life. I wanted to be Mr Greedy, but they wouldn't let me. Instead, I purchased the entire collection of Mr Men books from my local bookshop, and gave them to my sister for Christmas.

Sorry for the randomness of this review, but I'm insane.

Mr Greedy tells the sad tale of a man who can't stop eating. Try as he might, he wants to eat everything in sight. Will Mr Greedy be able to cut back on his eating? Or will his greediness be the end of Mr Greedy? Read it and see!

Mr Greedy, along with Mr. Strong, is undoubtedly the top title in these books by Roger Hargreaves. As Sir Jonathan Hawkins MBE OBE Phd MP Esq. so eliquently put it "Roger Hargreaves is the ultimate children's writer and is a real aid to the little children that I so dearly love", and so the same can be said for all of us! In fact, as he is also a lecturer in child studies at Cambridge University, one of his students (who also happens to be his son, Jonathan Hawkins Jnr.) said that this set of books could be seen as a metaphor for the unpredictable upbringing of many children in our topsy-turvy society. The Mr. Men titles are a must read for all children, make sure that Mr. Greedy is part of your collection!! Mr. Greedy is about one particular character who cannot stop his eating habits, his friends try in various amusing ways to help their buddy out!

I loved reading about such a great woman. It is an honor to see women moving up the chains in the military.

Inspiring people strike a soul chord within us. Their stories spark, fuel or ignite a desire to achieve, serve, love, reflect, pray or face our self-imposed constraints. This northern Virginian, General Clara Adams-Ender, the daughter of a sharecropper, grew up to be an Army General.Adams-Ender's autobiographical chat with the reader is as inspiring as a homily, but far too candid to be preachy. While her stellar accomplishments are impressive, the many stories behind them are as insightful as they are engaging. As the daughter of hardworking but formally unlettered parents, she graduated at the top of her high school class, earned not only a bachelor's degree but two master's degrees, and now holds 11 honorary doctorate degrees. As the summer winds to a close, I recommend you add her book to your reading list--or to the lists of young people in your life.

Inspiring people strike a soul chord within us. Their stories spark, fuel or ignite a desire to achieve, serve, love, reflect, pray or face our self-imposed constraints. This northern Virginian, General Clara Adams-Ender, the daughter of a share- cropper, grew up to be an Army General.Adams-Ender's autobiographical chat with the reader is as inspiring as a homily, but far too candid to be preachy. While her stellar accomplishments are impressive, the many stories behind them are as insightful as they are engaging. As the daughter of hardworking but formally unlettered parents, she graduated at the top of her high school class, earned not only a bachelor's degree but two master's degrees, and now holds 11 honorary doctorate degrees. As the summer winds to a close, I recommend you add her book to your reading list--or to the lists of young people in your life.

This book collects some superb stories of teachers that have influenced our lives. Often touching, funny and inspirational, each story is a personal account of the positive energy created from the truly generous and caring nature of our educators. This is a great book for all to read as it lets us remember the influential teachers we may have had in the past, and is a great gift for any teacher you know.

To be a teacher is to be willing to give a gift to future generations, and this book wonderfully illustrates the ways those magnificent gifts are received.

I was scrambling to find the perfect gift for my son's teacher and heard about this book. It only took a quick flip through the pages to have me laughing, crying, then running to the cash register to buy it. I am buying additional copies for my teachers as the school year closes as gifts, as they sum up the way I feel (without me having to write it). I strongly recommend this book!!

What a great idea! I bought the book after a friend recommended it and i read it all the way through in three days! Really inspiring. I will buy another copy for my nephew who teaches. I hope they come out with others because this is so much better than the Chicken Soup books where the editors seem to let any kind of writing in the series. 5 stars!

Caveat Empor! If you want to use this book, either find yourself an awesome pianist or killer singers!!! I usually play most musical theatre books singing and playing by myself at the same time, but this vocal selection book- I can barely hang on three. You will need to spend ample time woodshedding the piano parts and plunking out vocal lines to death to even remotely scratch the surface of this song cycle, but when you do, you will not be disappointed. Adam Guettel really envisioned something celestial when coming up with these pieces. My two favorites which are very pleasing to the ear(must be my pop roots coming out of me) are 'How Could I Lose You?' and "Hero and Leander". Mind you though, they are by no means conventional harmony, just easy to hum when you are done.
Also, this songbook has every song in the song cycle so that is a mega plus!!! Again, I can't emphasize enough this is a great work of art you should have in your collection even if it does stretch your abilities to uncharted terrain.

Guettel presents us with a rich, diverse and gorgeous score, capturing his audience through lush lyrics. Guettel's symbolism and imagery speak directly to the soul.
A must buy for all contemporary music theatre performers, repetiteurs and vocal teachers.

This is a great compilation of songs for any musician who is looking for some new material. There are elements of jazz, pop, broadway musical, and gospel in these wonderful art songs. Although the music may be a bit difficult for begining pianist, advanced students, accompanists, and singers will find this songbook a joy.

This book is for those who remember all the pain, humiliation, angst, and utter hilarity of the teenage years. Definately a book that brings back the fond memories of adolescents. A great way to get in touch with the inner nerd in all of us.

This book takes you on a trip down memory lane, back to the days when acne and humiliation were abundant, nerds flourished, and social acceptance reigned. While those years were some of the times in our lives that we would rather not re-live, the book Nerds, Etc. makes you forget all that negative nostalgia and causes you to find yourself in a state of hysterical laughing and pants wetting! Buy it, I'm sure you'll relate.

Tired of the same-old gags in your newspaper comics? Looking for a new comic artist to enjoy? Perry's perspective on high school life (the highs, the lows, the inane) is refreshing. (And funny.)

It's a good time for Harold Adams, whose novels about itinerent sign painter ex-cop Carl Wilcox had been languishing, garnering critical raves but little in the way of sales. Walker & Company, a publishing house becoming known for literate, sometimes off-beat mysteries, has released four books so far in trade paperback and published new ones in hardback. This is a series well worth investigating.

Wilcox reminds me of every boy's favorite uncle, the one who's a black sheep to the women of the family for not settling down, who stops by when he needs a bed and a few square meals, bringing with him a whiff of sin and a few great stories. He travels the small towns of the Dakotas and Minnesota during the Depression, taking on sign-painting jobs for grocery stores and law offices when they're available, and camping by the side of the road in his modified Model T. When the jobs are few on the ground, he'll take on a murder investigation.

In "A Way with Widows," his sister asks him to come to Red Ford, North Dakota, to help clear a neighbor of killing her husband, who was found on the stairs of another woman's house. In "No Badge, No Gun," a minister who has heard of Wilcox's reputation as an investigator asks him to solve the murder of his niece, found dead in the basement of a church. Wilcox's investigating style consists of wandering around town, talking to people, gathering threads of facts and weaving them into a plausible story. He's suspicious, but not cynical. Told about the perfect character of a churchgoing man, he observes, "Nothing in this world raises more doubts in my mind than apparently perfect young men."

Yet Wilcox is also a flawed man. He makes mistakes and is perfectly capable of being turned by a pretty widow with something to hide. His attempts at seduction sometimes succeed, but more often fail, which makes sense at a time when a woman's reputation could be affected by who she's seen with.

One hopes for better things for Adams and Wilcox, but if it doesn't happen, it won't be the fault of the publisher. Like most of Walker's books, these are beautiful to look at -- details from Edward Hopper's paintings appear on most of them, which is a nice change from the usual blood and skulls that passes for art on most mystery covers -- and the $8.95 price tag is more than reasonable for these absorbing tales of small-town crimes of passion.

During the Depression, sign painter Carl Wilcox has earned a reputation throughout the Dakotas for solving murder mysteries, which is why Pastor Bjorn Bjornsen invites him to lunch. Bjorn and his nephew Sven offer Carl $100 to discover who raped and murdered the pastor's niece Gwendolyn in their church basement.

Carl begins his inquiries by talking to the cop on the case, Officer Driscoll, who has unofficially given up on the case, but does provide Carl the needed information. Carl follows up with discussions about the victim with her teachers, friends, and family. As he continues to look into the brutal death of a child with no seeming enemies or anyone with a motive to hurt her, Carl begins to wonder if even he can solve this mystery.

The fifteenth Wilcox depression era who-done-it keeps the freshness that has constantly made this series one of the best historical mysteries on the market. The story line fits the period, making it seem much more alive than fiction normally produces. However, it is the talent of Harold Adams to brilliantly describe a host of characters as seen through their varying relationships with succinct and abrupt Carl that makes NO BADGE, NO GUN and , for that matter all the Wilcox books, must reading for sub-genre fans.

Harriet Klausner

For some of us too young to know better, the world of the Depression can seem as foreign a place as Moscow or Outer Mongolia. It was, after all, a half-century ago, before computers, television, the Interstate Highway system and couple of major wars.

Which is why following Carl Wilcox, part-time bum, former convict and itinerant sign painter as he travels from town to town in the Dakotas so fascinating. In addition to painting signs and doing what he can to bring body and soul a little closer together, he sometimes investigate cases in small towns like Hope, Jonesville and Greenhill.

For the most part, these are pretty quiet stories about small towns where there's not much to do, and where murders are few and far between. Adams's books describe a Depression-era Dakotas of quiet small towns where private reputations and public behavior mattered. His Wilcox is a quiet man, willing to work when he needs money and loaf when he doesn't. His constant pursuit of any semi-willing women would be off-putting were it not realistically depicted (i.e., he doesn't succeed very often).

One added bonus can be found in the design of the books, whose covers sport art by Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton. Not your usual mystery book design.

Carla is a thirty-five-year-old hairstylist. She does enjoy her job - it supports her shopping habit, but lately she's been restless and wanting something more out of life. She'd always imagined herself as having a husband and babies by now. Instead, she's alone with fantasies about her best friend, Alice's little brother, Leo, who's ten years younger than her. She used to help Alice babysit him. There must be something depraved in just thinking about him.

Leo has been in love with Carla for as long as he can remember. Sure, it had started out as a childish crush but it has just gotten stronger as he's grown older. Now living right down the hall from her at their apartment complex, he borders on obsession. It wasn't until he ran into her in the laundry room and removed his shirt to wash it that he saw the spark of interest in her eyes. Now, he just needs to get Carla to see him as an adult instead of a thirteen-year-old kid.

Carla has never thought of Leo in any kind of sexual terms until the Friday evening they ended up both in the laundry room and Leo removed his shirt to throw in with his wash. He's ten years younger than she is, and the brother of her best friend, it's definitely not a good idea to start fantasizing about Leo, but all of a sudden all of her fantasies revolve around his young body. Leo, meanwhile is thrilled, he'd seen the look on her face as she ogled him, and she hadn't been able to hide her reaction when he started to entice her. While Leo's planning his seduction, Carla is pondering her raging hormones over an entire pint of ice cream. The following day, while working off that pint of ice cream at the gym, Carla decides that she needs a man, definitely not Leo, to help her get over her desire for Leo. Picking one of the personal trainers who'd shown interest in her at one point, she asks him out for coffee. While on her date with Steve, she realizes that he not only has kids, but he's already raised them, he's not going to be interested in starting over with her. Once again, she finds herself back at square one with Leo firmly playing the male role in her fantasies. Leo steps up his seduction when he happens to catch her coming home with a headache and she stumbles into him, he offers her his mom's chicken soup and then a promised cure for her headache. Now, Carla has her mind full of erotic images, and she's served a bowl of hot soup, gets a foot message to help her unwind, along with a couple of Ibuprofen. Uncomfortably aware of him, Carla starts to leave Leo's apartment, afraid she'd misinterpreted his signals when he stops her and kisses her senseless before sending her back to her own apartment with her body humming. Leo's playing for keeps, Cara's thinking a temporary fling but secretly desires permanence. Will she find everything she always wanted in Leo?

NOTHING PERSONAL is a charmingly funny romance involving two characters who basically grew up knowing each other. Leo knew from an early age that Carla is the one for him, but everyone chalked it up to simply being smitten with his sister's friend. Carla is fixated on their age difference and so when she finally caves in to him, wants to keep their relationship a secret from his family, including his sister. Full of characters you can associate with and realistic events, Elisa Adams' NOTHING PERSONAL is the perfect lighthearted book to lose yourself in for awhile.

Chrissy Dionne (courtesy of Romance Junkies)

Leo has had a crush on his older sister's best friend, Carla forever. A crush that has turned more serious as the years have gone by. Carla is 10 years older than Leo and has never really "seen" him as man. Then one Friday night in their apartment complex's laundry room, Carla is in shock when she realizes that not only is Leo all grown up, but he's also gorgeous. Leo can't believe it when he realizes that Carla actually checked him out! Leo is going to woo until she actually gives in and has a relationship with him. But even after they fall into bed with each other, can he get Carla to ever feel comfortable with the age difference between them?

I thoroughly enjoyed Nothing Personal. Leo is the kind of hero that we all love to read about. Even though he's younger than Carla, he's mature and knows what he wants, or rather who, and once he sees his chance he's ready to take it. Carla is a heroine with whom I can easily relate. She's starting to get older, finding grey hairs and feeling self-conscious about herself. So she doesn't understand why this gorgeous younger man is so stuck on her, and she sure doesn't trust his feelings. Plus she's afraid to risk her heart for a guy who may not stick around when the age difference really starts to show. I thought that Ms. Adams did a stellar job of handling what would be real life thoughts and feelings, especially on the woman's side, regarding the older woman/younger man issue. I've read other books by Ms. Adams, but I have to say that Nothing Personal is easily one of her best.


Melissa
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Carla is 35, not dating anyone, and is starting to hear her biological clock. She really wants to find someone to marry and start a family. One Friday night she finds herself in the laundry room and runs into Leo, the younger brother of her close friend Alice. Carla doesn't know it, but Leo has always had a crush on her. Though he's dated many women, he really wants Carla to see him as an adult - not a child. When he notices that Carla is checking him out in the laundry room, he decides to make his move and try to convince Carla to have a relationship with him. Of course, Carla can't resist Leo - he's everything she wants in a man, if only he were older.

I find that Elisa Adams can be great (Dirty Pictures) or just OK (Settling the Score). I'm happy to say that Nothing Personal is great. The author did a terrific job describing Carla's insecurities of being an older woman and the worries of getting involved with someone who has been a family friend. Carla's insecurities rang true and you just root for her and Leo to work things out. And Leo - yum! He may be 25, but sometimes age just doesn't matter.

The Nursing Home Handbook is thorough and well written. It answered nearly all my questions and many I never thought of. My remaining questions are: Which are the best places? Are they easily accessible? How much do they cost? I still have to do research, but this book provides criteria by which to judge.

I recommend this book for anyone who needs help choosing a nursing home or dealing with one already chosen. It may also help you decide, as I did, that a nursing home is not the right choice at this time.

This book is a quick read, but is stuffed full of good information and practical tidbits. I read it in just a few hours and learned a tremendous lot. I especially liked the boxed text in the margins with interesting little factoids and suggestions.

For instance, when I asked to read my loved one's medical chart I was told, "okay, but hurry. I don't want anyone to see that I'm letting you do this." In Davis' book, she states that we have a legal right to read our own medical charts. Her book is full of this type of "been there, done that" advice.

The next to last chapter, which gives some information on hospice and practical advice on how to sit by the bedside when it's time for your loved one to leave this world, was very well written and is alone worth the price of this book.

I've read many of these books and this is one of the few that I'd highly recommend.

Ruth Davis writes with humor and great practicality on a topic that I find uncomfortable and somewhat overwhelming. She provides information on all aspects of nursing home care --from finding the right setting, to coping with details of day to day life in a home, to the last moments. I love her use of sidebars, little snippits of advice, often filled with humor and always packed with common sense. I would recommend this book to anyone facing the problem of long term care for self or loved one.

As one of the women quoted in the book puts it: "If I didn't date people I worked with, I would never have had a date." Plenty of people DO find true love at work, and it doesn't have to be a disaster even when things don't work out. "Office Mate" provides practical advice and real research to help guide people through these shoals, and it's a fun read to boot.

Here's what I love about this book 1. It's a great read. Yes, it has a storyline, you can follow it, it has useful sidebars! 2. It's smart. The ideas are practical and accessible 3. They use (gasp!) studies and books to make their points! This part impresses me as I've read a few too many books based on the author's opinion or maybe a couple friends of the author. 3. They made me laugh and it felt like a conversation with a witty smart friend. 5. It's not just for 20 somethings. As someone who sure isn't fresh out of college, they talked to me and make their ideas possible and doable. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and will now use it as a reference because who knows maybe there's a work buddy and potential romatic partner out there for me!

I love this book! It's so well written: funny, thorough, smart. These two have done their research and write from experience. It's about time a book like this has been written--hard to believe it's the first one out there. Thanks to the authors for showing that office romance can be done, and done well.