Adamson Books

A great little book on beer, it covers a big topic in a small efficient book. The book format is more like a technical reference and very repetitious. Lack of an index greatly diminishes the value and usefulness of the book. Still, the first 2 chapters as well as the introduction to each chapter are great and very readable. The last chapter on home brewing is also nice. These parts make the book well worth the price just for these parts. If it had an index I could give it another star and maybe two.

I found this book in an airport book store. When you search for beer on Amazon it never shows up. I do not understand why. It is just too new and up-to-date.

Ms. Adamson has taken on the rather large task of describing a world full of beer and trying to condense it into a readable and usable format. I think that she did a very nice job at this.

The book breaks down beer so that even the lay person might understand the basic components and techniques used to make beer. Differences between lagers and ales, along with differences in beer styles are explained quite nicely so that you would reasonably know what you are buying/ordering when you take that first visit to a beer bar/beer store.

The main body of the book consists of a regional/country breakdown with styles listed, a description of the style and finally a fairly good list of beers representitive of the style.

Ms. Adamson did her homework, probably to the chagrin of her liver. The list of beers is about as up to date as I have seen. While not every beer of that style is listed, the examples she gives should be fairly easy to find.

Overall, this is a nice little book for someone who has gotten an interest in beer and would like to know a good deal more about the world of beer.

I have read many of Alice Nestleton's mysteries, but I think this is her best yet!!

The true pity in reading this book is that is was a really good mystery. I think Adamson should tell stories over a camp fire and let a listener write the book. Her grammer and word usage was so poor it really detracted from the story. However, I will probably end up reading more from her anyway because I was intrigued through the end on the plot.

In this book we have Dierdre Nightingale in contact with a secular monastery that raises beautiful German Shephard dogs. A murder of an old friend of her mother's sends her to the monastery where another murder occurs that Dierdre is sure is connected to the murder back home of old Mary Hyndman. She also uncovers an extortion ring that preys on lonely old women. The book was OK, and the plot theory was a good one, but I still found it a bit hard to follow because it jumps around quite a bit. It almost seemed that Ms. Adamson had to get her story done in just over 200 pages, and so she rushed to the end.

In the second book in the Dr. Nightingale series, Dr. Didi finds herself investigating another murder. This time, the murder is a neighbor that owned a beautiful German Shepherd, trained by monks at a monastery. The search for the killer takes Didi to live with the monks and their perfectly trained Shepherds, leading her to a killer she would never expect!

I enjoyed this book much more than I had enjoyed the first book in the series as Dr. Didi was portrayed as much more sympathetic and kind in this book. I also enjoyed reading about the dogs being trained by the monks, and found this training method fascinating. Overall, this book was a quick and nice read.

The first book in the series is "Dr. Nightingale Comes Home". Enjoy!

I like this series because of the unique look at animals that each book provides. This one focuses on elephants and tigers from a travelling circus. Dierdre is asked to be the consultant vet for a travelling circus, and she is thrilled to get the chance to work with her beloved elephants, but things turn nasty when a supposedly gentle elephant kills a circus performer. Dierdre suspects its murder though, and she tries to prove it. This series is unique with its animal perspective, but I find the characters are not really gelling as yet. I understand this is only the second book, so maybe it will happen yet. I find the writing is a bit careless and the book could have used some editing.

I read the first book about Didi Nightingale, and I loved it, so I decided to get the second book in the series. And it was almost as good as the first one. I got through it in roughly a day and I couldn't put it down. Now Lydia Adamson is no Agatha Cristie, but she is still a wonderful mystery writer. I adored it.

Definitely not hard core mystery material. I picked it up mainly because it ostensibly takes place in Upstate NY. Unfortunately it needed better editing since several upstate locations (i.e., Binghamton does not have a "p") were mispelled. Errors such as this put me off and colors my opinion a great deal.

OK, OK, so it's not "War and Peace." But Lydia's series are really fun. I've been following most of them, and even though some of them (like this one) leave a few loose ends unexplained at the end, they just don't disappoint. This one is a continuation of the veterinarian's adventures begun in "Dr. Nightingale Comes Home." (There must be more than six in the series now and yes, they do follow a sequence.) If you like this type of book, I also suggest Lydia Adamson's "A Cat..." series (I believe they start with "A Cat of a Different Color") and Lucy Wayles mysteries ("Beware the Tufted Duck"). Then let me know what your picks are and what authors you like.

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`The Epistle of James' by James B. Adamson, 1976, 227 pages in the series The New International Commentary on the New Testament; `The Letter of James' by Douglas J. Moo, 2000, 271 pages, a volume in the series The Pillar New Testament Commentary; and `James' by Ralph P. Martin, 1988, 240 pages, A volume in the series Word Biblical Commentary are all `full featured' and recent commentaries on the first of the short `catholic' epistles in the New Testament.

I find it amazing how different the material is in these three volumes. After 1800 years of commentary, one would expect a fair amount of uniformity in thinking about this short letter, but there is a remarkable range of differences in emphasis among the three.

Those of you who are familiar with the world of biblical commentary will recognize that all three are part of major series of commentaries. Adamson and Moo belong to series dedicated to the New Testament, while Martin's volume is an offering of a larger series on both Old and New Testaments. And, each volume is organized in a way to match the editorial style of their series. This is most clearly seen in Martin's volume, as his work is organized in virtually the same way as the much larger work on Paul's Epistle to the Romans by the distinguished scholar, James D. G. Dunn. This is no surprise, as Martin is the New Testament editor for his series, the Word Biblical Commentary.

Ranked by scholarly detail, Martin has the most and Adamson has the least, with Moo somewhere in between; but don't take from this that Martin is heavy on the Greek and Adamson has no original Greek. All three are specifically written for the scholar and assume that the reader either knows classical Greek or is willing to slog through all the Greek words and expressions. The irony here is that while Martin is the most heavily scholarly, it may also be the most accessible to the lay or strictly pastoral user, since this series divides scholarly observations into the `Comments' on each paragraph, while more general thoughts are spelled out in straight English in the `Form/Structure/Setting' section and later in the `Explanation' section following the `Comments'. Adamson organizes all his `special' or more technical topics in `Excursus' sections following his main commentary. I found this just a tad distracting, especially when I discovered some mistakes in references to these Excursus sections in the main text.

All three authors give us their own translations of the text, and all three agree on where the difficult phrases are to be found. If I were to pick a volume purely on the basis of their translation, I would prefer Adamson, as he seems to give translations that best resolve these difficult sections. But, in all three cases, the authors agree on where the difficulties lie and, in general, the nature of the difficulties.

In the three authors' introductory chapter on the author, themes, and canonical status of the letter, all three agree on the major points. They uniformly agree, for example on the belief that the letter does, in fact, represent the thoughts or writings of James, the brother of Jesus, who was head of the Christian Jews in Jerusalem up to about 62 CE. They also agree that the final form of the letter was rewritten and polished sometime in the early 2nd century, CE. The authors are also uniform in their citing Martin Luther's misunderstanding of James; however, I would give Luther credit for seeing scriptural support of many Roman Catholic doctrines, even if any sound reading of `James' shows that this support is probably stretching James points just a little too far.

On the major themes of the letter, I generally prefer Martin's emphasis on the three topics of `Wisdom', `Perfection', and `The Piety of the Poor' to the other authors' interest in theology and the law. James is clearly spending less times on these typically Pauline topics than he is on lessons for a Christian life.

Among all the other differences, it is most remarkable to see all the differences between how the three authors structure an outline of the short letter. If you didn't know better, you may think they were talking about two different writings. This is just a symptom of the fact that `James' is much less a theological argument a la `Romans' and much more a collection of lessons on prayer, right Christian behavior, and the implications of faith. This is consistent with the fact that the letter has much in common with the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Matthew (See Martin).

One last difference I detect between the three is the fact that Martin makes more connections to modern theology of, for example Dietrich Bonhoffer, while Moo and Adamson have more citations to the great reformers, Calvin and Luther.

If I had to pick only one of these, I would go with Martin's volume in the Word Biblical Commentary series. If I were interested only in pastoral interpretation, I would go with Moo or the article `The Letter of James' by Luke Timothy Johnson in `The New Interpreter's Bible', since both refer heavily to the standard NIV and NRSV translations. If your interest is in a scholarly study of the letter, you will probably want all three.

The New International Commentary on the New Testament is generally an excellent series because of its highly readable narritave, conservative viewpoint, high scholarship, and the pastoral love that comes through in the narrative. In this particular volume in the series, however, the "high scholarship" overshadows the other three characteristics of this series, making it a very disappointing read for this reviewer.

The Reverend Doctor James Adamson, a Presbyterian minister in Santa Rosa, California, writes in the Introductin that one of the chief goals of this commentary is to prove that James carefully plotted out his epistle, and that it was not (as many commentators believe) an unstructured collection of random thoughts. This goal and the scholarly way in which it is pursued makes this commentary fairly confusing and did not do much to strengthen either my faith in Christ or my understanding of James' epistle in general.

Adamson employes two techniques frequently. One is his habit of finding a word or theme in the text of the epistle, then connecting it to the same word or theme elsewhere in the epistle to prove its structure and unity. The second technique is to introduce and explain what other (disagreeing) scholars say about a particular section of James, then (once the oppornent is fully explained) Adamson presents his own view, explaining why his view is superior. I found myself quite frustrated with these techniques. In the first technique, I found myself agreeing that a structure exists, but Adamson doesn't draw any conclusions from these connections as far as the overall message of James is concerned. ("Sure, he talks about the evils of uncontrolled speech earlier as well. Yes, it shows unity in the epistle, but so what? How does this help me in my faith life and how can I communicate this to the congregation members in a sermon/Bible Study?") The second techniques is also frustrating because I really don't need to fully understand a theory that Adamson will debunk in a few paragraphs anyway. If I wanted to know what Martin Luther thinks about James, I'll read Martin Luther. But I'm not reading Luther, I'm reading Adamson. I want Adamson to present what he thinks without having to first disagree with Luther.

While there are many aspects of this book that I did not enjoy, there were others that I thought were helpful. I appreciated the fact that Adamson kept his textual criticism to the footnutes and the excursis sections. Textual criticism on a Catholic Epistle is always an issue, and he handled it quite well here. Furthermore, his treatment of Extreme Unction, his sensitivity to the Jewish background of the book, and his efforts to show the complimentary relationship between Paul's theology and James' theology are all helpful and appreciated.

In all, Adamson tends to gravitate more toward the scholarly issues involved in James--the ones seminary professors would be interested in, as opposed to the ones pastors and lay people would find helpful. I fully believe that Adamson knows this Biblical book and can apply it in a way helpful to church work professionals, but he did not do this in this volume.

Mildly recommended.

Combined an indepth analysis of legal issues with perceptive on point illustrative examples. Very helpful for my high school class.

This book should please those who are looking for a colorful book to keep high school students interested in what many might consider a dry subject. It covers a host of topics and issues and will lead students to think. However, it is marred by its appalling ignorance of economic analysis. The worst example is in Chapter 2 where it offers up some comments on the "idea of profit maximization". Any student who has had a principles course in economics is likely to see these comments for what they are, namely the kind of rhetoric one would expect from someone manning one of the ubiquitous anti-globalization tables at a large university.

This book covers everything I needed to know to work with Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. It covers the issues how to install IIS 5, setting up Websites, and management issues. There are loads of step through exercises, and plenty of screen captures to walk you through the tasks you need to know to manage a Web. A very complete book.

This is e-mail I have sent to the editor of this book:

This is a book for the people who like puzzles. I have just started to read it and even in the beginning I've found a lot of controversy. On page 10 in paragraph 5 (considering Note as a paragraph) you read: "With Windows NT 4, Microsoft moved the GDI, or Graphics Device Interface (the display part of NT), to the Kernel. Previous versions of Windows 2000 had these services in User mode".

But on page 40 the first paragraph under the "Why the lost legacy?" section you can read:"Keep in mind that Windows 2000 follows Windows NT in having the Graphics Device interface (GDI) in User instead of Kernel as in previous Windows NT versions".

So, where GDI is actually located??? I was not awared that we have had previous versions of Windows 2000. What are they? Or did the author mean Win95, Win98, WinNT as previous versions? In that case they are not version of Windows 2000, just versions of Windows. Or may be I have missed information about previous versions of Windows 2000?

I have to find now a different source of Windows 2000 information, because after the problems I've encountered in this book it is a waste of my time to read it at all.

I read it and I still dont understand what the point was. There has to be a better way to portray the elderly than a bunch of bohemian Californian weirdies who have no clue. At least I hope there is.

Alice Adams uses her trademark writing style to chronicle the aging process among a tightly knit, yet diverse group of friends. They are unalike, but their judgements toward each other are mild. They make comprimises because, when you get down to it, they need each other. They are alone, lost their mates, or are a heartbeat away from losing their mates.

Aging is a drag, but Alice Adams has a way of softening it. It's always a pleasure to get to know her characters. She gets inside their heads and shows (through the help of limited parentheticals) what they are immediately thinking as they are saying something else. They are not forced upon us. Tragedies happen in this story, but they aren't the easy emotional or manipulative bombs that a lesser author would overuse.

It's an engaging read. Unfortunately, this book is not as good as her Superior Women.

Written more than a decade before "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" made it okay for adults to enjoy animated cartoons, Joe Adamson's labor-of-love tribute to cartoon pioneer Tex Avery is a must-have for any scholar of animation. Containing perhaps the only extensive interview with Tex Avery before his death before 1980, the book looks back on the illustrious career of a shy, quiet man whose only ambition was to make people laugh. Walt Disney and Chuck Jones are the two most famous names of the Golden Age of cartoons, but they both owe a debt to Tex Avery. In addition to the personal look at Avery's life, the book contains a complete filmography of Avery's theatrical cartoons, plus interviews with the people Tex worked with over the years. While the 1996 book "Tex Avery" by John Canemaker provided a look at the more tragic side of Avery's career (as well as a wealth of background and behind-the-scenes material), Adamson's book is still the definitive look at the fun-loving, innocent personality of the creator of Droopy Dog, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the man who broke the shackles of "realism" in animation by declaring, "In a cartoon you can do anything!"

This book is worthless because :
- it offers little insight into Avery's genius
- it's short on the man's biography
- it focuses too much on the cartoons
- a large portion of it is made up of interviews with Avery and others; it's easy to write books that way, using text that's already written
- every picture is in black and white; not a single one in colour; would you like to watch Avery's cartoons in b & w ?
- it is printed on mediocre paper; when you're reading a page you are very much aware of the pictures printed on the other side of the page
- it's grossly overpriced