Adamson Books

The book has a definate Left bias but it is still a very good read and illustrates the importance of community involvement in protecting a river. In this case it is the St. Croix River versus a coal fired power plant. The plant was built along the shores of what was called the cleanest water system in the midwest. The book delas with the ways in which public involvment forced NSP to change some of the plans for their plant to be more environmentally friendly.

Beware the Laughing Gull by Lydia Adamson

I've rather enjoyed the Alice Nestleton books by this author, but more for the theater background than the cats. Heresy, I know. I tried one of the Dr. Nightingale books, and found it so hard going, there was no inclination to try any of the later ones about this erstwhile female veterinarian. Somehow, I missed the first two books in this new series about bird-watchers in New York--Central Park, to be exact. On further thought, I don't think I did miss much that I'd care to replace.

Subtitled "A Lucy Wayles Mystery" I found her to be a rather obnoxious and uninteresting character, once I'd gotten over the surprise of discovering that the first-person narrator wasn't Lucy. Rather, it is a male retired doctor, Markus Bloch, who is at least one sandwich short of a picnic, although long on patience. Lucy and Markus are the eldest of the six-member group of bird-watchers centering the story. Markus is totally in love with Lucy, who either uses or ignores him. Or talks in riddles over, behind and around him.

If you like puzzles in which most of the important clues are missing; if you like being part of what seems like several conversations going on at the same time, although it's usually only the same two folks talking--Lucy and Markus--then you might like this enigmatic book which is over-loaded with non sequitors. I can promise that the solution will come as a major surprise to the reader, as there was not one clue anywhere until about 30 pages from the end of the book. Sorry, but I find no reason to recommend this book, and probably not any of the others in the series, either, if they're all like this one. I haven't the patience that Markus has, to begin with.

Enjoy all the series this author puts out under the Adamson name. These books are great to read and move along enough to keep interest up. I have never been to Central Park but writer makes me feel right there with his words. But please mister author give your male lead a small backbone transplant. I know he is lovesick for Lucy ( and wish someone was that way with me) but I feel so sorry for him that even in his own home he is afraid of his roommate. The man needs a quite, safe place to go to after a day with Lucy. This "roommate" needs to sniff out a clue once in a while to earn his keep so to speak. Anyway, the male lead telling the story spins a good tale in an way that makes me look forward to the next book. Would like to see some more snippets of birding facts scattered about. It is nice to be entertained and educated at the same time without really knowing it.

The reviewer from California is way off base. Lydia Adamson is the pseudonym of Franklin B. (Frank) King, so I would say that HE is well-qualified to write as a male character in the first person.

I am an avid mystery reader and bird watcher. This book satisfied neither in me. First of all, the author is a woman but she writes in the first person singular as a male. That male is not her detective, but an older gentleman smitten with love for a older, yet attractive, female sleuth (how many older men do you know who are hot for an older woman who scorns him She must be nuts, right?). Not only does the female sleuth solve the mystery but she seems to tantalize the poor, hapless, narrator in a manner in which only a female author could imagine. What great mystery writer who is female writes in the first person as a male? Agatha Cristie has her Poirot; Dorothy Sayers has her Lord Peter; Ngaio Marsh has her Roderick Alleyn. These great mystery writers knew enough to not write as if they were the male hero in the first person. There nothing to make this book memorable for a bird watcher either. There also was no way for the reader to figure out "who dunnit and why." There were no clues, except for the enigmatic Lucy saying, "Hmmm" to her poor, hapless narrator that is in love with her - Gosh! what is his name? Give us a break Ms. Admason and get a clue!

I had read Swan Adamson's other two books My 3 Husbands and Confessions of a Pregnant Princess and was looking forward to getting the newest installment in the life of Venus Gilroy. Then I started to read it and got very confused. The book starts off shortly after My Three Husbands left off, but then so did Confessions of a Pregnant Princess. It is hard to tell wither this is supposed to come before Confessions of a Pregnant Princess or if this is what really happened and Venus just wished that what happened in Confessions of a Pregnant Princess happened to her.

"Memoirs" was a laugh a minute....as an older woman I was tickled that I could identify all the neurotics from my own life in these well written characters.......give us more "Venus"!!!

When I got the email that this was out and I paid a HUGE full price for it, I was truly expecting to be wowed with news of Venus. Instead you get a confusing, and BORING story that looks like it should have been released YEARS ago. What the heck? I don't understand what happened here.

"Cat in the Manger" is a ridicious mystery authored by a hack. Our heroine, Alice Nestleton is a off-off Boradway actress, and tries to discover why her old friend was brutally murdered. Soon, she discovers it's connected to horse racing. The exact reason why the man was killed has got to be the worst idea in the history of writing. The conclusion to this over-the-top saga is mind-numbling dumb(and yes, it has a cat connection).

Do you love cats? Do you dream of cold winter days lying cozily on your chaise, a cup of hot cocoa beside you? Do you love cozy mysteries If you answered yes to all of the above, then the new Alice Nestleton series by Lydia Adamson are the right stuff for you. This is a light but highly inventive mystery and I can tell it will be a successful series. In this first installment, we are introduced to a courageous sleuth by the name of Alice Nestleton. She is an off-off-Broadway actress, who is trying to move away from the classical Shakespeare plays and into the new avant-garde theatre. In the meantime, she supplements her vocation with cat-sitting around New York. As befitting a cat-lover, Alice has two cats: a Maine Coon named Bushy, and a frightened, domestic gray shorthair she rescued from the ASPCA by the name of Pancho. It's Christmas time and Alice is preparing for her annual cat-sitting job in a run-down horse-farm near the Hamptons, taking care of eight Himalayans for Harry and Jo Starobin; he a famous ex-cat judge and champion animal lover, she his faithful wife. When Harry fails to pick her up at the local train station as previously arranged, Alice is intrigued. She finds her own way to the farm via a taxi. Upon arrival, Alice finds things eerily normal, but it is only when she starts to get settled into her cottage that she finds Harry's corpse hanging from the back of the door. When a second murder happens to one of Harry's friends who lived just down the road, Alice puts her powers of deduction to work. She will have to deal with a pestering detective, Starobin's grieving widow and his young lover who surreptitiously disappears along with a calico barn cat and all her kittens. A connection? Maybe. Alice decides the case is worth investigating when Jo Starobin shows her a very large sum of money her husband left without explanation of how he got it. In order to solve the case, Alice will put her own life at risk, entering into high-stakes involving horse-racing and special cat genetics, geared toward producing miraculous mascots in the shape of calico cats.

"A cat in the manger" has the perfect mix of cat lore and sleuthing. I especially enjoyed the way the cats are very much at the center of the story, but they do not possess special powers. This leaves a good balance for the main character - the sleuth - to play her role naturally. Ms. Adamson obviously knows her craft very well, which involves not only the world of cats, but how to develop a good story thanks to what I sense is a background in the theatre industry.

The author has the knack for taking a simple topic and hiding it in a wordy description. It's too bad there is not a negative star rating.

I didn't find it that bad ! At least not as bad as it was previously reviewed. There are some good examples and the theory is well explained.

I reccomend this book to anyone who needs info on stress management. Simple, effective techniques to help you manage stress are easy to apply to your daily life.

The Everything Ghost Book is very good and informative; I bought The Everything Stress Management Book because I thought it would be of the same quality. I was mistaken. The only thing I learned from this book is that farting and burping (together) -- yes, thats right, FARTING & BURPING -- are the 5th Worst Habit of Americans.

I bought this book hoping that it would help me reduce stress (I have an anxiety disorder and migraine headaches triggered by stress), the book itself made me even more tense, so much so, I did not finish it. I purchased it with the hopes that The Everything Stress Management Book would include instructions for stress reduction techniques. Instead, all Eve Adamson writes about these stress reduction techniques is to tell the reader to take a class about any number of techniques. She does spend quite a bit of time attacking people who take the easy way out, which I admit I do sometimes (i.e. picking up something to go for dinner rather than cooking it yourself, etc.). I barely have enough time to get all of my things done already; I don't have time for a class.

The reason that I purchased the book is so that I could practice stress reduction techniques in the privacy of my own home at anytime of the day or night. I was very disappointed.

Having recently read the Born Free series for the first time, as an introduction to Joy Adamson and her life in Africa---Wild Heart was terribly disappointing.
I believe it fair to say that one will learn the most about Joy Adamson from reading her own books of the Born Free series--as this author does not capture the life of this incredible woman. For a more personal look at Joy Adamson, perhaps her own book called The Searching Spirit would be the material. Wild Heart does not live up to the reviews on its dust jacket. The wonderful photo of Joy on the cover of the book was the most wonderful part of the book! I also noted a discrepancy between what the author stated in Wild Heart and Joy's own book Forever Free. Joy told of having to go out of town while Elsa the lioness was ill. Upon returning anxiously to camp, she found George in his camp chair---silent, no words were spoken. By his silence and the way he looked at her---she knew Elsa was dead. Wild Heart stated that George said, "She's gone Joy." This directly opposes the profound silence Joy describes in her book.
My advice is to pass on this one.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to raise orphaned wild animals like lions, cheetahs, and leopards? Wild Heart, by Anne E. Neimark, is a biography of Joy Adamson, who spent most her life helping animals. She rescued animals, wrote books about the animals she rescued, and founded many wildlife preserves. She also painted many pictures of plants and animals. She became most famous for her book Born Free, the story of how she adopted three orphaned lion cubs, especially Elsa, who she helped to live in the wild again. Through Born Free she taught people new things about lions that they did not know before. For instance, nobody thought Elsa could survive in the wild, "By November 1958 Elsa was spending many days and nights in the brush, obviously able---- against all odds given by animal behaviorists---- to survive." From this book I learned about the remarkable life Joy Adamson had.

I thought Wild Heart was a mediocre book. In the beginning, the book told the story of a person named Friederike. Little did I know this was Joy Adamson's real name. It confused me because it didn't explain this until late in the book. The beginning talked mostly of her life as a child which I found very boring and unclear. In the middle, the author talks about Joy's several marriages. It also talks about her painting plants a lot, but it goes into way too much detail. " She painted the blue-green delphinium, the ruby red everlasting, the scarlet gladiolus, and the giant, tree-sized groundsel with its golden flowers poised like praying hands."

The end of the book was a lot more interesting to me because it is about the adoption of Elsa and the other cubs, and about all the other animals she adopted. The book reaches its climax during this part especially when she first adopts the cubs because it was a life changing decision. The book also told how she made such a big difference for animals by establishing many wildlife preserves, and raising interest and awareness about orphaned animals, suggesting ways we can help. "...she launched Elsa Wild Animal Appeal in Africa, a charity to help animals living where they were unwanted by human beings; she also set up the Nature Conservancy Committee to issue grants from her royalties. She hired an animal rescue team and bought them a truck..." Her books led to many donations and other good things for the animals.

Overall, the book was not the best. I would recommend finding out a little bit about Joy Adamson before reading this book. It would have been helpful to know a general description of her life because then the unclear parts would make more sense. Also, if animals and plants do not interest you, do not read this book. The story of Joy Adamson was very interesting, but I found this book to be boring and unclear.

I couldn't agree more with previous reviews of this book. For the average student, it is very difficult to follow. The derivations are not clear and many terms are not clearly defined, leaving you flipping back through the textbook to find where the term was first referenced. There are no example problems either, leaving the reader wondering how and if the numerous equations are actually used. It is worse than reading the appendix of a calculus textbook. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

I had this book as my textbook for my "surface science" class. It is a great book for reference though it does take time and effort to comb through chapters to find what you need. A lot of detailed paper-review-style chaptors which is great for research while it is a little bit overwhelming to people without any physical chemistry background.

How useful and valuable this book is largely depends on what you expect from it. This book provies an overview of the extremely broad field of surface chemistry. As a starting point to learning about that field, this book is excellent. There is validity to the criticisms offered by some other reviewers of this text. The derivations often don't give enough detail and there's not much help in the way of example problems, which can make it difficult for the student to use in a classroom setting. Do not expect extremely detailed and thorough treatments of any particular area of surface chemistry. Nearly any chapter in this book could (and does) have entire texts (and courses) devoted exclusively to that one subject. What you can expect from this book is an introduction to the key areas of surface chemistry. The book is loaded with references to point the interested reader in the right direction for more detailed and thorough treatments of the variety of different areas of surface chemistry. For this reason, I have found it to be a good starting point for learning more about several subjects. In short, this book is excellent if you want a broad overview of the field or need a place to start learning about a particular area of surface chemistry. It's not worth much if you are looking for extremely in depth, thorough treatments of specific areas of surface chemistry.

I used this book as a text in my class 'Physical Chemistry of Liquids, Interfaces, and Colloids'. This book is not a textbook. My students are complaining all the time about the presentation of topics as well as the extent of derivations, interpretations, and lack of examples. I must admit that I have made a mistake for choosing this text for my course. If you are planing to use it as a text, please go through a few of the derivations and you will notice that the book offers very little to a student.

I have found the book very difficult to follow. The book reads more like a research paper than a textbook, in both style and content (for example, there are too many references, most of which are completely unnecesary). Many symbols are left undefined. There are many gaps in the derivations. Many concepts (e.g. the Maragoni effect) are introduced out of proper context. I would not recommend it to anybody. Get an earlier edition if you can.

Book has misleading information, with a lot of practice questions that lack detail and are very broad on any of the exam objectives. A real waste of time.

Just A waste of time. Impossible to memorise all these questions. Ideal for someone whose been networking for some years and thinking about getting certified.

This author, in the first chapter, admits that the actual 70-058 exam contains questions that are more general than the questions this book poses. If this is true, why bother confusing the reader with questions which are unnecessarily difficult, misleading, and downright incorrect? A number of the questions asked don't necessarily test your knowledge, but instead poses hypothetical situations which borders on the silly (e.g. a question asks you how would you build a network next to a hydro powered dam!) To give this book some credit, some of the questions are good review reminders and they do help you keep in mind the little details that you would tend to forget. You're better off sticking to the study guide from IDC books and having faith in your own abilities. The practice questions posed here do throw you off a bit and infuses doubt into your head, which is not good for passing any exam.

It seems that in the rush to beat the competition to market there was not enough time to even proof read the book. It is full of incorrect statements, typos and even incorrect answers to the practice questions. I find this approach irresposible and maybe even dishonest. On the other hand the wording of most of the questions is infantile, full of irrelevant statements and to my feeling, patronizing. Even assuming (and I am not sure) that the author has a thorough knowledge of the subject matter, he is most unqualified to teach. He takes the approach of impressing the student with how much he knows (snow job) rather than sharing his knowledge with the reader. I feel that the publisher owes me for the time I wasted enduring this book at my regular consulting rates. I have 33 years experience with computing, five of which I tought programming at NYU. For an example of sloppiness see pages 32 and 33.

This book is littered with ambiguities. Many questions are obviously incorrect, and worse yet, they teach you the wrong thing.

Don't get this one. It'll only confuse you and cause you to question the knowledge you already have.

This book is very user unfriendly and the chapters go into to much detail and are also too long. The chapter summaries at the end of each section are very poorly written and don't discuss the highlights of the material as it should.