Beck Books

I have long been a John Grisham fan. My personal favorite is his first book, A Time to Kill, later adapted into a successful film. Some of Grisham's books are heavily influenced by Christianity. The Testament and The Last Juror come to mind. The Chamber is John Grisham's best-selling book - ever. And for good reason. From beginning to end, it is an engrossing read. The reader flies through the 600+ pages, as Grisham paints a picture of a family wrecked by the sinful racism of the father.

The Chamber tells about a fictional character named Sam Cayhall, condemned to the gas chamber because of a crime he committed in the late 1960's against a Jewish lawyer. Cayhall was an accomplice in setting a bomb that destroyed the lawyer's office and unintentionally killed the lawyer's two twin boys. With just a month before his execution date, Cayhall's grandson, a fresh, young lawyer named Adam Hall, arrives on the scene to save the day.

The Chamber forces the reader to wrestle with the idea of the death penalty. Thankfully, Grisham does not make Cayhall out to be a victim. The crimes are described in horrific detail, and we later discover that Cayhall was guilty of even more egregious sins than the one for which the government wants to execute him.

As the characters remember past events, the picture of sin and its consequences becomes more and more disturbing. Cayhall's son commits suicide. The Jewish lawyer whose sons were killed in the bombing is paralyzed and later kills himself. Cayhall's daughter becomes an alcoholic and spends significant time in rehab. While the father shows no remorse for his actions, the children suffer under unbearable guilt and shame. I have never read a book that so clearly demonstrates how God visits the iniquity of the fathers to the next generations.

But there is redemption here, too. As the book progresses, Cayhall's defenses begin to fall. He becomes repentant. He looks forward to his visits with a young minister. He affirms the Apostle's Creed and places his faith in God. By the end, he is ready to face death and to meet his Maker.

I heartily recommend The Chamber for its picture of sin and the destructive force it leaves in its wake, but also for the redemption that can come to even the most hardened criminal.

If you skip the book and decide to rent the movie, be aware. The movie isn't half as good as the book. (I know everyone always says this, but trust me on this one.) The redemption scenes are absent from the movie, as well as the minister's role. The consequences of sin are minimized. The directors added action to the movie that is not found in the book, and this makes the movie much less compelling.

A wonderful book although I am late in reading it based on the publication date.
It kept me up late reading it and the characters were well written.
Slightly disapppointed in the late Rollie appearance which I thought Lee was tied to but never the less Sam protected his family and I sort of liked him at the end and felt bad for him.
The beginning of the book was quick moving and I enjoyed the pace.
Hats off to John Grisham.
Staci

If your idea of a good book is one where there is lots of action and fascinating twists and turns of plot complications pop up on every page, you shouldn't go anywhere near The Chamber. If, however, you would like to gain a visceral sense of the issues around capital punishment, The Chamber is a well-constructed fictional treatment. It won't be a pretty or a pleasant experience, but neither is capital punishment.

I remember as a youngster carefully following the case of Caryl Chessman, a convicted robber and rapist who was executed in California's gas chamber. Reading The Chamber brought back those visceral memories of thinking through my reactions to the death penalty. I became an opponent. Most people who read this book will too.

John Grisham does a good job of making the book about the death penalty, rather than the general flaws in the legal system. He also explains the reasons why gas chambers were an awful way to execute criminals.

The condemned man in the story is clearly guilty, by his own admission, in the book; but Grisham makes him somewhat appealing: Grisham wants us to think about what should happen to this old white man, Sam Cayhall, a KKK member who participated in terror bombings in the South during the Civil Rights era. Grisham's clever idea for this book is to have Sam's grandson Adam Hall, who doesn't know his grandfather, handle the last few weeks of desperate appeals. Hall becomes a surrogate for a neutral observer in a situation where there can be no neutral observers.

I was impressed by the plotting and character development in the story. Murder creates more victims than most people realize, even among the killer's family. Grisham adds those dimensions in persuasive fashion.

The book's main weakness is that he pushes our noses a bit too much into nitty gritty of defending Death Row cases. Unless you are a lawyer (which I am), you won't find a lot of this very interesting. But if you are lawyer who hasn't been near a capital case, you'll find this book to be quite startling in terms of describing a situation for defense lawyers where they have little hope to win . . . but lots of chances to experience a broken heart.

If you want a shorter look at Grisham's views on the subject, you might enjoy the non-fiction The Innocent Man more than The Chamber.

i love grishams books and his style of writing but the chamber was boring and not very interesting

This book was a very pedestrian effort. It was a straight line through a death penalty case. No plot twists, nothing really that interesting at all. At over 600 pages it was too long. You can spend your time and money better elsewhere

I grew up in a town that was 98% Mormon. Being in the minority, I spent my youth being either left out because I wasn't Mormon or barraged by members of the church to become one of them. If they are anything, Mormons are as relentlessas they are exclusionary. So I thought I knew a just about everything I'd ever want to know about them and their religion.

In that, I was wrong.

I've come to admire and trust Martha Beck through her other books and articles. She is funny and brutely honest in equal parts. In this book, she tells what would in the hands of any other writer been either excuriatingly painful or angry. Instead she treats her childhood sexual abuse by her father, one of Mormonism's inner circle, with compassion and understanding. Along the way, she tells the most honest account of her childhood religion that I've yet come across -- at her peril. Within the Mormon religion, there are those zealots who would do ANYTHING to stop someone from revealing things that might put their beliefs in question. Now that I've read this book, I know now why my gut was telling me to steer clear of all those efforts to convert me. And I am even more a fan of Martha Beck.

Leaving the Saints is a valuable book for anyone interested in closely taking a look at what they believe and why. I grew up enmeshed within religion and spirituality, most of which was taught and ingrained into my mind from as early as I can remember. While it is frightening for me to take an unbiased (as much as is possible anyway) look into my own belief system, it is necessary to do so. I don't want to be settled on what I believe primarily because it was the mainstream religion within my circle of friends and family. I want to search things out for myself, whatever the outcome. That is the journey I'm on right now, and this book is helping and encouraging me to do just that.

I underlined so many parts of this book, thoroughly taken by the wit and wisdom within Martha's writing and experiences. I am not a Mormon and never have had much exposure to this religion, but that didn't matter. Mormonism was interesting to read about, but I was utterly captivated by Martha's candid and almost raw way of expressing her story. She's truly a gifted writer and thinker. I love the way her train of thought develops through each chapter. A definite thumbs up from me!

Leaving the Saints is Martha Beck's second memoir. Chronologically, it picks up where Expecting Adam left off, although Adam, Martha's Down syndrome child, does not figure significantly in the memoir. This book is the story of Martha's and her husband John's return from Harvard to Utah and return from atheism to Mormon faith. It is also the story of their subsequent disillusionment with Mormonism, Martha's confrontation of her father about the childhood sexual abuse she allegedly received at his hands, and Martha's and John's final abandonment of Mormonism. Additionally, this book is the story of Martha's continuing spiritual wanderings.

Like Expecting Adam, this book was an engrossing read. I found it most interesting for the insider view it offered of Mormon faith and life in Zion. ("Zion" is the Latter-day Saint designation for any community dominated by Mormons; the rest of the world is designated "Babylon.") The Mormon community Martha describes is hard-working, earnest, uncynical, kind, neighborly, and family oriented. There is much about it that is appealing.

But, as Martha puts it, "There are layers and layers of Latter-day Saint culture, and niceness is only the top layer...." There is also much that is slightly odd, for example, the "sacred" underwear that faithful Mormons wear, the secretive temple wedding rituals, and the expectation that men wear socks to hide their ankle hair. And there is much that is downright dark: the ostracism of non-Mormons (even non-Mormon children in public schools), the censorship of "alternative voices" at Brigham Young University (even erasure of articles about Mormon dissidents from mainstream newspapers in the university library archives), the high level of control exercised by the Church's General Authorities over all aspects of Mormon life (even bugging of telephone lines), the widespread use of antidepressants, the generally low status of women, and the apparent high rates of sexual abuse of children.

I also found interesting Martha's excursions into Mormon history and beliefs. I am not very knowledgeable about this topic, but my overall impression is that Mormons are saddled with a history and belief system that would create a lot of cognitive dissonance for earnest believers. For example, Mormons believe that certain American Indian tribes have their roots in Jewish peoples who migrated to the western hemisphere around 600 B.C., and that Christ visited these tribes after his ministry in Palestine. This story, which is unsupported by historical and archeological data, was supposedly set forth on gold plates that Joseph Smith (Mormonism's 19th century founder) discovered with the help of an angel and translated into The Book of Mormon with the help of a miraculous pair of spectacles. Unfortunately, the angel did not let Smith keep the gold plates or the spectacles.

Another Mormon scripture, The Pearl of Great Price, is believed by Mormons to be a translation by Joseph Smith of Egyptian papyri that the church purchased in the 19th century. When the papyri were purchased, scholars had not yet learned to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics, but Smith supposedly used his powers as a Mormon seer to translate them. The papyri were subsequently lost for more than 100 years, then rediscovered in the 1960s. During the intervening period, scholars had cracked the hieroglyphic code, so the stage was set to prove or disprove Smith's translation. As it turned out, the papyri were nothing but common Egyptian funerary documents and bore no resemblance to the story contained in The Pearl of Great Price.

One of the interesting threads that runs through Martha's memoir is the role of her father, Hugh Nibley, in the Mormon Church. Nibley was a highly regarded BYU professor and apologist for the Mormon faith. When the Egyptian papyri were rediscovered, the Church sent Nibley to the University of Chicago to study Egyptian so he could read the papyri and develop a defense for The Pearl of Great Price. Martha says, "I wonder what my father must have thought as his able mind soaked up Egyptian and he began to read Joseph Smith's famous papyri." She even suggests that the stress caused by his impossible assignment may have been one of the factors that caused him to abuse her. According to Martha, Nibley considered several approaches for explaining Joseph Smith's "translation" of the papyri, but in the end he simply claimed that no one really understood Egyptian and therefore present-day translations of the papyri by modern scholars were worthless.

Leaving the Saints describes many interesting (and often quirky or disturbing) parts of Mormon faith and history, but even more than this, it is about Martha's confrontation of her father about the sexual abuse she believes he inflicted on her as a child. I am not sure what to make of this part of the memoir. I was very skeptical when I began reading, but I must admit that Martha's case was more compelling than I expected. On Martha's side of the ledger, there is her vaginal scarring, her recovered memories of abuse (triggered by her return to her hometown, not by therapy), her mother's acknowledgement (later denied) that Martha's father abused her, her father's own experience of abuse as a child, various anecdotal evidence suggesting high rates of child sexual abuse in Mormon communities, and various data suggesting that Martha's father lacked integrity in other areas of his life (e.g., faking references in scholarly articles). But on the other side of the ledger, there are the denials by Martha's father and mother that any abuse occurred, the fact that none of Martha's seven siblings believe she was abused or were themselves abused, the questionable credibility of recovered memories, and Martha's somewhat strange (possibly instable) personality.

Lastly, Leaving the Saints is about Martha's continuing spiritual quest and her evolving spirituality. I found this part of her memoir least interesting, probably because it made the least sense to me. It bothered me that Martha was so rational when it came to dissecting and dismantling her Mormon faith, but so very non-rational, mystical, emotional, New Age-ish, etc., when she described her new spirituality. Near the end of the memoir, Martha says, "I am free, and always have been; free to accept my own reality, free to trust my perceptions, free to believe what makes me feel sane even if others call me crazy...." This tone is fairly common in her discussions of her spiritual journeying, but contrasts with her more careful, methodical approach elsewhere in the memoir.

Overall, Martha is a smart, entertaining writer. I enjoyed both Expecting Adam and Leaving the Saints. However, both books left me with feelings of disbelief of certain parts of Martha's stories.

Is it too cynical to wonder if Martha Beck and the publisher waited to publish the book in March 2005 until her father, who she accused of sexual abuse, died in February 2005 so that he couldn't file Defamation of Character suit? Nah. This book wasn't exactly rushed to press; its time frame is 1988-93.

If Martha Beck had true rape allegations, then they should have been investigated by law enforcement and this book should have been penned in a serious and complete manner. This is not the kind of allegation anyone makes without due process and protection of everybody's rights. The family appears to be looking at the possibility of a lawsuit and that seems an eminently reasonable way to get the facts surrounding this book out on the table once and for all.

You''ve just got to wonder what the publisher was thinking to publish this unsubtantiated thesis of criminal accusations with real people named, accused without investigation, interview, or evidence, and at one point literally held hostage by the author, meanwhile deliberately omitting extremely relevent facts and context that would offer a different possible conclusions. It is a sneaky book; so much is deliberately left out of this book that would provide the reader with a different picture entirely. An investigation may prove that Martha Beck is the only perpetrator in this story.

The entire construct of her absolute surity, her one piece of physical evidence all of it stems from one doctor commenting that she had scarring in her vaginal area, but this was after delivering multiple children vaginally. Irrespective of other possibilites, based entirely on the basis of this one physician statement, Martha Beck develops a hysterical reaction, including graphic mental images of shredding and haphazard healing of the vaginal tissue of a four year old who was raped by an adult male. After this medical comment she begins to have vague recollections of being sexually abused until she has a whole film crew working overtime in her head. With visions and interpretations of spiritual messages coming to her from God, she seems capable of imagining a lot.

Does anyone remember the memory regression fad of the late 80s and the "therapists" out there who were actually creating memories, usually of women "remembering" that they had been sexually abused by their fathers? That's all been largely debunked nowadays and we can assume that it is a very rare thing. Mr. Ramona successfully sued his daughter's therapists and won over half a million dollars in a groundbreaking tort case that strengthened the right of injured family members to sue an irresponsible therapist. (For details read: "Spectral Evidence: The Ramona Case: Incest, Memory, And Truth On Trial In Napa Valley"). A good site: http://www.stopbadtherapy.com/resource/books.shtml M. Beck uses a pseudoname for her therapist. According to the family sites, her counselor's real name during this time of dregging up repressed memories was Lynn Finney, who now is completely out of the business of counselng and uncovering repressed memories. None of this is acknowledged in the book. As a matter of fact on her website now she goes to the other extreme and says memory recovery is completely debunked and was created by a pedophile... huh?

Context-wise, I think it is important to remember that this book was written and rewritten multiple times as fiction, but it kept being rejected. The publisher thought it would have a better chance if it were nonfiction, presumably because Martha Beck had name recognition. Parts are still provably ficticious. One counselor that she gave the pseudoname "Grant" to was agonized over in the nonfiction version as being related to a Grant (real name) in the LDS church and she dithered about in the book as to whether they were related and if she was in danger because of that... ah, course not. It was a ficticious name.

The book has a messy kitchen-sink approach, lots of ranting and raving about Mormon extremism, with which apparently Martha Beck found to be an easy shot. Insider dirt. Personal and mean-spirited stuff, like making them out to be weird about their underwear and secret marriage ceremonies (completely denied by a lot of Mormons as gargage they've never heard of). Anyway, who cares? They're not hurting anybody with their clothes or their marriage ceremonies. I found her mean-spiritedness and arrogance appalling, like her references to the "helmet hair" (styles) of the Mormon women attending a BYU seminar on women's issues. Come on! No heart? Here's the thing: change your opinion and your life if you want... no one is stopping you. Why the vicious personal attacks?

Martha Beck is a self-righteous victim throughout the book, wrapping herself in multiple mantles of victimhood, the penultimate victim with God's peppermint voice in her ear. This stretch-the-truth-'til-it-breaks and then keep going gal presents herself as having God experiences all over the place. Self-reported, of course.

Her tone of feminist militism is hilarious considering that she got her PhD in sociology from Harvard. Not exactly an oppressed life. And, for that matter she's a lesbian now, in spite of co-authoring a book about the evils of being gay with her husband who also came out as gay. And both of them did it after they had three children. But no one cares. No one is denying her right to seek happiness or holding her accountable for any of her polarizing to extremes and then taking the opposite extreme positions or trying to hold both opposing extreme positions. Where's the oppression?

Part way through, in spite of the scorched earth writing about the Mormon doctrine, the Mormon culture, Harvard culture, etc., the pile driving agenda comes through loud and clear: Martha Beck is out to destroy her father. Not only does she not have any sort of evidence or collaboration for her "remembered" rapes from ages 4-7, but the circumstances appear to be virtually impossible for this to have happened as she claimed. Interestingly, she chose to omit from the truth-seeking-about-being-sexually-abused-as-a-child book the singular incident of a neighbor boy who attacked her when she was nine years old, and her father rescued her. Another important omission.

It's bizarre that Martha Beck returns over and over in the book about how her Ivy League education taught her to present evidence and use logic, citing her professor holding up her paper between two fingers "like a dirty nappy" (we can empathize with his feelings) and taking apart her lack of logic and evidence: "eviscerating every false generalization or unsupported extrapolation I had typed... I thought I'd been impeccably fact-based..." Uh huh. And, then she proceeds to accuse her father without a shred of logic or evidence or collaboration, and then she publishes it as fact. It is extraordinarily foul.

It's not just the writing that is foul. Her actions make her the Judge, Jury and Executioner by publishing the book the moment he died, leaving her grieving family with incalcuable pain and no immediate recourse at the worst time in their lives. As far as I'm concerned she can drop the impish cutsy "life coach" act on Oprah. The cat's out of the bag; the jig is up; the fat lady has sung. No truth-seeker is she. This will come as a shock to Martha Beck, but there are actually extremes where one rules the other out. For example, you probably can't accuse your entire family of nefarious crimes and cover up publicly, in print, when they have no recourse and also expect to be cherished among them.

No surprise that her seven siblings and other relatives want nothing to do with her; she is using her public "life coach" platform to tear them to pieces as well as her father. If Martha Beck is to be believed, this book is published testimony to their criminal complicity of multiple rapes of their preschool sibling that took place repeatedly over three years, under their roof, in a tiny house, with a bedroom shared by two sisters, one sister an extremely light sleeper, in a rickety upper bunk, with mother in the room immediately next door, by Dad in an Egyptian costume... oh yeah, and always at 4:00 AM. Not one of her seven siblings backs up even one of her stories and some of them are no longer with the LDS Church (she claims LDS makes sure they can't speak the truth). They would have to be absolute monsters to allow this to happen and monsters to continue to deny it if it were true. Yet, in her book they seem like really nice, kind and caring people. There's the having-both-extremes thing again. The circumstances of this family's upbringing were hard scrabble, with an annual household income of around two thousand dollars for ten people, all family money was earned by her father who translated documents from a number of languages for the LDS Church. This hard- working family life has to include incalcuable untold sacrifices and lost personal opportunities with this kind of austerity. And this book, Martha Beck's book, with its' terrible allegations, is impossible to completely disprove no matter how untrue. I hope that they still have legal recourse. This injustice should not stand.

This book is a real insight into this author's character. Martha Beck never questions herself when she kidnaps her 91 year old father, recently out of the hospital and holds him against his will in a hotel room (she calls it the "Incest Inn") for five hours, with a cousin and a friend hiding in case he says anything incriminating (he doesn't). She is silly when she needs to be serious, fantasy-based when she needs to be fact-based, bold when she should be cautious, callous when she should be kind, criminal when she should be legal.

Martha Beck will probably dine out free on this book for a long time. She deliberately triggered a lot of hate and victim themes in this book presenting herself as a someone who has seen the light on a number of causes; former Mormon advocate, now Mormon-basher; former gay-basher now gay; claim to be a survivor of childhood rape, now militant feminist. I suspect Ms. Beck is a multiple victim, brave hero and scrappy survivor only in her imagination. She presents her book as vigilante justice, but it is criminal.

Inspirational writer, Oprah "Life Coach" and confessed kidnapper Martha Beck does her family and particularly herself an extreme disservice by publishing this vindictive and sour autobiography. Her brother-in-law, Boyd Peterson, in 2002 published a biography of Beck's father and stated that Beck essentially had gone off the deep end accusing her father of crimes perpetrated during the 1960's when she was a prepubescent youth. Given that this book was published on her father's deathbed, the timing should give readers considerable pause as to the motives and stability of Ms. Beck.

Child molestation and sexual assault are serious crimes, and people have a right to expect such crimes to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Former General Authority (Seventy) George Patrick Lee was excommunicated and subsequently pleaded guilty to molestation charges...his high status (much higher than that of Beck's father, who was a BYU Professor and didn't work at Church headquarters) did not immunize Lee from the consequences of his crimes despite any residual embarrassment this very public spectacle would have for the Church. Certainly with a "lay clergy" there are going to be church leaders and even General Authorities who have and will continue to make mistakes in how such matters are handled. Working for a Child Welfare agency, I know that Church policy when such abuse is exposed or alleged in any way--whether or not it be from "confession" (normally protected under state law)--the Church leader is to report this post-haste to the proper authorities and take Church disciplinary action against the perpetrator. That there are lapses in following this policy is human and understandable...but not acceptable.

Ms. Beck accuses her father of a serious crime committed, presumably, sometime in the 1960s. Her sisters absolutely deny that they were victims of anything similar, and assert that Beck's "repressed memories" are the product essentially of a self-serving, attention seeking drama queen (my words, not theirs). Obviously, any statute of limitations would have protected Beck's father from prosecution as the accusations surfaced decades after the alleged sexual assault. Further, even if her father could be prosecuted for the crimes Beck alleges, Beck would be made a fool on cross-examination because her story is so inconsistent and--in some places--ridiculous. There never was any criminal case against her father...

Interestingly enough, Ms. Beck in this book confesses to the felony crime of first degree kidnapping--with an Elderly enhancement--for holding her father (in his 90's and infirm) against his will while attempting to coerce a "confession" in that infamous hotel room; her dippy cousin hiding in the closet would be an assessory. This kidnapping was a focal point of the book as Beck weaves back and forth in the narrative. (Was Beck smart enough to delay publication after the expiration of kidnapping statute of limitation? Is that giving Beck too much credit for being "smart" despite the H-Bombs she constantly drops?? If she is so smart, why would she EVER kidnap her father and then ADMIT to it in a supposedly tell-all non-fiction book???) So perhaps the vulnerable but ostensibly upright Ms. Beck has the right to commit felony crimes because SHE now believes her father committed felony crimes years previous?? Sorry, that's not the way civilized society lets things work...it is an indication that at best Beck is unstable and at worst she is a self-admitted felon who should be writing her Oprah columns from a prison cell. Perhaps she can plead insanity...

In sum, this obscenity of a book makes Beck out to be a delusional manipulator and a shameless/vicious kidnapper, her father to be a bumbling and unstable pedophile, and the Church of her youth to be some sort of quaint but loony totalitarian mind-control police. (See film on the Springer show...) Interesting that Beck and all other Mormon Haters have been free in their zeal to attack the faith of others and to do so despite the "Strengthening Membership Committee" or "Danites" or whatever. Interesting that I was able to read this book right after it was first published and no Church Gestapo came to even confiscate my temple recommend, let alone do me harm. Obviously, there are people with Mormon Church conspiracy theories...the delusional Beck tells those crazies exactly what they want to hear.

Fact is, this book only benefits the Mormon Hater community, which gleefully has received it as a wet-dream come true. Everyone else comes off the loser in this book...especially Beck...her Harvard education apparently didn't make her smart enough to realize how incredibly juvenile and stupid this makes her look, and how it deeply diminishes her other otherwise "inspirational" writings. What a tragedy.

The only reason I gave this book one star is because I couldn't give it less. The book is touted as a entry-level and intermediate manual, but right away it starts off in one of the more advanced aspects of the program (morph gizmo). If I had not been well-versed in 3D Studio Max & had previous 3d experiance, I would have been completly lost. The tutorials are fractured, B&W images in the book are misplaced, and phantom scenes the book refers to on the CD don't exist. I ended up frustrated, angry and uneccesarily $47 poorer. One should check NewTek's site to see what 3rd party instruction they recommend if they want to learn LW. However, if you DON'T want to learn Lightwave you should buy Alban's book.

Inside lightwave 3d is a must for anyone using lightwave. It is a superb well rounded book covering many aspect of the software that you just will not find any where else. Dan ablan book will help you if your new to lightwave or a seasoned professional.

well worth the money

If you need/want to learn Lightwave quickly, this book may not be the best. The sections that cover planning and profesional issues are excellent. The explanations of software functions are OK, but don't expect to much detail into what each action you perform is doing. The tutorials vary in quality. The first few seem out of place. Most of them are lacking in description, and there are quite a few typographical errors and some missing files on the CD. I spend a lot of time reading manuals and doing tutorials for a number of software packages, and this book has some of the most poorly written and constructed I have ever seen. If you don't mind spending LOTS of extra time trying to work through where the authors (there are actually six of them) and editors totally screwed up, take the plunge. But I don't think this book will be worth the money unless it gets re-edited.

I've used Lightwave for a couple of small projects and learnt it a couple of years ago with a good teacher in a Multimedia course.

Since then, I've become a little rusty. This book isn't for you if you want to quickly pick up a few points that you've forgotten. For instance, something as easy as a keyboards shortcuts listing is missing (and with Lightwave being such a "foreign" GUI when compare to Adobe products, you need them!)

This book may be fine for those who have the hang of ii...

The book fails to fully explain some minor steps that a beginner might wish to understand in more detail. Information such as "feel free to look at this image closer by pulling it off this Book's CD-ROM" does not help if you don't know the name of the image, nor in which folder it may be. Also some of the captions don't correspond with the images (e.g. page 68). If you have a lot of time on your hands you may well be able to guess the missing links, but you will probably find yourself doing the lessons over in the belief that you missed an important step, only to discover that it is missing from the book.

I found the explanations in this book to be very clear, giving enough detail for a good head start into Linux internals. The book briefly explains the OS concepts, such as semaphores, virtual memory, etc., followed by an overview of how each is implemented in Linux, and code snippets.

Most of the code snippets are simplified for readability, which I found useful because the hacks can be distracting (scary, too) for a beginner. Detailed and up-to-date information can best be obtained from source code itself.

The book assumes some familiarity with Unix concepts, as it mentions such buzzwords as POSIX, BSD, and SVR4 in the context of the discussions, but one could safely ignore them, and just concentrate on the Linux part.

The book briefly covers adding new system calls, compilinag and debugging the kernel, and even shows how to write a simple device driver - these are hard to find in one place.

Overall, I found this book to be very useful for my self-paced study (the best so far), and I only wish they had a newer edition.

This book is lacked of organization. Some of the concepts are so vague because of the POOR English tone.

I used this book in my operating systems course, and since then I've always relied on it. I've read alot of books, but this book keeps on amazing me, it's very small still, I find every thing in it. However, it's not a uptodate(kernel 2.0), and you can't just dig and look for something, except if you have read most of it, you can't use it as a reference

This book is a little outdated today as it covers the older 2.0 kernels. If you are reading this book and following it up on a 2.4 kernel you will find many changes.The book does contain the source code of the reference kernel it is written on.

I suppose its time a new updated edition is published.

However the commentry on a older kernel does not reduce the value of this book. It is a good book to understand the OS concepts as applied to Linux kernel.This book can be a good companion to Silberschatz/Galvin's "Operating Systems Concept" in a college course.

Another value of this book is purely historical, in case someone desires to compare older and newer kernels with a high-level view.

The stuff in this book is explained in a complex manner. Though it is well organised it lacks clear representation. It looks like linux man-pages are explained in an organised manner. Could be used as a reference book, but not for learning.

The title is misleading, as the book really isn't "Patterns." This is a good terse summary of principles to apply when writing code that others will need to work with.

While the book is light on details or examples, reading it can help you consider what coding and micro design conventions to apply to make your code more readable.

This is a good companion to Bob Martin's Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship (Robert C. Martin Series), as Martin and Beck, excellent coders both, sometimes make opposite recommendations about the same situations. These contrasts drive home the point that rules for good code need to be considered, not just accepted without thought.

Most of the patterns are just common sense but in this case you will also get a practical explanation of its importance. The content's structure is very appropriate; each pattern is explained in concise way, with real world examples and some code snippets.

This book is too terse and the flow of thought is disorganized and lack clarity; at time too vague to know what he is thinking. Also lacking is subsections that branch off from main section. This book is about some implementation practices at code level.
I hope the author can revised this book.

I typically enjoy reading pattern's books and this is going to be one of my all-time favorites. This time Beck talks about patterns "in the small", not the traditional kind of architectural patterns we are used to know. This book it's about those small decisions we make every time we write even a small piece of code. Somebody could think the word "patterns" is misused here, but I tend to disagree and, in the end, I don't even care that much. What really matters to me is that I found valuable advice inside this book and I really enjoyed reading it. In the past Beck's books were always worth reading for me, this one benefit from a more fluid and pleasant writing style too.

The book is about writing readeable/maintanable code. It's an interesting/important subject.

The first few (1-3) pharagraph is good , they clearly explain the values/principles of the topic.
Then the book tries to apply these pricnciples in a structured way - classes, state, behaviour, methods. This is ok, but there's too much repetition going on. And the examples are very small/specific, some more complex/longer examples would be much better.

Then there's 2 whole paragraph about the performance characteristics of various collections (map,hash,etc.), and the description of the framework used to benchmark them. I don't think it has to do anyhting with the topic of the book, and it was probably included to increase the number of pages (by 30 to 150).

Finally, there's also a chapter "Evlolving Frameworks" which is mostly about JUnit 3->4 improvements done by the author. It's an interesting chapter focusing mainly on compatibility issues related to framworks.

So i think this topic from this author would deserve a much better book.

If you are looking into Eclipse plugins programming, this is the book. It not only teaches you the basics but also guides you to the best pratices on Eclipse development, with test driven philosophy. Needless to say, it also covers design patterns used by Eclipse.

This book takes you through a tour on plugin development. The main disadvantage of this book is that it is for Version 2 and not Version 3 of Eclipse. Yes you can somehow manage to translate and find your way around. Anyhow this is quite annoying not always successful and maybe one wants to learn more about the special advertised feature of Eclipse 3: rich client platforms. A topic inherently connected to plugin development. Please give us a new version of this book.

"Contributing to Eclipse" is a great read. More importantly, as someone who is in the middle of their first major Eclipse plugin development project, I learned a lot -- even though I've previously read every other available book on the topic. Gamma and Beck take you through the development of a fairly sophisticated plugin, step by step. Perhaps most welcome, the plugin they develop isn't a syntax-highlighting text editor (an example that's already been done to death,) but a set of tools for running JUnit tests on Java code!

This is the only book I've seen that discusses testing and Test-Driven Development of plugins, a must for serious plugin developers. As you'd expect from the developers of JUnit, they use JUnit to test every piece of functionality they add. Surprisingly, even though you'd expect some confusing in writing about using JUnit to test a JUnit plugin, there's none. Gamma and Beck are both excellent writers, and they know this subject matter inside out.

A word of warning: this is neither an introduction to nor a reference for Eclipse plugin programming. I don't think I would have gotten nearly as much from this book if I hadn't read "Eclipse in Action" and "The Java Programmer's Guide to Eclipse" first. But if you've gotten beyond the novice level with Eclipse, I guarantee you'll learn something by reading this book.

I don't like this book as a book on writing plugins for eclipse for the following reasons:

1) This book's 'exploratory' approach tries to show you how to search (the hack approach) through the installed plugins for excerpts that you can copy/paste/edit. It would have been more useful if the authors used a 'tutorial' approach that constrains the example to documented basics (many different examples that then integrate/or not).

2) As expected (and tiring if you have other book from these authors), JUnit integration is the example developed throughout the book. This may satisfy the need for some types of plugins (code oriented plugins), but leaves much to be desired if you want to develop other kinds of tools.

3) The samples are outdated in 3.0, and the main example won't work/run in 3.0 (even if you download their project source). If you try to follow along, you will quickly be disapointed once you run into that snag. I am sure that under 2.x it works great.

4) This book is useful as a way of seeing a small example built up. However, because of #3, this all becomes useless once the plugin doesn't 'work'.

As with most books that cook a long example as a way of teaching, rather than as a way to support other knowledge, much of the time is spent on explaining how to cook things for the example. For me this doesn't work, as I want something focused that instructs me, rather than a evolving code-walkthrough of a particular example. To me this is boring, and has no use after the initial read.

This book would be great if it was 1/2 as long, and focused on the patterns for the plugins instead, not presume to be an intro to plugin development.

Once you get past the interesting writing style, this is a pretty cool book written by two of the giants in the industry. This is a particularly good book, if you are interested in Eclipse plugin development and JUnit testing. The tutorial is pretty comprehensive and the book example evolves in a natural way. The only downside is that this book is targeted at Eclipse 2.1 rather than 3.0 (which is no wonder given that it predates 3.0 by more than six months). This doesn't really detract from the book because most of the examples are fairly generic and can be made to run in Eclipse 3.0 with minimal effort.

I purchased this book to read in preparation for my CSET (California Subject Examination for Teachers) test in Social Science. It covers the standards required, but I find it lacking in many other respects. This book reads like a list of facts interjected with how cultural blending and how "such interaction has resulted in the mixing of different cultures in new and exciting ways".

Now let me preface my next statement by saying that cultural understanding, appreciation and tolerance are vital to a healthy country and people. I find world cultures fascinating, or I would not be in the field that I wish to teach in. But this book is so busy beating you over the head with the fact that you should like cultural blending (it says this phrase at least once a page for well over 1000 pages) that it sort of loses the series of events in a fog of social messages.

Cultural blending is something that happens all the time in this world, and often results out of conquest, migrations, trade, and pursuit of religious freedom - as the book points out. However, I feel they sometimes make stretches to drive their point home to the point of losing other themes of intolerance, domination and genocide (which is certainly not limited to WWII). It only gives passing mention to the butchering of people for their beliefs on a massive scale as Protestants and Catholics vied for power politically. It talks about the Shi'a Muslim Safavids and the Sunni Ottoman Turks butchering each other for their rivaling religious views but does not talk about how that may somehow have consequences in today's rift between the two groups. I'm not sure! This book is too busy telling me that the next ruler exported carpets and bought Chinese tiles and how that is cultural blending - not the consequences of 40,000 killed.

There are only shallow analyses in this book. The "consequences" or "legacies" that are so important are only addressed in the conclusions of a few units.

The chapters are organized in a thematic fashion, so it will jump continents and cultures every other unit from England to India to Africa. It also jumps around with the dates a lot as it is *not* chronological. I found it helpful when studying to make my own time lines to get a decent perspective on how things fit together.

In the second half the book, however it seems to take a completely different tone. Beginning with the Age of Exploration, the preachy quality of it dwindles and it focuses on what happened and why. Of course, European power struggles of the 1500-1700's don't really allow digression because of their convoluted nature!

So, did it serve my purpose? In some ways, yes. I will do well on my exam given that this material correlates with the standards on the test. However I would say this coverage is minimal, and if you are a high schooler reading this, this is NOT the book that will tell you whether you like history or not. This is strictly a list of facts to be regurgitated on a test with some values of tolerance sprinkled in.

We bought a new book, at 30% less cost than what the book store was selling it for. Well worth waiting 10 days or so to get it.

Book received in excellent condition and in timely manner. I would recommend using this site to other parents buying textbooks.

World History Patterns of Interaction is a fairly good book for the basics, but the authors do not do the best at linking everything together. The pictures complements the text nicely. But the book is not geographically split into chapters it is chronological (A bit frustrating for me). The book concentrates on the details that are not of great value. There are better world history books in the market.

If you're reading this, you're probably either a very odd little child who wants to do some extra reading or you're a teacher or homeschooling parent.. so I'll speak to the latter two.
This book is terrible. I was shocked to find that the object of many hours of study for my IB World History class was this middle school-level book. It's filled with more pictures and phony biographical sketches than information and (heaven forbid) intelligent analysis.
Not only is it monotonous and dull, it's superficial. One thing I found is the end of the Viking terror in Europe is justified in this book by two reasons alone: the acceptance of Christianity and an increase in agricultural projects due to warmer climate. This answer is vague and misleading. Although the climate did increase, it did not lead the Vikings simply to lounge around and farm. What happened was they moved to Iceland and Greenland, where the land was suddenly more inhabitable. What is also intentially misleading here is the part about accepting a new religion. The point was that there was a distinct change in philosophy - dying for their pagan god was once considered a great honor, but without him there was little point - not a change in moral values as the wording suggests. As my book quotes, "the Vikings were awesome."

Sure, this is only a considerably minor fault for such a large book, but there are too many similar examples. This book is a poor choice. Unfortunately, most textbooks do fall behind in their purpose. I would suggest finding a better book but not sticking soley to it, as textbooks tend to have their faults. Resources such as the History channel and historical articles are effective and much more interesting. Guns Germs and Steel is also a great choice. Please use them to your advantage and save another unfortunate child the torture of reading this.

I am conflicted in how this book could reflect American Music. I bought this book as a requirement for my doctorate of music. The pictures, though they were sometimes vivid, I do not feel the book accurately paints a picture of American Music. Perhaps, Ms. Leibovitz should have gotten help from a musicologist (one who is an expert on the history of music) because it is a poor representation of music. It is like saying pop singers are musicians, which they are not. It is an insult to all true musicians in discounting their hard work. American Idol does not represent American music and neither does this book.
I wasted $30 on this book and though I have never resold a book, I will gladly sell this book back. Do not waste your money.

If you love the blues, or love photography this is a great book. While not specific to just Blues musicians this book just makes me think of good old delta blues. The prints in this book shine like they were hand printed by Annie herself. Theres a heart and soul driving this book from begining to end.
This is a more personal project for Annie Leibovitz and so doenst allway have her studio style inside.
That does not mean that each photograph is not amazing for they are, but some are a smaller more
candid world that Annie Leibotiz is capturing.

The catalog is gorgeous, the photographs are indeed spectacular. While the written entries were wonderful, they were too few and left me wanting more. I guess that's a good thing!

I just saw this exhibit at our MoMA, and the work is outstanding. Some of the images are color, some black and white. There are a number of styles and artists, ranging from the very famous to those unknown outside of their small communities. The point is that these are images of musicians--it's that simple.

Sometimes, Liebovitz's work is witty, sometimes it is unflinching in its honest portrayal. There is vulnerability in the subjects of her black and whites because they are so close, often just the face of the subject. To term them "ugly" is simply wrong. It is rare to see behind the artifice of celebrity images and see performers without makeup and with their skin texture and pores visible. Some of the photos are taken in people's homes, or backstage rather than on a set. This lends considerably to the intimacy and honesty that she is trying to convey.

If you want shots of your favorite singer looking oh so pretty, go to their PR person. This is a serious body of work from a renowned photographer. It blends both her celebrity work with her own private interests in portrait photography for non-commercial audiences.

In response to another review on this site, clearly if you think the book has "poor aesthetic quality" You know nothing of photography or art for that matter.
The people in this book are beautifully portrayed in silver and in color. Clearly the photographs were taken over a number of years, which shows the scope of the project.
The only thing that I find wrong with this project is that it may be unfinished. The book is called American Music. Cleary that is why there are mainly blues, rock and roll and hip, country/folk and hip hop artists. Obviosly everyone would like to see their favorite artists in the book and have the ones they dislike removed. I however feel that this is the artists choice, and we have to live with it. If Leibovits decides to put out a 'Part II' it would do all of us a favor.
The only reason why I don't give this a 5 out of 5 stars is that most of the photographs don't grab you by the face and demand your attention. The ones that grab me the most are the artists I folllow, so perhaps there is something in that. Some measure of knowlegde that must accompany the photographs. Buy the book anyways...and listen to more blues albums. I didn't check this review for spelling, HA!

Viktor Palmgren was shot while making an after dinner speech at a fashionable hotel. The International Money Market trembled at the news of his death. And certain call girls became very worried. But even the assassination of a husband in front of her eyes didn't crack the composure of Charlotte Palmgren. She remained beautiful, spoiled and aloof. Detective Martin Beck couldn't decide if she wa made of ice or steel, until he found that a naked widow reveals more than skin.

It was a warm July evening in Malmö. A businessman was speaking to a group. A strange man walked up to him and shot him in the head, then stepped out the open window and into the street. The victim Palmgren was a corporation president. The police questioned everyone who left town but no suspect was found. They learned of one man who flew to Stockholm, but the patrol car sent to the airport arrived too late. The National Chief of Police called Martin Beck and sent him to take charge of the Palmgren murder case. Palmgren's widow said the killer looked "completely ordinary" (Chapter 7). Beck learns of the political importance of this case: it involved foreign countries. The Security Police were now involved (Chapter 8). Chapter 12 starts by describing some of the conditions created by urban renewal and high-rise apartments in the former countryside.

The people who ate with Palmgren were investigated. One person there had a hidden side (Chapter 15). The summer heat and poverty created "unpremeditated crimes", almost like accidents. Another person is scooped up after a struggle (Chapter 17). Now Beck thinks the known facts point to one suspect (Chapter 21). An empty box for a pistol was found (Chapter 22), its owner identified (Chapter 25). More evidence turns up against the suspect (Chapters 26, 27). In Chapter 29 the suspect was brought in for questioning and told his story. Chapter 30 tells what would happen next to the people in this story.
This story uses Palmgren as a villain, but he is only a small fish in the business world. He was easily replaced.

This was my second contact with Sjowall and Wahloo's Martin Beck police detective novels, and while I like the taut no-nonsense style of these novels, I think this one falls quite a bit short of Roseanna. In Murder at the Savoy, a wealthy businessman named Palmgren is shot in the head and killed while addressing a group of people at dinner in the elegant Savoy Hotel in Malmo, a Swedish coastal resort town. The killer calmly escapes out the window and leaves the scene on a bicycle, and we learn that nobody at the table got a decent look at the shooter.

Martin Beck is soon brought in from Stockholm, since the case has political repurcussions arising from Palmgren's shady business transactions, including international arms sales. I was a little disappointed in the way the crime was solved, since Beck was ultimately a bit player in the novel, and the interplay between the various Malmo detectives was a little stale since the authors had not given us much background information. I found myself getting confused between "Larsson" and "Kollberg", and not much caring who was who.

As usual with this series, the crimes are solved by thorough detective work, including chasing some leads that go nowhere, without a lot of contrivances in the plot like extended gunplay, strange coincidences or mystical psychic citizens who identify the killer through hypnosis. I am not a detective, but it seems to me these novels give a more accurate account of how crimes are actually solved by municipal detectives. All in all a pretty good read, suspenseful and engaging at times, but not up to the level of the authors' best.

The eighth Martin Beck novel. For the first time in the series, Sjowall and Wahloo feel like they're treading water. The crime this time is the mysterious murder of a wealthy industrialist at a fancy supper club. The murderer shoots him once in the back of the head at dinner, with thirteen witnesses in attendance, exits through a window, and rides away on his bicycle. But amazingly, Stockholm homicide detective Beck finds the crime virtually unsolvable.

As in some of their previous novels (particularly "The Man who Went Up in Smoke") very little happens during the course of the book, the ending is anticlimactic and the solution to the crime has less to do with police work than dumb luck. However, in their previous novels, the extra space with filled in with the fascinating details of police investigation: false leads, lying witnesses, and bueracratic incompetence. Although those elements are again present in this work, here the focus is on heavy-handed political and social criticism, particularly the evils of capitalism (Sjowall and Wahloo were Marxists.)

Still, the book has its own paticular charm.

The plot of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's "Murder at the Savoy" is simple. Viktor Palmgren is a wealthy Swedish businessman. His business conglomerate includes not only typical legitimate business interests but also some seamy interests that include the ownership of slum housing developments and the possible international sales of arms and munitions to third-world nations. So, when on a warm sunny evening in the Swedish city of Malmo he is gunned down while giving a speech in a hotel restaurant the local police naturally assume the murder was driven by political or corporate interests. So Police Inspector Martin Beck is sent down from Stockholm to lead the investigation.

Published in English in 1971, "Murder at the Savoy" is the 5th of 10 Inspector Beck mysteries written by the husband and wife team of Sjowall and Wahloo. Although I've found the five Beck books I've read (including this one) to be enjoyable I agree with the sense of the other reviews that this is one of their weaker efforts. The tension and the plot and character development that marked some of the earlier books in the series. The story itself is interesting enough and the writing is full of sharp and cynical observations about life in Sweden in the 1960s and 1970s but, ultimately, this book was not as compelling as the others. The story line unfolded in a fairly predictable way and there was nothing along the way that served to heighten the dramatic tension. Even the one attempt at showing a rather intimate encounter between two of the characters came across as routine. By the time the investigation reached the point of revealing the `solution' I was perfectly happy to just nod my head, say "okay" and move on to the next book on my to be read pile.

I do recommend the Martin Beck series to any reader interested in good detective stories. For the most part the series has been very satisfying. For example, The Man on the Balcony, Roseanna, and The Laughing Policeman are all excellent detectice stories. As someone who already knows the main characters and likes the series, Murder at the Savoy was a decent if not totally satisfying read. However, if this book had been my introduction to Inspector Beck I probably would not have picked up the second one. So, by all start with some of the other books in the series. If you like them and then come across Murder at the Savoy it is worth reading to keep up with the development of the series and its characters. I wouldn't recommend it for a one-off book to pick up off the shelf nor would a fan of the series lose any sleep if they gave this one a pass. L. Fleisig

The book uses a lot of examples, this is both a blessing and a curse. It allows you to see applications in more domains which is a good. The down side is I find I had to keep flipping to previous chapters to keep reminding myself of exactly what each example dealt with.

This book is aimed at university curriculum, but I found that it is also beneficial to those working in IT field like me.

I have read several books about UML and Object-Orient Technology. They were able to explain what was UML and how to do OO modelling and development, but without solid examples. After reading, I still could not master the idea and skill to apply UML successfully.

Contrarily, this book uses teach-by-example approach to explain and guide me through the necessary steps in applying UML to real-life project from requirements determination, analysis to database/program design. It also emphasises the importance of iterative and incremental process.

I would like to recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to apply UML, especially in requirements analysis and system design.

Here is another excellent book on UML and system development using UML. I found this book highly practical, amusing, and instructive to read. Among the many excellent features of this book, I found the following five main strengths of the book. First, the book is rich with five case studies. Many books are rich in discussion, but weak in examples and case studies. This book uses five case studies. Some case studies are detailed while other case studies are short. Second, the book covers many advanced concepts, not usually covered by many other popular UML books in one volume. Those advanced features include reified classes, interface inheritance, implementation inheritance, extension inheritance, delegation, four types of aggregations, etc. Fourth, the book integrates other important parts of the system development activities such as user interface design, window navigation diagrams, database design for OO, OR, and relational databases. Fifth, therefore, the book covers all the life cycle of OO system developments, beginning from requirements modeling to user interface design, database design and testing. All these features make this book as an excellent choice for learning how to use UML to develop a complete system. One of several minor drawbacks is that some discussions appear in several different sections. This is due to a fairly long guided tutorial in Chapter 2.

Honestly, I only endured this book to its middle. Superficial is the first characteristic that comes to mind. The author gives a brief description of object technology (which turnes out to be rather a list of UML concepts). A very short overview of requirement analysis follows - only "what", little of "why", almost nothing about "how". The requirements document template is here too, but you could really find better examples on the net, including real standards.

But only in chapter 4 the book starts to blossom. You quickly find out, that the author has little if any real world design experience. Yes, the case-studies are a bit strained, still they are tolerable. But the author does poor modeling: his models are, well, arguable. Some classes 'follow' from the requirements without real explanation. And the naming is just plain ugly: consider a 'areYouOpen' method on a Course class and an 'areYouValid' method on a Student class.

UML is covered, again, superficially. The short Fowler's book, UML Distilled, goes to greater depths on almost any topic (not to say Fowler *does* cover some experience in software process).

If you need anything better, than a one term undergraduate learn-and-forget coursebook, don't bother.

Honestly, I only endured this book to its middle. Superficial is the first characteristic that comes to mind. The author gives a brief description of object technology (which turnes out to be rather a list of UML concepts). A very short overview of requirement analysis follows - only "what", little of "why", almost nothing about "how". The requirements document template is here too, but you could really find better examples on the net, including real standards.

But only in chapter 4 the book starts to blossom. You quickly find out, that the author has little if any real world design experience. Yes, the case-studies are a bit strained, still they are tolerable. But the author does poor modeling: his models are, well, arguable. Some classes 'follow' from the requirements without real explanation. And the naming is just plain ugly: consider a 'areYouOpen' method on a Course class and an 'areYouValid' method on a Student class.

UML is covered, again, superficially. The short Fowler's book, UML Distilled, goes to greater depths on almost any topic (not to say Fowler *does* cover some experience in software