Beck Books

Professor Ray Atlee and his brother Forrest are summoned back to their father's home. Their father is the imposing Judge Reuben Atlee and he's dying. Ray arrives to find the judge dead and to find several million dollars in cash. Should Ray share the money with his drug-abusing brother? Should Ray keep the money? Who knows the money is there and what are they willing to do to get their hands on it?

Unfortunately, finding the answers to these questions requires reading the book. And the book is not worth reading. While Grisham once again writes a highly readable, southern inflected legal drama, this one lacks enough plot to justify its 200 and some pages. Simply stated, very little happens and what does happen is belabored and not entirely convincing. It reads, quite frankly, like Grisham is fulfilling a legal obligation to produce a novel.

It may be worth noting that this book contains some connections to other Grisham novels, including A Time to Kill.

This book has produced a mixed bag of reviews, like any substantial work. I rarely read thrillers, although I loved the immersion of "workaholism" that drenches the first third of The Firm. The Summons is a good and serious read. It's depiction of the Deep South rings true and the characters are quite good (stock can equal universal and be satisfying). Its technical description of legal processes is straight on, as we expect from the author. It is also a very sly morality tale. The Oedipal dilemmas are timeless. This book actually reminded of Faulkner in these regards. One review referred to it as a Mystery Commedy ... like Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust. I believe that the literary reputation of this book will grow over time.

I have read several Grisham book about legal-eagles but none so engrossing and intriguing as this One! I got bogged down a few times in his description of places and persons, yet all-in-all it kept me reading rapidly until I came to his lengthy but surprising end! After slowing down to postpone the ending, I sort of expected somewhat the final end! I was still surprised.
I am also surprised at the variety of opinions expressed in the reviews. Grateful that I stuck it out even learning a bit about his unique style of writing! Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood

John Grisham grew up in the south and was educated at various schools in Mississippi. The father of the main character in this book, Judge Atlee, has a painting of Nathan Bedford Forrest in his study. One can only assume that Judge Atlee being from Mississippi and having such a picture would view the civil war from the Southern perspective. Most of the battles of the civil war have two names, the Northern name and the Southern name. When referring to these battles Grisham has the judge using the Northern names. That is just plain sloppy. No southerner would say Antietam or Bull Run, those were the battles of Sharpsburg and Manassas respectively. And that little detail is only the beginning the problems with this book.

Instead of repeating the comments of the other reviewers, I'll simply keep it short and to the point.

At the end of the book, I was left thinking..."that's it??? I could have written a much better ending myself"!

Very unlike most Grisham novels. Don't waste your time.

I picked up this book with the hope that it would share some insight into why i-mode was such a big success. It did that only.

This is an extremely 'business/management' style of book. Full of hullabaloo, simple to read and gets somewhat preachy at times.

However I did enjoy reading it, although I sometimes doubt validity of some speculations made (Such as Singapore eradicating paper and coin based money entirely by the year 2008).

I'll give it 3 stars because it did give me the answer I was looking for but it wasn't a life changing experience reading it. Sorry.

How has Japan's NTT DooMo become as big as AOL's customer base - five times as fast? This is Japan's mobile phone service, who grew to second-largest in the world in just to years. Insights into industry secrets, Japanese business, the wireless and computer worlds like make DoCoMo--Japan's Wireless Tsunami: How One Mobile Telecom Created a New Market and Became a Global Force a book difficult to easily categorize, but packed with important business insights. Highly recommended for all readers.

I've been looking for literature that explores why Japan is so technology obsessive, they have to have the latest of everything and feel utterly out of touch if they dont. Technology is fashion.

Having lived there a year i instantly recognised the name 'DoCoMo' and thought it was the perfect forum to analyse this exact phenomena, DoCoMo is the mother of all technology companies over there and really has become a part of the way of life there.

This book separates into chapters based on emotion, an odd idea, but one that works quite well. For me the Love and Fun chapters accurately depict the passion the Japanese have for technology and how DoCoMo capitalized on that.

However I wasn't looking at this book as an example of a business model. I skipped most of the facts and figures, though they are easy to read and very relevant. People who are skepical of this books practical use offering a business model that has a totally different approach, probably havent spent enough time in Japan to see how successfully DoCoMo has been. I believe this may be the future of the business model. But essentially i think this book would fit much better in the 'Technologies Influence On Society' section of the bookshelf.

Those who are researching technology as part of society are the ones who will really get a kick out of this book, there are so many interviews with developers, users, fanatics and novices, it is a feast of information that explains just why the Japanese are atleast a year ahead in the Mobile Industry. And why the Japanese are so passionate about their gadgets.

This book doesn't give a clear understanding of DoCoMo and it's mechanisms.
It's more of an unctious eulogy about people at Do-Co-Mo and the enterprise itself.
What we learn: Keichi Tachikawa had a keen sense of inequality, former Chairman Ohkochi is impatient, impatient etc., Keichi Enoki seems to be the lucky guy.
This is a latter day celebration of a Japanese enterprise. The rendering of the story could have been influenced heavily by the style of a communist storyteller, writing a biography of communist saint Breshnew or marshal Shukow.

Few facts. Tons of incense. Sprinklings of modern management thought.

Not devoid of facts, but these are incoherently interspersed into a rambling storytelling about all and everything.
This book did waste my time and continuous factless ramblings made me feel angry at times.

Chapter one of this pathetic book begins by informing us that "Business cases aren't romance novels. Things begin, and end, with the numbers". Not so this book. As well as seemingly endless diversions into such eclectic themes as post war land reform in Japan, General MacArthur's victorious cavalcade into Tokyo, hitch hiking in New England, some unfathomable nonsense about the "mystic Southwest" of the United States, a reference to Mary Poppins, a couple of paragraphs on Bruce Springsteen, the problems of mowing lawns in Utah, the relatively high mortality rates of upper class Britons during both world wars, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the usual sociological drivel of upwardly pointing nails getting hammered down in Japan, some buzz words from complexity theory, some tips on putting golf balls and interminable pages of insipid tips on how to turn your (non Docomo related) work into fun, we are given six shallow chapters respectively titled Love, Inequality, Impatience, Luck, Fun and Strength with a further appendix called Intimacy and M-Commerce. That is followed by a mercifully short interview with Docomo President Kouji Ohboshi, which, because it was originally carried in 1996, is, like the entire book, totally irrelevant to the current market conditions Docomo faces.
Although the book's blurb claims the authors had unprecedented access to Docomo's top executives, there is no evidence of that in this over priced book. We are, however, told that Ohboshi "looks like a conventional Japanese executive. He is tall". We are also told that he has the style of a cockroach, meaning that he is impatient and hurries around a lot. Because cockroaches tend to get stamped on, it is a dangerous and, at best, very silly metaphor to describe a dynamic CEO of a thriving company.
It is almost as silly as the 20 or so pages given to the digital experiences of Yasuko Sato who, we are told, had to overcome the sad fact that "Mama and Papa Sato lovingly, relentlessly instilled good old-fashioned analog values in their daughter." Although Mama and Papa Hayes did the same, I have used mobile phones in the jungles of the Golden Triangle and the Andes Mountains as well as in a fishing trawler 300 miles off the coast of Iceland. Talking about the wonders of i-mode or mobile phones in the tones Mitch and John (as they annoyingly call themselves throughout the book) is like talking of the wonders of black and white TV; they are old news.
To impress on us how successful Docomo has been, we are supposed to be amazed that its headquarters are in "a skyscraper so large that each elevator holds sixty-three people. Sixty-three! In just one elevator!" As if that was not penance enough for us to bear, the authors appeal to our vanity by telling us that we are the new "cosmopolitan, global kind of thinker" because we are reading a "whole book" on Docomo.
Instead of giving us a "whole book" on Docomo, all they serve us up is the most shameless padding that would make the laziest high school student blush. Only two paragraphs after mentioning "those alphabet soup economics equations that make so little sense to most of us", we read "Okay, enough about boring economic theories" and we are back to the problems of mowing the lawns of Utah.
Technical details are also, we are told on page 127, "perennially boring" even though they are vital to understand Docomo's short history as well as its prospects for future success. The mobile telephony industry Docomo finds itself in is a young industry, one that will mature in time just as wireless, television and the Internet did before it. Until that happens, the industry's many intangibles will complicate our best efforts to predict the industry's future trends. Instead of trying to identify those intangibles, the authors let us know that "what we can tell you, after years in think thanks and universities and high-powered consulting firms" is that luck is paramount in a successful business.
This is easily the worst business book I have ever read, let alone reviewed.

So why did I pay good money for a book which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW other than rehashed tabloid articles?? I could have just read through a newspaper archive. This book is full of "reportedly," "allegedly," "it was claimed," meanwhile, isn't Andrew Morton supposed to be a journalist?? Couldn't he have confirmed or investigated any of these allegations, reports and claims?? This was the worst biography I have read in my life.

I never read a book by this author before, so I didn't have any preconceptions. I was looking for a biography of two celebrities I admire so I could learn more about them and their rise to fame. This book was not a good choice. I can't say I learned anything new of any real interest, and I was put off by the hostile tone of the author, especially toward Victoria Beckham. No one is perfect, but this book really seemed to unfairly accentuate the couples' flaws and downplay their strengths. Nobody deserves to be criticized like that. It was unkind and not a pleasant read. I still admire the Beckhams for their many good qualites, however I'm not so sure about the author.

this book didn't tell me anything i didn't already know. i guess i was hoping it would go more into friendships and events these two had been involved with but it seemed to just skim over their life with the bare minimum of details. i wasted my money.

The simple introduction here would be, "Liked him but didn't like her." Of course, he has that warm, winning smile that makes him both attractive and seemingly approachable--while she favors a frowny pout that is very off-putting. (The book contains 16 pages of photographs, most of them in color.) But more importantly, he has real talent that he has worked all his life to cultivate, while her skills might be charitably described as modest and haphazardly developed. Morton makes the point that Posh has always pursued success rather than proficiency: "Victoria's supreme ambition, the goal she had had since childhood, was to be famous and admired . . . [and her] success was achieved quickly and in spite of, rather than because of, any real talent she could demonstrate." I am also not keen on promoting anorexic role models for today's youth, and there are many pages in this tome devoted to her slenderizing habits.

For a change of pace (although not a sports buff), I took the time while reading this book to watch clips of David's action on the soccer field. I was amazed at what I saw, both in terms of skill but also, and unexpectedly, in terms of joy--this man loves to play! Yet he is described as "nice but dim," and his wife is a high school dropout.

Morton provides his own analysis of this couple: "He seems content to be who he is, secure in his skin, a talented footballer doing what he has always wanted. On the other hand, Victoria is driven by the demons within; a woman who is at once dauntless, intrepid, and dynamic, and yet insecure, vulnerable, and needy." But they have found each other, they love their kids, and they have been successful at promoting "Brand Beckham." Maybe it will all work out in the end . . .

I have read many books this is the second time and last time I ever read a book from this author. I happen to like the Beckhams, and feel that every single public personality deserves a key word privacy. When you cannot trust your nannies, cleaning people that is really sad, especially since they are a normal couple with children that fight and have their difficulties like everyone else in the world, they are the upper 3% of the world with money, they worked hard for it and deserve every single penny if we buy into them and their branding..and strong family values.
I am sad if David did have affairs on his wife because that is a lack of respect for her and his boys and if they even have an agreement to an open marriage it is still no ones business but their own. there is a saying men like blueberry pie, once in awhile they like a little apple but than they return to the bluebuerry pie men love history they never leave their wives!
To Victoria if you want your fashion sense to soar like an eagle think globally not locally to size 0.,go larger bring your books sell it all and than use some of it for charity or a training school for homeless teenagers to get them off the streets.
I would go QVC or Shopping channel with your fragrances and clothing and sunglasses the more units you sell the more you make it is simple math. Do Jewlery too and anything you can brand your name on because Beckham sells because everyone wants a piece of you it represents wealth and abundance.
You go Beckhams and when the press hate you it is because you are doing well. No one wants your sucess it is a famous saying. Andrew Morton can you never write a book that is pleasant I challenge you to do it my gosh man you are a negative and jealous writter and no better than the thousands of papparazzi that chase these people daily for their fix!

I was very impressed with the overall condition of the book also the fact that this seller had the CD rom included in the book which was also in good condition. Shipping was quick.

Not user friendly, however I saw the rating before I purchased so I had an preview. I have to agree still that the book is not user frienly.

I bought this book to help me with my class. There were some helpful items in there. But most things were in the form of crossword puzzles - who feels like doing that! So I ended not really this book much before my final. I don't think it help me to better comprehend the material

I truly think that this book was my cure for the occasional insomnia that comes with nursing school. I found it dull and not too spectacular. THe examples are boring and the terminology went over my head a couple of times. Otherwise it was fine for a book on research basics, but I;m sure there must be something else more exciting out there... Of course, we are talking about research here... :) (just kidding)

This text is horrible. Its disorganized. Has many run-on sentences and you'd have to reread the whole sentence to figure out what you were trying to comprehend in the first place. Not at all concise. The examples or horrible to follow. One has to flip back and forth through pages to figure out what exactly its talking about because the paragraphs changes topics in mid sentence...literally!! It begins on one topic and jumps to an entirely new subject and then ends with..."we'll discuss this topic later in chapter so and so. It uses languages that are not every day words and leaves you confused and unable to understand. Very difficult to understand. I am now looking for a better nursing research text that is actually stimulating and can teach.

I will not excuse Mr Beck for murdering his wife and lover after catching them in the act (although not immediately, otherwise it would have been a crime of passion and he would not be in prison today.) As one of the correctional officers working in his unit for over a year and having personal contact with the man for nearly every day of that time, let me say as someone who knows him, he committed a crime that anyone of us in the same situation might have committed. If I could say I would never do such a thing in the same circumstances, then God help me. I don't condone what he did, but I know the man and watched him for over a year. He has all of his "Good Time" on his sentence, which means he hasn't had any more time added to his sentence for any misbehavior while in prison. This speaks for itself, as I witnessed only a handful of inmates that had ALL of their good time after so many years inside. Also, this book (we are supposed to be writing a review of his book, remember?) was his first attempt. It was something positive and constructive he began and finished while in prison. He was working on two other books when I left corrections 3 years ago. If anyone cared to actually read his book (I have a copy and have read it) and write a constructive review of it, you might say something like: "It is an interesting read. Not bad for a first attempt. Mr Beck may actually have some talent with the written word and perhaps even could be a decent storyteller."

As I said previously, what he did is not to be condoned. However, I know him personally and he IS a model prisoner. If all inmates in prison behaved as he does, we would have the safest and most orderly and polite prisons in the world. You may quote me.

By the way, my name is Kenneth Knutson. I currently work for the US Border Patrol in McAllen, TX. If you need to verify this (ladies) contact the Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol office and ask if I work there as of Oct 2006.

This book has nothing to do about the author..Eveyone has a time in their life that they must pay for, he happens to be dealing with his. Just because he did something he shouldnt have at the time, doesnt mean that he should be rediculed for the rest of his life. He IS a human being...So my opinion, you all need to mind your own business!!!

From the listed reviews there is nothing about the book. Must not have read it. Your trashy talk about the author makes me want to read it. And by the way, it was double murder. He killed his wife and the man she was sleeping with.

The man who wrote this novel murdered his wife in cold blood. He's been telling stories ever since he pulled the trigger that ended her life. She lay sleeping in her home and he chose to put an end to her. He chose to erase her, like she was somebody with no meaning. She was a good, loving, remarkable person that the community as well as her family loved. Her death has put an empty space in our hearts. She loved life and would never have given up on it, but yet that was what he wanted us to believe.
We gave him sympathy, we embraced him with love which is what our family is so wonderful at...and he took that love, that support as if it was due him. If that isn't a good storyteller than I don't know what is? I just want it to be known that this man is evil. Model prisoner? I don't doubt it. He was a Model member of the community in which he lived, he was a Model Husband (or so we thought), and he is a Model Storyteller. Mr. Beck deserves all 28 years of prison and more for hurting so many people. I personally would never read his book, because a romance novel written by a murderer just doesn't have any substance to it. I know this sounds harsh, but it was harsh and ugly and to just forgive and forget?? No, I don't think so.

"enlightened", "Marilyn Monroe" and Mr. Knutson, I regret to inform you that you have joined a long line of people who have been duped by this sociopath...there was NO double murder. The only one with a lover in this was Beck, who had his lover up to the house within hours after killing my sister and claiming she shot herself. You should consider yourselves lucky to have gotten off so much easier that my sister, who paid with her life for having known and loved him. I believe it is now his JOB, Mr Knutson, to be a model prisoner with all this "good time" you speak of. Much as you may think that you KNOW him, you really do NOT know him. He is a "storyteller", that much I do know. As for his book, by all means, buy it if you wish to do so. The ruling of the court at his sentencing made him responsible to my parents for repayment on the funeral expenses. Tiny payments have been made over these last 14 years, perhaps if the book does sell, he will be able to repay that small debt before he gets out on his "good time". Nothing can bring her back to us or fill the hole left in our lives, but I cannot allow this lie he tells to be continued. He killed her alone, she had no lover.

Follow the adventures of Suki...

Suki is a Japanese girl whom is visiting Germany. As she meets new people along the way in different situations, one learns phrases and words. Practical and easy to understand, if you went through the book and CD an hour a day you would learn enough German to get by with.
The 30 day thing is subject to ones learning ability?
I would highly recommend Rosetta Stone in conjunction with this as well. I have had German people ask me where did I learn German I tell them a book and cd, they look at me in astonishment. It has served me well.

I've taken a German class before and I bought this to review and continue my study of the language. I was actually expecting a quality textbook since it's from Berlitz, but the translations are way too loose to actually be of any to use to me.

Now I have another "Learn German in 30 days" book, in French, from the 1960s. The translations inside that book are exact. Apart from a few places where German syntax is vastly different than the French, you can be sure that every noun, every adverb is translated exactly as it appears in the German text. Not so in this particular book. For example (and I'm picking a random dialogue in the book) the phrase "Da kann man günstig einkaufen" is translated as "Things are reasonably priced there". The German text doesn't contain the words "things" "are" and "priced". In fact what I think is being said is "There can people buy favorably". Although their translation sounds better in English, it clearly isn't the same sentence when the subject and the verb are completely different. I realize translations can't always be 100% accurate, but we're talking about another European language here (and not Japanese for instance) it shouldn't be so vastly different from English.At least translate it literally and have a "better english" translation in parenthesis.

Another example of crummy translation, taken from their vocabulary section is their definition for "glauben" in chapter 6 to "to think". In chapter 11, they introduce the verbs "denken" and "meinen" which are also translated "to think". They don't really clarify why one should use "glauben" over "denken" over "meinen". They don't mention that "glauben" actually means "to believe". If you don't know German beforehand, I think all these sloppily translated words would end up confusing you quite a bit down the road.

The workbook portion is good, glad it has an audio CD. Overall pretty good.

1. There's no basic pronunciation and alphabet lesson - at all - anywhere - especially not on the CD.

2. The pronunciation guide is about 4 sentences long, and again there is no audio accompanyment.

3. All that's on the CD are the mini conversations at the begining of each of the 30 lessons - one at normal pace and once at a slow pace.

4. Lessons include many words that are not introduced through the audio conversations, and absolutely no pronunciation guidance is given.

5. It's actually fairly riduculously set up - no one can learn a language in 30 lessons that take a max. of 5 minutes each (or about 2.5 hours total), especially when spread over 30 days and with little review.

Basically this is a crappy way to learn German - or to speak and audibly comprehend it. You might come out reading a little. So save your $20ish and buy some weinerschnitzel instead.

I learn langauges by listening and repeating, as well as by reading, but grammar comes more slowly to me and I'm finding this book difficult. I think there's too much grammar too quickly for someone trying to get comfortable in German for travel. I think the lessons also get too long too quickly. However, the CD dialogues are well-paced, repeated, and clear. I'm not convinced this was the best choice for me, but it may work better for others.

I bought this book thinking about a great source of info about the show & characters, but the only thing I could find were CRITICS, nasty critics by the way. I hate the book, I couldn't even finish to read it 'cause it is disgusting for anyonw who likes the show. I highly recomend you to go for the Official Guite just in case you didn't check it out yet.

This is a great book. It's full of actual information about the show, instead of the dumb trivia in that "other" unauthorized Ally McBeal book -- "what Ally probably keeps in her fridge..." judging from her waist size, probably a thimble of milk and two celery sticks. But I digress. Buy this book. It doesn't have that many pictures, but hell, you already know what everyone on the show looks like anyway. If you don't, why the heck did you buy the book in the first place? That's a pretty stupid answer. Hello?

If you're a fan of the show, you might just end up being ashamed for watching it after you read That Lawyer Girl. Once you see in writing all the truly disgusting things that this show spotlights every week, you might just say to yourself, "Shame on me for wanting to be entertained by such garbage!" Basically, Beck tells it like it is, and because of that, Beck has raised my moral bar. I will no longer support such programming. Please join me...but read the book first. Thank you AC Beck! Not advisable for children under the age of 17.

DONT READ IT...DONT LOOK AT IT....DONT BORROW IT...DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT... if u are a ally fan this book will scorch ur poor little simple minds that u will never want to watch, hear or even see the ally mcbeal show again... so WARNING TO ALL ALLY MCBEAL FANS DONT READ IT!

I thought this book was really cheezball..... i think it deserves to be burnt!

This book contains some useful, though poorly presented information. This book attempts to be a tutorial, but often reads more like an encyclopedia. I would not recommend this book until it has been fixed.

At long last someone gave us the book we all need. Thanks my new guru Beck Zaratian. This book is to teach you VC++ not MFC, but the illustrative examples are just to intereseting. If you ever find yourself looking for tips over the internet or magazines on VC++, then you can sleep now. This book is the TIP. This is a book I bought and wish to send someone a copy. Believe me, I am now a VC++ guru, just try me. Please remember, MFC does not help you write win95 apps fast, VC++ tools that will and this is the ONLY help out there to master them. Take away the AppWizard, ClassWizard etc and see how life will become. If you ever felt insulted by the so-called VC++ books, which gave you nothing more than screen-shots of VC++ installations, component gallery, resource editor, debugger windows etc as if you cannot see, then come home get THIS book. Oh! there is an illustrative example of the debugger to walk you through-not dead screen-shots.

I do not know how well to express my feelings about this book. Please shopper, this is a promise-if you buy this book and find it useless or like any book you ever read on VC++, email me and I will pay and take it. If I get three or more people returning this book, I will come back here to tell the whole world. That will not change my love for this book, however. For a newbie, there is no better help than this God Sent.

Thanks Beck, for you made me what I will ever be proud of-using VC++ with confidence! may God bless you richly.

Paul Selormey.

If I wanted a a story I would have read Fiction.

the book details many aspects of MFC/VC++ programming, but the tuturial is not worth the paper it is printed on.

The exercise flow easily in some chapters than others. more often than not the author tends to say" When you are this far, do this" When in fact you have passed that stage following the guidelines.

More so, is the anoying tendancy to let the reader do something and say"You should have done this in the app Wizard".. hmm only to find out you didn't and that you have to repeat everything you have done.

This book is worthless. Microsoft Press can add another poor book to the collection. I am sticking with WROX.

The book is about the same physical size as many of Microsoft Press' other programming books. As it turns out, that's because it was printed on heavy stock, in large type, and contains a lot of material that could be omitted.

The book assumes you're already familiar with Windows programming and MFC -- I wasn't familiar with either, and so felt this acutely -- yet the author felt compelled to provide details like how to select more than one file at a time from the standard file dialog. Particularly in the early chapters, you spend half the time learning something interesting, and half the time wondering whether the author had a page quota.

I would be more willing to recommend this book if it had taken the form of a manual, and provided comprehensive coverage rather than selecting a few topics and casually walking through them. I would also have liked to see more recommendations on how to go about creating and maintaining source code and associated resource files. ! The author intersperses comments like, "if you change something here, you will have to go back and clean up the other stuff over here". Had that taken the form of a checklist, instead of casual commentary sprinkled throughout the book, it might have proven more useful.

There *are* useful pieces of information here, about features you might not otherwise notice, but this book falls short of providing a comprehensive manual or a useful "how to" guide.

If you're looking for a good example of how to take what ought to be a very interesting subject and suck all of the life and interest out of it, then buy this book. Beck first and foremost seems enamored with using jargon, obfuscating syntax and making his points so obliquely that one has to read a section two and three times just to understand what he is trying to say.

Example: "Odor-Taste Conditioning in Early Experience: When newborn rats are stimulated around the mouth they grasp the mother's nipple and suck, which is rewarded by getting milk. The sucking response can be classically conditioned to other stimuli, such as odors. Cheslock, Varlinskaya, Petrov and Spear (2000) studied infant rats that had never had actual contact with the mother's nipple. The rats were first presented with a lemon odor, followed by direct infusion of milk into the mouth. Then, the lemon odor was presented to them and they were allowed contact with an artificial nipple that provided no fluid. Compared with appropriate control conditions, the pups that had previous odor-milk pairings grasped the nipple more consistently and for longer periods of time. This same procedure was also effective using suchrose as the UCS (not just milk), supporting the hypothesis that the common element was engagement of the endorphin system."

Huh? Did Dr. Beck fail English 101? If the point he was trying to make was that you could get a rat to suck on a dry teat by exposing it to the lemon odor, why doesn't he come out and say so? Why all of the jargon about "appropriate control conditions" and "grasping the nipple?" And what is this nonsense about "engagement of the endorphin system?" Where was that seemingly central point previewed earlier in the paragraph? Throughout the book, he commits the all-too-common error of many a textbook writer of writing to his colleagues and not his students. This kind of academic double-speak and his heavy reliance on formalized terms and jargon make it difficult to pierce the writing to get at the meaning, which is contrary to principles of good communication. Plainly state the meaning, then you can elaborate with the double speak and jargon. The goal of a textbook is not to make the reader work for and grasp at your meaning, but to elucidate and instruct in a forthright manner. As it is, however, Beck's book is cumbersome and tiresome to read, to the point where you just want to put the thing down and go to Wikipedia for your answers.

Finally, Beck seems to have a talent for taking what is inherently interesting and fascinating -- understanding human motivation -- and reducing it to the interest level of watching a show on basket weaving. Wait, that's too generous. Suffice to say that the subject of human motivation becomes for Beck an endless string of examples of "appropriate control conditions" and "incentive valences." Those are appropriate to discuss in a textbook, granted, but when that is all that is discussed, the subject matter becomes as dry as King Tut's arse. My guess is that Beck just wasn't motivated to write a good textbook, but just one that would be forced upon students so he could make a buck.

If you're an instructor reading this review and you care about your students, don't use this textbook!

The book was useable, however it looked pretty rough. The binding was ripped and it had a lot of highlighted pages. It was supposed to be like new but I didn't feel this was the case.

Ok, I'm going to admit from the beginning that I can't write an unbiased review of this book, because the writer was also my professor, and therefore our classes every day followed closely to the book and made perfect sense with the book. However, since I read the assigned chapters before having the topic in class, I can say that I found the book easy to understand and follow, and not as bone crushingly boring as so many text books can be.

I purchased this book mainly for the CD test. Too bad for me that nowhere in the reviews does it mention that it can't be used in a Mac! I don't really care for the format of the questions, either - I've purchased much better review guides; especially the CLS Review by Harr (of course, you can't use it's floppy in a Mac, either - that's why I wasted my money on another book)

This book was a waste of money. I also gave it to a CLS student and she didn't even look at it. There are way better books for CLS reviews. Not enough depths.

I purchased this book years ago and in my opinion it's better than other review books I've purchased. I like the fact that there are explanations for all the answers. You don't just get an answer and left to research why the answer is what it is. Understanding why you have an answer is very important when your dealing with taking an exam, especially a board exam.