Campbell Books

For Americans of Scottish descent, "A Scots Quair" (a trilogy) will teach you how Scots in Kindardineshire spoke, what life was like, how the air might have felt against your cheek. It's like looking into the hearts and minds of our ancestors and finding that life's basics have not changed at all.

It is rare to find a book written on Scotland at the beginning of the 20th century to be so powerful and moving. The book heroine, Chris Guthrie is one of the most realistic and brilliant characters in modern literature. To have a book that merges elements of the Kailyard and the counter-Kailyard movement so effectively is an brilliant idea, difficult, but brilliant. Quite simply the greatest book ever written.

A marvellous trilogy with each novel depicting that particular era superbly. My personal favourite was Sunset Song because it was saluting the end of an era for the Scottish crofter who will always be part of Scotland's great heritage.

For Americans of Scottish descent, "A Scots Quair" (a trilogy) will teach you how Scots in Kindardineshire spoke, what life was like, how the air might have felt against your cheek. It's like looking into the hearts and minds of our ancestors and finding that life's basics have not changed at all.

unjustly overlooked, this book (really comprised of three novellas, all together a trilogy) deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with other modernist works, such as "Dubliners" or "Sons and Lovers." at its time, the books were important, both politically and socially, because they present scottish language and scottish history as things separate from - though no less equal to - the larger "English" culture. beyond this, gibbon's lyricism is a wonder to behold; he can manipulate language in ways that may bring a tear to your eye (and the story, mournful as it is, just may add to it)."Scottish Quaire" is a work that many have never heard of, and that is unfortunate. it offers a unique voice to the human condition, and, perhaps more importantly, the scottish condition. i tell you to buy it, or at least check it out of your library (lord knows there'll be copies available).

I love this book - I reread it recently, now that I'm writing romantic suspense myself (Leave No Trace)- this is a great book - high suspense, and very subtle romance - great book!

This book got better and better as the pages flew by and tension mounted... Eight year old autistic twins, Rickie and Trace, attended a special school........while out in the school playground with their teacher, Laura Stoner, they witnessed an elderly man getting gunned down right in front of them!! As with most autistics, they had a gift for details with numbers.....they repeated the license plate number, how many shots were fired, and described the murderer.......what they had witnessed was the execution of a mafia don.... Ex-cop turned assistant U.S. attorney, Mike Montana, was in charge of protecting both Laura and the twins....Laura had no option other than to trust him while he moved them around from one state to another, running from the villains and not knowing who in the US government, has betrayed them!! This story will have you holding your breath when the good guys confront the bad guys!!

Since I started to read this book I just couldn't, stop doing it, is an amazing suspense story from the first page till the last page, and the way that Montana fights against the bad guys is not out of reality at all, meanwhile you learn a little bit of autism boys.

I say it again -- if you are getting a little weary of Mary Higgins Clark, then try Bethany Campbell's thrillers. I picked this one up out of the blue (on a whim) and was hooked from page one. Well drawn characters, a very tense plot, and plenty of empathy for people who are coping with children with problems. Any mother or teacher can relate to this book, and be carried along by a fast moving, credible plot as well. Bethany Campbell's publishers should be promoting her like crazy, because there is a heap of talent in this lady.

this was one of the best books i have ever read!! I was reading late into the night, and at every spare minute i could!! an absolute must read!!! The characters are well developed, and the plot is fascinating, with a wonderful climax!

The strength of this novel is its strong prose style, a style that Ian Campbell has correctly described as "flexible and arresting." (xxvi) The novel's weakness is its limited characterization. For all its fine evocative passages, the characters are flat and fail to develop. Perhaps we can excuse former slaves for being emotionally stunted, but the reader may soon cease to care whether such people live or die.

And die they all do. This is a novel littered with corpses. Even though Mitchell, writing in the 1930s, could not have anticipated the sort of blood lust in which twenty-first-century Hollywood wallows, his numerous unpleasant deaths, coolly observed, are still multiple deaths from which the humanity has been drained.

Finally, mention should be made of what Campbell calls Mitchell's "occasionally injudicious reliance on one effect." (xxix) Some characters have a leitmotif that follows them insistently (and sometimes irritatingly) through the story. The author also has a fascination with Latin, Greek, and obscure English words. Although the reader can usually deduce what the unknown word must mean, occasionally Mitchell goes overboard, as when he writes that "beyond the horreum itself, through a fence of osiers, the steadings of a farm loomed." (56)

I don't understand why this isn't at the top of the Spartacus search. The movie was adapted from THIS novel, why would anything be above it? Excellent novel, and a must-have for those who love history and/or historical fiction.

Lewis Grassic Gibbon (or James Leslie Mitchell) has written a novel of Spartacus that is as refreshing as it is clearly one of the forerunners of historical fiction. Opening through the eyes of the eunuch Kleon and his mission to find the heroic leader of the Slaves the novel centers more around Spartacus 'inner circle' and his relationship with Elpinice. Book I is told through Kleon and deals with the period up to the defeat after the Battle of the Lake. Books II and III with Spatracus' victories until we move towards the well-known and inexorable end on the Appian way at the hands of Marcus Licinius Crassus at the end of Book VI. The novel ends as it begins, with Kleon, and his crucifixion
The novel is well written, well-paced and pauses sufficiently to voice greater philospohical views than historical novels of the current generation. It is easy to see why this has been heralded as one of the great novels of its genre.

This novel is an amazing masterpiece of prose. I cannot praise this book enough! The opening scene is one of the most memorable and epic works of writing I have ever read.

I just finished reading this book. It was absolutely fantastic. The author's command of the English language...his use of imagery, metaphor, symbolism, foreshadowing..etc was made this book a joy to read.

This is a good,clear, no nonsense book about cleaning. I am always looking for ways to make the cleaning process go quicker and/or do a better job at it - this book is a pretty good one. It really simplifies things, and does not go overboard on details - like some of the other books that are out there. It is really just for those jobs that need to be done once or twice a year, his other book about speed cleaning is a great one for the weekly cleaning list.

I couldn't figure out how to clean the miniblinds effectively. Now I do. While apartment dweller won't need all the info, there is something for just about everyone who needs it. Their company sells the best and most interesting cleaning tools you've ever seen. Customer service is also five stars. They know their stuff, and this book is a good example of it. Also: Talking Dirt, the newest book.

This book gives specific advice for tackling major cleaning jobs around the house. The focus is not on hints and tips for tackling the details but on the approach to use and how to do it. Speed Cleaning, another book by Jeff Campbell, is for doing weekly cleaning. Spring Cleaning is for infrequent large cleaning jobs, but it also has advice for tackling the weekly cleaning the first time if you're starting out from way behind. If only I could get results just from reading the book. . .

This is a very helpful book. Not only does Jeff Campbell explain exactly what the fastest way to clean your house is, but he also gives advise on what products to use and how to use them efficiently. This was not full of unnessesary "helpful hints", but was loaded with actual technique and procedure. I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to spend little time cleaning house, but would still like to live in a clean home.

A true cleaning gem that will get your cleaning done in a jiffy, just you wait and see. No matter what kind of job you need done, whether it's moving drapes and heavy curtains out into the wings, or packing up furniture for winter wear, you'll find some useful tips from the smart team of CLEAN TEAM. They've got their own website and they're not afraid to advertise it, but don't run away in disgust, Jeff Campbell is actually a pretty relaxed pitchman.

I put on my apron to do my spring cleaning, just as Jeff has advised for the past 20 years. It's made of all scraps of muslin and cotton that were lying around the house. In its durable and roomy pockets, I can always locate the knives, cloths and sprays I need to do any particular job. Those of you who are accustomed to clean in the mude, however, will be disconcerted, that is strictly a no no with Jeff Campbell, who wants you to put on an apron, not just to cover your "block and tackle" but to hold different tools in for ease of use.

This is a great version of the story of The Steadfast Tin Soldier -- always one of my favorite stories as a kid. My son, age 7, loves this book and we read it over and over. The illustrations are excellent and I recommend it. My son found it in his school library but when we went to buy our own copy, it was out of print. So we had to buy it used but it was well worth the effort to have our own copy.

This book tells the classic tale of the one-legged tin soldier who falls in love with a paper ballerina. The soldier suffers a series of misadventures, including being placed at the helm of a doomed paper boat, being chased by a rat, and swallowed by a fish. It's a wonderful tale that will hold older children spellbound. The illustrations are delightful. All told, the book has about 2000 words.

I taught 1st grade for 4 years and all of the teachers in my grade passed this book around at Christmas to read to our class. I cried everytime I read it. It has a wonderful message and my kids in my classroom always loved it! I have now (finally) purchased my own copy of this book to read to my little girl. It is a classic and I know she will love it as much as I do. Every home should have this book to read at Christmastime.

This is a really good book. It has all the characteristic's that made the original a cherished and remembered fairy tale. It is a great gift for any young child, and can be enjoyed by adults too. It maintains the feel of the original tale, but is more like a poem. The art work on each page is beautiful, and the pictures are totally devine. I would recomend buying this for a different and fully enjoyable version of the original.

A little boy had a set of tin soldiers that were made from a melted spoon. One soldier was missing a leg because there was not enough metal left over from the melted spoon.

Tossed aside by the boy, the one-legged soldier sees a paper cut out figure of a ballerina. She is poised on one leg and he feels an instant bond. He has found another one-legged toy and believes this to be love.

The steadfast tin soldier has a series of mishaps. He falls off the window sill into a stream. From there, he is transported to a rat infested sewer. He is swallowed by a fish and through an unlikely stroke of luck, winds up back in the boy's playroom with the other toys and the ballerina.

The ending is what gets to me every single time. A gust of wind lifts the paper ballerina up and she flutters into the fire place, winding up a charred heap of ashes. Devastated, the tin soldier joins her. The remaining metal that was once the tin soldier is a charred piece of heart shaped metal.

I still think this is a very sad story. The photographs really emphasize the feeling this story evokes.

The family drama in Tears for Grandma is truly universal. Linda's family is your family, it's my family, it's our family. Like a long family visit on a cold winter night, this book is to be savored, relished, cherished, and read over and over and over again!

Proves that you don't have to be a celebrity to lead an extraordinary life. Perhaps, in fact, Tears for Grandma proves just the opposite: I know few celebrities whose lives are as touching, poignant, giving, honest, and loyal as the family members portrayed in this engrossing memoir...

One of the better memoirs out on the market today. Campbell should be applauded for her gritty, honest, and often hilarious look at the house she grew up in, and the family that occupied it with him, warts and all ...

If I could use only one word to describe Tears for Grandma it would be this: bittersweet. Linda Campbellýs rich prose, like her life, is full of ups and downs that are at once heartbreaking and hilarious ...

As a male reader I found myself tearing up as I went thru Linda's life. It was not easy, but yet you have the feeling of Hope, that if she just sticks to it, she will get thru it. The words just jump out at you, and I could not wait to turn the page. I recommend this book to everyone of all ages. It has humor at just the right places. I got the feeling that her life was being directed from above. Excellent Book.

To read this book is a real proud . The multiple annotations and clever observations of this renowned master of the mythology make us transport immediately to this unusual universe He makes an amazing journey from the origins of the myth in the distant past to familiar European medieval legends .
The fertile wisdom and powerful intelligence of this extraordinary thinker is a real invitation to enter and cross the line for knowing one of the most ambitious essays ever written .
Thirteen chapters all the way depicted with visible commitment are :
In the beginning :Origins of the man and Myth.
Where People Lived Legends: American Indian Myths.
And the Washed Our Weapons in the Sea: Gods and Goddesses of the Neolithic Period.
Pharaoh' s Rule : Egypt , the exodus and the Myth of Osiris .
The Sacred Source : the Perennial Philosophy of the East.
The Way to Enlightenment: Buddhism.
From Id to the Ego in the orient: Kundalini Yoga , Part I.
From Psychology to Spirituality : Kundalini Yoga , Part II
The Descent to Heaven: The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
From Darkness to Light: The Mistery Religions of Ancient Greece.
Where There Was No Path: Arthurian Legends and the Western Way.
A Noble Heart : the Courtly Love of Tristan and Isolde.
In Search of the Holy Grail: The Parzival Legend.
The material of myth is the material of our life , the material of our body , and the material of our environment , and a living , vital mythology deals with these in terms that are appropriate to the nature of the knowledge of the time .
There are two types of human beings . There is the animal human who is practical and there is the human being who is susceptible to the allure of beauty which is divinely superfluous . This is the distinction . This is the first little gem of a spiritual concern and need , of which the animals know nothing.
The illustrations are of first order and support the text in a very helpful way .
Do not think it over and buy this supreme golden book.

Read this if you can't afford the tapes of this excellent PBS series (though it gets a little dry in some spots)! It is a (now deceased) esteemed archeologists's comparisons of myth with the actual excavations that he and other archeologists have made. He can validate or repudiate claims made by some religions that their version is the best, only, or earliest version, and can also show how some myths evolved from actual real events or places. Once you are done reading this, go ahead and read the older work The Women's Encylopedia of Myths and Secrets (written by Barbara G. Walker), another heavily referenced work, which looks into the literature of the ancients, right on through to the Middle Ages, highly exposing information that has been supressed by later religions, politicians, and peoples.

I have read a number of Prof. Campbell's books, and found this to be one of the best. I enjoy very much his lectures on compact disk or DVD generally more than his written work, and this book is a compilation of lectures. Once you are familiar with some of his work, a particularly good read is his recent biography--A Fire in the Mind--excellent and organized insight to both his extraordinary life as well as his work and thoughts!

This was another of those synchronist events that happens in the form of the written word. Actually, I got ahold of these videos through my local library at a time when I was searching for questions instead of answers. This book is a tour de force of the mythological evolution of the human species. Campbell addresses what the elemantary ideas of myth are and how they present themselves uniformly throughout all cultures, historical and present, of the world equally. The thesis--there is only one mythology that is inflected in various folk manifestations, comes across beautifully. Campbell will challenge you to rethink about religion and mythology and what it means to you as a human being. This one is a must read.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. This is a great book written by a very engaging storyteller. Joseph Campbell describes the monomyth in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces as embodying all the necessary elements of the hero's journey in the many myths in human history. Campbell discovered through extensive research that humankind shares a universal monomyth in its various religions and legends especially pertaining to the creation of the world and humankind. Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from James Joyce's book Finnegan's Wake. Campbell's intuitive insight in human myth proves that for thousands of years these myths display a certain standard structure, which he summarizes beautifully in his book.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a
region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there
encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back
from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons
on his fellow man (Campbell 30).

There are at least four major stages that a monomyth has however, in his book, Campbell goes on to describe seventeen stages that some monomyth's posses. The four stages making up the cycle of a monomyth are "passage: separation-initiation-return:" In the passage stage the hero is summoned to journey or embark on an adventure by some kind of event that takes place or from a message, he receives. The hero may embark on this passage willingly or reluctantly. During the separation stage, the hero meets with a mentor or wise man who gives the hero either an amulet or some words of wisdom to be of help to the hero on the adventure. It is during this stage that the hero will go through his first transformation, also known as "crossing the first threshold," as he crosses over to another world or dimension leaving behind the old world. In the initiation stage, the hero goes through several trials or tests. The hero often receives help in these ordeals along the way by allies or from a supernatural force. As the hero completes these ordeals successfully, he proves himself more worthy to continue the adventure. Most importantly, during this stage the hero must pass through a major ordeal that will expand his consciousness, and thereby change his character forever. Often, this ordeal entails the death of an ally or enemy. Once the hero successful accomplishes his ordeal he is rewarded with a gift, it could be intrinsic like the "holy grail, or it can be new found knowledge to better the world with. The last stage the hero travels is that of the return whence he came. Often the hero will undergo further trials on his return before he is permitted to cross the threshold back to the world he left. During his return journey, the hero will use his newfound wisdom or gift to make a safe return home. Once home the gift is used to cure some ill in the hero's home or to impart new wisdom to his neighbors.

Campbell points to the significance of the monomyth in the fact that it describes the cycle that Moses, Jesus, and Buddha had gone through according to their religious adherents. This is not to mention the hundreds of other monomyths told throughout human history. The monomyth proves that humankind shares a common creation DNA in a sense. The monomyth is the perfect vehicle for one to study the Humanities by.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy.

This is a great book! It's a little outdated (i read my mother's decrepit copies) but it is very warm and happy, but realistic- maybe her friends are a little nicer than natural, but Trixie has her share of faults. This mystery is suspenseful and fun- find it somewhere!

This story gives you the chills. It's spookiness declares it is the best of the Trixie Belden Series. Whenever she comes face to face with that man I have to find the courage to read on. I read this book over and over it is so interesting.

This is the one that introduces Diana Lynch to the Bob-Whites club, as she despairs of her recently arrived obnoxious uncle. Di doesn't bring much but bubbleheadedness to the party, but she does make Trixie look like a rocket scientist in comparison. And we get to see some of Trixie's snarky side as she makes sarcastic comments to Di on the school bus at the beginning of the book (but Trixie does come around later, thanks to Honey's gentling influence).

Note especially the ominous picture in the Deluxe edition (illustrated by Marvin Besunder) of Trixie alone on a field investigation to a seedy neighborhood. (For a discussion of the various illustrators, editions, and authors, check out the Trixie Belden Library website.)

This book climaxes with one of my two most memorable moments from the entire series (the other being in the Mystery of the Blinking Eye). Let's just say that it can be advantageous to stay on good terms with one's occasionally annoying siblings.

This was my first exposure to Trixie Belden; I borrowed it from a friend and I didn't want to give it back! Perhaps the sentimental value biases me, but this has always been one of my favorites.

As kids, we were often annoyed by our parents' tendency to trust our charming, rotten classmates and dislike our loyal, less polished friends. Therefore, it's easy to sympathize with Trixie, Di, and their friends when they can see through Di's uncle's trickery and her parents can't. Campbell shows real skill in making Uncle Monty subtly creepy without overdoing it.

How ironic that this warm, intelligent, realistic series is out of print, while the two-dimensional all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips Nancy Drew is still around! Trixie is an imperfect human being with real faults and limitations. Nancy was a great role model in many ways (she could change a flat tire - I never have!), but for a kid having growing pains, Trixie and her friends were so much easier to relate to. There is a real sense of warmth in these books that most of the old Grosset & Dunlap series (Hardy Boys, Dana Girls, Bobbsey Twins, Beverly Gray) lacked. Nancy's friends George and Bess were essentially ciphers; I used to wish that I could meet people like Trixie and her friends.

There's also a real sense of continuity - old friends don't just disappear from one book to the next, and the new friends they make get mentioned from time to time in subsequent stories.

And, to the best of my knowledge, the Trixie Belden books never had to be revised in order to remove racial slurs. Some elements seem slightly outdated, but with the emphasis on people rather than things, the books hold up surprisingly well.

Diana discovers that she has a 'long lost uncle,' who is suave to adults but manipulative to Trixie and her friends. Trixie is, of course, convinced that he is a fake, but no one believes her. As his behaviour becomes more and more threatening, Trixie decides that she must convince the adults of the truth, and the only way to do that is to search his room for evidence. The story takes place near Halloween, and the whole atmosphere is decidedly creepy. Definitely the most engrossing of the Trixie Belden series.

As a very amateur web builder, I find this to be an excellent reference tool. Concise, to the point explanations are provided and I found the answer to my problem right away. Cuts to the chase without all the fluff.

I read this book in about three days. It is so clear and concise and packed with simple yet extensible examples to do just about anything a designer would want to do on a web page. It is also full of practical, pragmatic pointers that really get you to think about the goal of your site and how to acheive that goal. I was thoroughly impressed with this book - worth the money, a great reference, and a nice-paced read. You want to design web sites? No experience? Pick up this book. You been dabbling and want to improve? Pick up this book. Do you finally want to see what all the to do is with CSS? Want to stop using html the wrong way? You want to make your sites more accessible for the impaired and do it the right way? Pick up this book.

I've been doing HTML work for almost 10 years now. I currently own or manage four different web sites. Because of always changing standards regarding HTML and more recently CSS, trying to keep a web site compliant with these standards is not an easy thing. One of the more problematic issues is how certain functions are employed that seem to work on every browser out there, but suddenly a standards verification says that what is being used doesn't comply with official standards. Grrr...

Another problem is trying to get information that the average Joe can understand. More often than not, web sites that are dedicated to providing HTML and CSS information are very poorly done because they look like someone with no taste or style just threw the page together. (I'm sure that we've all seen the pathetic web sites with huge, dark letters on a black background, centered throughout the page, with needless graphics scattered about.) Other sites regarding HTML and CSS are far too technical and give a lot of details but no practical instructions, examples, or usage. The only thing to do at that point is to find a web site that does what you want to do and try to figure out what was done through that page's source code. Sometimes that alone is enough to make you want to give up.

Web Design Garage is one of the few books about HTML and CSS that actually is written for the starting web author who doesn't know where to start as well as the intermediate author who is looking to fine tune his (or, of course, her) web design skill and perhaps clean up the site a bit.

This book is divided into eighty-six separate chapters with each chapter covering a very specific topic, such as image maps, text elements, paths, forms, and so forth. This is very beneficial because you know that the whole topic deals with one subject, rather than have one larger chapter that deals with a number of topics for which you have to go searching. What's also very nice about the chapter design is that for appropriate topics the HTML chapter is followed by the equivalent chapter to do the same thing through CSS. This is a great way of letting the reader compare the two formats back-to-back for the specific goal that the reader wants to reach. This certainly beats the more commonly used method of having a larger topic dealing with a lot of HTML topics followed by another large chapter of the same number of topics in CSS, forcing to you to hunting through the chapters for comparisons or differences.

This book also contains hundreds of images, screen shots, and code examples. In a visually oriented world like the Web, being able to see how each bit of code works as well as a graphical example of the theories behind that bit of code make it easier to understand exactly what that chapter is attempting to accomplish.

The book also covers some functions that might not appeal to the beginner but would likely be considered to be of value for intermediate HTML/CSS designers. Such topics include blogs, forms, form validation, some Javascript, and even how to validate so that the code is up to W3C standards.

What's really great about this book is not that it's written in layman's terms. It's not that this book keeps the specific topics relegated to their own, individual chapters. It's not that this book contains lots of information that even experienced HTML coders might find of value. What's great about this book is that is does all of this for a list price of US$29.99, so you know that it will be available for less than that in most bookstores. This is not a large book (roughly 530 pages) but the information that it gives for the price make is a great value.

I've been doing web pages for many years and have gotten many rave reviews on their designs, non-bloated implementations, and compatibility across almost all browsers. And even I found things in this book that I've been thinking of implementing but thought that they'd be too difficult to implement. Web Design Garage has proved me to be wrong. And if I can get value out of this book, I know that just about all beginner and intermediate HTML/CSS coders will be able to get value out of it as well.

If you're looking to impress people with fancy Flash animations or other such multimedia overload, this isn't the book for you. But if you're thinking of starting your own web page or you already have a basic web page and would like to spice it up, buy this book.

marc campbell shows one the things everyone know in their subconscience about a well designed site, but does realize when designing a site.

"Web Design Garage" is a remarkably clear-headed, concisely-written and feature-rich book about contemporary web design topics. It is part of a "Garage" series of hip-looking, style-laden books published by Prentice Hall (Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference -PH PTR) and is targeted at the "garage" level designer - small business professionals, hobbyists, and technophiles. It assumes some modest familiarity of HTML and working with Javascripts.

This is not a primer, tutorial, or concept-bound book. It is meant to provide practical guidance and solutions to the most common web design issues dealt with by web designers. Author, Marc Campbell, offers a set of 86 topics about web design problems and solutions. The format for nearly all of the 86 topics is to highlight a design issue and offer solutions using pictures, examples, and code snippets. Although a good and quick read from beginning to end, the book can be read piecemeal for information and guidance on a specific issue. One can pick and chose topics depending on interest or need.

There are no traditional chapters, but only a set of design topics of relatively short length organized into 8 general categories. Those categories include design and usability topics, layout, images, text, links, forms, and two others, - one of miscellaneous items and the last being an explanation of basic web design material. There is also an index and a short glossary of HTML, CSS, web, and graphics-related terms.

The fundamental theme of the book is that design and usability are, or should be, the same thing. Usability is paramount, of course, but the author's approach to web design emphasizes creating a "sense of place" so that good design unites pages so that they look like they belong together.

This is not an earth-shattering idea, but like most of all of the design treatments, the goal is to design pages which make it easy for visitors to use the site. Many good design virtues are virtually invisible to the casual user. There is a blend of design and usability. It's only when a design element doesn't work well that it comes to the attention of the user, and that occurrence is meant to be avoided. The author shows by example how design and usability are intertwined.

There are a handful of themes which guide the book. Admirably, the author emphasizes for every design element, a concern for accessibility. Many of the design guides refer to accessibility by screen-readers and non-graphic browsers. A second major concern is for compliance with contemporary web design standards as promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium. Consequently, there is much emphasis on the separation of page structure from content where HTML is used for structure and CSS is used for content. A contrast of HTML and CSS formatting is highlighted in many of the chapters.

There is a large handful of sections which express HTML and CSS formatting differences on page layout, text and image positioning, and other web design elements. There is clear discussion on how to work with Javascripts and stylesheets. The emphasis is on "forward-looking" coding, i.e., clean, standards compliant, and accessibility conscious. Campbell offers an experienced designer's insights on choices to be made in design components. There is much value for both inexperienced and seasoned designers.

Each topic is richly expressed with clear and straightforward text, illustrations, screenshots, and sidebars on a variety of related matters. Throughout there are sidebars titled "FAQS" and "Geekspeak" explaining concepts or terminology for the less-knowledgable reader. Then there are those called "Tips" which usually offer an insight to practical problems, especially dealing with browser compatibility issues. There are many useful tables and charts indexing specific tag attributes, with examples. In addition and most useful are the "Toolkits" which are sample code snippets. It would have been nice to have the code snippets available for downloading from the publisher's web site (www.phptr.com/garageseries).

This is a dense volume containing all sorts of information useful for the "garage" web designer. For some reason, the depth and weight of the content is reflected in the book itself, which is remarkably heavy, weighing in at a well-produced 29 ounces.

There are many books available on basic web design, but this one is unusually clear and well-expressed. This is the type of book one keeps handy in the bookshelf next to the computer to access for quick solutions to everyday web design problems.

I picked these books up purely because I was familiar with Ross Campbell's work in the Hopeless Savages series & liked what I'd seen. While the direction of Wet Moon has yet to truly assert itself, everything that's gone on so far has been interesting.

The series surrounds Cleo, a young girl who lives with her room mates & goes to a local college. Her friends are strange, alternative, and not just a little bit catty at times. (Sometimes you wonder which ones in the group really are friends & which ones are merely playing along with everyone else.) You (the reader) watch Cleo go through the process of her life which includes running from an ex-boyfriend, trying to track down someone who is posting horrible things about her, & going to goth bars for fun. There's also a few interesting side characters whose stories have yet to even be truly brushed upon.

I have to say I liked this book. It was cute, interesting, and contained lots of things I like in my comics. If all goes well in future volumes, I think this will be one I'll keep for a very long time.

One of the best books I've read this year.
The other being the volume 2 to this.
Very insightful and very realistic.
I like both books A lot!

I have to say that this isn't my usual genre, but what a great story and artwork from Ross Campbell! He is so talented and I hope many other people will discover his works and become fans.

ross,

wet moon is every bit as good as i knew it would be. the storytelling, the illustrations, the character designs, the whole moodily feminine vibe...they're all just perfect. i've always been a big fan of your work and i look forward to the future installments. i'm a little worried that some of the girls may be in for some rough times, but i guess that just goes with the territory. i'm especially glad that you chose to eschew a more traditionally over-the-top first episode and focused instead on just casually introducing all the major players. it all felt just right.

don't make me wait too long until the next one, okay?

bob:)

I can't say enough about the sophistication of Ross Campbell's artwork. It's truly amazing he hasn't already been snapped up by a major publisher. I give him two years, tops, before he's swamped with work for DC/Vertigo.

The characters' voices ring true to life, and their experiences bring back bittersweet memories of our youth. Campbell lays the groundwork for several plot threads that have you on the edge of your seat by the end of the book.

My only disappointment is that now I'll have to wait who knows how long for the next gorgeous volume.