Carey Books

Great. This book gives the statistical theories in the viewpoint of microscale pheonomena and helps readers to understand the non-equilibria which occur in microscale region.

This book is the worst book on stat. thermodynamics I have read. The logic is kind of out of order, and the author seems in love of tons and tons of equations and formulas to hide his ignorance in physics, I mean, the deep understanding of the physics underlying this field. However, it would be fine to those who enjoy deriving equations...

This book is the worst book that I have read in stat thermo. The logic is not so good for a new comer to this field, for instance, the first chapter put the quantum mechanics in a several pages, which will discourage from enjoying the full flavor the later chapters. It looks like the autor is in great favor of tons and tons of equations and formulas, and talked little about the physics underlying the phenomena, which I personally think is very crucial. But it is definitely a good reference book for those who enjoy the exercise of deriving equations.

Living in the part of Virginia that this novel is set in and surrounded by the remains of plantations, homes and towns that are a part of the story really helps to understand just what the Lees had to survive to even exist. I cannot imagine getting on a horse or in a carriage and going from Williamsburg to the Rappahannock let alone Philadelphia. I think the authors did a very good job of bringing to light just how difficult living in Virginia was and just what type of person thrived here. They also brought up the differences the Virginians who lead an agricultural lifestyle had with the Northern states whose population was more city oriented and how that eventually lead to the Civil War. All in all I enjoyed the representation of the lives of these people but do agree that not all of them were as beautiful and handsome as depicted.

I've always been interested in the Lee family of Virginia, especially Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot, the Declaration of Indpedence signers, so I ordered this book, hoping it would give me an insight into the world the two lived in. The book did, in a way. Some of the best points were when the authors described the society of Old Virginia, the relationships between the Virginia families, and how the colonists lived. Thankfully, the authors did a good job of portraying Richard H. and Francis L., but after that, the book sort of went downhill. I definitely did not enjoy how the authors portrayed Henry 'Light Horse Harry' Lee. He came off as some whiny, simpering man, and it really annoyed me. But, other than that, this book is a great insight into the society of Old Virginia and a fair look at the Lee family, and their roll in our history

Tidewater Dynasty is a fictional account of the Lee family. It is based upon historic dates and facts. The glimpses of the Lee family are not true to life. All the Lee husbands are good looking, intelligent, perfect husbands, unselfish, ... All the wives have the same traits. There is one Lee who does not comform to the Lee image. I suppose he embodies all the bad traits of the Lee family so that none of the others had any.

Save your money folks.....this was weak movie hype book...I can see why they are not making any more

With Marvel's Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra mini-series scribe Greg Rucka signed exclusively to DC, Mike Carey (Vertigo's Hellblazer and Lucifer) was enlisted to script this mini, focusing more on Elektra this time around. I expected Mike Carey to do this Ultimized version of DD & Elektra more justice, but like Rucka's mini, this pales in comparison to Frank Miller's classic tales. It starts off with would be assassin and revenge driven Elektra Natchios attempting to infiltrate a criminal empire which, in turn, is operated by Wilson Fisk. Young Matt Murdock, attempts to persuade his lost love from making one mistake too many, which culminates in an encounter with a balded man with a tattoo of a bullseye on his forehead, and who can make anything in his hands a weapon. The story goes nowhere, and if you think this will lead up to a final confrontation between Elektra and Bullseye, you're dead wrong. Maybe this is good or bad, who knows, but what is known, is that Carey most likely wasn't given any creative freedom to give the story some spark. X-Men artist Salvador Larroca's (who also did the art for Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra) gorgeous pencils save Ultimate Elektra from being a complete dud however, so in the end this is worth a look. All in all, if you didn't like Ultimate DD & Elektra, chances are you won't like this either.

from reading the other review i was expecting this book to be dull and slow like the first ult. DD+elektra book, but i thought this was solidly written and enjoyable. i haven't really read any of the other DD/elektra books, but as a continuation of the ultimate versions of these characters i liked the plot's nice amount of twists and the characters' development. carey does a particularly good job highlighting the duo's conflicting beliefs and attitudes so that even when they're working together they're working less as a team and more as individuals. good to see the two sharing fight scenes, and although their relationship isn't explored so much, elektra's character does undergo some major events. looking forward to more ult. DD/elektra.

So basically I purchased this book for a few reasons:
1. I had asked my mom for a college book to help me figure out what schools I am interested in. She begrudgingly agreed. I picked the U.S. News Ultimate College Guide 2008 thinking that it was massive and therefore would contain all of the information I could ever want.... it didn't.
2. During this whole college selection process I have developed a weird/nerdy/neuorotic obsession with learning everything I can about the subject. I wanted to feed my thirst for knowledge!! I thought that the Big Book of Colleges would give me more information about the social aspects of different schools (plus the student comments sounded totally rad). This time I recieved the book as a gift.

I guess ultimately I was dissapointed by this guide. I was really put off by all of the gross/brutal statements that students made about their classmates looks, actions, attitudes. This book turned me off from the whole idea of college. Ya, I know that there are out of control parties involving beer, drugs, and whatever else but I was hoping that all of this was avoidable if you didn't want to be a part of it. I felt that this book was written under the assumption that all teens are vapid, arrogant, and irresponsible. That definitly isn't the case. I guess that this book could spur curiosity in kids that aren't interested in your typical college book format. Though I wouldn't recommend it I suppose parents could buy it for there teens in an effort to get them involved in the college selection process. Whatever the case I wasn't crazy about this book. It wasn't worth the money.

I know many college experts feel that the best book on the colleges is Fiske, but it is a bit light on student viewpoint. In contrast, College Prowler's Big Book of Colleges is a very good resource of student opinion. (It's similar to the website, CampusDirt.com, but generally more thorough.) However, the college books that rely heavily on student views share the problem of excessive subjectivity. To be fair, College Prowler readily admits that students are not uniform at different schools, and it's not easy for students to compare their experiences with those at other colleges. A student that rated academics at her school a B- might have given it an A if she'd been exposed to the same courses at several other schools, but there's no way for her to know. The students who only rated George Washington University's diversity a C+ have no idea how truly un-diverse a small, rural college can be. Even students who transfer probably couldn't be familiar with more than two or three institutions. Still, for many of the graded categories such as campus dining, safety, parking, and housing, this book is probably accurate in assessing how happy a typical student would be with each school. Since the Big Book of Colleges delivers a wider variety of opinions than some of the guides, you will get some contradictions. At one school, a student said "it's not a great idea to walk around campus at night" while another said "campus security is so good, I feel totally safe going for a run at midnight." You'll frequently have opinions that say "dorms are plush" and "dorms are nasty" for the same school. However, each school's entry has an author who generally does a good job of evaluating the differing opinions and putting them in perspective.

Here's where this book totally falls down: Selectivity. They claim the University of Michigan is "less selective." They claim that Bryn Mawr and Carnegie-Mellon are at the same level of selectivity as Slippery Rock and Tennessee State. No, no, no. They rate selectivity entirely on the percentage of students admitted which means they don't understand the concept of a "self-selecting applicant pool." Sure, some colleges aren't going to get the thousands of "not-a-chance" applications that Harvard, Brown or NYU will receive which means they accept a much larger percentage of applicants, but if you don't have high grades or test scores, you will not get in. The worrisome thing about this is that if this book is a student's only resource, he or she may think a school is a safety when that's not at all true. While it's not perfect, Barron's Profiles of American Colleges has what I feel is the most accurate and thorough analysis of selectivity although in the past they've provided SAT medians as opposed to a range of scores which isn't as helpful. The College Board guide (and website) do a decent job with selectivity and explaining a student's chances as does Princeton Review with its thorough freshman class profiles.

This leads us to College Prowler's shortage of statistics. Honestly, this book discusses each college more thoroughly than Princeton Review or Yale Insider's (although not Fiske), and if you search through each college's entry you will find important information on freshmen retention and graduation rates. However there is some info missing, particularly on financial aid such as average grant size and average amount of need met. (As a matter of fact, The Big Book of Colleges claims it is "filled with financial aid resources." Really? Where? I didn't see them.) The other guides (Princeton Review, Insider's, Fiske) are far better with statistics.

The Big Book of Colleges only lists about 250 schools which isn't really enough. There are many top schools they left out (i.e. University of the South, Worcester Polytechnic, Wofford, Austin College, Knox, Hendrix, Lawrence) that Fiske and Princeton Review did not. On the other hand, this book does have more pages on each school than the others (although partially because, with lots of separated text boxes and headers, it does not use space effectively), and it's already kind of expensive compared to other choices.

College Prowler is a bit quirky. It's probably the only guide that will have a glossary defining both "beer pong" and "mushrooms" as well as "early decision" and "rolling admissions". At times it's a bit more fun than other guides (under Wilkes University it tells you which buildings are haunted), with some emphasis on how hot the guys or girls are, giving it a more authentic feel that this is really written for students. One thing that's a big improvement over Insider's is that they've managed to present (fairly) unbiased portrayals of the universities by students who actually know the schools well. Also, most of these guides are guilty of recycling entries year after year, and since College Prowler is fairly new, chances are that the info is close to current.

An abandoned property doesn't necessarily mean it's empty, forgotten, and run-down--it just means nobody cares about it any more (and may still be living inside).

This book is comprised of mostly the material from their last book "Short Sales and Foreclosure Purchases." They simply added a new twist to an old rope, slapped a new cover on it, and released it as another book. Funny how that works with the public.

"Abandoned" can mean abandoned of debts, physical abandonment, or mental abandonment (a "don't wanter")--in any case, these homes are all purchased the same way, regardless of owner circumstance. Then, they're all fixed and flipped (or kept) the same way. Nothing new here.

Clearly the authors have a very comprehensive and rich knowledge of the real estate market and they share a great deal of valuable information in this book. The problem with the book is that although it makes the attempt of being methodical, the authors often get swept into tangential discussions within any particular section. It reads more like a narrative with subsections of glossary-like listings. This, unfortunately, causes the book to be scattered, and is useless for any reference purposes. For instance, the book describes the advantages of purchases from Fanny May, illustrated by a personal story, in the section dedicated to locating distressed sellers. I can see the logic of how they got there, but this would hardly be the logical place for such a lengthy excursion, in my opinion. I think the book could stand a significant revision for purposes of clarity and structure. Again, a lot of information is there to excavate, just not laid out in the best manner.

Don't waste your money on Sparknotes' and Cliff Notes' Shakespeare. Folger's Shakespeare Library does a much better job on Shakespeare plays, in my opinion. Go take a look.

This piece of work really opens your eyes and shows the great talent of William Shakespeare. I think that if anyone likes his other works will love this. If your not a Shakespeare fan, this should be the book you read first.

Although there is much of interest in this book, there is almost as much that could be tossed out without in any way detracting from the real content. It was as if, having laid out the story, the editors found themselves with too many empty pages left, and went about madly gathering up the most irrelevant minutiae to occupy the space.

The first chapter could be discarded entirely, or at least summarized in a paragraph or so. (Do we really need to know the exact text of every email that passed between the principals? Is it crucial to devote several mind-numbingly dull pages to what reads like the full text of a sales brochure for the University of New Mexico's Office of Contract Archeology - pages brimming with such breath-taking facts as a description of their facility and a listing of their vehicles and office equipment, etc., etc., ad nauseam?) The text is rife with such alarming digressions.

Likewise, it was hardly necessary to reprint the SciFi Channel's entire PR announcement heralding the broadcast (which occurred in November, 2002, while the book was copyrighted in 2004) of the documentary film of this Roswell dig. If one missed the documentary - two years ago - the fact could hardly pass unnoticed, since mention of the production is made, it seems, at every possible opportunity. One could almost detect a ghostly producer wagging a scolding finger at the truant reader absent from that stellar broadcast.

The book is saved from utter disaster by the short diaries of the participants in the dig, which tell, in brief vignettes, the very human story of the hopes, heartbreaks and hardships of both the very educated and the very common people involved in this effort. Of further compelling interest is the final report on the project by OCA's William Doleman. The afterword documents also merit attention.

Unfortunately, the upshot of all this archeological activity in the New Mexico high desert was that nothing substantial was found to advance the cause of those (myself included) who contend for the occurrence of an extra-terrestrial event. I am left wondering if the SciFi Channel people really thought that a dig of less than a week's duration with a skeleton crew of untrained volunteers would actually produce anything; or was this simply a high profile headline event calculated to generate a lot of viewer interest whether the dig was productive or not?

If that is the case, then this book can only be seen as a further attempt to capitalize on the hopes of the UFO faithful and the drawing power of the name "Roswell".

SCI FI Declassified: The Roswell Dig Diaries is the literary companion, including the final scientific conclusions, to the SCI FI Channel's highest-ever rated original special, The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence. For nine days, from September 16-24, 2002, the University of New Mexico's Office of Contract Archaeology in Albuquerque, headed by principal investigator William Doleman, in partnership with the SCI FI Channel, set out to conduct a historic "dig," archeological testing and related research at the "reported location of a low-angle extraterrestrial vessel impact in 1947."

The Roswell Dig Diaries is, for the most part, a thought-provoking and enjoyable behind the scenes look at Project Starlight, this unprecedented and comprehensive search for "memory metal," the Holy Grail of Roswell, at the debris field or "skip site."

From the opening timeline of Roswell events to the personal day-by-day journals and private e-mails of many of the personalities involved, The Roswell Dig Diaries demonstrates the highs and lows of such an undertaking. In short order, you will share both the frustration and enthusiasm felt by those on the project.
Make no bones about it, the debate over what exactly crashed at the former J. B. Foster sheep Ranch (located thirty-five miles south-southeast of Corona, seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell, New Mexico) in Lincoln County one fateful July 1947 night will continue.

The Roswell Dig Diaries makes an interesting addition to any collection concerning this source of endless controversy.
(Review by Robert A. Goerman)

"Silver Surfer" takes off with a classic Fantastic Four plot point: Reed tries to construct a device (in this case, the Cosmic Cube), and things go awry. He attracts the attention of the "Silver Searcher," who calls his master, the Psycho Man, to turn Earth into a utopia at the cost of everyone's free will and self-knowledge.

I'm not a hardcore F4 reader, but this arc does capture, albeit briefly, the several "beats" that a fantastic four story SHOULD:
-Reed is a nerd, Johnny's a jerk, Ben is lovable, and Sue is capable
-The four are "imaginauts" - meaning, their science fiction is a little bit more offbeat, a little more fun, than conventional science fiction. Earth as a utopia never fails to be interesting.
-The four are a family, and NOTHING can break their bond, not even the Psycho man.
-The Silver (ugh) Searcher is a noble hero who will always value autonomy over despotism.

This arc took off very slowly. For a collection of five issues, you only really need to read the last three. I find it very disappointing that the title of the arc is "Silver Surfer," but Norrin Radd is referred to only as "The Silver Searcher." His first rebellion against the Psycho Man is also glossed over and a mere footnote, when I think he deserved a bigger spotlight.

If you're a fantastic four fan, you won't be disappointed, but don't think this will wow you. This arc was adequate at best.

Get the book only if you're deeply into the Ultimate Fantastic Four universe.

I love the ultimate series but this was tottally weak....the Silver Searcher...they butchered this character.....What was wrong with Galactus be the way he was before....love the Ultimate line but hate what they have done with Galactus and now the Silver (Searcher).....I bought this book because I have all the Ultimate books....this was by far the weakest in the Fantastic 4 sereies and one of the weakest Ultimate titles to date.

The book itself is an alright collection of stories filling in the blanks left by Messiah CompleX. However, it should e noted that this TPB does NOT include the 2008 X-Men Free Comic Book Day special, although the description says that it does.

"X-Men: Divided We Stand" is not to be confused with "Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand." The latter stars Cyclops, Emma Frost, Wolverine, etc., while this book stars a B- and C-list of mutants, such as Cannonball, Husk, Nightcrawler, Storm, Neznho, Anole, Beast, Dark Beast, Havok, Vulcan, Pixie, and Surge.

Most of the stories work, and the artwork is wonderfully diverse. The casual X-Men fan, unfortunately, won't recognize many of these characters. Several future storylines are teased and set up here, so it's still worth reading for hardcore fans.

This is by far the most horrid book! The tutorials and case studies have nothing to do with each other! You really cannot learn anything from this book at all. The organization of this book is bad period. Not for beginners at all. I will have to drop my javascript class because I'm learning nothing! Do yourself a favor and buy the teachers edition!

Similar to other reviews my entire JavaScript class is two weeks behind trying to get a understanding of this material. The tutorials are great! But the case studies personally make me want to stick a fork in my eye and twist it. The way its worded, they want you to grab code out of thin air expecting you to understand everything in that overly simplified review/tutorial.

I think teachers like this book because they are NOT looking at it from the view of the students and already know the code; or they wouldn't be teaching it. Of course they think its a great book they already understand the material.

The book does not get any better as the chapters go on. I cant even complete the case studies; the teacher has to walk us through every class period with little time left over for lab work.... My advice to teachers, do a bit more hands on training and DO NOT rely on a book; Especially this one.

If you're looking to get into JavaScript for the first time, this book is probably for you. If you're trying to create commercial sites or become a JS pro, probably not. It's good for classes where students can follow the tutorials.

Myself and 10 other students in my Javascript class all agree and have announced to the instructor that this book is horrible. Also, 3 people just dropped the class because no one is understanding or learning anything. This is our first javascript class and this book is no where near intro or basic. It says it's comprehensive.

Not only that, but the tutorials they try to show you throughout the book have nothing to do with the case assignments after each tutorial. You basically have to do your own internet research to get the code, but that still is a little difficult.

Perhaps due to the presence of coauthor Frank Canovatchel, there is slightly more clarity of thought and rigor applied to program logic presentation than in the other Carey book I reviewed (XML).

However, I have to agree that the Review exercises at the end of each tutorial (I'm at Chap 04) tend to leave out critical information that doing the chapter tutorial should have taught. It doesn't.

And to make matters worse, the index is incomplete. A pet peeve of mine is text books where you can't find information you either thought you read [and want to review] or want to know if it is somewhere in the book you plan to read [but haven't read yet].

Case in point: Review exercise of Tutorial 4, Step 5 says "Use the getObject() function to create three variables..." but the closest thing to a "getObject()" function mentioned in the chapter (or the book as far as I can tell) is the getElementById() which does not appear to be what is intended in this exercise. To make matters worse, the index does not list a getObject() function. Googling online revealed numerous tangentially related topics, mostly appearing to do with Microsoft and VB. So....one simple missing step and the exercise is dead in the water. Very typical of Thomson Course Technology textbooks I might add.

So two stars because the chapter tutorials proper can usually be copied line for line (legal transcriptionist style) and will often work (not always, for example Chapter 03 tutorial created a opening HTML table tag and never ended it. Makes me wonder how well the code was tested.). No more stars because the end of chapter exercises are only moderately clear and tend to require that you somehow intuit exactly what logic the author had in mind at the time he was writing, and book is nearly useless as a reference to find more data. It is not for loss of words. The author writes like he is paid by the word. The exact same code is repeated three times in consecutive order but slightly different text formatting (for reasons known only to the author or publisher) and the verbosity of writing style would make a politician green with envy - yet seldom does it clearly and categorically really 'say' anything. Definitely not K & R.

Lastly, the text mentions color in several places. For example, p. 172 states "In the figure, object names are highlighted in red, methods are displayed in blue, and parameter values are diplayed in green". I need not state the obvious: The book is printed in black and white. Obviously, a printing decision was made after the text was written and nobody bothered to proof for mention of color. Not to mention the resulting loss of information.

I only bought this book because it was required for a class - I previously had the displeasure of another Carey/Thomson Course Technology book [XML] and know better than to buy one voluntarily.

[btw, It doesn't help that IE7 javascript debugger gives clues about as illuminating as tea leaves. "Expected object, line 54, 1" - which is perfectly good, only said object is a container for all the code written in the exercise....well now that really narrows things down!!! :-( ]