Clayton Books

Let me start out saying this book had me laughing out loud, on several occasions. The British slang was quite entertaining in itself, at least for a Yank. The story even leaves you at the edge of your seat whipping through the pages to find out what will happen next. What perplexed me was the way the whole story played out.

The main character is very realistic and extremely immature and self centered. Even though it's not a major departure from what we see around us, it's unappetizing for the age she is supposed to be. The disturbing ending, which could have played toward it, showed no growth or understanding for the main character. In fact, I'm still scratching my head over what the intention was.

The last feeling, whether intentional or not, was that this was simply a sidebar to her life. That she not only did nothing wrong, but should be admired for her handling of such a situation. It is a dangerous addition to the high drama crowd that thinks they can play psychiatrist after watching episodes of dirty laundry shows on television. Not much thought, other than what appears to be a villainous swing of the secondary character, is given to appalling behavior by all. Which is incredibly scary given the outcome of the secondary character.

I recommend the book only to mature readers that can spot the weaknesses and enjoy the quirkiness of the characters in the beginning half.

Clayton Eshleman, Under World Arrest (Black Sparrow, 1993)

Under World Arrest has proven to be one of Eshleman's more frustrating volumes for me to read; this, no doubt, because it was written over a long period of time, and encompasses a number of different phases of Eshleman's career. Between these covers one finds pieces of Eshleman's brilliant surrealist love poetry and pieces that abandon poetry altogether in order to spout political screed. More intriguing are the pieces, presumably written between the two periods, that effectively fuse poetry and politics (the most difficult task any poet can face); they are rare, as they are in general in the vast body of poetry, but when they work, they work quite well. The problem? When one picks up Under World Arrest and continues reading, one is never sure where one's going to find oneself. If you're new to Eshleman, I suggest starting somewhere else (The Gull Wall is my favorite of his books; What She Means is a close second. Either is a fantastic place to get wise to Clayton Eshleman.) ** ½

This book has many of the author's strengths: vivid visual description, intensely detailed societies, interesting interpersonal relationships. It also has some of her weaknesses: overly exotic words and names, characters with too much power, characters speaking in nonsense syllables far too much of the time. The sequel to Wild Magic, Wildfire concerns Faan's ongoing search for her mother and her struggle to control her increasingly powerful firestarting magic. Some of the characters, particularly Sabuse and Varney, are not as well drawn as they probably deserve, and I got tired of Faan's adolescent temper. There's also a huge plot inconsistency concerning a black horse which does, or doesn't, get eaten by woodfolk. Despite all that, I found the book to be original, lively and generally a fun read.

This book is pretty useless unless you already know how to do everything in it. Explanations are very lacking, at best. There are very few example problems, which are not related to the questions or even helpful. The only positive aspect of this book that I can think of is that it "could" be useful as a reference book.. If you are using this book to learn the material, I would strongly recommend finding another source.

This is the worst book I have had to use so far in my studies as an engineer. The chapters are all extremely short ranging from 1-4 pages which means that it is very dense, concise, and rather hard to fully understand. The examples are all too simple compared to the homework problems to be useful and they do not fully explain how they get each answer. Homework problems range from easy to extremely difficult but they get hard real fast. The book gives the answers to all odd problems, but if you don't know how to do the problems, they're pretty useless.

About the only good thing for this book is the fact that the homework problems are so hard that if you do fully master them and are able to complete them quickly and without help, you really don't need to worry too much about your exams.

I you're required to get this book for your class I suggest getting a reference book to go with it or just study for a really long time.

I teach the honors section of combined Statics and Mechanics of Materials course at Penn State University. This book is fantastic. The students love it. It is both pretty and clearly written. The problems and examples are at a consistent level of difficulty, and the full range is covered. One drawback is that vectors are covered but not emphasized to the extent of component methods. I do not use the electronic resources because they are locked inside a Flash program making it difficult to adapt them to my lectures.

I bought this book for my statics class, it is very confusing. Important and non-important things are mixed together so you don't even know what you should focus on. Example problems take some time to figure out, because not all the details are shown. All of the 'actual' problems are harder than the examples, which means solving them will take some luck and a lot of hours. Only the odd numbers have answers shown. There is no solutions manual, so if your stuck, you will stay stuck. The good thing is, though, the back of the book includes a lot of formulas regarding statics so it can be easily used as a reference.

Engineering mechanics by Meriam and Kraige provides an excellent treatment of the subject matter, providing that one has all the necessary tools to handle this course. This means to have your geometry, algebra, trig., physics, and calculus internally wired. If not, one has to do the deep reviews, spending time and energy at grasping the basic concepts.

Also, if the discussion of the theory seems thin and problem sets seem unrepresentative, might I suggest another statics book by Riley and Sturges, 2nd ed. The exposition is expanded and provides clarity, the problem sets are a bit on the bland side, but the example sets provide reasonable representation to the problems in the book.

But, of all the problem sets of all statics books I have seen, Meriam and Kraige has the most realistic graphics and real world stuff. If you can internalize this book, your other mechanics courses like mech. of materials, dynamics, and fluids will move much more smoothly.

And, if a problem in the text appears impossible, it is always because of a misunderstanding of simpler concepts. It doesn't hurt being creative when problem solving. That is, to make additional sketches, draw diagrams, to QUESTION each and every part of the problem. To break apart or separate the problem into components and then mentally observing the parts under a "magnifying glass."

This book is very challenging, and it definitely helps if you have an instructor who has energy to be able to MAKE CLEAR any concepts whether in class, through paper handouts, in person, or even through email. If your instructor is lazy, you know where most of the energy of effort will have to come from.

Finally, if you has the drive, you can succeed. If your tank is low on gas, head for your next review station. Don't let any misunderstandings linger in your mind, siphoning your confidence, time, and energy. Sometimes, you gotta hike a mountain, going from review to review. You can do it.

I used to program on a trs-80 as a kid, so anything in terms of visual programing like this seems like science fiction at times. I liked this book, it shows how to flex SOME of the muscle of the RealBasic engine in smart and informative ways. I would say the cover price is a little much. That's why used book stores do business with Amazon. If you are new to RealBasic, I would say get the book, but not for $40.

REALbasic is a good introductory language that lets you create programs on one platform for multiple platforms. This book, "Learning REALbasic Through Applications" is filled with typos and errors that makes it useless and frustrating for a real beginner. I helped my son through all of the chapters and exercises in this book but we were only able to do it because I already am a programmer and already know REALbasic.

The author, Clayton E. Crooks, is a crook, no doubt, because he asks for money without having done a job of proofing the book or even testing his example code. It reads like he rushed to write the whole book in a sitting and never bothered to actually run the code in the projects or examples from the pages of the book. The result is the code is filled with errors as given and horribly frustrating for the student.

As to the projects he gives, a few of them are interesting but a lot of them are trivially boring. My son was very disappointed with the depth of the projects. They were all extremely short, which makes the large numbers of errors in the code even less excusable. My solution was to expand on each chapter with interesting additions but Mr. Crooks really should have done that in the book. At the very least, in the end of each chapter he should have made suggestions for further activities.

My son and I both found this book to be very disappointing. I got it on sale for $5 and it still felt like a rip-off. The original price of $41.95 is outragious for such a piece of junk.

This book is poorly written. It is hard to follow along and reproduce the examples. Worse still, some examples do not work as shown. Plus, the book is way out of date. Save your money.... and find yourself another RB book.

If you are brand new to programming, then this is a good book to start with. Think of this book as a RealBasic product brochure with examples. Working through the chapters gives you a quick survey of the kinds of things you can do with RealBasic, and it teaches you the RealBasic programming approach. Once you have worked some of the examples, you will find that you will start having your own ideas for building new programs. If you get a little more serious, then pick up Matt Neuburg's book and look closely at the documentation that RealBasic provides along with the program. The RealBasic tutorials may seem tedious, but they really are excellent for learning the basics of RealBasic programming.

Reading some of the other reviews here would make me think that this book is a lemon. Not so. It has it's place for the beginning programmer, or someone who wants a fast survey of RealBasic. It's not very detailed. It won't help you very much if you want to go beyond the examples, but that's what Matt Neuburg's book and the included language reference are for.

Out of curiousity, I read through enough of this book in Borders to see that it's in right in line with the [lack of] quality I expect from Charles River Media. Anyone who's mistakenly purchased any book from this publisher already knows what a waste of trees their books are, and now so do you. I give this 1 star because the pull-down menu doesn't have an option for no star at all.

If you're already a crack programmer in some language (any at all), get Matt Neuburg's book (O'Reilly). If you're more of a novice to application programming, start with Erick's For Dummies book.

I've done all the games on the 58 released LSATs.

With that said, I can conclusively say that the games in this book are NOTHING and I mean, *nothing* like those you will find on today's LSATs.

However, if you like puzzles and brain teasers, are the kind of person to play Sudoku on your commute, then this book might be a nice source of entertainment. But as LSAT prep, your time and money are better spent elsewhere.

By the way, I didn't find many typos. Maybe one. That was really it.

I am currently working on puzzle 59 of 100. Multiple mistakes have been made in the book, sometimes in the questions, sometimes in the answers. Common sense allows you to solve some of the discrepancies, but... I bought the book to solve these problems, not create more.
I've used multiple tools for LSAT preparation, and while this is still a fun book of games, I need it for LSAT prep, not to play sodoku better. As far as prep materials, this is one of the worst. An absolute MUST NOT PURCHASE.

REA, GET SOME EDITORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as other say, full of errors. I am only on game 12 and have found a number of incorrect answers on the logic games. Though, I just sent emails to the company and do not know of their responsiveness. Still, I do not recommend this book to anyone.

This book has been helpful for 2 reasons:
1. The problems are the same style as the ones on the LSAT, but MUCH harder. The scenarios and rules are more convoluted. Therefore they are great practice material.
2. There's 100 of them. You won't find more problems in any other single book.

I would recommend reading the Logic Games Bible first, then using this as practice. And DO NOT WORRY ABOUT TIME on these games, since they are way harder than real LSAT logic games.

BTW, there are some errors, but I don't think as many as other people have suggested. Specifically the answers of Game 15 I believe are wrong, but I haven't found other mistakes so far. But what you really need to get better at logic games is hard practice through deep thinking, and this book will provide that.

I like the opening pages' suggestions for diagramming (they are generally similar to the Powerscore Logic Games Bible), and the general philosophy espoused here -- putting heavy emphasis on the Deductions stage, as well as taking a second to "walk around" the problem and look for key variables etc. -- is sound.

I've found many of the games in this book to be quite difficult. I'm two weeks from taking the LSAT, in the midst of a Kaplan course, and am getting decent scores on timed Logic Games sections (17-20 correct generally), but a lot of the puzzles in this particular book are still kicking my butt. That may be a good thing if you want a challenge. I think some of the games here really stretch you when it comes to your deduction-making powers. It might be worth trying some of these in a less rigorously-timed environment, to work that "muscle" in alternation with doing timed sections of actual LSAT puzzles. That is the approach I am pursuing at the moment, anyway. I'm starting to run out of individual puzzles in my Kaplan materials, so if I am in the mood to noodle out a puzzle or two at a more leisurely pace, this book is a handy additional resource.

With 100 games it is certainly a big resource, and the explanations afterward are quite thorough (though they tend to be written in intimidating "block'o'text" format). Other users' complaints about errors give me cause for some concern; I didn't notice that flaw on my own. Even allowing for that flaw, there is value here, but I would certainly recommend buying the Powerscore Logic Games Bible first, as well as a collection of actual LSAT games if one can be found outside a Kaplan-type course.

I have to say, after reading all the other reviews, and perusing the book myself. I feel inclined to side with the folks who think this book is misleading.

I especially do not like the line on the title that states "Fully ANSI C++ Compliant". I find this severly misleading. It has the ANSI items covered, but does not bother to label what is and is not ANSI standard.

This is very important to me as a student.

For example, the book lists the functions stricmp, strupr, strlwr. These functions are not part of the ANSI standard library. They only exist in the Microsoft C++ compiler, or on other proprietary compilers who choose to implement them.

True, 60-70% of the book is probably ANSI standard and will port to UNIX or some other platform, but much of it WON'T, and is not labeled except in patches here or there, which is a disservice to the reader.

Sorry, I was drawn to the book when I first saw it, but you get much better information by typing the keyword in Visual C++ and pressing F1. Or go download a copy of the C++ ANSI Standard.

As a knowledgable C++ programmer, I bought this book in the hopes of having an end-all reference manual. What I got was an excellently indexed book of mistakes. I've never seen so many errors in descriptions, examples, and usages as this book has. I've even found instances where a description for a call was an exact duplicate of an earlier call's description (cut and paste) but had nothing what-so-ever to do with the call it now described. I managed to give it 2 stars only because it is accurate MOST of the time.

This is a good book, no matter which compilier you use because it's standard. If you write about C++ or do research on the subject, it's great. This book allows you to look for functions, macros, and range of data values(eg. long/ unsigned long)in an alphabetical order. Good for anyone on all levels. The thing to remember is that this is like a dictionary, so there won't be any lenghty tutorials.

As a student, I thought the C++ Master Reference would be a great find, but after looking through it, I took it back for a refund. You get just as much help (and often better) from the Visual C++ help CD as you do from this text.

Plus, I must agree with the reviews of the others that say that this book is NOT ANSI compliant. The book states on the cover "Fully ANSI Compliant", which is extremely misleading!

For example, the book lists the functions stricmp, strupr, and strlwr as being part of string.h These functions are not ANSI standard at all, and are in fact Microsoft Visual C++ specific.

True, most of the ANSI stuff is there, but to call the book "fully ANSI compliant" is VERY misleading to say the least. It would not be so bad if the non-standard functions were clearly labeled, but they are not.

Thus, you can use about 70-80% of the functions on UNIX, but with many, it's hit and miss.

If you want to be a real C++ programmer who relies on industry standard instead of proprietary functions, eschew this book.

Pick up a copy of the ANSI C++ standard instead.

As a teacher in C++, I always strive to tell my students to stick to the standards. They're portable, and help C++ to be the great language it is for cross-platform development.

It's not that the author fills the book with Microsoft Visual C++ functions that are NON-STANDARD that bugs me. It's that he doesn't bother to add a few text lines on each function to tell wether it's ANSI standard, Microsoft, Borland, etc.

In short, people could be using these functions thinking that they'll work on UNIX, then scratch their heads wondering why it didn't compile.

I think the fact that all the examples #include is pretty much proof enough of how Microsoft centric this book is.

I have to agree with the other reviewer, this should be titled Microsoft Visual C++ Master Reference, not C++ Master Reference. The title is just too misleading, and so is the material. If you want an encyclopedia-style listing of VISUAL C++ functions, this is for you. Otherwise, stick with Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language". It may be rough reading for the newbie, but it is THE definitive C++ ANSI reference.

If you want good coding advice, Scott Meyer's "Effective C++" is a MUST have.

This book is packed with a lot of examples of using controls, and lists the hierarchy of the MFC.But I was unable to open the project examples from the CD with VC++ 6 standard. It does cover a majority classes, however it lacks content dealing with code, so you will have to know C++ very well to use this text.
The entire book is in eformat on the CD which is good, and some of the files could be used which makes the book good for all round reference.

This book is a great introduction to MFC and ATL. I think it help programmers to understand MFC but it also makes you confused. E.g. in the first chapter Views and Docs are explained but in next chapters the Docs are Views aren't used as they were explained and somtimes they aren't even used at all. Simple functions such as scroll bars aren't explained but Controls (Progress Bars etc.) are much easier to use and they are explained in detail.
The book is also loaded with ERRORs.
The ATL and COM chapters are explained in details and the books gets its 2 stars for that.

This book is a great introduction to MFC and ATL. I think it help programmers to understand MFC but it also makes you confused. E.g. in the first chapter Views and Docs are explained but in next chapters the Docs are Views aren't used as they were explained and sometimes they aren't even used at all. Simple functions such as scroll bars aren't explained but Controls (Progress Bars etc.) are much easier to use and they are explained in detail. The ATL and COM chapters are explained in details and the books gets its 4 stars for that.

This book is a VERY VERY VERY introductory book, not for experienced programmers. I bought this book for using referrence. But it is filled with too elaborate stuff, I think, useless! For those who have no programming experiece , this book will be a good tutorial, I think.

As a novice Visual C++ programmer, I found the MFC tutorials very useful. However, the title is misleading, and apparently includes the "ATL" as a means to garner sales and set it apart from other MFC books, because there is only a single small chapter on ATL, and the explanation of ATL leads me to conclude that the publisher asked the author to add the ATL chapter, when the author was not inclined to do so. But that's just my impression of it. When I *really* needed some info on ATL for a project at work, the coverage of ATL in this book failed to provide any answers, and was simply confusing.

To be honest, I really dislike ATL, and am a little upset that Microsoft has not simply followed the C++ STL. I wish Microsoft would do away with ATL, and simply optimize MFC to make it more efficient. Better yet, blend the two to provide a leaner class library for Win32 programming. MFC is too big. But I'd rather do Win32 than ATL, so MFC is the only alternative with Visual C++.

As far as MFC goes, this book is a good reference.

Professor Anderson has written a highly detailed account of early Texas history. His research and relating of detail is superb! I have found details in his book never seen before anywhere. He does have a strong bias in his writing that leans toward the native American's point of view (which is fine), and against various "white" men and groups (Texas rangers mainly). Overlooking this minor complaint, his book is excellant, and I am glad to have it as a reference. Not a "light read" at all, very detailed, almost like reading a thesis. Congratulations to Prof. Anderson for a well documented, well researched book. (the only claim I found objectionable thus far on page 127 where he claims Plains Indian societies never shot down women and children among their own....not true...see the Harrell archaeological site in Texas)

This disgusting piece of trash stands as another example of just how noxious the Politically Correct whiners and flaterers can get.

For the REALITY of the Texas frontier, read Comanches (Pimlico Wild West) and find out about the ETHNIC CLEANSING done by the Comanches against the Apaches, and then the utterly inhuman savagery perpetrated by the Kiowa against not only the Spanish, the Mexican Mestizos, the Anglos, BUT OTHER INDIANS AS WELL.

"ETHNIC CLEANSING" is a perfect term to apply to the blood thirsty escapades of the Comamche and Kiowa, and it is no wonder to anyone with two cents worth of common sense why Whites arriving in Texas wanted these Indians gone - even if it meant by means of extermination ( and believe me, these Indians practiced extermination against others all the time ).

Don't even consider purchasing this twaddle in print. Look else where for valid and truthful information without the Politically Correct, bleeding heart slant to it.

Gary Anderson's book is nothing more than a new "politically correct" view of Texas History. Totally biased against the "white settler". For example his treatment of the great document, "Indian Depredations in Texas" by Joseph Wilbarger is without any merit and the attacks on this book are all hearsay. Read the original Indian depredation claims and go to the areas and talk to the families of survivors and see the documentation they have and you will realize this book is garbage.

In line with toher new attempts to place ethic-cleansing, a modern concept, into history, such as Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, this book goes too far and is visciously biased. There may be much truth in what is written here, in the sense that the outcome was the virtual ethnic-cleansing, to use the modern term, of Indians from Texas. But this was not ethnic-cleansing from out of nowhere. Long before 1820 Spain had been the author of deprevations far worse than after 1820. Later Mexico would treat the natives no better.

The conquest of Texas may have resulted in the removal and destruction of native tribes. But that doesn't mean that it should be compared to a form of genocide. The tribespeople also died of sickness and they were not pawns in this conquest. The tribes were active players and the Kiowas and others had important leaders who made choices as well, and many times those choices were not for peaceful coexistence, many times they were for war. In the end that war proved catastrophic. It is too easy to cry 'ethnic-cleansing' and 'racism' rather than examine the context of the time and understand what actually happaned on both sides.

Seth J. Frantzman

for some this book is very tough (see other reviews), but I found it startlingly good - well edited, insightful and covering a wide range of materials ad concepts in the field. It's interetsing that those who don't like it are usually those who also don't like the critical turn in musicology. Choose your sides!!!

The postgraduate seminar that I take part in choose this text because we hoped that it would offer a taste of various aspects of the cultural study of music that we weren't already familiar with, we hoped that it would make a good starting point for interesting discussions on issues in contemporary music and musicology. We were wrong! This book is superficial at best. A large part of every discussion was spent complaining about the poor quality of the scholarship or the hatchet job the editors have obviously done on the articles. Most of the ideas in this book are stale and much better discussions occur in other publications. It's disappointing to see authors of Lawrence Kramer's quality in a collection this bad, his was one of many articles in which simple ideas became confusing because of poor editing. This attempt to make musicology bite size fails miserably. The only useful thing about this collection is the list of further reading at the end of each article.

This book was one of the worst reading experiences I've had. I can't imagine how the information in this book could be useful in any way. The contributors are long-winded and never really say anything substantial, probably due to poor editing. STAY AWAY!!