Coleman Books

Poorly researched, with resulting statements that are just untrue. Such as the supposed fact that Nazi 'G' agents were German & not Allied codes. On one page (not keyed in the index), Zyklon B is said to a HCN-bassed product (true) but on another page it is said to be a hydrochloric acid-based product!

This is a book assigned to college students who are studying 20th century intellectual history, and that's where it belongs. It's not great literature, although some passages are quite moving. The book's strength (and weakness) is its strong worker-oriented perspective, a reflection of the author's communist beliefs. The problem with the novel is that its lessons are laid on so strongly that if you don't fully agree with them, you lose sympathy with the trials of the protagonist.

The plot: Antoine Bloye is a high-achieving child of a working class railroad worker father and washerwoman mother. Antoine earns his way to prestigious public schools and eventually becomes an important engineer and manager for the railroads. He marries a woman of slightly higher social class, rather than a divorcee of a lower class with whom he's been having a relationship. At the apex of his career, Bloye is in charge of 5,000 or 6,000 men. Commensurate with his career success, Antoine and his dull, suburban wife move into the upper middle class -- ie., going pretty much as far as they can go without being born into the upper crust or being astoundingly talented. Forced into early retirement, Bloye has regrets about paths not taken (the other woman, building stronger bonds with other men, etc.). And he dies of a heart attack.

The author despises the industrial system that employs Bloye, and he uses Bloye's regrets as a way to attack the system. He portrays Bloye's challenges of sympathisizing with his workers, while meeting the demands of his superiors and the faceless stockholders in the railroad. Because Bloye picked the wrong side (management), the author renders Bloye's achievements as meaningless.

However, I simply can't get onboard with the premise that doing your job well is an empty existence. It must have been incredibly challenging to keep early 20th century trains running on time -- and in fact the book does a great job of describing the difficulties. Being one of the railyard workers seems like a crappy job, but being the head of the depot seems like a pretty cool achievement. Yet the author demeans it, and he seems critical of anyone who doesn't leave a lasting footprint on the earth, whatever that means (maybe it means writing a novel).

I kept thinking that playing a significant role in helping the railroads open up France to everyone through quick, safe, and affordable transportation is something to be proud of. So where's Bloye's angst coming from?

Anyway, read "Antoine Bloye" as a period piece and a polemic, but don't expect memorable literature nor philosophy.

First of all, I am a big, big fan of Signing Time. You'll have a hard time finding a bigger supporter of it than me. Nonetheless, I have to say that this is the only product that has disappointed me.

I have two toddlers, a 1 year old and a 2 year old. I got these for the 2 year old, who because of Signing Time Volume 5 ABC Signs, now knows how to say all of the alphabet, how to recognize all of the letters in written form, AND knows the ASL manual alphabet! I thought she might enjoy these flash cards, perhaps to play with while in her carseat, which is often where she practices the ABCs just for the fun of it. Since I also have the Signing Time board books for Playtime Signs and Everyday Signs, which can certainly stand up to the rigors of a toddler handling them, I expected these flashcards to also be appropriate for a toddler.

Not so much.

They are made out of flimsy paper, and worse than that, the "D ring" that connects the cards doesn't stay closed, thereby making it impossible to flip easily through the cards. In fact, because it constantly comes apart for no reason at all, it's not really possible to flip the cards over. Instead, you end up moving the cards from one side to the other, which makes it look like two sides of a book. The problem with this is that the sign for the letter is on the back of the card (like you would expect on a flashcard) but when you have them open like a book, with the back of one card beside the front of another, you have the sign for one letter beside the written version of another. For instance, the manual sign for A is then beside the written letter B. It's confusing to say the least.

While I realize that I might have gotten a faulty D ring and someone else might not have the same experience, as things are now, I can't recommend this product. And even if the D ring worked correctly, the paper is still too flimsy to expect these cards to hold up to use by a toddler.

This is a beautifully photographed book of what appears to be the author's collection. Many of the items featured are shown in multiple photos. The "Price Guide" looks like an afterthought - shown as footnotes on some of the pages, not all items. The prices are wild and what I would call "WISHFUL THINKING"!

Pretty pictures, but not much substance - Don't waste your money.

The format is good, and for an "introduction" I liked the simple projects, small datasets, etc. However, I must say that the book was very poorly written and obviously never proofread. The misspellings, misused words, sentence duplications, etc. were annoying. And sentences like "Setup text styles as taught in the CEST51 class.." and "I expect to see..," plus no index, made it obvious that the book is a compilation of the author's class notes and not much more. At the very start, directions were not given for loading menus that the author seemed to presume were available. Later, directions were given to complete tasks without instructions about the procedures required. The numbering of quadrants, which might be new to beginners, for example, were not explained at the first use of LINES/CURVES + By Direction, LINES/CURVES + Add Dynamic Labels and LINES/CURVES + Flip Direction which are required to complete Assign08 were never mentioned, etc., etc. Especially in view of so few LDD3 resources available, the book might have been valuable if it had simply been written better and more carefully prepared for publication.

I am very unhappy about my purchase of this book. I was looking for a reference manual and instead received a class room text that offers less than the tutorial supplied in the help section of the software.

I read this book several years ago when it was a part of the source material for the examination for promotion to Lieutenant in the Houston Police Department. To say it is poorly written is an understatement. I'm not sure who I am more frustrated at, the author for his poor skills at writing, the editor(s) who let so many horrible mistakes get past, or my own agency for allowing this text to be approved for use. If you are required to read this book for promotion or as a class assignment, you have my sincere sympathy. If you are considering buying this book for your own professional education, don't waste your money.

I was required to read this for my police department's promotional process. Although I have read many books in my life and had to read many poorly written books in college, this book stands alone. I actually became angry at the author because he was contradictory, unclear, and wordy. I read the book, studied it and I still did not understand the author. The material was not beyond my comprehension, just poorly written and poorly edited. My department no longer uses this book.

I would like to voice my opinion concerning the above listed book which has been made required study material for the promotional exam to the rank of captain, in the Louisiana State Police. I am not an expert in criminal justice or English grammar and I have never written a book, but I am a very heavy reader and I do not believe that this book meets the level of professionalism or scholarship that I would expect in a work of this nature. I have read this book and found it to be extremely difficult to understand, not only because it sometimes does not make much sense, but because of the tremendous number of grammar, spelling, and subject/verb relationship errors that it contains. While reading this work, I have highlighted any information that I thought might be useful to me in my career or that might appear on the promotional exam. I also found myself highlighting the errors that I found and I think that there are more errors highlighted in this work than there is useful material. It is very hard to read and retain any information provided within this work when the reader has to examine the same paragraph over and over again to determine what it would mean if the proper word had been used. It is intimidating to me to realize that my future career may be impacted based upon my knowledge of the information contained in this book. The author of this work has certainly earned our respect as a retired member of the Kansas City Police Department and is obviously knowledgeable in the area of police leadership, but he lacks the ability to impart his knowledge to the reader through his writing. The author also lacks any academic degrees, or at least none are mentioned in his credentials, and he is presently the head of security at a small shopping mall. In addition to those facts, it is pretty obvious that no editors or proof readers were employed to correct the many errors found in this work, and this is a second edition! I attempted to research this book and was unable to find that it has ever been reviewed by any other book reviewer, except at this site, or any trade journal. I would like to see this book removed from the required list for any professional police promotional examination. I do not believe that this book meets the standard to base promotional exams upon for this or any other agency. Thank you for your consideration.

The intention of the authors is an impressive one but they truely fail to provide a believable rationale. Clearly a text is needed in the area of the therapeutic blending of the arts and psychotherapy but this is not the one to read.

This steaming pile of dung attempts to manipulate statistics to make a case for a link it does not actually demonstrate. A prefabricated political propaganda piece targeted not at fellow scientists but at ignorant lay people who do not understand experimental design, cannot properly dissect statistics or interpret their meaning, and cannot tell the difference between causation and correlation. One needs a pair of old fashioned horse-and buggy blinders in order to have the necessary tunnel vision to swallow this sort of tripe. The number of relevant factors unaccounted for in this study is so voluminous as to completely rule out the possibility they were neglected accidentally. This particular brand of junk science that throws the idea of dispassionate analysis and scientific neutrality down the toilet is particularly disgraceful, and drags the names of legitimate researchers in such matters down into the mud as well. Reardon et al have effectively made themselves one of a growing number of stains on the underpants of the scientific community.

I really didn't like it at all. But if you're kids are younger and into spending "A) Time B) Money C) Talents" with Jesus, go for it.

I was disappointed in the Dog Palaces book. It is not something I will want to read or "look at" over and over. I purchased it more as a "picture" book for design (interior design) and because it was by Brian Coleman... This is, however, a one time glancing. The palaces are NOT really so grand...even for a dog...they are predictable dog beds like the kind you can see on the Internet by googling DOG BEDS.