John Books

Just thumbing thru the book already has me laughing out loud. The business plan in disarray... the Family Friendly policy... and my personal favorite - the office thermostat! I wish I had Alice's chutzpah." I wouldn't be freezing to death all day!!!

Journey to Cubeville is a 224-page collection of Scott Adams' hilarious Dilbert cartoons. Dated between 11/1/96 and 1/4/98, these cartoons include all of the normal Dilbert crew: Dilbert, Alice, Wally, Asok, Dogbert, Catbert (a personal favorite), and so forth. The cartoons themselves appear as they did in your favorite newspaper, with the big Sunday ones printed in bright color! Plus, as a bonus, this book includes pop-out finger-puppets, which includes Dilbert, Wally, Alice, Dogbert, Ratbert, the Pointy-Haired-One, and a cubicle. (Dilbert wouldn't be Dilbert without a cubicle!)

This book is great, a must-have addition to the library of any Scott Adams fan. And, the finger-puppets make it that much better. This is perhaps the best Dilbert book of them all - buy it!

JOURNEY TO CUBEVILLE is the absolute best collection of Dilbert comic strips!!! The whole hilarious gang (`specially Wally,Alice and Dilbert et. al) just saturates every single page with their best laughs.So whether you`re wandering through a bookstore,or on the net,DO NOT miss out on JOURNEY TO CUBEVILLE.It`s worth the money!

It's amazing how Scott Adams is able to produce hundreds of hilarious Dilbert strips that revolve around just a few themes -bosses are stupid, engineers are geeks, and the whole purpose of management, marketing, and the like are to squash productivity. This book is proof that Adams is a genius because not a single strip fails to produce at least a chuckle. Get this book and laugh your a** off.

Dilbert is the perfect hero for the modern office, which consists mostly of cubicles, or cubes as we frequently refer to them.

What happens in a cubicle? Oh, you know. The boss comes around and indicates that he is the great power behind everything, though he actually knows nothing about the product. If anything goes wrong, downsizing of those best suited to fix the problem follows.

What of marketing? Well, they are selling a product we have yet to build, for a price we are unable to achieve, with features that marketing neglected to tell engineering about. When all else fails, hire a consultant!

But Dilbert also has to face things like synergies. What are synergies? Ah, well, Dilbert can tell you that when you hear a cliché word like synergies, down-sizing is sure to follow in Cubeville, along with additional doses of cluelessness.

Any Dilbert book is perfect for a modern office worker, especially if they are in engineering, as Dilbert is. This collection of cartoons published from 9/1/96 to 1/18/98 are sure to give you more than a few chuckles as you recognize behaviors from an office you once worked in, or, if you are unfortunate, an office your are currently working in. At least you get gain some perspective and humor from your misery!

Enjoy!

This book is the perfect starting point for a beginner. I started with a limited amount of programming experience. By the time I finished, I felt extremely comfortable with all of the concepts presented.

It's important to set realistic goals. You're not going to finish this book and start writing real world applications. Instead, this book builds the foundation needed to tackle more advanced concepts and programs found in other books.

This is an excellent book. I have completely read this book. I recommend this book for every student learning C#.

This is a great book for C# beginners like me. The book is very well written as it simulates the real class environment and answers every possible question that the beginner might have. I went to a 5-day C# training and I learned less there than I learned after reading this book. The author is a talented instructor, and I wish all computer science professors were like him. I am looking forward to an intermidiate C# book by John Smiley! Thank you, John.

Have you ever thought you wanted to learn how to program, and bought a book on programming that didn't teach you anything? Or maybe you took a class that had a required textbook that was worthless? Did you get discouraged, and think programming just wasn't "for you"? That maybe you just didn't "get it" like those other people that seemed to have no problems learning to program? If so, then this book is for you. If more computer programming books were written like this, I KNOW there'd be a lot more programmers in the world. It's not about intelligence, it's about LEARNING STYLES. This book is more narrative than just lines of code to interpret. John Smiley talks TO the reader, not AT him. He puts you in a classroom setting where people ask questions, even DUMB questions that you yourself may have wanted to ask. And guess what? He ANSWERS the questions. If you've been stymied in one way or another from reaching a point of confidence with programming then this book is for you. I give it 5 stars because that's the most that Amazon's system will let me give it. If you don't believe me, hit the library. Then buy the book to put food on this man's table, and have this awesome book in your personal library.

I am taking a series of classes from "someplace" with the intention of making a carreer change. "Someplace" offered to get me from being a non-programmer to an MCSD in 8 months using Microsoft official curriculum (MOC). An ambitious undertaking to be sure.

I have found the MOC to be of very limited help. Wow, that's an understatement.

Anyway, I have been using other resources to supplement the training and this book has been the best.

The book starts with understanding the requirements of a program. From there the author walks us through the process of building a program and incorporates a lot of very practical and useful concepts. In general, the book has followed the progression of the MOC "Programming with C#". Whether by design or not, this has been very helpful.

The book is written in narrative or as a story unfolding. The reader is included in a small class learning to program. The other students in the class ask questions to the instructor (John Smiley) and in general greatly facilitate the learning process. This narrative makes it a lot easier to follow and the simple program turns out to be full of lots of very useful training opportunities.

At first, I was underwhelmed that the author had chosen to use Notepad and the SDK to create the programs. However, having finished the book and being halfway through the MOC course (which uses Visual Studio) I am glad that he does. Visual Studio tends to be expensive to get your hands on, and while it does have some VERY helpful functionality in terms of writing code, for the beginner, a lot of the stuff it does seems like it is overwhelming for the "newbie" (at least it was to me.)

Many times, I would complete similar exercises using the notpad/SDK method in 1/3rd or 1/4 the time it would take me to do it in Visual Studio. For the most part, this was because of all of the "helpful" stuff that Visual Studio was doing. Don't get me wrong, it is a great IDE, but for a newbie like me, I think Smiley's approach was better.

I have bought many other C# books and I will be doing reviews on them as I read them to supplement the material. I've also been taking video lessons from LearnVisualStudio.net.

I hope John Smiley will create a book on Visual Studio and Intermediate and Advanced C#. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it HIGHLY to anyone just getting started.

James Thurber was one of the funiest authors of all time and this book cements his reputation. I enjoyed it many years ago and after re-reading it, I enjoyed it again.

Should be required reading for all folks of any age looking for an introduction to life in these United States, for those learning to overcome despair and disaster with humor and grace, for any and all learning the English language.

Thurber is a great favorite of mine, and this was another fun book to read.

Take your mind back half a century and read these mildly amusing essays about life in the 1920s and 1930s. The style is so different from modern prose, but it is well worth the read.

I am 52 yrs. old. I read this book in High School and couldn't put it down. When I read it again as adult, I laughed even harder because somehow it made having the weirdest family in the whole world a joke instead of a hardship. It made Thurber's family, the Coneheads, the Simpsons, and the Osbornes seem like life is good as long as you can laugh once in a while, and even better if you can laugh at yourself.

This a great collection of poems from the past! If you enjoy whimsy, this is for you!

with eliot, a maximum of content is achieved through a FORM worked with a
care and conciousness not seen perhaps since the greeks. he understood,
as he once wrote, that the novel form ended with flaubert. in the centuries after picasso and stravinsky there is no place for anything in
literature which makes people remain sitting, whithout standing and perhaps dancing. the same thing could be said about pound, very different though very twin.

The Eliot of despair, the Eliot of 'Prufrock' and 'Wasteland' is contended with and overcome by the Eliot of the 'Quartets'. The message of modern mankind's meaninglessness, the broken fragments ( of Tradition) shored against his ruin is replaced by the vision of sacred turning, a Christian vision of redemption. Eliot is a writer whose work and life break down into these two distinct periods each of which has its champions in defining what is best in him.
As one raised on 'April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land' and 'Let us go then you and I when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table' the most memorable lines are certainly of the first phase where it ends not with a bang but with a whimper.
Yet my admiration for the hypnotic power of Eliot's memorable lines is strongly qualified by my knowledge of his 'Burbank with a Baedaker, and Bluestein with a Cigar' with his all too fashionable literary anti- Semitism. Of course Eliot was not preaching death camps and extermination but he did connect his work to the tradition of Christian Anti- Semitism.
Thus I have always had difficulty being comfortable with my 'enjoying of Eliot's poetry. And I have never been able to sympathetically read 'The Quartets.' They have always seemed to me to be too impersonal characterless and abstract.
Eliot who for most of the century strode the English Departments as if he were a colossus did noble work in reviving interest in 'The Metaphysicals' but somehow failed in my mind to write a poetry humanly rich in the deepest sense.

When you think of the best poets ever, T.S. Eliot is one of those that comes to mind. His work is well crafted, intelligent, beautifully written, and has a flow to it that few poets can match. And this is a fine collection for the Eliot lover or for the reader unfamiliar with Eliot. It's divided into several sections. The first section is his Prufrock section, poems from 1917, which contains probably his finest poems: "Prufrock", "Preludes" "Rhapsody on a Windy Night", "Hysteria", among others. Then there is the Poems 1920 section which also contains many fine poems ("Sweeney Erect" and "The Hippopotamus" being my favorites). Then follows his masterpiece The Wasteland. Then The Hollow Men which is followed by the wonderful Ash Wednesday. Then the Ariel Poems (which contains "Journey of the Magi"). Then there are two unfinished poems, "Sweeney Agonistes" and "Coriolan" which I thought were weak. Maybe they would have been great had he ever finished them. Then there is a section called minor poems followed by the mediocre "Choruses from 'The Rock.' And then there is what I consider to be his true masterpiece, "Four Quartets." And the book finishes with some occasional verses, one of which is a sweet and touching poem to his wife. This is a great collection of poems.

Yep, this is a great collection of Eliot's works. I initially found out about Eliot throught the Movie 'Apocalypse Now' in which Brando is heard reciting the poem 'The Hollow Men'. The poem sounded so good I hunted it down and came across this little book.

My favourite poems would have to be 'The Hollow Men', 'Love song of Prufrock', 'Ash Wednesday' and 'Rannoch, by Glencoe (perfectly captured, drive through Rannoch and you'll see ;-)

Yep, definetly worth a read.

The finished models in this book are great, they are clearly identifiable species, not just generic fish, crabs, etc.
What really makes the book stand out, however, are the folding sequences. The steps flow with a natural rythm, and every tricky step is clearly explained. Because the authors have created unique bases for each model, the results of a given step are often pleasantly surprising.
I have a pile of origami books, and this is my favorite so far by a pretty wide margin. When I finish folding everything in it, I will probably fold them all again because they are so much fun.

This book is well written with easy to understand diagrams. The models range from easy to extremly hard, but most of the animals are high intermediate.Most of the diagrams are so specialized that they can't make other models from the base, but the end result is an elegant model that isn't bulky like other models of this difficulty. I have most of Montroll's and Lang's work,and this is one of the best.The deep sea angler fish is my favorite with a full set of teeth. The binding is breaking apart because I've used it so much. Overall this is a book with the best models!
(Watch the binding of the Dover books!)

This superb book contains an enormous range of origami models representing various forms of sea life. These range from sea urchins and starfish through to the Blackdevil Angler Fish and the almost impossible to fold Chambered Nautilus Shell. I have in my time folded most of the models and my favourites include the Angler Fish, Goldfish and the Murex shell which is wonderful in a textured foil.

Most of the models will require some folding experience, even the easier ones and the most difficult ones like the Atlantic Purple Sea Urchin and Blackdevil Angler Fish are really for experts only, but most folders of intermediate level and upwards will find something to enjoy. It is definitely a book which will help you to develop your folding skills but be sure to have plenty of paper on hand!

Each section includes an interesting introduction to the natural history of the life forms it is covering and the book is well laid out with clear computerised diagrams. It's an origami book I've come back to again and again over the years and which remains one of my treasures. I recommend it.

I've owned this book for a number of years and only recently have I been able to fold most of the creatures in it. This book is definitely not for greenhorns, but if you look closely at every single diagramme in the book, and interpret them exactly and are very careful, every model in the book is foldable. The end result is gorgeous paper sea creatures that can impress basically anyone--yourself included. I've been amazed at how beautiful the things I'm folding from this book turn out.

This is one of my favorite Origami books ever. If you are thinking about getting it you should. This book will appeal to any body, from beginner to advanced. I love the models in this book. It contains various models of many genera and cover many of the marine phylums such as variety of gastropods, cephalodops, crustaceans, and many fish from Angler Fish to sharks to Sun fish.

I love Pearl Buck's books. She is so adept at taking the reader right into a foreign world and making it understandable. One begins to see how we are all really the same underneath our outward appearances and social customs. In this book, wealtlhy Madame Wu changes the course of her entire family's lives because of her strong desires to ultimately satisfy self. At first, her actions appear to be somewhat self-sacrificing in a certain way. Some readers may find her attitudes and actions quite modern, but there are far-reaching consequences to those actions and one wonders how selfless those actions really are in the end. I found the surprise turn in Madame Wu's relationship/feelings for the exiled priest to be a bit far-fetched for a wealthy Chinese woman of her time, but life can take odd twists and turns. To me this book is a moral tale of actions and consequences. I do not belive she or her family were better off in the end in spite of her taking over the care of the priest's orphans. Very interesting reading...food for thought.

The movie was good but it doesn't follow the book and the book is much better.

I would have never picked this book up if it weren't for my book club. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down till I was finished with this book. It is a very moving and thoughtful book ~~ opening my eyes to something else that I would have never thought of reading.

This book is about Madame Wu, who decided to retire from married life at the age of 40. She suggested a concubine for her husband as she believes very strongly that his needs need to be met ~~ just not by her. Her excuse is that she didn't want to bear any more children, but that is just a public excuse, one she offered to everyone who asked. The truth is, she didn't love her husband and wanted to retire from that part of her marriage. Needless to say, it unsettled the entire family ~~ even the concubine was unsettled. It reverberated throughout the entire book till the very end, when everyone seems to have moved onto their own problems.

This is a book on a busy wealthy Chinese family. It is about traditions and ideas, non-traditions, love and finding purpose in life. It is about family relationships between father, son, mother, son, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, friendships, and even between mistress and servant.

Madame Wu never thought she'd find peace and happiness till one of her sons' instructors came along. He was a Jesuit priest and they struck up a friendship based on conversations (which she remembered after his death). He literally changed her life and thought process. From being a woman who always did what she was told, she was liberated to being a free-thinking woman who strove to find peace in her soul.

It is a book that I would recommend to all readers ~~ and it is definitely a book for a book club to discuss! It is a timeless classic novel ~~ and definitely a great introduction to an author that I have heard about but never have read. I can't wait to read her other books!

3-30-07

Wow. I find Pearl Buck to be an author that really holds my attention, and write about complex characters that I don't really always like, but in the end, because of the author's writing and vision, I come to see them as really complex human beings.

This book, in particular, I think is really spiritual. I really wish that I had a book group to discuss this book with. At the beginning, I didn't really care for or understand the main character, Madame Wu. She decides after her 40th birthday party, that her husband can have a concubine and that she can turn inward. In the beginning, this is really quite a difficult concept for me, but in a way, it's also very liberating. It's a form of birth control for her, and also a way to keep her husband satisfied. In the end, Pearl Buck, as an author, really shows this woman to be very multidimensional, and I feel, quite spiritual and not so superficial as I think she starts out to be.

In the background, there are daughter in laws who are more liberated than Madam Wu, and the chafe at the idea of a concubine. They are too modern for that and would not stand for having a concubine in the house. Some of this is quite historical fand relates gently to the communist revolution. Also it is showing generational differences and lack of understanding between generations. In the end, Madame Wu, I feel , is far more liberated than her daughter in laws, no matter how modern they are.

There is also a DVD of this story, and I think the DVD cover is on the book cover that I read. If it shows a white man in an embrace with a Chinese woman, as if they were about to kiss, I want to warn you that this Hollywood image is not really the book at all. And in fact, that picture does not occur in the book either. Really, that image is an abomination of the book.

I do know, by reading Pearl Buck, why she is a Nobel prize winner in writing. For me, it's this. She helps you to see characters (people) that you might really hate or disagree with in real life as real, very multifacted people. And though I might not always come to agree or fully care about her characteres, through her writing, I will learn to understand and respect them more than I would have if I had not read the book. And more than that, Buck weaves in real history and fact and makes is very interesting.

Please read her books. You won't be disappointed.

After reading and thoroughly enjoying her novel, "Pavilion of Women" (written in 1948), it was not difficult for me to understand why Pearl S. Buck earned the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature in 1938. As a natural storyteller, Buck allows one to enter the heart and mind of her main character, the beautiful and accomplished Madame Wu, so fully and painlessly by using simple explanations that seem so effortlessly illumined that they transcend the cultural differences of a mid 20th century China and allow this magnificent multi-dimensional creation to speak as a fully flesh and blood universal woman.

As the title suggests, the plot revolves around the day to day happenstances of the oppressed `pavilion of women' that provides a wealthy Chinese gentleman's `happiness' in the form of siring future generations and keeping him pleasured as befits his rank as lord and master. Madame Wu, the one and only wife, on the day of her fortieth birthday decides quite calculatingly to acquire a concubine for this husband whom she has never loved, allowing her to rid herself within the complicated etiquette of the Chinese upper class of the burden of servicing her husband conjugally. As the mother of four sons, in her eyes and in the eyes of society, she fulfilled her duty as a wife. Fully knowing that she will continue to oversee the management of all who live under her domain, she nevertheless anticipates her retirement with relish, planning to read and self-educate herself within the confines of her father-in-law's well-stocked library. As a mother and mother-in-law, she must tactfully and eloquently steer her sons and daughters-in-law towards a rich and satisfying future in a newer less understood world while still buttressing the Chinese family infrastructure to continue what she herself withholds as traditionally correct.

As China plummets towards modern thinking and communism, Madame Wu discovers that she must make concessions. Thinking to arrange the marriage of her broader-minded third son, she hires an unconventional Italian priest, Brother Andre, to teach languages and the known sciences to better endow her Fengmo with the intellectual assets he now needs to captivate a more progressive bride.

Instead, the self-disciplined Madame Wu finds that she is mesmerized by the foreigner's gentle persuasiveness. With him she explores the idea of the soul and its ever pressing quest for freedom and realizes that throughout her life thus far she played the role of a wise albeit voyeuristic manipulator rather than that of thinking and feeling woman. Her gentle yet intense spiritual love for Andre reinforces Madame Wu's innate strength and enables her to make free, wise and joyous decisions that bring a warm happiness to the inhabitants under her domain.

Bottom line: While the storyline moves along nicely, what makes "Pavilion of Women" an absolute pleasure to read is the clarity of Madame Wu's portrait that Buck allows us to form first from the inner workings of Madame Wu's mind and then from the soaring aspirations of her soul as it communes with that of Brother Andre. Buck's language flows from one `pavilion' event to the next; her style is relaxed and easy to read, the development of Madame Wu's identity both believable and beautiful. Highly recommended for its ability to entertain and depict an alien culture.

Diana F. Von Behren
"reneofc"

LOVE this book! It's completely marked up with yellow highlighter and dog-ears. Must Get for Spa Owners!

I read this book in one day while I was on vacation. I was so inspired, I couldn't wait to get back to work to begin a new customer service policy in our salon. We already do some of the rituals for our guests, but this book gave me so many more ideas. John Dijullius is so right about creating systems and sticking with them, day in and day out. Can't wait for the second book!!!!

By far the best book I've ever read on customer service. Nice work!

This is a book that I reccomend to all of my franchise stores that I support. This is a glossary or handbook of great service and marketing. There is no reinventing the wheel in this little book but a refernce of the tried and true. Each example is supported with results and successes. The multiple companies referred to are known companies who lead their markets in service.

I encourage my stores to take a highlighter to this book of concepts and write notes in the margins. They will refer to this book often. This is 165 pages of good information.

Even though I am in the same industry as the author, this book is full of great ideas any business could use to implement systems to improve their customer service. We have used many of the ideas with great results. Mr. DiJulius gives you these wonderful ideas and how to implement them. If you read his book you'll see why his company is so successful. I require my staff to read this book when they are hired. This is one of my favorite business books!

A page-turner that will have time fly by, "Sugar of Lead" dives into the lifestyle and culture of Asian mafias. The rules and codes adhered to in this forbidden world are explored and tested in this riveting story. This novel masterfully presents the art of drama as the main character of Michael Pierce wrestles with the conflicts that occur as his society, his adopted culture, and his inner desires all tear him in different directions. A must-read!

A page-turner that will have time fly by, "Sugar of Lead" dives into the lifestyle and culture of Asian mafias. The rules and codes adhered to in this forbidden world are explored and tested in this riveting story. The story masterfully presents the art of drama as the main character of Michael Pierce wrestles with the conflicts that occur as his society, his adopted culture, and his inner desires all tear him in different directions. A must-read!

It's been a VERY long time since I've been able to pick up a book and put it back down after reading it all in one sitting. The book played out like a well-planned movie. Every moment, every character, and every line of dialogue had me feening for more. It is one of the most accurate potrayals of the Asian-American gangster scene. Expect no boring cliches filled with typical Asian-American strereotypes. I cannot wait until this author churns out another book. Pick up this book today.

Rarely do "intellectual" and "thriller" fit together, but Davis in his novel Sugar of Lead manages to meld the two into a pleasing amalgam. A higher-echelon Elmore Leonard novel, the story is that of Michael "Sugar" Pierce, outsider (white man) and insider (best friend of the boss, and in love with the boss's wife) in the Rhee gang in Los Angeles. This backdrop, soon spattered with blood, becomes only a launching pad for Davis' literary vision. Davis extensively utilizes symbolism; ocean, smoke and desert all play significant roles-they swirl together and blend in the Rhee residence, providing the novel with a strong does of mysticism, perhaps a nod to Davis' Native American roots. Davis also makes use of allegory-near the end Sugar bears strong resemblance to Beowulf, throughout the novel he can be seen as a Hamlet type, swept along by fate, which has conspired against him to produce this chaos against which he is railing. This novel is slightly more optimistic than Hamlet, as Sugar does take decisive action near the close of the novel, and, while I won't ruin the ending for you, let me say that tragedy and romance mix in this novel, the ending is more uplifting than that of a tragedy, while more tragic than that of a romance. Of course, the novel would not be modern were it not at least somewhat ironic-there is an ironic twist at the end as well; watch who takes over.
Davis not only writes an excellent thriller, at its core, Sugar of Lead is indeed quite the page-turner, he manages to seamlessly blend his views on crime, death, love, and most importantly life, into the violence that is necessary to accurately portray the world of the Rhee's. Never gratuitous, the failing of many thriller authors, but by no means shrinking from violence, Davis manages to keep the reader guessing, while keeping the reader thinking. By the end of this novel I was rooting for Sugar while examining myself. However, the most clear evidence that this novel is poignant is not that I thought while reading it, but that I pondered Sugar's dilemmas even after I had put the book down.
In essence, this novel attempts more than any gangster novel I've read, and succeeds throughout. Davis will not be confined to his genre, he chooses instead to broaden the scope of the genre, and his literary effort is laudable. I only hope he continues to produce work of this quality, as I'm sure readers everywhere, myself included, will continue to enjoy his work.

Rarely do thrillers attempt much more than thrilling; they are generally designed as "pleasure fiction," to distract the reader for a period of a few hours. Almer John Davis has apparently decided that he'd rather not walk down the narrow alley of another gangster thriller, but the backdrop of Korean gangsters in Los Angeles provides the appropriate setting to get much of his message across. The novel mixes the best of old and new--there are shades of Hamlet and Beowolf mixed with the best of Elmore Leonard--upon my first reading (there have been many since) I remarked that this book is a sort of higher-echelon Elmore Leonard novel. Davis presents his views on crime, death, and most importantly, life through the eyes of protagonist Micheal "Sugar" Pierce.
An outsider of sorts, being white in a Korean gang, yet with an insider's knowledge, being best friend of the boss and in love with the boss's wife, Sugar is caught in a web of deception, love, hate, and violence. His desperate attempt to break out, forced by the actions of others, leads to a fast-paced novel, with riveting aciton and constant tension. Yet, Davis seamlessly works in his literary perspectives, using effective and poignant symbolism, allegory and metaphor in order to fully acheive his purpose. Above all a novel that will make you think, examine yourself, and ponder the dilemmas of the characters (the true sign of good literature), Sugar Of Lead has my highest recommendation. I only hope that many more books of the same quality will be produced by its author.

This book has some very good and interesting info about how the brain works and how we think and react to different things. The only complaint I have is that the included DVD that came with the book did not have any audio, whether I played it on my PC or through my home DVD player. There wasn't a way for me to check with any type of tech support either. None the less the book is a joy to read.

This book has some excellent research and thought provoking information for anyone involved with learning. As a working professional in the field of Human Resource Development I will be incorporating some of Dr. Medina's research and vision into our corporate learning strategy.

This book is partly an academic-style introduction to brain research and partly a jauntily written practical "how-to" about getting the most from your brain. John Medina has a warm, upbeat persona, and skillfully incorporates stories from his experiences to illustrate points he makes in the book. From time to time he forgets to connect the dots for readers who are new to the material, and so doesn't always articulate the full point or parallel he is making. However, he gives a broad overview of brain research and makes a conscious effort to practice the rules he preaches. He repeats information, as research says he should, and uses lively, varied examples to engage the reader. To reinforce the book's lessons with visual and aural sensory input, the publisher provides a supplemental DVD. Medina summarizes his key points, and touches briefly on the real-world implications and applications of the findings he covers. getAbstract recommends this book to parents, educators, human-resources professionals, executives and all those who want to help themselves, their children or their employees reach their full intellectual potential.

This is a great book and DVD combo especially for educators, parents, and students. The research is written in light layman's terms with a fun, light style. All of the information is useful and can be put into practice immediately to help the reader learn, teach, and possibly prevent depression, dementia and other brain disorders.

I have read Dr. Braverman's books( Younger You and Younger You), and his material conflicts with this author's material. I do agree with using something like the system given in Don't Like to Read, Then Don't, Listen!: How to Turn Any Type of Text Into Audio Files That Can Be Read to You! to go over information lots of times. Just take data and see what works best for you! This book will give you some ideas to try

I have seen many Calculus books in which the authors tend to focus on pretty pictures or mere formula memorization. On this book the focus is on understanding the concepts and reasoning beyond the computational aspect of the Calculus. Considering the ongoing research in mathematics today, this book will prepare those interested in becoming pure mathematicians.

Both this book and the second volume were used in my Honors Calculus classes, and let me tell you, it's not for the faint of heart!! The book is very good, but unless you're willing to get into it and really go at the problems and theorems, it's not going to do you much good. If this is your first calculus textbook, don't expect detailed explanations and pretty summaries of the chapter, since it doesn't have them; do expect lots of theorems and complicated proofs.

This book, unlike most Calculus books out there, is meant to be read and understood. The way that Calculus is taught nowadays, people use books that are 90% problems, exercises, and examples, with an emphasis on computation. This book is 90% prose, and the emphasis is on cultivating a deep understanding. In addition, the book does away with the gap between "Calculus" and "Analysis", choosing to begin with a more mathematically mature perspective...but providing ample explanation for students who have not seen the material before.

This book is exceptional for self-study. I would recommend it to anyone learning calculus on their own, who actually wishes to understand it. This would make an excellent supplement to one of the standard Calculus textbooks, since it addresses just about all the classic weaknesses of these texts. I wish colleges would use this as a textbook, but alas, that would require a drastic restructuring of the curriculum.

This book may come across as "hard" to students, but this is only because it is structured in such a way that one cannot not get through it without understanding the material. Also, a student finishing this book will be ready to dive into more advanced analysis courses, whereas students using basic intro calculus textbooks will find themselves very poorly prepared for these things. The current calculus books with their emphasis on mechanical computation, allow students to get through without understanding the material, and that is why they come across as "clearer". In reality, they are much less clear than this book.

This is one of the best math books I have ever used; Apostol does a great job of giving you intuition and telling you why the topics are important. The exposition is very clear.

However, this is not your usual Calculus I book. The level of approach is halfway between an intro to calc class where you learn HOW to calculate derivatives/integrals, and a real analysis class where you learn why derivatives and integrals are related and their axiomatic foundations.

Bottom line: this is a great book if you want to understand calculus deeply. It is a warmup for real analysis. However, there are probably better books if your only interest in calculus is for using it to solve engineering or physics problems.

It's a shame that most high school and college students read whatever garbage they read nowadays to learn calculus. Fortunately, Apostol wrote his wonderful texts (you'll notice that this book hasn't had a new edition in about four decades, which means the author is under no pressure to artificially introduce new content to keep the sales up) for us to read.

This book is not only well-written, but has numerous quality exercises, and presents the material in a coherent and logical fashion. There is none of the typical clutter we see in many calculus texts nowadays, which makes the reading experience much simpler. Because Apostol writes so clearly, he can cover material significantly quicker than most other calculus texts. Even though many students are puzzled at the notion of understanding theoretical proofs and concepts, that understanding will often trivialize whatever homework problems and tests they will need to write in their classes.

It is true that this book is more abstract than other calculus texts, and the general consensus is that some knowledge of calculus would be helpful before tackling this book. However, a mathematically inclined student, given a good background in pre-calculus, should be capable of reading this entire book with little outside assistance. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have a more experienced student or teacher available to answer any questions the reader may have.

Another advantage of this text is that, by adding linear algebra, Apostol can more cleanly integrate linear algebra with multivariable calculus (in volume two). In addition, he covers some topics in differential equations and probability, which are natural extensions of all the earlier material in the book.

The exposition is clear, the covered content is thorough, and the exercises are numerous and varied. If you want to learn calculus, this is the book (well, this and the second volume) to get.