Johnston Books

Save your money and purchase the REAL stories 'outlined' in this cheap book put together to ride the wave of The Perfect Storm. The collection of stories is nothing more than a collection of extended abstracts of the real stories. Many of the 'abstracts' are taken out of context and the reader does not get an accurate picture of what and why the nautical situation developed or how it concluded. Pass on this one.

Clint Willis has created a fascinating series of books with Epic, Climb, High, Wild, Ice, Rough Water, and The War. Each of these volumes presents the best literature about their respective subjects in a powerful cohesive manner. These books are a quick read, but intricate and spellbinding. I have given many of them to friends and family as gifts.

These accounts by sailors captured in truly overwhelming situations form a microcosm of humanity in extremis--the reader can't help but compare his or her notions of his/her bravery, cowardice, fortitude, skill, intelligence, and sanity to those of the real-life characters in the anthology. Though the book is awash in humbling, awe-inspiring accounts of the almost mythic power of the ocean, its storms and waves and wind and rain are secondary to the humanity of the people in its grasp. The most compelling element of these stories is the will to survive of their characters, and the craftiness and real bravery employed in doing so (with a couple notable and harrowing exceptions). There isn't a weak selection here.

This book is in a series put out by Adrenaline books and each book contains certain selections chosen by the editor. The selections are either excerpts from books, excerpts from diaries and journals, short stories, or an occasional essay. I look at how good the writing is, and how good the stories are.

There are 16 selections in this book. Half of them range from good to great, and the other eight are fairly poor. The writing is okay throughout, with some being more exceptional than others, but it's the stories that differ the most in quality. Six of them, whether written well or not, have virtually no story whatsoever or are very poor. As it turns out, the best stories in this book are also some of the better written. This is where the book's strength shows up. The selections introduce you to stories and books you may have never read and after reading some of the good selections, it makes you want to go read the books they were taken from. So I would mostly recommend this book to people who have not read much or any sea stories. It introduces you to a wide variety of sea literature. But otherwise I would only lightly recommend it by saying that everyone would find some selections that they really like.

I have never known much about life at sea. I got this book because it was in the series of good collections by Clint Willis. I figured it would probably not be as good as his others, but I was pleasantly surprised. I liked as much if not more. Stories ranging between the plights of sea-men caught in huge storms to single individuals trapped in the solitude of an open sea. These stories are from today as well as from the distant past. If you're intrigued by the sea but don't have much knowledge of the world it creates, take a look at this book. It's wonderfully diverse and highly adventurous.

Another Great book to visit the Patterson's with. "For Better / For Worse" has to be one of the best comic strips of all time. It really makes you think, "They are just like my family", and if you do not have kids, read the books so you know what to prepare for.

I collect paperback comic books - as opposed to "magazine" style - and, normally this would have been a delight, but this is a childrens' book; I was expecting a book roughly 100+ pages long, and this is a tiny one - not at all what I expected. My error though; I'll contribute to the local Children's Hospital, so that everyone wins!

I love reading For Better or For Worse and buy the new ones whenever I find one but this book was small in size and only had a few sentences on every other page. I want more reading and laughs for $7.00 a copy.

I got this book thinking it was a comic book. I obviously didn't read the description carefully enough. This is basically a long poem about being a grandmother. I was disappointed at first, but not I think I'll give it to my mom when she becomes a grandma for the first time. I do think that it needs to be clear that this is not a comic. It is simply a poem that is illustrated with FBOW characters.

It is a cute view for first time grandmothers. Something you can really relate to. Great Gift!!!

Good book the class is going well. Amazon was a terrible retailer. They totally screwed me. I paid for overnight shipping and they lost my book in a warehouse in NV. I was forced to purchase the book from another retailer, so I did not miss too much homework. Furthermore their customer service personnel could barely speak English, and at times were rude. I will definitely use Amazon in the future only as a LAST RESULT.

Never received my order. I waited 3 weeks and then I found out that it was sent to the wrong address. They did send a refund for the order. They should have notified me sooner when they realized the mistake.

I don't care very much for this textbook because of how confusing some of the problems are due to misleading figures. The book itself has been around for over fifty years and they still haven't worked out all the bugs... what kind of message is that conveying from the publishers? A bad one...

This book is great for self learning!, most of the theorems are explained in a very good way (a little too good and normally a little to hard to understand the first time) the examples are clear and the exercises are neither easy nor difficult (well some of them are difficult, but not all of them).
I already had 2 teachers that told me they learned from this book... it's true that almost all the material is the same, but nevertheless it's a great book to get yourself started in Statics... way better than Hibbeler.
The contents of this book are worth every penny, it's almost like having a private tutor.
And remember it's engineering you'll have to do some WORK to master all the subjects.

shipping was done fast and delivered in expected condition. Book has all the necessary textual and visual components that make learning the material easy.

This book is full of real world examples. Which if you're an in-service teacher is really helpful.

I am frustrated about getting 2 copies when I only wanted one. The Amazon site had a discounted copy from Caiman which I ordered. Somehow, a second, higher priced copy got ordered directly from Amazon, in addition. Now I have a bill for both. I have learned that I must seek suppliers other than Amazon, whose purchasing system won't cause a problem like this.

Several teachers at my school have looked through the book and are delighted with the material.

My elementary school has added ESL students this year and I'm looking for help. I bought this book based on the reviews I had read. This is a DRY DULL textbook with no practical information. Don't waste your money!!

I use Words Their Way in my classroom all the time. I love the way it teaches my students to spell logically and developmentally. I can tell a lot about my students understanding about how English words are written and pronounced by the way they read and spell a word. This book is specifically about English Language Learners and that is an even greater asset. I have used Words Their Way with my ESOL students for awhile but this book really has a great understanding of my students and a better focus on them. I would still include the main book and the books for each developmental spelling stage in the program, but this book helps immensely. It is even better for teachers with ESOL students in their classes who have no or little training in how to teach them. Or for people who want to understand a bit more - like me!

One has to question the opinion of a reviewer who cannot even state the proper name of the focus of the biography and seems more interested in detailing his genealogy instead. The proper name of the General is Albert Sidney Johnston, NOT Sidney Albert Johnston, for those passersby who may be interested in the book. Also, I doubt the reviewer's assumption that possessing the name "Sidney" can be directly correlated to ignorant racist Southerners, or any Southerner, as he seems to assume.

Haven't read this book, but want laypersons to be familiar with the correct name of the General. Don't use "stars" as a way to rate books, either.

....but that is Albert Sidney Johnston's fault, not Dr. Roland's. Almost 150 after his most untimely death at Shiloh, General Johnston remains something of an enigma; he was either a genius for the ages, whose loss cost my people our freedom, or an overrated, drunken, fool, that we were better off without. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but what is self evident is that this is one of the finest works of biography ever written. ASJ was the second senior officer of the Confederate States Army [Who was first?...look it up; you know even less about him], but he remains a misunderstood quantity in our day. This deficiency, Dr. Roland took care of very well. This highly readable, well researched, work will let you know Albert Sidney Johnston as well as he can be known.

Albert Sidney Johnston was born in Kentucky of a middle-class family [At least six of the eight full Generals of the CSA were "middle class"; expected in our day, but not back then...I don't know what to make of that]. His father was a physician, who provided well, but not lavishly. He did well at West Point, but as a rookie lieutenant pulled a stunt with a cannon at Sackets Harbor, NY, that, today, would have gotten him cashiered on the spot. Still, he made a good career in the Army, killing some Indians along the way. He left the Army for family reasons, later cast his lot with the Republic of Texas, then returned to the US Army, and built a reputation as the finest soldier in America, prior to the Civil War. Given the plum assignment of commanding Jeff Davis' elite Second US Cavalry, he made it a great fighting force, and led a number of then unknowns whose names, today, are graven in gold...Lee, Hood, Kirby Smith, Hardee...............

Special mention needs to be made of the section on the Mormon War, a conflict that turned out bloodless only because an officer as great as ASJ led the Army to Utah. Neither side wanted to back down, but, fortunately, neither Johnston, nor Brigham Young, wanted a bloodbath. For this now largely forgotten service, Johnston was made a Brevet Brigadier General; thus, the only General Officer of three countries that I can find.

When the Civil War came, Johnston followed the South, and was given high place because Predident Davis was convinced that he was the greatest living American soldier. Alas, the first year of the war saw him fall far short of his billing. When he got to Shiloh, he was at the end of the line. Roland speculates that his death was a variation of the "suicide by cop" theme, and he makes a case. He stood up in front of fire, suffered a very survivable wound, and had a tourniquet in his pocket, that he knew how to use. He died, and many hopes died with him. Would he have led us to victory? On the record of the first year, that is very doubtful. Today, he has an honored place on the Texas State Capitol grounds; he earned it. Maybe not a "great" officer, but a loyal, devoted, and very, very, good one. RIP, Sir. This is a great book about an officer who is well, if most inaccurately, known. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The University Press of Kentucky reissued Charles P. Roland's impressive biography of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston in 2001, and readers will be glad they did. It is telling, writes historian Gary Gallagher in a new Foreword, that no new biography of Johnston has come out in almost 40 years. Roland's balanced, entertaining, and informative work still stands as the standard account of this martial man's life. In telling Johnston's story, Roland emphasizes his devotion to duty no matter how distasteful the assignment. Time and time again, whether in Texas, Utah, or Tennessee, Johnston was faithful in discharging his duty despite any personal misgivings with those in authority. Many thought Johnston would run for President of the eponymous three republics, Texas, the United States, and the Confederate States. In all cases, Johnston declined, preferring military duty as the best way to help whatever cause he was then involved with. As of early 2007, Roland's study is and will remain for the foreseeable future the standard work on Albert Sidney Johnston's life.

Albert Sidney Johnston was born in Kentucky in 1803, the son of a practicing doctor who originally hailed from New England. Despite these Yankee roots, Johnston would become a thoroughly southern man. Johnston initially enrolled at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, and he later attended West Point. Johnston counted future Confederate President Jefferson Davis as one of his close friends while at the military academy. Johnston was a good student and finished eighth overall, requesting a commission in the infantry. Johnston seemed to be attracted to the most active areas all his life, first participating in the Black Hawk War in 1832, then moving on to the newly created Republic of Texas in the 1830's. Johnston became a General an d commanded Texas' main army after she had won her independence from Mexico. While in Texas, Johnston eventually found himself in a feud with prominent Texan Sam Houston, a situation which would endure even after Texas joined the United States. From Texas, Johnston also participated in the 1846-48 War with Mexico, first as a Colonel of volunteers and then as an honorary aide. After the Mexican War, Johnston became chief paymaster of the Department of Texas, and also unsuccessfully ran a plantation in that state. His job entailed long, lonely journeys away from his family, a situation that finally ended when Johnston was placed in command of the famed 2nd United States Cavalry. While in this position, Johnston commanded an expedition to Utah to possibly fight a war with the Mormons in 1857. Johnston's treatment of the Mormons was impeccable, though he disagreed with their way of life. Later, Johnston became commander of the Department of California, and was at this post when the Civil War broke out. Johnston, who identified strongly with Texas, decided to join the Confederacy as soon as the Lone Star state seceded.

Johnston was soon appointed as one of the five senior generals of the Confederacy, and his experience was so extensive that his personal friendship with Jefferson Davis never even factored into the equation. Davis considered Johnston to be the finest general he had available, and assigned him to command the entire western theater from eastern Kentucky to western Arkansas. What Davis didn't give Johnston enough of was men and materiel. He was expected to cover this massive amount of territory with less than 60,000 men initially, facing over twice that number in Union troops. Johnston's attempts to defend the easter expanse of this department failed when one of his strong points at Forts Henry and Donelson was taken. Not only did Johnston fail to hold the forts, but he also lost 15,000 badly needed men in the process. Roland rightly criticizes Johnston's actions during this time frame. To Johnston's credit, he managed to hold together his army through a long and demoralizing retreat which saw the loss of all of Kentucky and most of Tennessee including Nashville. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard now called in reinforcements from across the Confederacy in an attempt to overwhelm Grant's Army of the Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing. At the height of the attack, Johnston was hit and his boot heel torn partially from the boot. Johnston seemed fine, but in reality an artery had been nicked and the general bled to death in a short while. Johnston was never given the chance to achieve greatness, argues Roland, so we cannot honestly say what might have been regarding his development. Men such as Grant learned from their early mistakes; whether or not Johnston would have done the same is open for speculation.

Johnston spent most of his adult life in and around the military in one form or another, so this biography is naturally enough concerned with a lot of military matters. Roland moves equally well in military and non-military discussions of Johnston's life. His portrayal of Johnston's family and the general's inability to house all of his children in one home due to his financial situation was especially touching. That Roland's book still stands as the standard account of Johnston's life testifies to his mastery of the subject. From Johnston's days as a cadet at West Point to the various campaigns for different countries Johnston found himself in, Roland covers all aspects of Johnston's life in a consistently fair manner, giving the man's failures (mainly financial) and successes (mainly military) equal attention. Roland ultimately concludes that Johnston handled his military commands with aplomb throughout the antebellum years, and he was possibly on his way to this same success in the Civil War before his life was cut short at Shiloh.

The maps in this book were standard for their time (1964), and I was actually pleasantly surprised by most of them. They serve their intended role of familiarizing the reader with the situation without being too vague or too few in number to make a difference. Roland uses the footnote method at the bottom of each page, a process which works better for me in terms of actually looking through the notes at the pertinent point in the text rather than at the end of a chapter or at the end of the book. Roland's bibliography is extensive and uses quite a few manuscript collections as the foundation of his research. Johnston's letters to and from family, friends, and acquaintances are used to especially good effect. The index is functional and serves its intended purpose quite well.

Charles P. Roland's biography of Albert Sidney Johnston continues to stand as the only modern work of the general. The quality of the book will insure that it stays this way for the foreseeable future. Those readers interested in biographical works on the Civil War's leaders would do well to have a copy of Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics on their shelves. No portion of Johnston's life, from his military and personal affairs, his financial failures and military successes, is left uncovered. This biography of Johnston can also be seen as a microcosm of the difficult choices facing men who had previously or were then serving in the United States Army in 1860. For many of these men, their state was more important to them than their country. This biography was also mentioned in several Civil War periodicals as one of the 100 best books written on the Civil War, a sentiment which is pretty close to the mark. Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics will appeal to students of antebellum America almost as much as students of the Civil war, for most of Johnston's life was spent in those pre-war years. Considering the relatively low price and solid account of Johnston's life, this biography belongs in every Civil War buff's collection.

(Note: Special thanks goes to The University Press of Kentucky.)

This is the story of a very interesting life. A good soldier and a fine man, Albert Sidney Johnston served in the background for so long that history questions his ability to rise to the top.

Adept at politics and administration, his leadership remains questioned despite involvement in the Black Hawk Indian War in Illinois, the protection of the early Texas Republic and frontier, the War with Mexico, the Mormon Campaign, and the stability of pre Civil War California.

Killed at Shiloh, the first top Confederate commander to die during the war, his death leaves the question of an unfulfilled life and thoughts of what might have been. His involvement in so many of the key areas associated with the early stages of this nation's Manifest Destiny, his life is an important one, one that impacts the long procession of events that lead up to the Civil War.

He is a person worth knowing about.

I first read an earlier edition of this book in graduate school in the latter 1970s and found it an interesting and useful work. On re-reading "Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics," it remains a very fine biography that may be appreciated by anyone interested in antebellum military history and the Civil War. Johnston, one of the senior commanders of Confederate troops in the first part of the Civil War was killed at Shiloh in 1862. Beforehand, he had enjoyed a significant career as both a U.S. Army officer and commander of the Army of the Republic of Texas. The U.S., Texas, and Confederate State of America are the "three republics" of the title.

Born in Washington, Kentucky, in 1803, Johnston was a West Pointer who gained broad experience in military command. In 1832 he participated in the Black Hawk War as adjutant to the commander. In 1834 he resigned his commission and two years later moved to the new Republic of Texas, where he soon became the ranking military official. He served in the Texan army for several years and later as the Texas Secretary of War. When the Mexican War arose in 1846, Johnston raised a regiment of Texas volunteers and commanded it until his men's enlistments expired.

After the Mexican-American War, Johnston remained in the U.S. Army and by 1855 had attained the rank of colonel. In 1857 when President James Buchanan named new officials to Utah Territory, reports from U.S. officials there declared the Mormons in rebellion against the government. To counter the situation, Buchanan sent a military expedition to Utah to quell the Mormons and install the appointed territorial governor, Alfred Cumming. Departing in July 1857, 2,500 troops marched from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Utah, at first under the command of General William S. Harney but within a month Johnston was named as his replacement. During the two year period that Johnston headed this expedition, negotiations were conducted that eventually led to a peaceful settlement of the controversy and the installation of federal officers in Utah. His success in handling this crisis led to Johnston's promotion to brevet brigadier general and his appointment in 1860 to command the Department of the Pacific.

Johnston commanded the Pacific Department at the time of the secession of the lower south in the winter of 1860-1861 and it led to a difficult career choice. Since his strongest loyalties rested with Texas, Johnston resigned his commission when Texas seceded although he was never an advocate of secession. In June 1861 he and a company of other southerners marched cross-country to offer military service to the Confederacy. As one of the most experiences military officers available, Johnston was immediately appointed by a personal friend, Jefferson Davis, a general in the Confederate army with command of the western theater.

Johnston immediately set about to prepare for war. Outnumbered and outgunned, his army's first real test came in the battles of Forts Henry and Donelson, in Kentucky, which fell to Union forces in February 1862. This defeat prompted a southern outcry against Johnston, but Jefferson Davis defended his friend as the best commander the South could muster. The next test came in April 1862 when Johnston gathered many of his troops around Corinth, Mississippi, from which he attacked Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant near the Shiloh church. Nearly successful in crushing the Federals the first day of the battle of Shiloh, April 6, Johnston was fatally wounded late in the day and his second in command, P.G.T. Beauregard, halted the attack until the next morning. This gave Grant time to reorganize his forces and bring in reinforcements. The next day Union troops drove the Confederates back to Corinth.

Since Johnston was killed so early in the Civil War it is difficult to assess his abilities as a commander of large numbers of troops, but Roland takes on this task. He notes that Johnston demonstrated caution early in the war, but showed tactical brilliance while commanding at Shiloh. The effect of his death has been a point of endless controversy ever since Shiloh. J.F.C. Fuller, the well-known British military analyst, called Johnston "brave but stupid," but others such as Charles Roland have assigned Johnston a place somewhere in the middle, neither brilliant nor stupid in his command decisions. One conclusion is appropriate, and Charles Roland makes this case well in his biography of this soldier, Johnston was a capable military officer. He was successful in every position of command he ever held, and at least in his handling of the Shiloh battle, he showed real ability to lead a large army to victory.

There are no new editions of this title for sale. My copy right was returned to me 6/12/06 by Publish America. It may appear contrary to that fact, due to the slow process of data update.

Thank you,

Patricia Johnston
AKA Patricia Winters Johnston

While I found this story intriguing and interesting, I cannot in all honesty recommend the book due to the poor editing. Very disappointing in view of the rather high cost. As I read the book, I concluded that the many errors contained in the novel were generated by editorial staff. Which leads me to believe that the publisher is lacking in that respect. I would advise Ms. Winters/Johnston to seek another publisher if she should continue to write.

Divine Shout! By Patricia Winters Johnston, ISBN: 1-4137-4568-7, Publish America, 2004

Patricia Winters Johnston takes a bold step with Divine Shout to make end time truths understandable in the setting of today's world. We who read the Bible, and specifically the words of Christ, know those coming days are not only going to be evil and perverse, but difficult for the people of God.

With their faith on the line, the Christians of a small community church find themselves the target of forces seen and unseen. While pursuing deep and revealing closeness to the Holy Spirit, these empowered warriors resist and dislodge the evil spirits that have nearly complete control of their community and its citizens. When these Christians get too bold for the town's leadership and Satan's hoard the attacks against them are intensified. Soon their desire to worship God freely, to the exclusion of any compromise, is met with specific ordinances which preclude such freedom.

Ms Johnston serves up a story that will help you picture those future-event scriptures and the evil times in which they occur. We already know that God and His people are victorious at the end of this age, but getting to that end with faith intact will require more of us than you might casually guess--and Ms Johnston takes the guesswork out of it with Divine Shout!

This pre-tribulation story will cause your heart to ache for the lost, cold, and indifferent. This end time portrayal will sharpen your spirit's acuity. And this prophetic novel will cause your heart to skip a beat wondering as you read if this is how it will be just before the Lord's return. After reading Divine Shout you will no longer be able to be blasé about the challenges of today nor face tomorrow without an increased sense of urgency and expectation.

Divine Shout's intense look at the future will compel lost readers to salvation--and get those of us already in the kingdom to fight with vigor the battles to come.

Dennis A. Beaudry, author of "A Meeting in the Air" and "The State of Christianity"

Pastor James Lockehart feels a query coming on, which makes him think, what Lord? While Ossifrage was in the process of banishing the failing demons, Jim realized that they are in the area of a very strong Satanic Control. To discern who are the strong "Prayer Warriors," and following an invasion by demons, James asked God for guidance, protection, and wisdom for spiritual battle ahead.

"Divine Shout" is filled with very interesting characters like James, Elizabeth, Ruth, David, Mark and Miriam. They work together, they want to inspire harmony, fight against violence, sexual perversion and pornography, which is round the corner, everywhere on the streets. They want to instill awareness in the members of The Lighthouse Church of God. "Divine Shout" not only introduces the uses and an idea of the word, "Identify," but about the Christian life, the boundaries of violence and exploitation and the duty of conscience.

"Identify!" this word sounds so deep and powerful. It means a lot in the twenty-first century. The password "Identify" came as a thought to James. Here is how Ms. Patricia Johnston describes the password: "To sustain during the days ahead, my children must identify and fully realise who they are in Me. There must be no identity crisis in My Church."

In such a small town, the occult dominated everything. Corruption, violent crimes, drugs, sexual perversion and pornography existed openly on the streets. The members of the occult were obsessed with thoughts of murder and revenge. Maureen Cavanaugh's body was found in the alley next to the supermarket. James tries to reassure her parents that Maureen was merely trying to minister to Nolan the love of Jesus, and Nolan decided to refuse that love. James and his group as well as their families become the target of hatred.

The main theme of the story is about Christian life, but the author does not try to make it a moral "lesson." She simply describes some of her personal beliefs regarding biblical truths and prophecy. For this reason, even the non-Christians can connect with the parts of the story and the events described seem so real in the twenty-first century.

The story of how the Church members reacted to the teachings of Pastor James Lockehart is told by Ms. Patricia Johnston in an extremely impressive style, she is constantly firing endless questions at those who show hesitation and fear of differences. You will enjoy the book! It is a page-turner.

Divine Shout
By Patricia Winters Johnston


Patricia Johnston has written a soul-searching portrayal of a church in the throes of divesting itself of a pastor who fails to lead his people by Christian teaching, while investing itself in a new spiritually vibrant ministry led by Pastor Lockehart.

Patricia's dialogue is impeccably delivered to reveal the real thoughts and words of her characters, as she brings to life the story action to allow the reader's participation.

The war that goes on in our lives between the celestial powers on the side of good and righteousness who protect and assist us, and the evil powers of destruction that influence us, are fully played out in the lives of the townspeople. The holy women praised in the Bible in the book of Proverbs, such as Ruth and Naomi, the Biblical Bathsheba, the woman taken in adultery, the prostitute, and others, are cast in the apparel of modern garb to portray the women in the story.

Pastor Lockehart believes in loving God first and others as himself; friendships and relationships that contain a deep and devoted love are secondary, in his mind, to his God-given spiritual insight as a pastor. He is determined with God's grace to rid the town and his congregation of modern evils that destroy his vision of the Kingdom.

Many books have been written of late along the lines of "Left Behind," and the "Rapture" theory. Divine Shout! surpasses them all by describing the real struggle that goes on in the soul of modern man, the temptations that surround him, and the choices he has to make. The end result of the two choices the townspeople make is fascinating reading. Divine Shout! gives insight into both and has a stunning finish that will thrill the reader.

Joyce Ann Edmondson, BPS
Author "The Listening Tree"

Great Book! The self-guided tour chapter was very helpful. I thought the book in general had very useful information. I also liked the chapters "Starting Small Business". What we liked most was that it was a straight forward reference book without the "fluff" found in some of the other books.

I just used this book here in Costa Rica and found that some of the info. wasn't correct. As the Residents Asociation states the cost of living is much higher than as described in this book.

My wife and I just read this guidebook. The cover is nice and it does contain some general information. However, the information about the car taxes is inaccurate. It doesn't reflect the new changes in taxes. The part about a couple being able to live on $1000 is way off base. You may call or the Costa Rican Residents Association and ask them what kind of a lifestyle a couple can have on $1000 a month. They recommend $1500 to $2000 to have a decent life here. Clearly the author hasn't done his research.

My husband and I are shocked that this book extolls the virtues of the Hotel del Rey. Said establishment exploits women shamelessly by letting prostitution flourish there. ¨They even bill themselves as the "Largest Brothel in Cenral America" and have a photo of the owner in this guidebook. We've stayed at the hotel and were shocked by what happens there. There was a shooting at the Del Rey last week and several people were woulded including a tourist.

I don't see how the book can recommend that hotel given the above.

Having just returned from an extended trip to Costa Rica I can say this book answered many of my questions I had. The housing section was very helpful and some real estate agents mentioned that they refer to it with their new clients. Many of the contacts listed in the book were also helpful.

My wife and I found this guide covers the important topics for newcomers making the move. The chapters on starting a small business and stories about foreigners living there were helpful to us.

This book is on the recommended supplemental reading list for studying the late Renaissance-Colonization period - grade 7 or 8 - in The Well Trained Mind. I have found that it is perfect for my daughter's homeschool needs.

Basic facts and ideas about American history are broken up into easily handled unit segments. Each segment is short enough for her to read in a reasonable period of time and contains enough information for her to gain a good grasp of the major movements and considerations of the period. The book is not so overloaded that she gets bogged down in it, so she has plenty of time to continue studying world history alongside American history. Each unit also contains a two page spread outlining salient points of one major debate that occurred during the period which has provided some good dinner table conversation and debate.

Enhanced with a Foreword by First Lady Laura Bush, The Making Of America: The History Of The United States From 1492 To The Present by historian Robert D. Johnston (Associate Professor of History and American Studies, Yale University) is an impressively written history of America ranging from Columbus' voyage through national independence, two world wars, and down to the present day. Maps, photographs, and even historical cartoons add visual impact to this direct and straightforward and highly readable historical summary, which is fascinating to simply browse through -- especially for those whose high school history classes were a long time ago.

I consider myself an intellectual who had a liberal education. I've read several American History books, including the standard high school text published by Prentice Hall, and I liked them all. I don't have a problem with political correctness as long as they keep the facts straight. Then I found The Making of America to homeschool my kids. The book looks beautiful, with big type and pictures, and I expected no problem at all.

I was first shocked to read "Columbus was greedy and brutal." (p.14) But I thought, well, maybe he was. Then I read, "Many historians argue that Columbus, along with many settlers over the three centuries that followed his arrival, committed genocide. When the Europeans arrived, the population of America was about 70 million people. Over the next four centuries, that figure fell by more than 90 percent. Millions of Indians died in what many scholars consider the greatest human disaster in all history."

Is that why we celebrate Columbus day? This is the first time I ever heard about Columbus being charged with genocide! Most history books I read before said most American Indians died from white man diseases because of their lack of immunity. However, the white man did not do so on purpose, and that alone make me think that no sane historian can put Columbus on the same level as Hitler.

Say if I go visit a friend and he dies from a flu bug I have on me but don't know it, does that mean I commited murder?

Furthermore, if the author thinks the death of 70 million over several centuries is the "greatest human disaster in all history," then he hasn't looked at Russia and China during Stalin and Mao's communist rule, when more than that many people were deliberately massacred over merely a few decades.

I persisted and read to p.20 where it says, "Slavery within Africa was usually relatively humane. Slaves and their food and clothing were much the same as everyone else's. Often they could marry, and their children were free at birth."

That's not true at all! I remember reading a personal account of an African (Algerian) slave who was sold with his family. His master treated him shamefully, and that was common practice. Slavery is NEVER humane.

I'm glad I check out this book, though, because it reminds me why I wish to homeschool my kids. It is better to jump now then later, when my kids come home from school and yell, "Mom, Comlumbus committed genocide!"

If you are looking for a book that reinforces the "politally correct" bias taught in most public schools, this is it! While the photographs and layout of the book are attractive to look at, if you actually read the text, you will find that it finds fault with Americans on every major issue; from calling some of the founding fathers "hypocrites," to siding with the Indians in our quest to settle America, to focusing on all the negative aspects of WWII, such as the internment of Japanese-Americans, rather than the positive aspects of how we freed the world from the Nazi regime, to pro feminism, very liberal text. If you are proud of our American heritage, and the Christian principles our country was founded on, this book is not for you. I was very disappointed. There is so much that is great about our country, but this book doesn't emphasize it!

The Making of America, by Robert Johnson, with a forward by Laura Bush, is a well-written picture book history of America. It includes numerous not only good history and pictures, but also unusually insightful profiles of important debates in American history, such as the Federalists versus the Anti-Federalists and the struggle over slavery culminating in Civil War.

The books includes loads of concise facts that ever American should know and profiles of important people from different aspects of American history, such as Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and President Abraham Lincoln. It also includes important documents at the back of the book, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

In only 199 pages you gain a solid understanding of the making of America. Keep in mind that this book seems designed to 1) be interesting and 2) provide an excellent overview. Therefore, you will need to seek a more thorough history books for a more thorough adult history of America.

My daughter thought that the sections on the Great Depression, World War II, Cold War and post-WWII era, Civil Rights, and Mexican War were the strongest. The profiles were good. I thought the Revolutionary War era was good. My daughter thought some parts were a little disjointed, which is expected for a brief book like this. Realistically, the Civil War, including the numerous battles and politics, cannot be easily convered in a book of this size.

My daughter also liked "Don't Know Much About American History" by Kenneth Davis as a supplement. It seems more factual and has fewer pictures, so that book is geared to older kids.

The tone of "The Making of America" is optimistic, patriotic and factual. I disagree with the nagative comments posted by another reviewer. Concerning Columbus, the book tells that traditional story but also states factually the very important historical fact that "when Europeans arrived, the population of North, Central and South America was about 60 to 70 million people. Between 5 million and 15 million of them were spread throughout the land that is now Canada and the United States. Over the next four centuries, that figure fell by more than 90 percent before it began to rise again. Millions of Indians died in what many scholars, and most Native Americans, consider the greatest disaster in all history."

That is a truthful statement and a very important fact of history. Big events like that should not be supressed because someone today feels attahced to person many centuries ago. Indeed, my daughter knows many more stories about Columbus and Cortez that were left out. The coverage in this book is fair and honest.

Nobody today should be personally offended. Is anyone from 500 years ago still around? That event is a story of another time and different people. WE did not do anything.

To put this in perspective, my ancestors were Vikings, and the truth is that they could be brutal savages. I have nothing to do with what they did centuries and so take no offense with telling the entire story of the Vikings. The complete story of the Vikings is fascinating history.

In summary, this is an outstanding picture book history of America that is optimistic and engaging, unless you are an extremist and hate simple facts.

Nineteen years old Kate Grayhawk thought that her rescue from a kidnapping would be the catalyst to bring her biological parents together, but one year since her harrowing experience, Libby Grayhawk and Clay Blackthorne remain apart. Though she knows the families feud, she still has hopes until her prayers seem to be forever unanswered when her father announces his engagement to Jocelyn Montrose.

With the gene pool she carries Kate is not a quitter so continues her efforts to bring her parents together. Surprisingly and serendipitously her Uncle North Grayhawk assists her by buying shares of stock in the Blackthorne Bitter Creek Cattle Company. Meanwhile Jocelyn who always wanted Clay even when he was married to her late sister meets North and is stunned as he sets her heart ablaze like no one else including her fiancé has ever done before. Feeling a need to make things right for Clay and his family she offers herself to North in exchange for the stock not realizing the inferno she and Kate, acting separately, set between the two of them and the fighting families.

This is a strong entry in the long running feuding Grayhawk- Blackthorne dispute. Fans will appreciate the internal battles of the obstinate cast as no one wants to take the first step for fear of rejection by the significant other they love and the consequent scorn by their family. Though Police Officer Jack hits it on the head that Kate is too spoiled and has pitied herself over the years due to the lack of a two parent home, readers will enjoy the latest in Joan Johnston's long running saga.

Harriet Klausner

This was an easy to read romance that was very predictable, but it was still satisfying. The characters were interesting. The author writes with a style that is easy to read, as well as enjoyable

"The Next Mrs. Blackthorne" by Joan Johnston" is 6th in the Bittercreek series. It follows:The Cowboy - The Texan - The Loner - The Price - and The Rivals. This series is modern day romance/western adventures that revolve around feuding families.The Blackthornes, The Creeds(descendants of the "Sisters of the Lone Star" Trilogy) and most recently The Grayhawks, who in this series were introduced in "The Rivals". The Blackthornes and Creeds had pretty much laid their feud to rest, but the Blackthornes and Grayhawks have another long standing hatred for each other, which escalated 20 years earlier by the affair of son Clay Blacthorne and daughter Libby Grayhawk, which produced grandaughter Kate, who being a Blackthorne-Grayhawk is caught in the middle.

So in the last book "The Rivals", teenaged Kate had been kidnapped and Libby and Clay had to work together to save their daughter. You knew that sparks still flew between them and hoped someday they would put aside their differences and marry and bring together these two feuding families. But alas, Clay is engaged to another and neither admit their true feelings. Now in "The Next Mrs. Blackthorne", Kate is once again in serious trouble as a result of trying to trick her parents into reuniting.She announces her engagement to an older mysterious fellow who's reputation is not exactly pristine, in hopes her parents will unite in order to stop the relationship. Clay now a federal Judge, is trying a high-profile case of a "bomber" and Kate has also befriended the son of the defendant. Now she has turned up missing and the hunt for Kate, her kidnapper and a bomb makes for an exciting and suspenseful adventure.

I enjoyed the mystery/adventure aspect of the story and found that quite intriguing,and also following the family saga, but the rest didn't seem up to par with the earlier romance stories. Libby who we want all the time to be The Next Mrs. Blackthorne,and make some of those sparks fly with Clay, doesn't even enter the picture until chapter 6 about 125 pages in. Clay's fiance, Jocelyn and Libby's brother North, are the focus at first, and although their story eventually becomes pretty hot(romantically speaking), it begins with an unrealistic ploy by Jocelyn as she offers her body to North, in exchange for some property the Blackthornes do not want to lose to him.Also, Kate, now a college student seems as mischievous and naive as a grade school girl, especially taking into consideration the life-threatening situation she had already had in the last story.

This is also the one book in this series, that I would say does not stand on it's own. You really need to read, at least "The Rivals" to get a full understanding of the characters. If you have already been following this series, you probably want to read it for the adventure and to catch up with the families. At the end of the book, Ms Johnston lets you know that the next story will continue to tell Kate's story(but doesn't give the title, so I am not sure if it is even out yet). I am hoping the "older/mysterious" guy(Jack) she pretended to love, will be back in the next story. He was the most interesting character in the story.

All in all, a good story to take you away for a while, just not quite up their with some of the others in the series. Enjoy the read....Laurie

I read the other reviews and felt kind of bad giving this book only 2 stars but I just didn't think it was very good. I found the characters to be shallow and uninteresting, the dialogue choppy and boring. The only reason I kept reading it was to see if Jack and Kate would wind up together but apparently this book is one in a series and this was not their story. I first rolled my eyes when Joss left Clay's home and went to North's just as easy as that and then Clay came begging her to come home. What made him even more of a flop for a hero was when he told her he'd wait for her while North used her. I think it would have been much better reading had the author spent a little more time developing the characters and their feelings, maybe given us a little more detail about their lives and how they felt about the people they were involved with. There were three storylines in this book and not near enough time was spent on any of them. I never connected with any of the characters and frankly, I don't know how they connected with each other. It just didn't seem like there was much thought put into the writing of this book.

Joan Johnston has done it again - drawn us into the bitter feud between the Grayhawks and Blackthornes and wrapped us in the not-to-be-denied emotional bond between Libby Grayhawk and Clay Blackthorne.

At eighteen, Kate Grayhawk is still waging a campaign to get her parents together and married. One big stumbling block - Jocelyn Montrose, sister to Clay's late wife and now his fiancee. When she appeals to her Uncle North Grayhawk for help, he takes a step that will have a far-reaching effect on everyone - especially him. A man whose view of women is colored by his father's multiple marriages and lost love, he has held himself apart from emotional entanglement. Until Joss, trying to help Clay, offers him a bargain that turns out to be almost more than he can handle.

Clay and Libby, meanwhile, are thrown together through the plottings of their daughter. History has made them both stubborn and wary of each other, but circumstances will teach them, too, the meaning of real love.

As Joan Johnston takes the reader through the emotional turmoil of these four people, as she skillfully involves us in their conflicts and battles, we see the depth of character in each of them that directs their course for the future. The decisions they will ultimately make will effect everyone, and have a major impact on the Grayhawk-Blackthorn feud.

Who will be the next Mrs. Blackthorne? You'll have to read the book and see, but it is a most staisfying read, and will leave you waiting at the bookstore for the next Bitter Creek novel.

This book provides an excellent knowledge bridge between technicalities of the IETF specifications and the real world experiences. The knowledge shared in 15 chapters is both an excellent introduction for new-comers and a refreshing experience for those who are looking for better understanding what SIP is and how is shaping the communications landscape. I am lucky to have followed the authors at several shows and congresses where their presentations opened the sessions every time with a fresh update from IETF activities and commercial solutions. You can find in this book up to date information, which is seldom found in similar titles. Chapter 5 about Presence, which provides more than a buddy list and offline/online indication, is a good example of explaining something, which everyone heard about, but few understand. The shift from centralized and server based infrastructure to pure Peer-to-Peer systems where intelligence is delegated to the end-point based on the end-to-end principle of the Internet is a view of the future to come, businesses will definitely find the advices exposed in this Chapter 14 as a new niche of developments where competition is still scarce. Chapter 13 about NAT traversal summarizes accurately the problems and the solutions for crossing Network Address Translators. Chapter 10 about how to use SIP by people with disabilities is a proof that SIP can fulfill requirements that PSTN was never able to. Interaction between SIP systems and PSTN is well described and explained Chapter 7 where ENUM is given an accurate X-ray The book balances well excerpts of technical message tracing, configuration samples with clear diagrams, examples of applications and real-life devices.

A must read for software developers, solution implementers as well as business decision makers.

The book is a must" for everybody working in the Internet and telecommunication industry and having to do with SIP, from engineers interested in SIP functional, architectural and protocol aspects to product managers looking for new ideas to build innovative communication products.

For SIP engineers, the book is an excellent, very good structured guide through the SIP protocol and its, meanwhile, quite numerous extensions, from basic SIP to SIP-based Presence, Location, Conferencing and Identity services and to the currently emerging peer-to-peer SIP technology. For each topic, the book contains the functional architecture description, the most important protocol aspects and examples. For readers interested to get more technical details, the book also refers, for each topic, to the relevant IETF SIP documents, which are free available at www.ietf.org.

For product managers, the book is a very good overview on the technical possibilities offered by the SIP technology to build new, innovative services, to offer secure VoIP services or to reduce the costs of the SIP infrastructure using an adequate architecture.

This book presents the most complete and up-to-date overview of the SIP technology I am aware of. The SIP technology has become quite complex over the years and the book has shown it is possible to cover the complexity in 300+ pages.

What I particularly credit the book for is it shows the whole SIP roadmap beginning with current status (basics of the sip protocol, sip services, presence, etc.) both deployment-wise and standardization-wise, work-in-progress in the industry (xcon conferencing,xcap provisioning), and ending with 'hot topics' such as peer-2-peer, interconnection of 'sip islands' and multi-network mobility. Even very tricky aspects such as NAT traversal have been addressed in this single book. The presented concepts are well provided with underlying details such as traces of SIP messages, call-flows and snapshots of devices in the market. Despite I consider my own SIP knowledge level over-average, I like to refer to the book for SIP aspects I don't deal with every day. With that, this book is a must-have for bookshelf of anyone who is seriously looking at SIP.

This book is lacking details on everything it tries to cover. If you are looking for SIP protocol level details and understanding as I was, this book is not for you.

My first comment is about the title, which promises the book is about SIP beyond VoIP. But the book is virtually all about SIP circa 2003, and almost exclusively about SIP for VoIP transport. Other than a brief excursion into potential uses of SIP in emergency services and mobile communications (still for VoIP, however), the authors never deliver on the promise in the title.

The authors' discussion of SIP is competent, but not remarkable. There are better descriptions available from other authors (e.g. "IP Telephony: Deploying Voice-over-IP Protocols", Hersent et. al, ISBN 0470023597). When the authors talk about current SIP usage, they seem woefully out of touch. For example, they never once mention the open source SIP-based PBX software Asterisk, even though the book has a section on open source software. Asterisk has been a force of nature in the VoIP world since 2004. You'd have to be in a very high ivory tower to miss that.

Much of the book is a rehash of stuff you can read in the SIP RFCs. Sometimes the authors make simple things unclear, as when they say "A SIP transaction consists of a request and a final response." What about the intermediate 1xx responses? Aren't they part of the SIP transaction? The RFC says they are.

Other times the authors express puzzling opinions, such as "[We] believe the IP-PSTN telephony model does not qualify as true VoIP either." What, then, do you call the VoIP services sold by the likes of AT&T, Covad, Sunrocket, and Vonage offering cheap local and long distance phone service to PSTN destinations? I stand perplexed.

When the authors do roll up their sleeves to talk tech, they write a few intriguing paragraphs about a topic and then inexplicably stop, switching gears to the next subject. For example, the discussion on PSTN interactions begins to explain how early media, ringback and other in-band signalling works, then suddenly stops the discussion. Yes, one can scour the Internet for such information, but it would be nice for the authors to simply explain each topic to a consistent level of detail. If they aren't going to talk about things Beyond VoIP, as originally promised, they can at least give readers consistent depth of coverage.

All three authors have impecable credentials, each with a track record in the field and deep involvement in SIP's development. Beyond the misleading title, I expected more quantity and quality from these three experts.

A note on Amazon reviews. Whenever I see a five-star review I always check to see the reviewer's other reviews. It's amazing how often they have none.