Simmons Books

This book is ambitious in its scope. However it is near abysmal in its editing. There are dozens of errors in the equations and some in the text. Derivations were not checked with original sources and so contain assumptions that are not valid in all cases. As an overall introduction to optical materials this book is OK, but don't rely on it for equations if your job (or your grade) depends on it.

Was'nt too pleased with this cookbook. I prefer cookbooks that use ingredients that are easy to find at the store and include recipes with foods that I like. Might be partly my taste in food, but I did not like this cookbook. While I love many of Richard Simmon's products, this one did not do it for me.

This is a pretty coffee table book from a famous herb farm. Any crafter would be inspired by the gorgeous pictures. The book has suggestions for seasonal and appropriate plants to use. Many plants are listed alphabetically with a short sentence describing their appearance, how to grow, and handling the material for wreath construction. Actual how-to-do-it instruction consists of only four pages of text, no photos of wreaths in the construction process.

It is said that one picture is worth a thousand words, and that's good because the text is very brief and repetitive. Without the photos, this book would be a pamphlet.

"The Future Is Now" is a frustrating read. There is some well researched information about the dawning of The MC5, and well detailed material on The MC5's association with John Sinclair and The White Panther movement.

The roadblock in this work hits hard though. It is an extremely condensed history (under 100 pages, and many of those are filled completely with photos), and would have worked better as a magazine article. Sinclair and The MC5's troubles with The FBI and Michigan Police make for a compelling story, but there is so much more to this one-of-a-kind rock phenomenon than their White Panther Party affiliation.

Most unforgivable is the final chapter, which is devoted almost exclusively to the demise of The White Panther Party. The MC5's troubles and eventual break up are mentioned almost as an afterthought. There is no word on any of the members activities after the group disbanded; Fred "Sonic" Smith, Rob Tyner, Dennis Thompson, Michael Davis and Wayne Kramer went forward with their lives, most remaining involved with the music industry in some form. There are some good stories buried here, and one has got to wonder why the surviving Motor City 5 members were not contacted by the authors. I can only think they are accessible; I heard Wayne Kramer interviewed by National Public Radio's Terry Gross several years back, and that piece alone revealed more than in the pages of this book.

Yes, the MC5 was a group that lasted only a few years, but it would take a few hundred pages to tell their fascinating story. I truly hope somebody takes up the challenge. The authors of "The Future is Now" have the potential to create such a work, but they do not deliver in this instance.

This book is poorly written, uninformative, and poorly laid out. It is a compilation of books and magazine articles you've already read and pictures you've already seen. Avoid it at all cost.

I waited months and months for this trash? Save yr money and buy some Charmin. It's softer and just as useful.

please do not spend money on this. it's basically the equivalent to one of those n' sync pocket books you find in the checkout lane at walgreens.
it's more about the mc5's association with john sinclair and the white panther party than it is about the mc5 and their music.
for some reason there are 2 authors for this "book". it took 2 people to write this crap? oh, and one of them is named cletus.

"The whole story of the MC5?" Well, no, it's not. More like a brief overview of the events surrounding "Kick Out the Jams." If you want to know more than that, this ain't the place. "Back in the USA" gets relegated to a paragraph. "High Time" gets one sentence.

From the back cover:

An angelic lady...

The last thing the beautiful and determinedly unmarried Lady Alyssa Gray wanted at her ancestral home was a man. Yet the Queen had heard about the "haunting" of Graystone Abbey and was sending an emissary to investigate. Since Alyssa had been running the estate alone, the oddest things were happening. Now she would have to cope with some high-born meddler too...

A devilish lord...

Miles St. Aldford did not believe in specters, phantoms--or love. A rake and warrior, he preferred the thrills of battle to the restraints of marriage. When ordered to look for a ghost in rural Devon, he was thoroughly stunned to find a lady whose heavenly looks brought out the very devil in him...

A heavenly passion...

Now amid flickering lights in old towers and strange midnight riders, Miles and Alyssa found the most powerful unseen force of all--love...

And my review:

Actually, I'm not really sure why I bought this book in the first place. I'm not a big fan of Gothic romance (ghosts, etc). I will enjoy the occasional paranormal twist or Gothic novel by a beloved author (eg "One Night Of Scandal" by Teresa Medeiros), but it's generally not the kind of thing I'm looking for when I read romance.

Anyway, that being said, I had other reasons for ultimately rejecting this book. First of all, I found the writing style very hard to follow. Simmons likes to use lots of dialogue without much prose to break it up. Not that I need a prose-driven novel, but it was very difficult to remember who was saying what, as it wasn't identified very well. I had to keep going back and counting the lines to remember that odd lines were one person, and even ones were the other speaker. This is confusing and distracting. I shouldn't have to re-read sections to understand them.

Also, the author herself admits that she likes to write books about people who discover each other first on a primitive, physical level, and then fall in love. I like love stories to be the other way around. I need more motivation than lust for me to cheer for the characters together. Physical attraction is not enough to build a relationship on!

I guess the whole "different strokes..." saying applies here. Some romance readers like the "instant lust followed by love" theme. Others, like myself, prefer "love, with the physical attraction being a bonus, not the entire reason for being together" theme. This book falls into the former catagory. Whether or not you like "Bed Of Roses" will largely depend on whether the "instant lust" thing works for you. For me, it doesn't.

I was thoroughly disappointed in this book and plain didn't like it. The handwritten font was the least of my objections regarding this work. It is easy to see where and how the pictures could cause some confusion. One of the challenges many people on the autism spectrum have is being able to decode facial expressions.

My chief complaint about this book is the title. I think the 1988 movie "Rain Man" has done more to reinforce stereotypes about autism than it ever did to foster understanding. The term "Rain Man" is considered highly offensive in many autism/Asperger's circles and is best avoided.

I am good and tired of people with autism being portrayed as rocking; staring fixedly at something; spinning objects or watching anything that rotates; demonstrating savant abilities and having no viable social skills. That stereotypical behavior simply does not apply to the entire autistic population. Savantism applies to roughly a little less than 10% of the autistic population. Autism is a neurobiological condition that affects sensory processing and communication. The range and variations are as great as there are individuals with autism. Seriously, I rue the release of the movie "Rain Man" and sincerely hope the term and image of "Rain Man" will not be so liberally applied to people with autism. That hurts all and helps no one.

I didn't think this one was helpful at all and would recommend "Autism Through a Sister's Eyes," "All About My Brother," "Views From Our Shoes: Growing Up With a Brother or Sister With Special Needs," "Ian's Walk" and "My Brother Kevin Has Autism" instead. These are excellent books that explore sibling issues and foster understanding and acceptance of autism.

If this book helped others understand the underlying rationale for behaviors associated with the condition and provided understanding, that is to the good.

Granted the area of partnership taxation and S corp taxation are confusing, this book is actually even harder to understand and follow than the actual code section itself. The organization of the book is hard to follow. In programming terms, it's like a spaghetti. Links point to everywhere of the code section but does not follow a logical pattern. You're better off reading the internal revenue code itself.

This slim booklet outlines the steps in the construction of a large American steam locomotive. It contains a lift-out detailed drawing of a prairie type-balanced compound locomotive. The 44 page booklet does supply reasonable detail about the various locomotive components but does not address what I consider the 'fundamentals'; i.e. how the machine operates in all its simplicity and complexity. There is a selection of black and white photos of varying quality.

Who is looking for Walking Dead or Creepshow kind of thrill, please walk away.. it's cheap and boring stuff. Save your money.

This book had duplicate copies of the same pages and pictures. Some of the pages were inserted upside down. This book was very poor quality. I was very disappointed with it.