Travis Books

A relatively simplistic overview of RCRA. Useful as a general reference manual but not specific enough for adequate analysis of complex RCRA challenges.

Ok, to be perfectly honest with you, Manhattan by Neal Travis is about character development through New York City. It's showered with famous Midtown places of the 70s such as 21, Elaine's, Studio 54, and Costello's. The plot is a long developing story about Michael Glennon trying to save the magazine Manhattan from being bought out by a board member. This ultimately takes on many exciting adventures to different places. Travis leads the reader through the powerful-closed doors of the chic in NYC. With an outcome to be determined! A good buy, if you like to read about the NYC life or you just like to be entertained.

I've never been a fan of quiz books, and I also hadn't read all of the Travis McGee books when I stumbled across this, making it a slightly useless purchase for me. However, having now read the entire series, looking back at the quiz book is an amusing diversion. Not a must-have item, unless you're a fanatical fan of the McGee books. But if you are, definitely worth checking out.

This is a sweet book for girls who care for their family. This book is not for bratty girls, spoiled by life. I know if your daughter wants to be like the Disney channel girls this book is not for her. This is a story about a girl looking forward to her grandmother teaching her how to quilt. In the end the girl sells her quilt to save her families home. I gave it 3 stars because there is a disconnect in the last two pages and a few details of the ending were left out. It was kind of odd. All in all it is sweet though.

Sheila Travis is an amateur detective who has to rank as one of the most reluctant sleuths in fictional history. Already well-known in Peachtree Corners near Atlanta because of her exploits in a previous case, Sheila gets involved in another caper in Snellville. Sheila is not a strong protagonist. She is just one of the crowd spending a lot of time talking with suspects and witnesses. Sheila is Miss Marple without the same energy and sparkle. The plot is difficult to follow. The dialogue is often boring and trivial but the ending proves to be a mild surprise.

Poor men's iron men come back from mission with a body bagged brother.

A covert mission in power armour suits? Sounds pretty unlikely, or cool comic stuff, doesn't it? Pretty much. So the new toy for these miltiary technology wunderkinds proves too irresistable to keep off for long. So, they do what they do best, at least the head guy. Blow crap up, and get family members dead. Technothriller/mundane sf/weapons porn sort of stuff, but certainly ok if you are after that sort of book.

I am a big fan of Dale Brown's action-packed, aviation-focused novels. As such, I decided to venture out of the aviation world for once, carefully following Brown's lead through his "Tin Man" novel.

The action is OK, the theme is interesting. But there are no aircraft in it! Plus, the science side of the explanations Brown gives of the technology behind the supermen-like powers is both weak and hardly credible at all... In fact, the whole book reads more like a "common" police action book with a soft science-fiction edge than the mix of military aviation, armrest-grabbing novels I am used to reading from Brown.

This is my first Dale Brown book. I must say I like his imagination in intergrating the high-tech gadgets (including the BERP material) into this story. I like the action and the ups and downs that the main characters go through. My main critisism would be that there is too much emphasis on tough and macho talk between the brothers and the cop community in general. I feel that as a result of this "talk" the story itself has become a bit unrealistic.

The terrorist Gregory Townsend starts a reign of terror in the area of Sacramento, California. One of his first victims is former air force General Patrick McLanahan's brother Paul who is severely wounded on his first day of police duty. In order to avenge his brother Patrick has to start a war on his own using the newest technology available to him - a suit that enables him to become a one man army...

This is the first time that no kind of new hi-tech plane or attack mission in a foreign country is the main focus of Brown's book. The "star" of this book is a suit that is bullet proof like solid metal armor one moment and like ordinary fabric the next. With boots that let you jump several meters in the air.
Besides gathering the usual crew (Patrick and Wendy McLanahan, Hal Briggs, Jon Masters etc.) you also meet an old acquaintance from his first book: the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft/helicopter hybrid from Brown's first book "Hammerheads".

Again, the characters in this story are really great. You love the hero, you hate the villain! And among the villains there are characters that differ a lot from each other. The plain brutal ones and the psychology skilled ones.
In general Dale Brown's books are always pretty technical. Sometimes too technical. So why do I like him so much? Because when the action starts Brown puts the reader right in the middle of it. You sit in the plane, you fly like the best pilot on earth, you fire the rockets, you are the one! And the action always starts big time. Guaranteed. "Tin Man" is no exception in regards of action and Brown's general writing skills.

BUT his writing skills and the well known characters cannot save this book.
1) Why do military villains (always) have to be Germans? Why always the same old cliché of neo-Nazis from Germany?! I am getting really tired from it. (The book was first published in 1998 but is that excuse enough?)
2) The villains are German soldiers and act like neo-Nazis but only when certain customers are around. Why? The answer is never given.
3) The storyline has flaws as well. All the efforts that Townsend is undergoing (robbery, drugs, technology theft etc.) for one single goal in the end? That ultimate target could have been achieved a lot easier and quicker. Looks as if Brown could not decide which way to go or which angle to focus on. (Funny as it is the main characters ask themselves the same question in end of the book. Maybe Brown should have listened to them!)
4) Most important: I found the idea about the suit and its skills (especially with the rocket boots) pretty ridiculous! (Who is Superman?) Therefore the book is more like a blown-up comic than what you use to get from this author.
Maybe Brown should stick to what he knows best - air to air or air to surface combat.

Bottom line:
The book is entertaining, can be read easily and you do not need to twist your brain to follow the story. But overall this is not one of Dale Brown's better books. The main idea about the suit is so ridiculous that it almost hurts sometimes and really spoils the fun. I can recommend all (!) of his other books in order to beware you from reading this one.
Funny as it seems one of his very first books is still the most entertaining one today to me: "Hammerheads".

Dale Brown's The Tin Man is an action packed fast paced thriller. It is an amazing read. Like the thrillers of Tom Clancy, Stephen Coots and Larry Bond, the novels of Dale Brown brim with action, sophisticated weaponry and political intrigue.

I found this book to be completely useless. I went through the entire quantitative section and found that the questions given in the study guide were about a hundred times easier than the questions on the actual test. Many concepts weren't gone over, the verbal section is outdated, and the CD practice tests are incredibly easy compared to the real thing. The explanations on the verbal section of the CD were about the only useful thing about this package but they are torturous to go over. Don't waste your money on this. I'm already shopping for another study guide.

I used this book in preparation for the GRE, and scored in the 80th and 87th percentiles in verbal and math on my first, and only, GRE. I probably could have done even better had I been more thorough in my preparation, but the percentiles qualify me for most graduate programs. The salient point is, I spent minimal time studying and still obtained a decent score; this indicates the book's approach is solid. Getting the most benefit from this book does require studying it from cover to cover. But, doing so doesn't really take that long. I did not intend to spend an exorbitant amount of time studying for the GRE, and the book really cut to the chase.
The book gives a review test on various subjects, then presents complete answers of the test. It then provides a review section for each subject. After completing the topics given on the GRE, full length sample exams are provided. Using a timer, I followed the instructions on converting my sample test to a GRE percentile. I was consistently scoring between 80 and 90, and that's where my scores landed on the GRE. The key to an accurate prediction of your score is being honest with the time. I did not use the CD/ROM because I simply don't care for any of the software based "sample exams" from any vendor. The book has some errors, but since each answer is fully explained, it's fairly straightforward to locate the error. I noticed many other test preparations have cursory explanations.

Where do I start?

The vocab in the analogies and antonyms varies....from something a 7th grader could manage to some obscure word that probably five people in the entire world have ever seen before.

Parts of speech don't match, and the analogies are sometimes just terrible Take, for example, "a particle is PART of an atom". Seriously? If you don't know basic physics, pick a different analogy ffs.


Reading comprehension questions are ridiculously basic, except for the ones that make no sense and have multiple answers. Oh, and the ones that aren't on the GRE anymore.


If you are thinking about buying this book, you'd be better off taking that $30 and flushing it down the toilet. Or burning it. Or using it as toilet paper. Whatever you want really, just anything but this book.

I studied for the GRE for 6 solid months and have used every book available on the topic. This book was the only one whose verbal section was entirely outdated. For example, there was a practice test that had reading comprehension questions dealing with material that was taken out of the test years ago (such as terms relating to analysis). Also, I had problems with the analogy questions. On the real GRE, the parts of speech are ALWAYS congruent to the stem word. This was not the case in this book!
I immediately stopped using it as I didn't want to waste my time and felt that it was a complete waste of money.

While the verbal was OK, I felt that the quantitative was far from complete. I recently took the test and had some questions that were not reviewed in the book. For example this book did NOT cover negative exponents and the 1-2-sqrt3 ratio of a 30-60-90 triangle, both a which came about for a total of 6 questions on the test!! Granted these are simple concepts, but they were absolutly not covered in this book and hence this was not a complete review.
The practice sections were clumsy in presentation. This book is dated and is NOT suitable for a complete 2006 GRE.

I am currently using this book for an upper-level university course, and I don't believe it could be much worse. I am no geneticist, but I find errors on every other page and even in the accompanying solutions manual. My professor often mentions during class "Your book is wrong here" or "This is a typo" or "This is what they meant to say." I do realize that this is the first edition, but it seems almost as though the author wrote the book and never bothered to edit it. It's also quite wordy and usually a bore to read. Overall, the book stinks. Molecular Biology of the Cell 5 is more helpful in this class and it's not even a Genetics book.

The most useful features in this book are "analytical approaches to solving genetics problems" and "questions and problems" at the end of each chapter. Many of the pictures and diagrams are also nice.

However, the writing style tends to be rather dreary and over wordy, which is great for insomniacs, but horrible for those who actually want to learn something. Most of the material is presented in a manner best "learned" by memorization, rather than understanding. As seems to be typical of many biology texts, the "what" is emphasized over the "how" and "why". The sections that approach genetics from a molecular level tend to be better than the others, but the writing style is still too verbose.

Probabilities are treated in a fast and loose manner, but I am willing to concede that such use may be common among geneticists.

I also found several errors and typos in many of the chapters.

I tend to find genetics intrinsically interesting and this book could be worse, but if my only exposure to genetics were through this book, I would probably like the field about as much as I would like to work with potassium cyanide.

I think this is one of my favorite text books that I've encountered to this point. It's wonderfully straight forward and has beautiful diagrams that clearly illustrate the subjects being taught. It's also very nice reading, which is more than I can say about most text books!

John Burton was way too hard on the book. The book is under $[...] and does have 16 songs for Solo Guitar - just as promised. The songs are at the right level - not too hard and not too easy. I started with "Your Cheating Heart" from the book. Its not too hard but its great fun to play. Highly recommended.

Save your money. I'm a fairly competent Travis style guitarist and I found these transcriptions severely lacking in musical content. They are too simple for intermediates and not enough (any) explanation on the style is presented to make this a good beginner book. I think the Author, Dave Hamburger, who HAS done some decent books, did this one to fill a quota for the publisher. Lackluster and poorly presented transcriptions.

This is one of the most juvenile and idiotic books I've ever read. It's like sitting at a bar next to a drunk guy who insists that Sammy Sosa is the greatest player ever and every other player "stinks" and the only proof he offers is that he watches a lot of baseball. Instead of an intelligent look at James' work and writings (which would be great), they take items out of context, look at them superficially and then make pronouncements. They waste time attacking James' personality and style, rather than his writings. Their arguments are oftentimes idiotic and always juvenile. There's no basis for most of them, other than their dislike of James. Yes, the baseball media and many baseball fans are overwhelmed with useless and sometimes ridiculous statistics. This book does nothing to change that and provides idiotic rants instead of solid proof. All you need to know about the pathetically ignorant arguments the authors expound upon is that they believe that NO ballpark has any impact on statistics; they are all neutral. Even Don Zimmer knows that's not true.

This is quite easily the worst book I have ever read. The authors are clearly vindictive towards Bill James, and it comes through on every page of the book. Worse than that, they do a terrible job of attempting to deface the name and work of James.

Not only do the authors fail awesomely to disprove any of James' theories, they show beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do not understand anything that James writes about in his books. Every single page of this book has at least one misinterpreted quote or fact.

Here is an example:

On page 24, the authors cite James' "Estimated W-L" based on marginal runs scored and allowed. This formula, as James preaches, provides a better representation of the team's quality than wins and losses. For example, if the Blue Jays are 41-40 through 81 games, but have scored 600 runs and allowed 400 runs. Clearly, they are clearly better than a .500 team and if you saw the over/under for their final win total at 81, you would place a lot of money on the over. THAT is the point of the formula - identifying teams that are better than their records.

The authors point to the 1944 National League. As it turns out, none of the eight NL teams that year had an estimated W-L that matched its record. James would be fine with this - some teams were better than their record, some were worse. All James cares about is that the wins and losses add up. Which they do.

Quote from the book: "The fact that not a single one of his estimated won-lost records contain even a hint of accuracy gives his marginal runs method a 100% failure rate which should render it completely unusable by any good statistician."

Obviously, the "failure rate" in this case has nothing to do with what James was aiming at. He wasn't guessing team records; he was trying to show team quality. This is perhaps one of the most basic principles James has introduced to date, and the authors, who clearly have taken an interest in James' work, seem unable to grasp the concept.

The book is literally filled with examples just like this. Not a page goes by without these authors doing two things: 1. taking cheap shots at Bill James and 2. demonstrate clearly that they do not understand the concept they are talking about.

If this was simply a book attempting to disprove Jamesian theory, the authors would come across as childish. However, the utter lack of understanding and intelligence displayed again and again makes the authors come across as stupid. The combination makes this the worst book I have ever read. Worse than that, the mean-spirited nature of the book wants me to lose my lunch. This book offends me and, needless to say, I will never purchase another book from these authors again.

If you have any interest in reading this book, for the sake of historical documentation, I recommend taking it out of the library or borrowing it.

This book is of the variety "tell the people what they want to hear" and they will buy it. There are a sizable number of people who simply do not want to be involved in any objective analysis of the game or the players. They are only interested in reinforcement in what they "know" and what they "saw". To them Bill James is the Devil Incarnate. This book panders to that crowd.

James has been a fairly prolific writer over the years and it is not hard to find a contradiction in them. A person's information and attitude do change over time. There are actual cases where he writes things as a trial balloon.

If you want a better view of the whole sabermetric revolution and James' role in it you would be much better off with Alan Schwarz's The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics.

Save your money and pass this book by. Some books you know are good, but just don't like. Some books you think could be improved, but still have something of value. This book in contrast is probably the worst book I've read in the last 4-5 years, and I read over 100 a year. It desperately needed an editor to make the writers' "technical arguments" understandable, but it might not have really helped because when you do go through it, it's of very poor quality and perhaps could not have been helped. Worse, a reader feels like every other sentence is full of vitriol against James as if the writers think that vitriol is an argument. It's time for a good critique of James - one based on sound technical and/or baseball argument. He has gotten a bit pompous in his recent books (though I find them all easy to follow and with some wonderful nuggets and often mineloads of solid and insightful analysis.) But James writes with clarity and wit - something one can not begin to claim characterizes this book of critique. He also was frequently self-deprecating in the first 10-15 years, even if a little less so now. Humility is never found in this current book of critique.
James' most wonderful trait has been, however, that he puts analysis first
- wanting to test ideas in what is truly a scientific orientation, and frequently has rescinded earlier of his claims as he comes up with a better research method to test the claim. In this book, the critiquers do not understand James' arguments or claims. (Their bibliography indicates that they only have read the James' books of the last few years.) They do not really provide any systematic testing of the claims, but usually merely cite a counter-example of an individual or a team that seems contrary to the general statement. They believe approximations and estimates are worthless, and that if you haven't got a precisely accurate prediction at the end, your analysis has been worthless. The critiquers have no understanding of statistics nor probability, nor analysis. They do present three new statistics of their own construction. Only one to me seemed interesting; a measure of baserunning or speed that focuses on a runner's ability to generate extra bases. The other two don't hold up at all. But the book's own presentation in the appendix of the statistics for a whole season across teams indicates that their statistic has little consistent relationship with a team winning, in spite of the claims they make for the statistic. In short, save your money. This is a book designed to sell by a marketing association with Bill James, even though it pretends to be a critique. It never should have been given a go-ahead by the editors or publishers.

There was a great idea for a book buried here - a critical examination of Bill James's ideas would make an excellent read. Unfortunately, this book is simply an ignorant tirade that casts light on nothing. The authors clearly do not understand statistics or probability and distort or deliberately misinterpret James's writings.

I would love to have the opportunity to play poker with these guys: their mathematical shortcomings would be highly lucrative for me.

Do yourseleves a favour and avoid this book.