Not Surprising - NLC Books = Money Wasted
926155
I think that the same jackasses published this who also published the so-called "study guide" for the US Postal Service Electronics Technician exam.  I studied that book for weeks on end and was familiar with EVERY question and practice exam in it; when I actually took the test, I completely bombed out.  Reason?  There was next-to-nothing in it that was actually asked on the exam!!!  (The "dirty little secret" of acing the afore-mentioned USPS exam is to have had requisite training in either the US Navy or US Air Force.)  I realize it's not exactly the same thing, however, I do have considerable musical background which I had wanted to brush up on of late.  Obviously this isn't the book to do that with.  I think now after reading these reviews that anything put out by NLC should be avoided.  Regarding "freshman-level" theory, a couple of pretty good books for beginners are out there.  One is "Creative Harmony and Musicianship" by Howard Murphy and Edwin Stringham.  It's probably out-of-print but can likely be found in a decent-sized college library (there are a few available at [...]).  The other is Walter Piston's "Harmony".  Both are well-written with numerous examples.  Any of Ebenezer Prout's books are likewise excellent.  Another poster alluded to George Thaddeus Jones' book "Basic Music Theory".  I had that book many years ago and I can say that it was essentially useless beyond the very basics; I guarantee it will NOT prepare a person for any college-level music exam.
2810069
I expect something that promises to continue from the Archives line to have at least some text explaining or contextualizing the work, but this volume has no introduction and no afterword. Heck, one of the stories doesnt even have its original appearance information included. Although credits for each story are given in the table of contents, the first one is deducible to be from DC Super-Stars #17 only if you read the copyright indicia. Theres no title or label on it.

This feels sloppy, as though they knew fans would want to see the tabloid (previously difficult to find and expensive when you did) finally easily available, but they couldn't bother to spend $50 or $100 to get someone to write an introduction that explained the stories that made up this collection. (Although they did bother to run four pages of ads for other reprints in the back.) Another oversight: only the wraparound cover from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #238 is included. Thats because it reprinted Adventure Comics #359-360 from 1967, but you won't learn that from this book.

Sure, its fun to re-read these goofy late-70s stories from the pink bikini Legion era. (Its so named in my mind after Saturn Girls ridiculously out-of-character skin-baring outfit.) My objection is simply that, given the price and DCs positioning of this volume as continuing a well-respected reprint line, the quality of the presentation should have been higher, with at least a little background information included. The fans that know what these stories are likely already have read some of them, so the presentation standards should be higher than a mere reprint.

The book starts with the Composite Legionnaire, a monster combination of Saturn Girl, Shrinking Violet, Lightning Lad, and Colossal Boy created when a space dragon explodes at them. These stories, typical of their era, feature teammates yelling at each other, cutaways to character angst, people calling each other Lover, fantastic pseudo-science, forgettable single-issue villains (the all-women Sklarian space pirates, the Titanian psycho-beast, Worldsmith, crazy rich man Arma Getten, Grimbor the Chainsman), and large lumps of societal questions slopped onto the adventures to give them meaning.

The only extras are four pages of Paul Levitzs notes from the time: the story pitch for the Collectors Edition and character notes for Princess Projectra and Saturn Girl. (Review originally posted at ComicsWorthReading.com.)
3151763
I have had tons of books, from No Starch to Oreilly, Headfirst, Wrox, Deitel and Apress. I have read just about every possible writing style for technical books and here are my findings:

- Oreilly is so much to the point you might find it lacks explanations
- HeadFirst is great but its examples can be redundant if you already know a lot

etc. etc.

But truthfully, nothing comes as baffling and huge as Deitel and Deitel's books. They are expensive and incredibly detailed, but are sadly, in my opinion, a waste of money.

First off, Deitel's books don't look like they have been designed as books. You'll find yourself constantly flipping pages back and forth because the code examples have been wrongly placed. Much of the content looks compressed as to leave space for the stunning amount of useless extracurricular content featured in those mega books.

Second, Deitel and Deitel chose to include those kind of tips snippets in their books. They're great, really, a lot of good advice if you're starting out, but are often in the way. In fact, some sentences are even cut by the tips, literally. So you have to make an awkward jump between two paragraphs to glue the two parts together in one logical phrase.

Third, the book is so long and full of explanations, you're likely to wander off somewhere else while reading and miss something. They also make the bad assumption that if you read something, you necessarily remember it, and so I found myself constantly going back to Wikipedia or other parts of the book to remember that key, poorly explained topic that I missed.

Fourth, the explanations aren't so great. In fact, I would have to say they are boring. Reading Deitel and Deitel is much akin to listening to a University lecture in fact. I mean, come on, an ATM Case Study...

Fifth, the format is just too big. It's the kind of book you'll only be able to read if you sit on a table. Forget about holding that monster or reading it on commute, a 1500 page dictionary isn't the kind of thing you carry in one hand. You're better off buying a basics book, such as the Oreilly Essentials, and moving to a more advanced books afterwards.

To tell you the truth, I actually read this book by skipping. The explanations are so uselessly long and not to forget repetitive (I have seen the same exact piece of text repeated 2 or 3 times in a row in the same 5 pages) that I just read the tips and skip to the examples to look at what's different and unknown to me, upon which I simply check it out on the net, or even Wikipedia (who would have thought explanations on Wikipedia would be clearer than in a book)

---

But I must give the book at least 3 stars. If you can survive the ride, you'll be welcomed to know that you're now a proficient Java developer that surely knows more than the average jo in the business. And you don't have to buy any other book when you buy that. It's complete, really.
3481522
Unless my book was missing a few chapters there is no war in this book. It should be titled "Prelude to the Protectors War", subtitled "Buy my next book, please". This book is nothing like the original. When I saw it in the book store I was excited. I just finished it and that excitement has turned to disgust for spending money on such a bad book.

Take out the overly long descriptions of everything from war cloaks to cama lillies to leaves on a tree to every meal eaten and the book would be twenty pages at most. How many times can a persons muscles be descibed as "whipcord"? Sometimes it felt like I was reading an old LL Bean or Banana Republic catalog.

Save your self a few bucks and just re-read 'Dies the Fire'.
2637428
For a book that uses the phrase "No B.S. Guide" in its title, I expected no fluff. Instead what I got was loads of fluff - the first 20% of this book was written in a dialogue manner where Dan disses what other social media marketers do, and then Kim comes in to burnish his credentials by stating how Dan helped her and her career. To me, this sounds like a dubious multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme.

To the unsuspecting reader, it is easy to read this glorified successes of these two authors who somehow integrated Dan's other books into their chapters as well. It's annoying. When I buy a book, I want to know all about social media marketing, what tools there are and how you do it. Not just surface-level examples of how successful particular campaigns are, and what's interesting to note is that these so-called "successful" campaigns are never backed up by numbers, such as success rates in conversions!

When it came to the technicals, there's only mild explanation of how Facebook ads work. Come on, you said that everything you do has to be measurable and quantifiable - where are the metrics?! And what are the tools that I need to know to get started?!

This book may hit the shelves and be filed under the "Selling Fast" category, but I can guarantee that this book will not last on those shelves. It's not a book worth paying more.
735575
Seriously i just pay a list of books. 10000 ppl do this . This will be 10,000 in profit for nothing. Why not being outfront about what is about.
2187063
I discovered this "book" when it was listed, along with fifty other books by the same author (although some of the books list a different author on the inside) as a free resource for homeschooling. I am both a homeschooling mom and a former elementary school teacher with a Master's degree in Literacy, so I'm always interested to see what's out there.

This book (and all the other ones in the "series") is nothing more than a collection of pictures skimmed from the internet. A quick search of "rabbits" on Google images turns up most of the pictures you find in this book within a couple of pages, sourcing from a wide variety of websites. The vast majority of pictures in this book are probably being used illegally with no compensation for the owners of the images. (In any case, there are no statements in the book giving credit to the owners of the pictures used, or showing permissions for using them.)

Underneath each picture is a random fact about rabbits. They are not organized in any fashion, and most of them are unrelated to any other information in the book.

There is no table of contents or any other non-fiction feature you'd want in a children's research book. There is no listing of sources where the facts were obtained.

My guess is that these books were copied and pasted together quickly by someone hoping to make a quick dollar off of unsuspecting consumers. (While this book was free when I purchased it, there were MANY books built exactly the same way that had a price tag attached, and I'm sure this book will not always be free.)
2822874
The Quick Blurb

Even at a price of free this is too costly. . This book has the same faults as the Simple Logic series of print replica. Wasted my time downloading it. Yet, the publisher could correct the faults and publish as an eBook and make a killing with the idea.

Length: Print, 106 pages.

Target Audience/Genre: This is supposed to be a print replica of the print version.

Q - How was this book obtained?
A - Purchased at Amazon.

Q - Is this a book that I can read without having to read others first?
A  Not applicable.

Q - Are there a lot of typos/misspellings, grammatical errors or other editing failures?
A  This is supposed to be a print replica so people can view it to decide if they want to purchase the print version.

Q - My biggest pleasure or disappointment?
A - This is not even a print replica - no clues for down words are shown and only about ten total pages are included in the Kindle version. As a result, I am unable to determine if it is worth buying the print version.

Still more disappointing, they list a web page that does not even exist.

Ive included a small excerpt below, so readers can peruse the style of presentation utilized by the author.

EXCERPT

To get a glimpse of the contents, please refer to my review of Volume 2.

Bottom Line:

Just as with Simple Logic Crossword Puzzles, I'm rating at just one star, but, if it had been a true print replica of all 106 pages and including all clues and solutions, I would have rated it five stars.

Comments regarding your opinion of this book or of my review, whether favorable or unfavorable, are always welcome. If you buy the book based on my review and become disappointed, especially, I do want to know that and I want to understand how I can improve as a book reviewer. Just please be polite.

Thank you.
890276
Another useless Scrivener Book.  I want to learn by doing, not just reading. This one claims to be a "workbook" which implies "work" and "exercises" otherwise its just another summary of the functions. Which is all it is. If you are completely new to computers and have come from another galaxy maybe this book will be of use. I feel totally ripped off. There was no "work" to be found.  Just 68 pages of  medium type in a small book, half of which was telling you about what was coming up and the author trying to be cute. It should be called the Useless Scrivener Vague Summary.
2779288
These guys should be embarrassed, and ashamed...what a terrible, simplistic, insulting book.  Most of the so-called content is taken directly from boilerplate Chicago Board of Trade materials, with a few silly anecdotes added.  I figure they clear about $5 on each "free" book after expenses. Pete and Jon are just a couple of hustlers, it seems.  Shame on them.
529622
I regret ever purchasing this book. To me its basically an unorganized combination of clip arts plus material from other authors and scriptures. For the cost of this e-book I feel cheated. The first half as mentioned before is a combination of others materials and then the rest is basically one scripture a day for 365 for $20. As an avid reader I have read numerous books from credible world renowned authors with more depth and substance in their content and paid less for what I paid for this. With this being a book on the Proverbs 31 this is not excellence. I know people are out trying to sell books and everyone wants to be an author these days but this is ridiculous. I wish I would have looked it over when I bought to get my money back but I am a bookaholic and put it to the back burner. Won't happen again.
3383679
The book's TITLE claims to be a guide to the "Peten: Tikal, El Mirador ..."

After buying it, via Kindle, it turns out to have almost nothing to say about El Mirador.  I bought it to use as a guide to the trip there in the next few months, but it offers a couple of pages of a very general description.  I have no idea why the author would have added "El Mirador" to the title of the book if she did not plan to write about it.  Whether you go to El Mirador the hard way, several days on foot or by mule, or luxuriously by helicopter, one would need a guide.

The book is misleadingly called "Guatemala's El Peten: Tikal, El Mirador ...".  Helpfully, Kindle tells you how far you are in the book.  The first 48% of the book is a general introduction to Guatemala, seems like a re-hash of some other publication and finally at 49%, halway through, it finally mentions the Peten.  Soon after talking briefly about the Peten and Tikal, at 74%, the book goes on to Mexico and talks about Mayan ruins in Tabasco and Chiapas.  It briefly returns for a description of Sayaxche and Poptun and a large section is devoted to a list of references.

Only about a quarter of the "Peten" book is about the Peten, and most of that about Flores and Tikal, for which already exist many other good guides.  There is nothing in this book to guide you around El Mirador at all, just a brief 2-page overview of its history and telling you how far away it is and how difficult it is to get there.  Obviously, the author never visited El Mirador, nor many of the other sites she mentions briefly.  I hoped the guide would tell us about El Mirador in detail, as  it does about Tikal, but no such luck.  If, for example, you would want to visit Yaxha, a major Maya site in the Peten, this book would not help you much with less than two pages.  And if you plan a trip to El Mirador, as we do, please do not buy this book, a waste of money.

Tomas
1813003
Imagine buying a book to value the DeLorean you had parked in the garage for 30 years and finding that Kelley never heard of it? I purchased the CD version of the "Blue Book" recently, based on the suggestions & reviews of others.  It was an immediate disappointment- the book doesn't even mention the existence of "the" firearm I was most interested in valuing.  Because it is a rather rare collectable (but not near as rare as many covered in the book) I found that hard to believe, so I called the publisher.  The gentleman I spoke to had never heard of it, despite the fact it appears in many other firearms publications (e.g. Flayderman's, which itself appears in the "Reference Sources" section of the CD book ...).  I was asked for, and gave, patent & armory information.  To no avail.  Cordial call overall at least.  ADDENDUM:  For the naysayers who are dumb enough to have asked me why not include the name of the weapon for the world to see... since it will be leaving my possession shortly, it is a Freeman's Patent, Dec'r 9, 1862 Hoard's Armory, Watertown, NY.  Flayderman refers to it as the Freeman Army Model Revolver, and you can check my answers to the comments for details.

  On CD, I expected that some direct cross-reference links & "extra" photos would be present. Not so.  Aside from the PPGS section, photos are sparse, and it is no handier than a hard copy.  In fact probably less so, unless you strap on a laptop.  Expect to spend the same amount of time jumping back & forth between the index and dead-end brand/name/model/contractor searches as you would with any unlinked cross-referenced paper index.  Once familiar with the book's chosen format its not a concern, but it isn't difficult for the programmer to change the raw text to active links- so why not do it?  With the CD programming format decisively inferior to a printed page and without any extras I am aware of, I wish I hadn't bothered.

  A positive aspect of the book is the inclusion and description of proof marks and serialization.  Someone did their homework here, but alas, it dead-ends.  At least for me.  Again, another firearm goes unvalued in the book because the publishers didn't take that information and apply it to a model/design series (or at least explain why they didn't).  Learned a bit more about the proofs at least.

  Filter through the "clutter" on the table of contents and there are at least some valuable "shorts". In digital format, the titles make it easy to zero in on the desired subject, avoiding the chaff entirely.  On the whole, it appears to be a decent publication for price data on commonly-collected / valuable firearms, with decent detail pertaining to variations/proofs/stamps.  Most of them, anyway.  As for how comprehensive the coverage of collectable firearm values, I can only relate my experience- out of 11 searches (all for unaltered production firearms) I was only able to find 9 values.  In such cases, you'll have to do the research yourself (which ironically should always be done anyway; as values, like stocks, bonds & the law, change often).  In sum, be advised- it might be rare, it might be valuable, but it might not be in this book, with no rational explanation for the omission.

  Somewhere along the line it appears forgotten that attention to detail in production makes a better finished product, in books as well as firearms.  As-is, Grade: Fine.  A fundamental re-examination of the book starting with the basics (e.g. "Did we include everything we could?"), adding more substance to the information base in the index, and reformatting the CD edition (with emphasis on presentation) would work wonders.  Having been so improved, and checked over again just to be sure, it would rate Excellent.
2671896
I'm glad I bought this book used, though even then I am kicking myself for spending a total of some $6 including shipping. Boy was that a rip!

Before wasting your time buying this silliness, go to a library and look at the bibliography of this book, it's a pathetic joke. Nothing from the author's own original research or primary documents, instead a whoring incest of a small circle of other books on the subject with a good layer of vaguely-cited "BBC interview" spackle in between. Indeed, I think "BBC interview" is the most common "source" in this book.

Besides the unabashedly obvious attempt to plug himself and his own network (BBC) into this book by citing his employer copious times, clearly little real attempt was made at real scholarship; this is simply a rewritten reiteration of bits of older material combined with "BBC interviews." Cited books already out there that can be acquired for much less (if any) money if one chooses to read a higher-quality source with any hope of actual primary sources. This reeks of easily-written/maximum profit quick sell garbage. Self-promotion and easy profit is what this "history" book is about.
3155552
I bought this book expecting a scientifically justified discussion on the digestive system and its common ailments. Instead I got something that reads more like a vitamin store catalogue.

The author trots out page after page of the latest naturopathic theories that you have heard over and over, for example: leaky gut, food sensitivities, and intestinal dysbiosis.  Treatments involving literally hundreds of different supplements are suggested. Little justification is provided for any of the proposed treatments, it appears the author is asking us to rely on her own observations.  In fact reading through the bullet lists of instructions to try various natural medicines, I could not help feeling I was being commanded like a child.

Here is an example of the disregard for scientific justification on display in this book. On page 48 in the 4th edition:

"Seacure: Seacure is a supplement made from deep-ocean white fish that has been broken down into peptides and amino acids. I don't know why, but the product is soothing and healing to the gut."

As an avid health book reader, one other thing which caught my attention is many of the supplement brands being flogged in this book seem to pop up often in other functional medicine books, for example Optimal Digestive Health, by Nichols and Faass, which is selling seacure even harder than Lipski.  These brands are mentioned a little too often in Lipski and other texts in my opinion and make me suspicious of vested commercial interests.

In summary, a sloppy, slung together list of naturopathic cliches, with dubious commercial interests, that all amounts to contempt for the reader.
1926234
I looked on the website (when it would actually serve up a page) and it says there will be 12 books in this series.

This book is like something you'd find in the back pocket of an airplane seat.  About 30 minutes of reading and little content. Not all of the content is correct either.  Just because someone puts something into a "book" does not mean it is correct.  For example, on page 43 of this "book," the author details the computation of a disability-based retirement.  The author has the age-62 recomputation completely wrong.  In 2010, OPM issued Benefits Administration Letter (BAL) 10-105.  This BAL changed the way OPM calculates the age-62 recomputation for Special Provisions employees.  OPM will now give the 1.7% annual accrual rate, even if the disability annuitant did not have 20 years of Special Provisions coverage.  The author uses the 1% accrual factor in her book.  That is a huge error!  Who proofread and fact checked this "book?"

This book does not even mention the special  TSP withdrawal rules for Special Provisions employees.

Do you realize that for $20, you can buy any one of a dozen very comprehensive books on federal retirement benefits?  These books cover everything; FERS, CSRS, TSP, FEGLI, disability retirement, military service, FEHB, etc.  Why would you buy a dozen $9 books in a series (when and if they are finally released) for $108 total when a $20 book from a real publishing house will tell you more?

Way overpriced for what little content you receive.  Save your $9.

FedupFed
3655579
The author calls herself a grammarian; but some of her descriptions in the book are pure gutter trash! In our family we make an effort to finish every book we open - like it or not.  I stuck to that edict; but I regret giving the book that much time.  I always am happy to pass my hardcover books on to my friends; however, this time I ripped the pages out and tossed it into the recycle bin  so that no other person has to read this kind of tripe.

The author has the credentials that would make one think "this will be a good read".  Not so.  I expect people who sell themselves as educators and grammarians to use the language to uplift and inspire others. This offering did neither.

I've wondered if this literal piece of trash wasn't just one more way for a grown woman to rebel against the principles and moral values in which she was
raised.  Either way, I exhort people who love good fiction to save your money to spend on real literature.