Lots of examples and people, not much else
923750
I guess I was expecting a bit more in the way of a technical kick in the seat of the pants than this turned out to be.  Don't get me wrong, this has lots of examples of people tinkering their projects, but a little bit of this goes a long way for me.  I've been tinkering since I was 7 or 8 (yup, 50 years now), so I was hoping to get back to more of that and expecting this book to help shine some light on a path.  I guess in a way it does, but like I said, I expected more.  Still, 4 stars ain't a bad rating. It's just not a 5 star book.
3742732
It's reputation had preceded my purchase of the book.  Once I read through it, I was somewhat disappointed in the lack of examples and deeper dive into some of the concepts around available time, shifts, and parallel processes.  It is still a good basic book but I guess I had higher expectations given it's reputation.  It is not very helpful for non-manufacturing situations.  The concepts can still be applied but there is only one example and it's a manufacturing one.
1924243
Some of the flags could be useful, but a lot of them have pretty extreme examples one will unlikely to encounter in most normal people. It's still a good read considering that it's free however.
1966731
I enjoyed the book.
I felt like I learned things about taking digital photos from this book, but I was left wanting more side by side examples.  It seemed like the author utilized photos from other people that he liked, instead of taking a more deliberate approach, such as discussing a technique, then showing you two pictures, one taken using auto settings and one using the technique.  (That way you could have a concrete example of the difference the technique made).  He does this occasionaly, but it would've been nice if he had done it with each technique.
I also felt like I was over bombarded with RAW format propaganda and advertisements for his books on Photoshop Elements and Photoshop.
I wish he would've discussed how the use of filters has been affected by the switch from film to digital photography.
1824288
I'm skeptical of all the 5 star reviews this book has. I would venture to guess that most of those reviews are coming from students who haven't read other introductory Analysis texts, and so they don't have any reference points outside of it.

The text is certainly not terrible, but it strikes me as a typical example of what you can expect from the textbook industry. Quantity over quality. The material covers a lot of ground, but with very little emphasis on clarity. Statements such as "it follows from theorem a that x implies y" are littered in examples throughout the text, with no further explanation on why "it follows." In some cases, when new concepts are introduced, I would have had no idea what the Authors' were talking about had I not previously reviewed the concept in a better text (such as Abbott's Understanding Analysis). I would expect this in more advanced texts, but not one that has "Introduction" in its title.

It's not that I expect Analysis to be easy. I just find texts like this to be wasteful of students time, because while you can eventually grasp the material, the task could have been quicker.
144069
This book covers an interesting selection of topics (as Prof. Goodman describes in his excellent review), but I wished for a more engaging presentation. The  exposition is often rather concise, frequently no more than a page or two followed by exercises. Since the results of the exercises are often relied on in the sequel, the reader acutely feels the absence of solutions, hints and closed-form ("show that..." type) problems. The book is moderately illustrated, but not quite adequately for an undergraduate textbook. Its description of isometries in hyperbolic geometry relies heavily on words and algebra, even though these transformations are very difficult for a beginner to visualize. Ditto for even the humble M&ouml;bius transformation, for which Wikipedia will give you a better gut-level understanding. The notational choices, especially using 'r' for both rotations and reflections (albeit in the latter case with a bar over it), are sometimes unfortunate.

The author claims that basic linear algebra and calculus, along with dollops of group theory and point-set topology (open, closed and compact sets) are sufficient background. But familiarity with a bit more topology (e.g., homotopy and a basic understanding the idea of genus) will help, since the book's treatment of the topological material is lightning-fast. And having a course in complex variables under one's belt will make it much easier to appreciate what's so beautiful and unifying about the material presented here.

To calibrate: I'm not a mathematician or in school; this was purely hobby reading. I had hoped that this would be a relaxing read during a snowy year-end holiday, but I found myself getting annoyed with the author's not-quite rigorous, not-quite user-friendly approach. The book is already 20 years old, so maybe it's time for a revision -- especially since math graphics software is now widely available, and Springer has begun printing in color. I hope a new edition could be produced with more informative illustrations and at least a partial set of solutions or hints. For now: a 1 star deduction for the total absence of aids to exercises, and another minus .5 for the stylistic stuff.
1351710
If you know nothing about the era, this readable, small book may be a good introduction.  For many Americans, Aimee Semple McPherson and Father Coughlin are cultural references whose exact meaning is lost in the years.
But in the end the second-hand superficiality of "Hello, Everybody!" makes it read like a good foundation for the book that might have been.
The author acknowledges the New York Times and Washington Post for their coverage of radio in this era, the '20s and '30s, and those archives are the thread running through this 334-page book.  A look through the bibliography and author notes shows a long list of newspapers, books and web sites, but not a single interview.
There are glancing mentions, but the book is not about radio's golden age, the entertainment shows that are best remembered today.  Only Amos and Andy get more than a few words.
4176570
The book has nice photos, and detailed enough instructions to do most of the projects (some projects use very similar methods), but it's limited in scope. It has sections on planters, an house numbers - those are useful, and also on concrete cakes for a concrete garden party - which is useless.

The part which is most interesting to me, which would be various concrete formulations and moulding techniques, is not given much depth.

Make sure you look at the table of contents before you buy this. There are no hidden gems in the book which are not covered in the TOC. Also, once you get the ideas, e.g., to cut out a mould to make house numbers, you hardly need the book. I don't think I would buy it again.
3287759
The examples are quite good. They are basic enough to be understood clearly, but they are not very creative.
3552436
This is a very large book with very small photos showing a lot of examples of other people's portfolios. It doesn't exactly do what it should do, which is tell you how to develop, maintain, and present a portfolio. I suppose if you read the whole thing from cover to cover you might be able to pick up enough pieces to complete the book's stated objective, but the content is not terribly compelling, and the tiny photos are an awful way to present examples.

There are better books on portfolio design out there, such as Designing a Digital Portfolio by Cynthia Baron. It's not specific to Theatre, but you'll still learn a lot more from it...
4675527
This book is a reasonably good discussion of the dynamics of organizational change.  But it does not do much that a really top-notch book on organizational behavior and development does.  The major advantage of being topically focused on education -- the ability to focus on the mission of education -- is pretty much missed.  One of the common pitfalls of school systems is to become focused on the environment for the professionals to the point of insufficient attention to the group at the center of school system's mission -- the students.  Evans misses opportunities to integrate the theory and practice of organizational change with such core topics as curriculum, pedagogy, and the impact of theories -- either solidly research-based or faddish -- on the culture and outcomes in the classroom
3971016
I found this book to be a good introduction to several open source development tools (with an emphasis on testing tools), but its strength is definitely breadth rather than depth.  The individual chapters primarily serve as introductory tutorials, although there is some integration of the tools (e.g., combining HttpUnit, JUnitPerf, and JMeter to test several different aspects of performance and scalability).
While all this information could probably be found on the tools' websites, I thought the book provided a worthwhile condensation.  My major problem with the book is that 1/3 of it is devoted to API reference, which I generally find to be a waste of paper.
3399965
In Marriage Customs of the World, Monger explores the traditions and customs surrounding marriage throughout the world.  He covers a wide range of topics arranged alphabetically, from ancient to current practices.  In the introduction, Monger states that there are "remarkable similarities of thought, ideas, and symbolism across cultures" in the weeding ceremonies.  He goes on to note that the "differences in ceremony usually relate to, and reflect cultural and religious views of marriage and the role of the sexes in society" (ix). The purpose of the book is then to give more detail to the premise that weddings and marriage rituals around the world are both similar and distinct.

 Monger accomplishes this through the 191 alphabetically arranged entries that vary in length from a few sentences to several pages.  Each entry contains a book reference list for further investigation.  Also included are an assortment of photographs and illustrations to enhance the written entries.  The book contains a lengthy index referring not only to the text but to the images as well.

Many topics covered are very broad, such as the (bridal) shower, while others are more specific, ie Maori Wedding.  Individual concepts of marriage are listed as well as many individual countries and also some religions.  The book, written by a British author, does not include a section for the United States or for North America or even any part of South America.  Certain entries seem to be lacking relevant facts or else clearly state false or outdated information.

Overall, this reference is well written and would be appropriate for a scholar or student as well as the general public.  The text is fairly reasonably priced and is easily understood as well as interesting.  As well as being useful in a personal collection, it would be helpful in an academic, public or school library.
4871708
Pros
* Some explanations of origins are helpful.
* Good selection of sample words
* There are several solid chapters on the historical development of kanji forms, although this is really not necessary for learning the characters in this book and is something you would easily find on the Internet.

Cons
* The book does not give you an order for learning the kanji (the kanji are listed in order of their readings, using gojuon order, like alphabetical order for Japanese). This means you can't use it for self-teaching. It is designed as a reference tool for people who are using another textbook that would tell you which kanji to learn next.
* The vocabulary is good, but they don't provide the meanings of the other kanji in the compounds, or have any reference for where you could look these up. This means you can't learn the new words from breaking down the meanings of the different kanji, unless you already know the other kanji. Whether you know it or not is left to chance, because there is no order for learning the kanji.
* The book is laid out as a reference for looking up the origin of a kanji and various other pieces of information about it, but this type of information is available in many electronic resources for kanji, like hand-held electronic dictionaries or specialized websites, which have more and better information and make it easier to look up the kanji than this book does. I do not see the value or benefit of having this paper resource for this particular purpose (it would be different if it was a workbook or something where I could practice writing out the characters).
* The book has 1100 characters, corresponding to the Education Kanji list for Japanese elementary school students. Actually you need about 2000 characters for Japanese, and the Joyo list has more than that. You can still use this book's approach for the remaining characters, but you would have to use a different book or just keep track of kanji in your own notebooks.
* The drawings of the evolution of the characters are interesting, and a lot of work went into these, but they're not particularly useful for learning present-day characters. To the extent that a character represents a picture, it's better to just try to see the picture in the kanji itself, which is the thing that you really need to be able to recognize. Showing the evolution of different drawings is unnecessary and distracting.
* The introduction talks about how the book teaches you kanji by building blocks, but it doesn't teach you the characters in building block order. You're left to determine the order on your own, or following the order of another textbook.
* The book keeps showing the evolution of the drawing of each element, even though you already learned it. It would make more sense to present each of these once at the beginning. You end up seeing the same drawings over and over again, for example, you see the evolution of the drawing for the radical for silk in every single character that contains that radical. This also means that for kanji that have three or more parts, they end up having to crowd several drawings for different elements all into a small square that is the same size for every kanji. It seems like they didn't think this through very carefully.
* The furigana for the sample words is very small, so that you can't distinguish ba from pa, etc.
* The book claims to be a "new origin-based study of kanji...restoring the substance of the direct connection between a form and its meaning, something that have been lost over the course of more than 2000 years". Studying kanji based on origins is actually quite common and not new at all. I might have given it a third star out of generosity, but it's hard to feel generous when they make such a baseless, inflated claim for the value of the book.
3003235
This book was recommended to me by a respected educator, following a discussion about putting together a full picture of a person before entering a long term business relationship.  It was somewhat helpful in that it reminds us of the connection between appearances and inner thoughts, without being overly stereotypical in our thinking. The author is a gifted jury selection expert.

That said, the book is full of repetition without a lot of tangible examples of how outward appearance actually predicted behavior.  This would be extremely useful, and without it, the reader is left to identify outward markers with no idea what they could indicate.  As a result, we miss out on the sum of the author's experience.

Somewhat useful...,
2614338
From the size of the book, it's obvious that this is going for the typical coffee table-type design.  And yet, it has a lot of words and not that many pictures for that goal.  As for the pictures themselves.....I'm not going to judge their artistic merit, but I've had preferred more pictures of the drives themselves.  Talking about the Mount Rainier loop, for instance, they give a stock photo of Rainier taken from the hiking trails near Paradise (I know since I've taken variations of that exact shot myself when hiking).  Nearly all the other examples are similar - generic shots of the countries the drives happen to be in, with little to no relation to the actual drive itself.

As far as the content, it feels rushed - they tried to cram in so many drives that there's barely any room for any info about a particular one.  Maps are tiny (usually fitting in a 2"x2" square) and descriptions are brisk.  Finding a specific drive is challenging - they're organized by content category (rivers, urban areas, etc.) rather than geographic area, so, for instance, attempting to find a drive near your current location is difficult (the index makes an effort towards this, but a map would be far better).  I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting to get out of this book, but I ended up a bit disappointed.
479274
I hoped to learn more about interpretation of prostate MRIs from reading this book.  However, it's just a compilation of lots of example cases, there's really no didactic text in there so no real systematic way to learn about prostate MRI.  There are a fair number of cases presented and lots of different images, but wasn't really what I was hoping for.