Nuanced, less visual punch than previous editions
938748
I've enjoyed and used the previous three installments of this series. My impression of volume four was that it was a more nuanced collection of sites. Rather than flipping through the book and finding great ideas leaping off the page, as I found with the previous books, this one was a more studied and subtle collection. Without spending time reading the descriptions and carefully reviewing the sample sites, much of the graphic punch was a little lost in this installment.
1116843
I had not looked closely enough at the other reviews before ordering.  I had seen this book in a library and was sold on it then.  However, the library must have had the 1st edition and I ordered the 3rd.  While I'm sure some of the same information is present, I am disappointed at some of the changes.  One of the reasons that I had wanted the book in the first place was the colorful and abundant illustrations and maps that the 1st edition had.  Finding the 3rd edition to have at least half (or more) of those colorful items removed, and what remained in black and white, is HIGHLY disappointing.

One of the things that would've been helpful would have been if the preview option (click and look inside) would've included one of the black and white illustrations/maps.  That might have also have helped to clue me into the drastic changes that were made.
1593097
Aesthetically this edition is quite nice.  The cloth cover is very tasteful, the page layout is quite good.  The only complaint I have is the transparency of the pages.  You can somewhat see through the page you're reading and the letters become slightly garbled...not a deal breaker for me but it's worth knowing.
4768668
We own the 2008 version of this book, so I was excited to get the new version to see how it compares. I've attached a picture of the two side by side, and you can see the books are the same size, with a new cover.
As with the previous edition, the characters are arranged in alphabetical order. The font size is quite small, as there is a ton of information crammed into this book.
It is not exactly the same content. Going page by page, I could find characters that in in the old book but not the new, and vice versa. Certain characters (The Flash, Harley Quinn, The Joker) get two-page spreads, while most pages have 4-6 characters each. Lots of info, lots of pics.
For a DC fan (or general comic fan) this book will certainly be interesting. Due to font size and sheer volume of text, I would estimate it would be appropriate for kids age 9 and up (or younger precocious readers, or ones really into the subject matter and willing to work for it).
I'm glad to have the new edition, but won't be parting with the 2008 edition.
3920336
In defense, this edition is not that bad. True, instructions for specific media either are gone or have been skimmed down. Indeed, rules seem unclear because examples of dictionaries and encyclopedia are absent.  There are nine core citation style elements; the edition tells a reader to eliminate one element if deemed unnecessary to readers. That would lead to a little confusion and misunderstanding. Nevertheless, with examples, when a person uses a word from a dictionary or an encyclopedia article, either one can be probably treated as if it were a newspaper article or journal or a reprinted work from an anthology. Otherwise, if using a dictionary or encyclopedia as a whole, best to treat it as if it were a book instead. The edition also has cross-reference stuff like the previous edition. If using more than one entry from either, do not be afraid to do that.

As for older or lesser common ones, the edition recommend us to describe a such format (EDIT [14:01 PDT, 16 Oct 2016]: oops, I meant "medium", like "Print" or "Web") if helpful to readers, even when describing a format (EDIT: I meant "medium") is optional or not essentially necessary. The edition's generalization approach looks very new to readers.

I have also the 7th edition just in case that teachers would highly recommend it rather than this edition.
1794671
As someone majoring in Wildlife Science, I needed to have a field guide for my studies.  I bought the previous edition about 3 yrs ago, but found it lacking.  For example, it showed the historic range of raccoons, but not the current (expanded) range.  It also used older genera (plural for genus) names & had very few bat species depicted.  These & other factors made it impractical for me to use the book in my studies.

However, this new edition appears to be much more applicable for someone like me.  It has color maps (the 3rd edition's maps were black & white) which are included in the species accounts (rather than at the end).  Introduced species & their populations are shown in blue; historic ranges are shown using dashed lines; & sea mammals' ranges are included (no ranges were given for them in the 3rd ed.).  Select maps are even shown with county lines drawn in in large states like CA & TX so residents can easily determine whether a species is in their county or not.

The color plates are better too.  Animals are depicted in more natural body positions & appear more lifelike.  There are many many more bat species depicted than in the 3rd ed. Sea mammals are included in the color plates; in the third edition, they were only depicted in black & white drawings. Introduced species (like the Blackbuck) are also depicted in this section.  Select black & white animal tracks are included in the color plate section, rather than on the inside cover.

Skull identification is very important to biologists, since skulls are often all you'll find of an animal.  This book has color photos of various skulls. The 3rd ed. had only black & white photos, which wasn't so bad, but I like the color photos better. Also, the dental formulae are given in this section for the respective genera. I will say, however, that I did like the dental formulae chart in the 3rd ed. because it summarized them all in 1 place, rather than spreading them out over several pages.

Immediately following these plates is a section of illustrated shrew teeth & molars of sm mammals.  On the page just before the Species Accounts section is a depiction of pocket gophers with grooves on their incisors, a feature often used to distinguish between them.

Although most color photos are found in the skull section, there are more throughout the species accounts.

Species' names have been updated too.  In the 3rd ed, the author chose to stick w/ some of the older names.  In this edition, the accepted names (like Spermophilus) are used & even Bison bison was updated to Bos bison.

In the species accounts, common names other than the one Reid used are written in sm uppercase letters below the line w/ the common & scientific names. For example:
COYPU  Myocastor coypus (introduced)
NUTRIA

The species accounts describe the animal, sounds it makes, similar species, habits, habitat, range, & even its status (whether it's common or endangered, & which organization lists them as such, such as the USFWS & the CITES appendix #).  The previous edition included eyeshine colors (which are included in some entries in this new edition), number of mammae, & economic impacts, but for the most part these features were left out of this edition. However, I doubt many people will miss them.

I think this edition is excellent.  I only had my book for a day & yet I found all the improvements mentioned above.  I recommend putting a self-adhesive plastic book cover on your book because the plasticized coating wears a bit quickly. (Note:  I've had my book just over a year now and am slightly editing my comments to fix minor typos & improve the flow a bit :})
4159576
I was glad to see a new edition of the Hiking Alabama book.  I was also glad the new book included beautiful color maps and photographs, and was really happy to see the addition of trailhead GPS coordinates in the book... Unfortunately, there are some problems with the 4th edition.  This book is almost a complete alternate from the 3rd edition.  There are a large amount of new trails in the book.  To make way for the new trails, there were also a large amount of dropped trails.  That's not the problem.  That's a good thing (I'm glad to learn of new hiking trails, and don't want to see a complete repeat of a previous edition).  But, here's the problem.  This book favors the SHORT trails.  Almost all of the trails in this book are under 5 miles, with the average being around 2 miles.  While 2 mile leg stretchers are nice to do when you have limited time, I would prefer more day hike length trails.  The 3rd edition had those.  Even on trails that are listed in both editions, there were changes made, that simply don't make sense.  Take, for example, the Falls loop at Desoto State Park.  The 3rd edition has you start at the park headquarter from the east.  This allows you to pass through a great rock formation area with Needle Eye Rock. It's a 3.2 mile hike.  The new edition has you start from the west, which cuts out the Needle Eye Rock for some not really scenic trail. Another seemingly inexplainable change, as it seems he's dropping out some premium hikes to make room for new trails, he takes a 5 mile double loop at Monte Sano and makes it two write ups of a 2 and 3 mile hike.  It was not a hike that needed cut into 2 different hikes.  I can keep going.  In the Cane Creek Canyon hike, the 3rd edition has a very nice 7 mile hike described.  In the 4th edition, he's cut most of that hike out to a 4 mile hike, eliminating 2 waterfalls from the previous edition.  The Cemetery Trail near Mobile, he shortens the trail by 0.4 mile from 2.8 mile to 2.4 mile by doing a road walk back to the trailhead instead of taking the trail he used in the 3rd edition.  Who wants to walk road instead of trail??  The Chinnabee Silent Trail, he changes the trailhead to shorten the hike from 7.4 miles to 5.4 miles, which really doesn't  improve the hike.  I could keep going.  So, my big problem is not the added trails.  Its the changes to the trails, and not for the better.  And, it's the shortening of almost every trail in the book.  It's the addition of ONLY short trails.  Sometimes you want a longer hike, and most people can handle more than a 2 mile hike.  For a book that's supposed to highlight the best in the state, I'm not sure this new edition does that.  For people who have and have hiked trails out of the 3rd edition, hang on to that.  The 4th edition is a good add on to show some new spots to enjoy, but for the best picture of Alabama hiking, you will also need to keep that 3rd edition around as well.
4655134
I was happy with the first edition of this book, which I used as the basis for a Legal English course for a few years. The changes in the second edition, however, seem cosmetic at best. I have found one grammatical error so far, and the voice actors used to record the listening exercises seem to be lower quality than those used the first time around. These problems would be a lot easier to swallow if it weren't for the fact that the second edition costs twice as much as the first (at least in the country where I work).

This is still the best book on the market for teaching the English necessary for the international legal workplace, but offering a book of slightly lower quality at twice the price-that's not a recipe for long-term success.
4855666
This is a total re-write of the previous 6 editions.  This is usally a good thing, but I thought the previous author, Jens Peters had a keen insight to the types of things the traveler who would purchase a Lonely Planet guide was looking for.  I found the new edition to be much less informative and interjected the writers opinion a little too much in some areas and not enough in others.  For example, on Angeles City the writer basically said not to waste ones time there and that only middle aged Australian or European men would want to visit there.  My wife and I regually visit there to buy quilts and trek to Pinitobo, not to visit the bars.  But we do not judge people for where they visit.  The hotel and restaurant reviews seem to been scaled back also.  I am taking my 6th edition with me on my trip.
3633610
After hearing about HEX for awhile, I finally bought it.  Buyers should be aware that the 2006 hardcover, 8/5 x 11" size, color plates and end papers edition is out of print.  The latest edition (or printing, since none of the content - that I'm aware of - has changed) is a smaller travel size softcover that's all black and white.

Because playing a tabletop game for the first time with a gaming group can be a daunting task with lots of book passing, I decided to acquire both versions.  The softcover retailing for about $20 while the former hardcover retailed at about $35.

So, finally got to run it for my players.  The session went well.  Even though there's a lot of period information and suggestions, I think GMs will have their work cutout for them if they're trying to emulate films like Big Trouble in Little China, King Kong, and possibly even Indiana Jones.  The rules for creating characters, combat, and just playing the game take up a fair amount of space.  Then there's play examples, a bestiary, some NPC stats, introductory adventure, and list of resources.  Not too much about outside-the-box cinematic storytelling or capturing the feel of your favorite film.

But then HEX is supposed to be rather vague and open-ended.  It's not for telling one particular genre story really well, instead it helps the GM run a bunch of stories with the same general type of setting fairly well.  So, it loses a little something when it tries to stretch itself between Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Time Machine, Jurassic Park, or Lovecraft's "Beneath the Pyramids".  A successful campaign really needs a talented GM with a lot of free time or one of the HEX supplements to aid him.

As for the system, I think Ubiquity is fine.  Combat was super lethal.  A couple of the PCs were a little trigger-happy (which is perfectly understandable when one of the main character archetypes is Big Game Hunter) and NPCs/beasts didn't last more than a single round.

Aesthetically speaking, it looks nice.  Back in 2006, there were very few black and white RPG books with this kind of high quality artwork.  Nowadays, however, it might not seem quite as special.  The 6 x 9" travel size re-print is also nice, but lacks the breadth of artistic vision which the hardcover embodied.

All in all, I'm glad I bought it and look forward to running Hollow Earth Expedition again!

~  Venger Satanis
2107960
If you've liked previous editions, you'll enjoy this one, too. Same formula, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of human-interest stories from the sports world. Choosing a favorite or two is tough, but I love the bittersweet ones, such as about one of baseball's great "bonus baby" players who never panned out, or about the insane distance bicycle racer.

I'm delighted to see an article from a blog breaking through the "print barrier" in the series. I'm a little disappointed that so many stories came from the NY Times, as well as a couple of plain things from the Washington Post.  A little more edge and a little less conventionality has been nice in other editions.
1304022
First off, I don't want to sound harsh, but the title really explains what I feel on this edition of PHOTOGRAPHY. If you are new to photography, or a student, this is a great desk reference. The book does a good job, especially when compared to previous editions, of going over digital shooting and workflow. In my opinion though, it gets further away from fundamentals compared to previous editions of this series. YES, core subjects are covered, but between a lot of the photos being unavailable due to licensing issues on the digital version, and almost very little film processing/workflow, I think this is the proverbial white flag waving in the war of film vs. digital. This is the core of my rating. While at a lesser cost than its predecessor, I believe that it is also less informational and at less of a value than its predecessor as well. The peak value is the fact that, to my knowledge, this is the first Kindle/E-Version of this book. Which is awesome to build a reference library in the palm of your hand.

I will say, that this is a good book STILL if you are a photographer starting out or based in the digital age. I will recommend it. For a more experienced photographer, or one looking to become certified through one of the guilds, I can still recommend this edition, but you may be better served with the 9th or 10th edition. For the super advanced photographer looking to get better, honestly, for the price, you can find 2-5 more in-depth, and better focused books to read. I think that is where my disappointment comes from in this edition. The fact that I feel I have learned more out of the past three books I have bought in the past six months than this one book, and all of them cost less than this one. I don't know, maybe gone with the film age, is also the value of this series, time will tell.

Pros:
Available Digitally
Lower price than predecessor
Lots of images and charts
Able to bookmark references for fast access.

Cons
"Incomplete"
Still overpriced compared to the market

Recommend because of legacy and format, not because of overall content.
4971632
Compared to the previous edition, the 2nd ed feels more difficult to read, which is unfortunate for a condensed review type book.  It LOOKS nicer than the 1st ed, but reads like a more dense reference type book.  Probably better used if you have a lot of time prior to board exams or want to review something specific, rather than as a cram/review book a month or weeks before boards.
4826400
This book (although an earlier version) was our standard textbook for the western survey of art history while I was working on my Bachelor of Fine Arts, and for good reason.  Jansen does a good job of covering many of the major movements and time periods of western art, with extensive imagery and well organized chapters.  A timeline at the end of each section helps to better keep the history in order, and highlights important dates.
I do agree with some of the nagative critique in that Jansen does not include important eastern art in the book, and this probably should be reflected in the title.  However, I don't believe that this warrants the book having a lousy review: the buyer should just be aware that this is a WESTERN survey, and a very good one.
This newer edition contains some additions to the older editions; of particular importance is the added chapters on Twentieth-Century Photography and Postmodernism, which if I recall correctly were not in earlier versions of the book.
3896561
I've been faithfully buying each Illustrator WOW! Book since they came out and am generally pleased with the amount of content covering the new release. I can't say the same for the CS version of this book. I was a bit underwhelmed with the focus they put on the 3D features. Nothing really WOWed me and I felt I could find the same examples and information via the Adobe site.
On the other hand, if you're just starting out with Illustrator and have a good understanding of the basics, this is a good book to get for a look into seeing what most of the tools and commands can do.
1373125
Once upon a time, this was indeed the single-best book on physical Forteana (ie, no ghosts or psychic material covered). On that basis, it truly does rate a five. However, I'm giving this particular first edition a three for a good reason: to Clark's credit, Unexplained! still IS the best reference book out there, but don't get the first edition. The vastly updated second edition has all the same stuff, plus updates where possible and additional entries. The more recent third edition condenses some of the second edition's content, but once again adds updates and new entries. Either of those would be a better bet. Heck, if they're new to you, get them both; the second edition can be found on here for anywhere between a penny and five bucks for a good copy.
1638976
My sweet husband gave me the New Southern Living Garden Book for Valentine's Day.  I was thrilled!  We have had each of the earlier editions and found them so useful, and we had been looking forward the new edition with bated breath.

Unfortunately, the new versions is something of a disappointment.  I like that there are actual pictures with the individual plant profiles, and the new listings are pretty wonderful.

But here's the downside.  The print is very small and pretty light, which makes it hard to read.  The previous edition had some very useful tables that provided a lot of detail about the most common plants, but those are all gone.  Worst of all, there are pages missing, and the table of contents does not match the actual printed page numbers.

Poor job.