Poorly organized, repetitive, not-really a "book;"  Skip it!
923505
I say:  Don't waste your money.  This is a poorly organized book of 278 pages, whose "information" could have (and have been) conveyed in a 5-page article.
714039
I did not read this book through. It might be a good place to start if you want a compendium of magical thinking and practices, but it's so poorly organized and presented that it becomes merely a list that bounces back and forth through poorly specified time and place. The writer is presented as a past "lecturer in history of literature, as well as medieval languages, history, and cultural studies," but the "various universities" in her academic history are not named.

The first chapter promises a lot but sets the stage for the sweeping generalizations to follow: "Magic, as a protective and procuring agent, has existed universally in all cultures since ancient times." And almost immediately the caroming begins. In a reasonably useful discussion of sympathetic magic, we're swept in the space of a page through examples from 21st century Peru to England in an unspecified past tense, but "especially popular in Scarborough," to 17th-century Ireland. Only the Scarborough example is footnoted, and it's a two-step process to identify a source in the bibliography.

I read the three chapters that interested me most and picked up a few bits of information, but I'll need to find alternate sources if I plan to use them in any way.

I received the Kindle edition through the Early Reviewers program of LibraryThing.com
2929233
For being the 4th edition, I'm surprised how poorly organized this book is. There is no clear breakdown for the exercises. I want to know, in a clear and concise format, how long to hang, how often to hang, and what a standard progression should look like. Most of it is just anecdotal stories with very little scientific backing.
2243598
Very poorly structured book. Looks like there is no logical order inside each chapter, instead of flow when the first thing is used in the second it's just an unordered list; terms can be used miles away from the place they introduced or not used at all. Same things are repeated again and again.
2885698
Poorly written, poorly organized.  It was actually painful to read - I almost gave up and didn't finish it.  Saylor has a poor grasp of the English language and repeats  mundane phraseology throughout the book.  By the time I finished it, I didn't care if Reeves death had been caused by a direct hit from a meteorite.  I am outraged that I paid $4 for such rubbish.
613172
expected more... most of the 'book' are repetitive blank pages with inane headings like notes, word count, and brain dump to mention but a few.
1343212
I bought this book for my Kindle, which is kind of a waste as there are checklists & some writing of your goals, dreams, etc.

I got about halfway through this book, & realized I wasn't reading anything I haven't read before about organizing my stuff--must decide to keep, throw away, or donate; everything in its place; put it where you use it...

Many of the solutions offered ended with, "If you feel you can't accomplish this, you may benefit from hiring a professional organizer". Given that this book is written by a professional organizer, it read like a very long business card.

Most people cannot solve their guest room needs by installing a Murphy Bed, but perhaps if you can afford a personal organizer, it's not a problem.

I didn't finish reading the book; I got less than halfway, glanced through the rest of the chapters, and was done with it.
3823696
This is one of the worst written, most poorly organized "book" I've every purchased.  I bought it because of the regional subject matter, but found it to be unhelpful.  There are no page numbers, so the "table of contents" is almost worthless.  Many of the "chapters" have no organization at all.  It's as if the "author" just sat down at the keyboard and dumped random recollection, notes and information onto the page.  There is little or no useful information for anyone but a correctional officer; even they would probably already know which gangs are active in their institution, and there is little other information beyond the basic facts of crimes.
4799456
A real waste of money. It is overly and overly repetitive. Everything is explained like if it is being explained to second graders but involving so much redundancy and out of focus ideas that it is unavoidable to get lost. Adult learning theory is not applied. I should have rented the book, I would not have wasted the money. I don't ever take time to review stuff, but I feel soooooo ripped off. I cannot believe that so many ideas were repeated at lest a hundred times on the same page and on the same section, because on top of that, the pages were divided by sections. Ten thousand words per page. In my opinion, if you are an adult and have a brain, you don't need to give your money away this way. I gave it 1 star, since the zero option was not given to me. To the authors, please edit that book!
727576
This book is not a fundamentals guide to VoIP.  While it contains a wealth of information, it is poorly organized and goes into far too much depth for what is supposed to be a fundamentals book.  The depth at which certain topics are discussed (such as QoS and various protocols/codecs) is nauseating.  Of course QoS is important and a part of many networks today but describing a half dozen QoS methods while failing to mention 'auto qos' doesn't do anyone any favors.  The discussion of protocols/codecs is arguably even worse.  One might expect to see that level of detail on a CCIE Voice exam perhaps, but it has no place what again is supposed to be a fundamentals guide.  Other chapters such as 'Chapter 10: Voice Security' barely even talks about voice security other than mentioning segmenting voice traffic using vlans.  Instead, it discusses symmetric and asymmetric encryption, DHCP snooping, ip source guard, and BPDU/root guard.  Maybe its because the book was published in 2007 but its laughable to continuously see references to older technologies such as frame relay.  Bottom line, don't waste your time.  I didn't pay for this book, the company I work for did, but I've seriously contemplated returning it to Amazon.

If you want a book that you can pickup, enjoy reading, and learn about VoIP, see the CCNA Voice Cert Guide by Jeremy Cioara and Michael Valentine.  The information is up to date, relevant, practical, and easy to understand.&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/CCNA-Voice-640-461-Official-Cert-Guide/dp/1587204177/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">CCNA Voice 640-461 Official Cert Guide</a>
3617873
Seriously. Every sentence ends with "she nodded" or "she laughed".  Every Freaking Line!  This is not what I like to read and the repetitiveness drives me up the wall! I continued to read it in hopes that it would get better, but it doesn't.  Plus I think there needs to be more descriptions of surroundings or feelings within the characters heads .It seemed that the reader had to work extra hard at understanding the setting surrounding the characters most of the time.  It was missing a whole lot of supportive info that could have made this a 5-star book.  I tried this author through the "free" ad on Facebook.  I will not be purchasing another title from her, unless she has better editors/writing structure/new publicist that know what they are doing.
I'm usually not so critical because I love romance books, but this one was poorly written.
4533080
Back when babies were just daydreams, I recieved "What to Expect When You're Expecting" (3rd ed.) from a pregnant friend who had an extra copy. Not knowing any better, I was quite pleased. Once I became pregnant, however, that changed. I found the book to be poorly organized, overly conversational and condescending in tone (especially given my plans to be a stay-at-home mom), and generally useless for anything other than instilling fear and paranoia. Most exasperating, though, was the "organization." Symptoms that can arise during varying parts of pregnancy are scattered haphazardly amongst the monthly chapters. This means that the book must be read cover to cover and all material retained in memory if hunting through the index and flipping back and forth between sections doesn't sound appealing.

Enter the "Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy." Hallelujah! Not wanting to suffer through another mediocre guide to pregnancy, I looked through every book I could get my hands on, and this was the only one that satisfied my criteria. It is written by trustworthy professionals in clear yet -professional- language, it provides information on "pregnancy, childbirth and your newborn" in chronological order, and best of all, it contains separate sections entitled, appropriately, "decision guides for pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood," "pregnancy reference guide," and "complications of pregnancy and childbirth," each with a table of contents at the beginning of the section. Instead of having to take a wild guess at which chapter (or, more likely, chapters) cramping might have landed in in "What to Expect" or searching the entire index, I could find it, along with all the other things I might be wondering about, in the reference guide. Blessed simplicity!

The "Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy" was the only book I needed. Once I found it, "What to Expect When You're Expecting" went back on the shelf and stayed there.
2942696
I completely agree with another poster's assertation that Babbie is a "Textbook Machine," not a current valid Researcher. He merely finds ways not to violate copyright infringements, by twisting words, thereby making the textbook as a whole incomprehensible. I was completely disappointed in chapter 6; "Indexes, Scales and Typologies." Clearly, the indexes section is poorly composed, and there is little logical progression of thought. The text in its entirety makes one think that Babbie spent a lot of time hitting the "synonym" button in Word to extrapolate yet another meaning to the already ambiguous wording in a book that never has any concrete logic about it. The chapters have "Spurious Relationships", as they are not connected in anyway to increase your learning of the subject as a whole. The authors name should have read, Babble, (not Babbie), because it is an endless drivel where one comes away frustrated and bewildered, learning almost nothing about something so important. What I want to know is, how the "Textbook Machine" producer continues to stay in business?
4577469
Repetitive, silly, ridiculous, tedious, monotonous....if you've started reading this book, do yourself a favor and just skip to the 2 last chapters and save yourself some valuable time.  Thank goodness I got mine at the library and didn't waste my money.
2553734
This is a really bad book.  The author and or editor needs to spend more time refining this book.  Rrpeated same sentences on the same page on more than one occasion, felt like a was reading a fill in the blank kids story about gardening. Totally 73 pages all the information in this book is easily gathered on the Internet in just over an hour worth of reading.

Then, didn't seem like she had any real experience,  say things like, "below is a list if herbs and microgreens and what they may need to grow healthy." Using the word may is why she seems to have little personal experience.

In the herbs section each herb is said to be marketable, but no information is given as to wholesale or retail price per oz or lb.  No statistics about how much a grower or the author may earn per plant or per square foot or per hour.

Finally, in the Microgreens chapter she list sprouts.  Well sprouts are not microgreens.  Sprouts are not planted in soil, sprouts are harvested in 3-5 days instead of 10-12 days.

Stopped wasting my time in the middle of chapter 3 about microgreens. Please don't waste yours.
2889605
Here's the deal: I respect the information and help Rayzel gives. It can't be easy to dole out all that info. HOWEVER, the Majority of this book is repetitive and redundant. The first 50 pages just repeats the same stuff about mindset and goals and basic info that we already know when starting a diet. There are then another 30 pages of menu options and alterations, but at the end of most pages it says if yo want detailed info as to
Changes, etc, go to her website. I thought the whole point of paying for the book was to have all the info in one place. Very disappointing - I don't want to have to look up more info on various places, that's why I paid for the book. Feels like a goose chase. Them the rest of the book (approximately 200 pages) are just logs and charts for you to enter your info and keep track of your choices and progress, a glorified notebook. I'm not trying to diss her efforts, I just feel like I expected a lot more. All the info and tips in one place. As a mom and business owner, I don't have the time to look up every variation and tips, I wanted it all there in that book. I wouldn't recommend this book. I think you can get all the info online for free.
4512895
Differently than most of other reviewers, I felt the book was disappointing. To me this book was just a miscellaneous collection of the author's personal preferences and habits, cooked together and spiced up to form a pseudo methodology called 'bit literacy'.

For example, the author spent a whole chapter discussing how to organize to-do lists. In a 2 page analysis he reduces all forms of organization systems in paper to "post-its" (like if it was the de facto standard). He then tries to make the argument that post-its don't scale, are messy, and so the only option is 'bit literacy'. Yes, it may be, but who said that post-its is the only universal solution, even for paper? What about GTD?  Covey?  PCEO?

The author goes on - after depicting post-its as the cause for the failure of paper systems - and then introduces a Gootodo, a system created by the author, supposedly as the only 'bit literacy' compliant digital system, due to some 4 arbitrary rules. Questionable rules I'd add, like proposing avoiding contexts, the importance of priorities within your tasks, and the need to set a date for each task. Otherwise it's not "bit literacy", like if all other productivity systems based on Palms, iScribbe, cell phones, etc were just bit illiterate. And obviously, not a single mention to any of these other systems.

Other chapters have similar flaws: directory filename convention is total arbitrary, trying to sound like the only solution to organize directories (putting the name of the author in front of the filename... wow!).  Same for how to organize your photos. To me the only 'bits' of information nice were the chapter about inbox management with Inbox Zero (that is largely explored by other authors), and the proposal to 'let bits go', considering the capacity to generate them is just infinite.

While I fancy the concept of bringing tactical proposals to better manage information overload, I think this book totally missed the point. You'd better go with GTD with lifehacker.com than with 'bit literacy'.