for beginners/self-studying, hard to understand...
355271
if you have NEVER studied harmony before, it is probably the best place to start. this book does get into the very details and advance level of harmony, but it does not give much explanation. would be beneficial if someone is coaching at the same time.
2523902
In the sense that there should be a "no fear Gombrich" version for those of us without doctorates in english. Totally indecipherable to me, and i consider myself a very good reader. It's just really difficult to comprehend what his points are through his flowery language. Ended up giving up on this book, it wasn't worth the effort. Would have had to ask the teacher to interpret every paragraph....
3013094
I am a physician who is interested in data science as a way to analyze health outcomes. I am new to this field, but in undergrad I took three semesters of calculus, differential equations and graduate-level statistics courses (and I made A's in all of them except the differential equations course). This book is definitely not geared towards beginners or anyone who does not hold an advanced degree in mathematics or statistics. I also have about four years of programming experience, notwithstanding that I am rusty.

That said, I am having an extremely difficult time parsing the information in this book, as it consists mainly of mathematical jargon with little explanation of anything. I would definitely not recommend this book as a didactic textbook for beginners or even intermediate level learners in this field.

I am sure the authors are very knowledgeable in this field, but this book is not a good textbook to learn from. To quote the authors "We expect that the reader will have had at least one elementary course in statistics, covering basic topics including linear regression." I have to call BS on this, as I never had any trouble in my classes (or learning directly from textbooks without instruction) and this book is just killing me.
1670911
Disappointment. This is a book hard to understand for beginners and almost useless for profesional AutoLISP programmers. What I was lookig for a some exapmples and descriptions of the basic  functions to get access complexity entities and instead, found magazine-like article and programs. The rest of  the programs except matrix I found very common and very familiar. DCL  almost did not tuched and did not explained. However this book still can be  usable and at some point helpfull.
262527
I'm taking this class from the author of the book and he teaches like the book reads.  If you are already experienced in discrete math then you will be okay.  If not, you will have a tough time.  The author begins with the  simplest of examples and then jumps into very difficult ones without much  in between.  The steps from easy to hard are not explained well and one  feels a bit lost (at least I do).  The mathematical explanations are not  helpful as they are just as confusing as what they are trying to explain.  All in all I'd pass this one by if I had the choice, unfortunately I have  to read it for my class.
1730355
The book is thick enough to be used in a multi-semester Greek course. And it is not so feasible for home-alone learning. There are many many explanations that confuse the reader. A less extended, but easier-to-follow book would be much more helpful for beginners.

One important thing that I realized is the pronunciation rules (especially diphtongues) are taught differently. Actually this is the problem in English-Greek books. I am quite sure that some words are not pronounced as they describe in the book. I also follow a Turkish-Greek book and I find the differences after I read both. So you must also have an audio book kind of thing to confirm the information.
2973610
This is a great book for anyone that wish to start iPhone programming, and I don't need to dwell on that.

However, it is very hard to read through the book without losing track of what is going on. Take this one sentence for example:

"Why, pray tell, are we adding both a label and a string? Remember the concept of lazy loading? Well, view controllers do lazy loading."

Imagine the book full of such weird little tidbits of author's thoughts directly translate into words. Yes, your mind begins to drift and you start to miss the point that the author is trying to make.

This book would easily be better, if there is a slim down version without all these small talks that challenges your attention span. I am still trying to get the hang of dismissing most of what is written without missing key concepts, and that unfortunately is very difficult to accomplish.
1207351
was hard to learn for someone who was not internet literate...
1225717
Darn this is a good book, but difficult. Veeery difficult. As is everything of hers I have read so far. Darn. Pointed in her direction by Slavoj Zizek in his book&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Less-Than-Nothing-Hegel-And-The-Shadow-Of-Dialectical-Materialism/dp/1781681279/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Less Than Nothing: Hegel And The Shadow Of Dialectical Materialism</a>&nbsp;where he credits her interpretation of Hegel in her book&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Future-of-Hegel-Plasticity-Temporality-and-Dialectic/dp/0415287219/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic</a>. Argh! Bad thing about the complexity of the prose is I can't recommend this to beginning philosophy students. I suppose this stuff only appeals to and makes sense to grad students who have had a fairly large dose of Hegel and contemporary European philosophy. But for this book a large dose of Freud is also in order as Malabou makes Neuroscience march to Freud's drum. And she also quotes Spinoza - probably quoting Damazio&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Looking-for-Spinoza-Joy-Sorrow-and-the-Feeling-Brain/dp/0156028719/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain</a>&nbsp;that a man can die before his body is dead.
2625548
Some sections do have equations that seem critical to understanding specific topics. The whole book seems more like cliff notes version of an in-depth book on DSP. I found very few sections to be intuitively understandable, most seemed like instead of writing equations, the author spelled them in English.
4772386
Tough to read, really meant for those in higher level post-graduate courses that have taken college level course and are already well versed in the subject. Would overwhelm the new student of the topic
2902918
This one is more like a textbook--it is absolutely not a phrasebook--so it's not a good choice if you're trying to get enough basic Korean under your belt to get through the airport / taxi / restaurant / bathroom business while you're travelling.

From the first page, things are written in Hangul, so, again, if you don't have time to learn the Korean alphabet (which is admittedly not all that difficult) then you're going to be hobbled.  If you do, though, this is a great approach in terms of attaining real expertise.  Just maybe not so good for the casual student.

One thing these guys do that makes me crazy in just about every language study book is to transliterate rather than translate.  So, for example, "Mwol ch'ajuseyo" gets you "What are you looking for?  May I help you?" when to my way of learning it ought to get you "what (object form) look for (2nd person)?".  Because now I understand the structure and I can adapt it to say other things with other nouns and verbs.  (But, you know, that's just personal preference.)
2909935
Although the text is very straight forward, it is very difficult to follow. This is because the author skips steps in proofs, at time stating that conclusions are obvious, thus implying he does not need to bother proving them.  The homework problems do not flow clearly from the text, and there are very few graphs/illustrations. Although the material is there it feels hidden and takes hours to uncover an understand. The student is entirely on their own as the author plunges forward, blasting through the material. It would be helpful at least if there were solutions to, even just some, problems at the back of the text, so that as students wallow hopelessly through the text, grasping for understanding that is mostly out of reach, the could at least know if they were headed towards enlightenment. Ultimately the book feels like the author is gleefully torturing the reader who has yet to learn the material.  On the other hand if one already has understanding of abstract algebra, matrix based linear algebra, and number theory; after only spending 4-5 hours reading a chapter one may be able to grasp the concepts the author believes are entirely obvious.
1677306
As the book title says, "for Beginners" but not for all of them, unfortunately...

This is a book that talks more about the attitude of practicing lucid dream (among many other things that have little of nothing to do with lucid dreams) and less about the actual practicing... What I'm saying is that, for example, the author dedicates a whole lot of pages to the dream diary. Good, isn't it? It would be if he talked more about how to use it instead of talking about the cover and if it has a nice color or has a collage with your favorite pictures or symbols... And how about pens and pencils? What's best? And pens with little incorporated light gadgets so that you don't have to turn on the room light to write your dreams? Is it really necessary to talk about this? I mean, the book is for "lucid dream" beginners, not "surviving the every day annoyances" beginners...

But the thing that upset me most was the constant inclusion of tarot cards references. What's with that? In one chapter the author actually describes some tarot cards that have to do with the moon and with dreams. He also references different card decks that, I guess, tarot enthusiasts use and the differences between them. I didn't bought the book to read about tarot...

Techniques for Beginners? I couldn't find any solid technique that I could follow to begin the quest into lucid dreams... I'm not actually a beginner, I've been practicing for a few months before even buying the book but not with a regular schedule. I bought this book precisely to try and find a schedule to practice. Waste of reading time...

The thing that I enjoyed about this book was actually the one I thought I would skip pass it. The dream interpretation. There are actually three techniques about that described in the book that are very nice to try.

(I know it's kind of bad to mention one book in a review of another but since I bought these two together I have to do it...)

I bought&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Exploring-the-World-of-Lucid-Dreaming/dp/034537410X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming</a>&nbsp;by Stephen LaBerge at the same time I bought Lucid Dreaming for Beginners. EWLD has a much more scientific approach to lucid dreaming with actual techniques, studies and experiences that in fact are completely related to lucid dreaming.

If your more into the science, practical use and practice of lucid dreaming I would advise you to go for EWLD by LaBerge. It covers all the aspects from "What is lucid dreaming" to very good techniques to scientific studies about it and gives you the knowledge to understand how the brain works which in turn can help you increase the success in lucid dreaming.

If you really are the ABSOLUTE beginner I would advise you to read stuff from the Internet before buying this book. Besides the things I mentioned above it doesn't add any valuable information to the one you can collect by yourself in forums, sites and blogs.
3572607
Well you certainly will be able to recognize words and answer the questions correctly, but if you're expecting to understand what the words actually mean...I wouldn't recommend this.

I was able to answer the first seven chapters easily and get all questions right but I have no idea what any words in the sentence/caption actually mean.

I've used it for a month know and I have no greater knowledge of Chinese than when I started....
2524290
I am not too big on Metaphysics.  This book is OK if one is into this sort of thing.  For me, the book was kind of hard to understand and the techniques even harder to apply.  I think this book is more for the ADVANCED student and not the beginner.

I bought it, I read it and now I wish I could give it back.
3872094
I REALLY tried to get going on this, but unfortunately Dr. Yang is very hard to understand. I had to put on subtitles to figure him out! There is a lot of talking, a really long demonstration and basically, they encourage you to get the "other" DVDs they have for sale to help you understand this one...
He's obviouslyvery good at it, but not explaining how to do it!