I thought the book fell well short of the mark because the terminology was just so bad. Zuckerman would have done a much better
341675
As someone in the business and knowing many of the players personally, I found the stories very interesting.  However, I thought the book fell well short of the mark because the terminology was just so bad.  Zuckerman would have done a much better job had he used an industry consultant to edit the book so that he would have had the technical lingo down.  For example, his use of phrases like, "experimented with different liquids and gels as they blasted the rock" and "the water-heavy brew reduced costs dramatically" and "oil began to pour out of the well" tells the informed reader that he really doesn't understand the business or the technology and, therefore, looses credibility.
4528379
I read this book in an inter-disciplinary reading group (folks from Philosophy, English, Political Science, Psychology, and others).  It was very frustrating; the book bordered on making sense for hundreds of pages, but the majority of the group felt that we could not quite grasp his main concepts.  The philosophers in the group were all sympathetic to the so-called `Continental tradition' (e.g., Marx, Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger), but we all finally decided that Zizek is a charlatan who gives philosophy a bad name.  Much of the book is nonsense - by which I mean unintelligible, Sokal-esque garbage.  For example - we worked very hard to understand what he means by the Lacanian Real, but in the end had to give up.  Here is a partial list of his claims about the Real:  the Real is pure negativity, a void; the Real is pure positivity, fullness; the Real is the basis of the symbolic order; the Real is a "determinate nothing," the Real is a hard kernel; the Real is not a hard kernel; the Real is desire; the Real does not exist; the Real is structured by the symbolic order.  What can you do with a list like that except give up on the book and warn others?
4299360
I thought the book was very basically written and repetitive. However, the Buddhist principles and practises were covered sufficiently well for the reader to grasp the utilitarian nature of the practise. I found part four to be extraordinarily poor and overly formal. The use of many categorizations was stifling. Furthermore, he really didn't need to make up words for presence and mindfulness like "synergy" so I thought this was a bit vain. This book seemed intent on making money off of a middle class business person rather than expressing profound truths to people. I would say this book could be helpful to a complete beginner to meditation practise.
2356344
The book reads like a badly-written term paper. The cases are presented in a summarized format, lacking the definite details to merit the "shocking facts" and "grisly details" hype on the back of the book. Although I applaud the writer(s) for doing research in a little known area about female killers, I felt the book over-romanticized their images to the extent that it was unnecessarily dramatic and repetitive. This is one small description of  the "Angel of Death" from page 89:
"Like Azrael, she has the outward appearance of a caring benefactor, however, like that messenger from God, she carries a weapon of lethal destruction at her side and is willing to preside over the question of life or death for even the most innocent of charges."
The overwhelming majority of their notes from each chapter are derived from the Internet and the same CD-ROM. There is no evidence of first or second hand experience which significantly lowers their credibility because it seems like one big term paper based on resources from the internet and a few other books that can be found in the true crime section.
Think of it as "Real TV" or "Cops"  with cheesy, over-the-top  narration and you get the idea.
488833
I really tried to like this book.
As a populist I was expecting something better than what I read in this book.
Are there some excellent profiles on American figures and their populist views?
Yes. And some extremely good material like quotations from Senator Robert Taft, Thomas Jefferson, H.L.Mencken, and Senator Bob LaFollette to list just four of the many leaders cited.

What ruined the book for me was the racist views aired over and over throughout this book!

I give it one star and no recommendation.
It's too bad because the title and subject held a lot of promise on a subject even more relevant today.
448348
As a student of the development of the African church, I was really excited when I picked this book up. It looked great, the chapter titles seemed interesting, and the subject matter looked right up my alley. I was gravely dissappointed. The word "racist", though probably appropriate, was overused (thesaurus please). And the first chapters basically boiled down to a retelling of the stories of the OT with various opinions thrown in as statements of fact. I appreciate what this author was TRYING to do, but he really misses a great oppurtunity to educate the public (and students) on a subject that has been , and is, gravely overlooked.
1769445
I bought this book, being interested in the topic, and enjoying previous books on similar topics--such as The Benedict Option and Strangers in a Strange Land.  Unfortunately, I was very disappointed in the book.  While the topic is very timely and the chapter titles are compelling, the presentation is poor.  Rather than being a well argued and well researched book that gives concrete guidelines for solutions, this is basically a "stream of consciousness" polemic on the downfall of the culture.  While Anthony Esolen is obviously bright (and a college professor), this diatribe leaves one feeling down about society (especially as a religious believer), but with few concrete ideas on how to live productively amidst the "ashes."  Any ideas that are given are so polyanna and out of touch (let's all go back in time type reflections), that they obviously weren't given deep thought or provide as realistic solutions in our modern world.  Also, even though I share the writers religious convictions, his use of language like "sodomites"  and "whores" was quite jarring and unnecessary.  In my opinion, if you are going to spend your money and time on a book---get The Benedict Option, Resurrecting a Christian Society or Strangers in a Strange Land.  Much better books, more well argued and all leave you with hope.
2484849
I am a first time reader of Juliet Marillier.  I felt she went WAY overboard to make a politically correct point which, sadly, led to a predicable plot with ho-hum, sappy characters.  When I finished reading the book I was ..well... "meh".  This could have been so much better.  Too bad.
2223130
I was excited to read this book because there are so few on the topic.  Nonetheless, the book is just too unprofessional to warrant a high rating.

I understand that the book stems from journal entries, but, even if keeping that format, the book should have been edited better.  First, as is, there is too much stuff that is just not necessary.  For example, the gas prices in every city they visit.  Gas prices change so often, this seems irrelevant.  And it is boring and distracting to read the gas prices repeatedly.  The authors could have simply stated an average gas price in each state/province for their trip, noting exceptions.  Similarly for the extensive campground lists.  These are details that might be better in an appendix.  Some of the more mundane experiences should have been edited out of the published version.

The book would be more interesting if the authors had focused more of the writing on the interesting people they met and the unusual experiences they had.

Finally, the book is poorly organized.  It seems as if they just took their random thoughts as put in the journal and typed them up.  Thus, the same paragraph often contains several unrelated ideas.  The authors also need to learn to punctuate, especially with respect to the use of quotation marks and periods or commas.
3493538
I had high hopes for this book especially as a release from Focal Press which is quickly becoming personal favorite for information based materials (mostly photography). Sadly, this simply did NOT measure up.

As both a college instructor, business writer and someone that worked in marketing during the dot-com era, this fell short. I would not think of using it as a text in a college level course due to the the extremely poor editing (which become progressively more and more irritating) and ending with what amounted to reading a compilation of expanded defitions with a few theories tossed in for good measure.

Likewise, as a business writer this still fell short by remaining so vague as to not provide any real "nuts and bolts" of what it takes to really work in the field. For example, if you want a definition of a CMS this book is fine. If you would like even the most precusory explanation of how usability is impacted by design of a CMS, work flow and dozens of other simple "day to day" issues related to the CMS...you won't find it here.

This is not serious enough to be used as a text yet not fluid enough for general reading. Likewise, the content is not really appropriate for either audience; information is very basic in most areas and relies heavily upon general business terms with a bit of content related lingo/terminology tossed in to make it seem relevant. The rest consists of information specific terms expanded to seem like they are saying much more than they really were.

All in all - poorly written, vague with generalized content repurposed to make it relevant. Lacks depth and true insight. Only sufficient to provide the most vague conceptual overview of the topic.
3882403
This book suffered the double sin of both being terribly dry and uninteresting, but also being poorly annotated. When showing step-by-step procedures for problem solving, steps were often skipped, so the reader would be unable to figure out how the author gets from step 1 to step 2. Even my PhD Algebra professor admitted that this book was only mediocre at best. Also, this book is heavily calculator-driven, showing you more information on how to operate a graphing calculator than how to solve problems. Finally, if you hate word problems (or have any sort of learning disorder that makes work problems difficult to follow) watch out: this book consists of almost entirely word problems. While I appreciate that there is a heavy emphasis on real-world-type problems (most notably concepts like half-life, richter scale, and other real-world concepts that actually helped me out in other classes like chemistry and trig later on), there is an overabundance in word-problem setup, often to the detriment of the problems themselves.

For the record, I got a 3.8 out of 4.0 in this class, so I was more than capable of grasping the concepts. However, the book was not good.
3753131
This must have been one of the worst textbooks i have read so far.

The biggest weakness is that there is little structure within the chapters.
The authors jump from one topic to the next and introduce new concepts where they are totally unnecessary and out of context. This makes the book hard to read and understand.
Example: The authors talk shortly about the definition of the "biopsychosocial" approach and then introduce studies and their findings relating to new concepts such as "fatalism", "self-efficacy" or "social-support".
Likewise they proceed throughout the book they start at point A and arrive at point XYZ.

Another point I don't like are the really artificial and forced transitions from one topic to another.
3487063
I've earned two CS degrees and worked with SNMP and TCP for years.  The problem with the book is that it is written by pompus insiders.  SNMP is one of the worst standards used on the internet.  You could teach a course on how such a rudimentary functionality was obfuscated by impenetrable terminology and poor implementation choices (ASN1/BER for example).

What is desperately needed in understanding SNMP is someone who knows what a disaster it is and tries to help bridge the terminology gaps.  Unfortunately, the authors actually believe that the terminology and implementation were a good idea. They can't bring themselves to say "You know what the rest of the world calls an array?  Well, we decided to call them 'columnar objects'"

The most useful part of the book was learning of the available SNMP parsers, 'smicng' and 'mosey' in an appendix.  But now that I've told you, there is no reason to buy this book.
4432713
As is the case with many business books, this would have made a better article.  There is a great deal of redundancy, and a disappointing shortage of insights.  In addition, for some reason the authors decided to alternate writing without letting you know which one was doing the writing. I feel "Blogging for Business" (Holz and Demopoulos) and especially "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" (David Meerman Scott) were much more interesting and informative.
3592162
I ordered this book the moment I heard about it, and read the entire thing in three days. Strengths: 1) I laughed hard reading his descriptions of his failed businesses and of his Judo championship fight; 2) The sections on hiring a Virtual Assistant are brilliant; and 3) Good idea about testing paid search effectiveness. Weaknesses: 1) His entire assumption--that you can run a business by doing two hours of email a week and outsourcing the rest--is utterly unrealistic. 2) The book ignores the reality that small businesses selling T-shirts (or commodity items) need competitive separation from someone with more money--there is little or no discussion about how to create barriers to entry to protect your small biz, at least temporarily; 3) I found the book to be rambling in nature--it just didn't seem organized to me.
2546102
I agree with the other negative reviewers.  This book covers an interesting area of topics, but with no depth or where there is depth-- its poorly described.  Here's my impression of each section:
1) I start reading, and the intro paragraphs grab my attention and I'm happy to learn about the topic!
2) It presents a vocab section -- perfect! This is really a great way to start a new domain of discourse
3) Everything gets hazy-- we talk about some useful information...some theory is glossed over...some logical information is plain missing to take the reader on a useful, continuous exploration of the topic.
4) He introduces an example, but then runs through it without explaining the diagrams and numbers well -- he glosses over them.  It feels very disconnected in the places that matter, and too verbose in the places that don't matter at all.

At the end of the book, I felt like I learned some good terms and got about 10% of the information I would've expected from the number of words I read.  So its good to skim for an overview of the space and get some topics...but that's it.

To be honest, I was very disappointed with the fact that it was a Morgan Kaufman book! I usually have a lot of respect for that name on a book.
3018573
I was very much looking forward to recieving this title from Amazon.com after reading the first few pages online. And, admittedly, I did like the first few chapters; however, the tone and style of presentation changed very quickly, and became almost smug and self-aggrandizing. The authors seemed far too pleased with themselves, and, by approximately the halfway point I felt as if I were reading some kind of bizzare Conservationist Manifesto. I like to think - as a self-appointed conservationist and vegan - that I try to mind Mother Nature and all living creatures, but after I finished reading this repetitive, pedantic bore, I lost the will to care. Maybe I am being too harsh, but this book seemed to peak in the first chapter; then, it became exasperatingly preachy and redundant. Others liked the book, and that's fine; But I was disappointed.