Very good book, a little on the lengthy side
588109
Very good book, a little on the lengthy side, but is well worth the read, the author really gives you in depth detail on criminal's life prior to their crimes (which gives you insight as to possibly why they turned out the way that they did), just how they committed their crimes, and trial coverage.
1306012
This is a good book, except it is very long. This is the first book I have read by this author.
1949058
I really liked this book- it was well written, definitely an epic of a boy's life, and had lots of interesting plot developments. However, it's very long and I wasn't quite sure why it got the overwhelming praise it did. That being said, it's an enjoyable book that makes you think.
553127
It got a little hectic at the end, but mostly a very good book
3117555
This is a long book, about four normal books.  Mr. Griffith explains what he thinks caused the "human condition," and generally how we can get ourselves out of it.  He meant this book to be an all-encompassing explanation, so it's thorough.  It is also, however, somewhat repetitive.  He makes his case, but he could have done it with a lot shorter book -- in fact, he did.  There's another version of this out with only about 8-10% the number of pages.  If you're interested, I recommend you read the short one and see if you want to go for the long one.  I found the long one well written, but a little verbose.  Even though it was a long book, I still had questions about precisely what he suggests an individual person do to rid himself of the "human condition," and still live in the world as it exists now.
3801525
Very good read but a bit too much time spent on describing the day to day journey which was repetitive.
1939432
Very good information. Well researched. Lengthy and at times unnecessarily lengthy. On a number of occasions I felt like saying  "okay I get it already". But it was still worth the time
3714086
This is a good book. It has a ton of information, maybe too much information. I had to use this book for one of my CS classes. The content of the book was great, but there were a few issues with the book, which is why I only gave it 4 stars. First, many of the chapters are massive. Some of the chapters are approaching 100 pages, and they are jam-packed with information. I have been a straight-A student in Computer Science since 2008, but I still found this book hard to follow at times, because there was too much information packed into each chapter.

However, the two main problems that I had with this book, is that the index is almost useless. I use the indices of textbooks religiously. I need to be able to quickly look up information, especially, when a book is this jam-packed with information. The chapters are too large to quickly scan them and find some information; however, the index never worked for me. None of the topics that we needed in my class were included in the index, even though the book covered those topics. I found myself forever flipping through the book trying to find the information I needed. I wasted so much time.

On top of that, this book has no glossary. In my opinion, that is also a huge oversight. I need the glossary so I can quickly look up terms and find the definition of things. I found it very hard to study with this book, because I wasn't able to find my way around it very easily. Topics are split up through multiple chapters and I never had any idea where I was at, or where I needed to look to find information.

If the author is reading this, and plans on writing a second edition, make sure to include a glossary, at the very least. It would also be nice to have a way to quickly look up instructions. What if I needed to quickly look up MVN or STRB to see what it meant? There is no way to do that with this book. I am left flipping page after page until I get lucky and find the instructions, or I have to abandon the textbook and start looking online, which defeats the purpose of me paying for such a high-priced book. All of the information in text books today can be found online. One of the advantages I like about textbooks, is that they help organize the information you require, so it can be easily located. This book failed to do that.

Overall, I am still giving it 4 stars, because there is a ton of good information in this book. It is loaded with code examples, diagrams and other resources to help you understand the topics. I can tell someone put a lot of hard work into writing this book, they just slipped on a few important tools, like a usable index and glossary.
1934053
My only reason for not giving it 5 stars is that in my opinion it went into too much background detail, things that really did nothing to advance the main story. The book was too long by twice. But it is a interesting read, worth your time. It shows that even people who are suposed to be very smart can do dumb things. And corporations can magnify  that.
2569595
I really enjoyed this book.  The style was accessible and engaging for general readers and seemed to have a lot to say to professional historians too.  It's a long book, which can be a bit intimidating and make me want to leave it on the shelf for another day.  it shows own divisive the war was for Americans and Canadians and how muddled nationalities were--Irish fighting alongside the Americans and American-born fighting for Britain.  Confusing times indeed.  If I were to recommend just one book no the war, this would not be it (a little long and not fully comprehensive, but if you are interested in buying a few, put this on your list.  Just don't read it first.  it would make a great companion to JJon Latimer's battles history and Troy Bickham's global history of the war.
594723
A very good read; interesting plot; too many pages of background, though.
3446055
This is a very good book, and i recommend it, with a very complex plot. The only downside is that i got lost at certain parts of the book.
2124022
This is a great book, with good examples that are clear and easy to understand. I have two gripes with this book, which may be related.

1) There's a ton of whitespace. In some cases, a good quarter of the page will be left empty because there's a graph or table displayed on the facing page, and the publisher didn't fill in the extra space.

2) This is a comprehensive book covering a lot of material on a wide range of topics, but good god this is a gigantic book. They probably could have saved a good 20-30 pages by reducing the extra whitespace (see above) but either way this book could have been split into two volumes. Look at the weight!
Shipping Weight: 5.5 pounds
Sure it has 1625 pages... with another 73 pages of introduction and index! I have a lot of textbooks and technical manuals in my library, but this is by far the largest one. It's awkward to hold in your lap, it's a monster to carry, impossible to photocopy (doesn't lie flat) and the paperback binding feels like it's going to just snap in half anyway.

Aside from the gripes about physical size, the content of this book is wonderful. By all means, purchase this book, it has everything you need to know from A to z.
2093117
A very good Book.  I learned a lot of history of that period.  But, it was very long.  I think it could have been just as good, using
fewer pages.
253143
Extremely long - could have been edited/not plausible in some aspects. Overall it is a good book.
3291568
This was a good book with a great, big concept. However, I think the concept was so big that it got away from the author. I enjoyed the book as a whole, and it's one I will probably read again. But there were a couple of portions that I had to labor to get through - one of those portions being about 140 pages near the end. It seemed as if the author forgot what makes her character so interesting, and the novel just became an everyday story of a young woman making her way in the world. Also, the inner sleeve of the book asks the question, "Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can, will she?" Very intriguing question and idea, but yet it seems like the author forgot all about that question until the end of the book where this great, big concept for her novel was quickly handled in the last twenty pages. So, overall I'd recommend it because it is unlike any novel I've read before and the good parts were really good. I just felt that it was about 200 pages too long.
1992085
As much as I want to give this five stars, and it is a good book, it was a very long read with chapters that dealt more with the history and science of whaling. The chapters with actual story were amazing and passionate though. Definitely worth a read but if you're a slow reader like me, be ready to trudge through a few dry chapters.