Not for Beginners or Rusty Readers...
589875
Great deck, very wonderful but this is not a deck for beginners for sure. This deck is all about intuition. I haven't used cards in a very long while and found after using this deck once that I was very rusty. Going back to my comfort deck for some much needed practice before I try these again. Though they are certainly a very nice deck and have a very childish feeling to them in a good way. Good, nostalgic kind of vibe.
1329778
Not for a layman....you need a pretty deep background in the internet to pick up this book...
4456049
While it may be premature to review this book (I am still struggling through it)I can't help myself. The descriptions seem more a game of words than travel writing and I become distracted by the long, complex sentence structures. I have frequently lost track of what she is describing and had to return to the beginning of the sentence. While reading this book do not be tempted to let your mind wander a bit or you will become hopelessly lost! Some captioning would be nice for the illustrations. They are lovely but the reader is not entirely sure what(s)he is looking at. As yet, I have been unable to formulate a firm picture in my mind of places she is describing, except perhaps the chapter on the cats - it was marvelous! I may read this again at some time in the future; right now I just want to finish it and get on into something that isn't quite so much work!!
1444986
Not a book for everyone , more for serious readers to see if they've miss anything worth their time
228993
First off, let me start with how much I enjoyed this book. I cycle through a book a month, and have been shoveling through a recent trend of completely forgettable books until I stumbled across this gem. Aesthetically, this book is intimidating. I dare anyone to out-due Abrams and Dorst. The aged pages, the handwritten notes, the objects within the pages, all of it. It completely immerses you not only in The Ship of Theseus, but in lives of the two readers. Calling it a book is a bit unfair, as this is more of an experience.

Secondly, I have read this book twice now in a little over a month. With that being said, I imagine I'll have to re-read it a few more times to really get everything out of it. It is truly that in depth. The years it must have taken to conceptualize, write, and connect the most minuscule dots is overwhelming.

I read the book like this: Read all the way through Ship of Theseus, then went back and read the notes, and their respective paragraphs. I also removed, and catalogued all of the objects within the book, because they will fall out as you are reading. Make sure to mark which page you got them from!

How I recommend reading it: Read a chapter, go back and re-read it with the notes before you continue on to the next.

Also, the ink color seems to represent at what point Eric, and Jen are writing to each other. Food for thought.
1224350
This is indeed a comprehensive and authoritative work on Italian grammar; however, it is not for the casual learner. There are a lot of highly technical minutiae geared toward a reader with advanced education in language or linguistics. Be prepared to put in some serious concentration time to fully appreciate what is in here, otherwise, you may have to select and concentrate on only the parts you can handle. I do not think that this one is for beginners but it is well done.
3997634
I very much enjoyed this book on my MP3, but I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone who is not (as I am) fluent in the subtleties of the mores, language and customs of Medieval times, as well as Latin and French.

Eileen Power (the author) frequently uses terms with which the modern reader will not be familiar without explanation.  For example, she speaks at length about the cloth industry, and repeatedly mentions fullers and fulling without once explaining the duties of the fuller.  Wikipedia defines fulling as a step in woolen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool) to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker.  Few modern readers would know (without continually resorting to another reference) many of the terms frequently used which are important for following the stories told in this book.  The rare definitions she does provide tend to be for terms which are not essential to the stories and are notable by their very rarity.

Long sections of the book are written in Latin french (I have no idea if it is modern or Medieval french) with no translation.  As someone who knows little to no french or Latin, this was quite frustrating.  An occasional french phrase might be puzzled out in a similar book, but entire pages are not within the grasp of the average reader, even the average well educated (American) reader.

The author dropped names from literature with which she expected the reader to be immediately familiar.  She expected an immediate familiarity with each of the characters from Chaucer, and their habits and stories, as well as other literary and historical figures.  I can not quote other examples as I have to admit to not being familiar enough with some of them to have remembered them, and as I tend to listen to my MP3 while driving I could not take notes for later reference.

A note specific to the audio listener - the reader had one of the best voices.  It was smooth and melodic, an absolute joy to the ear!

Although I enjoyed this book quite a bit, I could not help but wish the author had written it for the common man, not to impress her fellow scholars.  One would expect her editor to see this problem and tell her to define her terms, and to translate the foreign passages.  This small change would have made this book go from a book which now would confuse most people to a medieval primer, suitable to introduce the masses to social history.
1875082
This book is written for morons...not dummies.
3388340
Not for the dilettante or casual reader!

I have a sense that this book offers more than I have yet been able to get out of it.  I've been dabbling with modal harmonies and motifs in my own compositions for some time, and I was hoping to get a significant technical boost from this.  So far I haven't.  I'm still hoping for that to happen.

The back cover blurb states: "Only a modest knowledge of traditional (tonal) harmony and forms is necessary."  I think that is a gross misstatement.  Without a firm grounding in traditional theory, most of this book would make little sense at all.  For example, the author makes a passing reference to parenthetic harmonies (pp 70ff) before launching into the particular application of secondary dominants in the various modes.  One would be well advised to re-read Piston's dozen pages on the topic before trying to make sense of the author's comments.

The book goes into excruciatingly obvious detail on some basic elements, then skips and jumps over other essential material. For example, it gives exhaustive written descriptions of the various basic modal scales, in addition to illustrating them graphically and audibly, then simply assumes that the reader understands the meaning and importance of the tritone.

Many pages are devoted to modulations within a modal scale or scalar dyad, with analysis in depth of the various pivot chords available, but relatively little attention is given to the problem of modulating between the modes and the traditional tonal scales or into a modal scale outside of the particular dyad.  I am presently working on a problem of getting from an A-flat seventh into a G Dorian by way of a few bars in b-flat minor, then back to an ambiguous G-major.  I'm not sure just why I am doing that, and I may throw the whole idea away and do something else instead, but I would like to see at least a few paragraphs in this book dealing with this order of practice.  I could look at a number of scores by composers of the past two hundred years for hints to an approach, but I was hoping this author would direct me toward some potential solutions.

Some of the examples on the accompanying CD are useful, at least for a person inept at the keyboard.  And the three study compositions are interesting in their own way -- avant-gardish and eggheadish -- rather beyond the ken of a typical musical audience.  One might think of Edgar Varese on a caffeine jangle.  While more appropriate for Darmstadt than for Salzburg, they do give a sampling of available sonorities in the modal system.  Unfortunately, they often seem directionless.  Music needs to give a sense of forward momentum, and these tend to flounder around in aimless circles then just quit without a prepared cadence.  There are wonderful melodies and cadences available in the various modes.  Too bad there are none in evidence here.

So it's back to Fux and Piston and Hindemith and a library of study scores to resolve my problems, with an occasional hopeful look into this book for some additional ideas.  Meanwhile I do give this book a solid four stars because there is nowhere else in the world that I know of where a person can find the specific information on modal harmonic structures contained here.
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.
2600372
The author does seem to have a moderate grasp on the concept of Samyama.... it feels as if when he discusses practices, he is not doing so out of his own personal experience, but rather out of studied knowledge.

Not to mention his practices are far more complex than they need to be and I'm not entirely sure where he learned them from.

This book is definitely not an easy one to comprehend as far as the concepts for beginners. If you do not already have a good bit of experience with Samyama, then this book will not be of much use.

So it sort of defeats the purpose of buying it. If you need to have previously practiced Samyama to get it, then why by it? All this book really appears to deliver are mysticisms(while mostly accurate) about the nature of Samyama and why it occurs(speaking in mystical terms of course), and an overely complicated practice for doing Samyama.

I honestly would not suggest this book as a guide for learning Samyama. The only way a reader is going to be able to grasp the knowledge of this book in a manner that is usable is if the user already has proficient experience in Samyama, which if that is the case, then this book is nothing more than entertainment to the reader.

If you have to already have experience with Samyama to understand the basic teachings about it in this book, then there isn't really any point to even reading this, other than for sheer entertainment.

I myself am a very experienced practitioner regarding Samyama and deep meditative states, and I have no clue how this book got as many good reviews as it did.

The book really seems to give a vibe of abstract and arbitrary meaning saying how all these things and purifications will arise out of inner silence. A meditator can understand this easily, but to somebody with no experience in this field, they would be left wondering with many many questions. I sincerely feel as if it is saying a whole bunch of nothing.

The information and ideas it talks about are barley the very surface of Samyama practice and does not go in much depth nor give an explanation as to why Samyama works the way it does. This is the primary reason why I feel the author has little real practice with Samyama. It's as if he's portraying the brief idea of it that isn't of much use to somebody who is really seriously about practicing Samyama.
3261913
This book is not for a beginner. I got no real use from this item.
2448767
Working at a financial institution, I probably have more than a beginner's knowledge of investments and still have not saved, nor invested what I should - so I set out with this book looking for tips and ideas on how to get myself waded into the pool of investments to create an appropriate nest egg.  I received this e-book in exchange for my honest opinion.
I have to say, I didn't find this to be at the beginner's level at all - or perhaps we need to define what beginner means in terms of assumed age, background and current financial standing.  It seemed based on the way this author wrote, we were looking at people with a significant amount of investable money hanging around, which I am guessing isn't the case for most people picking up this book.  I found some of the writing style to be a bit circular in nature and a tad broad versus giving me specifics, as if the author were speaking around a topic without really getting into it and maybe didn't think we'd know what was happening?  Either way, I didn't care much for that and it made it hard to plod through (perhaps that makes me a plodder??).  I did find a few tips worthwhile, but overall, this was not for me and my guess is, not for the people the title insinuates it is for.
4377267
I did enjoy this astrology text and it was explicit and informative. However, it is definitely not for the beginner, as I am, to fully comprehend; although one other review did 'warn' of this. The books title was so interesting I bought it anyway. This book teaches through actual charts and case studies and so the author uses many advanced terms that are definitely not for a novice. Some words I looked up in a regular dictionary to try to further understand and they weren't even in there! This is not a cookbook interpretation of aspects one finds in a chart that will lead to intimacy issues or committment issues, etc., but a teaching tool. For the advanced and professional astrologer, there is a wealth of information here. I'm sure it will come in handy further in my studies.
4611252
You must take the time to read and sometimes re-read in order to fully understand this book. This book seems to be geared towards people who already have experience working with servers, it's definitely not for beginners.
930849
This book is difficult to read, and keep straight, and I don't have many kind words to express about it.  I'm hardheaded and stubborn and want to finish a book I've started, but I truthfully question my wisdom in (somewhat literally) plowing thru this novel to its end.  If you want fantasy, this book may be for you; I'm much more interested in science-based Science Fiction -- which this is not.
4496245
I thought I could read until I picked this up. It is not for amateurs. What Eliot has in mind I haven't a clue, and I doubt very many other people do either.

The hardcover edition looks impressive on my coffee table. For this reason only it is worth the price.