I would give this book several negative stars if I could
598716
There is nothing erotic about this book, it is discussing. I read about half and deleted it from my kindle. Do not wait your money!
2940323
God, where to begin. In a nutshell, one of the worst books I've read in years. In addition to being simply bad prose, it is also racist, condescending, and full of factual mistakes.

This is written in 1991 by a conservative Brit who travels to then-Soviet Uzbekistan looking to experience it as the region where his fellow British gentlemen adventured throughout the 1800's. As such, he is dismissive of the current culture and politics, does not like to try the local food, passes judgement on the locals, and waxes nostalgic for the British Empire.

During one telling moment, the author notices hungry and tired people standing in breadlines (food shortages were common in the early 1990s), and calls them, inexplicably, "crocodiles". I'm not even sure what to make if this, other than that long lines of poorly dressed people waiting to buy food don't look aesthetically pleasing to a European traveler's eye.

Apart from its culturally insensitive tone, the book is also badly edited, with place names, names of historical figures, and ethnic group names wildly misspelled. Other times, old-style names coined during the British Empire days are condescendingly used. Sometimes multiple spelling variations are used throughout (such as Uzbeg versus Uzbek).

In short, absolutely the worst book on the area you will ever read. Uzbekistan has a lot to offer to someone interested in Central Asian history, and there is sadly a dearth of good books on the subject. This is why this book is especially disappointing: it could have provided real insight and information, but does nothing of the sort. If you want to read poorly written and very badly researched travel notes by someone who is condescending and not really interested in the region apart from the role it played in the formation of the British empire, go ahead and read this.
515331
I'm going to keep this simple. The author should be glad I borrowed this book from the library rather than paying for it. Otherwise, I'd demand my money back. As it stands, I wish I could get the time back that I've wasted reading this "book". I also checked out Ms. Weyn's "Bar Code Rebellion" but as horrible as the first book is, I think that book will be returned to the library unread.
4310579
After reading the book and the existing reviews, I can only think the author and most of the existing reviewers really have little or no idea what computer programming is all about.
I don't usually write negative reviews, but just couldn't let this one go.

With a title of "How to computer program" I should have known there would be issues, because I can't imagine anyone that actually knows how, that would state it quite that way.  More correctly, it should be something more like "How to learn computer programming" or "How to program computers".  Either way, it doesn't matter, because the book  doesn't actually provide any real information about how to learn computer programming.  Suggesting that someone play with open source applications isn't how to learn to program.  There are some fundamental concepts that must be learned first, and knowing the particular syntax rules for the language are important before poking about.  Starting out by poking at existing open source applications will more likely discourage a person from learning about programming than to encourage them to learn.

Yes, there are some general statements about various languages and perhaps a bit about the need for programmers, but it reads like a loosely collected series of short articles, or a bunch of first paragraphs spun from Wikipedia.  The author throws out a list of words that will have absolutely no meaning for a non-programmer, does nothing to explain the descriptions of each language provided, or why the differences may be significant.  For example, there is no information provided about the difference between an interpreted scripting language and a compiled language, nor what any of the other buzzwords mean.  The concept of a compiler wasn't even brought up.

It was also somewhat repetitive, as about half of the information in Chapter 5 "The 10 programming languages you should learn right now" (PHP, C#, Ajax, JavaScript, Perl, C, ruby, Java, Python, VB.net) was essentially repeated in Chapter 10  "The most popular programming languages to learn" (C, Java, PHP, Javascript).

I seriously doubt the author has the slightest idea how to program in any of the languages he suggests. The book has numerous conceptual errors.  Making a sweeping statement like "Java is one of the fastest growing languages and almost every programming job will require that a person know how to use it." is just wrong. I know a bunch of professional programmers that make a nice living without using Java at all, and can't recall the last time I needed to use it, personally or professionally.  Which language is used for a programming job is dependent on several factors, not the least of which is what is the most appropriate for the application, or the tools available for the target platform.

If you want a really quick read without any substantive information, this book may be your cup of tea, but I wouldn't expect anyone even slightly interested in programming to get much out of it.

The only reason I gave it 2 stars was because the author tried, and he had a reasonable set of topics.  Unfortunately, there wasn't more than a sentence or two about any topic.  With a different title and some real information beyond a sentence or two for each topic, it could be turned into a pretty decent book.  However, if expanded, it needs to be proofread by someone that knows computer programming to avoid the sort of problems mentioned above.
1465856
I received this book for Christmas by my ex-wife two years ago. Since then, I have tried to read the ... thing 3 times. The book is so poorly written that I give up in disgust. I have two specific issues. First, as a serious work of history, I am reminded of Fawn Brodie's awful works on Jefferson and Smith. Not only is history reflected in a polemic manner, the history is interpreted in a questionable manner. The author does get his facts correct, but all he has are facts. He then interprets them in terms of a specific preconceived concept that Christianity/Judaism then stole its beliefs from any number of sources. The most extreme example of this is his portrayal of Zoraster as the precursor of Christ. (These ideas go back a hundreds of years. Yet he portrays them as uniquely his.) Does he give any supporting evidence for this other than sheer coincidence? No. It is this concept of fitting his 'history' of the devil into a preconceived concept I find most annoying. The work would have been a better "History" if the author would have approached the work as did Jackson and Ragozin, "It is impossible at present to decide definitely the point at issue; one must await fresh discoveries and identifications in the East, to give us more exact knowledge. Perhaps a common influence was at the root of both Jewish and Persian ideas". The second issue is the work is full of common logical fallacies. The book has several logical problems with it. First, because Zoraster was tempted by demons in a desert 600 years before Jesus the Christ 'claimed' to be so tempted, the two are somehow linked. This is post hoc ergo propter hoc, or coincidental correlation. This post hoc fallacy is used throughout the book. Isn't this an also an example of false analogy. There are significant differences between Zoraster's mythic birth and Christ's (your decision if it is mythic). Thus suggesting that Zoraster was a prototype of Christ is an illogical conclusion. The entire book is an example of non-support.
896758
Several gripes about this terrible book:
1. The author has no professional game programming experience, and, since he was in college when the book was written, probably no professional programming experience of any kind.  As such, he was unable to present the material in any meaningful way.
2. Halfway through the book, I still had no idea what Direct 3D actually does.  At this point I was well into the Direct3D chapter, and still no idea.  See next point.
3. The information is presented mostly at random, with very few examples, diagrams or meaningful sections.  INformation is presented as it pops into the writer's head and there is no motivation given for why the information is presented as it is.  The 3D math section, for example, is horribly written.  He goes through various calculations, NEVER bringing them back to the overall topic of transforming 3d coordinates.  He introduces the topic of rendering to the screen with NO explanation.  I had to re-read the Foley book just to make sure I DID understand 3d math.  Another example is the Direct 3D section.  I was expecting after the big chapter on 3d math, he would start by saying "Here's what D3D does for", but instead I was halfway through the chapter and had read about all the constants you can check to see what the video card does (and THAT part of the book was essentially the documentation from MS reproduced in the book).
In short, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.
2416210
This book is awful.  I can hardly believe Faye Kellerman wrote it.  I'm actually abandoning it, which is something I rarely do, and, it ticks me off because I bought it.  I really should have read reviews first, but usually Faye Kellerman books are pretty reliable.

1. It's pretty poorly written for a FK book.  The dialogue, both inner and via text, does not ring true at all and rings of an adult trying to talk like a teenager.  Definitely a dead ear for the dialogue.

2. Look, I know teenagers and teenage boys think about and pursue sexual activities.  That doesn't mean I want to read about a 14 and 15 year old couple's sexual activities to the degree of detail this book does.  It felt like child porn and was the point I put the book down.

If i could give this a negative star rating, I would.
3964032
What a complete waste of money!  The author, promising to make music theory, musical notation, and guitar playing possible in one day has, for this aspiring musician, made the process more daunting than it seemed previously!  First of all, this isn't four books -- it's one book, divided into four sections.  Each section seems to have been written as a stream-of-consciousness exercise, with major (no pun intended) holes in the explanation process.  Take this, for example, from page 182:  "The second part of an interval name is referred to as the prefix.  The prefix is determined by the quality of the interval.  There are five major prefixes that are used to describe intervals.  A perfect interval is one that includes both an octave and a unison.  Perfect intervals also have a fourth and fifth."  What???  Neither before nor after this does he define "quality of interval," nor does he explain what the two sentences that conclude this pericope mean either.
I bought this book because it was described as simplifying music theory; if that's one of your reasons for purchasing it, DON'T!  It appears to be self-published -- the graphics are horrible, the sequencing of topics makes little sense to the new learner, and there has clearly been no editing.  I've regretted purchases before, but have never been moved to write such a negative review as this.  TAKE A PASS ON THIS BOOK, DON'T BUY IT -- YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!
2505261
Having read this "book" I was horrified and regret even purchasing the "story".  Not only for the people that are named, living and dead, and whose hometowns and some family members are also named, but for the child she so callously attacks over and over.  It is poorly written, poorly edited and written from a perspective that is skewed to the point of myopic.  From chapter one on it is obvious that this book is written by an individual whose own mental health is questionable.  Kathleen talks of being teased, tortured by being teased.  She talks of hating her life because it is not pristine and perfect, without the hated "males" in her world.  She talks of how she hates all males and how dirty and disgusting they are.  There are numerous rants regarding filth, dirt, poor people, fat people and people she perceives as not good enough.  Kathleen Hoy Foley talks of how she helped torture her brothers, beating them with a belt and not until she is in her 60s does she repent in any form for this behavior.  She talks of rape, however, she continued to date the father of the child she dispises for over 2 years.  Kathleen claims that she is the only one that saw this abusive behavior, that her mother ignored it and encouraged it.  Mrs. Foley's supposed and well publicized abuse was, in reading the book, something that was not only not sexual in nature, as far as the stepfather she acuses quite publically on her own website and her brothers, but apparently something she "dreamed" as happening.  In the end, it is a mindless rant that explains away an affair that she ended by refusing to face the world in a realistic fashion.  Kathleen is the female version of a mysoginist, hating all men and worse, she has no empathy for anyone at all.  This lack applies to the man she is now married to and claims to love.  Her hate of the child she bore is due to the fact that she sees the world in such a way as to believe that anyone that is not her is not perfect.  Descriptive in nature, she sees the world as clean and good or perverse and dirty and only she, her chosen off-spring and, by dint of rescuing her from her hated home, her husband, are worthy of life or living.  It is disturbing to say the least.
3574069
This is a terrible book. Period. This story discourages children's curiosity, encourages misogyny, paints exploration as bad and is a terrible example of how to socialize. It is so bad that my wife and I have taken to using our own words in place of the ones in the book because kids need to be allowed to, and encouraged, to explore and learn. It's fantastic that the girl in this story is curious about fire stations, and then the story goes downhill. Immediately the girl is out down and painted in a negative light as demanding, and mischievous. When the kids end up the fire, instead of being supportive (like curious George books) they're immediately I trouble. Once home their parents slam the door in the kids faces.

TL;DR: bad book, tells kids that girls are bad, and that if you explore something your parents will kick you out
1463639
I apologise for the negative sound of this review, but I simply can't recommend it.  I was so angry when I read it.  To me, it seems that Mr. Lake has some very serious problems with Women and Power.  He also seems to  have problems with humanity, in general.  He takes Shamanism and really  slams home the rules ... the laws ... right down to listing them in the  back.  But Shamanism isn't about rules outside of the context of each  individual's culture/practices.  There are no laws for Shamanism.  I do not  doubt the sincerity with which Mr. Lake wrote this, but I fear some  un-enlightened person will read this book and learn only one lesson - self  loathing.  I came away from reading this book with the idea that the  Spirits really think we're all scum, our bodies are filthy, and that women  in general are unclean.  I cannot agree.  I can only hope that this is  either a terrible mis-reading of his intention, or if he really felt this  way that he has since healed.
If this is your first book on Shamanism,  general Native American practice (although there is no such thing as one  practice for all N.Am. cultures), I can only believe that bad, self-hating  habits will mar any future potentential.
Please do not make this your  first book.
4165022
If there was a way to give negative stars...

The book, Online Dating Profiles, What Are They Really Telling You? does not live up to the promise at the top of the cover:  "Easily Identify Ideal Personality Traits" nor the product descriptions on Amazon and the author's website.  Ms. Knutz spent the majority of the book focused on negativity, most of which is obvious and superficial, or at least totally subjective to her own biases.  Even the few positive statements seemed self-contradictory of some preceding negative ones.  Rather than being a "key to interpreting the subtle clues in other people's profiles," though, most of the book is written in a tone of directions for creating one's own profile, in the form of "do"s and "don't"s, (mostly "don't"s,) with generous doses of her own values, priorities, and preferences.

On the last page of the book, she asks the reader to send her a profile, even their own, and she will send back an interpretation of "exactly what that person is disclosing about them."  (Never mind that the last word should be "themself".)  It is left implied that there is a fee for this service.  I looked at her website, which I will NOT recommend, and to which I refuse to provide the link here.  I would NOT send her anything for HER opinion of what SHE THINKS that they are trying to communicate!

I expected a lot more substance in the book.  At 115 pages, there is a lot of wasted paper, and it could have been at least a third smaller if she had used a normal size font; not indented and double indented; nor double, triple and quadruple spaced so much - none of which were required for aesthetic value or clarity.  It is obviously amateurish "self-publication" and there is not even any information printed on the spine - it is completely blank.  It is not worth the $17.97 current price on Amazon, nor the afternoon that it took to read.

If this were a high school theme paper, it might barely pass.  It is very exhausting to read because the writing style switches back and forth between first, second, and third person so much.  There are numerous instances of improper subject verb agreement, and incorrect words, such as on page 11, she obviously should have used "your" in the sentence:  "If you're dating site has the..."  There are many other cases of inadequate editing, like at the top of page 54:  "If you don't have a photo, then we are to assume that have the type of occupation that:"

She is often extremely wordy, and many of the sentences are awkwardly constructed, like this one from page 3:  "Without the help through some form of a communication aid we are left to our own imagination as to what it all means and who we think we are being intrigued by."  This book is certainly not effective as the communication aid to which she referred in that sentence, as if none of us are smart enough to judge a profile without her help.

She does not cite any objective research to support any of her generalizations or specific recommendations.  Many of her conclusions are not even logically supported by the examples she provides, if any.  She seems to expect the reader to accept her judgments just because she said so, yet nowhere in the book does it explain her credentials for saying such.  Numerous times, she contradicts herself, without explaining the context in which the different comments are applicable.

Even though six reviewers have given the book five stars, it should be noted that four of them were all within eight days of each other, and as of this writing, none of those four have ever reviewed any other book.  You can judge for yourself whether they have any substance worthy of consideration in your decision to buy this book.  My personal recommendation is that you go to the library and read any other book on the subject by any other author, before making a buying decision.  Of those I have read, I have not yet found any that I would specifically recommend, but so far none as bad as this.
2509621
This book is desperately in need of several things. First, the services of a capable editor would have been a good idea. Not only is the use of language clumsy, it reads as though written by someone for whom English is not a native language. Grammatical errors abound, syntax is awkward, and word use peculiar at best. There are sentences where words are obviously missing altogether. According to the author's bio, he is a PA resident and blogger, both of which make this reader shake her head in amazement. No wonder the state of language is so sad in this country.

Now, as for content, on numerous occasions the author warns to find out about safety of certain ingredients, but never once offers readers sources of information about those safety concerns. His odd language use also results in mis-information and mis-categorization of certain ingredients.

The balance of the book is simply lists of oil combinations with peculiar titles like Teen Love. It is not a particularly creative or well done volume, which makes me grateful I did not pay for it. It's not of any real fiscal value. A person truly interested in learning to blend his or her own fragrances would do just as well, if not better, spending five minutes doing some internet research.
585380
Babywise offers some useful advice, but Ezzo shoots himself in the foot with his arrogant, negative, manipulative tone.

I had to force myself to finish reading this book so that I could write a complete review.  I lost patience within the first 50 pages; the author spends as much time and effort railing on attachment parenting as he does explaining and defending his own theory.  He blames attachment parenting for almost every problem in society: obesity, learning disabilities, even postpartum depression and child abuse.  His hatred of this parenting method seems totally irrational, and oftentimes he doesn't even have his facts straight.  He repeatedly asserts that attachment parenting is rooted in Freud's birth trauma theory, but I have read a great deal about it and have never come across anything mentioning to Freud or birth trauma.

Ezzo calls carrying one's child in a sling an "extreme" behavior.  He spends a paragraph arguing for circumcision with incorrect and unreferenced "research."  His comparisons between "Chelsea," a baby raised on the babywise method and "Marisa," a baby raised on attachment parenting's principles, are so exaggerated that I couldn't take them seriously.  Clearly not all attachment-based children turn out like the nightmare child Marisa- if they did, attachment parenting would have disappeared long ago.

The book is also poorly edited.  I found numerous spelling and punctuation errors, not to mention common typos.  Not only does Ezzo lack any real credentials, but he also didn't bother hiring even a freshman English major to check his writing for common errors.

If you choose to buy and read this book, keep in mind the fact that you will just be reading 211 pages of some guy's opinion.  Ezzo is not a doctor, nor a qualified childcare expert of any kind.  If he would have left out his ultraconservative, arrogant views and simply published the essence of the babywise method, this book would be 50 pages long and maybe a worthwhile read.
499938
I had to read this book for a Nonprofit Fundraising class to think about how rich people think about money.  For that reason, and that reason only, it was valuable.  But my short Amazon review cannot do justice to how awful the book itself actually is.  It is awful on so many levels, so I'll just cherry pick a few.

Kiyosaki is extremely condescending to the poor and middle class.  He assumes that everyone wants to be a millionaire, and that anyone who claims they don't want to be rich is just using the "I don't care about money" idea to excuse their laziness and/or stupidity.  This is so obviously not true.  There are so many people who are entirely happy with their 9-to-5, middle class jobs who do not care about money.  Just ask anyone that works in the nonprofit field.

Condescension aside, Kiyosaki is just a terrible writer.  He seems to repeat phrases and lessons without realizing that he just used them on the previous page.  More than once, he starts a list (List of Rules, Lessons, or something like that), starts with "Lesson One", goes off for 10 pages about the lesson, and then moves on to the next chapter, when he started the chapter by stating there were 3 rules he wanted to convey.  What happened to the other two??

I could go on and on, but have better things to do,  Long story short, I would not recommend this book under any circumstances, and am glad I bought it used, so as not to give him my money.
858029
Warning!!!!  Warning!!!  Do not buy this book!!! Too bad there is not a rating for zero stars.  I am not a computer novice nor a programming beginner.  The Good:  The author tends to write in a very simple and straight forward way that makes the book easy to read and understand.  The Bad:  Too bad none of the code or examples work, including the infamous LlamaWorks2D engine that the book is centered around.  Oh and by the way, the so called website for the engine does not exist.  Question:  How can anyone with a conscious ship this garbage knowing that none of the code works?  Answer:  Someone that needs to pay the rent, because they can not get a job programming.
4218002
I had an old Barnes & Noble gift card that I needed to spend, so I bought this dreadful book online because it was one of the only volumes claiming to cover the recently released version 6 of Microsoft's MVC framework. I should have waited for a better book. To put it bluntly, "Hands-on with ASP.NET MVC Covering MVC 6" is the worst book about software that I have ever read. Author Rahul Sahay and publisher Quills Ink have conspired to commit a crime against computer books.

The grammar, spelling, and (worst of all) technological mistakes would fill an Errata section as thick as the book itself. I can usually overlook any one of these in isolation, but not all three simultaneously and continuously for 484 dreary pages. The level of carelessness is astounding; I have read self-published books with fewer errors. Indeed, the sheer volume of crud in "Hands-on" makes me wonder whether Quills Ink Publishing is the author's own LLC. In any case, such sloppiness makes it painfully obvious that this book was not proofread before publication.

All of this would be bad enough, but the truly unforgivable sin is the deceptive title of the book. "Covering MVC 6"? Hardly. One thin chapter that reads like a 30,000 foot overview of this massive release, tacked onto the end of a book that was obviously originally written for MVC 4, is most decidedly *not* "covering" anything. Shame on the author and Quills Ink Publishing for such a deceptive book title.

TL;DR: "Hands-on with ASP.NET MVC Covering MVC 6" is unreadable, unbearable, and unusable. Avoid at all costs.