Reviews (67)

Actually manages to take the fun out of reading and texas holdem all in one go
I was hoping the book would be good.most reviews are.However the topics are not really covered at all, more introduced.It was like talking to a drunk bloke about sports, most points are important and relevant but its presented in a way that makes it confusing.They openly admit they dont want the book to be rated on the quality of the english.Just as well, long rambling thaughts that don't form conclusions.Not what I wanted or needed.It actually manages to take the fun out of reading and texas holdem all in one go.

Not A Light Read
This is not a book to read while drinking a beer and watching the ballgame on TV. Like most Sklansky books, it's packed with information delivered in a dry, straightforward style reminicsent of college math or engineering texts. The ideas, while often subtle, are very powerful if the reader will take the time to read, re-read, and probe them in poker games and out.
Difficult
I've read (or tried to read) this book three times over the course of several months.I am displeased on several levels.I want to let people know other books are far better.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Card Games - General    2. Card Games - Poker    3. Games    4. Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords    5. Games/Puzzles    6. Poker   

Reviews (44)

Singing for the Stars...and our world!
I give this book 5 stars because it introduced me to the name "Seth Riggs," led me over ten years ago to his outstanding young associate Greg Enriquez in Las Vegas....and to my own beautiful, powerful singing voice.And I am just one little lady who longed always to be able to sing...and couldn't.This technique WORKS. I'd had four instructors the first two years of vocal study and was going nowhere very slowly.Speech-level Singing works. That deserves at least 5 stars. Thank you, Seth, for bringing so much incredible vocal music to a world that needs such sweet love.

Give credit where credit is due Riggs....
He learned, not invented, this technique, which I can tell you he doesn't even fully understand. You can find that he learned this, what is an old technique of singing, from a now-forgotten singer - J.C. Thomas (who made famous such songs as He's got the whole world in his hands, The Lords Prayer, Home on the Range, etc. in the 30's and 40's), who learned it primarily from a dutch man named A. Fermin (at Peabody Conservatory) and additionally from a frechman named de Reszke in Paris. If you want to hear real singing, look up any of Thomas' recordings available here on Amazon. You will find 2 things: superb singing, and technique far beyond anything Mr. Riggs will ever understand. If you doubt me, just ask Riggs or any of "his students" to sing something remotely as well as J.C.T. I'm not talking about some jazzy jesus, or "Thriller" crap - this is bel canto, as in beautiful singing, as called for, or characterful if desired. This is the technique which makes classical singing, which I imagine the majority of readers looking at this review know little about, technically for sure and in my opinion artistically in many ways, superior to the crooning of todays popular music. That Mr. Riggs can perpetuate some aspects of the tradition of technique which was learned by the european masters over time I have no qualms with - but to claim he discovered this way, or that some readers may perceive it as such - I find reprehensible. Parla si canto Mr. Riggs - we who know, know you're understanding of singing is nothing special. I'm sure Mr. Thomas knew the same thing.

Excellent
This book has been the most helpful. I am singing more in tune and my tone has improved tremendously. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. Instruction & Study - Voice    3. Music    4. Music/Songbooks    5. Techniques of music    6. Vocal music   

Subjects:  1. Calendar    2. Calendars & Diaries    3. Calendars - Humor / Comics / Games    4. Comics & Cartoons    5. General    6. Non-Classifiable    7. Humor / General   

Reviews (20)

Always perfect music history~
This time is my 3rd time to but new edition of A History of Western Music. I studied from 5th edition. This new edition is more easy to study. Fully recommended~

Lots of facts, no analysis
When I found what I believe to be the first edition (from 1960) in a thrift store for $1, I had no idea that this was considered to be the pre-eminent music history textbook.Consequently, I approached it as "pleasure" rather than assigned classroom reading.And I am in full agreement with the assessment that the writing is dry in the extreme - and I admit that I skimmed certain sections rather than reading them all the way through.Compared to the writing of critics such as Donald Tovey, Norman Lebrecht, Alex Ross, Jonathan Saville, or August Kleinzahler, Grout is not "entertaining;" as I explain below, he does not even meet the definition of "critic."
A bit dry...
The entire book has a plethera of amazing and interesting information, yet, the information is presented in a little bit of a dry way... but hey... it's a textbook, what can you expect? ... Read more

Subjects:  1. History & Criticism - General    2. History and criticism    3. Music    4. Music/Songbooks    5. Music / History & Criticism    6. Western music: periods & styles   

Reviews (26)

"It is no part of salvation that you should use me!"
Arthur Miller's masterful play explores the consequences of greed, envy, vengeance, extremism, and hypocrisy run amok. It is set in Salem during the infamous witch trials, but could easily translate to other times in history (Robespierre's reign of terror during the French revolution, McCarthy's Communist hearings, etc.). Miller shows how the witch trials took flight and gathered speed and power until they nearly consumed the whole of Salem. He also shows how the officials in charge refused to hear evidence contrary to their purpose so as not to lose face publicly by standing down. Through the story of John and Elizabeth Proctor, a couple caught in the center of the firestorm, the tragedy of the trials is made abundantly clear. In a futile attempt to save his wife from the machinations of Abigail Williams (the young girl Proctor had had an affair with, and who kicks off the accusations with her friends to get Elizabeth Proctor out of the way so that she can be with John), Proctor fights the system by challenging the court to see the motives behind the accusations. His attempts to bring reason into madness are met with the insistence that if he is not with them, he is against them (which should sound eerily familiar to anyone with a television set). After Proctor himself has been accused of colluding with the Devil and sentenced to death the officials in charge become determined to use him to validate their holy terror. If Proctor, a popular and well-liked man in town, were to lie and give them a confession that he had conspired with Satan it would legitimize all of the hangings that went on in the public eye. Giving a false confession would save Proctor from hanging and allow him to live to see the birth of the child Elizabeth is carrying -- but can he go through with it? Miller's multilayered play is a classic for the ages -- a truly timeless work of drama that is every bit as relevant today as it was when it was first produced in 1953 (at the height of the McCarthy hearings), and which will most likely prove relevant in another fifty years as well. That is a sad statement for humanity, but a credit to Miller for his perceptive eye and his courage to capture it so eloquently. Perhaps with the example set forth in "The Crucible" we can learn from the past, and not be doomed to repeat it.

The awful price of "extremism in the pursuit of liberty"

An extraordinary play -- about McCathy"s witchhunt
My wife and I first read this play about 35 years ago and we saw it performed (separately)in lackluster productions.
Read more

Subjects:  1. American    2. Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775    3. Drama    4. General    5. History    6. Massachusetts    7. Miller, Arthur - Plays & Criticism    8. Plays    9. Plays / Drama    10. Salem    11. Salem (Mass.)    12. Witchcraft    13. Fiction / Classics   

Reviews (1)

Wizards Score a Triple - Nothing Beats a Leatherbound Book
I enjoy this book for the same reason I enjoy the Leatherbound Special edition Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Games    2. Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords    3. Games/Puzzles    4. Role Playing & Fantasy - General    5. Games / Role Playing & Fantasy   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. General    3. History    4. Inventions    5. Modern - 20th Century    6. Popular Culture - General    7. Science    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Technological forecasting    10. Technology    11. Popular science    12. Science / General   

Reviews (23)

Evolution

To thine own self be true ...
William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is arguably the most famous play ever written in the English language; presenting the world with questions and characters that have been the subject of thespian and scholarly debate ever since the Prince of Denmark's first appearance on the stage of London's Globe Theatre. Probably written and first performed in 1601 (estimates vary between 1600 and 1602), the play draws on Saxo Grammaticus's late 12th/early 13th century chronicle "Gesta Danorum," which includes a popular legend with a similar plot centering around a prince named Amleth; as well as several more contemporaneous sources, primarily Francois de Belleforest's "Histoires Tragiques, Extraicts des Oeuvres Italiennes de Bandel" (1559-1580), which expands on the story told in the "Gesta Danorum," and a lost play known as the "Ur-Hamlet" (i.e., original "Hamlet"), sometimes also attributed to Shakespeare, but equally likely written by a different author a few decades earlier. Another work frequently cited in this context is 16th century playwright Thomas Kyd's "Spanish Tragedie."
I love the play Hamlet!
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet
Read more

Subjects:  1. 1564-1616    2. 1564-1616.    3. Classics    4. Drama    5. English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh    6. Fiction    7. Hamlet    8. Hamlet (Legendary character)    9. Literature: Classics    10. Plays / Drama    11. Shakespeare    12. Shakespeare, William,    13. Drama / General   

Reviews (9)

can't put it down
i sat in barnes and noble and read about two or three chapters from this book. it easily kept me captivated.
A must for music enthusiasts
"Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood" is an interesting book in which one learns about the origins of pop-rock music in that there were a great number of bands and musicians that started their careers in a residential area in Los Angeles, California. The book is devoted to contributions of such artists as Frank Zappa, the band known as the Eagles, the band known as the Byrds, and Jimmy Webb, to the genre of music that is known as American rock, and with some artists/bands, there are even interviews in which they chronicle what it was like to perform in those days. Michael Walker also shares with readers a little bit of information on the history of cocaine as it was not only relevant to that time period, but also had something of an influence on the development of this music all the way from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s.

the magic of the 60s revisited
For those who continue to debate whether San Francisco or Los Angeles was the epicenter of 60s music, Michael Walker provides the answer. He skillfully paints a multidimensional mural of a fabled time period. Walker uses the unique perspective of a location as metaphysical as it is geographic to describe the musical culture of the 60s and 70s. The magic of those years is deftly captured in Walker's words. He leads us through the twists and turns the canyon takes in the 80s, portraying a location attempting to hold on to its aura long past its prime. All in all a great read, although I wish there had been more stories of the musicians of the 60s. Walker's writing is as colorful and tightly woven as any tie-dyed wall hanging. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. California    2. Genres & Styles - Rock    3. History & Criticism - General    4. History and criticism    5. Los Angeles    6. Music    7. Music History And Criticism +    8. Music Of The 20th Century    9. Music/Songbooks    10. Popular culture    11. Rock music    12. Social Science / Popular Culture   

Reviews (19)

The Mammoth Book of Sudoku: 400 New Puzzles - The Biggest and Best Collection of Sudoku Ever
Good

Fun For The Whole Family
This is a very fun book.It starts off way too easy, but I guess that is good for beginers.The puzzles get harder as you go along.A must have for any Sudoku lover!

Mammoth Book of Sudoku
Mammoth Book of Sudoku is an excellent book for people of all
Read more

Subjects:  1. Crosswords - General    2. Games    3. Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords    4. Games/Puzzles    5. Sudoku    6. Games / Crosswords / General   

Reviews (3)

Fare Book- Nasty Price
The book is very basic (almost superficial) but covers most of the important ground well enough. However, it has two major draw-backs: It was great.
Book was great.It was used but in good condition.It arrived in only a couple days.

Great resource book for debaters!
This book is an excellent resource for both high school and college debaters in both the policy and value areas.I highly recommend it! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Critical thinking    2. Debate And Forensics    3. Debates and debating    4. Decision making    5. General    6. Language    7. Language Arts & Disciplines    8. Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy    9. Persuasion (Rhetoric)    10. Public Speaking    11. Reasoning    12. Speech    13. Discourse analysis    14. Philosophy / General    15. Rhetoric   

Reviews (11)

Very Good at what's important
This is a fast and engaging read about one of the most important musicians of the late 60s. Duane Allman was more than a musician but the leader of the southern music movement that started in the late 60s and into the 70s. This book gets a lot of stuff right, especially giving you a good picture of the man. There isn't a lot of rumour and rock star stories, but the author is blunt about Duane's shortcomings as well as his musical genious.
Precise Doses Of Passion And Power
This is one of those rare books that make me wonder what had more impact.Was it the truly worthy subject of Duane "Skydog" Allman or was it the superb writing?Truth is, I read this book in two sittings because the story is so terrific and the way it's told completely spellbinding.It's my favorite rock book of 2006 thus far.
Thank you Randy Poe!
As a diehard Duane fanatic, I was very pleased with this book. It felt to me much more than just retread and recompiled interviews, I got a good picture of the man and the musician and learned lots of stuff, interesting stuff, about Duane. The years at Military school were a complete blank until now, and we are also given the secret to how he became so good. He played and practiced and built his chops one note and then one phrase at a time...how do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Read more

Subjects:  1. Allman Brothers Band    2. Biography    3. Biography & Autobiography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Biography/Autobiography    6. Entertainment & Performing Arts - General    7. Rock musicians    8. United States    9. Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts    10. Biography: film, television & music    11. Rock & pop   

Reviews (19)

Essential if you want to experience everything Oblivion has to offer.
If you're buying Oblivion, you might as well buy this guide at the same time. Although you don't need it, having the guide isn't going to ruin the game for you. Nobody said you have to use the walkthroughs to "cheat" your way through the quests. It is all the extra info that make this book worthwhile. The chapters on character creation, combat, spellmaking, and enchanting are very helpful and give you a lot more information than you can learn from the game itself. It's also nice to have a resource to look through to find what all you can do in the game.

Buy it used, not new
Buy a used copy of this guide.If you are playing Oblivion you will need access to this encyclopedia of information.The authors organized the information poorly.You will find your self flipping from page x to page z and then to page y.I suspect the book was on a tight time table, it certainly suffers from lack of thought.Bottom line, you will need the information but you will have to dig through a lot of chaff to find the wheat.Use this book in conjuction with the guides on GameFAQ.This book's main advantage is the maps.Very detailed.At times deep within the book you may find errors, such as place x is located northwest of y, when is really southwest.Also its confusing when they say place x is to the right of place z, when they should say place x is southeast of place z.

The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Game Guide
The Elder Scrolls Game Guide is invaluable. It will help you to navigate what is a complex and many faceted game. The game is a great adventure that you can pick and choose many different avenues to explore throughout your quest. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Games    2. Computers - Games    3. Games    4. Games/Puzzles    5. Video & Electronic - General    6. Video games    7. Games / Video & Electronic   

Reviews (19)

What is a good read?
Bob Harris is a working-class guy who grew up near Cleveland, Ohio.Somehow he came to live in Los Angeles, California.Bob had an outdated degree in electrical engineering with a usefulness that "ended with Pong".Bob had watched Jeopardy! with his parents as a kid.He must have wanted to be on the show because he auditioned for it at least four or five different times.In fact, Bob doesn't remember how many times he took and failed the Jeopardy! test.What he does remember is that the last time he took the test he had decided that was going to be the last time he took the test.He passed it and that began a decade long "career" as a Jeopardy! winner and loser.Bob is a five-time Jeopardy! champion. He made it to the finals of a Tournament of Champions, completed in the Masters Tournament, and won a first round in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions.
He hits the Daily Double!!!
If you're a Jeopardy fan, you will enjoy this book I think.Harris offers a funny glimpse into the populat game show.As a former stand up comic, he at times is a bit over the top, manic and cloying in showing how clever or funny he can be.Nevertheless, he pulls it off with paralel themes between the game show (trivia) and key relationships in life.
Even the index makes good reading
Bob Harris, a one-time "B-minus-list comedian" turned five-time Jeopardy champion, has written a memoir centered around his experiences as a contestant on the show. His Prisoner of Trebekistan--a title hearing which Alex Trebek is said to have "smiled inscrutably"--is everything you'd hope for in a comedian's Jeopardy memoir. Harris proves to be an affable, goofily amusing escort through the various stages of Jeopardy playerdom, from the tests administered to would-be contestants through the mind games played backstage in the green room to chats with Alex mid-game. Having lived it, Harris is able to describe the life of a Jeopardy contestant in training. The regimen of study he adopted makes for fascinating reading: notebooks filled with information to be absorbed (lists of presidents and Shakespearian plays and European rivers), innumerable cartoons, very often buttock-related, drawn as mnemonic aids; Harris's lifestyle and living room rearranged to facilitate his "state-dependent retrieval" of information once on stage. (Which means that he ate green-room-style food for months and moved his furniture around so it resembled the Jeopardy set.)
Read more

Subjects:  1. 1963-    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Entertainment & Performing Arts - General    4. General    5. Harris, Bob,    6. Humor    7. Jeopardy (Television program)    8. Personal Memoirs    9. Satire And Humor    10. Television - General    11. Television Programming    12. Trivia    13. Biography & Autobiography / General   

Reviews (347)

A Two For Effort
This book is written from the viewpoint of a flaming socialist with the attitude that anything white or European or is overly valued in American history textbooks.Loewen does have many valid points about what history textbooks omit, but the degree to which he is clearly slanted to the left is ludicrous."Lies My Teacher Told Me" could have been an amazing book, but all it did was aggrivate me and motivate me to write a 23 page paper debunking half of what the author wrote, much to the dismay of my idiotic Sociology professor.The only reason I didn't give the book 1 star is because the overall intent and effort put forth were good, but the book as a whole is just far too biased.

an important book
Interesting, informative, and should be required reading for high school and college students.

A mixed review
I have mixed feelings about this book.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Historiography    2. History    3. History - General History    4. History: American    5. Indians of North America in te    6. Indians of North America in textbooks    7. Study & Teaching    8. Textbooks    9. Thanksgiving Day in textbooks    10. United States    11. United States - General    12. United States History (General)    13. History / General    14. Humour    15. USA   

Reviews (13)

A MUST HAVE for all musicians!
Bob Baker is the guru of Music Marketing--the Business part of Music Business.
A good book for Bands!
Irecommend this book to gain greater insights in the Music business or any business. It was a great buy along with a couple of manuals I purchased from Musicbrains.net entitled the Indie label Kit.

Wonderful Book
This book is great. The most important factor, is that it goes beyond giving tips for promotion, and explains the thoughts behind them. I would like to see a little more on internet promotion, but I suppose that is another book. All in all, this is a wonderful book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business Aspects    2. Marketing - General    3. Music    4. Music / Business Aspects    5. Music / Reference    6. Music/Songbooks    7. Economic Aspects Of Music    8. Handbooks, manuals, etc    9. Music trade    10. Reference    11. United States   

Reviews (4)

twenty-something Tom Wolfe
Jeremy Iversen is a talented journalist and I really did enjoy this book. That said, I couldn't shake the feeling that his subject matter wasn't worthy of his talents. Sex, drugs, random acts of cruelty--same old, same old, in the world of teens. The only thing that may come as a surprise to the reader is the complete lack of learning going on in the schools. The kids are aware of it but accept their fate; they only fight back when one among them is directly threatened in a way that would prevent graduation (The school may have done a horrible job providing an education, but it excels at instilling the empty good school--good college--good job mantra used to justify so much today.) Jeremy constructs his characters with care--and that's really what they are--a good deal of fictionalizing must have gone into turning his experience into a story structured as tightly as a tv sitcom. Still, it is a story worth exploring, as we should all be interested in these Millenials, for they will soon be the young adults leading us into what is increasingly becoming an uncertain future. The final issue I had was Jeremy's age. His sudden decision to go undercover lacked any discussion of issues related to how he would support himself, or what he did between the ages of 21 and 24 (Obviously he wrote a book because it's listed here on Amazon). That is a gaping hole and it bothers the reader. Also, because of my work I meet about 150 people in the 18-25 age group per year. I've been at my job for 11 years. I can assure you the 25 year-olds are generally just as clueless as the kids right out of high school. I almost wished Jeremy had chosen to jump onto the Wall Street "track", as he calls it, and write about that. I think arrogance and narcissism of people we believe to be adults would have made a more compelling story.

Better than any TV show story
Some days it seems like everywhere you look some adult is spouting off about the problems of our youth: teen sex, teen pregnancy, teen drugs, our failing schools, and on and on. To these experts in far-away offices, the answers seem clear cut: more rules, more programs, more standards. That's gotta work, right?
Written like a bad soap opera</