D-A Books

Uncage Faces of Sigil is my Personal fav of the 3 Sigil Books but for a DM running Sigil this is the must have book. I really like the art work and the way the book is written. Gives the DM every thing you need to run a good Campain in the city of doors.

Its an excelent book for players and DMs, there are complete and interesant descriptions of every faction in sigil, and it makes every player to understand the ideology of his faction, i recomend to read the interviews with the factols they are excelent.

This is one of the golden books of Planescape. The descriptions of the factions, the factols and their activities are great. Much cheaper than the other Planescape books (being 160 pages). It's filled with full-color art by DiTerlizzi and has everything you need for the low-down on the Factions. I don't think I'll keep talking about this book, just get it. You won't be dissappointed.

This book expands upon the factions so much from the box set. Besides DM stuff like stats for the factols and other important factioneers, it gives tips for roleplaying and excellent detail on the philosphies. Because the factions are central to the entire Planescape feel, it is extremely important to know them well. Even if your campaign has already been through Faction War (as mine has) I would definitely suggest buying this. It is perfect for bringing up past events and seeing what the future holds for these philosophers with clubs.

I just started reading this book yesterday and it is the best planescape accessory out there. Ever wondered just who the Factols are and what they act like? Is one of your characters having trouble playing a dustman? Want to visit the shattered temple but don't know whats there? Ever wondered where the Sighners came from anyway? Just how should those bleaker NPCs act? How do I join the anarchists? Or maybe you just want expanded faction abilities or want to know the personal plans of one of the factions. All these things and more are included in the Factols Manifesto. Along with a huge collection of great art that you won't find anywhere else including maps of each faction headquarters and a portrait of each factol! Bottom line this is a must buy. If you're a DM and don't have this book yet shame on you!

Knight's second "K Chronicles" collection is as zany as his first. From birthdays to family relations to touring with his band the Marginal Prophets to being subjected to "The Phantom Menace" movie, his cartoons's themes are full of social commentary, neurotic humor, and skewed realism. I think his ones about working at youth hostels and seeing the cultural-centrism of America at work are so perfectly calibrated. He's definitely worth reading, and I certainly wish his comic appeared in my area!

Oh, and his comics inspire me daily to stare at the walls and envision drawings of snowstorms (like page 103).

My good friend, a comic shop owner, gave me his signed collection of "Keef's" first collection. I remember Keith wandering around the San Diego Comic Con wearing a paper mache' head of his comic character which was, of course, himself. He was having a blast. His strip is full of good belly laughs and his poigniant take on contemporary living is bare bones hilarious. He can be considerably less than tactful but then so is life. So, do yourself a favor and buy his books, all of them. So what if he has brown skin. Who cares? Just dump the "race" crap. His life is full of the same triumphs and disappointments as the rest of us "white" folks. That's the key; he's clearly in there with the rest of us just struggling to make his life make sense even when it's obviously, often senseless, to no fault of his own. To have to make that point is pretty obsequious in itself.
You don't have to fully agree with his take on things to get the points he's making.
And....best of all, he's funny!

I have met Keith several times and not only are his comics swell but he is a really great guy. His humor shines. I have bought this for friends as a gift and it has not ever disaappointed.

Listen, just get this book. This is not one of those reviews where I'm going to say funny things, or make up gorgeous metaphors for anyone's catastrophic talent. Just get this book. It's really funny, and you like funny, right? Everyone likes funny!

I'm not African American, or a guy, and I don't live in California, and I'm not an artist, and I don't have a twin, but I can relate to this guy-- OK, we're the same age, and yeah, that helps, but the point is, he's just some guy. He's not married to Jane Pauley, or earning six figures, but really, he's better than them all.

The very best thing about Wednesday is that a new K Chronicles comic is posted to Salon.com! Keef is exceedingly talented and I wish my local newspaper ran his strip daily instead of the mostly boring and awful ones they feature presently. Unfortunately, this will not happen in my lifetime - luckily there are books like this to fill the gap!

I highly recommend this book for a few distinct reasons. First of all, this book is for everyone. Whether you are a seasoned intellectual, aspiring businesswoman, or an involved family member, this slow and carefully steady meditation on negotiating our way through the world is essential. One learns skills such as entering into conflict with the ability to find solutions that at the very least leave all participants feeling respected and correctly represented. Secondly, that there are many meditations that are coherent and interesting but not all can claim to be "timely." This book is good medicine for the current time. Instead of taking one out of the mouth of one monster and putting one into the mouth of a different monster, it allows us to stand between the two, on ground that is colorful and filled with hope. Bravo!

I feel that I read this book at just the perfect time. My family was facing several critical decisions regarding real estate purchases and financial planning. We could not come to a consensus and often, we found ourselves emotionally and mentally unable to move along the path to a decision.

This book helped us so much. It gave us a very practical guide with real-life examples to help us along our way. Reading the book helped us to acknowledge the emotional roadblocks we had and then move past those.

Anybody who is facing a tough situation and finds themselves unable to move past "roadblocks" must read this book. You will not regret it. We followed the guide and made some important decisions that we are happy with.

As Robert Frost stated in his poem, "The Road not Taken", most of us know that when two roads diverge in a wood, the one we chose makes all the difference.

Mark Bennett and Joan Gibson, in A Field Guide to Good Decisions: Values in Action have created a remarkably readable and useful roadmap to understanding the underpinnings of good decision making. Well structured case studies are written as stories to help us feel the angst and recognize the complexity inherent in trying to reach individual goals while simultaneously honoring the goals, desires and needs of others. The material is pertinent for individuals, families, work settings and political entities.

For anyone interested in how human beings decide and especially anyone interested in how to make better and more effective decisions for themselves and their communities, Bennett and Gibson's book is a powerful and effect aide. Bennett and Gibson's good decision to put their insights into writing will help the rest of us learn to make our own increasingly good decisions.

I have read many self-help books in the hopes that I really could help myself. The vast majority of these books did nothing more than tell me what I already knew. They did not give me the practical, hands-on approach to actually solving whatever the problem was as I had hoped when I began reading. The Field Guide to Good Decisions is the glaring exception. This book has helped me make tough decisions on several occasions. As the Field Guide to Good Decisions points out, the most challenging choices are not about good vs. bad or right vs. wrong, but about competing choices. It is most difficult to choose when it is about right vs. right. This book shows you how to do it honestly and intelligently. It should be required reading for everyone...no one is immune from making decisions as they travel through life. I will be referring to this book for the rest of mine.

Being a Leader requires skills and knowledge to lead very diverse groups to decisions that may impact the direction of an entire organization or a single individual's life. Respecting those with whom we work, it is imperative to encourage and value the opinions of each participant, and make each feel supported and empowered in the process. The book, A Field Guide to Good Decisions, Values in Action, was a book of wisdom that will change my approach for decision making and applying the Values that drive organizational direction. Once I started reading the book, I couldn't put it down, I finished the entire book in one setting. The real life stories were applicable to everyday situations. I often thought I was reading a "Suspense Novel" that engaged me in such a way that I felt like I was a member of the team involved in the decision making process applying the Values in Action techniques and skills.

I learned many useful tips on how to manage myself at my first job, especially with my "difficult" bosses. I am happy someone put a book out there that is practical and beneficial for anyone to use for their first, or current job.

I am a recent college graduate who knew little about the professional workplace. This book really prepared me for the issues I was about to face. I especially enjoyed the section on difficult co-workers. No matter where you work, you will encounter people that are a challenge to work with. They give vivid and accurate descriptions of these typical people. Not only is this book helpful, it is funny! Any age, any stage of your career, this is a MUST read book!

I can certainly use the advice in this book. I found the writing to be concise and the tips were very useful. I like how the book is organized because you can easily located the issues that are most interesting. The section on "how to relate to your boss" really helped me get through some stressful moments at work. I will continue to use this book as a guide. Thanks!

I am a recent college grad, and I came into the work world nervous and unsure of what to expect. I received this book as a gift from a friend, and it really helped me adjust to my first "real job." I learned a lot about office ettiquite, communication, and working as a team. This book is a must read for new grads. This survival guide will prepare you for many of the challenges you will face on the job everyday.

Having just graduated from college, I find First-Job Survival Guide to be very useful in making the college to workforce transition. It has valuable tips about writing business emails, using business etiquette, and shifting from hoodies and jeans to business-casual attire. The authors give great advice for dealing with a broad spectrum of situations and communicating with coworkers and bosses. I would definitely recommend it to anyone just entering the workforce and to people who have been working for years and are looking for an update.

"I don't know a better place than this to die." When Lt. John "Red dog" Dolan scratched out this single line to a hard pressed squad leader at the La Fiere bridge, he simultaneously scribed his name into the short roll call of those Americans who have placed the love of their country and the freedom of its people ahead of their very own next breath.

I have read the account of Lt. Dolan at the little bridge over the Merderet in three other books of paratrooper history and none of them carry the weight and measure of Ed Ruggero's version in The First Men In. It is nearly impossible to read through chapter 12 and not find yourself gazing off into the ether, overcome by the willingness of these young men of the Greatest Generation to sacrifice themselves for less-great generations yet unborn.

While The First Men In is not a small unit combat history such as Band of Brothers, it follows several men - G.I. and officers - from their enlistment through their training, their midnight jump into the Cotentin and through the first days of the Battle of Normandy, delivering the intimate kinship with the characters that the reader so desires as well as the great sweep and desperate fear of near hopeless combat.

The First Men In is a book you will read more than once. In the way you might take a second look at a sunset, the heroism of the men in the pages compels you to turn and look over your shoulder again and again until the very last light fades, leaving you asking yourself at the last glint of purple if such a marvelous thing was really possible in the first place.

If you want to know why General Bradley would not land troops on Utah beach without these men, if you want to know why these men are correctly titled America's Guard of Honor, if you want to know why the local French have re-named the bridge at Chef du Pont the Pont du Capitaine Roy Creek, if you want to once again be warmed and comforted by the greatness of your country, read The First Men In.

I read this hoping to learn about the history of the paratroopers on D-Day and got more than I expected. It gives the history of D-Day, but it tells it in such an exciting, storytelling fashion that it gives you a first person feeling for how terrible those days were. The sacrifices our troops made in WWII were incredible. Let's never forget them.

I have a friend who was in the 82nd Airborne's A Company and was a Pathfinder. He was 19 years old. I bought it for him and read it first. I have seen all the movies and heard all stories about Normandy but to read this book made me realize just how really terrible the battle for the bridge was. I had no idea just what they faced. I had visited the site and still had no real understanding of the battle until I read this book. I have even more respect for Max than I did before. What a tale. Bob Morriss

Ed Ruggero has written an absolutely fantastic history of some of the most significant airborne operations surrounding the Normandy invasion. To nit-pick the selection of the book title or a minute detail of 82nd Medal of Honor history from World War I doesn't do justice to the otherwise meticulous research and master story-telling of this inspiring author. This well-written prose is fast-paced and as readable as any historical fiction. Ruggero is superb in his description of small unit airborne operations in World War II. In my opinion, much better than the previous standard set by MacDonald's World War II memoir COMPANY COMMANDER. And just as good as Vietnam small unit memoirs - McDonough's PLATOON LEADER and Moore and Galloway's WE WERE SOLDIERS.

This is an excellent and easy reading book; however, I would recommend that the reader be apprised of D-Day history before reading it. It gives a wonderful insight to one more important advance into Normandy!

This was a great book. Great story. Well written. New information and insite of Allie's life. We should have more books like this rather than a rehash of the same ole information about the sale ole subject.

Jane Candia Coleman has managed to carve a literary niche for herself that seems to be hers alone: the retelling and recasting of southwestern history as seen through the eyes of the women who lived it, not the men. In this case, she breathes new life into the story of the feud in Tombstone, AZ involving the Earps and the Clantons in the 1880's. She focuses on the life of Allie Earp, wife of Virgil Earp, Wyatt's brother. With so much written and filmed about this feud from the male point of view, it's damn well time we experienced this genuinely dramatic story from the woman's perspective. Coleman informs us in an afterword that she had access to Allie Earp's memoirs, which are brought to life with the sharp eye and command of craft of a supremely skilled novelist. Coleman evokes these people and their world with a crisp, vivid style that kept me engaged throughout. But don't get the idea that this is a traditional shoot 'em up western. The author is up to far more than that. This is no less than a vivid depiction of a woman's life on the western frontier from her youth to her later years. It's a breath of fresh air that took my breath away! Highly recommended.

Jane Candia Coleman is one of our most gifted contemporary writers as demonstrated by her latest novel, "Tombstone Travesty." She has an unusual talent which makes you feel the emotions of her characters and envision the environment in which the story takes place.

She also has the uncanny ability to combine her novel writing talents with historical accuracy in such a way that anyone interested in the Old West will enjoy the story immensely while picking up some additional historical points about the Earp families not mentioned by others.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to experience the talents of this outstanding author. I assure you that it will be difficult to put this book down until you have finished reading it.

It was so nice to read about the events from someone who was really there. I have a whole new take on several of the people involved. What a feisty lady Allie must have been. I love her.

Jane Candia Coleman, in her heavily researched Tombstone Travesty: The Memoirs of Allie Earp, has finally set the record straight about this side of the Earp family. Like her stunning Doc Holliday's Woman, Coleman had access to numerous records direct from family sources. For many years the media had canonized the Earp family, particularly Wyatt Earp. Then along came a writer who, having access to the still living Allie Earp, set out to debunk the family, making himself the "revisionist historian" who could "tell it all." Worthy of note is that he did not publish it until after her death, when no family member could come to her defense. Now, Coleman has risen to that defense in this highly readable and enjoyable work. I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about the Earp family, the western experience and its tough and resourceful frontier women.

I got the book in very good shape in few days. I was very pleased with the service.

I had read the first edition one that I borrowed
from the library. Then I decided to purchase this
2nd edition. I am looking forward to reading it
once again.

This is a classic text on fluid mechanics, and an essential for any serious researcher in the field. This book starts by deriving the basic equations of fluid dynamics (a few simple equations - easy, huh?), then each subsequent chapter discusses narrower topics such as viscosity, turbulence, supersonic flow, etc. As a text for a student, this book has some serious limitations in my view. I would not recommend this book to someone approaching the material for the first time, or to teach oneself, it is really best as a research resource for a professional or graduate student. One thing that I didn't like about this book (and this is a complaint about the LL series in general) is that it is very difficult to separate which topics are general and which are very specific. The reader needs to know a bit about hydrodynamics before approaching this book in my opinion. For example, LL discuss the Rankine-Hugoniot equations for flow across a shock (a general result fundamental to hydrodynamics), then in the next section they discuss the supersonic corrugation instability, a subject that is really of interest to a small number of researchers and advanced graduate student in specific fields. Overall, not a great learning text, but an irreplacable reference on hydrodynamics. If you are looking for an introductory text, start with Batchelor.

Landau & Lifshz "Course of Theoretical Physics" is a famous and respected set of books in Physics. Unfortunately, Butterworth-Heinemann, who currently prints those books in English, prints them with very poor quality. The books seem to be "printed" in old copy machines and the paper used is also a cheap one. In many pages, it is really hard to read the text, due to such poor printing.

This is an excellent fluid mechanics text. It is also my first recommendation to those who wish to study acoustics. You ought to start with the initial chapters on fluids; you'll need that material for some of what follows. The 65-page chapter on sound is simply marvellous. And then comes material on a wealth of topics, including shock waves, supersonic flow, detonation waves, relativistic fluid dynamics, and a short but valuable section on superfluid dynamics and the propagation of sound in a superfluid.

For physics majors, this is the book to get on fluid mechanics. The explanations are short and clear, and the material is comprehensive. In addition, the exercises are well-chosen, and the solutions are always included.

If you're looking for the perfect gift for a fan of Forumula One, this book is it. I've given a few away as gifts, and it's always a riot to see the results. Whether it's a child, teen, or adult (I've mostly given this book to adults), faces light up, and the person who receives it becomes immediately drawn into the book . . . for hours. Try giving one at a party and watch as everyone gathers around to get in on the play. This is PERFECT for the fan who has everything (or the fan who wishes to have everything . . . such as a Ferrari F300). An unbelievable amount of fun. You won't be disappointed. Enjoy!

The CD has fantastic sounds-- BRM car brings back fond memories. The Pop Ups especially the Ferrari instrument panel and the F1 with pit crew is great. All graphics, photographs are 5 star quality. This is a must book for the F1 fanatic.

I purchased this book for my husband, who has just become interested in Formula One racing. The whole family enjoyed reading and interacting with this informative book. We learned more about Formula One than we ever expected...this book has to be the best book I've purchased in years! HURRY - BUY THIS BOOK!!! Excellent, excellent, excellent!!!

All diehard Formula One fans can increase their knowledge of this wonderful sport by reading this book. The CD is fantastic,all of the engine sounds brings back fond memories. The Pop Ups especially the Ferrari instrument panel and the F1 with pit crew is great. All graphics, photographs are 5 star quality. A must book for the F1 fanatic's library.

Wow, great information, great fun! A must read, actually it is a tome to pour over. There is a lot to digest, and it is very interesting. It is a very clever layout, there are lots of pockets and flaps to explore. Not for children unattended though, it could be quickly demolished. My one beef is that I found the glasses (not 3d by the way) to be a little tough to view sometimes.

Arguably, one of the best SF stories about people, under the pressures of the Gaea mission, not being able to return to Earth because of world-wide civil conflict, and the normal emotional baggage each crew member brings.
The interplay among the crew members is superb, as is the realisation of alien (yet strangely familiar) landscapes, and it keeps the pages turning !
A space adventure, with modern and future concerns for humanity at core, par excellence !

P.D. Gilson's Gaea: Beyond the Son takes place in a not-too-distant future, after we've run dangerously short of potable water on Earth. There's a technology called D-salt that can make large amounts of wastewater completely drinkable, but the catch-22 is that it takes vast amounts of clean water to make D-salt in the first place. That's where the distant planet comes in--the idea is to set up D-salt production facilities there, and ship the D-salt back home. Unfortunately for Doyle, the shakedown and test flight of the Gaea technology ends up becoming a flight to that distant planet when war intervenes, forcing the crew to rely on prototype technologies for their safety.

Of course, even though they sleep through the decades of their long flight, the war hasn't magically ended by the time they get to their destination. They're the enemy now, on an alien world where simple survival would be difficult enough. And Doyle's determined that one way or another, his flight won't end until he's reunited with his son.

The setup provides us with a great science-based adventure novel crossed with a war novel. The main characters are largely scientists, each with their own areas of specialty, allowing for some fascinating uses of technology in the desperate battles that ensue. The two sides in the war are given enough due that they aren't reduced to stereotype. The characters have their quirks, flaws, and so on, largely giving them appropriate depth.

Unfortunately, despite that depth, I could never shake the feeling that the characters were held at arm's length. I could watch and even sympathize with the tragedies that shook them, but I couldn't feel the heart-wrenching of empathy that I feel when I'm really pulled into a character's suffering or joy. Gaea definitely succeeded in the realm of page-turning action-adventure--I constantly wanted to know what happened next--but the character emotions were somehow distant. Because many events are triggered by characters reacting from emotion, this sometimes gave events a slightly `off' feeling. I'm not entirely sure what it was about the writing that created that distance, but I can't help thinking that while this was definitely a good and enjoyable story, if it had had that additional empathy, it would have been positively stunning.

While the book does involve topics such as global warming and water shortage as a previous reviewer says, it focuses far more on the stories and struggles of the main characters. I found the characters to be well developed and the pace of the story kept me interested through the last page. Quite a debut for the author. I look forward to reading more of his work and further books in this universe.

It is a desperate time in Earth's future. Global warming is taking its toll. The polar ice caps are melting, raising sea levels and contaminating fresh water supplies. Man has two choices. Rely on D-salt, itself a much sought after commodity, to remove impurities from tainted water, or look to the heavens for a new home.
Doyle Gage is the poster boy for the promised Gaea future. A long serving United Earth Coalition (UEC) soldier, Doyle has been hand picked to be commander of the Gaea-02 spaceship. Its mission, to forge a new colony on a distant planet called M38 But Doyle unexpectedly finds himself alone to raise his young son and resigns his post, electing only to accompany the ship on its six month, slingshot test flight as a civilian consultant.
On returning to Earth, the crew of Gaea-02 are horrified to discover that the Asian Pacific Alliance (APA) has started all out war with the UEC. It soon becomes clear, the APA are after one thing, the Gaea ship and all its technology, so they can mount their own bid for M38.
Stranded in space, and considered fugitive by the APA, the crew of the Gaea-02 will be forced to make difficult decisions and Doyle must decide if he should return to Earth and learn the fate of his son or head for the stars and fulfill the Gaea dream.

Gaea: Beyond the Son, is the brilliant first offering from P.D. Gilson. Crammed full of action and with a plot played out by believable, likeable characters, it's hard to put this book down.
If you're looking for hard, techhy sci-fi, then this isn't for you. But if you like your SF a little on the pulpy/adventure side with a splash of military thrown in for good measure, I heartily recommend it.
The initial premise is good, the future world Gilson writes about not too much of a leap of faith given current warnings about global warming and climate change. The characters are engaging and their individual stories are slowly revealed to the reader through a series of flashbacks and hibernation dreams. Yes, it's been done before but it's executed well, bringing to the surface conflicts and motivations that draw you into the story as the book progresses.
The crew of the Gaea-02 get thrown from one situation to the next, and the action scenes are exciting and written well, yet none of the obstacles or hardships encountered seemed contrived to pad the story out, they just added to the snowballing pace of the plot.
If I had one minor criticism of Gaea: Beyond the Son, it would be the use of unexplained acronyms. Lovers of SF will have no problem, with a little bit of thought, figuring out what they all stand for, but readers new to the genre might not be familiar with them all. It's a minor issue.
Completing the package is the gorgeous cover art of Tomas Kuklik. A beautiful collage of scenes from the book, you'll find yourself constantly flipping back to view it and pictorially relive the scene you just read. They say never to judge a book by its cover but I'm afraid to say I did - and I wasn't disappointed in the least.

When the Gaea-02 returns from her first mission in deep space, the crew discovers that the volatile situation on earth has escalated. Earth's factions are at war, leaving the Gaea-02 no option but to head for the planet that Earth plans to colonize. But one crew member has left a son back on Earth. And Doyle won't give up until he finds a way back home.

Gaea: Beyond the Son is an exciting tale of heart-pounding action and suspense, and read like a gripping, scifi film. But the characterization doesn't suffer for it. Short backstories for several of the crew members, give insight and depth to the characters, and help to engage the reader. Even the antagonists were multi-dimensional.

This novel was impossible to put down. With the feel of military scifi and the heart of a space opera, this debut novel has made the list of my favorites for the year. This was more than an impressive launch release for a brand-new small press. Helios has set a high standard with a fantastic story and beautiful cover art.

I'd bought this book for personal reading. Even though I'm not directly into GC algos, I found this book amazingly lucid to read and follow. It has thorough coverage of all the GC algos I've heard of till date.

It goes about explaining the algos with a very broad level view, then goes a little deep, then deeper, so its very easy to follow, and the reader can decide to what extent (s)he wants to understand the algo.

A must have for anybody directly working on GC, or like me, people who develop high performance systems on GC aware languages/platforms. It can help you extract the most out of your platform.

I wanted to know about the generational algorithm that Java is now using. The book was pretty clear about how things work. I haven't read the whole book but what I've seen is very encouraging. The first few chapters are a broad overview and then you can dive into the particular algorithm you are interested in.

Garbage collection is a very interesting and complicated topic. To understand different garbage collection algorithms, one has to go through various research papers published over last 30 years or read the simplified descriptions presented in Java site and Bill Venners artima.com. This book does an excellent job in putting together all these algorithms in a logical order that gives us a chance to understand the different challenges sceintists and programming language authors faced and how the algorithms evolved over the time. The book starts with basic overview and history of commonly known algorithms: Reference counting, Mark and Sweep, and Copying algorithms. It then elaborates each of these algorithms, enumerates their pros and cons, and presents imporvements done by different researchers. After this, the book moves on to advanced algorithms like Generational algorithm and concurrent mark and sweep algorithm. I recommend this book to anyone interested in garbage collection. I haven't seen any other book on this topic. Even for programmers who mostly don't have to worry about GC as it is "automatically" done, this is a good book to understand and appreciate what goes on behind the scenes. Also, knowledge of the concepts in this book will be invaluable in performance tuning.

This book is superb. It is thorough enough that there is little need for a practitioner to read the primary literature, even when contemplating sophisticated garbage collector designs. I remember being intimidated by garbage collection prior to reading this book, but now I am instead enthralled by garbage collection. Given the trend toward automatic memory management in programming languages, I think this book is an increasingly important part of the practicing programmer's library.

The first time I read the book, it seemed a bit repetitive, because the first two chapters provide the basic framework for the rest of the book. As a result, topics such as copying collection are discussed in at least two places. Upon reflection though, I think that there is no better way to organize the book, because there exists no straight path through all of the concepts the book covers.

Over the past eight years I have read portions of this book over and over as I've contemplated garbage collector designs for various software projects. I continue to be surprised at just how well this book meets my needs.

This is really a great book. It's really a must have for people who want to write their own modern virtual machine (like I).

This is simply the only book about Garbage Collection you can get. It's very complete: all GC Algorithmes are covered by this book in depth! All topics are properly introduced it has a nice layout, and offer snippets of pseudocode. It is not really a dry text.

If you want to read scientific papers about Garbage Collectors (like of ACM), it's recommended to read first this book, to get a proper introduction in this topic.