Extension Books

I'm just writing this to advise that this appendix is included in the Dover edition of the book, which is as usual well worth the low price. So don't buy this unless you already have an old edition of the book without the appendix.

If you already have good working knowledge of the disease process this book will not enhance your knowledge. If you are seeking general inforamtion, you will gain benefit

Thomas Rolfe, the son of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, the legendary Indian princess, was the father of Jane Rolfe and (possibly) Anne Rolfe, by different wives. Jane married a Bolling, and Anne married an Elwyn, from which unions issued an enormous progeny, today numbering in the tens of thousands and encompassing numerous lines of the colonial Virginia gentry.

Over nearly 20 years, Mr. Brown and his associates at the Pocahontas Foundation in Berryville, Virginia, endeavored to compile the definitive genealogy of Pocahontas' descendants. Starting with the Bolling lines, which include the "white," "red" and "blue" Bollings, the Foundation has issued a series of books that carries Pocahontas' descendants down to the present time. The base volume in the series, Pocahontas' Descendants, was originally published in 1985, followed by three volumes of corrections and additions. In 1994, Genealogical Publishing Company reprinted the base volume, along with the first two volumes of corrections and additions, in a single hardback volume. Third Corrections and Additions, published in 1997, is also available from Genealogical Publishing Company.

Clearfield Company is pleased to announce its publication of a paperback edition of the final installments in this series, Fourth and Fifth Corrections and Additions to Pocahontas' Descendants. This present volume, consisting of two separate sections of additions and corrections to the existing canon, contains over 80 pages of changes and revisions, with separate indexes referring to more than 2,800 names. Following the pattern of the earlier volumes, the name of the spouse of a Pocahontas descendant is listed even though that spouse is not a descendant of Pocahontas, but the name of a parent of such a spouse is not indexed unless, of course, that parent is a descendant of Pocahontas as well. This new volume is an indispensable adjunct to contemporary Pocahontas scholarship and should be sought after by all persons and libraries that possess the earlier volumes.

N.B. Clearfield Company published the Fourth Corrections and Additions to Pocahontas' Descendants in 2001. Since that work was out of print when Mr. Brown and Ms. Myers had completed their fifth supplement, we have chosen to combine them in a single volume at this time.

This book is designed to give those who are already competent with retinoscopy, a more (slightly - only 31 pages of actual book) in depth look at "near" retinoscopy only, not any other kind - plus a brief overview of some different methods of performing it. This book will not teach you how to perform retinoscopy and will be difficult to understand if you don't already have at least 9/10 of the scope on retinoscopy already. It does have some interesting reflex facts - but over-all I didn't find the book helpful.

The twenty stories here offer little variation from those in Busted Scotch. Written in the first-person, these are again mostly from a lower-class male perspective. They often feel fragmentary in nature, rarely offering up a traditional "story" per se, they tend to be more about how people communicate and misunderstand each other. Kelman's a good writer, but I don't find his stories particularly interesting.

A variety of articles of criticism show up here, of various length and dryness, but most are rather interseting, drawing on ancient mythology or even biblical mythology to prove a point. Some articles are easier to get than others, depending on what the reader has read. Anyone who's read Neuromancer by William Gibson might want to take a peek.

Collected as a self-conscious extension of the 1988 work edited by Byrne and Whiten, "Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans," this volume contains 14 articles. In spite of the explosion of empirical research sparked by the 1988 volume, this collection does not emphasize a review of this new work. Instead, one is left with the impression that this collection is heavily weighted toward theory and speculation.

My evaluation of this collection is that it contains less extension and more refinement of the 1988 presentation. The contributions in this volume tend to limit the grosser conclusions of the earlier work while refining the Machiavellian intelligence concept more precisely.

Only a few of the articles warrant specific note, in my opinion. I found Hauser's article on deception to be of value, especially in its careful distinction between functional and intentional deception. Whiten's review of theory of mind research holds promise for anyone interested in that subject. The three empirical articles, Russon's on exploiting expertise, Menzel's on foraging, and Barton and Dunbar on encephalization quotients, also make significant contributions.

New theoretical speculations regarding evolutionary triggers include brain modularity, technical expertise, sexual competition, and language left me wishing for more data and less speculation. Only the Boehm chapter on egalitarian behavior and intelligence seemed to warrant a second reading.

My advice is to skip this book and go straight to Sternberg and Kaufman's collection "The Evolution of Human Intelligence" (2001) or Corballis and Lea's "The Descent of Mind" (1999).

Coll's book is a resource for new field supervisors of students preparing for vocational ministry in parish and non-parish settings. The author contents that theological reflection is at the heart of field education and is a discipline through which the supervisor helps the student to learn to do theology. The specific roles of the supervisor are explained as helping to develop ministerial skills, formulation of a ministerial identity and integrating academic theory with pastoral practice. Coll argues that while seven distinct modes of supervision exist, all supervisor-mentor relationships must move towards a resource or consultative mode. As a resource, the supervisor assists in reflection and identification of resources. In the latter, the student identifies issues and concerns while the supervisor confronts and challenges the student in order to facilitate further insight. Supervision is not a footnote to ministry; supervisors are encouraged to view their role as directly contributing to the coming reign of God. A supervisor, as one working toward their own obsolescence, must also understand the he or she is an educator among equals who helps students move themselves towards greater independence, intentionality and responsibility. Following Paulo Freire, Coll advocated "problem-posing education," an approach that understands crises as opportunities for transformation. Transformation becomes possible as supervisor and students engage in critical thinking. Three methods of critical reflection, Shared Christian Praxis, the Pastoral Circle, and the Tripolar Model are discussed and promoted as means of involving the student in this dialogical-relational dynamic. Contracts, journals, case studies and evaluations ("supervisory artifacts") are explained in light of their potential to benefit the student. These provide the substance of the supervisory session and help surface themes for theological reflection. Coll advocates several models of reflection and insists upon the fact that "theological reflection constitutes supervision, it is not an extra added attraction that may be ignored. It is the very heart of the supervisory relationship." (p. 109)

I was surprised at the number of one and two star reviews here. I picked this up in a second-hand store (It may no longer be in print?) a couple years ago and it's been sitting on a dusty bookshelf ever since, waiting for me. (Books are good like that. They're very patient.) I came across it again about a week ago during a mild fit of cleaning (Fairly rare with me.) and decided to give it a try. And liked it a lot. The writing is clean and clear and reads well and the characters are well thought out and likable. The story covers some serious topics; illness and aging and the fact that we're all heading toward the end of our lives; but it never bogs down and the ending is ultimately hopeful. (And I do like happy endings.) It does treat homosexuality with a lot of sympathy so if you're bothered by that you might want to skip this. Otherwise I'd absolutely recommend it. This is the first thing I've read by Alison Lurie but certainly not the last.

There are too many blurbs on the cover and inner pages, at least one of which compared her to Jane Austen. That naturally made me hate the reviewer. Jane Austen is one of the greatest authors to ever put pen to paper. If you compare a modern author to her, I will hate you, and perhaps I'll feel bitter toward the author you're praising. The book sat on my shelf for about four months, at least, before I stumbled upon it again and was able to give it a fair shake. Short-term memory loss has its advantages.

I love an author with a cause, a conscience, a theme, a message. We have far too few of them in this world. But no reader likes to be preached at, even if he agrees with the author. Does anybody disagree with 99 Luftballoons? No. Does anybody want to hear it? No. I rest my case.

I used to build stories around "messages" myself. But then I got old. There's no message that you, as an author, can give a reader that he or she hasn't already thought, read, and/or written. Your themes should come up in the course of your story, as casual conversation, or else you should make those themes integral and CREDIBLE plot points. Drama not melodrama, and entertainment not sermons. You can't start with a message or a theme. It just kinda happens as you tell a great story. Or you have to make it look that way when it's not that way at all, if you're a true master. Lurie means well, but she eschews speaking softly in favor of the big stick.

Chapter one, we meet the naturalist author. I know a few people who would eat a spotted owl and laugh about it, some in my very own family, but for the most part we've accepted that nature is good. And this character, aged 70, worries that his celebrity has done more harm than good to his cause, and he's become irrelevant, and if not for his loving wife he'd just kill himself. That's a fair enough conflict. His wife, who has dedicated 25 years of her life to doing all the non-writer crap that writers must endure, so that hubby can just write, knows he's got some sort of internal struggle but is doing the all-too-human self-delusion trick about it. I think that's all boring to the non-authors of the world, but it's also fair enough. It happens that way sometimes.

Chapter two, we meet some folks who, I presume, will come into conflict with the folks in chapter one. Their cause is that homophobes are bad. I don't disagree. Then they make the classic mistake of misportraying (I think) the famous author in chapter one as a homophobe and hating him for it. We meet a man with HIV -- I've written about one myself -- and a lesbian -- I've written about several myself and accidentally married one. And as this chapter draws to a not-so-gripping cliffhanger, that's the conflict. That's all we have, aside from some proselytizing, every bit of which I agree with, which I could write better, and which is not why I read. I've read thousands of novels, folks, not counting textbooks. Do you really think I haven't read all this before? You have, haven't you? You could write it for TV if not for the writers' strike.

After reading 25 of 250 pages, putting me firmly into my "10% rule" country, I find it hard to care what will happen to these characters. They're flat. They, and their problems, bore. Plus, in both chapters, the author is very guilty of telling instead of showing. I will NOT say that you should only read this book "as a last resort haha," because Lurie deserves better than that. She can sure put sentences together, and paragraphs, and pages, and make them all easy enough to read, but if I may paraphrase Raymond Chandler, she doesn't hear the music. She also hasn't engaged my interest. Or yours. She's engaged her own interest, unlike most so-called authors, but that's only a start. Work harder if you want readers, Alison. I think you can.

Oh, and the cover blurbs also mention that she's won a Pulitzer Prize. I'm at a loss for words.

The title refers to Key West, Florida, which is the "last resort" both in the literal, geographical sense in that it is the southernmost part of the continental United States, at the far end of a long chain of islands, and also in the metaphorical sense in that it is a place where people (including several of the characters in the novel) go to start a new life when they have tried everything else.



The main characters are Wilkie Walker and his wife Jenny who travel to Key West for a winter break. Wilkie is a retired academic and scientist from a New England university. Although he is much older than his wife (he is seventy, she in her mid-forties) they have had a long and successful marriage. At the time of their Florida vacation, however, their relationship is under strain. Unknown to Jenny, Wilkie is convinced that he is suffering from terminal cancer and has resolved to commit suicide. He wants his death, however, to be thought an accident, and has decided to drown himself while swimming in the sea. (The title "The Last Resort" may also have some reference to Wilkie's planned suicide). All Jenny has noticed, however, is that her husband has become withdrawn and remote and she has concluded that he no longer loves her. Indeed, she convinces herself on very flimsy evidence that he is having an affair, and she begins a sexual relationship with Lee Weiss, the lesbian owner of a women-only boarding house.



In this novel Alison Lurie makes use of the device of recurring characters, a device used by other novelists, most famously Balzac. Her previous novel, "The Truth About Lorin Jones" was also partially set in Key West, and Lee Weiss and her boarding house also play an important part in that book. Two other characters from the same book, Polly Alter and Garrett Jones, are briefly mentioned. The Walkers meet an acquaintance, the poet Gerald Grass, who makes an unsuccessful attempt to seduce Jenny. Grass was one of Janet's housemates in "Real People"; another, Leonard Zimmern, appears at the end (it turns out he is Lee's cousin) and a third, Kenneth Foster, is mentioned. Wilkie was a lecturer at Convers College, the university featured in "Love and Friendship". It would appear that Glory Green, the young actress in "The Nowhere City", never made it in Hollywood as she reappears here as a tour guide.



The book was written in the late nineties. Today, less than ten years on, there is a tendency to look back at the Clinton years as a quiet time in American history, the interval between the fall of Communism and the 9/11 attacks when it was possible to talk about the "end of history". Nevertheless, the period had its own anxieties, and this book deals with two of them, AIDS and the environment. There is a sub-plot about Perry Jackson, an HIV-positive homosexual and the three female relatives, his mother, his formidable Aunt Myra and his cousin Barbie, unhappily married to an ambitious congressman, who come to visit him. (Barbie is the woman whom Jenny wrongly believes to be Wilkie's mistress).



Wilkie has acquired fame as a writer and broadcaster on natural history and has become an icon of the American conservation movement. His anxieties about life are not confined to the state of his health; he is also depressed by the degradation of the environment and the lack of success enjoyed by campaigners like himself in trying to preserve it. There are frequent references to environmental issues; the campaign to save the Florida manatee plays an important part in the book. The environmental themes, however, are not dealt with in a party-political way. We tend to think of the "green" cause as being a liberal one, but Wilkie is in most matters a social and political conservative, whereas Lee, a committed feminist and in all other respects a right-on liberal, has no interest in the natural world and holds views about the environment (jobs and the economy are more important than saving some threatened creature) that would not seem out of place in President Bush's cabinet.



Some of the characters do not seem convincing. I was surprised when Ms Lurie informs us that both Perry and Barbie are supposed to be in their late thirties; Perry comes across like a twenty-something, and Barbie like a neurotic teenager. Perry, who has a predilection for anonymous sex with handsome strangers, seemed too close to the image of the gay man as rampantly promiscuous (an early eighties stereotype that had become outdated by the late nineties). More importantly, Ms Lurie was never able to make convincing one of the central themes of the book, the lesbian relationship between Jenny and Lee. She failed to convince me that a woman in Jenny's position- one who had previously been exclusively heterosexual and who had been married for over twenty years- would enter into a relationship with another woman because she believed her husband was having an affair. (A relationship between Jenny and Gerry Grass might have been more plausible).



Nevertheless, I felt that many of the reviewers on this page (ten of whom only gave the book one star) were being unfair to the author. Despite its serious themes (death, suicide, terminal illness, environmental degradation) there is plenty of black or ironic humour, especially in the scenes featuring Wilkie (the book's best-realised character) whose attempts to commit suicide are continually frustrated- by a chance meeting with Grass, by bad weather, by another suicide. As with other works by this author, there is also plenty of satire, much of it directed at the fiercely conservative political activist Myra. Politically, Myra is opposed to feminism, but ends up becoming a symbol of female empowerment. Having failed to direct the male members of her family towards a political career, she decides that her only option is to run for office herself. The lush, tropical atmosphere of Key West is well conveyed, and there is a surprise revelation which brings the book's themes into perspective. This is not Alison Lurie's best book, but it is in many ways an enjoyable read.

Not a lot happens in this book, which I felt exactly matched the languid torpor of Key West, lush, beautiful and incredibly hot, as described by author Alison Lurie, who returned in 1999 from ten years without a novel with this book.

Jenny Walker, the protagonist, is self-effacing to the point of invisibility, a fact that has been pointed out to her over the years by myriad other women, from her daughter to well-meaning friends. Feminism not only passed her by, it has no reality to Jenny, a fact that is just a tad difficult to understand, given her intelligence. For Jenny's entire life is being a helpmeet to her much older husband, author and lecturer Wilkie Walker, a very unlikeable character who uses his wife to half-write his books, edit, take care of all his correspondence, run their personal lives like a maid, and, above all, make him look good.

When Wilkie sinks into a deep depression, Jenny, in desperation, suggests that they relocate for the winter from their New England home to the warmth and sun of Key West, Florida. And off they go--which I cannot believe would happen in real life, given their personalities. Once they get to Florida, they meet a number of colorful characters whose contrast with Jenny renders her even more ethereal.

Why is Jenny deliberately in thrall to her horrible husband? Other than the half-hearted explanation that Wilkie's work is hers as well, that he IS her job, there is no reason one can see. Jenny is as languid as the weather...and as hard to understand as a cypher. When the end of the book comes--extremely abruptly--we understand her no better than at the beginning, even though we cannot help liking her.

A strange book, not unlikeable, but not fulfilling in either its story or its denouement.

"But even death would be different here, easier -- a kind of slow dissolving into the almost perpetual heat and moisture of Key West." With AIDS and old age, death is everpresent in Key West. One of the main characters here is an older man who is suicidal and another is a young gay man who has learned he is HIV positive. And yet love blooms, when Jenny Walker, married to Wilkie, the famed naturalist who becomes suicidal, meets Lee Weiss, owner of a Key West guest house and a feminist lesbian who sees the beauty in Jenny that Wilkie no longer appreciates. Their love blossoms amidst Wilkie's decline and Jenny, a long time faithful wife and helpmate, goes head over heels as she realizes what true love is. But the book is more than a love story. Key West is revealed with all its flora and fauna and the assortment of people who make it the rich place it is. And the book tells Wilkie's story as well as Jenny's, the fabled author whose fame is past and who wants to end it all while he has the strength to do it. He is stopped at one point by another suicide, a wheel chair bound AIDS victim who simply rolls himself into the ocean and never comes up.

Having just finished another O'Reilly title (Programming WPF) that I thought was excellent, I was biased when thumbing through C# intermediate/expert C# programming books. I settled on two books and this (an O'Reilly title) was one of them. My confidence was heightened by the cover's prominent badge "5th Edition."

After reading most all chapters (I skipped a few non-language chapters) it is clear that the book is about 4 weeks of editing from being 5 star material.

Pros
----
- Author is clearly good at his basic craft: educating via the written word
- Author has good knowledge of C# 3.0
- Author employs humor to keep material from being dry
- Book is fairly comprehensive
- Not a lot of fluff, i.e. if it's written it's worth reading

Cons
----
- There are some errors in the coding examples
- Occasionally new material "appears" but is not introduced, described or otherwise addressed anywhere in the book
- Author makes occasional proclamations and generalizations that, to an educated ear, come across as buffoonery
- There are gaps -- some language keywords only appear in glossary
- Index is weak
- Don't care for "Liberty Associates" occurring in code examples
- General feeling of being incompletely cooked

If this was the first effort of the author, I would have given 3 stars. But with name recognition comes expectations and those expectations were not met.

Let not the title mislead the reader: this is not "Programming" C#, this is "Beginning" C#, and it is two books glued together. The first half of this book is excellent, whereas the second half is mediocre. Those looking for programming strategies, specific add-ons (LINQ, WPF) or the nuances of .NET should continue the search for another book.

Roughly half of the book details the language faculties: variables, arrays, delegates, enumerations, interfaces, etc. This division, and the section on ASP.NET, are quite thorough, and comprise an excellent introduction to the language. Its erudite qualities make this a one-stop source for questions about the base language features. Beginning programmers may be lost in swarms of information; however, immigrants from Visual Basic, Java, or C++ will not encounter much difficulty learning the new features of C#, and will appreciate the length of time devoted to these details.

However, in the second half, issues arise in the presentation of features such as LINQ, WPF, and threading. The examples given in these sections are aggravating. Often, the source code written does not match what is being described currently, and often will not compile without editing. At times the writer will refer to objects (in code and in prose) with different names in the same breath. Sometimes, he omits whole chunks of code, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks. The errata on his website describes the accidental omission of two whole sections covering C# 3.0 features, but there is far more he has not attempted to fix. The author is well-learned, but it is obvious this book was rushed, causing careless mistakes.

In addition to these errors, it is my belief that the sections covering LINQ are not comprehensive enough. LINQ for XML queries are not covered. Furthermore, the sections on LINQ for SQL and ADO.NET are confused, partly due to the author's use of the professional version of Visual Studio, not the Express edition which most readers use. If coverage of these technologies is desired, there are better books designed specifically for these features (which the author admits).

The redeeming qualities of this book are in the presentation. Jesse Liberty knows how to entertain the reader. He makes the experience enjoyable, and he explains very well what he actually attempts to explain. Overall, I recommend this book for intermediate programmers, who have general knowledge of pointer-logic, delegates, and object-orientation. Beginning programmers or veteran C# programmers wanting information about new features like LINQ and WPF should look elsewhere.

I respect Jesse for all that he's done to educate the masses in a wide variety of programming-related topics. But I'm not impressed with this book primarily because it is chock full of mistakes. A technical book that contains so many mistakes makes learning the language so much more difficult. I have found code snippets that don't even compile.

I think this book is a little conversational and a little too friendly for my needs. The examples are poor : Liberty Associates and let's do a web service which tracks MY book sales? I get tired of this, then noticed the second, third, and fifth editions are basically the same.

I like the books like Nutshell and Cookbooks, that introduce the concepts piece by piece, with very good real-world examples.

Save your money!

Jesse failed a loyal reader (C++ in 21 days). I observe that he is busy in producing books recently (co-authoring with other people with his name brand) instead of seriously improving this title. In ONE year period, he has generated the following titles. With a full time job in Microsoft, I doubt how much attention he can give to each of the titles
1. Programming C# 3.0
2. Learning C# 2008
3. Programming .NET 3.5
4. Programming ASP.NET 3.5
5. Learning ASP.NET 3.5
6. Programming Silverlight 2

Just read the Chapter 7 "Strucs" Example 7-1, and its code explanation, you will see how careless he is when putting a piece of code and talking something else.
p. 128 "Also notice that the Location constructor takes two integers and assigns their value to the instance members, xVal and yVal." Hey, where are these xVal and yVal in Example 7-1?
p. 130 "The definition of the Tester class in Example 7-1 includes a Location object* struct(loc1) created with the values 200 and 300. This line of code calls the Location constructor: Location loc1 = new Location(200,300);" Where is it in your Example 7-1? There is no constructor in the code! Jesse still uses the explanations in the 4th ed book while presenting a code different from the code in the 4th edition.

Example 21-4 crashes.

These kinds of mistakes are harmful to those who need confirmation about their understanding of new concepts. I doubt that he has really read through the book and checked the compliability before giving to the publisher.

The 5th edition cuts a few topics of 4th edition to cater for those materials to be presented in his other books (see the above) so that you have to buy two or three books in stead of one. I do not blame him, maybe it is necessary. If that's case, this book should focus on C# core language concepts with enough depth such that the readers have a one-stop source for C#. Leave Part III and Part IV (even Part II except LINQ concept) to other books. Superficial introducing topics will not be helpful for people who will use them.