Heavy

Even if some of the papers whithin the book are certainly important contributions to their field, my impression is that it does not justify paying that price for extended versions of the papers. The book by itself is merely a compilation of the papers but NOTHING MORE ! If you are interested, just get the papers on the web and read them, but don't buy this book !

I hoped i would find some unifying ideas in the book, or even remarks in the extended versions of the papers but nothing... I really wonder how it got published. The only useful information is the extended references for every paper (hence i gave 1 star) ...but it's not worth the price of the book !

I have been extremely disappointed because i'm used to very good work from M. Taqqu, including numerous outstanding papers, but this book is the worst i've ever bought. It does not deserves the name "book".

In principle, I must confess that I am astonished by the low rating given by the other reviewer! The book is a very good one, emphasizing topics that have not appeared in any other book so far (as, for example, applications of heavy-tailed distributions to financial modeling).

The reason for which I did not give 5 stars is because I am a computer-network specialist, hence I was expecting to see more networking applications than financial ones.

Nevertheless the mathematical content of the book is at a high level; I can assure everyone about it because my first degree is a first-class B.Sc. in Mathematics.

My current job has to do with the design of IP-based multimedia networks and, in fact, I am one of the very few persons (three at most) in the Balkans and probably the only one in Greece who applies the concepts of self-similarity, long-range dependence and heavy-tailed distributions to the design of real communication networks for everyday use. Hence I contend that my opinion matters.

I found particularly helpful the last chapter, which describes numerical techniques. In fact, this is the first book on self-similarity and long-range dependence to address such issues.

I strongly recommend the book for applied mathematicians and financial-modeling experts, while it is quite an interesting reference for network-performance experts. I also recommend it strongly for research students in any of these disciplines.

I would highly recomend that any fan of Guns N'Roses do not buy this book. It is a complete waste of money. The book is boring and pointless. The author just rambles on and on, until you don't even know what he is saying anymore. If you are wanting a good book about Guns N'Roses, this is definately not it.

The author of this book gets carried away to say the least. He strays far from actual facts and delves into his crazy theories and parallels of Axl and Slash (forget about the other members in the group) and some ancient figures. It got quite tedious at some points and was not interesting at all. Buy another GnR book!

What makes this book interesting is that its not just about the band, their music and off stage exploits, which is what most rock biographies are all about. Rather, this book is about defining the sociological and psychological impact of Rock N' Roll on modern American culture and the role that Guns N' Roses have played in shaping and defining such cultural perceptions. In this book, Sugarman compares the music and exploits of Guns N' Roses to everything from mythology to philosophy to psychology to modern historical events to convey this thesis. The truth is, what I really liked about this book, is that after finishing it, I felt that I not only learned about Guns N' Roses, but more so about the cultural importance of rock n' roll and the impact that it's had in shaping the modern American cultural landscape of the late 20th century.

Therefore, if you're interested in really learning about why G N' R is such an important band and your interest in music extends beyond what you hear on a CD, than I strongly recommend this book.

A word of caution...I have to say that this is not your typical sex, drugs and rock n' roll biography. If you're looking for a book that's just about the drunken exploits of Axl and the band,you'd best look else where. Not that this book does not cover off on these subjects, its just that there is much more to this book than that.

A warning to potential buyers: this book does not offer track-by-track commentary, like other titles on the "Complete Guide to The Music of..." series. The author simply uses each Queen album as a book chapter and re-tells the group's story for the upteenth time. Also, he states in no uncertain terms that what Queen did best was "disposable pop". So much for the band's heavier songs - powerful rockers such as "The Prophet Song", "Sheer Heart Attack", "Brighton Rock" and "Son and Daughter", to name a few. I wonder how this book was approved for this series. It should have been written by someone who really appreciated Queen's whole body of work and not just the singles.

A disappointing volume in the complete guide series. This book does not offer track by track analysis found in the other guides in this series. In fact, the overview of the band's history and impact is not very good and sketchy at best. In fact, you get a lot of tracking information from the "hits" CD booklets. (Usually you get more information from the books in the Complete Guide series, not the other way around)

The book on Queen should have been part of "The Complete Idiot's Guide" series. Hogan seems more interested in doing a biography of the group, instead of covering their "music" (which is supposed to be the series' aim). This book is recommended only to people who are unfamiliar with Queen and their story.

CASE Tractors enthusiast color series by Andrew Morland and Nick Baldwin is not something I like. There are many pictures of the same model of tractor in different positions, with repetitive descriptions and not very informative text. If you like just pictures it is OK.

I'm amazed that something I find so visceral and intense can be rendered so bland.

But I must be fair: Purcell at least has an intimate connection with the death metal scene. And she lets the musicians and fans speak, forging her critique from their experiences.

The problem has little to do with her passion for the scene; she infuses the final chapter with an almost palpable desire. Her primary drawback appears to be her training in the number-crunching social sciences. I would love to see her approach to the topic if she were trained in an interdisciplinary field such as American Studies.

Perhaps the book will be of some value, however, in explaining to my concerned wife why I dig this music as much as I do, since I've failed to do so convincingly so far.

This look at an important if obscure aspect of American literary history of the postwar era is marred by the poor, dry writing style of author Bonn. He does a better job as a librarian and archivist, retrieving lots of intriguing memoes and production files regarding the paperback publication of significant writers of the 40s-50s.

KISS' successful reunion in 1996 has triggered a sudden wave of the so-called 'KISS experts'. These 'experts' tried their best to cash-in from the rejuvenated KISS mania that soared the demand for KISS memorabilia. This book is a perfect example of those who want to milk KISS fans for the money. There's no new story inside, no shocking truth, no new facts, even no new pictures. This book is more like a photo book, with giant pictures and little stories in between. Most of the photos came from the Creatures promo tour in the U.K. Most KISS fans must have read all those old stories and facts billion times by the time they read this book. Even worse, the discography section of this book is incorrect.

A bit mis-leading with a motorcycle on the cover, this book deals with tools ,shop procedures, etc., similar to a condensed version of "The Machinists Handbook" Unless you're familier with words like"parifin, spanner, G-clamp" etc.the british terminology can be a bit confusing.Very little motorcycle mechanics exist inside.

They might as well call this a Rob Zombie wall hanging and leave out the calendar part, because its inclusion is rather inconsequential. The actual calendar on each page is a mere 5 inches wide, to apparently make room for the same picture on the bottom half of EVERY page(a picture of Rob's wife incedently). There is also a picture of her underlaying the calendar making the numbering very difficult to read. I would have given it another star if the picture at the bottom varied from month to month at least. If you're looking for a useful calendar, I wouldn't recommend this. If however you already have a calendar that you use, and are just looking for something with awesome pictures of Rob Zombie/House of 1000 Corpses, then this is the calendar for you.

This book has false information. Anybody who knows anything about Satanism would know that we do not sacrifice animals... We do not do *Drug Killings*. Most of us dont even do drugs. We like to live quiet lives, and the ones who call themselves Satanists, kill animals, and drugs are just teens looking for trouble.

This book is a quickly thrown together, very poorly researched attack on a subculture that is not understood. The "Satanic" threat is just a bunch of idiotic, inbred, trashy teens from small towns that think that its cool to kill a dog to get power. There is a growing movement of people, me included, that with intelligence and carefull political manuevering, are trying to make the United States a better place for non-Christians. I am Buddhist, and when people find that out, they react in horror or don't understand it. But we have freedom of religion in this country. And this stupid, ignorant book, written probably for quick profit by a greaseball that knows a lot of "god-fearing" people will react to their xenophobia, is just not worth your reading time, unless you want to laugh, and believe me, I got quite a few belly laughs from this one!

Unfortunately it seems that Carl Raschke's book has fallen into the hands of the people that he has written about and now they are writing reviews. Painted black is insightful as well as informative look at the upswing in Satanism and the peculiarly unintelligent members of the cults (please see previous review). I have never met Carl Raschke, but it seems that he has a keen insight into the working of these cults and how they are infiltrating into our society. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the growing problem of satanic cults in this country. You will find the book informative and helpful.