Open

I read "Into the Great Wide Open" about three months ago. At the time, I wasn't sure if I liked it, and I could tell that Canty was a first-time novelist. Some of the rambling psychoanalyzation of the protagonist, Kenny, is heavy-handed and obvious, and the character of Junie is a little vague. But I have found in recent weeks that this little book sticks oddly in my head. Kenny is one of the most acute, real teenagers since Holden Cauflield. He's a decent kid in a set of bad circumstances, and for me he has turned into one of the more memorable fictional characters I've encountered in some time. One other little note: as an aficionado of "coming-of-age" novels, it was nice to see one set in the present day. I was starting to think that only teenagers in the '50s and '60s had meaningful adolescent experiences.

I read a review of this book in a magazine and decided to go out and buy it. That was about a year and a half ago, and i've read it at least a dozen times. It is an amazing book, and I would recommend it to everyone between the ages of 14 and 20. Into the Great Wide Open is the tragically sad and moving story of Kenny and Junie, seventeen and in love. Of course, as with all young love, there are obstacles: Junie's "problem", Kenny's alcoholic father and institutionalized mother, and the world that Kenny knows will take Junie away from him. This book made me cry a lot and laugh a little, but most of all, it made me think about what a fragile gift love is. Kevin Canty made me feel everything Kenny felt as if I was in the story. I have never read a book that lets us into the mind and heart of the character as much as Into the Great Wide Open does. It is a beautifully written tale with the univeral theme: "Why must I be a teenager in love?"

I read this book... it seems like a while ago... i was in high school. I feel like it was maybe 8 years ago or so... i was 17 (i think, by looking at the publication date). I don't even remember where i got it. Did i buy it? A gift?
I just remember loving this book. It's the story of 2 unlikely people to date... by unlikely, i mean people from different "sides of the tracks." I remember being enthralled by their romance (and by some sexy scenes in which they do some things in a car).

Kevin Canty's new book "Honeymoon and Other Stories" came out not too long ago. I manage in a book store and didn't even realize that it was the same author, and picked it up when i noticed how many copies i was selling and after selling one to a musician i like.
Then when i went to my mother's house for X-mas, i rediscovered "Into the Great Wide Open" on my childhood bookshelf and remember loving it. So not i'm really excited to read "Honeymoon" and to re-read "Into..."

This is a book you can read and re-read. I think Kevin Canty definately knows how to tell a story!

comprehensive, informative, surprising and endlessly entertaining. Makes for a welcome addition to other like-minded works in my library.

Okay, so he ain't Wittgenstien, but neither was Ludwig. Pinchbeck deserves a decicive clap on the back for his feverish, foolhardy romp into the unknown. To those who pooh pooh him, I ask--what have you done for me lately? This is Kapucinski meets Casteneda in a dread-laced Holographic Universe, and if you feel that intellectual rigor is lacking, or that the author relies too much on Benjamin's politics, I ask you when you last met the splinter-faced god of the forest? I feel that Pinchbeck is earnest and refuses to pose as a guide when he is in fact nothing but a balsy, intellectual Brooklinite who grew bored with chatter-mouthed literati and with himself--so he decided to cast the eternal dice and record his findings with talent and intelligece that may not be first rate, but are, nevertheless, uncharateristic of our time. In sum: a pip.

If you've found the writing of Terence McKenna interesting and thought-provoking, then you should consider this book an immediate must-read. However, Pinchbeck's book deserves to be read (and hopefully WILL be read) by a much wider cross-section of society than McKenna's. One of the problems inherent to writing about psychedelic experiences is that the nature of the experience itself makes describing it through the written word extremely difficult. I think Pinchbeck has done an incredible job of bridging this gap (to the extent that is indeed possible) and relating his experiences in a way that even someone who has never touched a psychedelic substance can begin to understand.

While that in itself is an important achievement, I think the real value of this book lies in the moral and ethical issues it ultimately poses for the reader...and this includes both those who've used these types of drugs, as well as those who've never even had a beer. The issues of corporate greed, ecosystem destruction, and blatant consumerism have never been more relevant to our society; the author addresses these issues with thought-provoking insight, and offers some extremely interesting and somewhat frightening ideas about the future of the human race....ideas that seem to have been catalyzed, but NOT created, by his use of psychedelics.

In my opinion, that's where the real value of this book lies, and the reason it should be a rewarding and worthwhile read for anyone who considers himself a concerned, active, thinking member of society and the human race. It would be a tragedy if potential readers overlook this and skip the book based on a preconceived notion about the subject matter.

Books on PHP are definately improving as time goes on. This is the best book I've seen so far for the beginner, and I definately wish I had it when I was started learning 3 years ago. A wide variety of functions were covered to get the novice familiar with how PHP works, giving them a good foundation to move onto more advanced books and/or tutorials.

I would have given it 5 stars if it weren't for the fact that it failed to stress the importance of form related security (which should definately be taught from the beginning), as well as writing with registered_globals off (which is the default setting in PHP for 4.2 or later). Many beginners who follow this book may wonder why their scripts aren't working because of it.

Overall, though, I was very impressed with the layout of the example code, with plenty of pointers explaining what each part of the code is doing, as well as how easy it was to skim the text that came with it.

In less than 300 pages, this book manages to explain the simpler concepts while not omitting the more advanced topics of PHP programming that aren't covered adequately in other books with over 1000 pages. If a PHP book gets into things like object oriented PHP, using multiple tables in your PHP/database projects, session management and even frequently overlooked things like foreach conditional statements, then it is worth considering. This book covers all that without being annoyingly verbose like so many other books. Topics that take 30 pages of excessive rambling in some books are concisely covered in several pages with diagrams of code to illustrate. I have over a half dozen books on PHP/MySQL and I find that this is the most useful and easy to understand and can be used as a tutorial and quick reference. This book is useful for both beginners and experienced programmers and really does lives up to its motto "Read Less, Learn More".

This is not the book to be used for developing an e-commerce site (security issues left out)nor is it for advanced PHP features nor is it reference of all the PHP features. Its a book for someone who has had some little exposure to some other programming language and would like to develop a web site in PHP. This book takes from you from beginning through intermediate level and it does it very well and very clearly without confusing you with endless options and parameters and permutations of every PHP function. It covers the most usefull and basic fucntions and does a very good job. I have three books on PHP, this is the one I start with to learn a concept because it is quick, clear, and to the point. As I want to learn more advanced features I consult other books later or php.net

The addition of Tony's exchanges with questioners does litle to spruce up the original text that he wrote in 1995 - which is now dated.

Sparse, simple and poetic but those seeking further analysis leaves a lot to be desired. Some will say that is exactly the point - minimalist.

Can Parsons take one further? No

But there is an attempt by the publisher's to make Tony less austere by stretching the title from plain old "Open Secret" to "As It Is: The Open Secret to Living an Awakened Life".

Tony used to joke about no beautiful videos of swans on lakes (a reference to Gangaji perhaps?) but instead a picture of dog poo on the pavement (As-*hit-is = As it is). But instead we see a picture of the sky.

Did Tony sell out? The impression that he gives of not taking the frills and decoration around spirituality seriously is starting to wear thin especially as TP is being made to look like some kind of authority in his particular publishing stable.

Readers who still seek more after reading Tony had better look for explorative teachers like Andrew Cohen, Jed Mckenna, Dave Oshana or even your local Buddhist school.

(Hope Tony didn't mind the "bacon" reference - being the Epicurean that he is I am sure that he won't)

We all feel down and out at times. This is a far reaching book into the depths of our observatory nature. What is meant by awakening or enlightenment? It's not always really clear when the author keeps reiterating the fact that 'nothing matters'. However, 'in the end' what matters is that we search for the positive aspects of living Life. There are some very significant lines in this book that I will certainly take away with me, too. For instance:
When the bird has flown, the essence of its song is often mislaid, and then all we are left with is an empty cage.
By letting go our fascination with the extraordinary and spectacular, we can allow ourselves to recognize the simple wonder that lies within the ordinary.
We are hardly ever at home.
When I look back at my life as openly as possible, I see how I have attracted to me the people, the events, and teh pattens that have been perfectly appropriate to the kinds of influences and images that my particular belief systems have been expressing.
And yes...there IS more because that's the way it "is".

Tony Parson's book is another in a series of gifts to humanity: books by individuals who have realized the Holy Grail of spiritual seekers throughout history. Seeker/readers who found Eckhart Tolle's book 'The Power of Now' valuable will immediately connect with Parson's open, simple, and fundamental description of and access to the nature of the Prize. In brief, succinct introductory chapters entitled Awakening from the Dream, Context, No Achievement, No One Becomes Enlightened, Time, Expectation & Purpose, he describes his own experiences and revelations on his path and beautifully expresses that seemingly contradictory truth "that enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted that it cannot be achieved". These chapters conclude with "The Park" in which he recounts the arrival of the Recognition as he walked across a park in a London suburb. The remainder of the first part of the book deals with the perennial issues with which, I believe, we must each finally come to grips: Presence, the Choiceless Choice, My World (the nature and value of individual subjectivity), the Death of the Body Mind, Abstraction, Fear, Guilt, Thinking, Relationships. Part one concludes with two short descriptions of who "I Am Not" and who "I Am". Part two comprises a series of dialogues with other seekers which he prefaces with the statement that "words are not truth just as honey is not sweetness". If you have read and treasured any of the writings of Eckhart Tolle, Ramesh Balsekar, Douglas Harding, Gangaji, HWJ Poonjaji, it is my suspicion that you may well have come as far as "you" can go on the Path. From here on, the truth simply becomes more and more transparent. Tony Parsons deserves our deepest gratitude and appreciation for his assistance.

I am addicted to writing books. I have worn out copies of Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird and Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, given away many other guides that didn't work for me, often because they were too prescriptive. I want to be encouraged to sit down and write, not told exactly how to do it. Elizabeth Berg's book is a keeper! I was hooked right from the beginning. I admire her honest, straight-forward and encouraging style and have enjoyed working through many of the exercises she suggests. I know I will be refering back to Escaping into the Open for many years. If you can only afford one book on writing...buy this one and save up for the other two.

The best thing about this book is the glimpse into the life of Elizabeth, herself. Her quirkiness and insight is delightful. There is no one whose advice as a writer I'd trust more (although Natalie Goldberg's Banana Rose is beautiful). Her book even includes inspirational fattening recipes! What a brilliant idea! And the writing exercises are fantastic--I really got into them. I must say that while I've read criticisms of her inclusion of her own life, I appreciated (reveled in, more specifically) the anecdotes of her personal experiences. This is a wonderful guide to writing, but it is also a captivating read.

I am a big fan of Elizabeth Berg's and I was thrilled to discover she had a book on writing. As a stay-at-home mother and published writer myself, it was wonderful to read about how Berg started. I was pleasantly surprised by the recipes at the end and I always enjoy Berg's direct, though quirky, sense of humor. I highly recommend this book, especially to women looking for some writing inspiration. This is the only book that I've read that has writing exercises I actually look forward to doing.

There's something mildly comforting about a new
Burke novel, because you should know what you're buying by now.
A twist on the hardboiled detective, an antihero with a heart
of pyrite, a hard exterior protecting a tough interior protecting
a broken inner child.

I've been in on the Burke novels since the first one, Flood,
was dropped in my lap. I kinda liked the half-assed detective
character, and I was willing to go along with Vachss' evolution
of the character and his environment, but this novel represents
a definitive "mining of the old".

It's just short of becoming a parody of itself, and I don't
like it. Vachss has stripped down his usual dialogue and
character interactions down to the bone; it's really as if he's
now writing these novels from a template, where he plugs in
the scenario and picks from the usual menu of plot devices.

Perhaps I'm simply tired of Burke's world. The Prof's rhyming
is truly awful now, and I no longer find it a simple thing to
suspend disbelief during most of the book. I think the only
character preserved from my broad brush happens to be Max,
and I suspect it's partly because he doesn't speak, but mostly,
because Vachss now treats him as a deus ex machina and as such,
he's mostly an object rather than a person.

I know this is not good news for loyal readers. However,
I have to write 'em like I see 'em, and this world has run its
course. Perhaps Vachss will take some time off, re-examine
where Burke is and where should be, and come up with something
fresh. He needs it.

This is another Burke story. Burke is a formidable man who has surrounded himself with a vast network of professionals. But Burke is a criminal and a highly organised one at that.

This story starts off with a favour for a fellow ex-con. The ex-con has accidentally killed an abusive husband whom he was supposed to be warning away from his battered wife. The story then quickly progresses to the safe house of the book's title and the battered women who are sheltered there. At first it appears that the rest of the book would be about Burke and his partners providing protection for these women, but before you know it, the focus shifts on to a neo-Nazi movement. With the constant changes of focus, I found the plot a little hard to follow as I tried to remember the motivation behind what was taking place.

This is hardboiled all the way as Burke displays a willingness to do just about anything as long as it means getting the job done. A little more attention to explaining what was going on and a little less to attitude would have gone a long way.

After the dogma and "preachiness" of False Allegations,
which wasn't necessarily bad, mind you, but a little long,
it's nice to see Vachss get back to the Basics.

Burke is back in full style, tough, hard-boiled, and a problem to solve.
The intricacies of the story, the development of the characters, the pay off at the ending
All these together prove that Vachss is becoming a better writer as he goes along.

IF you know Vachss, you won't be surprised here.
All the elements are here, the righteous indignation, the disgust with the legal system, and the notion of family.
All in all, with Safe House, M. Vachss brings us back to the hard-boiled character that we met in Flood. Great Read.

Some people yearn for a dog to keep them company, while others would rather curl up with a good book. _Open Me...I'm A Dog!_ is the perfect solution for those of us who could never decide which is better. The book's hero (as splendidly rendered by Art Spiegelman) is a very convincing dog--one look at his doleful eyes and jaunty tail makes that clear. Yet, this dog is such a born raconteur that his brilliant storytelling could only rank with the finest books (although he insists that he isn't really one). I suppose I should be sorry that such a great dog was turned into a book by an evil wizard...but if he hadn't been, I couldn't keep him in my college dormitory.

Really a one of a kind, 'come to life book'. The author really outdid himself this time in "Open Me, I'm a Dog". When I opened it for the first time at a book store, I couldn't believe what I read--a dog had somehow been transformed into the book that I held in my hands! Although this was no ordinary dog, he still felt just the same and could do (almost) the same things a normal dog could do (No other dog I know listens to me when I say "Sit...Stay" as much as this one did!). Like all dogs, this dog doesn't like to be alone, so I brought it home with me to show two of the kids that I babysit for. I told them "Guess what...I brought a dog home today". Anxiously, they looked around and the oldest one, who's 7, said "No, where is it?" and I pointed to the bag that held the book. We ended up reading that book over and over and over again, and they treat it like it's almost a real dog! (Or is it?) I highly recommend this book. It's like having a real dog around...only cheaper to care for.

THIS BOOK IS SO CUTE! MY NEICE LOVES IT! IT IS SUCH A CLEVERLY WRITTEN STORY ABOUT A DOG THAT GOES THROUGH SO MUCH.IT IS VERY FUNNY AND A CLASSIC THAT WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE IN ARE FAMILY LIBRARY! YOU'LL LOVE IT!

This is nothing less than a program for the propagation of STDs and misery, wrapped in reactionary religious dogma. Beware!

The preface says: "the previous generation pioneered in forgetting the oldest things. Perhaps this generation will pioneer in remembering them."

If you are looking for an alternative to Birth Control in your Christian marriage, this is the primer for you: a first-person account by a husband and wife team, Sam & Bethany Torode, on the merits of Natural Family Planning (NFP) in their marriage and a short survey on the fall from grace of contemporary Evangelical leadership in the realm of sexual intimacy and attitudes towards the procreation of children. This is a very well and personably written marriage account with grounding in the historical and doctrinal position of the Church through the ages, transcending any particular denominational affiliation. An exhilirating, joyful marriage primer to be recommended for engaged couples, newlyweds, and a sobering side-hand indictment of popular attitudes inside the Evangelical community.

This young couple articulately reflects a growing conscience across Christian denominations on the physical dangers of the birth control pill and on the spiritual benefits of listening to the wisdom of Christians who have gone before us. A hard hitting book that is destined to help rally a coalescing movement in the Protestant Evangelical world . The writers write with a comfort level that comes from growing up in the Evangelical church, but also from first-hand experience in rubbing shoulders with other living and genuine believers in the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic community. "We are not alone!" is the refreshing rallying spirit of this marriage primer.

This book has a "rage de vivre" that is refreshing, unequivocally prolife, and completely in sync with other Christians who have embraced and experienced the notion that in Christian marriage can be found joy and contentment as God intended it to be. Instead of a gradual dissapearance into oblivion, the Christian life is meant to be one of perpetual and exciting growth, and in the area of sexuality and the procreation of children, the Torodes leave no room for exception. This is the antidote to your average pre-marriage counseling book. It will make you believe in love all over again.

As a protestant who does not believe in using unnatural means of birth control, I too struggled to find resources outside the Catholic faith to educate myself. I ended up digging through and using what there was and just adapting it to my Protestant faith. I am thrilled that this very succinct, honest book is now available to share with my protestant friends. Don't assume from the get go that you know what the authors are going to say. Realize that the heart of what they are asking you to do is seek the heart of God concerning your birth control method. The reality is that most Christians don't even think twice about taking the pill or getting a depo-provera injection. It isn't something that they talk or pray about or really examine, it's just what everyone is doing so they do it too. And to the previous reviewer-- have you ever heard of monogamy? It means that you are with ONE person, not with one person AT A TIME. This book is for people who want to follow God's plan for sex and marriage and therefore do not have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases. Yes, that IS possible. My husband and I are proof of it. We married at ages 25 and 24 both virgins who have never given STD's a second thought.

There are many security books on the shelves today. Most of them describe the same hacker tools and methods. They don't get very technical and once you've read one, you've read them all. Building Open Source Network Security Tools is a different breed of security book.

Building Open Source Network Security Tools , just as the name suggests, is about how to build network security tools. This is a technical book, so you are going to have a little knowledge of C and your networking principles. This is definitely not a managers book.

First the book describes some basic principles in developing security software. This is a quick primer in case you have never been involved in software development. Next the book goes on to describe several commonly used libraries like libnet and libpcap. For each library, the structures and functions are explained, then there is sample code. I have written programs using libpcap and libnet before and I still learned something. There is even a section on OpenSSL programming. OpenSSL is a rather large and cryptic, no pun intended, library (in my experience anyways). This book sheds some light on it! These chapters are a great reference to have when making a new security tool.

The author then goes on to explain the several techniques like attack and penetration and active reconnaissance. Not only does the author tell you how they would in a technical sense, he provides code that does it, and explains each piece. This is very useful since most tools in the wild aren't very well commented ;) There is also a chapter on buffer overflows and format string vulnerabilities. These chapters are very well done and do a good job in explaining how they work and how to write code to use them. It may sound like this is an offensive hacker book, but it also gives examples on how to write defensive programs, like a port scan detection tool. At the end of the book the author ties it all together with a large program that utilizes many of the techniques mention in the book.

I found this book to be very refreshing. I had been waiting for a good security programming reference, and this is it. As a part of the Honeynet Project, I have seen a large number of compromises and tools, and one thing I've found is that in order to truly know who your enemy is, and how they operate, you need to know how their tools work. I wish this book had been released years ago when I first became interested in network security. It would have saved me from stumbling around old web pages and dead links. If you're an information security professional, this book is a must have for your library.

This exclusive book by Mike Schiffman, a recognized security authority, will not make a good bedtime reading even for the majority of hardcore security professionals. However, the value of this book is not in how fun it is to read, but in the amazing depth and breadth of network security material.

Starting from interesting and original security tool taxonomy - attack, active recon, passive recon and defense -, the book takes the steep road uphill towards the descriptions of several popular security libraries (two written by the book author himself). Libnet (packet injection), libpcap (packet capture), libnids (network IDS development), libsf (OS fingerprinting), libdnet (network parameters manipulation) and openssl (crypto) are covered in the excruciating level of detail. Code and API walkthrough, all functions, variables and primitives are covered complete with usage notes for various platforms. Each chapter is topped off by a complete security tool example, designed and developed using the library. Many pages of superbly commented tool source code are included in the chapter end.

Complete code is also provided at the publisher download site. Experimenting with the code is a good part of the fun brought by the book, so download is highly suggested.

The book is most useful for those wishing to gain truly in-depth understanding of network security tools and for aspiring tool builders. After all, the book is much easier to read and understand then just plain source, even if well commented.

Another bonus is a comprehensive description of buffer overflow and format string exploits, provided in the chapter on attacks and vulnerabilities.

The book ends with painfully detailed "firewalk" recon tool description, created by Mike Schiffman. It starts with design (with flowcharts and diagrams) and goes onwards to implementation and code walkthrough. 2200 lines of tool source code conclude this mighty volume.

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA is a Senior Security Analyst with a major information security company. His areas of infosec expertise include intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots, etc. In his spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org

This book was the perfect reference manual for the busy network administrator that needs to quickly create powerful tools to enforce and monitor network security. From concept to implementation Schiffman will give you a thorough understanding of why and how to create open-sourced security tools that you can start using immediately. Using this book as a reference I was able to create a customized network sniffer and a few vulnerability analysis tools. Another great addition to my library that I highly recommend.

For those of you who have short attention spans, this book contains easily the most complete, detailed, researched, and clearly expounded history of Linux, the Free Software Foundation, the open source movement, the hacker ethic, and most everything else that has been going on with computer geeks since the 1950s. If you're at all interested by what's happening in the "free as in speech" technology sector, this book is a dramatic must-read. Go and pick it up now.

If you're still with me, however, this book is absolutely plagued by the disease known as "technical writing". It's long been known that those who deal with computers and electronics on a day-to-day (hour-to-hour?) basis are not often the most linguistically inclined individuals. This "urban legend" is manifested predominantly in the work, taking its form through constant usage errors, many spelling errors, excruciatingly awkward prose (at times), and, although this is more of a non-issue considering the subject matter, just a little too much bias in one direction.

Just to show that I'm not making this up, Glyn Moody frequently refers to "X Window", rather than "X Windows" (even though that's technically incorrect), "XFree86", "X11", or the "X Windowing System". Other similar, subtle annoyances occur throughout the book, but make no mistake: they don't obscure Moody's points indecipherably, they just annoy. One of the sentences that forced me to question Moody's bias was from Chapter 11: "If the history of Microsoft shows anything, it is a dogged determination to improve its often inadequate first attempts at writing software, and Internet Explorer is no exception." This sentence, inserted just after describing Microsoft's assertions to the U.S. Department of Justice as "shameless", leaves the reader no choice but to second-guess Moody's intentions.

Is the book complete? Yes (at least, you won't find a more complete book around). Is the book perfect? No, and due to the frequency of grammatical and otherwise editorial errors, I have to reduce my would-be 5-star rating to 4. Do yourself a favor and read this (but if Perseus would release a corrected second edition, that'd be just fine with me :D).

As a side note, I'm a user of Linux and a supporter of the open source model. When you do read this book, you'll be forced to form an opinion of your own on software patents and the whole lot. I encourage you not to take the RMS standpoint of "free [open] is better, always", nor do I encourage you to take the Bill Gates standpoint of "protected code is better, always". Draw a useful parallel between the two opinions.

I very much enjoyed this book. Mr Moody writes well and entertainingly about the origins of the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Movement. The historic characters in the drama are well drawn and engaging. Time and again I'd remark 'So, that's where he/it came from!' as Moody traced the origin of Apache or Samba or Alan Cox. I was very much reminded of the excellent history of the PC 'Fire in the Valley' that traces the origins of the PC industry to where we find it today. I would recommend Rebel Code to someone interested in GNU/Linux and the inner workings of how it came to be. This is a book for the tech historian, not necessarily the hacker.
If I were to fault the book it would be that is is 3 years old. As such it misses the effect of the tech bust/recession on the Linux movement, and the growing successes it has achieved recently from the third world (e.g. China's Red Flag distribution) to supercomputing. I can only hope Mr. Moody will correct this fault with another edition.

I bought this book for my husband so he'll have to review it!