Open

Despite the florid language he chooses to use, Conger Beasley, Jr. writes compelling accounts of his travels, both recent and past. He explores not only places in the world: Cuba, Paris, Kansas, California; but also places in the mind and spirit. Each essay is based on a very different experience from the last, yet somehow, they all contrive to work together, with themes weaving lazily from one essay to the next, to make a compelling and well thought out book.

This is actually a great book for people who like to take short road trips and visit gardens in their area. It's basically a listing of "open houses" in people's private gardens. I like the fact that so many garden owners/enthusiasts are sharing their talents in gardening with the public. The book offers a description of each of the gardens, plus drivng directions, and the dates/times that the "open house" will be going on. It also lists tips on how to be polite when visiting the gardens. One thing I did not know when I purchased this book is that it does not have any pictures! So one must make the trip out to see for oneself and only on the days that are listed in the guidebook. No, you can't go just any time!

This charming book is based upon the true story of two 80-ish twins living in the historic "Gimghoul" neighborhood in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For 50+ years, the twin sisters have tended their garden. Each Spring, when the garden is ready for guests, the sisters hang a small wooden sign which states "the garden is open" on their gate. Hundreds of visitors stroll their garden paths, ask for advice, and sometimes return home with a cutting or a handful of seeds. Author Pamela Pease has done a fine job in sharing this wonderful story in this beautifully executed pop-up. Her illustrations are childlike and bold; a pop-up of the sisters' house and garden "blooms" amidst the pages, and a packet of seeds from the garden is tucked into the back. For gardeners (and children) of all ages!

Every year, the National Gardens Scheme Charitable Trust (www.ngs.org.uk) in the UK issues the "yellow book" listing details (dates, locations, composition of garden, entrance fee, etc.) about private gardens of England and Wales open to the public on special occasions when a sign will be posted saying "Garden Open Today." The 500+ page yellow book is a county by county guide to these gardens of "quality, character, and interest."

Beverly Nichols book GARDEN OPEN TODAY (first published in 1963) is the next best thing, a narrative tour describing his garden which before his death he opened occasionally to the public. The book is lovingly illustrated with 'whimsical' drawings by William McLaren (one photograph of Nichols and his friend Reginald Gaskin collecting money for charity at the entrance to the Nichols' grounds).

Nichols was a "real gardener" who worked side-by-side with several hired gardeners described in his earlier books, including MERRY HALL, LAUGHTER ON THE STAIR, and SUNLIGHT ON THE LAWN. If you haven't discovered Beverly Nichols and you love gardening and/or visiting gardens, you are in for a treat. His books are humorous and instructive, and definitely for cat lovers. (He wrote several books about cats). In GARDEN OPEN TODAY, he takes you step by step through his current garden (he moved a few times and wrote books about several gardens) pointing out some of the more interesting flowers and features.

As usual, the best bits of Nichols' book are anecdotal. His chapter on flower arrangers (apparently the bane of his existence) is hilarious. Nichols was a "loose bunch" kind of guy who detested those who "tortured" flowers in order to twist them into unnatural shapes. He often said that flowers were best left in the garden or picked for a loose and natural arrangement reflecting the perennial border. I suppose I get a big kick out his anti-arranger diatribes because I come from a family of garden club members and garden club founders and have had many encounters with the similar characters. However, almost anyone can appreciate Chapter 18. 'A matter of arrangement'

Nichols is a product of his times so his not-quite-politically-correct comments about women gardeners may rankle some, but those of us who grew up in less privileged times will be able to look past the semi-misogynist tone (and hopefully younger women too) and appreciated the interesting and informative material he includes. Besides, he spends more time on cats than women. I recommend this book for bedtime reading.

The author is knowledgable enough that one would assume he single-handedly developed GCC. Any doubts to his authoritativeness were quickly dismissed as I finished the introduction in this behemoth of a reference.

The Book is divided Into 3 parts(4 actually).

The first part delves into the reasons as to why? and what? regarding the creation/use of GCC. It also covers some incentives to continue through the book, which are later examined in detail. Installation, configuration, and usage is covered here. And covered quite well!

The second part details the mechanics of the compiler with tests and examples that take you through the workings of it. Mixing of different languages into one native-executable, experiments and understanding of the compiler's built in extensions/pragmas, and demystification of the command-line switches are all covered in this section. Also this section covers this in great detail as with the first part!

The third part of this book gets right into the fun stuff of learning how to properly set up configuration and make files. It covers a *great* deal of extra resources commonly found on systems with GCC installed and makes haste to demystify these as well. This was my favorite part of the book. I had no idea in the nine hells to even begin creation of 'configure' scripts manually(try reading the man/info pages for make and autoconf and watch your hairs get pulled out by your hands!). This section is concise and to the point!

Part 4 is an extremely important part of the book. This part covers ALL of the command-line switches and directives for use with GCC(and it's family of compilers). You learn where, when, and how to use the advanced functionality. A section in this part also covers all the environmental variables; this helps greatly when you are trying to figure out a perfect function/class/struct/call to do a procedure that ends up taking months...then you see here that a single variable contains actual data/info already!

All in all, this book is concise. I love it. It currently sits next to my Stroustrup(C++ Programming Language), Josuttis(C++ Standard Library), and Sedgewick(Algorithms in C++ 1-5). This book is upstanding. The only reason as to why I gave it 4/5 stars is because of the formatting. It reminds me of something you would find in a Prima Tech "Game Programming" book: large font, bulky, and divided. This is not the authors fault though since this same tasteless formatting is used in all other Osborne "Complete Reference" books.

NOTE: Do NOT get this book to learn C or C++. This book is for the intermediate to advanced programmer wanting to better optimize their usage of the GCC package.

Max Lucado is always such a simple writer, working with such complex subject matter. He makes learning about Christ, easy and understandable. I am getting this book for my mother for Christmas, she will love it.

This book is more than twenty years old now but the lessons it contains are timeless. I have not seen it for some years, but I recall that a group of top GMs (Gligoric, Hort, Evans & Larsen among them) collaborated on this book which ranges from the general principles of the opening through the development of a tournament repertoire. This is not an opening manual full of variations, but more an explanation of why moves are played. Somebody like Dover should reprint this book so a new generation of chess players can learn its lessons. If you can get a copy, buy it!

This book is all about the hydraulic engineering of open channel flows. It covers basic hydraulics, as well as unsteady flow situations.

The text starts with a review of the basic principles of fluid mechanics, then continue with the flow resistance calculations. The 5th chapter marks the start of the high-expertise engineering material covered in the next 9 chapters. Each section is well-documented and it becomes obvious that the author, Dr Sergio Montes, is himself a world expert in hydraulic engineering.

Except for one chapter (Chap. 12) on air entrainment that I found outdated, I enjoyed genuinely the book and I have already made good use of several parts. In my opinion, this book is the perfect reference for postgraduate students and hydraulic engineers working actively in the field.

It is an excellent introduction book for river and channel modeling.

I have been a fan of Sheila Solomon Klass for overr 30 years. We first met in Greenwich Village. I listened to her hilarious stories and thought "If she could only translate the spoken words...the stories she told so well (the language, the pace, the warmth, the humor) into written words, she would be more than successful. And she has done just just that according to the long list of her publications. "In A Cold Open Field" is a triumph for Sheila Solomon Klass. She combines all the strengths and virtues of her previous novels... her understanding, sympathy and ability to describe beautifully the human condition whether it occurs in Brooklyn, India or back in the early days of the america West. Her latest novel about the gypsy who cheats the mother of her hard-earned savings is hilarious and tragic all at the same time. I picked up the book and didn't put it down until the last page. Sheila Solomon Klass has given me many hours of pleasure, sustenance and fun.. thank you Sheila.. Ruth Daigon