PG

Wodehouse never seems to run out of plots, amusing characters, and hilarious diologue! "The Purloined Paperweight" is no exception. Revolving around an antique 18th century paperweight, collector with a mania for 18th century French paperweights, and the usual light romantic interests between several other characters, this book is sure amusement for several hours. As always with Wodehouse--be prepared to laugh!

This is the story of a small, rural county in California's Sierra foothills that had the temerity to sue a $26-billion corporation (Pacific Gas & Electric) for causing wildfires by its failure to keep tree limbs trimmed away from its high-voltage power lines.

I learned of the book when I happened to hear the author interviewed on the radio. I found it to be a very good read about an important legal case that is still having repercussions, and I strongly recommend it. A few excerpts can summarize the story better than I:

From the Foreword: "Bureaucratic enclaves, in government or business, thrive on privacy. People v. PG&E affords us a rare (and brief) opportunity to peer at the inner workings of a corporation that claims to be our benefactor. However, when the curtains part, we discover a cast of characters and a plot that would have suited Dickens or Runyon."

From the text: "[The book] recounts the unlikely tale of how one stubborn small-town deputy district attorney [Jenny Ross] single-handedly out-lawyered a crack team of big-city attorneys determined to save the nation's largest investor-owned utility from the ignominy of criminal prosecution."

In this landmark "David v. Goliath" case, PG&E was found guilty on 739 counts and fined $1.9 million. "The first count was the big one: It accused PG&E of violating Public Resources Code Section 4421 by causing a fire on the property of another without permission as the result of a tree limb-power line contact that started the Trauner Fire near Rough and Ready, burned 500 acres, destroyed a dozen buildings and wreaked $10-12 million in property damage.

"Ross claimed that PG&E knew for years that its tree-trimming cutbacks were creating the kind of serious fire dangers that led to the Trauner Fire. Nevertheless, the company continued to pocket the millions in annual profits produced by a deliberate do-nothing policy.

"From the start, the odds against Jenny Ross and the Nevada County District Attorney's Office were widely regarded as unfavorable. One prospective juror had neatly summarized public suspicions that the PG&E case was a waste of time and money, inasmuch as the lesson learned from the O. J. Simpson criminal trial was that the side with the most money wins."

Mr. Nadeau's writing is lively. My favorite line: "Diving air tankers were puking orange fire retardant on exploding trees." Another favorite: "'Pretty soon I'll clamp you in jail,' [Judge] Baker warned. And the suddenly alert bailiff rose from his chair, prepared to carry out the threat, and [co-counsel] Ward as well, if it came to it."

Why the odd title? Because this very unusual story also had an unusual setting: To house the trial, the county court rented the defunct Bouzy Rouge cabaret (which, because of its Victorian décor, had the ambiance of a Gold Rush bordello). Tom Nadeau is such a thorough investigative reporter that he even tracked down the meaning of the term Bouzy Rouge (something not even the locals knew) and reveals it at the end of the book.

This one begins at the Drones Club, just like several of the Bertie Wooster stories, but these are not the Wooster characters. But with wonderful names like the Biscuit, Torquil, Kitchie, and Merwyn Flock, PGW does use some of his usual character types and plot lines: couples engaged to the wrong people, young men needing money. This is good vintage Wodehouse and a rather complex novel, not just a series of stories thrown together. And it was a lot of fun. But give me Bertie Wooster any day!

I enjoy all of P.G. Wodehouse's novels, and this one is just great. I really liked it. The story kept me interested. If you like a book that's funny and witty here's the book for you.

This 1931 novel has long been one of my favorites among Wodehouse's many novels. It's a mix of farce and romantic comedy; whereas in much of Wodehouse's later work, the love plots seem almost perfunctory, here the romance between English Berry Conway and American Ann Moon (Wodehouse loved to work in trans-continental romances for his American readers) takes up much of the novel and is given a sweetness and warmth not always apparent in Wodehouse's funny, but sometimes slightly mechanical, post-WWII work. Of course, there's plenty of farcical action too, including many inspired sequences set in Wodehouse's "Valley Fields" (a thinly disguised version of the London suburb Dulwich). The hilarious chapter in which Lord Hoddesdon visits Valley Fields - and runs into a menacing fellow with an admiration for Stalin - is alone worth the price of this wonderful book.

Scotch Whisky by Charles MacLean is a comprehensive guide about the different single malt and blended Scotch whiskies available. It starts with a short history about Scotch whisky and goes on to the making, the regional differences and how to appreciate this very traditional Scottish drink. This is followed by a listing of all the different single malt whiskies and blended whiskies. Each of them is listed by category, distiller and owner. There is also a description of the history of the whisky as well as tasting notes. This guide to whisky is excellent reading for those interested in whisky from the connoisseur to the enthusiastic amateur. And, of course, this book is always a superb gift which is usually very much appreciated.

An excellent little guide to the making and tasting of Scotch whisky, both single malt (81 pages) and blended (94 pages). After the introductory chapters on the history, making, and appreciation of whisky, brief (2-5 paragraphs) descriptions of each whisky are listed. There is an emphasis on the history of the distillery; this makes it an ideal travel book. The book is part of the "Mitchell-Beazley Pocket Guides," so can be kept easily in a purse or coat pocket (and, yes, the print is legible but quite small).

The tasting descriptions are generally well within the limits of reasonable subjectivity. (Example: The Macallan 12--"...usually full and well-rounded, reminiscent of old Armagnac: sherry, fruit...a hint of wood, clean, intense..."). I think Paul Pacult's "Kindred Spirits" is the better book, however: The tasting notes seem more accurate, and the grading system gives you an idea of his opinion of one scotch versus another. There is no such rating system here.

The notes are necessarily brief for a "pocket guide" and often describe only one vintage (e.g., a 12-year old). However, the notes for the notorious Laphroaig (peat smoke, tar, diesel oil, seaweed, iodine, salt") don't state whether it's the 10-, 12-, or 15-year old that is being evaluated. All in all, however, the author, a renowned authority on whisky, knows his scotch, and conveys well the essential elements of nose, body, taste, and finish.

There is a fairly heavy emphasis on the industry, including a list of top selling brands, prices fetched at auction (!), and the transfer of distillery ownership. There is a nice list of distilleries, locations, and telephone numbers for those planning a scotch tasting excursion, and a good (but dated) bibliography. Recommended particularly for those who want a portable reference book, or who have a special interest in distillery history.

This is a pocket size book with detailed descriptions of numerous Scotch Whiskies, single malts and blends. It briefly provides a history of the distillery and most helpful, detailed tasting notes on each whisky. Charles MacLean is a well known and highly respected expert in whiskies. This book makes an excellent companion to Michael Jackson's "must have" book on Single Malt Scotch Whisky giving the reader another experts perspective on the wide variety of flavors in Scotch Whisky. The print in this book is very small, at times hard to read, but the information makes it worth finding your glasses. This book is one of three books on Scotch Malt Whisky I would not want to be without. If you've come this far, buy the book, I know you'll enjoy it.

In format, this book is not dissimilar to Parker's Burgundy or Coates' Cote d'Or (i.e., listings by appellation, listing by producer, etc.). It is nowhere near as comprehensive as either of the aforementioned works (both of which I highly recommend), however, it does not try to be. It does provide succinct overviews of the major districts and producers. Serena Sutcliffe, a Master of Wine, is very knowledgeable about her subject. It is worth buying the book just to get her perspective. The greatest negative about the book is the small type. This may be personal to me, but I read wine books for enjoyment, and I find that the very small type of this book diminishes that enjoyment.

Although Coates' "The Cote d'Or" is the indispensable (and massive) reference for Burgundy wines, Sutcliffe's pocket-size book is an excellent introduction to the subject. I'm impressed at the author's ability to be both concise and comprehensive, as well as to make her very definite opinions known. I especially appreciate her introduction to the concept of "terroir", and her descriptions of the soil in each village and appellation -- critical to understanding the character of Burgundy wine. I received my copy of this book as an end-of-tour gift from the guide who led our group of nine through Burgundy last month. She recommended it highly, and the ensuing 10 days have led me to agree with her.

With the answers printed in the back, it is easy to learn from your mistakes in this fairly easy spanish workbook. The lab section, with accompanying tapes available in my school library, was a great review before the test, but it was frustrating sometimes that the answers weren't published or graded my my teacher.
Easily, this could be used in coordination with a text for a class, or alone as an outside review source.

This series (published annually) is an extremely handy way to identify and value U.S. stamps. Color photographs of nearly every U.S. definitive and commemorative stamp, along with prices for used and unused varieties and Scott catalog numbers, makes the book valuable by itself. Add to that its convenient "pocket sized" dimensions, and it's a very good carry-along to stamp shows and dealers. Even includes check-mark areas so you can catalog what you already have, or for marking your "want list."

A very comoprehensive book for opera beginners, students, quick reminders before you attend the actual concert. Very good information includes the number of acts, who is the libretto, when was it premiered, where...etc! It's definitely a good book to keep for quick reference.

The book seems to be written by a bunch of programmer who wrote some explanation around some of their already existing code.

Problem is that the book is so poorly indexed, that even though it covers examples in many subjects, unless you are willing to thumb through the entire book each time you need to look something up ... you won't find it.

Examples include: parameterized queries, combo boxes and even tool tips. Items such as these are covered, but not indexed, making the book almost useless as a reference guide. The book seems to cover a few high level subjects, without discussing much of the necessary foundation ground work of C#/Microsoft programming.

I'd like to say that the code examples are the best part about the book. Also, it seems that the introduction started out very well, providing a great overview of ADO.NET. Yes, and XML, web forms, windows forms, web services/SOAP, and other useful sounding technologies are covered.

The book's documentation of the code, however, was very disappointing. It seems as though someone wrote the code, and someone else did their best to document the code. And did a poor job at that. There were too many generalized one liners for very important snippets of code. And the documenter seems to ramble from generalized explaination to explaination. It also, seems as though the vs.net environment was heavily de-emphasized to the point of doing busy work. For example, at one point the book discusses typing a data bound XML schema into a schema document without describing the XML hierarchy that uses complex and choice elements.(You wonder, "is this required every time I want to render a database in vs.net using XML?"). Just to find out by hunting around in the vs.net GUI that you can drag and drop the database table directly from server explorer to the schema and have the XML identically rendered--taking less than a minute to do so(realizing at the same time that vs.net creates the XML schema that way so it can work with the data effectively).

If you want to learn ADO.NET in a concrete and complete fashion, you're better off starting with Microsoft Q article Q313590 that will point you to even more informative ADO.NET Q articles... (WROX, please learn something from the clarity and brevity and completeness of these Q articles) Otherwise you may be tempted to scower this book to search through its pages hunting for clues that it simply does not contain--wasting precious time for catching up on new technologies.

My hat's off, though, to whoever really wrote the code examples. There's definitely plenty to learn from there from both a C# and ADO.NET perspective. However, you're better off simply downloading the code from the Wrox site for free and stepping through it in a vs.net project. They really did a reasonable job packaging the code for ready utilization.

I did give the book two stars. That's because I paid 60 dollars for it. Please add a star for each additional 12 dollars taken off the book. At 24 dollars, this book would be five stars. It does contain valuable code samples and good introductory information. Unfortunately, I'm having to put the book aside because learning is faster, more efficient, and easier to memorize with Microsoft's Q articles and vs.net's help documentation. Sorry WROX, I love to love your stuff, but your programmers need to add writing to their already wonderful skillset. You could try catching this, though, in author review...before the book is published.

Data-Centric .NET Programming with C#.

This book is about using .NET technologies to work with data, since data can reside in different forms at different places, this book focuses on :

1.Databases.
2.XML / XSL.
3.Directory Services.
4.Messaging Services.
5.Files.
6.Legacy Systems.

Spends 4 chapters on "Databases", 2 on "XML/XSL", 1 on "Directory Services", 1 on "Messaging Services" and 1 on "Files/Registry". Rest of the book contains a chapter on "Web Services" and 3 very useful case studies.

Now just in case if you are an ASP.NET developer and are wondering if there is something in it for me, the answer is "yes and no". I said "yes" because you'll learn how to work with different forms of data and I said "no" because you won't learn anything specifically related to ASP.NET in it. All the code examples that are given only marginally touch ASP.NET ( and that also mainly "Web Services" ), they mostly make use of GUI clients and programs to do all the processing. This is one important thing you should keep in mind, if you haven't developed any GUI client applications ( like me ), there is going to be lot of new stuff for you. Now this is not something bad, as after reading this I not only learned how to work with data but also "how to build GUI clients using C#". Having said that if you know a bit of ASP.NET, you can change the applications from GUI front-ends to ASP.NET pages with little effort.

The topics that this book covers are pretty huge and would take separate books to be discussed thoroughly. But I think that the Wrox team has done an excellent job by covering them in a single book.

The chapters on ADO.NET cover topics like 'what is ADO?', 'how does ADO compare to ADO.NET?', 'OleDb and SqlClient Namespaces', 'DataSet, DataReader and DataAdapter classes', 'Connected and Disconnected Data', 'ADO.NET and XML', 'Using Visual Studio to build Windows Forms', 'Displaying, Editing, Inserting and Deleting Data', 'Connection Pooling', 'Integration with COM+', 'Object Pooling', 'Distributed Transaction Processing' and 'Serviced Components in .NET'.

The chapters on XML/XSL cover topics like 'Using MSXML', 'System.XML Namespace', 'Reading and Writing XML files', 'Creating Windows Forms to Display and Edit XML Data', 'Validating XML', 'XML and ADO.NET', 'Schemas', 'XPath and XSLT' and 'Navigating and Transforming XML'.

The chapter on Directory Services includes topics like 'What is Directory Service?', 'What can Directory Services be used for?', 'System.DirectoryServices Namespace', 'Accessing Directory Services', 'Windows Client Application', 'Accessing the Active Directory', 'Using ADSI', 'Searching', 'Publishing Services', 'Deleting the Service', 'Registering the Service' and 'Searching the Service'.

The chapter on Messaging Services includes topics like 'What are Messaging Services?', 'Where to use Messaging Services?', 'Message Queuing Features', 'Message Queuing Architecture', 'Message Queuing Administrative Tools', 'Programming Message Queuing', 'System.Messaging Namespace', 'Creating Message Queues Programmatically', 'Finding a Queue', 'Sending Messages to Queues', 'Receiving Messages from Queues', 'Transactional Queues', 'Queued Components' and 'COM+ Services'.

The chapter on Files, Serialization and Registry Operations contains topics like 'System.IO Namespace', 'Reading and Writing data to files', 'Synchronous and Asynchronous Data Access', 'Cryptography', 'Isolated Storage', 'Object Serialization', 'XML Serialization' and 'Registry'.

All in all this is a very good book and I give this book 4/5 points and recommend it to any developer seriously interested in .NET C# programming.

This is a comprehensive book on the subject of coin grading, and much of the information I am looking for is here. But they don't list all the conditions you would expect to find. A typical coin might have good, fine and extra fine, but lack very good and very fine. So what is a very fine coin worth, halfway between fine and extra fine? Darned if I know.

I read an outdated 1992 version of this book when I first began collecting coins. It was invaluable in my search for decent well-priced, honest-graded coins. I think that anyone who wants to find the value of their coins, ar just learn a little about the hobby, shod read this book.