Customer Reviews:
Big Beat Heat.......2006-09-24
This is a good book about the life of legendary DJ Alan Freed. His personal life, as a radio and tv host and as promotor of his own concerts around the east coast.
His failures seem to have caused his downfall, a terrible riot during a show in Boston for which he was indicted and also payola, receiving money to play records. Both cases cost him a lot of money and pain.
He was married three times, unfortunately the last two wives refused to talk to the author. Jackson says that his third wife Inga was also a heavy drinker, which did not help at all. He died in 1965, only 44 years old
explains a lot!.......2006-05-12
I really enjoyed this book. Several personal stories about Alan Freed provide insight into his life. The writer does a good job of explaining the historical events/context that surrounded Freed's life. It's a shame Freed didn't live longer to see what he contributed to popular music.
Book Description
The Big Heat first appeared in 1953, towards the end of the film noir cycle that had begun in the early '40s. It was greeted in the United States and Britain as a successful but modest product of the Hollywood system, "slickly written and directed" in the words of one critic. Only the extreme violence, as in the infamous scalding coffee scene, was singled out for special mention. Yet by the time the film was reissued in Britain in 1988 it had achieved undisputed classic status.
How had this transformation come about? Colin McArthur takes The Big Heat as a case study in film criticism. He examines the film's changing critical fortunes under the influence of the so called auteur theory, and shows how other intellectual currents led to a reassessment of Lang's work in the 1970s. McArthur provides his own perceptive analysis of the film in the light of these revolutions in film criticism.
Customer Reviews:
Beware chapter 4.......2006-01-13
With one flaw, this is a very good book.
McArthur's discussion of Fritz Lang's classic film noir begins quite strongly, with a discussion of the source novel. (Which was written by a man who would later help write the original Kojak TV series.) Mc Arthur then gives details about the filming, and how The Big Heat was originally received, and how it is currently considered.
Then in Chapter 4, the book goes off the rails. McArthur had written of The Big Heat in a book published in the early 70s. He uses Chapter 4 to trace the development of British film criticism, which he sees as first poisoned by elitism and now by an academic obscurantism. The reader sees his point, but this is hardly the place to deal with this issue.
Chapter 5 is a terrific examination of the film, looking at what Fritz Lang brought to its realization, but the excitement of the earlier part of the book has been lost.
Overall, a good, but flawed, entry in the BFI series.
Average customer rating:
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Night of the big heat
John Lymington
Manufacturer: Dutton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B0007EC0VG |
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The Big Heat
William P. McGivern
Manufacturer: I Books
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0743452704 |
Book Description
MURDER WAS IN THE AIR. A COP HAD KILLED HIMSELF, AND EVERY CROOK IN TOWN KNEW THAT WOULD BE SURE TO BRING ON THE BIG HEAT.
Why did they fear a dead man? Dave Bannion, homicide sergeant, fought for the answer to that question. The dead man was a police clerk who shot himself for no obvious reason. That was Bannion's first judgment, until a girl named Lucy presented a quite different picture of the dead man from the one he had shown to the world and to his fastidious, glacial wife.
Bannion's chief, Lieutenant Wilks, wanted the case closed and speculation ended quickly and tightly. So did Max Stone and Lagana, who held the city in a sinister, underworld grip. But why?
Why did they all fear a dead man . . . ?
Product Description
Legendary guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Hubert Sumlin, T-Bone Walker, Johnnie Winter, Albert King, Freddie King, and Chuck Berry are known to all blues fans for their remarkable soloing abilities.
But the complete blues guitarist must do more than shine in the solo spotlight. And that is why every great soloist is also a great fill-in player.
Tasteful fill-in licks support and inspire the singer while adding fire and drive to the performance. For example, Blind Lemon Jeffersons string-snapping fill-ins provided the perfect complement for his rough-hewn blues songs. Both Louis Armstrong and Lester Young seemed to talk to the singer with their finely-crafted, jazzy fill-ins. And Henry Sunflower Vestines stinging, buzzsaw fill-ins never failed to drive his Canned Heat bandmates into a psychedelic frenzy.
This book is accompanied by a user-friendly split-track CD allows you to sit in with a professional blues band while you learn to play blues fills behind a great singer, Charles Adkins. The Heat-Seeking Missile Blues Band is heard on the left channel; the fill-in licks are isolated on the right channel.
This is not just another book of abstract how do I use these licks in real life? licks, but a collection of solid musical ideas that can be applied to thousands of real songs. Another fine contribution from Red Dog Music Books, designed for the early intermediate-to intermediate guitarist. Some of the licks are accessible to highly motivated near-beginners, and the book is an excellent resource for teachers.
Product Description
A turnaround lick is one that is played in the last two bars of of chord progression; for example measures 11-12 in a twelve-bar blues. The 101 authentic blues turnarounds in this book are in the Chicago, or urban, blues style popularized by Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, and carried on by Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan; the licks can be applied to thousands of real songs. Each lick is written in notation and tablature, and recorded on the companion CD. The material is suitable for an ambitious beginner, intermediate player, blues band guitarist, or pro reference. It is an indispensible book filled with useful information. The book is supplemented with lessons/discussions on the following: Typical blues progression; Turnaround licks and progressions (defined); Typical blues turnaround chord progressions; The 12/8 blues shuffle; Creative projects for the music student; Additional blues progressions. Best of all, this innovative Red Dog Music book from veteran author Larry McCabe costs less than one private music lesson!
Product Description
This superb Red Dog Music Book and CD allows you to learn/play slide guitar fill-ins while sitting in with a crisply recorded blues band and singer. The licks are clearly written in standard notation and tablature, and the companion CD contains all 101 licks, which are applicable to countless blues songs. A guide to symbols and several helpful fretboard diagrams are included. The licks are recorded on electric guitar but can also be played on acoustic. Overall, a very fine book that will provide unlimited learning and enjoyment. Many slide guitar books are confusing because they try to cover too many tunings. Everything here is in open E. Songs include standards such as Joe Turner Blues, St. Louis Blues, Sportin Life Blues, House of the Rising Sun, Midnight Special, along with several new songs written to standard blues changes. Like Hound Dog Taylor, J.B. Hutton, and Elmore James? Then you will like this book.
Average customer rating:
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The Big Heat
William P. McGivern
Manufacturer: I Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 1416504974 |
Book Description
MURDER WAS IN THE AIR. A COP HAD KILLED HIMSELF, AND EVERY CROOK IN TOWN KNEW THAT WOULD BE SURE TO BRING ON THE BIG HEAT. Why did they fear a dead man? Dave Bannion, homicide sergeant, fought for the answer to that question. The dead man was a police clerk who shot himself for no obvious reason. That was Bannion's first judgment, until a girl named Lucy presented a quite different picture of the dead man from the one he had shown to the world and to his fastidious, glacial wife. Bannion's chief, Lieutenant Wilks, wanted the case closed and speculation ended quickly and tightly. So did Max Stone and Lagana, who held the city in a sinister, underworld grip. But why? Why did they all fear a dead man . . . ?
Average customer rating:
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The Big Heat
Manufacturer: Pyramid Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000H01KD4 |
Book Description
Beginning beneath the walls of Troy and culminating in 1930s Europe, a magisterial exploration of the nature of heroism in Western civilization.
Our need for heroes is a timeless phenomenon; from ancient Greece to September 11, we have always looked to great figures for inspiration and leadership. In this riveting and insightful cultural history, Lucy Hughes-Hallett brings to life eight exceptional men from history and myth whose outsized accomplishments made them heroes of their times.
Alcibiades was Athens’s most dazzling citizen but an incorrigible traitor. El Cid was an invincible but self-interested warlord. Albrecht von Wallenstein terrified both enemies and allies in the Thirty Years’ War. Despite their flaws, all three were celebrated as superhuman paragons of virility. We see them in contrast to heroes of a different kind: Cato, the stubborn opponent of dictatorship; Sir Francis Drake, who used wit instead of might to defeat the Spanish; and Giuseppe Garibaldi, the gallant revolutionary and international celebrity. Framing these six men are the two paradigmatic Homeric heroes: Achilles, who sacrificed his life for glory, and Odysseus, who lied and cheated and stole, doing anything to survive.
As Hughes-Hallett vividly re-creates these extraordinary lives, she illuminates the attractions and dangers of hero worship. This is a fascinating book about dictatorship and democracy, seduction and mass hysteria, politics and culture, and the eternal tension between the Achillean glorification of death and the Odyssean affirmation of life.
Customer Reviews:
Erudite and enjoyable.......2005-09-26
This is an erudite and quite fun history of several men who I didn't know that much about before, such as Garibaldi and Wallenstein. The others, especially Alcibiades and Cato, and Drake, I was already fairly familiar with from reading some ancient and other history.
The careers and personalities of of this diverse group of men are examined in the light of the question, "What makes men truly great?" This is a more difficult question to answer than one might think. The author points out that Alcibiades, despite being a traitor to Athens, still was not despised and was feared and more respected by the ancient Greeks, since they believed that a truly great man was above and could transcend the more humdrum moral exigencies of the common people. And although we regard Odysseus as a strong, brave, and courageous ancient Greek who survived many amazing calamities and adventures, Odysseus was regarded by the ancient Greeks more as a corruptor of innocence than a true hero in that sense.
If you're a reader of Greek and Roman history much of this section will already be familiar to you, but I'm not and I especially enjoyed the discussions of life in Sparta. I knew they lived especially ascetically and their marriage customs were strange, but that was it. Apparently, they lived on a unbiquitous black broth, made love in the dark (the woman often never knowing what her husband looked like), and had other odd customs. For example, boys were deliberately fed less then needed to sustain them so they would be forced to steal food to survive. But they were only whipped if they were caught. And girls were made to sing nude at noon in the marketplace, as this was thought to promote modesty. The author states that the girls were also fed one seventh the amount of food of the boys, but this is clearly not possible since no one could possibly survive that way.
Despite how we might view such customs today, the ancient Spartans were looked upon by the other Greeks as exemplars of a noble, virile, and ascetic life that harkened back to an earlier and simpler era, and the Spartans were respected for that as well as their military skill and discipline. The early Renaissance writers such as Petronius and Dante similarly regarded Virgil's poetry as representing a noble and pastoralic way of life that they nostalgically over-romantized themselves.
The other chapters on Drake, Garibaldi, and Wallenstein were also enjoyable, and I can recommend the book as a fine introduction to not only the lives of these men, but you will learn quite a bit of the history of each period as well. For example, I didn't know that much about the time of the 30 Years War, except that when it ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, that was when Switzerland first gained its independence, and France got Alsace and Holland. But this was the era when Wallenstein was rampaging around the countryside terrifying both friend and foe.
As the editorial review states, " To exalt scoundrels like Drake or Wallenstein is to challenge our modern dictum that all are created equal; recognizing this, Hughes-Hallett appends a cautionary coda about the antidemocratic legacy of these Nietzschean "supermen." She notes that a hero needn't be virtuous; he need only "inspire confidence and... appear, not good necessarily, but great." Compellingly portraying her heroes, Hughes-Hallett is equally brilliant in evoking both the allure and the danger of hero worship."
I completely agree with this assessment and would point out that one need only look to the last century with leaders such as Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and so on, to show that 2000 years after the ancient Greeks, people are still predisposed to follow great leaders down the primrose path to their ultimate destruction if they are not very careful. Thus, the book serves as a timely warning on the dangers of heroic scoundrels and charismatic demogogues, and the dangers of raw, unchecked, political power.
Finally, the book is brilliantly written and Hughes-Hallett can turn a phrase with the best of them, somestimes dashing off comments with a truly ironic and even mordant wit that are a delight to read (as well as being grateful one's own life didn't become the object of her scrutiny, since few of us are saints :-)). So as I said, all in all a very erudite, informative, and enjoyable book on history.
Book Description
Sixty-four million people do it at least once a week. Nabokov wrote about it. Bill Clinton even did it in the White House. The crossword puzzle has arguably been our national obsession since its birth almost a century ago. Now, in Crossworld, writer, translator, and lifelong puzzler Marc Romano goes where no Number 2 pencil has gone before, as he delves into the minds of the world’s cleverest crossword creators and puzzlers, and sets out on his own quest to join their ranks.
While covering the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament for the Boston Globe, Romano was amazed by the skill of the competitors and astonished by the cast of characters he came across—like Will Shortz, beloved editor of the New York Times puzzle and the only academically accredited “enigmatologist” (puzzle scholar); Stanley Newman, Newsday’s puzzle editor and the fastest solver in the world; and Brendan Emmett Quigley, the wickedly gifted puzzle constructer and the Virgil to Marc’s Dante in his travels through the crossword inferno.
Chronicling his own journey into the world of puzzling—even providing tips on how to improve crosswording skills—Romano tells the story of crosswords and word puzzles themselves, and of the colorful people who make them, solve them, and occasionally become consumed by them.
But saying this is a book about puzzles is to tell only half the story. It is also an explanation into what crosswords tell us about ourselves—about the world we live in, the cultures that nurture us, and the different ways we think and learn. If you’re a puzzler, Crossworld will enthrall you. If you have no idea why your spouse send so much time filling letters into little white squares, Crossworld will tell you – and with luck, save your marriage.
CROSSWORLD | by Marc Romano
ACROSS
1. I am hopelessly addicted to the New York Times crossword puzzle.
2. Like many addicts, I was reluctant to admit I have a problem.
3. The hints I was heading for trouble came, at first, only occasionally.
4. The moments of panic when I realized that I might not get my fix on a given day.
5. The toll on relationships.
6. The strained friendships.
7. The lost hours I could have used to do something more productive.
8. It gets worse, too.
DOWN
1.
You’re not just playing a game.
2. You’re constantly broadening your intellectual horizons.
3. You spend a lot of time looking at and learning about the world around you.
4. You have to if you want to develop the accumulated store of factual information you’ll need to get through a crossword puzzle.
5. Puzzle people are nice because they have to be.
6. The more you know about the world, the more you tend to give all things in it the benefit of the doubt before deciding if you like them or not.
7. I’m not saying that all crossword lovers are honest folk dripping with goodness.
8. I would say, though, that if I had to toss my keys and wallet to someone before jumping off a pier to save a drowning girl, I’d look for the fellow in the crowd with the daily crossword in his hand.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting but the false modesty and arrogance overwhelm.......2007-10-01
I really want to rate this 2.5 stars.
Do you have a friend who says things like, "Yes, I may have gotten 800 on the math SAT but I only got an embarrassing 690 verbal?" If so, then you might be able to tolerate Romano's prose. If not, be forewarned: unless you can complete the Saturday New York Times puzzle in 10 minutes, you will be put in your place over and over by his false modesty. He says things along the lines of "It once took me a humiliating 20 minutes to do a Saturday NYT puzzle." If it's humiliating for him, what's that mean to the rest of us? He goes further to make-fun of and out-right condemn anyone who doesn't follow is own code of crossword conduct. If you look a word up, you're cheating and he can't imagine why you would do that. (Perhaps so you can learn words you don't know? Maybe to fill in a tough spot in the puzzle so you can continue to finish the rest of it and still have fun?) He implies that this is akin to just copying the answers from the next day's paper.
There are also "facts" that I really have to question. He says he can finish a Monday puzzle in something like 60 seconds. It would take longer than that just to write the answers down if someone were reading the clues to you. Add in the time to flick your eyes from the clues to the grid and it becomes absurd. I can speed read but your comprehension deceases when you do. In a crossword puzzle, there's no context to help you when you misread a word. One letter difference changes the meaning entirely. In addition, even the easiest puzzles have clues that have more than one answer that is commonly used (genetic material can be RNA or DNA; mid-east leader can be EMIR or AMIR or any of a number of different spellings; there are several five letter "GREEK LETTER"s.) It takes time to go back. Even doing a "World's Easiest Crossword"-level puzzle that uses a 6th grade vocabulary and no words over 5 letters and reading only the across clues (not needing to read the down clues) would take me more than 60 seconds to fill out if my writing were to actually be remotely legible and in the correct little boxes. (But then, I'm a moron-- I'm only a Wednesday/Thursday-level solver.) I guess Romano is some freaky genius who not only can read and write in tiny boxes elsewhere on the page at the same time but he has ESP and always knows exactly what the puzzle author was thinking when composing the crossword.
Given that, there is a lot of interesting information about the history of the New York Times Crossword puzzle in general and Will Shortz, its current editor, in particular. I came to respect, admire and actually like Shortz, who comes off as a nice, reasonable, easy-going fellow. There's information about who creates these teasers, the difference in puzzles across the Atlantic, and the anatomy of a puzzle. I also found the description of what a crossword puzzle tournament is like and the quirky people who attend to be entertaining.
I found myself over and over wishing this had been written by someone else who couldn't possibly compete in the tournament (or would come in last) or that Romano had left his own role out of it and was more objective. While personal anecdotes and opinions can add to a story, make it more human, his arrogance and randiness (he is constantly on the prowl) are not just distracting, they're offensive. Instead of being appropriately impressed by and interested in all the contestants who compete (I think even the person who comes in last place is probably pretty darn good) I could only focus on him. By the time I finished the book I almost gave up solving puzzles because I felt like any reasonable person would realize I am too stupid and ignorant for real crossword puzzles and would be better off sticking to E-Z word searches and connect-the-dots.
There's no doubt Romano is extremely intelligent-- he is this expert solver and he implies English isn't even his native language. But does he have to rub it in every other sentence?
Last thoughts: the book was a little longer than it needed to be but it does include almost all of the puzzles from the competition, which was fabulous. I would have liked to see a few more puzzles, perhaps a sample from the New York Times for each day of the week and puzzles from some of the other publications (very briefly) mentioned like the Washington Post. While I certainly didn't buy the book for the puzzles, it would be very interesting to compare methodologies. I would have liked Romano to spend a little more time discussing puzzles in other papers. Also, acknowledging that people have to start somewhere and encouraging people to improve their skills with recommendations on how to do so would have been much more appropriate than his constant bragging. Then he might help people discover just how fun it is to do this pastime, recruiting people to the game rather than making people feel like outsiders who shouldn't even try.
One more thing: He denigrates Sudoku as being just a "math puzzle" (what's wrong with math puzzles?) but Sudoku has absolutely nothing to do with math. There is no math involved at all. Any 9 characters or shapes would do. I've seen some using letters. Numbers are just easiest for us to recognize and pattern quickly, not to mention that it crosses language barriers by using Anglo-Saxon numerals which are more commonly used than the English alphabet. Sudoku is first and foremost a logic puzzle and could appeal to even a word smith who hasn't completed 3rd grade math.
So, to sum up, I don't recommend this book. Watch the movie "Wordplay" Wordplayabout the tournament. Or better yet, Will Sholtz wrote a companion book to the movie Wordplay: The Official Companion Bookwhich I haven't read but might be a better insight in to the tourney. I can't believe it could be worse.
Interesting but grows tiresome.......2006-11-21
Romano, a longtime crossword fan, competes in the 2004 American Crossword Tournament in a Stamford, CT chain hotel. Within the tournament narrative, Romano discusses the history of the New York Times crossword puzzle and explores the personalities of many current constructors. Unfortnately, Romano's repeated self-promotion quickly grows tiresome. He constantly cites his streak of solving the NYT Sunday puzzle in less than 20 minutes and on page 189 claims to reread 'Gravity's Rainbow' every 2 years. He even implies that he could place much higher in the competition if he had approached it in a more serious manner. The book lauds NYT crossword editor Will Shortz (Shortz's entry fills 5% of the index) and the cover awkwardly features a rave from Shortz calling the text 'intelligent, literate and funny'.
Have You Heard about the Lonesone Loser?.......2006-09-12
On pages 105 and 106 of the paperback edition of "Cross World," some veteran puzzlers sit around with the author of the book and attempt to develop an anagram from the letters of his name. For instance, one of the puzzlers, Peter Gordon, uses the nom de plume "Ogden Porter" when it suits his fancy. The author suggests that finding a suitable anagram for "Marc Romano" was a tall order, but I think the group was just being kind. "Marc A. Moron" is the obvious solution. Or, if you allow "carma" as a variant of "karma," as Will Shortz would no doubt allow, then "Moron Carma" works out very well, too.
"Cross World" is at best an essay or a magazine article in THE ATLANTIC or THE NEW YORKER, where people poke sticks at the real world and grimace horribly. The book's subject matter hardly justifies its length, and a kind editor might have trimmed a great deal of the empty philosophy and the over-the-top repetition. Of course, such an editor would have been obliged to deal with the author's ego. And wrestling that overweight gorilla to the ground may have been a feat no editor cared to attempt.
The ego is huge indeed. Prepare to be regaled with how fast the author can solve puzzles, how easier crosswords are beneath his contempt, how too clever by half he is, etc., etc., etc. If a person is coming to crossword puzzles for the first time, this book might serve as an inspiration to choose another hobby. Can all puzzle solvers be such boors/bores?
The meat of the essay, er, book, is the annual crossword puzzle contest in Stamford, Connecticut. Understanding what goes on there may actually hold some interest for the outsider. Unfortunately, this learning experience is tainted with the interjection of the author's personal experiences. He is so obnoxiously competitive that it's difficult to recall that crossword puzzles were devised as a means of intellectual entertainment. Who cares who's best? Did you have fun?
At the end of "Cross World" are the puzzles from the 2004 Stamford competition. The reader can try to solve them in the prescribed time limit, then spend another five to ten minutes leafing back through the book to find the page on which the author describes how the scoring works. Of course, in his endless quest to display his brilliance and to extend his magazine article to more than 200 pages, he gives away many of the answers, which somehow detracts from the challenge of solving the puzzles. To handicap myself, I did the puzzles in bed in three separate sittings (or lyings), making sure that I had consumed a bottle of wine prior to each session. My score exceeded the author's by a healthy margin; I even added some time to account for the answers I already knew from the text and could fill in without much thought. As a result, I have concluded the following: Every year, alocal business magazine prints a survey profiling the 100 best companies to work for in the state. When the company I work for first took notice of the survey, I was designated to find out why we were not included. The magazine's editor informed me that our company had not applied. "So," I said, "the survey really showcases only the 100 best companies to work for in the state among those who applied." That's pretty much the case with the crossword contest, I imagine. There are, no doubt, many people who, choosing not to travel to Stamford and mingling with folks wearing crossword-puzzle-themed clothing, could nevertheless tear the cover off the ball if presented with the same crossword puzzles. However, buying a ticket to Stamford (i.e., "applying") automatically assures you that you will be among the "best."
Lack of depth makes for a dry book.......2006-07-26
What is it with authors writing about their neurosis with games and puzzles? First came the Scrabble obsession in the book World Freak. Now Marc Romano bows down to the Gods of crossword puzzles in his quest to finish high at the American Crossword Puzzle tournament.
It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the book. As a crossword puzzle doer, I can appreciate the skill and cognitive speed of some of the greatest puzzle solvers in the world, but Romano's lack of depth on the characters, other than Crossword God Will Shortz, made for a very boring book.
Spliced with stories from the 2004 tournament in Stamford, CT, Romano's work is part history and strategy of the crossword puzzle, including the differences in skill and difficulty between American and British puzzles.
Romano's main strength was how he provided a behind-the-scenes look in not only solving but construction of puzzles from the grid, to the fill to the cluing, which relies much on whoever the editor of the puzzle may be. In fact, Romano uses many pages to illustrate how Shortz has changed the face of crosswording by ramping up the difficulty in the puzzles from Monday to Saturday by adjusting the clues for the words. He does the same thing at the tournament for the three classification finals. Each skill level is given the same fill but different clues.
Overall, the book was entertaining, but maybe there are just not as many eccentric personalities in crossword solving as there is in spelling bees and Scrabble tournaments to keep it interesting. Romano kept repeating his mantra about how honest and solitary the crossword puzzle solver was. Surely out of the supposed 64 million doers a week Romano cites (an inflated number I'm sure), there could be someone more inerestnig than the gifted but boring cast Romano includes.
Everything you always want to know about crosswords.......2006-07-15
A must for the serious puzzler: a history of puzzle making, how to construct a crossword plus inviting sketches of some of the icons of the "crossworld." It's also great fun for anyone who has ever wondered why anyone would want to fit letters into boxes...
Average customer rating:
- Great book to refresh
- Highly recommended
- Superb as a textbook too....
- Not for the beginner
- A Great Little Reference
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Java In A Nutshell, 5th Edition
David Flanagan
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
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ASIN: 0596007736 |
Book Description
With more than 700,000 copies sold to date, Java in a Nutshell from O'Reilly is clearly the favorite resource amongst the legion of developers and programmers using Java technology. And now, with the release of the 5.0 version of Java, O'Reilly has given the book that defined the "in a Nutshell" category another impressive tune-up.
In this latest revision, readers will find Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition, does more than just cover the extensive changes implicit in 5.0, the newest version of Java. It's undergone a complete makeover--in scope, size, and type of coverage--in order to more closely meet the needs of the modern Java programmer.
To wit, Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition now places less emphasis on coming to Java from C and C++, and adds more discussion on tools and frameworks. It also offers new code examples to illustrate the working of APIs, and, of course, extensive coverage of Java 5.0. But faithful readers take comfort: it still hasn't lost any of its core elements that made it such a classic to begin with.
This handy reference gets right to the heart of the program with an accelerated introduction to the Java programming language and its key APIs--ideal for developers wishing to start writing code right away. And, as was the case in previous editions, Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition is once again chock-full of poignant tips, techniques, examples, and practical advice. For as long as Java has existed, Java in a Nutshell has helped developers maximize the capabilities of the program's newest versions. And this latest edition is no different.
Customer Reviews:
Great book to refresh.......2007-08-27
Though I work on Java for 7 years, I still do not know many basic stuff. Even I know the big picture, I may not really know the detail. I learn a lot from this book.
I strongly suggest this book to anybody working on Java, even for experienced developer. It is a great book to review and refresh. You may be surprised there are something you did not really know and actually they are very important.
I should give it 5 star, but it wasted too much paper for printing API. It waste my money and it caused more tree to be cut. So 4 star.
Highly recommended.......2007-08-14
Highly recommended. Concentrated and well indexed information.
If you need a nutshell book for tiger, this is best one.
Superb as a textbook too...........2007-05-21
I teach an undergraduate course on Java, focussing on concurrency and other "advanced" features, and have found that the 5th edition of Java in a Nutshell makes an excellent textbook. It can be a little intimidating for some students at the start, especially those who prefer a wordier style with more asides and less meat, but they mostly get used to it and see the value. The initial tutorial material is fast-paced and well-suited to people who can already program, and the reference material at the back is incredibly helpful for beginners who need to browse the libraries to see what is available. Java is a big language, and this is a big book, but it's extremely useful.
Not for the beginner.......2007-05-13
This book is truly an excellent reference for Java, however, don't use it for much more than that. When I find myself needing to review old material, I have turned to this book first, for it lays out the intricacies and nit-picky details of the language in meticulous detail. The examples are few for each topic though, because there is so much to cover in a reference manual. Don't go in expecting to learn the complexities of the Java language from this book, but you will feel enriched whenever you find yourself needing to refresh your knowledge of the different means by which one can perform operations multi-dimensional arrays.
A Great Little Reference.......2007-02-21
This is a great reference to have for quickly looking up information. You know, most of the stuff I look up here is already in the JavaDoc, but somehow, reading it all from a book seems to make more sense.
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