Book Description
The adventures and antics of James Bond have provided the world with many of the most gripping story lines of the last half-century. Fleming’s novels were bestsellers in their day, and the Bond films have been even more popular, becoming the most enduring and successful film franchise in history. By some estimates, half of the world’s population has seen a James Bond movie. A fascinating and accessible account of this global phenomenon, The Politics of James Bond uses the plots and characterizations in the novels and the blockbuster films to place Bond in a historical, cultural, and political context.
Jeremy Black charts and explores how the settings and the dynamics of the Bond adventures have changed over time in response to shifts in the real-world environment in which the fictional Bond operates. Sex, race, class, and violence are each important factors, as Agent 007 evolves from Cold War warrior to foe of SPECTRE and eventually to world defender pitted against megalomaniacal foes. The development of Bond, his leading ladies, and the major plots all shed light on world political attitudes and reflect elements of the real espionage history of the period. This analysis of Bond’s world and his lasting legacy offers an insightful look at both cultural history and popular entertainment.
Customer Reviews:
Pointyhead Primer To 007.......2005-04-23
Did you ever wonder whether the world of James Bond was more Manichean or Weberian in its outlook? Did it ever bother you that 007 represents a sort of dying totem for the imperialistic, chauvinistic British empire? Do you look at one of Q's gadgets and ponder the limits of technology, or see Barbara Bach in a silken nightie and wonder about the gender politics of the Bond corpus?
If so, Jeremy Black has written the book for you. "The Politics of James Bond" takes on the political as well as social constructs underlying both the original novels by Ian Fleming, as well as the subsequent films. Given the enormous impact of Bond on world culture for half a century, this seems a worthy enterprise. Black certainly knows his Bond, able to deftly move from plot point to plot point in particular stories and explain what was going on at that moment in the Grand Scheme of Things, either a Cuban missile crisis or a spy ring scandal or the advent of the Pill, to draw appropriate connections.
Black is especially on target, and amusing, when he notes the various ways Bond has been modernized over the years, as when the films, with Timothy Dalton by then playing Bond, took on a Jesuitical strain:
"It was acceptable to have an agent who blew up and shot people at will (and without the concerns of Fleming's Bond), but he was no longer allowed to smoke or have sex, a contrast that reveals much about the nature and impact of modern political correctness."
He takes a similar critical approach to Fleming's novels. It's clear Black admires Fleming's writing, and though he echoes the criticisms of Fleming's Old World snobbery, he is also careful not to attach modern sensibilities to Fleming's often-badly-dated views of racial and sexual differences. He calls attention to Fleming's "racialism" rather than "racism," and it's an important distinction, that Fleming could be patronizing about blacks, for example, and yet more willing than many of his time to see beyond stereotypes; certainly not be ruled by them.
For all his cross-indexing and learned discourse, I never got a sense of whether Black thought Bond was any good for society, whether his value extends beyond box-office proceeds. Also, he takes a second-hand approach to explaining the Bond stories, assuming everyone has the same familiarity he does with every novel and film. While he starts pulling out recondite quotes from "Octopussy" to glean insight in male-female relations, I'm trying to remember if that's the one where 007 tells the tiger to sit.
While the book is advertised as "How James Bond has changed the world - and how the world has changed James Bond," it's really more about the latter than the former. Maybe the premise of the book is off, maybe he didn't spend enough time working out the merits of the individual stories over their cultural impact. Does anyone care about what the film version of "The Man With The Golden Gun" has to say about the energy crisis anymore?
Black has written a smart book and done his homework. But he doesn't have much of a story to tell, and it shows.
needed an editor and a fact-checker!.......2003-07-13
Basically I liked this book, as it does a good job of laying out the political climates of the various times and places in the James Bond novels-not only those by Fleming, but also the many other sequels by Amis, Gardner, et al.-and short stories, as well as all the films up to the third Pierce Brosnan one. I have read all the Fleming stories at least twice each, and will probably do so all over again now that I will be able to keep Jeremy Black's input on the politics surrounding the plots in mind.
However, I am still reeling by the frequency of errors in the book, including wrong names-e.g., he mistakenly calls [Pierce] Brosnan "Bronson" (unless of course I missed a James Bond movie that starred Charles Bronson... I don't think so!)-and he renames the character Tatiana Romanova from the novel and film From Russia, with Love "Natalya"; and heaps of grammatical errors.
This book needed an editor and a fact-checker before it went to print. I sincerely hope the publisher has one of each overhaul this book before it issues the paperback edition!
The Politics Of James Bond.......2001-11-02
This was a very interesting book. I liked it a lot. The word "politics" might tend to steer some readers(especialy younger ones) away from this, but don't let that word scare you. A very good book, lots of information. A recomended read from a serious(sometimes refered to as "purist") Bond fan
Great insight of James Bond. 007!.......2001-06-07
This includes everything about 007! and I do mean everything. Buy it today and see for yourself.
AWESOME!.......2001-06-03
This book is really good! I reccomend it to every Bond fan. !!!!
Book Description
A lavish labour of love full of colour photographs taking the reader into Agatha Christie's world decade by decade, Beginning with her first published book in 1920. Over 260 colour photographs include: historic locations of Christie's family mansion, Abney Hall, aerial photographs of Devon and Burgh Island, period ephemera relating to some of the fictional characters, full spread first UK and US dust jackets and period poisons are studied recalling her professional work and background as a dispenser in the first World War, which kick started her interest in the detective story. The text enables the reader to dip into each novel, giving the background to the novel, the storyline, first reviews and descriptions of binding s and editions.
This book was received with delight by Chorion plc and Agatha Christie Ltd.
Book Description
The author of over 100 plays, short story collections, and novels, which have been translated into 103 languages, Agatha Christie has been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Though many have tried to copy her, no one has succeeded, and Christie remains the best selling modern writer throughout the world. Now Charles Osborne, a lifelong student of Agatha Christie, has created a comprehensive guide to her world as examined through her books. Illustrated with rarely seen photos and updated to include details of the publications, films and TV adaptations of her writings, this book provides fascinating reading for any Christie aficionado.
Customer Reviews:
Plodding but undeniably useful.......2007-07-07
This book is pretty well summed up in its subtitle: "A Biographical Companion to the Works of Agatha Christie."
It is also one of those useful and occasionally indispensable volumes compiled by a natural-born plodder. Osborne is the chosen scribbler given the task of producing novelized versions of some of Christie's plays. He clearly is held in high favor by the Christie Trust. As a biographer, it very quickly becomes clear that he is concerned with presenting the Establishment picture of Dame Agatha May Clarissa Miller Christie Mallowan. There will be no surprises and no probing beneath the respectable (save for nearly two weeks in December 1926) life of the public figure.
The one lurid episode in the lady's life, her mysterious disappearance, is wrapped up on pages 51 to 57 of the hardbound edition with no more factual material than that contained in Christie's famously uncommunicative autobiography. Of speculation, there is even less. So little, in fact that the existence of "Agatha," a popular mystery novel by Kathleen Tynan that offers amusing conjectures about Christie's actions and motives, is willfully ignored. This is even more true of the movie based upon the book that featured Vanessa Redgrave as Agatha and Timothy Dalton as Archie. The index of Osborne's book does, indeed, have an entry for Ms. Redgrave, but it refers to a small part she had in the movie of "Murder on the Orient Express," not to her portrayal of Agatha Christie herself.
This ultra orthodox approach to biography does no particular harm. The essentials of Christie's public life are laid out well enough. In all probability, the inner Christie was as respectable as the outer one--but we don't know and with biographers like Charles Osborne, we never shall.
Osborne's treatment of the "Works of Agatha Christie" is that of a mystery fan, not a critic. He provides a sketch of how a work came to be written, identifies the main characters, establishes the premise of novel, story or play, but he never outlines the complete plot and he never, never identifies a culprit.
There are, of course, some critical trappings. Poirot's French, we are informed, is sometimes less than idiomatic. Christie occasionally gave voice to the casual and unthinking anti-Semitism of the class and time into which she had been born. (That deplorable fault faded away with time, particularly after a pre-World War II encounter with a Nazi official stationed in the Middle East. He was perfectly charming to her and her second husband until he shocked her by going all Dalek while talking about the Jews then in Germany: "Exterminate them!") Christie had a thrifty, want-not-waste-not bent for recycling useful plots and details of action, such as three or four occasions in which one character looking over another's shoulder suddenly observes something that will lead to grim results. As Agatha became elderly, her books became less tightly plotted and her dialogue more diffuse. All this is widely known and perfectly acceptable to the Christie Establishment. On the other hand, there is no insight offered as to why, in particular, Christie's prose continues to sell books at a quite remarkable rate while her great contemporaries, Marsh, Allingham and even Sayers have largely fallen by the wayside.
This is not a great book but, for all its plodding ways, it is a useful guide and reference. I assign four stars to it in the sure and certain expectation that I'll give it a toss when something better comes along. I don't think that will be soon.
Best Written Biography On Agatha Christie's Life & Crimes.......2004-12-15
Charles Osborne's book offers a fast-paced chronicle of Dame Christie's life and unbiased critique of her works. The book highlighted many interesting tidbits of Christie's private life (engrossing account of Ms. Christie's famous disappearance in 1926; her work as an archaeologist's assistant; her love for dogs; idiosyncrasies like forever munching on apples while she wrote) to her characters (from her intolerance over sleuth Poirot to her favorite character, Caroline Sheppard, not least her alter-ego, Adraidne Oliver).
While in general affectionately and reverently written, Osbourne remained impartial and did not skim over Agatha Christie's limitations as a writer of sorts:
(1) As a Poet - "...talent for poetry was genuine, but modest and of no startling originality..."
(2) Grasp of French language - "...despite her Paris finishing school, Ms. Christie's French was to remain obstinately unidiomatic..." in reference to Poirot's characterization.
(3) Heavy-handedness - "...construction of English sentences a trifle more exotic than needs be".
(4) Subjectivity - "...you won't turn people into angels by appealing to their better nature yet awhile - but by judicious force...."
(5) Occasional propensity to not play fair by non-disclosure - "I have a certain amount of rules. No false words must be uttered by me....but it's not unfair to leave things out".
(6) Carelessness - "Mrs. Christie's carelessness again? Or simply a misprint in certain editions? Or has Poirot moved without telling even his creator?" and "She tells us that Ackroyd is nearly 50 years of age,...later it becomes clear that he could not have been older than 43" and "now in the 80s, Dame Agatha is more careless than ever. Improbabilities are not explained, certain things do not quite add up....".
(7) Recycling of plots - "Variations of one of the plot of one of the stories....will be presented in...Murder in the Mews and in the novel, Evil Under the Sun....the plot of another story...will be made use of again in the novel...an element in the plot of ....will re-occur in ....".
(8) Limited literary range - "....examine various aspects of human behavior that is impressive, rather than the actual quality of her writing, though her prose is never less than adequate to convey mood and meaning..." and "...Death by Drowning which is also one of the few occasions when Agatha Christie strayed into working class territory".
(9) Monotony & Repetition - "...for they are (Miss Marple's tales) all very sedentary stories whose action is recounted in retrospect..." and "...the reader is plunged again into Christiean nursery rhyme syndrome: a series of murders committed concurrently with the progress of the images in a nursery rhyme".
(10) Anti-Semitism - "The mandatory racial slurs...have been edited out of more recent American editions....".
I disagree with reviewers who criticized Osbourne's book for being biased for he has ostensibly studied and researched the subject matter to the point that he could thoroughly cross-reference both the good and the bad in Agatha Christie's works (read: inconsistencies/flaws/negligence/carelessness, or that of her editors*). Having personally read the entire oeuvre of Christie's crime novels, I believe Osbourne's conclusion that "the plotting of some of Poirot and Miss Marple novels which Agatha Christie wrote in the last 15 years of her life is a more than a trifle lax" is more than justified.
*Not only did Osbourne not give away the plots, he also painstakingly forewarned would-be readers of Christie's crime novels to be wary of untimely revelation of plots/true identities of murderers - "...Cards on the Table quite gratuitously reveals the solution to Murder on the Orient Express. Readers of "Cards" who have not already read "Murder" should get a friend to block out the sentence..." and "In Chapter 18 (of "Dumb Witness"), the author allows Poirot to mention the names of four delightful personalities, all of whom were murderers....the danger could be avoided by deleting 5 or 6 lines...".
It has been 20 years since I last read Agatha Christie's books. With a keen mind and depth of knowledge, Osbourne fairly documented ideas and goings-on pertaining to the Queen of Detective Stories, not least enunciated many of the thoughts and views I (and probably representative as one voice of those of her fans) concluded in passing while reading Christie's books.
In fact, Osbourne's excellent biographical companion has since reawakened my desire to re-read Dame Christie's selective works, her creme de la creme - "Murder of Roger Ackroyd", "Murder on the Orient Express", "And Then There Were None", to name just a few - written during her most prolific years in the 1930s and 40s.
Interesting, but..........2004-10-17
I have enjoyed reading and re-reading Agatha Christie's novels for many years. In my opinion, she truly had an original mind and a keen understanding of human nature that made her characters seem to come alive, no matter what "carelessness" may have existed in the plotting out of later novels. It is in this regard that Mr. Osbornes highly analytical mind goes a bit too far in summarizing her stories (they are, after all, just stories). It is also why I did not like his "novelizations" of her plays at all; they still read like scripts, the characters moving stiffly from one side of the set to another.
But beyond delving too deep into the meaning of mystery novels, my biggest issue is that his over-analysing seems to have created plot inconsistencies where there were none. For example, when outlining "Murder on the Links" (1923) Mr. Osborne writes about how the face of the murdered man is described in detail, then Poirot tells Hastings that a piece of lead pipe discovered near the body was intended to disfigure the murdered man's face. "Poirot's theory of the crime, fortunately, does not hinge upon this point!" Mr. Osborne writes. In fact, his theory DOES hinge on that point. The man who was killed was not the intended victim. The victim had brought the lead pipe himself in order to disfigure another man's face to fake his own death. Then, ironically, he was murdered himself. This is made absolutely clear, and it was baffling to me that Mr. Osborne could make this and other such a misinformed statement about the book. It was almost as though he had been skimming through the novels for the sole purpose of discovering flaws to "catch" her at. "Look! Nobody else noticed this mistake she made but me!"
So while it is interesting to read about what was going on in her life while she was writing each work, it just feels like Mr. Osborne is trying too hard to be more clever than Agatha Christie. Sorry Mr. Osborne, but there is a reason why more people have heard of her than you!
complete overview of Agatha Christie's works.......2003-01-05
I've had this book for a few months now and am continuously referring back to it. This is a perfect book to have on hand while reading her collection of books. Charles Osbourne presents an overview of Agatha Christie's life and works his way chronologically through each book she wrote with new insights into the storylines and other happening in her life at the time of her writing the book. Mr. Osbourne does not reveal too much, so it is safe to read his accounts before reading her books.
This is a perfect companion book to her works.
The Crimes of Charles Osborne.......2003-01-02
Osborne's thoroughness in cataloging Dame Agatha's eighty-plus re-titled, repackaged, and republished books and 147 stories in their myriad and varied collections is admirable. That alone makes this book worth buying, but his literary criticism detracts from a complete enjoyment of what is otherwise a pretty good read.
Throughout, Osborne reveals a tri-fold misunderstanding of the essence of fiction. Despite his own comment, "It is fortunate that fictional chronology can be flexible," he tediously cites examples in which it is not. Also, he assumes that each story should be consistent with the others, and that full explanations should be given for what he considers to be improbable occurrences. Let us consider each of these problems in turn.
Real Time
Rarely is fiction intended to occur in real time. Plays, novels or short stories often cover periods from a few hours to a lifetime, or longer. Regardless of the time taken to write or publish a work, it must always stand up on its own. The particular time period that elapses between the appearance of two works does not of itself imply the actual amount of time that the author intended should pass. For example, that Albert should be fifteen years old in Partners in Crime (1929) does not imply that he was only nine in The Secret Adversary (1922) as Osborne suggests (pp. 68-69). That real time is not intended is exemplified further when Miss Marple says in Nemesis (1971) that she met Jason Rafiel (A Caribbean Mystery, 1964), "just over a year ago. In the West Indies." The only chronology upon which we can rely is that provided by the author. We must take each story as a group of events in the characters' lives and avoid forcing our own sense of time on them.
Consistency and continuity
That Dame Agatha has given us clues to the actual whereabouts of her stories should be seen as remarkable, if not extraordinary. Fiction, after all, is constructed from the imaginings of the author. Unless we have been given clear evidence to the contrary, we must always assume that the people and places are made up. Because some authors appear to be more consistent from one story to another does not mean that all novelists must be. Fiction is fiction. It only has to be believable; it does not have to be true. Science fiction depends on this premise.
Of the apparent inconsistencies, Randall Toye (1980), author of The Agatha Christie Who's Who, graciously concedes that these caprices are "one more mystery for the readers of Agatha Christie to solve, a mystery for which you will have to rely on your own `little grey cells.'"
Improbables
Osborne levies a number of criticisms at the plots themselves. In his entry for Sparkling Cyanide (p. 211), for example, he scoffs at the idea that a group of guests could leave a table, forget where they sat, and then re-seat themselves on the basis of the location of a purse. Perhaps in his own sterile study, this scenario seems implausible. However, it would be easy to become confused when everyone had left a large round table simultaneously and then tried, without such a landmark, to return to his or her own chair. Although it might feel a little awkward, in a low-lit room, after some drinks and dancing, a purse could be the only thing to indicate where people had sat earlier. Doubtless, Dame Agatha actually observed this confusion on some occasion.
In Dead Man's Folly, Osborne (p. 281) doubts that someone could change his appearance so as to become unrecognizable just by growing a beard, but, the narrative is quite clear - most of those who would have recognized him had moved away. Not only that, but war changes people - sometimes quite dramatically - literally aging their appearance by more years than the duration of the conflict. Noncombatants will never understand how war can change someone. More than that, we often see what we expect to see. If having been told that someone was killed during the war, why shouldn't we believe it? Indeed, a full beard would cover the most recognizable features of a man's face.
Improbables do not demand explanations. Just because a situation seems improbable to us, doesn't mean that it is. The available facts may not be all of the facts. Even when Dame Agatha does give us clues, most of us can't identify the murderer; and her alleged peccadilloes have done nothing to dissuade readers from buying hundreds of millions of her books.
Osborne's writing style
This review would be incomplete if it failed to mention Osborne's own struggle with words: split infinitives, the odd incomplete sentence, and excessively long constructions. Here is one example of the latter: "After some months, Agatha decided to join her husband in London where, after living briefly in service flats, first in Half Moon Street and then in Park Place, `with noisy sessions of bombs going off all around,' they were about to move into their house in Sheffield Terrace, the people to whom they had rented it having asked if they could be allowed to relinquish the lease, as they wished to leave London" (p. 180).
Conclusion
A more complete table of contents would have been helpful so that entries about specific works could have been found easily. As it is, one has to look up the publication date at the back, and then search for it in the relevant section. Overall, the reader should use this book for reference only and ignore the rest of it.
Average customer rating:
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Agatha Christie Companion
Rh Value Publishing
Manufacturer: Random House Value Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0517479257
Release Date: 1985-10-02 |
Average customer rating:
- A must have for the real Christie fans
- Read the novels FIRST
- The Most Useful Book on Earth
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The Agatha Christie Companion
D. Sandars
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0425118452 |
Customer Reviews:
A must have for the real Christie fans.......2004-05-13
With more than a billion books sold, she is definitely the world's bestselling author, and the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote 79 novels and short story collections. It is needless to say that her oeuvre is the ideal topic for a companion.
The Agatha Christie Companion is exactly what the title promises: a book for every Christie lover who wants to enjoy her brilliant books even more. Forget reading this companion without at the same time devouring the books of Agatha Christie. It is pointless. Also if you are just an occasional Christie reader and want to know a bit about the life of the author, skip this book and read her autobiography. Although this companion refers to her life in abundance, it is always linked to a certain book and period in time. Therefore first reading her books and then using the companion to find out some background information would be the ideal use for this book.
Apart from a full catalogue of all Christie's mystery novels, short stories, plays, movies and television shows it also includes plot summaries (without revealing the murderer, of course), lists of characters, excerpts from major reviews and an explanation of the twists of Christie's life that inspired her most famous characters and plots. The authors are not afraid to give their personal opinions, a personal touch that effectively makes the book more digestible.
In conclusion, The Agatha Christie Companion is the ideal reference to which Christie fans will turn again and again for a wealth of information on the Grand Dame of Mystery.
Read the novels FIRST.......2004-03-09
This book is a treasure trove of interesting information on Agatha Christie and her works. But, despite the authors' attempts not to give anything away there are definitely times where they do. The entry on "Mirror Crack'd" completely gives away the solution to the mystery. It's done via an anecdote explaining the inspiration for the story but, nevertheless, it would be a dim reader who didn't immediately see where the novel was going after reading the entry about it. And there are other instances too where too much information is given.
So, buy this book if you're a Christie fan BUT read the entries for each novel only after you've read the books themselves if you don't want to accidentally spoil your enjoyment of them.
The Most Useful Book on Earth.......2000-07-29
I can't BELIEVE this book is out of print; I would have thought it would never happen! If you've read at least under 20 of Agatha's books, then the Companion would make your day. If you've read them all, it is still undroppable. Every single book, play, and movie of AC's are listed in it. The books are gone into in great detail, telling the circumstances of their creation, what AC though about them, what various reviewers at the time thought about them, who is in them, and what they are about. Did you know AC was writing 'N or M?' as a hospital nurse at the time of the London air raids?...for example. I mean it--this book is an absolute dream-come-true for even the slightest Agatha Christie fans. You'll know what you want to read next, what you don't want to read next, what movies you'll want to see, etc. It's half biography and half Christie-Lovers book of dreams. Try to get it; I guarantee you won't be able to put it down.
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The Agatha Christie companion
Russell Humke Fitzgibbon
Manufacturer: Bowling Green State University Popular Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0087921383 |
Book Description
The Caro-Kann is a reliable yet at the same time dynamic answer to White’s most popular opening move, 1 e4. It has the seal of approval of numerous leading Grandmasters including Vishy Anand, Evgeny Bareev and Alexey Dreev, as well as former World Champion Anatoly Karpov, who has utilized it with great success throughout his illustrious career. One of the attractions of the Caro-Kann is that it suits a variety of different styles; it can lead to wild tactical battles as well as quiet, positional play.
In Play the Caro-Kann, Jovanka Houska presents the reader with a concise and trustworthy repertoire within the opening, providing a solution against all of White’s main possibilities. Houska examines the important tactical and strategic plans for both sides, arming the reader with enough information to begin playing the Caro-Kann with confidence in his or her own games.
*A complete repertoire against 1 e4
*Written by a Caro-Kann expert
*Ideal for improvers, and club and tournament players
Customer Reviews:
A workable repertoire against 1.e4.......2007-07-09
Houskas aim with this work is to give solid and active lines against the major white alternatives. Not all of his reccomendations will be to everyones liking. For instance he reccomends the Botvinnik-Karls Gambit against the Advanced Variation (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5!?) where Black loses a tempo, but insists that White will have to work hard to achieve a playable game. His other reccomendations (classical,pannov-attack,exchange) are more "mainstream" but will offer ways to deviate and steer the game into lesser-known channels within the variation.
Each chapter is setup very nicely with a discussion of general ideas (ie: aims at which both sides would like to accomplish and the moves that will support each of these aims and moves that might nullify them). He also will bring up any sacrifices that both sides should be aware of in certain variations. Then he will dive into theory and will take time to explain the rationale behind key moves.
Overall, the book is a fine resource on the Caro-Kann. If one is looking for a playable repertoire all in one volume, you can find it right here. But this book is equally useful for players that have certain preference on variations "within" the Caro-Kann, and are looking for original ways to reply to a line that might be causing trouble in over-the-board play.
Excellent book .......2007-05-10
Great Caro-Kann book....followed the author's games in the recent European Cup in Dresden 2007.....Explains why he likes/dislikes certain moves is the diff variations...
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Play the Caro-Kann
Egon Varnusz
Manufacturer: Macmillan Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1857440137 |
Customer Reviews:
A good book on Caro-Kann.......2002-07-20
Ok,
First,if you don't like the variations in caro-kann don't blame the book.
The book is not a new one so there should be moves that are not valid now.
But this book will stated a very clear picture of caro-kann.
You can buy this book if you are 100% sure you want to play caro-kann against 1.e4.
Well,I hope you all know how opening books are[True for all books about openings]
There will be moves about 18[more or less] and then the symbols which will tell the end position is equal or slighty favors black or white.
The games are at the back of each variations[topics].
If you can find the latest book about the caro-kann ,it is always better to buy them.
If not,this book is good enough for you.
Average customer rating:
- Good quick reference Book
- A reference for the expert - definitely not a learning tool
- Compact But Comprehensive /w Easy to Fix Flaws
- Life Saver
- Fantastic reference book
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Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmer's Reference
Eric A. Meyer
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design
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Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition
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CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
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ASIN: 0072131780 |
Book Description
The most authoritative quick reference available for CSS programmers. This handy resource gives you programming essentials at your fingertips, including all the new tags and features in CSS 2.0. You'll get concise information on designing and deploying complex style sheets as well as details on browser support.
Customer Reviews:
Good quick reference Book.......2006-12-19
This book does its stated purpose very well. Not too indepth, not too shallow. Find a property, check it out, and back to work.
A reference for the expert - definitely not a learning tool.......2006-11-29
Probably a good reference if you already know CSS.
Not useful if you're learning CSS from scratch.
Compact But Comprehensive /w Easy to Fix Flaws.......2006-10-01
You know CSS, but you are not using it every day thus not remember every single attribute and specific syntax for every style there is?
You are like me and you will appreciate this little helper. It is very compact and filled with every CSS 2.0 style there is.
It also shows which properties and styles are compatible with which Browser. It is up to you if you want to use the latest styles available or rather fall back to the styles and properties that virtually every browser in use today can render correctly.
This is a compact reference for CSS and not meant for people who want to learn CSS. It would make a good addition when you buy a book to learn CSS and get this reference for quick look-ups of the already learned styles.
Not as Handy as It Should Be
I liked the Idea of a quick reference for CSS, because I always struggle with remembering the exact syntax (or confuse them with HTML or JS attributes) or can't recall which properties can be applied to which HTML element. I have to problems with this reference, which makes it for me less effective than I wish it to be.
1) This is not and issue with the content, but the page layout. It wouldn't be too hard to print the chapter and the property that can be found on the page at the top of every page to make scanning of the book easier and reduces the need for a detour to the index.
2) It would have been great if there would have been not only a list of attributes sorted alphabetically, but also a list of HTML elements sorted alphabetically with the information for each of them, which CSS attribute can be applied to it. It makes the book thicker, but you could have compensated that by using thinner paper and use less empty line in the content.
I hope that my suggestions might find it into a future, version of the book, which also incorporated the CSS 3.0 attributes that are supported by some of the latest browsers like Mozilla Firefox.
Life Saver.......2006-06-02
By the time I was taking my second or third CSS course, this book became a life saver. Even now, 2 years later, this is the one book I cary around with me for syntax.
Mr. Meyer also adds a lot more flavor and discussion than I would expect from a desk reference. Impressive!
Fantastic reference book.......2005-03-11
Developing accessible, standards-based websites that work and look properly on everyone's screen (I'm looking at you, IE) can be a real struggle sometimes, but this book has been a life saver for me. Having the book at my desk and being able to quickly look up this syntax or that modifier is extremely helpful. I can't recommend this book more for anyone who does a lot of web development and is just looking for a quick, to the point reference guide.
Average customer rating:
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Cascading Style Sheets 2.0: Programmer's Reference. (Book Reviews).: An article from: Technical Communication
Angela Robertson
Manufacturer: Society for Technical Communication
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B0009FR6YY
Release Date: 2005-07-30 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Technical Communication, published by Society for Technical Communication on August 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1047 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Cascading Style Sheets 2.0: Programmer's Reference. (Book Reviews).
Author: Angela Robertson
Publication:
Technical Communication (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2002
Publisher: Society for Technical Communication
Volume: 49
Issue: 3
Page: 363(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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