Braiding: Easy Styles for Everyone (Personal Care Collection)

Book Description

Introducing the most extensive book on braiding available-over 40 styles for al hair types, from straight to very curly hair! Beginning with the basics of hair tools, brushes, and accessories, this simple-to-use guide presents braiding techniques from the rope ponytail and chignon to French twists and cornrows. All of the techniques are clearly illustrated with large drawings and detailed photographs to make braiding easy and enjoyable to learn. Written by the best braiders in the profession, you'll find and create your favorites in the Complete Book of Braiding!

Customer Reviews:

Braiding: Easy Styles.......2007-01-10

Great book, easy to read. Lots of information about different hair types and braiding tips. Step-by-step instruction on braiding techniques and braiding styles for all age groups and ethnic backgrounds. If you're into hair cosmetology this is a must have.

This book is ok.......2001-12-18

This book is ok. It has pretty good diagrams. The downfall of this book is that the African American section is the last 20 pages of the book. I thought this book could have been 50/50.

Book Description

This volume assesses the effects of industrial policy at three levels: through the user cost of capital, through the effects of a macroeconomic model on the decisions of an enterprise, and through the effects of a macroeconomic model on the machine tools industry via its major customer industries. The analytical approaches developed and applied here constitute an integrated approach to the assessment of generic industrial policies on industries and enterprises. The application of these tools provides a constructive alternative to the polemics that dominate the industrial policy literature and public debate.

Average customer rating:

Good Read

A Coffeetable Book, for Metallica Fans with a Coffeetable

Oh, Well....

Metallica should loosen their ego.

They might have to big an ego to tell the truth as it is?

So What!: The Good, The Mad, and The Ugly
Metallica
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Rock | Composers & Musicians | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Metallica: Year and A Half Parts 1 & 2

ASIN: 0767918819
Release Date: 2004-08-17

Book Description

THE OFFICIAL METALLICA ILLUSTRATED CHRONICLE

From their early days in the 1980s as young, exciting, abrasive, and loud unknowns through their current multimillion-selling album, St. Anger (including the 2004 Grammy-winning title track), Metallica has earned its reputation as one of the most highly regarded and hard-rocking bands of all time. Based on material created for their official fan club’s magazine of the same name, So What!: The Good, the Mad, and the Ugly is a unique Metallica “scrapbook.” Including transcripts of exclusive round-table discussions, journal excerpts, and personal comments scribbled by band members throughout—plus festival reports, fan questions answered by the band, and approximately one thousand rare photos-- So What! celebrates many milestones and memories of the longest-running and most popular metal band ever. The book also gives the honest inside track on some of Metallica’s darker days: their search for a new bassist, insight into singer/guitarist James Hetfield’s rehab, and notes taken during their extended hiatus from 1999 to 2002. The only complete and fully authorized book of its kind, So What! offers Metallica’s legions of fans an all-access pass to the band, onstage, backstage, and beyond.

In the Fall of 1993, Metallica had just finished a 302-date world tour, and sold 15 million copies of the “Black” album worldwide. It was time, Metallica decided, to speak directly to fans through their own publication devoted entirely to an uncensored, inside look at the band. In early 1994 they launched So What! magazine, exclusively for fan clubs members. A decade later, it remains the only place in print to meet and mingle intimately with Metallica.

So What!: The Good, the Mad, and the Ugly, the first-ever official illustrated chronicle of Metallica, draws on the magazine's colossal resources to create the ultimate book for all Metallica fans.

Customer Reviews:

Good Read.......2007-07-06

Some people viewed this book as a bunch of hype or a bunch of BS from guys who are really full of themselves. I didn't feel it was that kind of book. I felt it was them looking back on how full of themselves they were and how much they had to learn and had learned. I thought the book was worth reading.

A Coffeetable Book, for Metallica Fans with a Coffeetable.......2004-12-12

This book really could have been called "Written Sh*t: Binge and Purge", as it's really the literary equivalent to Metallica's live music box set. Like the box set, it's a bloated, excessive and sometimes self-serving overload to the senses, and it's up to the individual's tolerance for the personalities in the band that will determine whether or not that this a good thing or not.

The book is beautifully put together. Tons of pictures on high-gloss paper make this a feast for the eyes. The articles are of varying quality. Peppered between the yearbook and scrapbook looking sections -- usually put together using notes, pictures and art created by the band - are some of the best interviews of the band in the last 10 years (particularly the round table discussions which, in light of Jason Newsted's departure, are quite revealing). There are even glimpses of James Hetfield's struggle with his demons before going into rehab, that in hindsight should have been pretty obvious to everyone. Weak are the Q&A sections (the band never seems to give straight answers), a lack of great detail in events in the pre-Load era (understandable as these items are pulled from the fanclub magazine started in the mid-'90s), and Lars Ulrich making love to his ego (haters like to say how much the band has changed, but Lars and his ego have remained pretty consistent over the years, if you ask me).

Complaints are relatively minor. Metallica fans that have been members of the Metclub since it's inception will pretty much have all the items in here already (from So What!, the fanclub magazine). The magazines don't look nearly as good as the book though, but it may not be reason enough to buy this for some. At times, the self-indulgence can get a mite irritating, but the honesty and candidness makes up for a lot. The band at times seems more relaxed and sincere in some of the interviews, more so than they have for industry magazines and the press, although any fan with an axe to grind will find plenty of fuel to feed their accusations that the band has sold out, only cares about money and have sucked since (fill in the blank). Those who don't will find quite a lot of revealing details on what makes their favourite band tick - even if one has to be read between the lines sometimes.

As we're not likely to see any autobiographies from the band anytime soon, So What! is the only source for words straight from the horse's mouth and something that fans won't be able to resist.

Oh, Well...........2004-12-07

Ok, I'll admit that it's been a while since we've heard anything from the guys, but this is absolutely the most funniest book I've read all year. Though it's filled with massive amounts of interesting material, it's still an utter and complete ego trip. But I'd have to say that it's the best book Metallica will ever come out with.

Metallica should loosen their ego. .......2004-10-31

I got this book right in front of Metallica and they signed it too! The sad part about this book though is that it starts from their "Load" era - the era when they started to suck majorly. All their creative juices went down with the drugs, alcohol and fighting. They do show us eventually how Jason Newstead started getting alienated from the band, but do not show any signs of regret. Jason Newstead was the only member of Metallica who did not have the rock star ego (and still doesnt). They did a huge mistake by bringing in Trujillo (who is a pretty bad bassist). There is an article by Torben Ulrich (Lars's dad) that is one of the most pretentious and bombast articles ever written. They should have done without it real easy. Also, they did not include any information about Dave Mustaine who deserves at least some recognition for writing the 'Kill em all' album. Instead, they added useless information about their first bassist Ron McGovney (who hasnt achieved anything and is hatching eggs). People care about Dave Mustaine and no one really wants to hear about Ron McGovney. I am a Metallica fan, but I think this book tries to polish their ego. After all this "some kind of monster" crap, fighting, whining, rehab and losing a band member (Jason), fans would expect a little more humble approach from Metallica. But this book is all "me, me, me, me." And it is really irritating to hear Lars misspell words because he thinks its cool and hip. And yes, there are a TONNE of pix in this ego booster...sadly, a lot of them are of Lars trying to look like a GAP model, James trying his best to look intimidating and Kirk dressing up like a drag queen, trying his best to hide his insecurity by repeatedly mentioning how he doesnt care about other people's opinions. The only cooling factor in this book is Jason. He's the one who comes off as a genuine nice guy, fan friendly, ego free, respectful, courteous, generous, humble, mindful, caring and sensitive. And the funny part is, he left the band! haha!

This is a compilation of Metallica's SO WHAT magazine from 1993 till 2004. The band did not put any effort in making the book. They only wrote tiny introductions to the chapters. For being Metallica's first official book, I hoped to see more band participation. If the band explained matters personally, I would not be giving them a 1 star. But its all just 'copy and paste.' The band just ripped off fans by trying to show they care about what fans have to say. The book is entertaining if you want to study how big rock stars behave (and whine), but you will be turned off by "Larz, Kirk and Jaymz." They are grateful to none.

They might have to big an ego to tell the truth as it is?.......2004-10-16

Not to sure what to think? I'm buying the book of course and I've been a fan a long time! 85/until now...

Just saw them "10/06/04" in Toronto, Canada but think they have to much ego or it's been to long (or if only buy default of each other) to show things to be, good, mad, or ugly?

There is nothing to lose but their pride, and a massive (for a long time) self-bulit ego? After selling 90 million records who can say anything but great about them???

I'm sure it's tuff but they've got it now? Hope the can be truthful and show the real facts as they are/were...

SO WHAT: THE GOOD, THE MAD AND THE UGLY. The Official Metallica Illustrated Chronicle

Average customer rating:

SO WHAT: THE GOOD, THE MAD AND THE UGLY. The Official Metallica Illustrated Chronicle
STEFFAN (Ed.) CHIRAZI
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OVT1X2

Book Description

Situating post-WWII New York literature within the material context of American urban history, this work analyzes how literary movements such as the Beat Generation, the New York poets and Black Arts Moment criticized the spatial restructuring of post-WWII New York City. Rejecting the dominant trends in post-WWII American urbanism--from International Style Modernist corporate architecture to suburban sprawl--as material expressions of corporate capitalism, these writers attempted to imagine alternative, more democratic and more multicultural, urban possibilities.

Book Description

A reference designed by the directors of this prestigious workshop to guide aspiring writers of TV sitcoms and dramas.

Deborah Pearlman and Abby Finer of the Warner Bros.Television Writers Workshop reveal in this essential guide insider tips and tricks aimed at paving the way to better scripts by new writers.

The book focuses on all aspects of writing for television, from the definition and importance of sample material to what it takes to be a successful TV writer. The authors offer invaluable insider information on the keys to writing a good script and how to choose the right show for sample material. In particular, they provide instruction on troubleshooting scripts - with a do and don't list. For the novice scriptwriter, they include advice on how to research, brainstorm ideas, and write a beat sheet and outline through to a polished draft. Filled with practical advice and up-to-date industry information, each chapter provides strategies and insights that will jumpstart a fledgling writing career toward success.

Customer Reviews:

Very helpful book.......2006-11-01

I found Starting Your Television Writing Career a very helpful book.

If you want to get into television writing, then Abby Finer is the person to learn from.

It is to the point, and it is obvious this is written by a pro with first-hand knowledge of the industry.

This book is a great start and I certainly hope the author decides to come out with a volume 2.

[...]

Lame! Nothing Like I Had Hoped...Save Your Money!!.......2006-09-24

I bought this book because I was interested in finding out some tips on getting my script accepted by the decision makers of the Warner Bros. Writer's Workshop. After all, those of us considering such a workshop already know how to write a script.

Yet this book was a weak attempt at showing someone how to write a television script. And it didn't do a good job at that! There are MUCH BETTER books on television script structure for both comedy sitcoms and drama series. Anyone reading any information on television writing for the first time would be SEVERELY MISGUIDED by taking the information from this book and attempting to apply it successfully to a television script.

But again, why is this book even about the structure of a television script? It SHOULD be about how to break into the Warner Bros. Writer's Workshop. It should have addressed what kind of writing the workshop accepts and which they turn down. It would help to know what those who are getting turned down all the time are doing wrong! That's what they should be talking about...How to GET IN!

PASS ON THIS BOOK! IT'S A TOTAL RIP OFF!

Disappointed.......2006-07-05

The book consists of: 51 pages of overview of how you write a good spec script and what you do with it; 49 pages of a comedy outline and script; 90 pages of a drama outline and script; and 27 pages of interviews with established TV writers.

I found the overview frustrating. Granted I'm not the best audience for this book, because it's written for nonprofessionals who want to get into the business, and I've written for TV. But I have read TV writing books that taught me stuff, particularly the brief but superb pamphlet the WGA has on its site, Writing for Episodic TV. I agree with the things the overview says. The problem is it says them generally instead of specifically. It gave me the impression that it was written by someone who sat in on meetings with experienced writers and then wrote down -- quickly -- what they said. In fact, the authors each have one television credit on the IMDb, are TV pro's, and run the Warner Bros TV Workshop (though their author bios don't actually say they are TV writers). But who can say in 57 pages all you need to know to write TV? You can say more or less what you need to do, but not how.

The interviews were fine, but they were similarly more directed at end results than processes. Not, "How do you come up with...?" and "How do you deal with...?" but "What was your first sample script and how did you get someone to read it?" I found them less compelling than the yards of interviews the WGA has up on its site.

I would also have found it more interesting if each interviewee was answering different questions.

The bulk of the book, though, is the scripts. And I gotta ask: what's the point of putting one comedy script and one drama script into a book? You need to read dozens of TV scripts, not one each of drama and comedy. And there are dozens to read on the Net -- see my right sidebar, "Links to downloadable scripts."

So, in all, I was disappointed. I really wanted to like this book.

One interesting point though: I did notice that this book uses different terminology than I've heard. For example, it says a typical scene will have three or four "story beats." That's a different use of the word "beat" than I've run across. In my experience it's rare to have more than two beats in a scene; usually it's one per scene or even per sequence. The book defines "act break" as "the place in the script where the action reaches its highest point." I've only heard "act break" used as a synonym for "act out," a term the book leaves undefined. And I'd never heard of a "clam," which apparently is an overused trendy phrase (e.g. "Talk to the hand"). It may be helpful to know these usages, so it might be worth checking out the glossary.

rip off!.......2006-06-06

I learned nothing from this book. Nothing. I could have written a better guide to TV writing myself. There's nothing about how to actually write a script; it's all just script samples, one a drama, one a sitcom. If this is what you're interested in, head on over to EBay for a script of a show you actually like. Otherwise, save your money!

Short and Sweet.......2005-10-02

I'd recommend this book to anyone who's thinking about getting into television writing. It's a brisk read and the authors really know what they are talking about. The only disappointment is that sample scripts account for approximately half of the book's length. Still, one manages to remain grateful that the authors didn't attempt to strech the content to create yet another of the condescending tomes that have saturated the market. The interviews with working writers at the end of the book are especially valuable.

Customer Reviews:

Very helpful but not perfect.......2006-11-06

Context: I've read a fair amount about TDD (including being a technical reviewer for Kent Beck's "By Example" book), but went a long time without getting a chance to use TDD. David Astels' book gave me a chance to get a little down and dirty with the technique and some of its associated frameworks.

Maybe too dirty? As others have said, the source code in Part III of the book doesn't do what the book describes; you need to go to Mr. Astels' web site and get updated source code.

I found the coverage of Java frameworks (in part II) to be very helpful; it expanded my understanding of what TDD techniques can be used.

Great book!.......2004-06-28

Whether you are a novoice or have been practicing TDD, this book is worth reading. It is really well organized, has great examples and explains how to use available TDD tools.
Great job, David!

Great work covering TDD from the ground up to adv. topics.......2004-05-13

(Disclaimer: I worked with the author on one large project).
Dave Astels' book is a comprehensive work covering TDD from the ground up to advanced topics. While most of the book examples use Java and JUnit, it does cover unit testing frameworks in several other languages as well. I've read two books on the topic (the other one is Kent Beck's "TDD By Example") and I liked Dave's book better. The basics of TDD can be explained in 10 minutes however when it is applied on practice it gets complicated in at least 3 areas: 1) testing UI 2) testing with database - data setup, isolation, etc. and 3) mocks. Kent's book is more about a philosophy of TDD but it only goes through a very simple "toy" example. Dave's book really helped me to understand mocks and it does cover UI testing in great length. Mocks are an advanced topic, so it does require a good knowledge of Java and OOP. The rest of the book seems to be on intermediate technical level.

The only thing this book is missing, I think, is a discussion about data setup and database-related testing, dbUnit, etc., other than an advice to avoid it altogether (p. 83). While you can indeed use mocks to avoid it, on the large real projects some kind of integration testing (including testing with the database) will be necessary. I hope the second edition will come out at some point!

Overall, it's a great book for both newcomers and developers with unit testing experience. BTW, it won SD West 2004 Jolt Award.

Falls short of its goal.......2004-04-18

This book is about Test-Driven Development (TDD). Its purpose is to help you write better code (by having more tests) and give you a head start with existing tools to achieve this.

The book falls short of these goals: The explanations about writing tests are short on advice and are sometimes misleading. The presentation of the tools is long, with little useful facts.

The book is organized into four parts: Background on TDD, refactoring and programming by intention; A look at JUnit and related tools used to write and run tests; A lengthy example of TDD; An overview of other tools in the xUnit family. The book is targeted at a Java audience but programmers using other languages should have little difficulties understanding the code.

I have a major problem with the background section. The author repeatedly claims that TDD provides exhaustive test coverage and ensures that you can refactor your code with confidence. Any error will be caught by the tests. This is foolish. First, tests rarely reach 100% code coverage. Even the sample that the author provides in the book ends up with less than 90% coverage. This leaves many gaps where tests will fail to detect errors. Even if tests cover 100% branches in the code tests are not exhaustive. Depending on the data used, the same branch may exhibit different behavior. (Not to speak about race conditions and other sources of hard to find bugs.) I fully agree with the author that writing unit tests will improve the quality of the code and help find bugs. But claiming that this is a silver bullet is not wise. I would recommend reading books about tests (e.g., Myers' The Art of Software Testing and McConnell's Code Complete chapter on unit testing) in addition to this book. The section on refactoring is a summary of Martin Fowler's Refactoring book which I recommend.

The second part presents JUnit. JUnit is a framework used to write and run tests. It is a good presentation. However I would have liked to get pieces of advices on what tests to write in addition to how to write them. The author briefly mentions boundary testing but does not have much to say about the tests themselves. Again a test book is invaluable for this. The author recommends using a test coverage tool as well as Jester to measure the tests coverage. This is a great idea.

The third section is an (overly) extended example: the author walks us through writing TDD code. This could have been a great part, giving meaning to the `practical' adjective in the book title. Unfortunately it is a long rambling, showing lots of code but short on insights. The actual `meat' of this part could be summarized in less than five pages.

The last section presents variations on the JUnit tool. Many languages (C++, C#, VB, Python, etc) are discussed. This part would have been better put on a website rather than printed in the book. Given the changes in some of these frameworks the information is obsolete.

The books ends with several appendices dealing with extreme programming and agile modeling.

Unit tests are a great tool to improve code quality. Whether or not you actively practice TDD, a good book on it can provide insights into improving your code. This book contains some interesting bits of wisdom. However much of it is buried by the rest of the material.

Finally, not just another book about web applications!.......2004-02-14

Dave's book does one thing that most other books in this field do not do: it avoids the web application. Hallelujah!

This book provides a good foundation for understanding TDD: the programming cycle, refactoring, tools, mock objects... it is possible to begin applying TDD for yourself after reading the first 1/3 or so of this book.

Writing effectively about programming sessions is not easy. Only a few authors can do it well, and Dave does an admirable job in this. My only beef with the case study (which makes up the bulk of the book) is that, after a while, it becomes somewhat repetitive. This isn't Dave's fault: it's the nature of programming. Sometimes we just need to add another button or another text field. We don't necessarily learn anything new doing it, but if we want a finished product, we have to do it. I understand Dave's desire to present a complete (if small) project, and so applaud his willingness to risk some duplication in the name of finishing what he started.

The experience of learning from this book is similar to learning from real project experience: not every page contains something new and exciting, but if you follow along and ask questions (of yourself), then you will have learned a great deal by the end.

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