War Trash: A novel

Average customer rating:

a very tough 3, almost 4

Fiction That Reads Like a Memoir

Worthwhile

Educational and timely, but not the most engaging read

Devastating

War Trash: A novel
Ha Jin
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0375422765
Release Date: 2004-10-05

Book Description

War Trash, the extraordinary new novel by the National Book Award–winning author of Waiting, is Ha Jin’s most ambitious work to date: a powerful, unflinching story that opens a window on an unknown aspect of a little-known war—the experiences of Chinese POWs held by Americans during the Korean conflict—and paints an intimate portrait of conformity and dissent against a sweeping canvas of confrontation.

Set in 1951–53, War Trash takes the form of the memoir of Yu Yuan, a young Chinese army officer, one of a corps of “volunteers” sent by Mao to help shore up the Communist side in Korea. When Yu is captured, his command of English thrusts him into the role of unofficial interpreter in the psychological warfare that defines the POW camp.

Taking us behind the barbed wire, Ha Jin draws on true historical accounts to render the complex world the prisoners inhabit—a world of strict surveillance and complete allegiance to authority. Under the rules of war and the constraints of captivity, every human instinct is called into question, to the point that what it means to be human comes to occupy the foremost position in every prisoner’s mind.

As Yu and his fellow captives struggle to create some sense of community while remaining watchful of the deceptions inherent in every exchange, only the idea of home can begin to hold out the promise that they might return to their former selves. But by the end of this unforgettable novel—an astonishing addition to the literature of war that echoes classics like Dostoevsky’s Memoirs from the House of the Dead and the works of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen—the very concept of home will be more profoundly altered than they can even begin to imagine.

Customer Reviews:

a very tough 3, almost 4.......2007-05-03

Ha Jin deserves more than 3 stars. His "Waiting" is absolutely beautiful. But three stars is what I decide to give "War Trash", and that is because of the documentary type approach Jin adopts. Its not that the novel is not moving, it definitely is. But I feel novels like Sebastian Barry`s "A Long Long Way" are more emotionally powerful, and I think thats gots lots to do with the poetry of Barry`s story. Ha Jin`s novel reads like impeccably written history - which is wonderful for its own sake. But only at the very end do we get the type of "this can't be happening" feeling that hurts us in the gut (lots), and make fiction in war settings so powerful. I look forward very much to the next time Ha Jin gives us a treat of pure heart-felt fiction and less fictionalized history

Fiction That Reads Like a Memoir.......2007-03-07

Ha Jin, War Trash: A Novel, New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.
352 pages
ISBN: 0-375-42276-5

"War trash" refers to the human detritus of war, the throwaways, the men still living but accorded no honor, in spite of their performance as soldiers. This is the story of one among a number of these men, a Chinese soldier imprisoned in an American prisoner-of-war camp in Korea during the Korean War. His rare English language skills and the opportunities they afford him to interact with a wide range of inmates and officers as interpreter elevate him to a position unlikely for an otherwise ordinary soldier required to fight for the Communists in the Chinese infantry. Though not a Party member, he is nevertheless driven to return to the mainland at the close of the war in order to re-join his mother and fiancée. Personally apolitical, he is caught between dissent and conformity, faced with the choice of repatriating in Red China where he will not be welcomed by the Party, or joining the Nationalists in Taiwan with no opportunity of seeing his mother and fiancée again.

The language is a bit stiff, but this helps the book read more like a memoir than a novel. Though most characters are fictional, events and specific details are not. Meticulous research and attention to detail in the descriptions of incidents of horror on the battlefield, in the camp hospital, and in the camp compounds, and a deep understanding of the political twists and deceptions that create the narrator's dilemma, lend the narrative a level of realism not frequently found in a work of fiction.

Ha Jin is a native of China, educated in the U.S. and currently an English professor at Boston University, and an author of several novels and books of poetry and short stories. War Trash won for its author the PEN/Faulkner Award; Ha Jin has also won the National Book Award, the Asian American Literary Award, the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. This is the first of his books I've read; I look forward to more.

Worthwhile.......2007-02-26

It's likely that neither Ha Jin nor his publisher ever expected his novel, War Trash, to become a best seller or anything. It is, after all, the story of Chinese prisoners-of-war in American prison camps in South Korea during the Korean War. Not exactly the kind of thing most people think about first thing in the morning. But if the goal of a good novel is to entertain and to inform, then this one passes with flying colors.

It is narrated in the first person by Yu Yuan, one of the few captured Chinese with an education and one of the fewer still who was able to speak a smattering of English. Though not a communist, he nevertheless associated with them because he knew it was his only hope to return to mainland China, where both his ailing mother and fiancee resided. If he were to side with the Nationalists, he would be repatriated to Taiwan, with never a hope of visiting mainland China again. (This, by the way, was very interesting. Many Chinese looked upon their prisoner status as a way by which to escape the newly formed communist government in mainland China.)

And, as it turns out, it is the great conflict of the novel. Both Nationalist and communist forces struggled mightily with each other for the hearts and minds of those unallied prisoners, and often in the most brutal fashion. As one with an education and one who spoke English, the narrator himself was considered a prize, and therefore received a great deal of attention from both sides. Indeed, after being knocked unconscious one night, the words, "f*** communism," were tattooed in bold fashion across his belly by the Nationalists, who assumed he would have no choice but to side with them. This, it turns out, was a rather common tactic.

But the narrator refused to side with them--although occasionally pretending to do so out of fear or self-preservation--instead staying allied with his communist protectors only so that he could return to his girlfriend and mother. This is the plot. Both his and his fellow prisoner's struggle for survival in the prison, and the unwavering behind-the-barbed-wire war between the Nationalists and the communists with the narrator as the fulcrum point, are what comprise the bulk of the novel.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has any knowledge of history at all to learn that the narrator's ultimate repatriation to mainland China was bitterly disappointing. Though not a communist, he was still a traitor, you see, for allowing himself to be captured. He found that his mother had died, and that his girlfriend could not afford to associate with him any more, in that he was a "disgraced captive." The narrator was assigned to a middle-school in the hinterlands as a teacher for the remainder of his career, a sentence not nearly so dreary as those given to the true communists he associated with in the camps.

No, this book is not a bestseller, but it is nevertheless an important book and a book that needs to be read by Americans, many of whom seem to be utterly unaware of the dangers posed by unwavering, tyrannical political ideologies, and the horrors that have been inflicted on mankind because of them.

Educational and timely, but not the most engaging read.......2007-01-12

I admire the way Ha Jin crafted this story - how much research it must've taken! I admit I've never known much about the Korean War and never even thought about China's role in it. The story, therefore, elucidated a period in time I hadn't known or thought much about. With this book Ha Jin definitely taught me something and made me think.

The great thing about Jin is that, even though the plot doesn't grab a hold of you like his other novel "Waiting," he creates characters that allow you to experience another person's tribulations so clearly and you are able to truly empathize. I think that hearing about POW's on the news will now impact me in a different way upon reading this book. POW's are not just a label for a group of captured soldiers, but rather individuals who struggle to make decisions, based on both loyalty and fear, who have families and dreams of their own. Quite a timely book in light of the state of affairs in the world now.

To me, well written and quite interesting and educational.

Devastating.......2006-09-28

War Trash is a devastating depiction of what happens when human beings are trapped in the political machinations of war. A Chinese soldier fighting in the Korean War hides his true motivations and must assign his desires political meaning in order to find his way home from Stripped of all moral compasses, he strategizes his allegiances in exchange for a piece of his soul.

War Trash shows what it's like when all choices are ambiguous both in terms of their outcome and their morality. The soldier is batted around prison camps and witnesses the horrors of war, not in the obscenity of the battlefield but in the grotesqueness of the power struggles for people's hearts and minds. Like in Kozinsky's Painted Bird, human ugliness surfaces when societal codes give way to codes of war, and are revealed to be everpresent and awaiting exploitation.

War Trash is riveting but painful to read, a starkly written cry against the human effects of wars, strident ideologies and unrelenting systems.

Avengers West Coast Annual #5 : When Titans Trash (The Terminus Factor - Marvel Comics)

Average customer rating:

Avengers West Coast Annual #5 : When Titans Trash (The Terminus Factor - Marvel Comics)
Roy & Dann Thomas
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Average customer rating:

The Valley of Light: A Novel
Terry Kay
Manufacturer: RB Large Print
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1402576404

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly: An enigmatic young man's preternatural gift for fishing changes the fabric of a rural North Carolina village during the post-WWII years in Kay's latest, a dreamy, poignant and richly written novel, marred somewhat by slow pacing. Noah Locke, a quiet, earnest veteran from Georgia, arrives in Bowerton, called by some the Valley of Light, and quickly becomes known for his fishing skills; the welcoming locals promptly invite him to participate in their upcoming fishing contest. He settles in, earning his keep as a housepainter, and soon meets Eleanor Cunningham, a comely young widow whose husband died, an apparent suicide, after coming home from the war. Their romance develops hesitantly, largely due to Noah's shyness, and while Kay pens some lovely scenes of rural life, the narrative doesn't move much faster. Before the contest commences, a young boy whom Noah had befriended goes missing and, after several agonizing days, Noah finds the body. He realizes that the boy died trying to catch a legendary fish that Noah himself had been chasing, after hearing about it from a benevolent but mysterious old man. Kay's lush descriptions form a shimmering backdrop to his gracefully drawn protagonists, but the romance is somewhat predictable, and the fishing subplot-the search for a mythic bass-does not fully sustain narrative tension. Kay (To Dance with a White Dog) comes close to generating suspense in the chapters describing the questionable conduct of Eleanor's husband following the war, but it's too bad there isn't a more compelling plot to anchor the graceful writing. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Average customer rating:

WAR TRASH, A NOVEL.
Ha. Jin
Manufacturer: Pantheon Books,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N7IH2S

Book Description

In this provocative work, Betty Holcomb offers a fresh and thoughtful analysis of the real costs and benefits of women working outside the home. Puncturing popular myths, she takes a hard look at decades of research and shows that working mothers suffer stress, fatigue, and guilt, not as a natural outgrowth of juggling a job and family, but because of stereotypes, hostile workplaces, and policies that have yet to catch up with real life. With the right support, she argues, the revolution of the working mother could lead to richer and more satisfying lives for women and children -- and men -- alike.

Book Description

A collection of short stories, Ham Loaf Hawaiian describes the adventures of a boy growing up in Central Pennsylvania. The author describes in light-hearted detail how enjoyable and how innocent life was before the age of video games, cable TV, and the Internet. Much of the humor is generated by the author's exploits at a small Catholic school, covering everything from recess to altar boys. Seen from the eyes of a child, Ham Loaf Hawaiian is a hilarious look at everyday life in a working-class town. Ultimately, this utopian world comes crashing down in one critical year, and the boy's life is forever altered. Ham Loaf Hawaiian is a celebration of living and finds the humor in life's everyday occurrences. It is a collection of experiences that transcend generation, geography, and gender, providing the reader with a pathway to relive those unique remembrances that are found in each of us.

Customer Reviews:

Laughed til I cried!!.......2005-06-13

This book is a compilation of hilarious short stories set in the 1960's. It is a great read for anyone who grew up in that time and especially for those who attended Catholic grade school. The description of the family station wagon alone brought me to tears!! Pete Pellissier's analogies are perfect and his descriptive use of the English language defies the fact that he is an engineer today! Although his subtle addition of a physics lesson in one story, reminds the reader of his daily profession. I highly reccomend this fast paced walk down memory lane!!

Thanks for the memories!!.......2005-05-08

Reading this book took me back to places I haven't visited for a long time. Even though I grew up in a different part of the country, most of the childhood events experienced by the author were similar to the events of my childhood. The author manages to captures his childhood memories through the eyes of a child, but with the wisdom of a grown man. Kids these days don't know what they are missing. The stories will evoke memories of the good old days for everyone who reads it even if you attended the "public" schools.

A Charming and Hilarious Collection of Boyhood Stories.......2005-04-22

Ham Loaf Hawaiian is a delightful romp through the author's childhood in central Pennsylvania from 1962-72. Set in an era when kids actually played outdoors after school and weren't glued to their computers or satellite TVs, this hilarious collection of colorful stories spans Mr. Pellissier's early boyhood exploits, many of which take place in a Catholic elementary school. The rules were clear and simple. Parents and teachers were respected and rarely challenged. Kids obeyed, but frequently got into light-hearted mischief.

Ham Loaf Hawaiian, the catchy title, is based on one of the funniest and most endearing stories in the collection. Seven-year-old Pete and his brother attempt to cook a special meal for Mother's Day using The Betty Crocker Kid's Cookbook. The boys earnestly try to interpret the recipes, prepare the main course, and attempt to bake a cake that ends up a soggy, concave mess, much to the "delight" of their parents, who lovingly partake of the meal. From realistic descriptions of "dirt-bomb" fights to young Pete's first love, Mr. Pellissier doesn't hold back. A refreshing sense of gritty reality comes through in his work, unfettered by political correctness of contemporary times.

Mr. Pellissier's writing is free-flowing and easy to read. The dialogue is natural and unvarnished. The stories have a universal appeal that will attract a broad range of audiences - from young to old. The baby boomers will recall their own adventures as they sit back and laugh along with Pete and his pals. Adolescents will be fascinated that their parents and grandparents discovered such innovative ways to enjoy life - minus the hollow, soul-deadening influences of Instant Messaging and grisly video games. Whether it's sliding on odiferous patches of sawdust in the long hallways of his school, holding "sock ball" tournaments at recess, or camping out with the Boy Scouts for the first time, readers will find this collection of stories charming and will beg for more.

Average customer rating:
Tools for Powerful Student Evaluation

Manufacturer: Meredith Music
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Instruction & Study | Theory, Composition & Performance | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Grading: a powerful teaching tool. (grading the ability to learn): An article from: JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance

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Grading: a powerful teaching tool. (grading the ability to learn): An article from: JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance
Isobel Kleinman
Manufacturer: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

For Children | Exercise & Fitness | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

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Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor

ASIN: B00097NJUC
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, published by American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) on May 1, 1997. The length of the article is 3147 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.

From the supplier: A positive approach in grading systems results in improved student skills and increased enthusiasm in physical education. Whereas the normal standard calls for giving the highest grade for outstanding athletes, a positive method entails grading achievements through outcomes. With this system, students are not rated by performance alone but by the ability to learn a skill as well. Thus, the grading system becomes a tool of learning motivation for physical education students.

Citation Details
Title: Grading: a powerful teaching tool. (grading the ability to learn)
Author: Isobel Kleinman
Publication: JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 1997
Publisher: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD)
Volume: v68 Issue: n5 Page: p29(3)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Product Description

Media and the Make-Believe Worlds of Children offers new insights into children's descriptions of their invented or "make-believe" worlds, and the role that the children's experience with media plays in creating these worlds. Based on the results of a cross-cultural study conducted in the United States, Germany, Israel, and South Korea, it offers an innovative look at media's role on children's creative lives. This distinctive volume: *outlines the central debates and research findings in the area of children, fantasy worlds, and the media; *provides a descriptive account of children's make-believe worlds and their wishes for actions they would like to take in these worlds; *highlights the centrality of media in children's make believe worlds; *emphasizes the multiple creative ways in which children use media as resources in their environment to express their own inner worlds; and *suggests the various ways in which the tension between traditional gender portrayals that continue to dominate media texts and children's wishes to act are presented in their fantasies. The work also demonstrates the value of research in unveiling the complicated ways in which media are woven into the fabric of children's everyday lives, examining the creative and sophisticated uses they make of their contents, and highlighting the responsibility that producers of media texts for children have in offering young viewers a wide array of role models and narratives to use in their fantasies. This book will appeal to scholars and graduate students in children and media, early childhood education, and developmental psychology. It can be used in graduate level courses in these areas.

Book Description

JDBC is the key Java technology for relational database access. Oracle is arguably the most widely used relational database platform in the world. In this book, Donald Bales brings these two technologies together, and shows you how to leverage the full power of Oracle's implementation of JDBC.

You begin by learning the all-important mysteries of establishing database connections. This can be one of the most frustrating areas for programmers new to JDBC, and Donald covers it well with detailed information and examples showing how to make database connections from applications, applets, Servlets, and even from Java programs running within the database itself.

Next comes thorough coverage of JDBC's relational SQL features. You'll learn how to issue SQL statements and get results back from the database, how to read and write data from large, streaming data types such as BLOBs, CLOBs, and BFILEs, and you'll learn how to interface with Oracle's other built-in programming language, PL/SQL.

If you're taking advantage of the Oracle's relatively new ability to create object tables and column objects based on user-defined datatypes, you'll be pleased with Don's thorough treatment of this subject. Don shows you how to use JPublisher and JDBC to work seamlessly with Oracle database objects from within Java programs. You'll also learn how to access nested tables and arrays using JDBC.

Donald concludes the book with a discussion of transaction management, locking, concurrency, and performance--topics that every professional JDBC programmer must be familiar with. If you write Java programs to run against an Oracle database, this book is a must-have.

Customer Reviews:

Well written, but out of date.......2004-01-31

Let me start by saying that had I purchased this book 2 years ago when it was first released, I would have given it 5 stars.

This is a very well-written book, with good explanations and sample code. However, the book is fairly out of date, and much of the performance tuning suggestions he makes don't really apply as much when using the latest Oracle JDBC drivers and Oracle9 database. This book covers Oracle 8.1.6, and a lot of changes have been made between that release and 8.1.7 and Oracle9.

I recommend the newer "Oracle 9i JDBC Programming" book by Jason Price for much more current coverage of this topic.

A workmanlike book which achieves its aims.......2003-09-12

This book is for Java developers who need to get the most out of using JDBC and Oracle (version 8.1.6). Choosing a specific database allows a lot more detail. Other JDBC books may skip database-dependent parts of the API; this book even gives code examples for the hard stuff. It is slow to read end-to-end, but "dipping" works well - there's almost always a helpful code example nearby.

There are problems, though. The author is obviously very familiar with Oracle, but lacks the experience to make comparisons with other products, this book won't help you choose when to use Oracle or whan another system might be more appropriate. Also I noticed other signs of lack of research - he sometimes gets abbreviations wrong, and the Java code is not particularly well-written.

The big problem for me is that the book assumes you only ever use Oracle. There is no consideration of code portability, it offers no wisdom about avoiding or encapsulating proprietary Oracle-specific extensions. The techniques in this book could easily lock your product into Oracle, worse, they might even lock your product into a specific version of Oracle.

The book has minor discussion of extra features in Oracle8i and Oracle9i, but nothing about JDBC 3. It's less helpful if you are using a version older than 8.1.6, too.

If you (or your management) have already sold your soul to Oracle, get this book. If you might need to use other databases, get a more generic book, but keep this one for those times when only a specific Oracle feature will do the trick.

Not bad, but...........2003-08-25

This book gives good coverage of Oracle's JDBC implementation. That is about as far as it goes. This is just too close to being documentation. When purchasing books on a specific technology, I am looking for the author's insight. Specific things the author learned while working with it. Give me best practices, suggestions, things to avoid, etc. Tell me what I won't learn from Oracle's docs, don't just rewrite them.

average book.......2003-04-25

Looks like most of the material came from oracle documentation. Examples are very basic

Only covers Oracle8i, not 9i.......2003-01-24

I felt a bit cheated buying this book as it doesn't cover Oracle9i. It only covers 8i programming.

Professional Oracle 8i Application Programming with Java, PL/SQL and XML

Average customer rating:

Confused ramble though Oracle
From Stem to Stern
Good book but not for beginner
A tour of Oracle technologies
Excellent Book.

Professional Oracle 8i Application Programming with Java, PL/SQL and XML
Michael Awai , Matthew Bortniker , John Carnell , Kelly Cox , Daniel O'Connor , Mario Zucca , Sean Dillon , Thomas Kyte , Ann Horton , Frank Hubeny , Glenn E. Mitchell II , Kevin Mukhar , Gary Nicol , and Guy Ruth Hammond
Manufacturer: Wrox Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Database Management Systems | Databases | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Databases | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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General | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1861004842

Amazon.com

Suitable for any developer or manager who works on the Oracle platform, Professional Oracle 8i Application Programming with Java, PL/SQL, and XML is an excellent guide to the tools and programming techniques you'll need for successful enterprise development using today's Oracle.

Unless you buy an armful of books on current Oracle tools and technologies, you won't likely find as comprehensive a tour as this. First off, the authors are masters at using Oracle tools for high-end enterprise development, including PL/SQL (its proprietary SQL language) and Java. Developers and IT managers will appreciate the clear descriptions of relevant tools in the Oracle arsenal (including Developer and JDeveloper). Business Components for Java (BC4J), which simplify the use of Enterprise JavaBeans with Oracle databases and JSP, are also explained succinctly.

The emphasis is on server-side programming, with all features supported in Oracle, like stored procedures (and objects), written in both PL/SQL and Java. This book excels at showing the nitty-gritty details, with screen shots revealing the actual Oracle tools in action. As for using Enterprise JavaBeans, readers learn two possible methods: with standard EJB, and with BC4J components created with JDeveloper. A sample for a restaurant finder application will help you try your hand at using both approaches.

The discussion of Oracle's extensive XML support, which will be useful for taking advantage of this popular standard for real-world projects, is very strong. (Material on the emerging Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and WML built with XML/XLST brings the book absolutely up to date.) A longer case study provides an ambitious example of enterprise Oracle at work. This Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system (with support for call centers) demonstrates a true n-tiered architecture built around Oracle.

For developers and IT managers alike, this authoritative tour on the best of the Oracle platform is really a must-have for anyone serious about development. It proves not only that Oracle is a great database platform, but also that it's ready to run the entire enterprise through powerful Internet and component-based tools. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

History of Oracle
Introduction to PL/SQL
Overview of Oracle tools (including Forms, Reports, Portal, Designer, Oracle 8i, and JDeveloper)
SQLJ and JavaServer Pages (JSP)
Enterprise JavaBeans on the Oracle platform
XML support in Oracle
Enterprise Application Design (EAD) and n-tiered architectures on the Oracle platform
Oracle database fundamentals (including data dictionaries, indices, and object/relational design)
Oracle Net8 for scalability
Designer 6i (case study for an online course-registration database)
PL/SQL tutorial (including PL/SQL Server Pages and the Web Toolkit for Web programming)
Case study for an online stock-tracker application
Java stored procedures
JDBC tutorial (including APIs, binary fields, connection pooling, and caching)
SQLJ tutorial
Introduction to EJB
Oracle performance tuning
Oracle Business Components for Java (BC4J)
Case study for a discussion database using PL/SQL and Java
Search engines with Oracle interMedia
XML fundamentals and Oracle
Case study for a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) enterprise system
The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

Book Description

Oracle Corporation has broadened its development platform, integrating open standards such as Java and XML into the heart of the Oracle 8i database. This extended programming environment continues to exploit the qualities of scalability, reliability and efficiency of the world's most successful data management software, but at the same time it provides new challenges and opportunities to programmers.

This book shows you how to develop enterprise PL/SQL applications exploiting Java and XML, and how technologies such as EJBs can be moved to the 8i database. You'll work through case studies using a mix of both familiar and unfamiliar tools and languages, showing you how the various programming approaches can enhance each other.

Customer Reviews:

Confused ramble though Oracle.......2003-01-24

The best thing that can be said about this book is it's a confused ramble though Oracle. The book tries to cover Java, PL/SQL and XML, and fails to cover any depth in any of these subjects.

From Stem to Stern.......2002-05-16

Some other reviewers have stated that this book is uneven in quality. I agree with that assessment but argue that is unavoidable. I cannot think of any one person who possesses the knowledge to write intelligently about all of this material in the depth this book has.

In a few areas it is dated (obviously 9i is out NOW, but wasn't when this book was published), but it is still overall extremely valuable. I have had my copy for about a year now and have read it almost completely once (you can't read a 1200 page tech book cover to cover) and have referred to it in a pinch more times than I can remember.

In short, a must have for any serious Oracle developer.

Good book but not for beginner.......2002-03-16

Good book, but goes more detail into
tools provided by Oracle. If you will be using
only oracle tools, this is a good book.

A tour of Oracle technologies.......2002-01-17

To produce this book, Wrox took twenty expert Oracle developers and had each of them write about their area of expertise. The result is that whether you are a manager, a developer, or a DBA, if you are working with Oracle 8i this book should be on your desk. This book covers virtually every topic that you need to understand about the Oracle 8i development platform. It does not cover each topic completely but it provides a thorough and in most cases sufficient introduction on each topic. For a particular topic of interest you may need an additional book but to get all the information found in this book you would need ten volumes at least. The book opens with an introduction to Oracle 8i and some of its components including Net8 (Oracle's network solution) and Designer 6i (Oracle's development environment). The next section covers PL/SQL and PSP (this is similar to JSP). This is followed by an extensive section covering Java. This section covers JDBC, SQLJ, EJB, and interMedia (Oracle's powerful search tool). The last section covers XML and includes information on DOM and SAX parsers, SOAP, XSL, XSQL, and more. Extensive case studies are scattered throughout the book. Examples show how to use Oracle tools such as BC4J to develop enterprise applications. The book even includes primers on Java and XML. As a tour of all the features of Oracle 8i, this book is without competition.

Excellent Book........2002-01-08

This is an excellent book as it covers a lot of ground in one volume. If you work in a organisation that has Oracle as the engine for their web based applications, you must have this book.
Many books cover Java or XML or SQL and the like; but this is one of the few books that delves into HOW to put all of these together to make it work! As this book is released in newer additions, I shall be buying it as soon as it is available.

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