Outbound Tourism of Belgium: Market Profile (Special Report)

Customer Reviews:

So many laughs in just one book........2005-03-29

I love books like this. Books of true funny experiences all put together. This book contains one of the funniest stories of all time . I laugh every time I think of it. I recently reread this book after several years and found it as funny as ever.Now I want to read the first Dates from hell.

Giggle Fest!.......2004-08-20

I laughed so hard, I nearly peed my pants. The stories are ridiculously weird, and hard-to-believe-but-true, and you'll read them over and over again. A great book to read with girlfriends. If I didn't read about it, I would have never believed it. It was a great roadtrip read; I recited some of the stories to my sis as we drove to New York City! Non-stop laughter!

Hysterical.......2003-10-16

I couldn't stop laughing. Seriously. Why is this book out of stock? I found it at a used book shop. It is one of the funniest books I've ever read. What else has she written?

This is what humor is all about.......2002-03-31

This book is smart, witty, original, and a riot. I loved it as much as the original. If you havnt bought it yet you really should because you'll love it. She is a great story teller.

A Good Sequel.......2000-10-11

Whereas this book is not as good as the original, thee are still many hillarious moments. Organized into some amusing chapters, this book can easily get one to relate to some of the pains of dating. Some of the stories where the Date From Hell is the person writing it, are a bit less amusing than the others. None the less, sometimes you need to laugh at yourself. Overall, you really can not go wrong.

More Dates from Hell: True Stories from Survivors

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More Dates from Hell: True Stories from Survivors
Katherine Ann Samon
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEDG80

Book Description

The first decades of the twentieth century were a fertile and fascinating period in American musical history. This book and the two CDs that accompany it present an exceptional collection of interviews with and about the most significant musical figures of the era. Tapping the unparalleled materials contained in the Oral History American Music archive at Yale University, Composers’ Voices from Ives to Ellington is a unique account of what it was like for musicians and composers to live and work in those years. It is also the story of the making of the archive, as told by Vivian Perlis, who personally conducted many of the interviews.

Music aficionados can now hear Eubie Blake describe the birth of ragtime or listen to a firsthand account of how Ira Gershwin came to write those famous lines in “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” In-depth interviews with such figures as Henry Cowell, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, and Duke Ellington are included in the book, which also features chapter introductions and fascinating sidebars, illustrations, and anecdotes throughout. Two CDs complete the set, enabling today’s listener to enjoy the remarkablen experience of hearing the actual voices and the music of American composers of the early twentieth century.

Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington: An Oral History of American Music

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Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington: An Oral History of American Music
Vivian; Cleve, Libby Van Perlis
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSBL10

Customer Reviews:

A Decent Introduction to Cyberpunk, and especially, William Gibson's work.......2006-08-20

I was hoping that Dani Cavallaro's "Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson" would offer more of an introduction to and historical survey of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction, its origins, and the seminal role which William Gibson's work occupies. For example, I found her treatment of cyberpunk's literary origins a bit too cursory, barely skimming over science fiction's 19th Century history, and acknowledging some of the mainstream and crime noir genre literary influences on Gibson's work. Much to my surprise, her examination of Gibson's literary colleagues like Bruce Sterling, John Shirley, and Pat Cadigan is also a bit terse. Cavallaro is more successful in exploring the movement's musical and cinematic influences, exploring its connections to punk music, and noting its relative success in cinema, ranging from Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (which is adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?") to Robert Longo's "Johnny Mnemonic" (based on the classic William Gibson short story of the same title) and Kathryn Bigelow's "Strange Days". At best, Cavallaro's book is a barely useful, quite terse, and yet, frantic introduction (It's frantic in the sense that she tries to cover too much in such a short space.) to cyberpunk, and may be more useful to those unfamiliar with this important 20th Century literary movement.

A Great Start.......2003-08-02

This book has a lot of valuable information on the cyberpunk movement, and Gibson's critical contribution to the genre. A little more history of cyberpunk would have been welcome -- for example, the book briefly deals with cyberpunk's roots in Victorian Gothic and hard-boiled detective fiction without really going into much detail. This is nit-picky, I know, but a definitive book on the subject would deal with the movement's history.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Utopian Studies, published by Society for Utopian Studies on January 1, 2001. The length of the article is 1262 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: Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson.(Review) (book review)
Author: Nicholas Spencer
Publication: Utopian Studies (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2001
Publisher: Society for Utopian Studies
Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Page: 157

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Amazon.com

Star of the hit television series Touched by an Angel, Della Reese has had a long career in entertainment. Like many black artists, she began in church, singing in the choir in her hometown of Detroit. At age 13, she was accomplished enough to go on tour with the great Mahalia Jackson, one of the "angels" Reese credits with helping her along the way. Jackson, she writes, gave her "a foundation in the art of communication.... It's about filling yourself with the spirit of whatever you're singing about, of really going to that place and letting listeners go with you." Other angels include the comedian who taught her the elements of comedy and helped her hone her act, and the waitress who encouraged her to sing in a nightclub, years after Reese's mother had died and Reese had left home to live on her own. The road to stardom wasn't entirely smooth--she tells of dishonest managers and lawyers and troubles with the IRS--but Reese makes clear that she has always been sustained by her faith.

Book Description

"Reese's career spans more than 50 years. She began as a church singer at age 6, and by age 13 had her first professional job. But she's never enjoyed a larger, more adoring audience than she has today." (Liz Smith)

Entertainer, TV pioneer, and ordained minister, Della Reese has faced life's difficulties with a strong, enduring faith. Here is the powerful story of a woman quick to credit her life's many miracles to human "angels", as well as her "partner" above.

Customer Reviews:

A Book to be Cherished and Enjoyed!.......2007-06-29

I love this book. It is funny, touching, memorable, humble, inspiring and all together delightful. I don't like Della's singing, don't know much about her acting. What captured me is her marvelous personality, her smile, her uncommon commonness. There are parts of this book I will carry with me to my grave.

The Most Brilliant Star Of All Of Them.......2005-03-31

Having been exposed to Ms. Reese's multi talents throughout my growing up years, I just now finished reading her book which covers the time period from her birth until 1997. And I am glad I did!
Ms. Reese is what I consider a "real" person as she is so wonderfully candid in everything she says and does. The story she tells in her book is no different as she recollects even the details in great honesty.
Her story is very inspiring and uplifting as she teaches her life's lessons in the tribulations she forged through.
If you've ever wanted to sit down and have a chat with Ms. Reese (And who wouldn't?) but couldn't, reading through these pages is the next best thing. It's almost as good as hearing her voice right beside you with her words, smooth and flowing.
I highly recommend this flawlessly written book. It is everything that Della Reese is - interesting, witty, inspiring, intelligent, gutsy, full of love and hope and just like her, it teaches straight from the heart.
BRAVO!!!...THANK YOU!!!... and...ENCORE!!!

Inspiration Station, Spellbound Express.......2002-03-06

Della Reese is like a streetcar to ecstatic experience. She knows the way to abundance consciousness and she will stop at whatever stop you need to get you there, because it's on her route. This is no airy fairy lady. She tells it totally like it is in this earthy, raw, absolutely beautiful and hilarious tale of her life adventure from Detroit's "Black Bottom" slums to the hills of Bel Air.

If you have ever felt excluded or ridiculed, had a jones for the wrong person or the wrong lifestyle, suffered a broken heart or known there was something great in you, no matter what anyone had to say about it, her words will pick you up and put you right on the trolley!

Like her early mentor, Mahalia Jackson, she fills herself with God-Essence and breathes it out sweetly and powerfully, right to your center, taking you on a trip to exactly the place she wants for you, which is home. Where you are comfortable in your own body and where you know that you are loved.

So, I guess that makes her an "angel", her loving word for people who appear with exactly what you need when you need it, like Nat King Cole, Ed Sullivan and many others did for her. In reading her account, it naturally makes you more aware of how people in your life serve as angels, even when you aren't aware of it at the time.

I first Della's voice when I was a hurtin' little kid, hanging on for dear life, literally, seeking solace in in art and music.
Her jazz voice got me and got me good. Her author's voice, like her voice in gospel, blues, "pop", TV and ministry, it is a voice that tells you of the WHOLE journey from despair to full-out happiness. And that telling causes resonance, so you can feel it, remember it and find your own way to it.

Read this juicy, juicy book! "Period. The end."

Up Close & Personal--Della Tells About Marvelous, Crazy Life.......2001-08-12

This book is wonderful! I love Touched by an Angel, and am a big fan of Della's (Have to buy some of her music someday!) This book really captures Della's effervescent, full-of-life, no-nonsense style. It reads just as if Della was sitting right there in your living room talking right to you. It is full of amazing stories and straight talk about her ups and downs professionally and personally, and the one thing that shines through so very clearly is her powerful and strong faith in God and how He and the human "angels" in her life have brought her through. You really feel you get to know her--her personality sparkles in every chapter. I loved this book.

Though it all, she made it!.......2000-04-09

This is a very interesting book, that makes you want to keep reading and reading. It focuses mainly on her early years and how she started in the music business, then onto her role as an actor, teacher and preacher. The stories of her life make you feel as though you know her on a more personal level. She speaks in very plain language so it is easy to understand what she is saying. Many people can relate to different parts of her life. You would have never expected some of the things that she has gone though. She has been though many ups and downs in her life and is not afraid to discuss them. She is very open and honest and I applaud her for that. This was very informative. This has made me want to read more biographies of other famous people.

Customer Reviews:

2nd volume C++ network programming architecture .......2007-09-14

The 2nd volume is a complement to the first.The 1st one talks for portable source code and wrapper classes. The second one concentrates on deisgn patterns & all issues in C++ network programming architecture .
Again i say dont reinvent the wheel , give ACE a look.

Excellent reading for any network programmer.......2003-09-17

This is an excellent reading for any network programmer. More than ACE itself the concepts covered are of a great value. I am a beginner to intermediate network programmer, but an experienced programmer otherwise, and found this to be an extremely valuable resource in terms tackling large application frameworks from the ground up. The concepts are precise upto the point but extremely easy to read and digest. Of course, the book is assuming that you know quite a bit of every thing else that is not covered here. There are quite a bit of things that are totally missing or not correct based on the OS and the advances in Posix threading. Nevertheless this is an excellent source for any network programmer.

Wonderful book!.......2003-01-15

I discovered ACE almost two years ago after a coworker told me about it. As a developer in the networking / streaming media / distributed computing space, i've all too often run into the problems that are inherent in developing this sort of software -- scalability, maintainability, not to mention all of those bugs ...

ACE makes all of that much easier, and delivers the promise of true reuseability; not just classes, but common behaviors (patterns). This book explains why ACE was needed, the problems it solves, and how to use it. Though it's highly technical, it's not boring or overly verbose -- the problems developing networked apps are presented, and the solution ACE uses as well. Doug and Steve did an amazing job with this ... highly recommended.

Good ACE overview.......2002-11-29

I have been trying to learn ACE for the past few months now. Their docs are not that great. I ran C++ doc generator on the API's and that helped alot. The book really closed the deal for me. I work with many customers that are just begining to use ACE and I recomended this book to them as well.

Read the on-line docs first.......2002-06-01

I became interested in ACE for a project I'm working on, so before spending money on a book I decided to check out all the on-line documentation, which is pretty detailed. That wasn't quite enough to get me over the learning curve, so I went and bought the book. I was disappointed though - while it was very clear and thorough, it didn't tell me much more that what I had already learned. So my advice is to save your money and stick with the on-line documentation and tutorials.

Book Description

Invariably, armies are accused of preparing to fight the previous war. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. Through the use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both engagements, Nagl compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975.

In examining these two events, Nagl—the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine cover story by Peter Maass—argues that organizational culture is key to the ability to learn from unanticipated conditions, a variable which explains why the British army successfully conducted counterinsurgency in Malaya but why the American army failed to do so in Vietnam, treating the war instead as a conventional conflict. Nagl concludes that the British army, because of its role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics created by its history and national culture, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency.

With a new preface reflecting on the author's combat experience in Iraq, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is a timely examination of the lessons of previous counterinsurgency campaigns that will be hailed by both military leaders and interested civilians.

Customer Reviews:

COIN.......2007-09-27

Haven't read the book quite yet. I plan to get it done by the time I am to attend CCC though.

Terrific Research and Analysis!.......2007-09-05

For this reader, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife's value centers on two main premises: 1) those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them; and, 2) a large, monolithic organization such as the U.S. Army will struggle to adapt unless it adopts a learning culture. Both relate to the U.S. Army's experience in Viet Nam. It is clear that the U.S. Army has only recently begun to learn from its earlier failures fighting a stubborn insurgency in 2004-06 and to implement strategy and tactics appropriate to the situation.

Eminently readable for an Oxford PhD thesis, what sets Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife apart from many other books attempting to explain the failures in Viet Nam is the degree to which the author supports his arguments. He combines exceedingly thorough research befitting a PhD thesis with fully developed and clearly articulated arguments. By examining the British Army of the Malay Campaign and the U.S. Army fighting in Viet Nam in terms of their organizational cultures - that is, the degree to which they promoted learning, flexibility, and adaptability - the author does a superb job of explaining why the British were successful in defeating the communist insurgency on the Malay Peninsula and why the Americans failed in South Viet Nam.

Of course, Nagl has his detractors. There are those who would suggest that the conflict in Malaya in the 1950s differed markedly from the conflict in Viet Nam in the 1960s and early 1970s. For instance, the Viet Cong were able to leverage a well-funded, well-organized, and well-trained North Vietnamese army against the U.S. Army in South Viet Nam. By contrast, the British really only had to confront a communist insurgency in Malaya. However, those readers who point to the dissimilarities in the two conflicts are really missing Nagl's point.

The author's contention that the British Army eventually succeeded in defeating a thinking, adaptive enemy is instructive. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, we are told that for any institution to be successful when faced with new and decidedly different operational challenges, it must be capable of learning and adapting. This includes everything from changing strategy and tactics to completely reorganizing. In fact, it may even need to develop a whole new set of core competencies. In the context of armed warfare, this may mean viewing victory through a different lens. As members of the Bush Administration have readily pointed out, the war in Iraq will not end with a formal surrender aboard a U.S. battleship. More to the point perhaps, Nagl's work compels us to think differently about how we define success in a counterinsurgency.

For the U.S. Army currently operating in Iraq, adapting really means moving away from war fighting strategy and tactics appropriate to a linear battlefield and more toward an approach that better recognizes the nature of the threat. The current threat in Iraq is more socio-political than military. In fact, it is now an article of faith that for our counterinsurgency efforts to be successful, U.S. war fighters must win the hearts and minds of the local populace. If the local Iraqi citizens believe they are more secure and hence can live productive lives, they will be more willing to cooperate with the "occupying" Army. That cooperation will take the form of alerting nearby ground troops to the presence of Al Qaeda fighters and Sunni insurgents.

For any large military organization, adapting to an entirely different threat characterized by a highly complex and dynamic situation involving ethnosectarian conflict, religious persecution, and violent criminal activity such as we see in Iraq today requires tremendous innovation and agility. As Nagl points out, the British were able to eventually embrace change and pursue an effective counterinsurgency strategy while facing a similar set of conditions. He argues persuasively that British and Malay counterinsurgency forces eventually were structured to respond quickly to the communist insurgent threat precisely because they were quite flexible. In large part, the Brits' success can be traced to their approach to counterinsurgency warfare in that era - centralized command with decentralized control. This approach recognizes that the fight is really very different in each province and therefore strategy and tactics will need to be different to attain success.

As Nagl points out, to enjoy the kind of success the Brits had in Malaya, the U.S. Army "will have to make the ability to learn to deal with messy, uncomfortable situations an integral part" of its organizational culture. It must, per T.E. Lawrence, be comfortable "eating soup with a knife." Additionally, as a previous reviewer states quite clearly, "it must be ready to work with outside resources as well, such as the United Nations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and various religious institutions."

Overall, Nagl offers terrific analysis. This work should be required reading for all officers of all branches of the U.S. military.

Counterinsurgency Mandatory Reading.......2007-07-21

Since the Iraq War effort collapsed into something other than a simple liberation of oppressed people, I have tried to gain insight into our problems there by studying books on Iraq's current situation, on US foreign relationships, ancient and recent Mesopotamian history, Israeli and Palestinian Middle East history, and historic counterinsurgency successes and failures in various parts of the World.

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is the most illuminating that I have encountered. Col. John A. Nagl very meticulously converts knowledge obtained in writing his Masters and Doctorate theses into a readable analysis of military success in Malaya and non-success in Vietnam.

You must read his preface to the paperback edition both before and after reading the book; this in fairness to our gallant folks serving in the Middle East. You must also abandon any hopes you may have for a blood-and-guts exposé of battleground behavior.

This is science, not sensationalism.

I wish that our military AND our civilian leaders had been able to study this book and to do serious, long-term advanced planning for Iraq based upon it. I am convinced that such luxury would have placed us in a vastly different position than our current one.

Counterinsurgency.......2007-07-03

This book is an excellent review of the successful British counterinsurgency war in Malaysia and the unsuccessful US counterinsurgency in Vietnam. The author draws the correct conclusion that it is necessary to win the support of the people. The author misses the important lesson that the British war cost Britain probably 100 dead vs. the Vietnam cost to the US of 50,000. The second lesson that the author should have learned is that it is critical to keep our casualties low. It is better to take a long time (like the British did - 12 years) that to suffer higher casualties.

Insightful Book for military buff.......2007-06-18

I bought a copy of this book for my boyfriend, serving in the US Army. He enjoys it, recommended it to his fellow officers.

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam.: An article from: Armor

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Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam.: An article from: Armor
Nick Ayers
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Science | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Armor, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 545 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: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam.
Author: Nick Ayers
Publication: Armor (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 115 Issue: 1 Page: 51(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

COUNTERINSURGENCY LESSONS FROM MALAYA AND VIETNAM. LEARNING TO EAT SOUP WITH A KNIFE

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COUNTERINSURGENCY LESSONS FROM MALAYA AND VIETNAM. LEARNING TO EAT SOUP WITH A KNIFE
J.A. Nagl
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORNIU8

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

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Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
General Peter J. Schoomaker
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OP7ODC

Book Description

On April 22, 1896, Martin Begnaud was brutally murdered in his general store in Scott Station, Louisiana. He was bound, gagged, blindfolded, stabbed more than fifty times, and robbed of over $5,000. Ten months later, after one of the most extensive manhunts in nineteenth-century Louisiana, public shock and outrage reemerged when two teenage brothers from France, Ernest and Alexis Blanc, were arrested for the crime. William Arceneaux sets the story of Begnaud's murder, the Blanc brothers' trial, and the media circus surrounding it all against the backdrop of Acadian history—from the 1604 establishment of a French colony in the Canadian maritime provinces to the eventual creation of a "New Acadia"in South Louisiana. By intertwining a suspenseful account of this heinous crime with an exploration of the citizens it affected, No Spark of Malice provides insight into a fascinating people, place, and era.

Customer Reviews:

COMPLETELY COMPELLING.......2001-06-29

You don't have to be from Louisiana to find this book completely compelling. Any fan of non-fiction, history or true crime will be unable to put it down. Arceneaux presents a fascinating story of murder and justice in a most captivating way. The author's attention to detail is amazing - scholarly but never intimidating. I was captivated by the twists and turns the story took along with Arceneaux's insightful positioning of the events and their import. This book will leave a lasting impression on you. Read it...

NO SPARK OF MALICE.......2000-07-19

GREAT READING ON THE HISTORY OF THE ACADIANS AS WELL AS THE SCOTT-LAFAYETTE, LA AREA. THE MURDER HELPS KEEP A THREAD OF INTEREST GOING IN THE FAMILIES OF THIS AREA.

More Spark than Malice.......2000-02-02

A well woven tapestry of the history and sociology of the Acadians of Louisiana, the South in post reconstruction years, and the genealogy of the authors family all neatly tied together in the telling of the tale of a murder which at the time was an international sensation even though it took place in the back waters of Louisiana. William Arceneaux is a smooth talker in person and has proved himself a skillful writer and clever story teller. There is one vignette on euthanasia that you may not want to read because it will haunt you when you wake up in a dark room at 3 o'clock in the morning. This an entertaining, even educational, well conceived and organized book.

A great read.......1999-11-20

This is the story of a crime in the last century in a rural part of Louisiana. But it is also much more. It includes a fine series of chapters explaining the history of the Acadian people (Begnaud was an Acadian in a whistle stop) and of all the major players and of Louisiana history. In a short set of chapters the author gives us both the history and the interest. By the end I was sorry to see it finish - but I learned a lot about both the "crime of the century" and also the context of the events. It was hard to put down - even when I came to the end. Arceneaux did a thorough history but also took care to make it a fascinating book.

No Spark of Malice: The Murder of Martin Begnaud.: An article from: Journal of Southern History

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No Spark of Malice: The Murder of Martin Begnaud.: An article from: Journal of Southern History
Christine Vella
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008I8MU4
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on August 1, 2001. The length of the article is 742 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: No Spark of Malice: The Murder of Martin Begnaud.
Author: Christine Vella
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2001
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 67 Issue: 3 Page: 689

Distributed by Thomson Gale

No Spark of Malice; The Murder of Martin Begnaud

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No Spark of Malice; The Murder of Martin Begnaud

Manufacturer: Louisiana State Univ. Pr.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000I2XY6M

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