Buy this!

Is there anything left to say about Wisden? The 2008 issue has a new editor in Scyld Berry but apart from that, it's as you would expect.<br />The writers aren't slow in dishing out brickbats where due - the dreadful 2007 World Cup in particular, or praising things that work - the 2007 World Twenty 20.<br /><br />The only abberation I have found is the missing attendance figure for the Friends Provident Trophy Final. What I've always found strange is that whilst gate figures are given for domestic Test Matches, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Cup games, they're missing from all other matches. Why not publish attendances for all domestic matches and those abroad, where known? Are they really that embarrassing?<br /><br />The 1680 pages should keep you busy until the 2009 edition is out.<br /><br />

A must have for ALL DRIVERS!!!

It is evident that most drivers on the road either have lost the ability to read, or they're completely ignorant and simply cannot be bothered to be knowledgeable of the current rules and laws of the roads and road safety. Just for learners indeed! RUBBISH! If drivers simply took the time to have a look through this simple guide, people would be aware of the simple things such as when you can and cannot use a bus lane, and which lane you are supposed to be in when using a roundabout, and the list goes on.<br /><br />I simply believe that ALL drivers should have a copy of The Highway Code and be up to date with road safety and the laws. Then some of these pretty pictures on grey poles on the sides of roads may actually make sense to the dim witted behind the wheel, and no longer wonder why they get nasty looks and unsociable hand signals from other drivers.

Charming

This charming, light hearted book charts comedian and broadcaster Dave Gormans attempt to cross the USA in an old ford avoiding all chain motels, gas stations and eateries. Not much of an anti-corporate book and the end tends to fizzle out however what Gorman does do he does with plenty of humour and warm hearted incidents. No doubt more fun to do than read about the book never the less remains engaging and highly readable. <br />

Excellent - A must Have

I would certainly recommend this to everyone and it will help you greatly in preparing for your Theory test. I pass my theory and hazard perception first time with the help of this book.

Tedious

He takes 130 pages to say"History is written by the victors", using a repetitive mish-mash of terribly written fake anecdotes. This really is a problem for the book. A book half the length, with some decent editor, would have been fantastic. The book as it is repeats too much and takes too long to deliver the punch.

Very useful study of the media

Author and journalist Nick Davies has written one of the best exposés of the media. The book started when he saw that the government's lies about Iraqi WMD became widely accepted as true because too many in his profession spread them uncritically. As he writes, journalism without checking is like a body without an immune system.<br /><br />Commercial forces are the main obstacle to truth-telling journalism. The owners cut costs by cutting staff and local news suppliers, by running cheap stories, choosing safe facts and ideas, avoiding upsetting the powerful, giving both sides of the story (unless it's the official story), giving the readers what they want to believe, and going with moral panics.<br /><br />He cites a Cardiff University study of four quality papers which found that 60% of their home news stories were wholly from wire agencies, mainly the Press Association, or PR material, 20% partially so, 8% from unknown sources, and just 12% generated by reporters. The Press Association reports only what is said, it has no time to check whether it is true. There are now more PR people, 47,800, than journalists, 45,000. <br /><br />News websites run by media firms recycle 50% of their stories from the two international wire agencies, Associated Press and Reuters; those run by internet firms recycle 85% of their stories from those two. On a typical day, Google News offered `14,000' stories - actually retelling just 24 events.<br /><br />The government has 1,500 press officers, issues 20,000 press releases a year, and also spends millions more of our money on PR firms. The Foreign Office spends £600 million a year on `public diplomacy'. The CIA spent $265 million on `information operations' in 1978 alone, more than the world's three biggest news agencies together. It focuses its efforts on the New York Times, CBS, Newsweek and Time. <br /><br />Davies notes the non-stories - bin Laden before 9/11, 80% of world's people living below the poverty line, poverty and inequality surging since the 1980s, wars in the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Congo and Nepal, the global water shortage, and the vast expansion of tax havens (a third of the world's GDP goes through them).<br /><br />He notes how the scare about heroin, which is not a poison, led to the rise of the black market and the consequent `war' on drugs, which now costs the USA $49 billion a year. In Britain, every pound the state spends on prohibition stimulates £4 worth of crime. Again, the nuclear power scare is based on lies: Chernobyl killed just 56 people (World Health Organisation figure), not the six million that Greenpeace's Russian representative claimed.<br /><br />Finally, Davies shows how Rupert Murdoch and Andrew Neil destroyed the Sunday Times and its Insight team, how the Observer suppressed stories that disproved the government's claims about WMD and how Paul Dacre rules the Daily Mail through fear.<br />

Excites the interest but not actually that practical

This is an excellent book but in the wrong package. Richard Mabey does a very good job of giving a seasonal guide to what's out there that you can have for free and does a respectable job of telling you how to use it. It falls short in two respects;<br /><br />First it is not a comprehensive guide to any particular food source so while he may tell you how to cook ceps and morels and gives a reasonable guide to identifying it without this being a comprehensive guide to fungi you will never be entirely certain that what you have is a cep or a morel. To some extent that is true for everything he shows whether its fungi, nuts or fruit.<br /><br />The second point is more significant for a book on foraging and is that this edition is simply too big to take into the field. In some ways this isn't a significant problem as because the book isn't comprehensive it wouldn't be the choice to take into the field with you.<br /><br />This book falls somewhere between the coffee table forager's manual and Delia goes wild. Both of which might sound like criticisms but for someone who hasn't foraged wild food previously both of those would be the ideal starting point. If that's you then buy this book and read it but leave it at home when you go out and get a good field guide to take with you.<br /><br />Note - since writing that review I have realised that this is available in several editions. Some of the other editions are small enough to use as a field guide.

Finally a book for men!

I bought this book for my husband when I found out I was expecting our 1st baby. He found it really useful and informative, but highly entertaining at the same time. It answered the types of questions guys have, without all the girlie stuff they don't really need to know.

Going to Orlando, don't leave home without this.

This year will be our fourth trip to Orlando, and this is the fourth edition I've bought in this series. I couldn't be without this book, especially when travelling with four children. It tells you everything you need to know about Orlando and what to do whilst there. As soon as I get the new edition I get out my highlighting pen and mark the tips I find especially relevant to our family, and what we found most helpful was the table showing the busiest and quietest days to visit all the parks, which is always right. I don't bring a novel to read by the pool, I bring this book, and have many friends who do the same.

Enjoyable and serious

This is a fluently written and interesting account of English's adoption of words from other languages - ranging from the obvious ones, like French, to the less obvious (Persian, Dutch, Portuguese). It is, as such, a history of English vocabulary, but also, more compellingly, a history of British relationships with other cultures. The subject matter might sound quite academic, but this is an engaging read, lit up by lots of memorable examples. It's a fascinating and thought-provoking take on history.

Missing?

Like the other reviewer, it's difficult decide which year book to buy. This year I chose this one and was disappointed to spot that a well-known magazine wasn't listed.<br /><br />How reliable is the rest of the content?<br />

Very Good

Excellent content but very little new material. Basically a script version of the TV series

Enjoyable and useful

Compared to the standard D40 user guide this book is an enjoyable and well thought out publication. Each chapter is well laid out and the whole book leads you through the actions to take and things to learn on how to get the best from this camera. I haven't read a book for a long time but I just can't put this guide down. <br /><br />If you have a D40 or D40X I'd highly recommend this great value book to help you get the most out of the camera.

I want to recommend this particular course

This audio course is very important for someone who wants to learn to speak French. Many of the other materials on offer may not be very helpful because they seem to start at a level too difficult, like trying to reach the bottom rung of a ladder and finding it too high, the student is likely to give up. This course fills this very crucial gap and if you have tried before to learn a foreign language and decided you cannot quite make it, then this is the course for you! I was delighted with it for making something achievable that was before potentially too difficult for me. There are minor criticisms which you can pick up from reading some of the other reviews but I would say this is not the important part. What is important is that this course is a significant breakthrough and it is exciting to be enabled to speak French!

A great learning experience

With"Understanding Exposure", Bryan Peterson gives the amateur photographer an indispensable tool and learning guide. With the help of full color photos taken with different settings as well as clear and concise descriptions and explanations of technique mr Peterson gives the reader an easily understandable introduction to the world of exposure.<br /><br />Because of the great detail in which the different photo situations and techniques are covered it is indeed very easy to go out and reproduce the photos from the book (well, that kind of photo anyway) yourself after reading.<br /><br />This book gave me much more knowledge about photography than I would have expected it possible. It definitely helped me progress as a photographer.<br /><br />Highly recommendable.

Great.

Although I have yet to find the time, spare cash or the confidence to start trading I do think that this book will prove invaluable to me when I finally do. The advice is not going to guarantee you a fortune over night or even guarantee you success. However it will make the whole world of stocks and shares much less of a mystery whilst providing you with some very useful hints tips and information. Looking over some of my friend's dealings and losses I now understand approximately where they may have gone wrong. Had they read this book first they may have saved themselves some money. Even such seemingly simple advice about setting loss stops and never buying into the `falling knife' stocks is very helpful. The author includes many examples of winning and losing scenarios as well as pointers on where deals often go wrong.<br />As other reviewers have said the book is very easy to read in a sitting or two, and also amusing in places. <br />I will be passing this on to my unsuccessful share dealing friends, and recommend it to anyone still in their early days of dealing. <br />

Old Fashioned Cooking At It's Best

This book is a wonderful example of a traditional cookbook, one that looks like its been lying around for decades. It's been made to look like the original cookbook the recipes came from tattered up and stains and all, and really makes the book appealing even before you get to the wonderful hand written style recipes inside.<br /><br />The book is very well laid out, and covers all the great dishes we have come to expect from good old fashioned Scottish cooking. All the recipes are great a true family cookbook if there ever was one. It is a great Idea this book, and it is sure to become unique in its own right, and for a great price, it's highly recommended. It will provide you with endless recipe ideas.

not in depth enough

The study guide simply does not go into enough depth. It provides basic summaries of chapters, and very brief descriptions of key themes and characters, without going anywhere near the detail required to get even a C grade on the AS level exam. <br />This study guide would be suitable if Spies was set as a GCSE text, however for AS level it does not cut it.