Authoritative & detailed book on one of Microsoft's latest technologies by a renowned expert in the field. Almost no stone is left unturned within the scope of the book so not recommended for absolute beginners at all, but most useful for practictioners or pending exam sitters.
Another excellent travel book which documents the amazing story of a journey down the Congo river, through the most dangerous country in the world. The hardships faced make for a compelling read & these are expertly interwoven with the accounts of historical travellers as well as with updates on the contemporary politics of the region. There's also a passionate & well-reasoned argument as to why the country has failed so badly & what might be done to help get it back on its feet, though that possibility does seem remote. It's never certain that the author will reach his goal & I was gripped until the end as a consequence.
It was a nice surprise to be transported back to a place I've been lucky enough to visit within in the first chapter of this book, ostensibly about rooks, by one the UK's pre-eminent natural history authors. Buckenham Carrs is the location & the description of a huge rookery there leads onto an exploration of various pastoral themes in the British countryside interwoven with the author's life in East Anglia as a personal backdrop. For me the best parts were Cocker's descriptions of the historical Norfolk Broads which teemed so much with wildlife that the fish literally jumped into the nets, poignant because now so much of that apparent Eden has been lost. The discussion of why people become so engrossed, even obsessive, when it comes to enjoying wildlife & nature are also beautifully mused upon, & which is an often overlooked subject. Some of the more prosaic descriptions of rookeries were obviously not as captivating & a few photos would have been nice but maybe to the detriment of using one's imagination. Above all I enjoyed the descriptions of my home county Norfolk which particularly resonated with my visits to some of the landsacpes described so well.
Another cramming book for Microsoft exam 70-431 written in a concise & logical manner as a only database book probably could be. After looking at the Microsoft exam syllabus I wonder why the authors chose to structure the book the way they did because the syllabus seemed more logical & I ended up shuffling my notes into the Microsoft structure. In particular, for me the book would have benefitted from bringing all the various tools used under one section (or appendix), though I suppose that's up to the individual & their exam technique. However it has excellent points of interest highlighted throughout & the practice exams are very good, & it helped me successfully get through the exam.
A book for cramming Microsoft exam 70-300 written in a likeable enough manner but I got confused when various topics were repeated throughout the chapters. I realised that the level of detail for these topics increased as the book wore on but unfortunately it was never completely clear what the thresholds for the level of detail were. I think the book could have benefitted from more closely following the Microsoft exam syllabus because I ended up referring to it to fix each of the development stages in my mind. The book might have ended up being much more concise than it was as well, nevertheless it did help me to pass the exam so it did its job.
A topical read of the seminal work on the 1929 crash written in a lively & engaging style. It describes the gathering sense of foreboding followed by the panic of the collapse that occurred in the Autumn of 1929. It puts the crash into the context of the wider American economy & society, describing the people it affected, directly & indirectly, & it also touches on the crash's influence on the Depression that followed it. Understandably quite a lot of technical economic information & terms, some of which went over my head, although the author does a decent job at describing them. The book obviously describes events that occurred nearly 80 years ago but it's arguably never been more relevant in these volatile times, & some of the parallels with now are quite hair-raising!
Firstly the standard of editing is terrible, quite often there are parts of paragraphs that are repeated verbatim within a page or two & there is also too much repetition of lame cliches, all of which should really have been tightened up to make the book a bit more readable.
Ultimately though the book fails because despite what the cover promises, Glanville actually attempts no analysis on why various managers have failed to establish England as world-beaters (Alf Ramsey excepted). Instead he ends up superficially describing games that occurred during the various qualifiers & tournaments, & the manager's reaction to them, whilst providing next to no new information or opinion. This means that the prose degenerates into the jaundiced & rambling anecdotes from an old man's memoirs: memoirs which should probably have stayed private.
The closest Glanville gets to any sort of analysis is to hypothesize on the good luck, or not, of each manager, which is an astoundly weak argument for a man who has clocked up many years of supposedly incisive insight into the game. Consequently because of this general lack of insight there is an underlying tone of negativity & short-sighteness - after all, if Glanville has no idea or theories to offer he might as well just focus on the negative headlines of the day, which is exactly what he does.
I can now understand why various England managers end up revilling the press. Journalists would like to us to believe that their articles are considered pieces of opinion based on their knowledge of the technicalities of the game as well as from their relationships with players & managers. However if Glanville is supposed to be one of journalism's elder statesmen & yet he can come up with nothing more intelligent or insightful than this, it's no wonder professionals within the game get so fed up that journalists have so much influence based on such shallow & half-arsed insight: "insight" that Glanville displays in this terrible book.
1/5
