Library

Price: $29.95

Edition: Abridged

ISBN: 0743536843

Summary: Before the ink was dry on the Constitution of the United States, the establishment of a permanent military had become the most divisive issue facing the young republic. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect American commerce from the vicious depredations of the Barbary pirates, or would it drain the treasury and provoke hostilities with the great powers? How large a navy would suffice? The founders -- particularly Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams -- debated these questions fiercely and switched sides more than once.
In 1794, President Washington signed legislation authorizing the construction of six heavy frigates. The unique combination of power, speed and tactical versatility -- smaller than a battleship and larger than a sloop -- that all navies sent on their most daring missions. It was the first great appropriation of federal money and the first demonstration of the power of the new central government, calling for the creation of entirely new domestic industries, and the extraction of natural resources from the backwoods of Maine to the uninhabited coastal islands of Georgia.
From the complicated politics of the initial decision, through the cliffhanger campaign against Tripoli, to the war that shook the world in 1812, Ian W. Toll tells this grand tale with the political insight of "Founding Brothers" and a narrative flair worthy of Patrick O'Brian. In the words of Henry Adams, the 1812 encounter between "USS Constitution" and "HMS Guerriere" "raised the United States in one half hour to the rank of a first class power in the world."

Price: $35.00

Edition: Revised

ISBN: 0026045702

Summary: Since its first private printing in 1931, "The Joy of Cooking" has been teaching Americans how to cook. Craig Claiborne calls it "a masterpiece of clarity" and Julia Child says it's the one book she'd keep if she could only have one English title on the shelf. The nearly 5,000 recipes are handily organized by meal and ingredient, and no cooking instruction goes unexplained, so you can "finally" understand the difference between poaching and braising. The book includes nutritional information as well as an extremely helpful list of measures and equivalents. You'll find a version of every recipe your mother ever cooked, along with straightforward instructions for cooking more exotic specialties such as turtles and muskrats.

Price: $79.55

ISBN: 0471310379

Summary: This book is an excellent introduction for those familiar with computers, but is neither for dummies nor for rocket scientists.
It is a well-balanced book suitable for both IT students and those working in the industry who want to know what goes on in PCs and system servers. The clean layout, the sequence of information presentation and the author's writing style makes this diffcult topic a joy to read about.
Some criticism - the presentation of numbers could be reduced, the appendices on logic could be expanded and a chapter on client-server architecture would be the icing on the cake. Another worthy book but a bit dry is 'Silberschatz et al.'. Check it out before you buy.