Pros: gorgeous detail; beautiful history; lush information; good recipes
Cons: I’ve had better ice cream
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Technorati Tags: book reviews, books, cookbook reviews, cookbooks, dessert, food, ice cream, Michael Turback, sweets, reviews, sundaes

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Pros: Walks you through the development of your story
Cons: Some tedium; unworkable due to frequent crashes
Rating: [1.5 out of 5*]

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Pros: Tall, entertaining, faux sheep skin covering, mouse toy
Cons: Inaccurate photo; horrid assembly instructions
Rating: 3 out of 5

Technorati Tags: animals, cat furniture, cat gifts, cats, pet gifts, pets, pet supply factory, reviews

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Pros: Breadth, Depth, and Clarity
Cons: API Reference Tonnage
Rating: 4 out of 5

Technorati Tags: Ruby, Dave Thomas, Chad Fowler, Andy Hunt, programming languages, scripting languages, API reference

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Obviously, we post all of our book, kitchenware, software, houseware, etc. reviews here in this blog.

I (Heather) also post many of my reviews on Epinions.com, where I have been ranked as the site’s top book reviewer (judged by number of hits to reviews) for several years. When I do not post reviews there, it’s because I can’t find the exact item in their database. Often they do not add items such as books until well after they come out, and they tend to have an incomplete selection of kitchenwares and housewares. I try to check back now and then in order to add old reviews of items that have been incorporated into their database. I also put shortened versions of many reviews up on Amazon.com–these reviews are not identical to the reviews here and on Epinions; they tend to be adaptations or excerpts of those reviews. Regardless, a review goes here first and then, if appropriate, onto one or both of the other sites. Some of the oldest RPG reviews can also be found posted on RPGNet. For the moment Jeffrey posts his reviews here only.

If you find our reviews or sections of them posted elsewhere, there’s a good chance they were posted without permission (unless the site is one that syndicates content from Epinions or Amazon). If you find this to be the case, please do drop us a note. All material here is copyrighted by the review author, subject to exceptions as dictated by the terms of use of the other sites where we post. Also, if you wish to post our reviews elsewhere, we generally prefer that you link to the review in question, with at most a brief excerpt; however, once in a while we might give permission for a review to be reposted in whole. Make sure you ask first, however; we do not give permission after the fact.

Thank you!

Pros: In-depth treatment; practical application; personality and anecdotes to keep things lively
Cons: Maybe not as light a read as some expect from CIG books
Rating: 5 out of 5

Technorati Tags: book reviews, books, mental illness, psychology, mental health, reviews

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Pros: Advice relevant to your personality; very attractive and fun-to-read book
Cons: Section on character creation doesn’t include suggestions for avoiding stereotypes
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Technorati Tags: astrology, book reviews, books, reviews, write, writers, writing, zodiac

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Pros: Detailed Examples, Acknowledges Open Questions
Cons: Open Questions and Metaphor as Architecture
Rating: 3 out of 5
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Finally all my old reviews are moved over into the Movable Type system; it turns out that we now have more than 460 reviews! And of course, you can expect plenty of new ones to join them. I have a stack of review books a mile high, it seems, and I’m already cruising through the next book on the list. I’m making my way through putting in redirects from the old reviews, and soon I expect to be done with that as well! The only potential hitch I see in the near future is the need to upgrade to the next version of Movable Type, and hopefully that will go smoothly (I’m not sure when we’ll get to it, but hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks). If anything seems odd it’s probably that, so you can expect things to be fixed soon–as always we’d appreciate a heads-up if you spot anything, though.

This year we tested out an awful lot of cookware and cookbooks, both items sent to us for review and things we own ourselves. I thought I’d summarize some of my highest recommendations here to help you figure out what to get your favorite cook for the holidays. All recommendations include a link to a full review for more information!

Technorati Tags: cookbooks, cooking, kitchenware

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