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1. Hubert says

   Craig and Kathy have updated their opinionated prior work “Don’t Waste Your Time in the North Cascades” and have done a spectacular job again. I wanted to wait to write this review until I had the opportunity to use the book during a recent extended backpacking trip to the North Cascades, and wasn’t disappointed in the quality or accuracy of this guidebook and the opinions expressed by Craig and Kathy Copeland.

   I agree with their approach. I flew 3,000 miles to backpack in the Glacier Peak Wilderness with my 23 year old son, and didn’t want to have a second-rate experience of slogging through uninspiring stuff to get to the “WOW” stuff. So this book was a big plus.

   It all depends on what you want. Yes, the entire wilderness is wonderful. Yes, it can be appreciated regardless of whether the scenery is spectacular. But spectacular makes me shiver with excitement, and while I don’t mind working for it (and working hard, too!), I definitely want the WOW. If you want this type of mountain experience, then get this book.

   By the way, I also purchased the MP3 on their website about bears which is a must download. Their thoughts on water purifying technology and trekking poles are also invaluable for those unfamiliar with such topics.

   So, if you are planning a day trip or backpacking trip to one of the places the Copelands write about, and you want to maximize your experience…then buy their books and enjoy.

   December 24, 2009, 1:29 pm
2. Davidson says

   Going to the North Cascades (America’s Alps)? There are hundreds of miles of trails to choose from, and everyone has limited time to spend hiking. The authors take an opinionated approach about which hikes are the best – because they have the best views, get you up and out of the forest, and otherwise have a lot to offer. Most of the hikes are in Washington, in and around North Cascades National Park, but a few are in Canada.

   I didn’t know this book existed when I went up to the area, and I was surprised at how useful it was. I had a week to go hiking, and all of the hikes that I did from the book were spectacular. The authors make a great balance of telling you what to expect without giving the whole hike away. The book has amazing color photos for each hike, and simple maps, elevation gains, topo map suggestions, etc. Each hike review is separated into opinion and fact, which makes for easy reading.

   I wish the authors could write books like this for all the major hiking areas of the country – it would have saved me a lot of not-so-memorable hikes. I look forward to their upcoming Utah hiking book. One thing to note is that most of the hikes are fairly serious endeavors, even the day hikes. If you also enjoy doing easier hikes, you will have to purchase another guidebook, or rely on park information.

   December 25, 2009, 1:28 am
3. Evanoff says

   I recently picked up this book – Wow guide – North Cascades.

   In addition to exploring the outdoors I seem to collect guide books and I have to say “Thanks! to the authors. The attention to detail and the writing from an actual experience of personally being there comes through.

   This book just happens to cover the area I call my backyard. Having been on most of these trails, I can tell you that little advice like… “at 2.5 mi you might notice a faint trail beginning to countour right (northeast). Ignore it. It goes to…..” really makes a difference.

   I have been in the outdoor industry for most of my life, either in the field or behind the scenes helping others get out there. So I have an appreciation for accurate and grounded information.

   December 25, 2009, 12:58 pm
4. Edmonds says

   Lovely book for planning your trip, with good color pictures, clear maps (although no topographical types) and descriptions of trails that help you visualize the scenery and make you want to set out immediately. I recommend it highly. However, carry photocopies of the relevant pages rather than the book itself in your pack, as it’s a bit heavy for its size. Also beware of the designation “easy” for a trail. Maybe for super-fit trail goats with rock-solid ankles and indestructible knees, the Lake Ann trail (as an example) is “easy”, but for us normal folks it would be better described as manageable but a workout, perhaps a 3.5 or 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is a paved level path, and 5 is almost a climb and leaves you utterly exhausted at the end of the day. I suggest you buy this book for planning ahead, but cross-reference with (and perhaps choose to carry with you) Craig Romano’s Day Hiking North Cascades, which has more realistic descriptions of the effort involved, as well as topo maps and altitude profiles of the trails.

   December 26, 2009, 1:03 am
5. Anderson says

   The book is with beautiful color photos for each hike which nicely complements with short, energetic, passionate, funny, useful and opinionated descriptions. Vital info for each hike is neatly organized and there is a good description of getting to trail head although there are no GPS coordinates or elevation profile graphs. Maps for hikes are very basic and you WILL need Green Trail maps along with this book (each hike description contains Green Trail map# that you will need). The binding is fragile and pages are too glossy/slippery for a hiking book so I don’t think it can take rough use on trail. The book has an “hike at glance” table which can help you to choose an hike for your preferred length and elevation gain however book is missing a central detail list of content so to actually locate an hike you will need to go to other page. One other thing missing is table for best hikes to do for a given month. For Cascades this is very important and should be included in “at glance” table hopefully in next edition.

   If you really want to get your money’s worth, I suggest you buy or borrow from Library another book Don’t Waste Your Time in the North Cascades: An Opinionated Hiking Guide to Help You Get the Most from This Magnificent Wilderness. Both of these book are written by same authors, published by same publishers and have almost exact same content (and I mean word-by-word same) for common hikes between two books with exception that the later one contains all hikes organized by 4 ratings (Premier, Outstanding, Worthwile, Don’t do) and also the later doesn’t have color photos. This is extremely useful for hikers like me because I don’t get to go to Cascades very often and want to make best use of my time by picking the best possible hikes. So having this ratings from author I don’t have to ask other less experienced hikers about what I should be choosing when choice is so vast.

   So for me, the best thing is combination of this WOW book and a list of hikes sorted by rating from “Don’t waste your time…” book (pg 5-9). I really hope author includes this ratings in next edition of WOW book in “at glance” table.

   Having said all that, I believe this is probably the one book you should buy if you are going to buy one for Cascades. And if you are going to do only two hikes in Cascades it should be Skyline Divide and Ptarmigan Ridge!

   December 26, 2009, 12:58 pm
6. Case says

   Tricks and tips for ppt software, computer functions, slide layout, presentation aids and how to hold a cool presentation are worth every Penny of this book. Out of the last three books I have read, this one is the best.

   December 27, 2009, 1:37 am
7. Isaac says

   This book is a thorough, legitimate entry in the presentation guidance field by someone who is clearly a professional immersed on a full-time basis in training would-be presenters. It goes through structuring, preparing and delivering a presentation in exhaustive detail (much more so than most books on PowerPoint), and is chock full of tables, checklists and references to useful material. It also comes with a CD-ROM including many of the sample presentations the author discusses.

   The best way to look at this book is to think of it as a solid, year-long, introductory course at an excellent state university. (“Huh?” I hear you ask…) The unfortunate fact is that most people who give PowerPoint presentations have no training, no conception of what makes for a good presentation, and no skills in either story telling or graphic design. If I had to give an entering letter grade to the clients (mostly corporate CEOs) who come to me for presentation coaching, I would say that the range is from D to C+, with a very rare occasional outlier of a B. This book, if read cover to cover and followed religiously, is pretty much guaranteed to take everyone, no matter what your starting level, up to a B+. And that result would both be doing a major service to humanity, and is something that 90% of Wilder’s corporate readers would be delighted to achieve.

   The problem is that since this book was first written, the bar has been raised on what constitutes a ‘great’ presentation. Heeding Wilder’s advice, while assuring you of a solid set of presentation skills, will also assure that you DON’T hit the ball out of the park. The epitome of presentation quality these days, as represented by the work of people like Nancy Duarte (who did Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and who has written her own presentation book, slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations), Larry Lessig, Hans Rosling, Bill Strickland, Rives, Ze Frank, and others (many of whose presentations can be viewed online at ted dot com), is simply a different beast from the traditional bullet point/diagram slides, no matter how carefully edited or structured. These ‘new world’ presentations break through typical lists and points, and are mostly (if not all) zen-like in their simplicity, serving as *supporting* emotional resonance for the speaker, rather than data that is narrated by the presenter.

   While you probably should buy this book for its in-depth discussion of mechanics and preparation skills, the ‘bible’ of modern presentation design is Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, by Garr Reynolds, whose blog of the same name has become mandatory reading for the world-class presenting crowd. PresentationZen (to return to my analogy) is the Ivy League seminar taught by the world class professor, that will inspire you for the rest of your life.

   If you’re serious about learning to give great presentations, your library should probably include Wilder, certainly include Duarte, and absolutely, positively MUST include Reynolds. Other excellent works to go alongside them on the shelf are Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story by Jerry Weissman and The Articulate Executive: Learn to Look, Act, and Sound Like a Leader by Granville Toogood.

   But whatever you do, read at least one of the above, and take its message to heart. Powerpoint can be sublime when done correctly, and you owe it to your audience to do your best to make it so!

   December 27, 2009, 1:03 pm
8. Dorsey says

   As a university professor that gives lectures to a wide variety of audiences, in the USA and abroad, this book takes a step-by-step approach to becoming an even more effective speaker. It begins by helping you think through your strategy and provides even the most polished speaker with new tactics and small but so thoughtful tips about using PowerPoint and organizing slide shows. Given the importance of making persuasive presentations, this should be required reading for every manager. I would particularly recommend it for MBA students. They will learn how to give an effective, professional presentation to executives.

   December 28, 2009, 1:27 am
9. Teeters says

   This third edition is a combination of coaching for presentation format and delivery, and the mechanics of constructing the presentation. Each chapter is complete in itself, and all chapters fit together as a total work. There are many tricks and neat techniques to prepare and deliver a concise presentation, so the audience will consider viewing it to be a good use of their time. Particularly good are the “Power Point Tips” in gray boxes, and the end of chapter checklists. If you follow the author’s methods, your audience will experience the difference.

   December 28, 2009, 1:42 pm
10. Jehning says

    It’s easy to forget that truly great presentations did not just come out of thin air – they require lots of hard work. This book outlines a practical approach to work towards success, but it’s not a magic bullet. Practice and incorporation of many of these techniques will make perfect.

    December 29, 2009, 1:32 am
11. Linell says

    Programming in WoW is extremely fun; takes me back to the old days of learning a new programming language for the first time. I have also missed Waite Group Press and glad to see they are making a comeback (still love their unmatched use of high-quality thin paper). This book starts off by giving the reader access to a custom WoW plugin called WoWLua, which is a LUA editor that works right inside WoW itself. There is also a larger addon environment/IDE for working with graphics, etc, right inside WoW. So, to answer the most common question, you don’t need to shut down WoW and restart it every time you make changes to your scripts! I am an instructor who is using this book for a LUA programming class and enjoying it very much.

    December 29, 2009, 1:03 pm
12. Janes says

    I’ve written code in a lot of different languages, but had never really touched Lua (the language used to write WoW addons).

    I picked up this book hoping that it would give me a good foundation on WoW addon creation, and it did. What I didn’t expect was just how much I’d be going back to the book over and over as an API reference.

    Although Blizzard keeps updating the WoW API, this books extensive reference section covers enough of the fundamentals, that I always start there.

    I can’t say that this book would be the best starting point for anyone who has never programmed before, but then again, creating addons for WoW isn’t really an endeavour for anyone who hasn’t programmed before.

    However, that’s what made this book so great for me. The Lua language and WoWs API are full of eccentricities and “gotchya”s. This book provided a really good “get up to speed quickly”, and functions as an ongoing reference.

    The authors also maintain a website that updates as the WoW API updates.

    December 30, 2009, 1:29 am
13. Valentino says

    An ok book if you are into this sort of thing…

    The WoW game itself is pretty restricted it what it will allow you to do programming wise; consequently this book is pretty limited in what you can do with it…

    I enjoyed the information in the book; however, I didn’t find much practical use for it – other than intellectual…

    MJL

    December 30, 2009, 1:05 pm
14. Nick says

    I’ve been struggling to write an add-on for World of Warcraft, and have mostly been using the WoWWiki site with various other framework sites to learn. While those resources have been pretty helpful, this book has provided a clear, concise explanation of Lua and the WoW API that is unrivaled. In the week that I’ve owned it, I’ve been able to accomplish more with my own add-on than ever.

    December 31, 2009, 1:25 am