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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life.
“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”
“Because there is a war.”
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Cool.”
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime ”
“Yes, sometime ”
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. .
Price: $12.92
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SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 6 Exam 310-065
The Best Fully Integrated Study System Available--Written by the Lead Developers of Exam 310-065 With hundreds of practice questions and hands-on exercises, SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 6 Study Guide covers what you need to know--and shows you how to prepare--for this challenging exam. 100% complete coverage of all official objectives for exam 310-065 Exam Objective Highlights in every chapter point out certification objectives to ensure you're focused on passing the exam Exam Watch sections in every chapter highlight key exam topics covered Simulated exam questions match the format, tone, topics, and difficulty of the real exam
Covers all SCJP exam topics, including: Declarations and Access Control · Object Orientation · Assignments · Operators · Flow Control, Exceptions, and Assertions · Strings, I/O, Formatting, and Parsing · Generics and Collections · Inner Classes · Threads · Development CD-ROM includes: Complete MasterExam practice testing engine, featuring: Two full practice exams; Detailed answers with explanations; Score Report performance assessment tool Electronic book for studying on the go - Bonus coverage of the SCJD exam included!
Bonus downloadable MasterExam practice test with free online registration. .
Price: $25.00
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Head First Design Patterns (Head First)
You're not alone. At any given moment, somewhere in the world someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. You know you don't want to reinvent the wheel (or worse, a flat tire), so you look to Design Patterns--the lessons learned by those who've faced the same problems. With Design Patterns, you get to take advantage of the best practices and experience of others, so that you can spend your time on...something else. Something more challenging. Something more complex. Something more fun. You want to learn about the patterns that matter--why to use them, when to use them, how to use them (and when NOT to use them). But you don't just want to see how patterns look in a book, you want to know how they look "in the wild". In their native environment. In other words, in real world applications. You also want to learn how patterns are used in the Java API, and how to exploit Java's built-in pattern support in your own code. You want to learn the real OO design principles and why everything your boss told you about inheritance might be wrong (and what to do instead). You want to learn how those principles will help the next time you're up a creek without a design pattern. Most importantly, you want to learn the "secret language" of Design Patterns so that you can hold your own with your co-worker (and impress cocktail party guests) when he casually mentions his stunningly clever use of Command, Facade, Proxy, and Factory in between sips of a martini. You'll easily counter with your deep understanding of why Singleton isn't as simple as it sounds, how the Factory is so often misunderstood, or on the real relationship between Decorator, Facade and Adapter. With Head First Design Patterns, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking Decorator is something from the "Trading Spaces" show. Best of all, in a way that won't put you to sleep! We think your time is too important (and too short) to spend it struggling with academic texts. If you've read a Head First book, you know what to expect--a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Using the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, Head First Design Patterns will load patterns into your brain in a way that sticks. In a way that lets you put them to work immediately. In a way that makes you better at solving software design problems, and better at speaking the language of patterns with others on your team..
Price: $24.65
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Head First Java, 2nd Edition
It has taken four years, but with Head First Java the introductory Java book category has finally come of age. This is an excellent book, far more capable than any of the scores of Java-for-novices books that have come before it. Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates deserve rich kudos--and big sales--for developing this book's new way of teaching the Java programming language, because any reader with even a little bit of discipline will come away with true understanding of how the language works. Perhaps best of all, this is no protracted "Hello, World" introductory guide. Readers get substantial exposure to object-oriented design and implementation, serialization, neatwork programming, threads, and Remote Method Invocation (RMI). Key to the authors' teaching style are carefully designed graphics. Rather than explain class inheritance (to cite one example) primarily with text, the authors use a series of tree diagrams that clarify the mechanism far more succinctly. The diagrams are carefully annotated with arrows and notes. Also characteristic of the unique teaching strategy is heavy reliance on exercises, in which the reader is asked to complete partial classes, write whole new code segments and do design work. Though there's little discussion of why the exercises' correct answers are what they are, it's clear that the practice work was carefully designed to reinforce the lesson at hand. If you've waited this long to give Java a try, this book is a great choice. --David Wall Topics covered: The Java programming language for people with no Java experience, and even people with no programming experience at all. Key concepts read like a list of Java features: Object oriented design, variable type and scope, object properties and methods, inheritance and polymorphism, exceptions, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), network connectivity, Java archives (JAR files), and Remote Method Invocation (RMI)..
Price: $20.22
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Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam (Brain-Friendly Guides)
Looking to study up for the new J2EE 1.5 Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD) exam? This book will get you way up to speed on the technology you'll know it so well, in fact, that you can pass the brand new J2EE 1.5 exam. If that's what you want to do, that is. Maybe you don't care about the exam, but need to use servlets and JSPs in your next project You're working on a deadline. You're over the legal limit for caffeine. You can't waste your time with a book that makes sense only AFTER you're an expert (or worse, one that puts you to sleep). Learn how to write servlets and JSPs, what makes a web container tick (and what ticks it off), how to use JSP's Expression Language (EL for short), and how to write deployment descriptors for your web applications. Master the c:out tag, and get a handle on exactly what's changed since the older J2EE 1.4 exam. You don't just pass the new J2EE 1.5 SCWCD exam, you'll understand this stuff and put it to work immediately. Head First Servlets and JSP doesn't just give you a bunch of facts to memorize; it drives knowledge straight into your brain. You'll interact with servlets and JSPs in ways that help you learn quickly and deeply. And when you're through with the book, you can take a brand-new mock exam, created specifically to simulate the real test-taking experience..
Price: $28.40
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Material World: A Global Family Portrait
In honor of the United Nations-sponsored International Year of the Family in 1994, award-winning photojournalist Peter Menzel brought together 16 of the world's leading photographers to create a visual portrait of life in 30 nations Material World tackles its wide subject by zooming in, allowing one household to represent an entire nation. Photographers spent one week living with a "statistically average" family in each country, learning about their work, their attitudes toward their possessions, and their hopes for the future. Then a "big picture" shot of the family was taken outside the dwelling, surrounded by all their (many or few) material goods. The book provides sidebars offering statistics and a brief history for each country, as well as personal notes from the photographers about their experiences. But it is the "big pictures" that tell most of the story. In one, a British family pauses before a meal of tea and crumpets under a cloudy sky. In another, wary Bosnians sit beside mattresses used as sniper barricades. A Malian family composed of a husband, his two wives, and their children rests before a few cooking and washing implements in golden afternoon light. Material World is a lesson in economics and geography, reminding us of the world's inequities, but also of humanity's common threads. An engrossing, enlightening book. --Maria Dolan .
Price: $14.50
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SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 Study Guide (Exam 310-055) (Certification Press Study Guides)
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God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre
Twenty miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, the rugged, beautiful Sierra Madre mountains begin their dramatic ascent. Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops -- the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre -- but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world. Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them -- until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport. With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world..
Price: $7.25
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The River Why, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition
David James Duncan's first novel has gained an increasingly wide audience over the years--some might even call it a following. This coming-of-age tale of Gus Orviston's search for the Pacific Northwest's elusive steelhead, a metaphor for Gus's internal quest for self-knowledge, appeals to all who cherish a good yarn and memorable characters. Uncle Zeke's colorful rendition of Gus's conception on the banks of the Deschutes River is itself worth the price of purchase..
Price: $8.44
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The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada (California Academy of Sciences) (California Academy of Sciences) (California Academy of Sciences)
With more than 2,800 original watercolor illustrations, John Muir Laws has masterfully catalogued over 1,700 species of Sierra trees, wildflowers, ferns, fungi, lichens, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, insects, and other small animals. The guide is designed for quick and easy use in the field. Color tabs and a unique system of keys and organization assist in the quick identification of the living things encountered along the trail, while Laws s illustrations capture the feeling of plants and animals with detail critical for their classification..
Price: $14.16
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