price：$1.92
Globe Publishers
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (Sherlock Holmes - The Detective Guru) 『Sherlock Holmes has long been a favorite of mine. Nothing's changed. He still is. Excellent book, both in contents and appearance.』
(I love this stuff!) 『Classic! I'm very glad to own this book in it's Kindle edition and for a very reasonable price too, $0.00! There is not anything that I could write that hasn't been written before about Mr. Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. These stories are timeless, they are indeed short stories and may be read quickly in one sitting, and, for me, be read again and again. While reading these stories I can't help but see and hear Jeremy Brett, the ultimate and best Holmes of any visual media. Ever! The mannerisms of Holmes as written by Doyle, as well as much of the dialog, are transferred accurately and brilliantly to the small screen by Brett, the BBC, and PBS. I also recommend this series on DVD for any and all Holmes fans. Not to forget "The Return of Sherlock Holmes," also priced reasonably on Kindle at $0.00.』
(Holes) 『Super when I am on an airplane and have forgotten to turn on the wireless to pick up new books. Doyle never ceases to amaze and provide entertainment. I think I started reading Holmes in the 60s (early 60s) and have yet to stop. Good emergency book to have if you have a Kindle and enjoy deductive reasoning. easons to get it are elementary my dear reader!』
(Technical glitches in this Kindle edition) 『All of the numeric entries in the text are garbled, so if you don't care whether they're referring to 20 pounds or 3000, you'll be fine. of course it's a free download, so I'm not complaining.』
(Great Britian's Nineteenth Century History) 『English history is served up along with the amazing mystery stories. I enjoy the pictures of daily life...the maid bringing in lunch to Holmes on a pre-arranged schedule, passing the street vendors and beggars, imagining the opium den frequented by addicts, vivid descriptions of period clothing, transportation and commerce slipped seamlessly into the tales. I read this often to refresh the imagery in my mind.』 『
In these twelve intriguing stories, Sherlock Homes and his trusty friend Dr. Watson solve crimes amid the sinister and foggy streets of Victorian London.
"Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell." -- Sherlock Holmes inThe Adventure of the Copper Beeches』
price：$15.47
William Morrow
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (Started at 5 stars, then...) 『Like being at a nerdy cocktail party playing "Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon" with statistics, but without the cocktails. Great hook with the speculation that legalizing abortion resulted in decreased crime rate, but downhill from there as the comparisons become more labored and tedious. Couldn't bring myself to finish it.』
(Ok at best) 『Decent but the cool title probably has as much or more to do with this books popularity than anything.』
(Awesonomics) 『This book is a great book for anyone interested in economics. It takes you on a journey of unexpected correlations and defies conventional wisdom. The book shows you truths you never would of expected or thought of with bamboozling statistics and data. It is an easy, enjoyable book for ages 18-168. Also the book is not very long and keeps you entertained. Levitt and Dubner team up to be an awesome duo and they are by far some awesome economists. I high recommend it. Enough Said.』
(Must Own) 『Everyone and anyone should own this book. Humorous insight to the world from an economic point of view without using the wordy terminology.』
(A cool brain teaser) 『Want to look smart at a party? Need a perfect ice-breaker? Want to be witty and charming by "spontaneously" sharing few interesting and/but weird facts with your colleagues? This is a book for you. It offers totally new insight to the facts that might seem to have nothing in common from the first glance, is witty and captivating - great book to relax on your free time, but still, with getting some intelectual stimulation. My personal favourite chapter is about how names "determine" kid's future. Want to know more? You'll have to read it.』 『
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?
These may not sound like typical questions for an econo-mist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.
Freakonomicsis a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.
Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. InFreakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.
What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.
Freakonomicsestablishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. ButFreakonomicscan provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
』 『Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. InFreakonomics(written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt inThe New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veersFreakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet.--John Moe』
price：$7.67
Hachette Audio
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (Enough pieces of sand and you have a Sandbox!) 『Tipping Point is a quick read that illustrates in dramatic fashion how small movements in society become a full blown trend. I have used the term "Tipping Point" in business as success is gained in methodical steps.
Brett Vanderwater, MBA, CIA, CMA, CTP』
(Savor these chapters!) 『Do you need to read this book in order to be successful in life or business? Probably not.
However, this is a book that I purposely read slowly, one chapter at a time, because I would find myself thinking about the case studies and the principles that Gladwell used. Especially interesting was the classification of people into connectors, mavens, and salespeople. We all know them--that chapter will make you think about your sister, your best friend, or your neighbor with a better understanding.
I would highly recommend this book. It will keep your brain running and turning well after the book goes back on the shelf. You will also look smarter at cocktail parties after bringing up some of the theories in this book; that's never a bad thing.』
(Maybe Gladwell's Best to Date?) 『I'd read Gladwell's "Blink" awhile ago, then "Outliers" and thoroughly enjoyed both. Somehow I'd missed "The Tipping Point" until recently, when at the recommendation of a friend I listened to it on audiobook. This is a fascinating book about how trends happen. Malcolm Gladwell has an easily accessible way of communicating social science and group psychology by using compelling, relevant examples that make the reader want to know more. Really interesting examination of "tipping" that occurs sometimes with intent and others, simply resulting from a sequence of events. - Review from the award-winning author of Your Present: A Half-Hour of Peace: A Guided Imagery Meditation for Physical&Spiritual Wellness』
(Eye-Opening, Interesting, Revealing, and Fun) 『Simply put, Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" is a fantastic book. Widely heralded as a rare and "game changing" book, what Gladwell elegantly offers readers is an interesting set of stories that serve as allegories to a set of powerful, and eye-opening, ideas. These ideas, conveyed regularly, succinctly, and consistently well by Gladwell, provide a frame of reference on the world writ large that serve to answer the question, "how can little things make such a big difference?"
One of the powerful aspects of "The Tipping Point" is the voice of the author -- never proselytizing, Gladwell serves up the facts and the context for the review of the reader, and then builds a logical case as to why he believes what he does. I find Gladwell's logical voice to parallel that of Michael Pollen, especially Pollen's rhetorical approach used throughout The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
This is a smart, entertaining, revealing, and just plain fun book. I recommend this book to all curious readers.』
(If I have no other books to read in an airplane...) 『First, I bought this book because it's one of our supplemental reference book in class. Second, I was prompted to buy because of good review.
It illustrate: - how a small news can easily spread out (The British are coming) - how Hush Puppies shoes was revived in the market - how Sesame Street found its niche in television - how crime was reduced in NY by cleaning up graffiti and fixing broken windows
I consider it more like a history book. This book is quite okay. 50% of what I read are somewhat interesting but nothing in the book so far gave me a WOW.
』 『THE TIPPING POINT is the biography of an idea, and the idea is quite simple. It is that many of the problems we face - from crime to teenage delinquency to traffic jams - behave like epidemics. They aren't linear phenomena in the sense that they steadily and predictably change according to the level of effort brought to bear against them. They are capable of sudden and dramatic changes in direction. Years of well-intentioned intervention may have no impact at all, yet the right intervention - at just the right time - can start a cascade of change. Many of the social ills that face us today, in other words, are as inherently volatile as the epidemics that periodically sweep through the human population: little things can cause them to 'tip' at any time and if we want to understand how to confront and solve them we have to understand what those 'Tipping Points' are. In this revolutionary new study, Malcolm Gladwell explores the ramifications of this. Not simply for politicians and policy-makers, his method provides a new way of viewing everyday experience and enables us to develop strategies for everything from raising a child to running a company.』 『"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell'sThe Tipping Pointhas quite a few interesting twists on the subject.
For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.
Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods ofSesame StreetandBlue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling,The Tipping Pointis one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name.--Ron Hogan』
price：$6.38
Columbia University Press
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (An interesting analysis of war) 『I have been wanting to read Sun Tszu's treatise for a long time but had never gotten around to it. It consists of short paragraphs of his writings and many comentaries and arguments regarding them. It isn't something you can read in one go. At times it gets tedious reading the conflicting comments. Because it was written long ago and has been rewritten and translated many times it has lost coherance in places. Still there is much of value and I wish that Bush and Rumsfeld had taken heed of it before getting us involved in Iraq.』
(A terrific book) 『A well-known writer friend strongly recommended this book to me and, knowing very little about the subject, I read it on a plane trip to southeast asia. I was entranced from start to finish. It is a work a great nuance and amazing writing. Buy it!』
(One of the most important military books in history) 『The Warring States period Warring States Period 475-221 BCE is a history of constant warfare, of alliances and counter-alliances, and of treaties made and broken. The nature of warfare evolved during the period. During the Warring States period, political stability was impossible to gain by adventurous military action. With the advent of swelling ranks of soldiers, protracted sieges, and an ever increasing drain on state treasuries, warfare became a serious matter for study.
Thus, the opening remark of "The Art Of War" states--without exaggeration--war had become the most serious business of the state, the key to survival or ruin. The author of this and other pithy aphorisms on how to successfully fight a war was Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu scholars place his writing "The Art of War" in the Warring States Period, based on the descriptions of warfare in the text. The book has received great exposure in the west starting in the eighteenth century after being translated by a French missionary. It has been reported that Napoleon studied the text and effectively put many of its teachings to good use. For the past 2,000 years, it has been the most important military treatise in all of Asia, even known by name with the common people. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese military figures have studied it and employed its concepts to good effect. This is especially evident in the military tactics of 20th century revolutionaries like Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh.
The book is comprised of 13 chapters. The thesis of Sun's work is one should employ an army after a thorough analysis mandated by careful planning and the formulation of an overall strategy before embarking on a campaign. Sun emphasizes rational self-control, influenced by Daoist teachings throughout the book.
Chap 1-Laying Plans 18. All warfare is based on deception. 19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
Chap 6-Weak Points And Strong 8. Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.
The best translation is the Samuel B. Griffith edition 』
(A book that helped shape the world) 『One of the oldest and probably one of the most historically relevant books on warfare, The Art of War, was a huge influence on shaping the Eastern world. The philosophy taught is the positioning of soldiers and how to react quickly to the changing environments of the battlefield -- where, of course, the uncertainty of combat requires a soldier to not only make quick decisions, but the right counter strike. Fail, and you may lose your life. Too many mistakes, and you may lose the war. The book is divided into 13 chapters and depending on the translation gives the names. I will use the most common translation to list the chapters:
I. Laying Plans II. Waging War III. Attack by Stratagem IV. Tactical Dispositions V. Energy VI. Weak Points and Strong VII. Maneuvering VIII. Variation of Tactics IX. The Army on the March X. Terrain XI. The Nine Situations XII. The Attack by Fire XIII. The Use of Spies
Chapter I: Is about the fundamentals and planning of war: the way, seasons, terrain, leadership, and management Chapter II: The cost effectiveness of war. Chapter III: Explains how the strength of the phalanx is unity Chapter IV: Explains that defending the troop's position is crucial Chapter V: Building momentum Chapter VI: Take advantage of your opponent's weakness Chapter VII: Avoid direct contact Chapter VIII: Flexibility in your counter attack Chapter IX: evaluating the intentions of others. Chapter X: There are three general areas of resistance: distance, dangers, and barriers, and the six types of ground positions that arise from them. Each of these six field positions offer certain advantages and disadvantages. Chapter XI: Describe nine common situations in a campaign Chapter XII: It examines the five targets for attack, the five types of environmental attack, and the appropriate responses to such attack. Chapter XIII: The importance of developing good information sources
This book has so much cultural relevance that anything I write won't give it the praise it is due...or describe just how important it was in shaping modern warfare. So, all I can say is just read it and find out for yourself what all the fuss is about.』
(mixed commentary/text makes this an awful edition) 『All I want to do is read the Art of War, but this edition mixes the commentary with the text, which makes reading on the Kindle really difficult. In a real book, the commentary is at the bottom and you can ignore it. On this, it's all mixed in and makes it nearly impossible to read. I'm deleting it.』 『Compiled during the Warring States period of 475-221 B.C.E., The Art of War has had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese military strategy over the past two thousand years and occupies an important place in East Asian intellectual history. It is the first known attempt to formulate a rational basis for the planning and conduct of military operations, and while numerous editions of the work exist, Victor Mair's translation is the first to remain true to the original structure and essential style of the text.
Mair's fidelity to the original, along with his insightful commentary and reliance on archaeologically recovered manuscripts, breaks new ground in solving The Art of War's difficult textual and contextual problems. He confronts complex questions concerning the authorship of the work, asserting that Sun Wu, a supposed strategist of the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.E.) to whom the text is traditionally attributed, never existed. Instead, Mair claims that The Art of War coalesced over a period of around seventy-five years, from the middle of the fourth century to the first quarter of the third century B.C.E.
Mair also reveals the way The Art of War reflects historical developments in technological and military strategy in civilizations throughout Eurasia, especially in regards to iron metallurgy. He demonstrates the close link between the philosophy in The Art of War and Taoism and discusses the reception of the text from the classical period to today. Finally, Mair highlights previously unaddressed stylistic and statistical aspects and includes philological annotations that present new ways of approaching the intellectual and social background of the work. A phenomenal achievement, Mair's comprehensive translation is an indispensable resource for today's students, strategists, and scholars.』
price：$13.80
Free Press
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (Very interesting and informative!!) 『I am a high school Biology teacher and was looking for some fresh ideas for presenting Evolution to my students. This book is great for that! Even though some of the book is above the academic level of the students, I have still been able to take numerous excerpts from the book to have my students critically analyze, and they love it.
Very interesting, and sad, how many students think modern dogs such as Pugs and poodles were 'created' and have 'existed' since the beginning of time. That says a lot about the erroneous influences many students are 'taught' to believe.
You'd be surprised, though maybe not, how many students say: "I had no idea evidence like this existed" or "I've never heard that before." Comments like that only confirm my drive to educate people on the mounds of evidence that exists supporting the theory of Evolution. So sad that so many CHOOSE to ignore it.』
(Another lesson from an awe-inspiring teacher) 『Ever since the Selfish Gene, Professor Dawkins has been educating readers not only on the details of evolution but on the sheer elegance of the natural world around us. While reading the Selfish Gene I had a change in my viewpoint of the world that no other book has come close to. Richard Dawkins latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth is a book describing the evidence for evolution. He has spent so long discussing the fascinating repercussions of evolutionary theory on our scientific understanding of the world, that he has never written a book purely on the evidence for evolution. It is unfortunate when a majority of the population doesn't believe in evolution that this book needs to be written. But fear not, this book is not solely written to convert the uneducated masses. As always, Richard uses clear prose and a variety of fascinating real-world examples to inspire awe and educate even those familiar with the subject. Mr Darwin's theory is truly an elegant theory and our understanding of it has increased orders of magnitude since 'The Origin of Species' was first published. Reading Richard's work always leaves me inspired and appreciative that I have been given a chance to understand the world around me. This is what professor Dawkins does best and this book will fascinate and delight the reader.』
(Great tutorial on evolution, however there are superior arguments) 『Given the plethora of evolution books published recently, I argue it's imperative to consider this book's worthiness against these other recent publications.
Richard Dawkins' objective with TGSOE is to present his ". . . personal summary of the evidence that the `theory' of evolution is actually a fact - as incontrovertible a fact as any in science." [1st pg. of the Preface]. This appears to make this book an argument for evolution, especially considering the subtitle, "The Evidence for Evolution". This framing also matches exactly to the explicit motivation expressed by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne in his book, Why Evolution Is True.
Having read both I'd recommend Coyne's book if one is looking for an optimal argument on why Science considers evolution a fact and why there are no remaining hypotheses able to challenge evolution as a explanatory model for the evidence or discredit the findings supportive of evolution. It's much more concise, sticks more closely to peer-accepted findings, is more transparent about hedging on explanations where confidence is not yet overwhelming, and presents its findings in a manner easier to understand to someone not well educated in biology.
However, given that I think even the Coyne book falls short on its argument I also recommend molecular biologist Daniel Fairbanks' Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA to provide additional evidence contained within all of life's DNA that evolution is both true and convincingly falsifies all prior arguments made by creationists and intelligent design creationists. Coyne makes an arguable assertion on why he didn't include a specific chapter on the evidence in our DNA though he weaves it into other chapters; I think that missing chapter is why Coyne's book is not a masterpiece. I'll post the link to his argument in the comments section of this review.
What I like about TGSOE and why I still recommend purchasing it is Dawkins' skill as a teacher. I quickly left by the wayside that this book was an argument and instead treated it as a tutorial. What I especially liked about Dawkins' book which makes for a poor argument but a great tutorial is his use of analogies and thinking exercises. Dawkins provides examples not merely because they provide devastating arguments for evolution, but instead because they are teachable moments. His reporting on the guppy and the Lenski experiments were as effective as any of Coyne's examples as arguments. However, Dawkins' distinguishes himself in providing examples that allow the stories and principles to resonate well after having read them. He asks questions, and guides is to how the evidence answers those questions. This makes for a lengthier book than Coyne's, but also helps reinforce the topical matter. The numerous photographs in the book also helped reinforce his examples and were an unexpected surprise.
An example of a powerful teaching moment was that Dawkins starts with how hominids acted as an agent to evolve wolves into an astonishingly broad collection of domestic dog breeds in the blink of evolutionary time. At first I thought this was too simplistic; I was wrong. Dawkins' builds on that reportage by then showing how plants and animals' dependent on those plants each act as agents causing the other to evolve. This eases the beginner (which I'm not though I'm also not an expert) into better appreciating how natural selection works. This initial primer on natural selection is not where it ends, instead Dawkins' excels at teaching natural selection from several aspects in a manner that optimizes retention of the principles discovered and the evidence falsifies other proposed mechanisms. Given the fact this makes for a bigger book than Coyne's, Dawkins' book is superior at taking on topics at a more advanced level. Dawkins begins at an even more elementary level than Coyne does, but then uses chapter after chapter to build upon what was learned in the previous chapter to flesh-out our understanding of evolutionary topics, particularly natural selection, how the variation in our DNA provides a map to our ancestral heritage, and how an intelligent designer is a ludicrous notion once we've understand all the evidence collected to date which not only validates evolution but frequently falsifies the idea of a designer - where the score is an uncountable number of observations for Science to zero for design advocates (which is a primary reason they don't publish in relevant peer-reviewed journals).
Where Dawkins' book suffers is related to his own personal musings. As a tutorial these musings are often but not always instructive. Science is significantly about what to research next given we certainly don't know everything. Dawkins' allows us a peek into where the research is heading. In fact, if you enjoy the chapter about evolutionary development, than I highly recommend adding to your knowledge in this area given it too provides overwhelming evidence for evolution while falsifying creationist/IDC notions, the classic is still biologist Sean B. Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo. In addition, scientists as creative thinkers are often thought of as contradictory attributes when in fact it's a necessary element of framing your hypotheses or trying to create reasons to explain surprising data discoveries and then go off and attempt to validate these new notions. Science as a process actually yields more creativity than nearly all other thinking disciplines and Dawkins infers such in many of his musings.
One weakness I found is that Dawkins speculates in areas where the science is already being conducted, e.g., group selection, and the math regarding the number of planets where life could exist. So why waste pages speculating with zero data when he could have instead reported where the efforts were to date and extrapolated from there? In addition Mr. Dawkins can be a somewhat sloppy writer if this were treated like an argument rather than a teacher teaching; opening up opportunities for creationists to dishonestly quote-mine him where he is a preferred target of theirs, e.g., "the fact of our own existence is almost too surprising to bear" on pg. 425 and his other extraordinary reflections not shared by many of his peers.
Such rhetoric is sloppy because creationists often disingenuously attribute something one scientist states as personal opinion as that believed by all scientists. In a perfect world such intellectual dishonesty wouldn't occur and we wouldn't have to worry about how a great teacher's occasionally sloppy rhetoric is twisted to argue the opposite of what both the teacher and his discipline's adherents understand. So if you are a creationist looking to test your faith against what Science understands, the Coyne and Fairbanks' books are far sterner tests and provide less opportunities to avoid confronting the evidence that destroys that faith or at least requires modification if one is honest with oneself. If you want to actually learn and optimize the quality of the teaching where you forgive Dr. Dawkins occasionally lapsing into tangential topics, this book will resonate long after you've finished it and serve as a handy reference guide after your initial read.
I gave the book four rather than five stars primarily because I think he needs to use more research assistants to better footnote his book to more of the evidence he's reporting. While I've encountered nearly all his examples prior to my reading his book and know he's accurate in his reporting (with the exception of his possibly extending the findings in the Lenski experiment), books on controversial subjects should go over-board in citations. He also should have provided more examples from other scientists than his own musings, coupled to his musings not adding much, e.g., I found his zeal for computer programs extraneous to a book serving as a general review of the state of evolution. This adds up to the fact he needs a sterner editor. Given his success in selling prior books, it's not a surprise he was given so much latitude - to a fault I think.
If after the purchase of this book you remain excited about the topic and want to learn more, I recommend at least considering (I haven't read it yet but it's in my queue) getting Carl Zimmer's new book, The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. Mr. Zimmer is one of our most trusted and respected science writers and is a brilliant communicator of evolution both in his prior books, periodical articles, and his blog. Tangled Bank is a text book focusing strictly on teaching evolution. 』
(Pretty Lame...) 『Okay, I know a lot of you are going to be upset with me, but I found this book, as well as all his others, to be lame. Don't get me wrong, Richard is a very smart man, but when it comes to evolution, I don't think so. He says this book closes the gaps of his other books for true evidence for evolution. Why? His other books weren't good enough? So why did he write them? Why not just this one? He has a few things in this book that he claims are proof for evolution but they have been recently proven as false. I bought this book, and I regret it. But I do enjoy watching the "proof" for evolution fall apart in front of him.』
(Richard Dawkins "Modern Science Writing") 『A very good read. A couple of pages each from over 200 of the world's top scientists. If you are pushed for time this allows you to read say two to six pages and then get on with the days activities while digesting what you have read. And if you are not pushed for time you will certainly want to read on. Great to have such a volume from scientists who are easy to read and on top of their respective callings. You will come away from this book happy in the information it has presented to you. Enjoy. Don Mantack 』 『In 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a Pew Forum poll in the same year, 42 percent believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.
In 1859 Charles Darwin's masterpiece,On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke. But he surely would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. Now the author of the iconic workThe God Delusiontakes them to task.
The Greatest Show on Earthis a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection."
The Greatest Show on Earthcomes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is menacing as never before. In American schools, and in schools around the world, insidious attempts are made to undermine the status of science in the classroom. Dawkins wields a devastating argument against this ignorance, but his unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor.』
price：$6.64
Back Bay Books
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (another thought provoking book) 『Malcolm Gladwell's Blink is about how unconscious thought, maybe can referred as instinct, affects human behavior and decision making.
For example, professionals do what they do without thinking because they have conditioned themselves on the basics so much so that they no longer have to think about it - they just do it. It is like chewing gum and walking at the same time. Two of those things are so basic that most people can do it without thinking about it and moreover while thinking about something else. It is these unthinking thoughts is what Blink describes.
Blink also describes about gut feelings. Gut feelings compel people to do or not to do things. Because of the nature of gut feelings, people cannot really describe why they have them. Blink discusses these undescribable gut feelings and how they help us and harm us.
Also, Blink talks about situations of TMI (Too Much Information) and how sometimes people who rely on gut and experience can survive and outsmart those who are armed with TMI. I thought the part about TMI was pretty good. Sort of makes me wonder if people who try to integrate TMI really know what they are doing.
I have read Outliers, The Tipping Point, and What the Dog Saw. To me, the story about panic and choking from the What The Dog Saw was an extension from Blink. Blink ranks about 2nd best from his books, Outliers being the best. From reading this book, it sort of makes me wonder how how he thinks and how he notices common subtleties of human life. Blink was a different book - it relates more to thought than behavior or effort.
Blink was a good book. I was left still thinking about the unconscious thoughts that Blink describes.』
(Thinking about Thinking) 『"Blink," one in a series of excellent books by Malcolm Gladwell, is one of those rare publications that actually makes you think about how you think. This concept, covered in an engaging and entertaining voice by Gladwell, may seem confusing, strange, boring, or all of the above at first glance. Rest assured -- this book is anything but boring, strange, or confusing -- it is a wonderful publication that entertains and teaches in equal measure.
With a rhetorical style akin to that conveyed by Michael Pollen in In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Gladwell presents readers with data and hypotheses. He carefully and logically supports his conclusion(s), but does not force his perspective on his readers. Gladwell's style, rather, is one of engaging and involving the reader on a journey of learning.
For the interested reader, Gladwell offers stories and characters that engage, and ideas and perspectives that stimulate thought. This is a wonderful book that is well worth a read.』
(Blink) 『This was an interesting point of view. I think it was well researched, but does not share any of the counter-point to his position.』
(Neither Power nor Thinking) 『Just a long list of antedotes. Interesting for the first two seconds at best. Not useful reading.』
(A Real Eye Opener) 『This book is a great read. Very engaging and thoughtful. The author provides some wonderful new insights into how we make decisions from the gut or at the blink of an eye. From this insight you can start making more intelligent decisions on how you take advantage of your instincts.
My only complaint and the reason for 4 instead of 5 stars is that the author doesn't give enough definitive advice about what we can do to better ourselves with the knowledge he provides. There are suggestions and hints but any conclusion is a little weak. Regardless, I have read this book twice and will read it again so I can continue to understand my own gut instincts and make better decisions in the blink of an eye.
If you enjoy this book, check out Emotional Intelligence. Although a little dry, Emotional Intelligence reflects some of the points made by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink.』 『In his #1 bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. In BLINK, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others? That's the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in BLINK. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, examining case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the New Coke, Gladwell shows how the difference between good decision making and bad has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but rather with the few particular details on which we focus. BLINK displays all of the brilliance that has made Malcolm Gladwell's journalism so popular and his books such perennial bestsellers as it reveals how all of us can become better decision makers--in our homes, our offices, and in everyday life.』 『Blinkis about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author ofThe Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior. The key is to rely on our "adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7 mental valet--that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea.
Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers can manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us "mind blind," focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to "the Warren Harding Effect" (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president). In a provocative chapter that exposes the "dark side of blink," he illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic stakeout and murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines studies about autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training that enhances high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant, cage-rattling book, one can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell's ideas about what Blink Camp might look like.--Barbara Mackoff』
price：$11.02
Little, Brown and Company
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (A Chicken is not only a chicken!) 『This is an excellent book. I just read the review in the New York Times and was disappointed by the last paragraph which stated that readers wondered how Foer could expend so much energy and caring on the fate of pigs and chickens when he should be more concerned about the death of 1 million children caused by malaria, and atrocities in the Congo caused by conflicts. This argument implies that: 1. we should not be humane towards animals while malaria exists, 2. as soon as malaria is cured, then we can take care of animals. Yeh, right, like that ever happened after we eradicated any disease.... 3. And just when have we ever ended a war somewhere and then moved on to help the animals who suffered there? It's a cheap argument... and unfortunately, one which is commonly used. Isaac Bashevis Singer said that for animals, every day was an Auschwitz. The pain of animals is as real as the pain of people. So why does it drive some people mad when we compare the two? Why don't they use that anger to fight against all suffering... We have only one heart. It's the same heart which we use to help people, as well as animals. When will people stop repeating that we cannot do one until we have settled the other? And isn't that a catch 22? People hurt animals yet we should not help animals until we have helped every person.....』
(Enough!) 『OK! I've been hit over the head with the sledgehammer of righteous, morality. I get it, Mr. Foer. If I choose to eat that sirloin burger, I will have to eat it while being burdened with a guilt of biblical proportions. At seventy years old I have tried to eat a fresh, wholesome and healthy diet, one that protects me from high blood pressure, and my husband from more cardiac problems. And I mean, a healthy diet - I make sure of it. I bought Mr. Foer's book because I feel strongly about food quality, and wanted more education on our food supply. After three blood-dripping chapters, I felt my very human-ness under attack because I had these taste-tingling urges for grilled salmon and roasted pork tenderloin. I am happy the author and his wife are adopting a vegetarian diet. But please, spare me the guilt-producing, twist-the-knife rhetoric. I will continue to fight against processed food, and fight for eating more fruits and vegetables. But I refuse to subject myself to the guts and gore you so very specifically articulate. I get it that you don't want to eat Lassie, your moral equivalent to eating animals. But please know, I just ate some cold, cooked shrimp. I followed it with a romaine salad, with blue cheese, walnuts, and apples. I didn't weep for shame.』
(Confused) 『First, there was Michael Pollan, whose book "The Omnivore's Dilemma," a book I deeply admire, exposed the horrors (and yes, they are horrors) of what is now called "factory farming" and the devastating effects of agribusiness on the American diet. And there was Barbara Kingsolver, whose chatty family experiment in local eating ("Animal, Vegetable, Miracle") popularized the notion of growing your own or at least patronizing the local farmer's market. Now there is Jonathan Safran Foer, who deploys his considerable literary gifts against factory farming of every kind (pork, poultry, and fish, primarily, Pollan having already covered beef). Foer is a recent convert to vegetarianism and to philosophical ideas about animal rights. He proselytizes with a convert's zeal, beginning with a clever Swiftian analysis of why it might be as acceptable to eat dogs as it is to eat chicken. His depictions of giant crowded poultry houses, of sprawling hog farms and their lagoons of manure, of the tons of discarded "bycatch" of fishing trawlers are riveting and utterly appalling.
This is also a deeply confused book. On the one hand, Foer is drawn to the absolutist position: it is never acceptable to eat animals. Farming, he feels, even humane family farming, must inevitably inflict pain, if only at slaughter, so one must always abstain. This position, however, is never explored deeply, only stated, again and again. Foer never clearly says whether he is a vegetarian or a vegan, although logic would require the latter. He briefly discusses egg layers (and their inevitable byproduct, male layer chickens) He does not discuss dairy farming (and its inevitable byproduct, male calves). What to do with those male chickens and calves? Does he eschew leather, a byproduct of cattle slaughter? He does not say. Furthermore, he includes sympathetic portraits of a number of small scale farmers whose treatment of animals seems admirable, although they always fail Foer's standard of "no pain should be inflicted, not ever." Occasionally, he retreats even from his measured admiration, as when he takes a gratuitous slap at Joel Salatin, the poultry farmer Pollan admires in "Omnivore." He cannot bring himself to say, as Pollan does, that eating as little meat as possible and seeking out humanely raised meat might be a good idea for some. Instead, he draws (offensive, I thought) parallels between the civil rights movement and the animal rights movement.
The book held my attention until about the halfway point, when it ran out of gas and began to recycle its arguments. This is a book heavily dependent on book learning (copious notes), as opposed to the work of someone who had spent considerable time on a farm or around animals (undercover PETA expeditions excluded). It is, one could say, an urban book by an urban author for an urban audience that surely needs a good shake as it reaches for the package of cheap Tyson chicken thighs at the Fairway. I'm all for any author who can get people to think about--and hopefully rebel against--the unhealthful and cruel practices of factory farms. But if one can never inflict pain on an animal, what am I to do when hornworms devour my (organic) tomato crop or potato beetles defoliate the potatoes? Foer is eloquent when he discusses the nervous systems of fish. He doesn't say anything about insects.』
(Some people need meat despite the issues surround it.) 『First off, I didn't read the book but I've read a lot about it. I tried to give it a neutral review. I whole heartedly think factory farming is awful and wish I could avoid it all costs. However vegetarianism/veganism didn't help my health at all and I found that meat/animal protein profoundly helped me recover from various health issues. Again, I know that factory farming is nasty and local farms are the way to go etc... I wish I could be a vegan, but when it comes to my health and well being vs the treatment of animals I choose MY health over a cow's any day.』
(Not as juicy as an inch thick sirloin burger) 『I initially bought this book thinking it was a cookbook.
Whoa! Was I wrong!!
The Ulinovs are ardent vegans, mind you, but we do like to grill a few steaks, burgers or hot dogs every other day. Otherwise, it is strictly chicken, fish or elk. So we do empathize with Foer's vegetarian sympathies.
Then again, have you ever heard a carrot scream? No?! Well, perhaps our limited human ears are not attuned to their emotional outcries! Have some sympathy. We force those little tubers into the ground and often cage them in to prevent them from being cannibalized by bunny rabbits or being stalked by celery.
One of the things that Foer doesn't address is why animals want to eat us and what we can do to stop that. I had a goat start licking my hand the other day and although I initially thought it was a sign of affection, I quickly realized that she was basting me after I got a quick nip on the fingers. Ouch! Good thing that we have the opposable digits on our hands!! And I will give up eating animals when crocodiles stop eating babies. Deal? I'm pretty sure that if I dropped dead at home, my dogs would come over and comfort me but the cat will think of me as nothing more than a big mouse and start the feast.
(By the way, I recently found out that hot dogs do not actually come from dogs. I'm not sure where they come from, but my neighbor down the highway assured me that it is not dogs after asking if I could sausage-ize his Old Yeller.)』 『 Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work,Eating Animalsexplores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books,Everything is IlluminatedandExtremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved,Eating Animalsis a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told-and the stories we now need to tell. 』
price：$6.88
Penguin
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (Ok) 『Umm you can watch a movie that is on the web that covers all the info that's in this book. I understand that we need to eat more sustainable products, and that we should stay clear of GMO food products. this book was a waist of money, and the info enclosed in its covers is readily available on the web. Any foodie should already know the information that is in this book. I'm a chef, and I guess this is a good read for a high school kid that's interested in the negative effects of humanity on the environment pertaining to food sources. I thought this book was more of a historical reference to the concepts behind the multiple course meal, I was wrong, hence forth the reason that I'm giving it 2 stars.』
(Mostly fascinating with occasional flights into silliness) 『When the author is explaining the food chain, he's well-informed, specific, and highly entertaining. Every now and then, he lapses into deeply silly philosophical mode, particularly when he's trying to grapple with the reality of killing animals for food (whether by hunting or in the slaughterhouse), something his pampered urban upbringing has made it nearly impossible for him to do. So I could have used an editor's services in cutting out about 90% of his repetitive agonizing over whether he can actually bring himself to eat a chicken he helped slaughter or a pig he shot in the woods. But, boy, when he finally gets out of that rut and goes back to describing the intricacies of the food chain, is he ever wonderful. The first section, about the prevalence of corn in the industrial food chain, is an eye-opener. Another section, about Joel Salatin's fascinating experiment in sustainable agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley, is worth the whole book. Even the hunting-and-gathering section, which suffers most from his tendency to maunder, is stuffed full of goodies about things like mushroom cycles of life.』
(Fantastic Food reading) 『This is a great read, it has made me very thoughtful of what I eat and where my food comes from. The run down of how much corn or things that ate corn or used to be part of corn are in fast food was very mind opening. Drink all the soda you think you are going to want for a while before you read is my only advice.』
(Excellent! A Must Read!!) 『I really enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about, well, corn--the economics, the health issues and the politics all involved in growing and selling corn. I thought this book was well researched and I think that Mr. Pollen did a great job of truly involving himself in the experience. I mean, he spent a week, busting his butt on the farm, living and working with a complete stranger who, although well meaning, is a bit out of the bell curve.
I have to agree with another review regarding the meat. I am a non-red meat eater but I do eat poultry, eggs, and dairy. I didn't think that he was as sensitive as he could have been to those that choose a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle.
I would highly recommend this book. I can't wait to read the Botany of Desire.』
(This book may change your life.) 『Although occasionally sections of this book got a little bogged down and dragged a bit for me, overall it was very fascinating, at times horrifying, and frequently wittily entertaining. Pollan explores three main styles or methods of producing a meal: modern industrialized farming, as currently practiced in America, sustainable agriculture based on pasturing livestock, etc., as practiced on Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and hunter/gatherer food production. If a book based on that premise doesn't sound like it could hold your attention and be entertaining, think again.』 『A national bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book by award winner Michael Pollan asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to table each of the food chains that sustain us— whether industrial or organic, alternative or processed—he develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping, surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet.』
price：$18.90
Tantor Media
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (Amazing) 『This book is amazing. It shows in details how your dog feels and perceive the world aroud him by himself. And, for who live in other countries than the U.S, the delivery is not so long, about 25 days in Brazil.』
(Good but could have been much better) 『Ms. Horowitz does a fine job of trying to explain the way dogs function in their lives with humans and the reasoning behind it. However the lack of focus and the fact that she moves from anecdotes to scientific proof and back again really hurts the examples she is try to demonstrate. I found her thought processes very hard to follow and believed that she was moving between being a very effective scientist and a good story teller but at the same time dropping some things off.
I was hopping for more with this book to be quite honest. I believe a number of the reviews tell all that is really of interest within the book. If you have a burning passion to learn what's going on with dogs then this book is for you. I think most people will find it very thin and dull.』
(Pacific Book Review, November 9, 2009) 『Reviewed by: Nicole Sorkin, Pacific Book Review Title: Inside of A Dog: What Dogs See, Think, and Know
If you are a dog lover? You will appreciate this book and be very fascinated by all you learn. Full of terrific details and interesting research about dogs. It's been said dogs personify all virtues of humans without vices, and many books have been written on the topic of canine attributes; but none come so close to analyzing the dog thought process as Inside Of A Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, And Know. Alexandra Horowitz provides entertaining and observational works to back scholarly analysis of dog interpretations of their world. Any pet owner will find her analysis astute and entertaining as well. I highly recommend that all who have an interest in dogs or share their lives with dogs purchase and peruse this informative book.』
(Fascinating study) 『 This is a fascinating study of dogs. I have read many books on dog behavior, but this one still had new information. I especially liked the chapter dealing with the way dogs observe us.』
(Some nice stories) 『Sadly, this is one of many, many books that are filled with assertions, not facts. We now have an enormous amount of information about dogs thanks to scientists who decided that the reason for not studying dogs because they weren't in their "natural habitat" is incorrect. Living with humans IS a dog's natural habitat. They are, in fact, our first domesticated animal. Trustworthy books on the dog include those by Vilmos Csanyi, If Dogs Could Talk, or Lindsay, the three volume treatise, the Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training.
But even better is to do your own work understanding your dog. Buy the Brenda Aloff book, Canine Body Language or the Abrantes book, Encyclopedia of Canine Behavior. Then watch your dog, study your dog, see what he does when presented with various stimuli.
As to horrible mistakes based on, perhaps, just her dog (the fallacy of reasoning from the particular to the general) is Horowitz's comment on meeting another dog. She's right AND she's wrong. When two dogs meet, they SHOULD be allowed to do the "sniff test," etc. on a loose lead. Why? Dogs that are restrained may respond negatively out of what some believe is the "frustration" of not being able to make a dog-like "meet and greet." This is very similar to fence behavior between two dogs which presents the same difficulties for the dog. Two dogs on opposite sides of the fence often start barking and snapping. When allowed to meet without the fence in between, there is a far more subdued "conference." As a member of a rescue group, I have witnessed this over and over and have stopped using the "time-tested" recommended "first have them meet on opposite sides of a fence" approach to introducing one dog to another (A far better approach is to find a partner and walk the two dogs together for a mile or so.)
So her recommendation is, on the surface, a good one, loose lead meeting, good. Unfortunately, two completely clueless dog owners (remember, I'm in rescue) can't possibly tell if their dog or the other one is "targeting" the other dog or just harmlessly anxious to meet this canine passerby. "Oh, but my dog/other dog is wagging their tail." Ah, wagging. Here's an example where a little studying of the Abrantes book would pay dividends. Wagging comes in lots of varieties. Is the tail going around madly in circles or is it high and stiff and wagging back and forth slowly like a metronome...it makes a difference. Did one of the dogs avert their eyes? How about the approach? Did one dog attempt to approach the other dog from the side or are they both coming towards one another head to head. And of course there are the tailless Dobies and Rotties, so you need to look at other signals, ears, lips, body language. I don't normally allow my dogs to meet other dogs on the street because there is too much risk and very little reward. If you like to walk your dog on busy streets, teach your dog to "heel" or "on by" when meeting another dog. See, for example Koehler or Patricia Burnham.
All in all this book is like most of the mass media junk, sitting on shelves in your favorite book store, either filled with anecdotal information or making statements unsupported by anything other than the uncited "study." There are good books on dogs, but they are far and few between, the McConnell series comes to mind as well as Be the Dog by Duno, The Dog's Mind, by Fogle or the Domestic Dog by Serpell.
But if you have a dog, then you really have the best available information curled up next to you. Just don't draw conclusions based on "human logic" or what's more accurately called anthropomorphisms. What I mean, for example, is the call we often get (by the wife) about a recently adopted dog, that the dog is urinating in front of the husband as soon as he walks in the door. And the husband (it's invariably the husband) is sure that the dog is doing it for spite and no matter how loudly he screams at the dog, the dog continues to pee as soon as he walks in the house. Well I am sure most of you know what's going on here. Dogs don't do anything for spite (their range of emotions are far simpler than ours). The dog is being deferential. It's what dogs do to show submissiveness to a senior, more dominant animal. So we tell the wife to tell the husband to stop screaming at the dog and make believe he actually is happy to see the pup...or feel free to return the dog to us and go out and get a nice stuffed animal
As to this book, unless you're in the book store, sipping a latte while skimming the book (and looked up the reviews via wi-fi...or you're a relative...pass... 』 『
Temple Grandin meets Stephen Piner in this engaging and informative look at what goes on inside the minds of dogs---from a cognitive scientist with a background at the New Yorker.
price：$89.97
Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged Lib Ed
Usually ships in 24 hours Core2Duoノートレビュー 's review (Enjoy, but beware) 『Timothy Egan is a talented writer, and his book doesn't lack drama or excitement. THE BIG BURN grippingly recounts the events surrounding the Great Fire of 1910, including the response of the federal government through Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, and it offers an interesting snapshot of American life in the early twentieth century. All in all, it's a great story, nicely told. But . . . as a work of historical scholarship, the book has the weaknesses typical of "popular history." There is a good bit of supposing and psychologizing, of quotations that sound oddly modern. While Egan includes some citations at the back, the text is not footnoted, so it's difficult to trace the provenance of any particular piece of information, let alone the quotes.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend against reading the book because of these flaws. I would just say to read it primarily for pleasure and avoid taking every last detail as historical fact (which is probably good advice for reading almost any work of history).』
(A fascinating story about one of our lesser known disasters) 『The Big Burn is a fascinating story of one of our lesser known disasters. While forest fires are big news now and we see the dramatic footage of planes and fire crews working to contain the fires, none of that was around in 1910 when this fire took place. The damage done was tremendous and the victory was in some senses a Pyrrhic one. Timothy Egan does a wonderful job of setting the stage for this terrible event, describing it in graphic detail and then following up with the reader.
Egan does a great job of telling us how the policy adopted after the fire did help to save our national forests but the idea of fighting every fire caused terrible fires in the 1980's up to today. He offers a simple and compelling story that makes the book a page turner and one easy to understand. My only concern is that he pushes the stories of the survivors at the expense of those who perished and I do think that weakens his story. Other than that I highly recommend this story.』
(Nowhere near as good as expected) 『I read a magazine review about this book that praised it to the skies. Unfortunately, it was nowhere near my expectations after reading that review. The book covered an amazingly interesting era in American history--the Roosevelt years. However, in my opinion the book was a little bit too one-sided regarding Roosevelt himself (and I am an admirer of his). All of the writing related to Roosevelt seemed very one-dimensional. I get it: Roosevelt was good, Taftwas bad.
Moving on, the description of the fire was repetitive and at times confusing. The story of the fire was told from several different locations in the forest(s), but unfortunately the characters that were supposed to demarcate the stories were not compelling enough for me to differentiate between the forest locations or even the characters themselves. Therefore, the scenes from the fire seemed to drag on far too long. I believe that if an editor would've cut about 100 pages from this book it would have been eminently more readable.
I give it three stars because it does deliver useful information about the beginnings of the forest service; however, I was not impressed with the story-telling at all. With all of the luminous and eccentric characters of the time, the book had the potential to be far more compelling than it was.』
(Not Convincing at all) 『I just heard an interview Egan, which left me less than likely to read this book. While it at first sounded interesting, the more the author spoke, the less interested I was. He claimed the fire in 1910 had a huge and negative impact on the US Forestry Service. When pressed by the interviewer he couldn't really come up with anything concrete. This sounded very much like wanting to make something that wasn't there. No doubt the 1910 had a huge impact on the Forestry Service, but I doubt a negative one. Furthermore he kept claiming that Roosevelt had initiated this conversion of public land into Federally owned forest land, making the assertion that it was unowned. Not to belabor the point, but it had been owned by various American Indian tribes, whose possession of the land had been eradicated by the US government. In fact, the author kept up the ongoing American love affair with Roosevelt, who would today be called a supporter of genocide. It was, after all, Roosevelt who said that the American Indian should be wiped out and that their lands all converted into national parks. The final nail in the coffin was that while recounting the conversion of land into Federal land he tried to recall the date of the Louisiana Purchase, completed in 1803, and couldn't do it. What all this says to me that he has probably not done his homework and written an engaging book that involves Roosevelt (always good for book sales) but doesn't really have much of a story to tell.』
(Warm but not hot enough) 『The Station fire that got so much attention this summer took two weeks to burn about 200,000 acres. The "Big Burn" in 1910 wiped out 3 million acres in two days - about 100 times more intense.
If only Timothy Egan's retelling matched the event.
The 1910 fire wasn't especially deadly. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in Manhattan less than six months later killed more people. But both had lasting political effects.
The factory fire gave a boost to the union movement. The Big Burn, according to Egan, saved the Forest Service and, in a more profound sense, ratified a new view by Americans of their national endowment.
The first half of "The Big Burn" is slow going. It tells how Teddy Roosevelt, an accidental president if there ever was one, imposed, briefly, his notions of conservation on a Republican Party that before and since has been devoted to looting the public lands.
Egan's retelling is impressionistic rather than precise, with saints (John Muir, the publicist), sinners (Senator Weldon Heyburn, the lumber operator) and prophets in the wilderness (Gifford Pinchot, first head of the Forest Service). Interesting personalities all, but they are more caricatures than real people in Egan's retelling, especially the villains.
The story demands to be set in a national frame - there was a lot more to Teddy's Progressivism than trees - but Egan fails to do that. He does not, for example, mention the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.
His history of the fire itself is more satisfying although, again, Egan sets it in a small frame.
The fire raged through the Bitterroots of Idaho, but it also devastated other states and part of Canada. Egan limits himself to one valley - which he fails to describe thoroughly - and a handful of personalities.
Again, we have a saint (Ed Pulaski, whose name is attached to the firefighters' tool), a sinner (Ralph Debitt, a cowardly ranger) and a prophet (Bill Weigle, a Forest Service supervisor). These characters are more sympathetic to Egan and seem more real, less stand-ins for political movements.
There are plenty of other arresting players, too: a regiment of black cavalrymen, a pair of immigrants from Italy, a football star turned ranger. As far as it goes, this is a good story. Egan just doesn't carry it far enough.
"The Big Burn" is worth reading anyway, although the reader will have to supply some of his own facts to flesh it out - like the ascendancy of James Watt under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, contradicting Egan's blithe romance about how the fire taught America to reverence its natural inheritance.
The treatment by the government of the men who served it was shameful and is worth knowing about. Egan does treat this aspect of the story adequately.
In fact, there is a lot more about the Big Burn worth knowing than Egan puts into this interesting but superficial history.』 『On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men — college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps — to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them.
Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic is the larger story he tells of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought Roosevelt and Pinchot’s rangers, but the Big Burn saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in their favor and became the creation myth that drove the Forest Service, with consequences still felt in the way our national lands are protected — or not — today.』 『Amazon Best of the Month, October 2009:When Theodore Roosevelt vacated the Oval Office, he left a vast legacy of public lands under the stewardship of the newly created Forest Service. Immediately, political enemies of the nascent conservation movement chipped away at the foundations of the untested agency, lobbying for a return of the land to private interests and development. Then, in 1910, several small wildfires in the Pacific Northwest merge into one massive, swift, and unstoppable blaze, and the Forest Service is pressed into a futile effort to douse the flames. Over 100 firefighters died heroically, galvanizing public opinion in favor of the forests--with unexpected ramifications exposed in today's proliferation of destructive fires. Just as he recounted the Dust Bowl experience inThe Worst Hard Time(a National Book Award winner), The Big Burnvividly recreates disaster through the eyes of the men and women who experienced it (though this time without the benefit of first-hand accounts). It's another incredible--and incredibly compelling--feat of historical journalism. --Jon Foro
Amazon Exclusive Essay: "The Ghosts of 1910" by Timothy Egan, Author ofThe Big Burn
Nearly a hundred years ago, a big piece of Rocky Mountain high country fell to a fire that has never been matched--in size, ferocity, or how it changed the country. I was drawn to this fire in part because of its mythic status among my fellow Westerners. But I was reluctant to try and tell this story because everyone who had lived through it had gone to their grave. WithThe Worst Hard Time, I could look into the eyes of people who survived the Dust Bowl and hear their stories--firsthand. They were happy to pass them on. I was the baton.
WithThe Big Burn, the stories would have to come from ghosts. That fire burned 3 million acres and five towns to the ground in the hot sweep of a single weekend. It also killed nearly a hundred people. So, my task was to listen to the dead--those Italian and Irish immigrant firefighters in their letters home, those first forest rangers in memories collected in volumes stashed away in mountain towns, and in the notes and diaries of two great men who founded the Forest Service. One, Teddy Roosevelt, is a voice that lives nearly as loud today as when he bestrode the world stage. The other, Gifford Pinchot, was less known, but his legacy, like that of Roosevelt, is everywhere in the public land that Americans now claim as a birthright. And what’s more, Pinchot himself was married to a ghost for nearly 20 years, one of the more fascinating things I found in the haunt of the Big Burn.
President Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir atop Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park
Ranger Ed Pulaski, whose actions saved many lives
Ranger Joe Halm after the fire. Like Ranger Pulaski, he helped save many lives
Men standing amid downed timber after the Big Burn of 1910
Young Gifford Pinchot, a close friend and personal aide of Roosevelt’s and the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service
A ForestService fire patrol in 1914
A Q&A with Timothy Egan
Q:Tell us something about that great fire.A:Well, it was the largest wildfire in American history, based on size. In less than two days, it torched more than three million acres, burned five towns to the ground, and killed nearly one hundred people.Q:Wow. How big is three million acres?A:Imagine if the entire state of Connecticut burned in a weekend--that's what you have here.Q:And yet in your subtitle you call this the fire that saved America.A:That's right. This happened in August 1910--next year will be the one hundredth anniversary. It came just after Teddy Roosevelt had left office, and left a legacy of public land nearly the size of France. But after Roosevelt was gone from Washington, in 1909, the Forest Service, the stewards of his legacy, came under attack. Gilded Age money wanted the rangers gone, the land placed in private hands. Enemies in Congress were constantly sniping at the young agency. And people out west were suspicious of the value of“Teddy's green rangers,” as they called them. They thought they were all college boys, softies, city kids.Q:So how did the fire change that image?A:It made heroes--almost mythic heroes--of the young men who led platoons of firefighters into a sea of flames. The government had marshaled ten thousand people, an army of young men, immigrants, and volunteers, to fight the fire. It was the first large-scale effort to battle a wildfire in U.S. history. The big-city daily newspapers here and abroad covered it like a war. The firefighters failed, because the Big Burn was so big and moved so quickly. But they succeeded in one respect: it turned the tide of public opinion, and Roosevelt's“Great Crusade” was saved. But at an awful cost. Those men should never have died. The fire was a once-in-a-century force of nature, and nothing could have stopped it.Q:How so?A:The fire moved faster than a horse at full gallop. It's been estimated that it consumed enough trees to build a city the size of Chicago. And it burned at nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in spots, incinerating the ground down to bedrock. No army of bedraggled men with shovels and picks could stop that.Q:After writing a book about the Dust Bowl, what drew you to a fire from 1910?A:I guess I'm working my way through the elements, going from dust to fire! Narrative history, basically just storytelling, is such a thrill to develop. You relive several lives through this drama. You inhabit their time. LikeThe Worst Hard Time, this book follows a dual-track story and several real-life people through this event.Q:How did you hear about the Great Fire?A:I've heard about the Big Burn since I was a little kid, camping in Montana and Idaho with my family. It had this larger-than-life status. And then, as a New York Times reporter covering the West and many wildfires, I found that this fire was a sacred text.Q:What surprised you about the story?A:I think it was Voltaire who said history never repeats itself, but man always does. As with the story I tried to tell inThe Worst Hard Time, here you have a classic tale of human beings against nature. Hubris plays a huge role. In the end, nature wins, of course. Nature always bats last, as they said after the Bay Area earthquake that disrupted the World Series.Q:What else came as a surprise?A:I was hugely impressed with Roosevelt and his chief forester, a very strange and original American now nearly lost to our history named Gifford Pinchot. These were two easterners, born into wealth, who crusaded a century ago for the Progressive Era idea that a democracy and public land were inextricably linked. They always talked about land belonging to“the little guy.” It was a radical idea then, at a time when the gulf between the rich and poor was never greater. Roosevelt and Pinchot were both traitors to their class, in that sense. And both were--how to say this--odd people.Q:What do you mean by that?A:I mean it in a positive sense. They went skinny-dipping together in the Potomac, boxed and wrestled, climbed rocks and rode horses through Rock Creek Park, all while at the pinnacle of power, while hatching these conservation ideals. And Pinchot, the founding forester, on top of everything else, was married to a ghost--a dead woman, a true spiritual union--for nearly twenty years.Q:What was that all about?A:He was a quirky guy, very smart but also very spiritual.Q:And Teddy Roosevelt, did he live up to the image carved on Mount Rushmore?A:More so. He was such a...multitasker! A presidential polymorph! He wrote something like fifteen books before the age of forty. He climbed the Matterhorn after doctors told him he was doomed to a sickly, indoors life. And he took on the entrenched, powerful moguls and politicians of the Gilded Age.Q:So the story you tell is really two stories, as you mentioned earlier: the founding of American conservation and how this fire saved it?A:Precisely. I'm always interested in the collision between man and nature. But again, what struck me as unusual in this case was how the collision preserved something bigger, more lasting--the idea of conservation itself.Q:So the fire was a good thing?A:I don't think the families who lost their loved ones would say that. I try to focus on five or so people who faced this beast on the ground. You know, history is not always about Great Men. It's also about people in the margins, who rarely get recognition, who make it turn. And in this case, you had some Italian and Irish immigrants, a tough female homesteader, some African-American soldiers, some brave and young forest rangers--all of whom were heroes, as important to how this fire changed history as were Roosevelt and Pinchot.Q:Aside from the conservation legacy, why is a fire from a hundred years ago important today?A:We're entering an age of catastrophic wildfires, so the experts say. Big parts of the West will burn over the next decade. In those forests you have all this fuel built up: dead and dying trees. The land wants to burn, perhaps needs to burn. A big part of the reason why goes back to the Big Burn. I don't want to give away a story twist, but you’ll see late in the book that another lesson--perhaps tragic, certainly misguided--was taken away from the Big Burn. It's with us in a very big way.Q:How, specifically?A:We're seeing bigger, hotter, longer, earlier wildfires around the country today, and much of them can be traced to the wrong lessons of the Big Burn. Firefighting now accounts for nearly half of the Forest Service budget. This was not what Roosevelt had in mind. 』
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