I was rather disappointed in this book. Keller's view of 'explanation' is that it is relative to the needs of each particular culture and their historical time (p. 5). As such, she does not really critique or analyze the various historical concepts to any degree. Essentially, she presents what happened, and who did it, and how some things fell in or out of favor at a given time.

The result is that this book is essentially a narrative of approximately the last century of the history of biology. In that regard, it does succeed somewhat at attempting to condense the efforts of 100+ years of biology into about 300 pages. That is why I gave it two stars.

However, as Keller is a MIT philosopher of science and also trained in theoretical physics, I had expected more analytic depth, and some kind of "edge" - some thesis or thread or some other kind of thematic reason for her to be telling us all this history. Even on the most fundamental question of biology, "what is life?", Keller equivocates, calling it "a historical question, answerable only in terms of the categories that we as human actors choose to honor, and not in logical, scientific or technical terms." (p.294) Indeed, she does not even mention Schrodinger's 1943 lecture, "What is Life?"

The chapters on AI/AL are quite weak, focusing heavily on cellular automata (she mentions Wolfram several times). These tinker-toy computer games are about as close to life as a simulation of an earthquake is to an actual earthquake, in my opinion. Keller, however, describes computer simulations as being part of the 'revitalized' mathematical biology program.

She recounts the 'original' mathematical biology program as the one primarily led by Rashevsky, but also mentions Waddington and Turing. I find it odd that she did not mention Robert Rosen at all, considering he continued on after Rashevsky. I admit I am an admirer of Rosen's works, but her failure to even mention him seems odd considering she devotes an overly large number of pages to Turing's addition to mathematical biology.

Further, had she read Rosen's _Essays on Life Itself_, she would see that mimetic attempts at creating life with computer simulations is utterly ill-conceived. But, then again, since Keller engages in no analysis anyway, I should not be surprised at this.

Finally, Keller claims she shares some similarity to the philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright in believing that there is no set of universal laws of physics (and hence, in Keller's view, no universal set of laws of biology). Cartwright (who's books I admire) makes a good case for there being ontological reasons for this view (see Cartwright's _The Dappled World_). By contrast, Keller sees it as an epistemological problem, because the world is "irreducibly complex" and because of the "disunity of human interests". (p. 301) I think Keller misconstrues Cartwright completely when Keller contrasts her position with one alleging "an underlying incoherence" to the world. Cartwright never supposed, or proposed, 'incoherence' of nature in her writing; rather, Cartwright attempts to make sense of the ontological basis for the patchwork manner of physical laws.

The title _Making Sense of Life_ is misleading, for this book does no such thing, nor even attempts to cobble together an approach to doing so. It may be worthwhile as a history of efforts in biology, but even in that regard I'd prefer a polemic narrator, rather than this one.

Keller's book is a fascinating read about genetics today, but just as fascinating about the intellectual developments that preceded today's thinking. She appreciates the thrill of the chase, but also provides the longer view, showing how scientific explanations that were satisfying to the scientists of a given day have frequently turned out to have little bearing on subsequent science-as our museums, T. Kuhn and Keller herself show. And the explanatory nuggets that scientists mine, which put science at the head of society's power train, often turn into the dusty errata of ensuing decades for reasons connected with researcher's attitudes. (This seems to be a factor some ambitious scientists resent contemplating.) She tracks the inclination of researchers and thinkers to project intentions on the gene-an ingrained "agentic" factor. Particularly interesting is what happened when physicists (she's one herself) tried to apply their particular skills and world view on biology-it seems that the powerful, overall formulas of physics, so brilliant in particle analysis and thinking about the universe on a grand scale, simply don't reach down to the particular instances of biology (Turing's theoretical description of the development of Drosophilia may be highly elegant and efficient, but as it turns out the fly, like Frank Sinatra, prefers to do it its own way). Keller writes clearly and well about her subject-her book also gives a rundown of future directions for genetic research-but for me the fun is in Keller's tracing how the search for knowledge is shaped differently from era to era; Keller's book gives us a glimpse of the waters that knowledge swims in.

The book didn't keep my interest enough to finish it. I would get bored at times and fast-forward through the pages. My husband has been in prison for 3 years (his 2nd sentence since I have known him) and will be there for another 10 years. I am raising 6 children on my own, the youngest one being ADHD. About all this book did for me was make me realize that perhaps I should try writing my own book. On the matter of how a visitor to the prison is treated - I have encountered the same as the author, but I put the blame on my husband instead of the staff there, as he is the one who has put the hardship on everyone in the family. I am not as sympathetic as the author seems to be - I only go to visit when necessary for my children's own peace of mind.
I think this is a powerful subject and one in which I wish I could find more help on in coping with the problems in a family when one has to deal with such. I was excited about reading the book in the hopes of hearing from someone who was going through what I was, but I was somewhat disappointed.

This is an amazingly well written book for a first book. The story is compelling told-you will stay with it until the satisfying end. You will cry with W, laugh with W. The book conjures up scenes of real pain and joy, feelings of expectation and great disappointment. It is packed with beautiful insights. It certainly provokes questioning the entire judicial system and makes you realize we should not be so far removed as to think that we could never face a situation like theirs. Excellent book for all students of criminology as well as all young people to make real the consequences of breaking the law. Also perfect book club book-evokes powerful discussion. I can't wait until her next book.

What a SUCK-FEST! This is the worst book I've read in a long time. The (unlucky) 13 authors seem only slightly concerned with plot continuity, and the result is like a novel with every third page torn out. Characters come and go, and come back again for no apparent reason, other than to satisfy the authors' self-indulgent egos. In particular, the chapters by Elmore Leonard and Vicki Hendricks were appallingly bad. Hendricks ignores all the preceeding chapters and suddenly changes the eponymous manatee from an aquatic pinhead into some amalgam of Lassie and the Hardy Boys. In a later chapter Carl Hiaasen openly mocks this sudden swerve in character. (Tip: avoid books where one co-author ridicules another co-author's writing) Elmore Leonard contributes a time capsule that might have been hip 25 years ago, with a black character refering to someone as a "cat", and in the very next sentence actually using the phase "shuck and jive". I am very happy I checked this book out of the library, instead of squandering 22.95 on this train wreck of a book

OK, thirteen of Miami's favorite writers are sitting around a campfire (this isn't a joke). Dave Barry kicks off a story involving a couple hit men, a manatee, a 102-year-old woman and a box containing the head of Fidel Castro, and passes it to the writer to the left. The next eleven writers circle the story around the campfire in an attempt to blend this motley cast of characters (and heads) into the literary equivalent of a refreshing Miami Beach smoothee.

Throwing in monkey wrenches, stranger characters and even more heads-in-boxes in the process, they mostly succeed in creating a wholly unbelievable, extremely offbeat and wildly entertaining mystery. Poor Carl Hiassen (of Striptease fame) is challenged with tying up all the loose ends without playing the Demi Moore card, and succeeds in delivering an ending as strange as a manatee is large.

Above all an interesting experiment, Naked Came the Manatee is also an entertaining quick read.

Booger is the answer to the walls talking. Suspend belief and enter the world of a manatee that thinks, feels and reasons like us. He becomes involved in a mystery not as a victim, but as a participant in important events. The concept of a manatee detective aiding the likes of Brit Montero in solving the case of the Castro heads is only exceeded by the writing of this by the many different writers, from Dave Barry to Carl Hiaasen. No mystery should be this much fun

I got this book to read out loud to my children. They seem to enjoy it (after all, Blackwell's story is fascinating and inspiring!), but I have been disappointed. The characters are rather flat, there is a lot of repetition, and the author moralizes a great deal. I have ended up reading only excerpts from it as I can't stand to slog through the whole thing. Although the book has been informative on the barriers that Blackwell overcame and on her accomplishments, I wish there was more social, historical, and medical context.

I read the book " THE FIRST WOMAN DOCTOR, ELIZABETH BLACKWELL MD". I did not really care for the book. I didn't care for it because it was too imformational and it was very dry. It did not have a lot of conversational writing, witch I think that every good book should have. I also found this book predictable. For example, when she applied for colleges to go to, I figured out what was going to happen before it did. I have read other biographies and found that they were quite interesting. Not dry or predictable.

One day I decided I wanted to read a Non Fiction book. When I was looking through my bookcase and I found a book called The First Woman Doctor. I decided to read it because I would like to become a pediatrician some day. I began to read the book and I thought the book had a lot of descriptive words. I could tell that this book was going to be an interesting book.

The book was about a girl named Elizabeth Blackwell who wanted to become a doctor. Unfortunately for her there weren't any medical schools that would let her in because she was a girl. Then the Geneva Medical College let her in because they wanted to play a joke on her. Elizabeth became a doctor and she also gave other girls a chance to become a doctor.

My favorite part of the book was when she finally reached her goal to becoming a doctor. What I really admire was her perseverance to accomplishing the task of becoming the first woman doctor. If it was not for her I think there would still have no women doctors today.

This book made me quite skeptical at first. It made claims of reading speeds in excess of two and three thousand words per minute. After finding out that these speed are only attainable after the overview technique I regained confidence in the book. It contains valuable advice and information on the use of techniques contained within its' covers. The skills an individual can expect to develop from this book are; faster, more efficient reading, higher comprehension and retention, better note taking, and better preparation for deadlines. These skills are essential for any student and individual in a professional occupation. Based on the benefits I have received, I would recommend this book not only to anyone wishing to improve these skills, but also to any educational curriculum.

The techniques shown in this book as well as the effort you put in to using them. There are alot of success stories, but they are motivating and, well, it's the perfect way to practice what you are taught! I liked it.

I am an advocate of "right-brain" thinking but had never considered using this approach for reading. I had never seen the way I currently read as linear. This technique opens a whole new fontier in learning for me. It has helped me considerably in a very short time. The advise for studying and note-taking are real time savers.

I learned Sign Language several years ago so the idea of letting your mind grasp the concepts rather than reading each word out loud appeals to me in the same way that I believe Sign Language is actually a faster way to communicate rather than speaking each word.

The best part of this book was the cover. A wonderful picture of a sunset in the mountains. Had the cover made it clear that the "author" did nothing more than take excerpts from other books I never would have bought the book. The excerpts were taken so that you never really knew who you were reading about. His choices left me feeling used and I am sure he ruined several good books for me. None of the stories related in "Wild" has convinced me to read the whole book. What a shame!

The literary quality of this book is fair. However, most of the stories have nothing to do with "survival" or "the world's most dangerous places." This is one of the most dishonest tiles I have ever seen. Come on. Where are the "stories of survival?" For example, you may or may not find it interesting to read Edward Abby's ruminations on floating through Glen Canyon, but there is no implication whatsoever that this is one of the world's most dangerous places, or that there was any issue of survival at all. The same can be said of 2/3 of these accounts.

This is yet another in Clint Willis's ongoing series of adrenaline, adventure, survival, disaster, storm, etc. series in which he seeks to capitalize on the rage for danger and excitement that is currently sweeping the literary market. In my search for material for a class on adventure writing I teach, I have read all of them, and found them a mixed lot with some real gems thrown in. This particular anthology is no exception, though I wish Willis would stop over dramatizing his titles. A more realistic name for the collection might be, "Exciting Moments in the Wilds," or "Wildernesss Moments."

Questionable names aside (giving titles to books is an art after all) this collection has some stand out and downright bizarre pieces that are worth reading. If you're looking for a good old-fashioned adventure story with plenty of excitement, try Dave Robert's "A Wilderness Narrrative," or Joe Kane's "Savages." For more than you ever wanted to know about tropical diseases and the dangers of traveling in the Amazaon jungle, try Redmond O'Hanlon's "In Trouble Again." But if you're looking for something really different, something that will not only entertain but make you question your sense of reality, read Barry Lopez's "Pearyland," in which the main character (a student Lopez met in an airport) steps into another, parallel world, or "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood. The Willows in particular carries a disturbing undertone of unease and menace. The things that happen in this story shouldn't, and there is no real explanation for them.

Other, less off the wall, though no less entertaining pieces inlcude Edward Abbey's "Down the River" and Evelyn Waugh's "The Man Who Liked Dickens."

All in all, this is a worhty addition to Willis's growing pile of anthologies, thanks to the solid contributions from familiar and well-established names, but when will Willis dare to include the work of lesser known, though no less talented writers?

Most people have disturbing sexual experiences some times in thier lifes and yes, Everlyn Lau's were worse than most. Men do treat women with disrespect and being the other woman is no fun. Although, I agree with all those premises, and agree that these topics should be explored in poetry, I cannot condone talking about it over and over and over again in the same collection.

If everlyn condenced some of these poems with similar ideas into longer ones, and stopped revisiting the same topics throughout the whole book, I think she could be a good poet. For this collection, she is an immature writer, lacking in experience, and different perspective. Apart from the henious experience she lived through on the streets, that somehow must have -in the Canadian Literary scene- gained her sympathy points, I cannot understand why she is hailed as such a celebrated writer. Decent: yes, great: no.

Evelyn writes about her days on the streets and as a prostitute. She hates men, judging by these poems,and judging from her "Diary of a Street Kid" she hates herself, and is self-destructive and self-absorbed at the same time. Kind of hard to figure. But she is a good writer; bright with obvious talent. I just wish she would fall in love, and write some less disturbing poetry.

i love the way she writes about dark subjects, which range from adultery to child abuse...she tries on many masks in her poetry and they are always breathtaking. she is gifted with imagery and many of the poems i could see as clear as paintings as i was reading them. you have a right to criticize her, but i wonder could you do any better? i doubt it. they registered strongly with me on an emotional level. i love artists who dont let political correctness influence their work. evelyn is also a fine novelist, too...

The mettle and grace of the Victorian gentleman: Robert Falcon Scott, on his 1911/12 polar trek, endured incredible hardship, crushing disappointment, and approaching death -- and wrote it all down in a journal as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. In "Alone", a much better-equipped Admiral Richard E. Byrd suffers similar travails a quarter-century later, and offers up a mundane narrative of egotism, complaint and self-justification.
That Antarctic exploration has undergone a sea change since the days of Scott and Shackleton becomes apparent as Admiral Byrd faces his first crisis: the loss of "two indispensable items": his alarm clock and cookbook. Not even instructions radioed in from Oscar of the Waldorf himself can salvage flapjacks made without that cookbook. Byrd plods along, making mistakes the average boy scout would avoid, such as wandering off and getting lost. And we are left to wonder why he had not learned Morse code, his only means of communication.
The details of daily life are interesting. And the awful, majestic beauty of the Antarctic night shines through it all, despite the half-baked psychoanalysis and philosophy which Byrd ladles over everything. ("The past was gone, and the future would adduce its own appropriate liquidation", he sums up at one point.) But he fails to inspire, to ennoble, to evoke all mankind. It is all about him.
Antarctica has been blessed with chroniclers of encompassing vision, poetic insight, and literary ability. Admiral Byrd is not one of them. Read "Scott's Last Expedition" instead.

If you are looking for a book on an Antarctic adventure, perhaps there are better choices to be made. But if you want to understand the struggle and hardship of being physically and mentally isolated, or experience the terror of dealing with an unknown adversary, then I can recommend no better book than this one. Byrd takes what could have been an extremely dry subject and makes it read like a classic adventure novel. And it's all the more exciting because it's true!

I actually had this woman as a teacher while earning a master's in creative writing. She made my class read her book, and after that moment I lost all respect for her not only as a professor, but also as a writer. Her writing is stiff, unintelligible, and monotonous. Her metaphors are feeble and floppy. Her slight attempts at being humorous are dull are forced. It is, quite frankly, an embarrassment as a writer, that works like this are even published. Don't waste your time.

I've read all of Mayerson's fiction, and, without a doubt, this is a great book. She has changed her writing style and her subject matter with each novel, and this one proves this writer can "bang them out" like no one else. Great for the historical backdrop; great for the story-line.

Ok I tried 3 times to read this book but ended up totally bored with it(this is rare). I work with many kids on the street, their stories are more intersting for book form. I admit Lau is a good writer.....but it really lacked something..... maybe the pull to stop me from yawning!

It's several years now since Evelyn Lau wrote this book and she's gone on to write more great stuff! Having just heard and seen her speak at a Writers Festival in Australia, I can assure the doubters that she would indeed have written every word of Runaway. She remains passionately addicted to her writing and this passion has continued to affect her life. Have a look at "Inside Out : Reflections on a Life So Far ".

First of all, I'm horrified to see what some of the other people put in here about Runaway. I have the utmost admiration for Evelyn Lau because she had to struggle to get out of hooking and drug use. This book is very depressing but it's a reflect of a real human being's experiences, not a fictional chracter. As a non-white person growing up in Canada, I can understand the pressures that she had to conform to the society around her while trying to balance the messages that she got from home. There are no role models for people like us and there's often no one to talk to who can truly understand what it's like to be a visible minority, unless they have gone through the experience themselves. I think that's changing now, but that support wasn't available for minorities growing up in the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

There are very few exceptional people in this world and I think that Evelyn Lau is one of those people. She had to make her own values and create her own niche for herself and made a lot of mistakes doing it. But, she wasn't afraid to tell the world about them and help others learn from her mistakes.