This is a very introductory discussion of Andropause. If this topic is new to the reader, it provides overview information. However, it does not go into depth and does not provide new information about dealing with the symptoms of andropause. Consequently, I didn't find the book very helpful.

Dr. Carruthers has described the "male Menopause" in terms that all can understand and in a humorous and entertaining style..The history of testosterone is fascinating, but the benefits of hormone replacement for correction of the symptoms of the deficiency is even more exciting. This book together with the recent book,"Testosterone Syndrome", are the best overall works on the subject of the "Male Menopause" yet written. They provide a comprehensive overview of the critical health benefits of testosterone treatmrnts.

I do not rate Janet Malcolm's books, I read them and pass them along to friend's and relatives. The best rating of Janet Malcolm that I have read was by a man who wrote (this was a few years ago) of his experience when he heard that a new book on Sylvia Plath was coming out. He started to moan -- "Not another one!" And then he saw that the new book was by Janet Malcolm and he quickly became very interested -- that, you see, makes all the difference. The worst rating of Janet Malcolm I have ever read was by the woman who reviews in the daily Times, Machiko Kakitani (sp?), who said foolish things about "The Purloined Clinic, Selected Writings"(1992). Her review questioned the reasons for reprinting these pieces, most of which had first appeared in The New Yorker. This was a sad bit of business, for Kakitani has been writing reviews for quite a few years and probably her work will never be collected and published in book form;she has to live with this fact, but it does seem unfortunate that she could not see that unlike her work, Malcolm's work is retained and read again. On another level, it is unbecoming of the editors at the Times to allow things of that kind to be written in their pages. They should, in my view, have a roster of "National Treasures," in their offices and the names on this list should be entitled to certain considerations -- not entitled, by any means to good reviews but entitled to care and respect. Then, just as our language is given this kind of respect in the paper (We hope), writer's who have proven that they use the language at a certain level of excellence would be subject to equal consideration. This is a rather complicated way of saying that with writers of Janet Malcolm's class you shouldn't be questioning the legitimacy of the decision to publish her book. Is that 1000 words?

"Reading Chekhov" is a beautifully written book, with sparkling insights on Chekhov's work in every chapter. It is less an academic or scholarly investigation than a meditation and exploration, which might have been titled, "Travels Through Russia While Thinking About Chekhov". Chekhov is certainly a writer who has been thought about quite a bit, and I was skeptical at first about how much Janet Malcolm would be able to contribute to a field which is glutted with critical studies and appreciations, but her book is unique (though at its best it shares qualities with V.S. Pritchett's fine study from 1988).

Malcolm offers just enough biographical information for the reader who knows little about Chekhov to be able to appreciate this book, and she is also able to give an interesting enough perspective for her book to be worthwhile for someone who knows as much about Chekhov as she does. Aside from the short story "The Lady with the Dog", which serves as a touchstone for the book's narrative, Malcolm doesn't explore any of Chekhov's work in depth. The beauty of what she has created here, though, is that she is able to give a sense of Chekhov as a whole: his life, his writings, and the varied responses to his works and life. For instance, one of the most fascinating passages of the book compares how various biographers have portrayed Chekhov's last moments and death, and then what these portrayals might say about how Chekhov's entire life is portrayed, and how his works are interpreted.

Unlike many studies of writers and their work, this one is subtle and repays rereading. Malcolm wastes no words, which is, on the whole, admirable (particularly when writing about such an efficient writer as Chekhov), but at times is tantalizing -- some of her ideas could be spun into entire books of their own. Nonetheless, this is a fine book, a pleasure to read,resonant and even Chekhovian.

Although I compliment the authors for the beautiful things they created, this book was not much more than a picture book of what could be done. There was very little of the "howto" of sand castle building. 'The S.o.B. "take me to the beach" Sand Castle Book' by Lucinda Wierenga, while only a booklet and all black and white images, gives some wonderful tips on not only what you can do, but **how**.

Breaking free from the typical "drippy castles" and sand bucket designs, the author reveals through photos how he and his family and friends build "monumental" architecture at the beach. Simple tools and instructions inspire you to get out your staight edge and head to the shore.

A quick read. I hoped for more designs and specific how-to's of the various structures, but basic concepts are clearly explained and give you enough information to build your own exotic and elegant sand castles.

A fun departure from the author's unusual books on earth-sheltered, earth-friendly architecture.

The section on humor is very good, but if you want to improve your presentation skills, it's no point reading a big book, you have to practice to improve.

This book could have been more useful if it were more concise.

As a professional speaker, I found this book full of useful information. The author covers everything from how to be introduced to how to end your presentation effectively. He tells you how to involve your audience, how to use humor, how to design your presentation, and more. It's full of tips and examples. While it's true that the best way to improve your public speaking is to just do it, this book will shorten your learning curve by years!

This book is interesting for its glimpse of days gone by. I was personally disturbed by the role alcohol played in the author's story. However, he does have an interesting story to tell.

The fact that "Alvar Aalto: A Critical Study" is one of very few texts written in English about the under-represented architect gives this book a higher rating. I don't believe that the author is a native English speaker, as I found the text to be quite rough, especially compared to the poetics of Spiro Kostof. The publisher had good reason to take this book out of print. Then again, architects can not write, so...

Seems was directed towards jr. high, high school and community college audiences - would be useful for writing brief school reports on Arizona.

When looking about the net, online and in bookstores for info about Arizona I couldn't find anything that seemed comparable. There is useful info; necessary to take with a grain of salt as statistics are dated. If I want more info about the fine state of Arizona I believe I'll need to go to Arizona sources.

America's pastime has been and always will be baseball. Baseball has a language all its own. Baseball experts talk about the "full count", "bases loaded", "can of corn", "cup of coffee" and so many other sayings, that anyone unfamiliar to the game can easily be confused.

Malcolm Wells has put together 190 pages of cartoons, that's right cartoons, which illustrate that what you hear, may not be the picture that comes to mind. The pictures are literal translations and they are funny, but the books stops there.

There are no stories, no articles, and no interviews, just cartoons and after the 20 minutes of fanning through the pages you are left wanting more. While there is an unlimited potential for more books of this type, this book could be better with some stories.

A good gift for the die-hard baseball or sports fan and a price that makes it affordable as well. Overall a easy, funny read but left hungry and a little empty.

In a recent review of two books from the Subtext collective (some sort of Seattle based poetry commune), Stephen Thomas, wrote, "Wallace Steven remarked somewhere that every successful poem expresses a theory of poetry... Every serious poet has had to come to terms with the power of language to express its own meanings apart from, or even in opposition, to the poet's own intention. The Language poets seem to start with this experience. It is not too much to say that they cultivate a distrust of language and that their poems often frustrate the 'basic' function of language to narrate, to explain, to describe and to import knowledge or wisdom."

I should point out that every serious poet should be burned with a Buick Regal's cigarette lighter and thrown into the Duwamish until they learn that the basic function of the human throat is to howl. The 'basic' function of language is to frustrate this impulse.

Eighty years ago, in Zurich among a population of international outcasts and deserters from the Great War, a group of artists exploded what had been German Expressionism. They protested Western Civilization (the whole ball of wax), a society whose devotion to a coldly analytical and rational language had wrought Verdun and the Somme. Remembered largely now as the foundation for Surrealism and trivialized for their jokes, such as Marcel Duchamp's urinal, La Fonatine (1917), The First Texts of Dada revels in the serious anarchy and the subversive antics that gave birth to Dada.

Hugo Ball -- one of the principal perpetrators of Dada and the author of the only Dada novel, Tenderenda the Fantast, included in this book and which of course bears absolutely no resemblance to what then passed for a novel and often doesn't bare clear resemblence to any known language -- believed that under the "influence of Kant and German idealism, as well as Lutheran sobriety, that language had been made abstract and thus had been debased into a utilitarianism that allowed it to be plundered by jingoism, literary professionalism, journalism, and intellectual vacuity. It had become a tool for upholding the ruling value system." Ball made it his mission to purify the word. He saw Dada, which was initially performed at the Cabaret Voltaire as a fusion of sound, drama, and painting; a cacophony of contradiction, music played on found objects (known as Merz performance, the philosophy that any sound or text can be incorporated as material into a performance), monologues of gibberish, that is an art free from any concrete constraints.

This book charts the inception of Dada and more importantly presents three texts in their confounding entirety. This is not a book about art history; it's a handbook for subversion and a champion of the vitality of art as terrorism. It is not much to say that Dada cultivated a mistrust of language; they burned every scrap of it they could find.

A journey to west africa to collect endangered species for his zoo in Jersey where he preserved animals against extinction. Durrell funded his zoo greatly with his writing. This is one of his books describing the trials and tribulations of finding and catching animals in the wild. A good read for what it is.