I just finished reading this book in about 4 hours (which is rare for me) and was very interested in his joys and tribulations that
he encountered in his personal life and in his trip from Santa Cruz all the way to Egypt with his Cessna Cardinal. On the plus
side he has a very interesting personal life and flight across the USA, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Europe, and Egypt with a
brief bio of his stay in South Africa. I was disappointed in his cancellation of his African flight with his Cessna. He did a very
good job of describing the northern States and Labrador from the air but he barely covers the land between Ottawa and
Labrador. He is also quite brief about his flight over a good chunk of populated Europe. On the other hand his description of
his flying experiences over dangerous areas are very interesting and a must read for all real and virtual pilots. His is very good
with his avionic explanations except for a small number of mistakes on the functioning of certain instruments.

I really enjoyed a good chunk of the book but wished he would of included some scenic pictures, maps, and pictures of his
characters.

Pilot (East coast America, Utah, and Arizona)

A beautifully written story of one man and his airplane searching for an elusive goal, which he has not yet found. A brilliant PhD and MD, he relates so many accomplishments in his matter-of fact way that I was tempted to create a time-line to see how he could have accomplished so much at such a young age. He weaves the art and science of flying into his tale, explaining how the instruments work, adding entertaining bits of history, astronomy, and other sciences, educating while entertaining, much like Asimov. I am a fast reader, but read this book twice, to savor in the second reading the beautifully crafted prose. An exceptional book.

The Cockpit: A Flight Of Escape And Discovery is the story of Paul Gahlinger, a university science professor who decided to fly his small Cessna aircraft from California to South Africa. Gahlinger ignored the pronouncements of every aviation official that such a flight could not be done. From the beginning nothing came easy or worked quite right. Governments refused to give him permission to fly over their countries. The weather was horrendous. His airplane as an aging, under-equipped machine beset by mechanical glitches. But he persevered through ice-storms, sand-storms, an earthquake, and the threat of civile war to successfully accomplish his flight and make it to his intended destination. As his story progresses, Gahlinger weaves together the history and mechanics of flight with his real-life adventure. The Cockpit is a unique, fascinating, true-life tale of hazardous personal adventure and the unconquerable human spirit.

This is an excellent textbook. This book is easier to understand than my current textbook. I highly recommend it for everyone.

My advisor is trying to obtain a copy for the LRC that he is building

This is the best written physics textbook for an introductory physics course at its mathematical level (precalculus) that I have ever seen. The author knows his audience and stays within their level without "dumbing down" the exposition of the subject.
The explanations of physics principles and the worked out examples have a clarity unmatched in any textbook I have ever seen. Paul Urone distinguishes himself from other authors by asking and answering the questions that first year physics can't ask because the depth of their knowledge is not great enough yet.
Peter Urone owes the world one more textbook on first year Physics; this one must include calculus. Without doubt, it will be
as effective for its audience as his "College Physics" with the
mathematics at the precalculus level.
Finally, no matter what textbook you are using, buy this book as
a companion.

This is truly one of the most student-friendly Physics textbooks that I have come across. The problems covered are well explained and there are plenty of examples, with references to real life, that help make Physics easy to understand. It covers all the necessary information needed to have you well prepared for the MCAT, or any other science test that requires Physics. Highly recommended!

this books give one an excellant felling for the hardship of the time. Also give us a deeper respect for our older family members who went through the ordeal

I have read this particular volume which is just one of many sequels on the Holt family saga spanning at last two centuries from the pioneering days of the New World. The stories are amazingly credible. While the stories are fiction, the framework is firmly anchored on historical facts. While the sequels have varied plots and settings, the stories revolve around the Holts and the pioneers of various enthnicities whose courage, honor, selflessness and industry have carved the great nation of America. The wagons west stories are all very fascinating - adventure, humor, pathos, suspense, romance, and drama are all there, presented by the author with sensitivity and good taste that has made the wagons west book series wholesome and knowledge-enriching. The stories have very positive impact on the reader because the author has successfully kept the virtues highlighted while still realistically showing the dark side of men. The stories are universally inspirational in the sense that wagons west glorifies the good attributes of the characters as human persons regardless of their color and creed. The wagons west stories do not only tell the readers how the West was won (as there are so many stories written on this already), but conveys to readers a message that love and justice has no boundaries and out of these virtues - great men and achievements are made. Dana Fuller Ross is a patriot in writing these books. America should thank him for making people appreciate more the value of the American history and its legacy-one that has shaped America's role as the world's leading champion of freedom and justice. I have actually read at least twenty of the Wagons West volumes and still completing the set. My high recommenation, therefore for this particular volume applies to the rest of the series. I have great admiration for the author for being a very responsible writer. The story presentation has been very efective in advocacy, too!

I have read this book of Dana Fuller Ross, together with at least 20 volumes of his series on Wagons West. I read one volume (Independence) by accident, and from that day on, I have not stopped reading all volumes I could find on this series. The author wrote a very inspiring series. It appears to be so well-researched because even as the stories are fiction, the framework is firmly anchored on historical facts. America has a great history and anybody who reads Wagons West volumes will wish he or she had been a part of that history. The author presented the saga of early pioneers in the lives of the Holt family, as natural as the human person acts and responds to situations, but there is a big difference with the Wagons West stories - the impact is very positive to the rader because the stories highlight the virtues rather than the dark side of men. The stories have entertainment value in terms of wit,suspense, romance and adventure - all of which were portrayed with approriate degree of circumspect and sensitivity. This book and the rest of its companion volumes glorify the courage, honesty, honor, dignity and selfless love of the people who pioneered the New World and shaped the future role of America as the world's leading champion of freedom and justice.

A book for a limited audience. You have got to be interested in some really seminal, currently unresolved issues of how the great invention of the ALU (arithmetic logic unit) still employed in every computer built to the present day, was a compromise effort by this genius. His thought was to model the human brain, and the ALU succeeded in modeling just a small part, but he was totally frustrated and unsatisfied by the result--for good reason. He points out that the very language of the human brain has not yet been discovered--the orders of magnitude by which its process and results exceed the merely digital high speed comparator we call a computer (my apologies to Bill Gates!) clearly demonstrate the existence of a logic and a mathematics, the simplest rules of which as yet defy all our efforts to understand its workings, while we experience its results every time we think. Depth of logical levels, and depth of arithmetic levels necessary to achieve the requisite results we obtain from our Crays and our PCs are scorned by the human brain in a radical simplicity as yet undiscovered (not in that it does it, but in how it does it: therefore he postulates the existence of a radically, essentially different math and logic inherent in its workings). He lays out the discoveries of Turing, McCullough and Weiner in a brilliant tour de force of known (1955)neurological and cybernetic discoveries, and how they charted his course in creating the ALU. He compares analog and digital and mixed models of computing but (in my opinion) oversimplifies the digital aspect of thinking and memory, deeming them to be the route used by the human brain in performing its unruffled magic. He closes by posing two questions that express the wonderment faced by a high level intelligence when accosted by the facts he was unable to wrap mental arms around: 1)"what essential inferences about the arithmetical and logical structure of the computing machine that the nervous system represents can be drawn from these ...conflicting observations? and 2)what are the logics and mathematics in the central nervous system [that must be]structurally *essentially* different from those languages to which our common experience refers? His fellow researcher, Warren McCullough similarly closed out his life and research by repeating a question that plagued him all his life: What is a number, that a man can know it, and a man that he can know a number?

This is a great book that pushed the limits of his time; his swan song, to be delivered as the Yale Silliman lecture, but never was, due to Von Neumann's tragic untimely death in his early fifties.

Perhaps the most famous and often quoted line in this remarkable book appears on page 39, where von Neumann declares that "The most immediate observation regarding the nervous system is that its functioning is prima facie digital."

The "prima facie" modifier is commonly taken to mean von Neumann saw the brain as "obviously digital," or "patently digital," and that it therefore must resemble a digital computer. But as you read the rest of the book, you quickly discover that this is not what John von Neumann intended. Von Neumann uses words cautiously and precisely, and to him, "Prima facie" means exactly what it says: "on its face."

In 1956, the brain appeared digital. But von Neumann thought this impression might be superficial. He thought that deeper biological investigation might well demonstrate that the nervous system is not, in fact, digital, or not completely digital. He believed it might work in some more sophisticated way, and suggests that perhaps some intermediate signaling mechanism, a hybrid between analog and digital, might be at work in the brain. For this and other reasons he actively resisted labeling the brain as a digital computer.

In the mid 90s, evidence began to appear that von Neumann was probably right to reserve his judgment. These curious new results show that a single nerve impulse is somehow able to convey information to the brain. This signal seems distinctly un-digital. A number of theories have popped up, some attempting to explain this whopping new mystery, others attempting to explain it away. But its impact on neurophysiology, and on conventional computer models of the brain, is pretty shocking. Not to say, devastating. (See Spikes, by Rieke et al, for a readable account of this story.) When the smoke clears, it would not be surprising if people go all the way back to John von Neumann, looking for traction, fresh starting points, and for von Neumann's wonderfully broad sense of what is possible in neurobiology - a sense we have evidently lost to progress in the years since he wrote this splendid essay.

Von Neumann did not include in this book his interesting views on the nervous system of the eye. He was an early adopter of visual memory systems in digital computers, and he was evidently intrigued by the way the retinal cells of the eye are arranged to look backward, that is, toward the screen of the back wall of the eye. Possibly he thought the retinal cells saw back there a thin film diffraction pattern. You can find his interest in the nervous system of the eye remarked in his brother Nicholas Vonneumann's book, John von Neumann as seen by his Brother, and this reminiscence is also paraphrased in Poundstone's Prisoner's Dilemma. Finally, some of the worldly story of von Neumann, his digital computers, and their role in the creation of the hydrogen bomb can be found in MaCrae's biography.

Perhaps the most famous and often quoted line in this remarkable book appears at the beginning of Part II, where von Neumann declares that "The most immediate observation regarding the nervous system is that its functioning is prima facie digital."

The "prima facie" modifier is commonly taken to mean von Neumann saw the brain as "obviously digital," or "patently digital," and that it therefore must resemble a digital computer. But as you read the rest of the book, you quickly discover that this is not what John von Neumann intended. Von Neumann uses words cautiously and precisely, and to him, "Prima facie" means exactly what it says: "on its face."

In 1956, the brain appeared digital. But von Neumann thought this impression might be superficial. He thought that deeper biological investigation might well demonstrate that the nervous system is not, in fact, digital, or not completely digital. He believed it might work in some more sophisticated way, and suggests that perhaps some intermediate signaling mechanism, a hybrid between analog and digital, might be at work in the brain. For this and other reasons he actively resisted labeling the brain as a digital computer.

In the mid 90s, evidence began to appear that von Neumann was probably right to reserve his judgment. These curious new results show that a single nerve impulse is somehow able to convey information to the brain. This is distinctly un-digital. A number of theories have popped up, some attempting to explain this whopping new mystery, others attempting to explain it away. But its impact on neurophysiology, and on conventional computer models of the brain, is pretty shocking. Not to say, devastating. (See Spikes, by Rieke et al, for a readable account of this story.) When the smoke clears, it would not be surprising if people go all the way back to John von Neumann, looking for traction, fresh starting points, and for von Neumann's wonderfully broad sense of what is possible in neurobiology - a sense of possibilities we have evidently lost in the years since he wrote this splendid essay. He is eloquent on the problem of selecting a memory "organ," and evidently thought the worst choice would be a neuron.

Von Neumann did not include in this book his interesting views on the nervous system of the eye. He was an early adopter of visual memory systems in digital computers, and he was evidently intrigued by the way the retinal cells of the eye are arranged to look backward, that is, toward the screen of the back wall of the eye. Possibly he thought the retinal cells saw back there a thin film diffraction pattern. You can find his interest in the nervous system of the eye remarked in his brother Nicholas Vonneumann's book, John von Neumann as seen by his Brother, and this reminiscence is also paraphrased in Poundstone's Prisoner's Dilemma. Finally, some of the worldly story of von Neumann, his digital computers, and their role in the creation of the hydrogen bomb can be found in MaCrae's biography.

Comic book character Ron Lithgow was hiking in the mountains one day when he was abducted by extraterrestrials who, before he escaped their clutches, forcibly removed his brain and deposited it in the incredibly strong and nigh invulnerable stone body of a 1,200 pound manlike monolith. Now transformed into the gentle giant called Concrete, he has essentially been exiled from the animal kingdom. In his ongoing series of periodic projects from Dark Horse Comics, such as "Concrete Celebrates Earth Day 1990," creator Paul Chadwick has often used this unique being to promote a "green" lifestyle.

A soft-spoken travelogue writer rather than a superhero, in "Think Like a Mountain" (originally released in 1996 as a six-issue mini-series), Concrete goes where no mineral man has gone before. He accompanies a group of Earth First! activists to Washington state so he can record their attempt to save an old growth forest from the mechanized blades of a huge lumber company. Beautifully, even lovingly rendered in words and pictures by Paul (and colored by his wife), this story follows Concrete's evolution from a reluctant supporter of environmental extremism to an uncompromising eco-warrior. The story's engaging, character driven plot delivers fascinating facts about nature, valuable instruction on the ethics and tactics of civil disobedience, and frightening encounters with such "villains" as industrial waste and global human overpopulation (and yes, both the original series and the trade paperback were printed on recycled paper).

This story's synthesis of drawings, colors and words demonstrates that the unique medium of graphic literature can convey important messages with an eloquence that pictures or prose alone could not achieve. Some of the scenes that left the most profound impressions on me were the verbal and visual view of Washington's ravaged landscape seen from 20,000 feet above; Concrete's envisioning of a gargantuan composite human monstrosity devouring and defiling the planet; and the "last stand" of a felled old growth giant rising to the defense of an Earth First!er as he runs from authorities across a clear cut wasteland. The climax, which relied on the immediacy of images for its impact-both on the reader and the world in which Concrete lives-brought about a resolution that was as optimistic as it could be without totally losing its grounding in reality (forgetting, for the moment, that story revolves around a living rock man). Finally, it was extremely gratifying to see that this bittersweet outcome only strengthened Concrete's resolve to defend Mother Earth. Overall, I cannot think of any other work that better exemplifies the legitimacy and power of graphic literature as an art form.

This book is great. the images are great. but most importantly the story's great and very thoughtful.

It's really challenges you and pushes for a change in our enviromental policy. We need to see many more graphic novels incorporating events from modern times and issues.

Read it for my enviromental class at the local college. Give it a try

A thought-provoking look at life, and the value of nature's preservation, that makes you stop and think about the world around us. Think Like a Mountain asks an important question: is stepping over the line of the law worth it if the cause is good? This, among other things, is a problem that Concrete must come face to face with over the course of the story. The art complements the writing perfectly; both are exceptional throughout. Concrete has come to be a symbol of comics at their best, raising the bar with each installment. I cannot give a higher reccomendation for this wonderful book, it's star (Concrete), and its creator- the one and only Paul Chadwick.

Peace writes an exceptional book that identifies the component parts of normative conversion using Paul's encounter with the Risen Christ on the Damascus road as the paradigm. He steps outside the evangelical box by taking these component parts and identifying them in the pilgrimage of the disciples of Jesus in mark's gospel. By identifying a gradual conversion process he allows mainline christians to reclaim the language of evangelism from fundamentalists.

This reader found Peace's take on conversion to be innovative and helpful. We live in an "instant age" (coffee, pudding, credit approval, and even conversion), and Peace reminds us that conversion, like love, is something that is often gradual and needs to be slowly nurtured. The main text and argument are well documented and supported by scripture, and the final section on practical application was a joy to read. Peace gives us back another model of conversion - and one we should not take too lightly. It is after all, the model which brought the original 12 to Christ.

Richard Peace has already amply demonstrated he understands the application of theology in the real world. This book shows that he's a leader in understanding the dynamics at work in the bible and putting them in a context that makes sense in our time.

Powerful instruction in how to kill unborn children in 'collateral damage' language. The language is terse but succinct enough to focus on the procedure rather than the ethics. A concise textual reference in 'termination' of the unborn.

This text provides a thorough overview of social and medical aspects of abortion, written at a level appropriate for physicians and medical students/residents. It is a comprehensive and well-written introduction to abortion practices and techniques and a great reference.

This book fills an important gap in medical literature. It is a comprehensive review of modern abortion care. It is an essential book for every medical library and for every abortion provider.

The score to a reveiw by the almost infamous duo of Maltby and Shire, Closer than Ever contains some memorable songs on an extremely vague topic, using "doors" as a metaphor for choices and chances one must face in life. This metaphor expounds itself into a wide array of songs on everything from a father having his first child to the history of Muzak. This review is a little more enjoyable than the trite "starting here, starting now" by the same authors. However, be advised that Maltby and Shire have the almost impressive ability to say nothing with so many words. Still, the music is both enjoyable and entertaining. Maltby and Shire began the review when a song from their musical "Baby" was cut from the show. They began to throw in other random songs into what they called their "urban file" until they were asked to put up a small cabaret in 1987. "Closer Than Ever" was the result.
This is the complete score to the show. It contains all of the vocal harmonies and counterpoint that each of the 4 performers are supposed to sing in the show, as well as the piano accompaniment. In response to the last review, a Vocal Score is literally a piano reduction of the music used in an actual performance of a show with complete dance music, scene change music, etc. They are usually a bit pricey. Vocal Selections are usually a simplified piano reduction with (sometimes) both melody and chord symbols written in. In the hands of a good pianist, either will suffice for a recital performance or otherwise.

I just finished performing in a run of this show at Univ of MD and I can honestly say that I'm in love with this show. Musically and lyrically, it was written with such honesty and truthfulness -- none of that flambouyent loudness and sillyness associated with other musicals, just the truth. The music and words work so well together! All of the songs are wonderful expressions of situations that can happen in anyone's life. "One of the Good Guys" and "Life Story" are examples of that fact. Also, Shire notates the notes to the words so well. Shire and Maltby's sound partnership is very evident. This makes for a easy interpretation by the performer, such as in "What am I Doin'?" how the higher notes are used in points of emotional elevation. But that's how it is with all the songs. So simple but yet, you can tell, the intricities were carefully and delicately thought out.

What I just can't express is how real and honest the songs are. This is the best example to show of a musical. What's a shame is how unknown and unpopular this musical is. No one seems to understand and find a way to unlock the realness of this unfairly neglected piece of American repertoire. It needs to be introduced to the mainstream audience.

Well, at least I can tell you. But you must spread the world. Tell your friends, relatives, tell all! Do not let this sink into the musical land of the unknown.

This musical is one of the best I've heard. The music is writen EXACTLY how it is played in the original cast. I HATE when the music is written with the melody line played. Let the vocalist sing it's part and the piano play it's part. Thankfully, this book is like that. There is no plot to the entire peice. Each song tells it's own story. It is great for auditions. It is modern enough for the newer musicl theatre auditions, yet some of the songs are old style for the older musical auditions. In short (yeah right) it's a great book.

A nice short compact medical microbiology text. I didn't use it much for the theory, rather I used it for the diagrams and especially the photographs. The photographs were good. I particulary enjoyed the bacteriology section. Many bacterial culture plates were demonstrated in photograph form. Though it covered the most common types of diseases, I wish it would of covered the more esoteric diseases that are commonly placed on medical board examinations. Nonetheless, the book is useful and worth the price if your looking for decent photos demonstrating laboratory diagnostics and some standard photo's of bacteria, fungi, and viruses.

A very concise, yet informative handbook. Excellent source of information covering medically important bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungal species. The illustrations and pictures are excellent, and tables on infections create a great tool for diagnosis and study.

i used this atlas everyday in clinical microbiology lab. every page in the atlas is printed on high glossy quality paper. there are numerious color photos detailing how each microbe responds to certain diagnostic tests preformed in the lab. in my class we were given an unknown microbe and had to run tests on it to determine what the organism was and hand in are report - i could not have kept up if it wasn't for this book. it is very compact in size (not information) so it is very handy to have around in the lab while you run the tests and you can compare your results right on the spot. it fits right into the pocket of your lab coat. the price of the book is well worth it and i used it more than the lab book the college insisted that i purchase. FYI - i am pursuing a masters in microbiology and with the assistance of this book i got an a in this course.