1. I disagree with the assertion that NHB techniques are ineffective in a street fight. NHB techniques are easily adapted to a street fight. NHB events have less rules than boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, sport jiu-jitsu, and judo...NHB competition, while not as lawless as a street fight, is the most realistic laboratory of martial prowess to date. How would Lennox Lewis do in a street fight? Ernesto Hoost? Kurt Angle? Jean-Jacques Machado? Gene Labelle? I think we would all agree that they would perform well...yet they fight with rules more constraining than NHB fighters...but we argue that NHB techniques don't work? Frank Shamrock wouldn't make it on the street? Tito Ortiz wouldn't? Rickson Gracie wouldn't?

2. I find the anectdotal evidence not credible. The author relates a bar fight (pg 15-16) with a fellow instructor and 3 Navy SEALs (who each weighed 300 pounds and all were olympic caliber wrestlers) against 20 bikers in order to disprove the effectiveness of NHB techniques. Are you serious? I have been in the spec ops community for over a decade and have habitually trained and worked with the east & west coast SEALs and have yet to meet a SEAL who is 300 pounds and a former olympic wrestler...but the author managed to find three in one place...are you kidding?

3. The examples presented are not realistic. Page 25 shows a guy throwing a jab and then keeping his arm sticking straight out while he is hit in the biceps, kicked in the knee, punched in the face, kicked in the stomach, and then shin kicked in the leg. The whole time, the person being pummeled never moves or even flinches....So you find this one way beating realistic...with no reaction whatsoever from yoru opponent...but not NHB events? And, by the way, all of these techniques are legal in NHB, but they don't win fights even there.

4. Again, pgs 26-27 are not realistic. The loser of the fight is shin kicked, punched, gouged, head butted and then elbowed...and the guy just stands there like a scarecrow and gets beaten...that's realistic? Your opponent won't react...or fall to the ground? or fight back?

5. Another issue I have is with pgs 28-36. Clearly, the techniques shown only work aganst another fighter using the same, stand up style. You can beat every one of these techniques with just one technique...the double leg takedown.

6. Most of the techniques shown are low percentage moves, hard to master, and not feasible by the average person. Try hitting someone in the bicep as he punches you in the head...try to kick someone in the small of his back as he hits you with a spinning back kick (pg 49). I believe most martial arts techniques are unrealistic and impossible to master. What I want to see for a self-defense technique is simplicity, reliability, and effectiveness.

7. "Kino mutai (the art of pinching and biting)allows us to circumvent the jiu-jitsu game"-pg 54. I disbelieve the claim that biting is the solution to fighting a grappler. Go fight Ryan Gracie, Dan Henderson, and Mark Coleman...just bite them and you will beat them. Are you kidding? The grappler/NHB fighter can make minor adjustments to defeat your biting easily. Pg 56 shows your opponent being bitten on his Lat...are you telling me that that biting can't be easily defeated? The top guy places his forearm on the bottom fighters throat...no more biting...only choking. Pg 58 shows an opponent being bitten on the ear...but he can bite your ear just as easily. Superior body positioning will defeat eye gouging, biting and groin strikes. Just as superior body positioning will allow you to bite, gouge, and groin strike with impunity. BJJ and wrestlers are the masters of body positioning...and dominate NHB events...but you think they can't fight on the street.

8. The criticism is that grapplers can not fight multiple attackers, but stand up fighters can. However, the stand up fighter can't handle one grappler. I would argue you can modify grappling to be as effective as the JKD fighter, using the clinch and tie up to set up your opponent for strikes. Where in this book from pg 1-128 is there realistic (or any, for that matter)examples of fighting multiple attackers? I believe I missed it.

9. Good points. I like the knife and stick fighting techniques...I buy into the defang the serpent philosophy as the underlying concepts are sound and ralistic. I buy the blast attack theory...with your opponent going backwards, he is at a disadvantage and you at a huge advantage. That's why the takedown and clinch in NHB is so effective...your opponent can not react fast or effectively enough to stop you. The philosophies and theories presented throughout this book give much food for thought...an excellent intellectual exercise.

10. Summary. Please consider: Fighting has evolved and the greatest martial laboratory in history is happening in front of our eyes...its called MMA competition. To ignore these lessons are folly. The stand up arts like JKD and Kung-Fu work against themselves only...not the takedown artist. The grappler/NHB fighter can easily adapt his techniques to defeat biting, gouging and groin strikes through superior body positioning...the stand up fighter can't and won't. NHB is not real life, but it is the most realistic training and competition to date. Adapt and evolve or stick your head in the sand like the dinosaur.

They then believe what they see in a tournament or NHB competition is effective in a real life encounter. Sadly for those individuals it won't be. So far I have yet to see any competitions where one or several of the competitors friends can jump in with a pipe or knife or gun and help out. So much for realism.

Second, this book is probably better for someone with little or no martial arts background since they are usually more receptive
to practical advice.

This book introduces the basics of Vunaks' R.A.T. system. It is not a martial art per se but a self defense system. It is about as effective (due to its basic nature) in a street assault as you can get. Key word is assault. Criminals ASSAULT. They don't spar, there's no tapping out. They want your money, car, dignity as easily and safely to THEM as possible. What you need are simple, quick, effective moves that require no thinking under stress and the right attitude. Vunaks system has just that. Techniques are nothing that any white belt in any art hasn't seen.

Is this book for you?

Try this scenario:
You visit an ATM late at night and don't see someone come up behind you. The robber demands money and begins reaching under his coat, do you:

A) Go for a takedown and an arm bar while another unseen accomplice walks up and shoots you or

B) Jab the robber in the eyes, hit him in the throat, knee him in the groin and flee before he or his accomplice knows what happened?

Which option do you believe affords you the best chance of survival?

If you chose B then try this book.

It is, therefore, a good starting point for anyone having a Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 (or later) that wants to know how to make a Rock-Solid MIDI App within the 32 bit world. Then, once you have a feeling of what will it take if you want to make it from scratch, you can see the documentation of your compiler and see how DirectX works and actually evaluate its pros&cons and what solution is the best for your particular interests and needs.

I really recommend it.

The author does know about this kind of stuff and the online forum is a very useful source of information.

Now a word on the writing. This book is perfect, the author uses subtle humor to keep the reading light, but not so much as to make it pathetic. He keeps the tone of the book informal, more as a friend explaining something than a professor lecturing. Despite being filled with facts and details and source code, the book reads like a novel.

The chapter that simply describes an overview of the MIDI spec. makes for a great intro to MIDI, even for people who have been using it for years. If you ever plan on learning anything about MIDI and how to write computer programs that use it, buy this book.

I hate computer books. They are all over two inches thick, and cost their weight in gold, but most of them are only worth their weight in paper.

However, there is always an exception, and Paul Messick's 'Maximum Midi' is it. It's a GOOD book. You know, like Citizen Kane is a GOOD film.

I can now write MIDI applications in Windows. I feel like a bit of an expert. My first sequencer already loads, saves, plays and records. I've got time to concentrate on making it highly usable.

The author assumes that you or I, the reader, is intelligent. There's no assumption that you are a C++ whizz, or an electronics genius; just intelligent, and consequently ideas are explained from first principles by a writer who obviously knows his stuff well enough that he doesn't have to prove it by using long words and big ideas.

But from first priciples comes lasting knowledge, and by the time the author moves on to explain the less pretty bits of MIDI implementation you realise that you UNDERSTAND everything that's gone before. The learning curve is so smooth, you don't realise you're climbing.

But you are climbing, and quite rapidly at that. If ,like me, you read the book from cover to cover (some books just make you want to do that, don't they) by half-way through you KNOW what Sysex is, and how it works, and what's good about it, and why you have to be careful with it. You KNOW why Windows 95 makes timing algorithms difficult, and how to get around it. By this stage you also know that on the CD of the book, there is a toolkit.

The toolkit contains functions that allow you to use MIDI in your programs, without also having to care about 'callbacks', 'thunks' or anything else that gives you a headache. (They are explained lucidly, but kept at a safe distance). Midi Input/Output, synchronisation and reading and writing of standard MIDI files are all introduced, fully explained and, finally, implemented in the toolkit. Although you now feel that could write your sequencer, or patch editor, or desk automator from the bottom up, it's nice to know you don't have to. The toolkit is there, it's tested, it works and it's royalty free. There is no reason not to use it. (It's provided as a pair of DLLs, so you can use it from any language. I'm now calling it from Delphi, and hardly knew what a DLL was before reading this book. A set of C++ classes encapsulate the toolkit's functions into a higher level, and very useful form).

Don't you just loathe getting to page 800 of 'Mastering your Scroll-Lock key' and realising you learned as much from the introductory chapter as you have from the rest of the book. Well, Mr Messick's book (a mere 1.3 inches thick, if that's important to you!) is full of new knowledge from cover to cover, even the margins are sometimes used for 'by the way...' type information. For once, a publisher has realised that their readers are not fooled by the 'never mind the quality, feel the width' spin.

Any useful book review has balance, so here it is: 'Silicon Etching for Dummies' and 'Adjusting your Windows Colour scheme in 21 days' are very bad. 'Maximum Midi' is very good. Is that balanced enough for you?

Paul Spbm Clarke

That said, the fact that the making of the championship Packer team of 1996 is the example used to explain Wolf's management philosophy does make it more interesting that your run-of-the-mill mangement book.

I've also read some comments from people who don't like the book because they don't like Wolf's style of leadership. Well, different strokes for different folks. Wolf is a tough, hard-nosed, no-nonsense leader, and that may bother some people, particularly those who don't want to pay the price to succeed.

Wolf's legacy as GM of the Packers (he recently announced his retirement from the NFL) is one of success where there had been none for decades. Yet this success did not come easily. This may not appeal to readers who think that fame and fortune can be had without hard work. Such people will not like Wolf's management style and would not like to work for him. If, however, you have the desire to win and achieve, you will appreciate Wolf's description of the manner in which he ran his organization.

If this book were simply billed as a sports history of how the Green Bay Packers were turned around from being a weak franchise into Super Bowl Champions, it would be a five star book. Every football fan will find the book rewarding, and every Packer fan will find essential reading here. The details are there to cherish. The stories are fascinating. The mistakes are openly shared. You feel like you're in the offices of the Packers, agonizing over these same tough choices.

The book unfortunately tries to do a bit more, and falls short -- trying to become of management book of principles that everyone should follow. In fact, putting in the 9 steps pretty much tends to muddy up the Packer history aspect rather than enhance it. There are certainly some good management lessons here: Hire the best; set performance standards and keep them; and be prepared to handle the unexpected. They simply don't add up to enough perspective to be a management guide. You also get very little help in applying the ideas to your own organization, just a summary of the key points in the chapter at the end of each one. I graded the book down one star for its attempt to position itself unsuccessfully as a general management book. If you read it as a football book, rate it five stars as I said above!

Let me return to the football history aspect. I had never understood why Ray Rhodes was hired to replace Mike Holmgren. The chapter at the end explained Ron Wolf's logic very well. Time will tell how good a decision this was.

I was especially impressed with the idea that Wolf has that teams should try to win in the short term while they are adding the personnel to win in the long term. The contrast with the Boston Celtics, where Rick Pitino is full of rebuilding excuses year after year as the team fails to perform, is more than enough to convince me of the wisdom of Wolf's approach.

I also thought that Wolf does a good job of thinking through how you stay on top. I liked his concept of raising standards once you are a champion as a way to help overcome the tendency to rest on one's laurels as free agents scamper off to richer pastures and you have to live with a weak draft.

Good luck in using this book to improve the sports teams in your area! We could have some really great championship games as a result!

I must recommend that you buy this book instead of, or at least before Alex Homer's WROX book, "XML IE5 Programmer's Reference". This book will help you more easily learn the technology and how to make it work in your architecture.

1. It contains a good real-world example, all the important steps are described. It's really not only a book on XML and how/where XML fits in but also on Internet-application design. CSS, DHTML, ASP are also covered to some extent.

2. I appreciate him being an 'IT-Consultant writing', instead of a 'writer, writing about IT', the book is pretty much 'pure knowledge', written in a personal, engaging style.

3. I appreciated the sourcecode, which was easily downloaded from Wrox. I got it running under PWS + MSAccess.

Keep up the good work, Paul! Cheers.

"Essential Avengers vol. 1" captures the first 24 issues of the classic series, scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by Jack Kirby and Don Heck. If the first appearances of Kang the Conqueror, Immortus, and the Masters of Evil aren't enough for you, pick this collection up for Avengers # 4, the return of Captain America. This alone is enough to mark a substantial return on your investment for this book.

Highly recommended to all comics fans and X-Men fanatics who need a primer in how team books used to be written.

However, the ideas changed quickly as the Hulk left and teamed-up with the Sub-mariner to fight his former allies and was replaced by Captain America, a World War 2 hero frozen between then and the 60s. And then again, to suddenly have all the original members depart, leaving Cap with Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, three super-villains seeking to reform, as his teammates.

The stories in this volume represent a fairly diverse bunch, showing both the best and worst aspects of Stan Lee's writing at the time. Interesting team dynamics, where the characters are not always each others' friends, villains with motives beyond the banal, references to events in other titles, secrets and subplots that aren't resolved in a single story all show the hallmarks of a writer seeking to develop a loyal following. At the same time, we have blatant sexism and racism, villains with banal motives and some very hokey dialogue.

The art is OK, the early Jack Kirby issues not his best work, and I've never been fond of Don Heck's art. It seems a little odd to be reading these stories in black and white, although this obviously keeps the price down.

If you want to see how one of the best super-hero team series started out, get this.

Like any larger story, it suffers from a slowing in the middle. The Act II doldrums, I have heard them called. In 'Child of the River', Yama and the world of Confluence are fresh and bright. In 'Ancients of Days', Yama and the world of Confluence are weather-worn and trodden. The path has been set, and now it must be followed.

The beauty of Paul McAuley's writing still seeps from the pages in a way that forces you to yearn for the hardcover copy. Like the 'Puranas' - the Confluence version of the Bible, though greater and more aged - there is a kind of wonderment in just the words. But unlike 'Child of the River', there is a meticulous pondering in Book Two: a foraging for story. It is there, embedded within its philosopy on religion, thought, and science - in that order - that the simplicities of religion are easily expunged, the encouragement of questioning easily inititiated, but the psuedo(?)-constants of scientific fact more difficulty tackled; as being 'constants', they have arisen before... Is it possible to have a new idea?

McAueley entertains, undoubtedly, and forces thought simultaneously. This alone makes for an engaging read. But amongst the beautiful imaginings and descriptions, the talents are hightened a great deal.

So what are the faults? A little expectation of the unexpected not met. A little too much of the far-fetched 'omega-point-theory' mixed in with an otherwise previously unimagined outcome of universal life. And a little too little wind along the Great River.

That said, one must not judge the parts as a whole.

On to 'Shrine of Stars'

The construct world of Confluence and the variety of societies and species of "men" and machines that inhabit it, brings to mind Rama on steroids. Yamas ongoing discoveries about his world and its history are the real story here. Which is lucky, since the plot is rather predictable (young naive man with odd powers is center of conflict between warring sides trying to control him.) The world of Confluence was so enjoyable, I would have given the books 5 stars if the so called plot had possessed ANY originality.

So, if you require a riveting, page turning, read through the night plot you need to pass this series up. If you are a big science fiction/fantasy fan who enjoys new worlds and the time effects that turn facts into myths and legends you will enjoy a romp through Confluence with Yama.

The current Pope is a man of remarkable constitution. He has traveled more than any Pope, he has appointed 159 Cardinals of whom 135 would vote for the next Pope were a new Pontiff required. This latter number is again the highest in church history. He has nominated 2,650 of the church's 4,200 Bishops, has started more individuals toward canonization than any Pope, with 798 beatified and 280 canonized. His Pontificate is noted for its active nature and for one of integrity, of influence, as with the end of Communism in Poland, and the Pope's strength he continues to summon despite illness, age, and the shots of an assassin.

His Pontificate, begun on October 16, 1978, marked the day that a historically young Pope, a Pope many believed would recognize the contemporary church, and while not becoming a liberal Pontiff, would be progressive on issues that were causing difficulty for the church. He has proven to be a conservative who has written widely and stated without ambiguity on issues of great import to Catholics, and the Vatican.

This is where the divergence begins. Authority resides in Rome, and many believe what issues from The Holy Father is the beginning and end of discussion. Being Catholic is not a matter of dining al a Carte, one is either a participant or not. The evidence is there are great numbers who have left the church, and many that remain, but do so on their terms.

The Pope has reminded his flock without ambiguity that issues like contraception, female priests, one's loss of position in the church if divorced, and the conduct required if remarried, has not changed, and to the extent he can, has written so as to ensure they do not change soon. This "time" would likely include that of the next Pope, as 93 percent of those who will choose the next Pontiff owe their position to the current one.

How can a Pontificate be measured? Is this topic one the laity should contemplate? Whatever the answer, they have commented and questioned by leaving the church. Seventy percent of Catholics reside in Third World Countries. Some areas have 1 Priest for almost 7,000 church members; these members may see a Priest once every 2 or 3 years. Catholic ritual has often become syncretic in these areas, as Catholic Ritual mixes with local and regional pagan beliefs. This is a direct result of having no Priests. And few are on the way as new Priests being ordained are fractions of the rates of decades ago, and the decline continues. Studies provided track the decline of many meaningful events critical to the church's survival. Ordinations of Priests and the women choosing to become Nuns have and are declining. Attendance at services is down and declining, as are baptisms, and the decline of Catholic Marriage. The elements rising are destructive also; Church closings, expanding number of issues that widen the gap between the laity and Vatican, increases in the rate of divorce among Catholics. These issues come in addition to the rise of homosexuality in the Priesthood, incidence of pedophilia (I suggest NO relationship between the two issues), and while Priests may not marry, they may leave the church, marry, have children and return, or a minister from a Protestant Church may become a Catholic together with his family. The latter issue is so convoluted as to defy logic. Divorced Catholics may remarry, but per the church the second marriage must remain chaste. Annulments while coming under fire are reminiscent of buying indulgences. Pay a fee and your marriage never happened, and any resulting children are illegitimate.

No Church can thrive by contracting. No Church can survive by maintaining the glacial pace adopted by the church as change. The days of treating the faithful as children ended for the faithful regardless of church recognition. Taking 500 years to state the church erred with Galileo, does not comfort those desirous of meaningful much less momentous change.

Mr. Cornwell may not be ideally Catholic as defined by Rome. He is a scholar, he is a man of faith who loves his church, and is clearly distressed by what he sees as continued intolerance, and the decline of membership. A Church, which states through the highest of offices that there should be respect and tolerance for differing faiths, and then separately states the only true religion is that defined by Rome's Catholicism, appears conflicted.

Mr. Cornwell closes with, what if we had a Pope who genuinely believed that those in trouble, with broken lives, relationships, and faith, are in greatest need of inclusion and love? A Pope who would mend the breaking faith of our Church must love all the faithful without exception; he must trust them, in deed as well as word, and see in the very least of them: the sinners, marginalized, dissidents, and the discouraged: the continued future of the One, True, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

John Cornwell's new book, BREAKING FAITH, juxtaposes the author's deep, personal, and moral concerns with the policies of the Vatican and Pope John Paul II's backward-looking position. Exploring step by step such burning issues as sexuality, marriage, the role of women, and the frozen hierarchical structure of, the Catholic Church, Cornwell's book demonstrates the need for institutional change. Like HITLER'S POPE, calling attention to the autocratic rule and tragic misjudgment of Pope Pius XII, BREAKING FAITH reveals that beyond any doubt, beyond any counter-argument, beyond, and even despite of, any mystical consideration, the Church must react to what has become its moral crisis. Using powerful arguments, the narration reveals how human greed, power-hunger, self-importance, self-righteousness, and fear of modernity have amalgamated with ancient convictions, perceptions, and rituals of the divine, and how this mixture of religious practice and doctrine has been preserved, acted upon, and reinforced by those in power over the years.

The sweeping force of Cornwell's arguments also draws from the author's use of aesthetic shaping. Just like HITLER'S POPE, BRAKING FAITH reveals a literary structure that is rare in the world of contemporary historical investigations. Its underlying compositional element is a complex polyphonic interweaving of such distinctly diverging strains as the personal-vulnerable, the large spiritual issues of the tradition, and some of the gnawing moral concerns of our time. Such polyphonic treatment underlies also the chapter structures of the volume. Arriving at the incinerator of the monastery almost at the end of the book and thus evoking the fires of the Inquisition, the narration counteracts our expectation of the forward moving motion of history. Since the image of fire and ashes also recalls the Holocaust, the text evokes both the recent and distant past, the shadows of which seem to still fall on the Catholic Church. Also, with the penultimate chapter carrying the title of "Returning," the narration reiterates, and thereby culminates in, the issue of "strict hierarchy," which, as Cornwell argues, is the cause for the crisis that must be dealt with if the Church is to survive. Echoing this theme throughout, the narration enacts symbol and intellectual argument with equal urgency.

BREAKING FAITH is a major study, shedding light on the Church's conflict between past and future.

I am annoyed with the book. It has been a while, but I have had quite a bit of math. I know a good math textbook. Good math textbooks will define the terms well, and the derivations will be followed by good examples to help you understand the derivations. I do not recommend this book to anyone that does not have more than an undergraduate degree in math or engineering. Professors of mathematics will probably understand the derivations and may not examples or a clear definition of all the terms.

The authors do present a lot of good general information. For those who are interested, in addition to American and European options, there are Russian options, perpetual options, compound options, binary options, chooser options, Asian options, lookback options, and "out-of-space" options (just kidding on the last).

Most people wishing to price options, which is quite complicated, need more than the theoretical derivations of this book. Also, they should have more than just a method to follow blindly without understanding that some options programs provide. If after the theoretical derivations, this book had provided specific derivations, followed by practical understandable examples with clearly defined terms, I would recommend it highly.

For example, I bought and recommend "Credit Derivatives" by Tavakoli, since I was looking for material on this subject, and this book didn't give any description of the types of products.

The simple, almost child-like honesty with which McCartney comments on this crossing into a different field, manifests itself in his paintings: they carry schoolboy-naughty titles like 'The Queen After Her First Cigarette' and 'Bowie Spitting', often display bright, simple colors, and have the kind of surprised pleasantness - for example "Ancient Connections" - which is often associated with children.

That said, his work is actually pretty good. Its diversity (there are abstract paintings, figurative paintings, portraits, surrealist ones) is a plus, as is the execution, which reveals McCartney has a keen eye for colors and shapes (composition and detail, i.e. the more technical side of painting, are of lesser interest to McCartney, who said: 'I like the primitive approach, so if I learn to sail I don't take sailing lessons: I get into a boat and capsize a lot. It's actually very much my philosophy and it works equally well in painting and in music.')

For people who are unaware, it should be pointed out that McCartney was a key figure in sixties' London, not only in the music field but also in the underground movement, doing collages, experimental music (long before Lennon), and drawings for the International Times paper and Indica Gallery, as well as collecting Magrittes and befriending Willem De Kooning. Also, he was the brain behind such legendary covers as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" (1967) and "Abbey Road" (1969).

Some of the paintings in this book remind of the ones featured in the "Standing Stone" CD booklet, which he'd done to illustrate the story of that 1997 classical piece. Big, three-dimensional (it's as if they're made out of shiny plastic) figures with soft, often sandy yellow, pastel colors. In paintings like "Unspoken Words", "Ancient Connections" and "Yellow Celt" (all featured in this book) McCartney effectively uses this style. They are the best ones in his catalogue.

In a way, his paintings - bright, simple, enjoyable, shapely - are the equivalent of his musical work. His approach is best summed up by himself: "In my mind I have a friend who is Luigi. Luigi owns a restaurant and he's got an alcove, and he always needs a painting for it. So whatever I'm doing, if I ever get that terrifying moment I say: 'It's for Luigi's alcove, Luigi will like this.' And he just lets me off - it frees my head for two seconds and then I'm over the hurdle and I can carry on. Luigi's alcove is one of my huge saviours."

These paintings tear at the boundaries of what you think can and can't be done. They're appealing and yet completely unpredictable. In short, they are paintings from the same imagination that came up with both "I Will" and "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" and then had the not-so-common-sense to put them back-to-back on the same record.

McCartney is obviously setting the artist inside free with these bold, bright canvases. Whether this is great art, that is really a question that each pair of eyes must answer in its own way, in its own unique language.

I for one am glad that McCartney has chosen to make his paintings public. I find these colorful canvases, and the artisitic courage that propelled them into being, quite inspiring.

MENDELEYEV'S DREAM is the story of chemistry, from the ancient Greek, Anaximenes, with his theory of air as the fundamental element compressible to water and stone, to the gnomic Russian genius, Mendeleyev, who conceived the Periodic Table in the mid-19th century. Conceived it in a dream during an exhausted sleep brought on by overwork and frustrated creativity. Sleeping, when he should have been on his way to address a meeting of local cheese-makers.

The author, Paul Strathern, has written a fine narrative overview of the evolution of the scientific method and the chemist's art, from the philosophical musings of the ancients on the nature of the universe, through the long centuries when alchemy held sway, to chemistry's current place in the Pantheon of Sciences. Along the way, Strathern introduces us to the greatest scientific minds and gifted eccentrics of their respective ages: Empedocles, Aristotle, Zosimus, Jabir ibn-Hayyan, Avicenna, Paracelsus, Nicholas of Cusa, Galileo, Descartes, Francis Bacon, van Helmont, Robert Boyle, Hennig Brand, Karl Scheele, Johann Becher, Henry Cavendish, Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier, John Dalton, Jöns Berzelius, and a host of others. And, finally, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev.

The nature of the book's subject could easily lend itself to tedium, but the author's style is light - only once does he "balance" a chemical formula, and his intermittent dry wit was much appreciated. What, for instance, was Hennig Brand doing with those fifty buckets of putrefying human urine? His neighbors were undoubtedly not thrilled. And why might the Dutch Assembly have been justified in tacking-up "wanted-posters" around town for Johann Becher, who had just absconded on a fast boat for London?

A scientist himself, Paul has not penned a great technical piece. Rather, he's written an uncomplicated, engaging work of popular science likely to appeal to those of us who ... well, let's just say, didn't learn to transmute lead into gold, much less ace Chem 1A. Now, if someone could just do the same for differential calculus.