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Book reviews for "Baker,_Alan" sorted by average review score:

Neural Transplantation Methods (Neuromethods, No. 36)
Published in Hardcover by Humana Press (October, 1999)
Authors: S. B. Dunnett, Alan A. Boulton, and Glen B. Baker
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An excellent resource
Dunnett's book is a fine overview of the current methodologies in neural transplantation research. Highly recommended.


Ragtime Tumpie
Published in School & Library Binding by Little Brown & Co (Juv Trd) (October, 1989)
Authors: Alan Schroeder and Bernie Fuchs
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When I first read this book I felt like dancing myself!
That one-line summary is what my 7-year-old son said about this book, in addition to "I love Ragtime Tumpie!" I agree with him. This is a beautiful and inspiring book about Josephine Baker, the great jazz entertainer/dancer. The illustrations are radiant and evoke a sense of excitement, heat, and music. The story is emotionally engaging, and like my son says, makes you want to dance and jubilate along with Tumpie! This is a top-notch picture book!


Tax Shift: How to Help the Economy, Improve the Environment, and Get the Tax Man Off Our Backs (New Report, No. 7)
Published in Paperback by Northwest Environment Watch (April, 1998)
Authors: Alan Thein Durning, Yoram Bauman, Rachel Gussett, Northwest Environment Watch (Organization), and Don Baker
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Possibly the simplest, most powerful way to save the earth
If you have always thought jobs and the environment were at odds with one another, read this book and see that there are very sensible ways to help the environment AND the economy at the same time. See how current tax policies penalize exactly the things we want more of (employment, environmental protection), and subsidize exactly the things we want less of (pollution, pillaging). The authors make their points powerfully and convincingly, yet with a surprisingly light, readable touch. Normally I would never read a book with "tax" in the title, but this is not a typical book. Any thinking citizen should take a look, and anyone interested in government, politics, or activism should read it as soon as possible. It will give you new perspective on how we run our society, and on how we should.

Update: the principles in this book are so impressive that the notion of a tax shift, and a related concept the "feebate", have entered the mainstream political agenda in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It's a persuasive book!


Voltammetric Methods in Brain Systems (Neuromethods , Vol 27)
Published in Hardcover by Humana Press (May, 1995)
Authors: Glen B. Baker, Alan A. Boulton, and Ralph N. Adams
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Essential reading for neuroscientists using electrochemistry
This text covers most of the areas important for neurobiologists who wish to make electrochemical measurements. It includes chapters on the surface chemistry of carbon microelectrodes, understanding of the environment in which measurements are made (e.g. diffusion), and a number of different biological appraoches in which electrochemical measurements have been made. These range from single cell to whole animal studies. Each chapter is written in the style of the presenting lab, and gives a clear insight both into the methodology they use, and the questions they address.


X-Men: Visionaries
Published in Paperback by Marvel Books (October, 1998)
Authors: Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Dave Cockrum, Allen Milgrom, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jackson Guice, Kyle Baker, Alan Davis, Jim Lee, and Scott Williams
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Great book, but not an ideal intro
This is a really fun little graphic novel, loaded with great artwork and a decent storyline. I wouldn't recommend it as a first-time read for anyone unfamiliar with the X-Men - taken out of context from the overall series - it might be a somewhat confusing introduction. But for those who know the characters and have a general idea of what is going on, believe me, this one delivers the goods.

In the past, I have generally hated the X-Men's adventures in the Savage Land, or whenever they would go to outer space or get into really super sci-fi type situations. I always felt the X-Men stories worked much better when they were grounded in very normal, down-to-earth settings, because it made the X-Men themselves stand out and seem that much weirder. But this book is an exception to the rule. It's a big, crazy, larger-than-life adventure, part of which takes place in the prehistoric Savage Land, and part of which gets hyper technological, and it works out OK.

The artwork is tough and gritty. Jim Lee draws a mean, shadowy, ugly Wolverine who kills lots of villains and looks like he needs to take a shower very badly.

And Lee's women - whoa. This book contains more gratuitous cheescake shots than any X-Men graphic novel I've seen, but it's all very pleasing to the eye. Especially the scenes with Rogue, whose bare skin can kill anyone she touches and thus, understandably, was always the one major female character who kept herself completely covered at all times. This was the first storyline in the series where they finally drew her as a scantily-clad, sexy heroine. A real treat for male Rogue-fans who'd been reading the series patiently for years.

This storyline also chronicles the transformation of innocent young Psylocke into a mature woman trained in the art of Ninjitsu, and she becomes an ultra-violent, sexy bad girl. And then there are cameo appearances by other Marvel superheroes, namely Captain America (from the Avengers series) and The Black Widow (from the Daredevil series). All in all, it's a satisfying, action-packed, well-drawn, crowd-pleasing comic book in trade-paperback format.

A great X-Men Jim Lee graphic Novel!
X-Men Visionaries Jim Lee trade paperback Is a great X-Men graphic Novel by Jim Lee! the book reprints Uncanny X-Men issues #248,#256-258,#268-269,#273-277 are reprinted together in this wonderful Marvel book collection! This book contains the early Uncanny X-Men issues that made Jim Lee famous! All the issues are written by Chris Claremont with artwork by Jim Lee. These issues lead to the popular Claremont/Lee colaboration on X-Men#1 in 1991. Most of the artwork was done by Jim Lee. Uncanny X-Men #273 was done by various artists. Buy this book if your fan of X-Men and Jim Lee. Highest Possible Recommendation!

A great X-Men Jim Lee graphic Novel!
This is a great X-Men: Visionaries Jim Lee graphic Novel! This is Jim Lee's early work on the Uncanny X-Men series! This Marvel Tradepaperback reprints Jim Lee's early years when he was the comic book artist on Uncanny X-Men. In this book reprints Uncanny X-Men#248,#256-258,#268-269, #273-277. His early work on the Uncanny X-Men in the early 1990s, lead to to the critically aclaimed Clarmont/Lee work on X-Men #1 in 1991. All the Uncanny X-Men issues are written by Chris Claremont. Most of the artwork is drawn by Jim Lee. Unncany X-Men#273 is drawn by various artist. Buy this book if your a big fan of X-Men and Jim Lee. Highest Possible Recommendation.


Steps to Independence
Published in Paperback by Paul H Brookes Pub Co (December, 2003)
Authors: Bruce L. Baker and Alan J. Brightman
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Excellent resource!
No parent OR special education teacher should be without this book! Easy to read, and the content is excellent! Step-by-step approaches to teaching everyday skills to children with special needs, but would be just as valuable to ANY parent! After reading this book, I have found it easier to establish goals for my students and everyone is using the same approach to teaching everyday living skills (play, toileting, self-help, PLUS behavior management)! It is working fabulous! The students are learning more with less frustration! A must-have for your resource library!

A Must Have For Parents struggling With Training
This book is a must have for parents struggling with training there children independence skills. It ofter so many easy to do exercise to get your little or big one independence. My 3 year old is finally bushing his teeth, because this book showed easy to do steps to get him going. I highly recommend this book to any parent struggling with training there children independence. It offers easy steps by step solutions in teaching your child what you have been trying to teach them for months . Try it, its a great training tool for independence.

Great Resource!
This book is great. Not only does each chapter breaks down into specific steps on how to teach everyday skills like toilet training, homecare skills (dressing, feeding) as well as behaviour management - it contains advice and charts on how to monitor and assess improvement in a systematic way. Also explains the use of rewards for motivation etc.

No doubt one of the most comprehensive and useful books I have bought. Has helped me construct a program to help my dyspraxic son establish a routine and confidence performing everyday skills consistently.

Recommended purchase!


The Odyssey
Published in Hardcover by Doubleday (September, 1988)
Authors: Robin Lister, Alan Baker, Homer Odyssey, and Homer
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Read the Odyssey!!
I'm 14, live in England and I'm studying the Odyssey for my GCSE in Classical Civilisation, and its a fantastic book. It's amazing to think that this whole story was once MEMORISED by Homer, and because it was so wonderful it was finally written down and has survived for years and years! The Odyssey is a great story because: although it's a mythical tale, Homer tells it with such reality and vivid description that you almost believe it's real, it's filled with excitement, twists and turns, with Odysseus always just about managing to escape from trouble! The intriging mythical creatures are fascinating, full of character and personality - i particularly like Polyphemus the Cyclops and also Athena, the wise goddess. that's another cool thing about the Odyssey - all of the ancient Greek names!! Although the Odyssey is a challenging book to read, due to the complicated people and place names, the long family histories and references to Greek mythology, and the repetitive narration, I would recommend it to anyone. Whether or not you want to analyse it in detail (as I have to for my exam!) or just read it and it enjoy it, everyone should read the Odyssey at least once! I find that each time I read it, I pick up something new, and it gets easier to understand and quicker to read. Just give it a try, it is a classics book, and well worth the effort, although it is challenging. I'm sure that anyone who is interested in mythology, or just adventure stories in general, something in the Odyssey will appeal to you. So read it!!!

The wanderings and adventures of Odysseus.
This epic were required reading in the humanities course I took at U.C.L.A. in the mid-1960s. And, I've reread it a number of times since then. The prose translation I read was by Rieu (if you are interested in the verse translation, see the volume provided by Robert Fagles). "The Odyssey" is the epic poem of the wanderings of Odysseus trying to return to his home in Ithaca following the end of the siege of Troy. There are three basic threads in this epic: Telemachus' search for his father, Odysseus (Books II-IV); the wanderings of Odysseus (Books I and V-XIII); and, Penelope's struggles with her suitors (Books XIV-XXIV). All of these come together in the conclusion. "The Odyssey" begins in the middle of the tale (in medias res) when Odysseus request to leave Calypso on the island of Ogygia. Much of his wanderings are told as recaptulations of earlier events. Telemachus sets out from Ithaca to find his father; but he searches in vain at Pylos and Sparta. Odysseus has many adventures in his travels: battle with the warlike Cicones; an encounter with the Lotus-Eaters; the famous fight with the cyclops Polyphemus; a near shipwreak following the release of winds from a bag; a visit with the enchantress Circe who turns Odysseus' men into swine; talks with the spirits of the dead; escape from the Sirens; eluding Scylla and Charybdis, two sea-monsters lying between Italy and Sicily; the killing of the sacred oxen of the Sun; seven years with Calypso; another shipwreak; rescue by King Alcinous; and the final arrival on Ithaca. This is one of the great classics of literature and evry college student should be required to read it. I've always felt that until recently when I discovered that, at a local Middle School, it was required reading for eighth graders! Now, I think that all High School graduates should have read it.

The Odyssey is one of the greatest stories ever told.
The story of The Odyssey is one of the grestest stories ever told. Everytime I read it, I fall in love with the characters. I love the way Mr. Fitzgerald translates the book. He does a masterful job of describing the scene, and uses words to fully portray what is going on, and how the characters feel. I'm reading a version translated by someone else, and it feels "watered down." It's almost too easy to read. Fitzgerald doesn't simplify it to the point where something is lost. I would recommend this book to anyone. In echoing the words of people who have commented before me, I thought the Odyssey would be boring, but it truly is an awesome book and story.


Readings on Cry, the Beloved Country (Greenhaven Press Literary Companion to World Literature)
Published in Library Binding by Greenhaven Press (January, 2001)
Authors: Alan Paton and Estella Baker Gerstung
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Paton's creative and writing genius comes to a fore in Cry..
When first published in 1948 in apartheid South Africa, Cry, the Beloved Country raised more than eyebrows as a powerful book about the power of unity and an author's unflinching hope of a future where segregation no longer exists. The book summoned feelings of pride, optimism, and anticipation of a long-desired goal. But Paton's lyrical, poetic prose is not your typical run-of-the-mill anger evoking story about discrimination. The story is a humanizing experience that evokes feelings of sympathy and understanding, not hatred for a system so blatantly wrong.

In Cry, the Beloved Country, readers feel an uncanny connection to three things: the land, an old black rural priest searching in a corrupt city for his son, and an old white rural man confronting the loss of his son. All three aspects of the book are connected by a common thread. And a great thing about the book is that Paton doesn't feel the need to build up to the emotional climax by setting the readers against a well defined antagonist, or even an antagonist at all; on a micro-scale, the story is a moving tribute to man's inherent dignity; on a macro-scale, the themes and plethora of symbols are applied to man's all-too mortal nature.

This book is also a can't-miss for any fans of poetry who want to read a good work of prose. As the New Republic puts it, Cry, the Beloved Country is "the greatest novel to emerge out of the tragedy of South Africa, and one of the best novels of our time." I would be inclined to agree.

It impressed me years ago, yet again when I re-read it
I first read the book when I was in high school for our novel section of AP English. As a writer now, it is strangely thrilling to see how Paton's ideas and poetry influenced my own prose. "The Grapes of Wrath" by Steinbeck was good, but I felt that it lacked the words of the heart that Paton writes with. Never have I read a more simple and profound book, so lovingly crafted, so authentic and natural, that some fifty years later after Paton wrote the novel, it still has not been superceded. Kumalo's plight is everyman's plight; his burden our burden; his son our son. Dear students, don't read this book because your teacher tells you to, you will learn nothing that way. Read it, because you earnestly desire it, because it is well worth it.

Truly masterful
Somehow, in my slog through high school English, I was deprived of the reading of Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country". Unlike many things, though, this was a true deprivation. I first read this several summers ago; though Paton's novel is specifically relevant to an era that is now receding into the past, his prose remains haunting. So deceptively simple is his language, yet flowing, this is almost a book best savoured aloud (well-worth the reading of to a friend).

Though apartheid has now blessedly slipped the scene, leaving South Africa with its aftermath to struggle through, Paton's story of the Reverend Kumalo's search for redemption is enduring. Perhaps most significant though, is the very simple idea at the core...reconciliation...of father with lost son, lost daughter...of murderer with the victim's kin...and...in Paton's time, and still so in our own...of each of us with our fellow humans.

This is a book that moves me deeply every time I read it, and loses nothing in a rereading. Of the thousands of books I have read, encompassing a myriad of styles, of academic fields...this is still the one book that I recommend without hesitation, without prejudice, to any and to every. This is a truly beautiful work.


Tom Strong: Book 2
Published in Hardcover by DC Comics (March, 2002)
Authors: Alan Moore, Chris Sprouse, Alan Gordon, Alan Weiss, Al Gordon, and Kyle Baker
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true pulp comics.
This follows Tom Strong from his chilhood on a mysterious island where his parents trained him on a harsh gravity, to his most recent adventures as he nears the age of 100.
Teaming up with his wife, daughter, butler robot, and super smart ape.
The first three issues are okay, but it really works in the last four, showing one of the coolest characters of all time, the Pangean.
This is an okay book and if you like Alan Moore and have a few bucks, pick this up.

Fun read...
This collection contains the first seven issues of the ongoing 'Tom Strong' series. In creating Tom Strong, Alan Moore has combined many of the archetypal characteristics of the heroes from pulp magazines (especially Doc Savage), but at the same time updated the concept for the 21st century, providing readers with the enthralling adventures of the premier science hero of Millenium City.

Worth mentioning is the fact that Moore avoids the typical flaws of the superhero genre with his use of accurate characterisation, fantastic settings, cunning villains and even a plot twist or two, which in the end make reading this book a truly fun experience.

With Tom Strong Alan Moore evokes the energy of the classic Jack Kirby run on Fantastic Four. This work truly helps revitalize the comic book medium.

"A true masterpiece" ,or,"Alan Moore latest GN"
This, next to Watchmen, is one of the greatest comic books I have ever read because it has one key element that many comics lack ever since the grim and gritty age. It starts out with an interesting premise: what if a man wanted to make his son a perfect human being by educating him in the far-off island of Attabar Teru, away from societies influence.
By raising him in a low gravity enviroment with his robot nanny, Phneuman and feeding him lots of the goloka root, which gives longevity and physical prowess, he becomes as it seems throughout the book, to become a human version of superman. When Tom turns 11 a quake hits Attabar Teru, and both his parents are killed so he is raised by the Attabar Teru trbe(not very unlike peacful indians.)When he grows up, he heads off to Millenium city and becomes a super hero, or science-hero as their universe calls them.And while the story is incredible, so is the art. Chris Sprouse is the perfect guy to draw Tom Strong because Tom Strong is supposed to be an incredibly smart and, well...,strong version of the BFG, a big guy who makes us all feel safer. I also liked the brief reuniting of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in the sixth chapter. Overal, this is one of the best graphic novels of all time,suitable for all ages, and something you should read right now!


Destination Earth: A History of Alleged Alien Presence
Published in Paperback by Sterling Publications (August, 1998)
Author: Alan Baker
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