Guys,
If you are looking for answers to why your girl friend goes nuts 1 week out of the month, this is not the book for you. Actually if you take the author advice and disappear that week, then maybe this book is for you. Other wise, it does not give any more insight into a woman cycle other than;
1. She crabby.
2. She want to clean things.
3. She wants to [have sex].
And before you women start in on the male bashing. Let me first say. WE ARE MEN. WE WANT TO FIT THINGS. Hence the reason for my purchase of this book. I saw my girlfried in pain and I wanted to help. But according to this book, it's best to let you women PMS yourself silly and hold on tight till it's over. You know what? From what I have experience I'll be joining a monastery in the morning. AAAhhhhh to be in the company of sane men.

Luck to all you men.

ok, guys don't have this organ or this problem, and you have to be a noble man to want to understand your wife or woman with this natural biological cycle. come on, you owe it to her to try and understand her and be symapthetics. it is the right thing to do.

Don't confuse this book with some technical discussion of the medical facts about PMS, told in a light-hearted way. (There have been such books, but I believe they tend to be out of print unless they're also cookbooks.) "PMS: A Guy's Roadmap" is looking strictly for laughs, and it finds plenty of them. This could actually be quite useful to someone who compounds any problems associated with PMS with a tendency to take the situation too seriously. The book can remind you of the value of having a sense of humor about the whole thing. You could say that what it lacks in medical information (or recipes, although there is a tantalizing reference to chicken cooked in Pepsi), it makes up in conferring "emotional intelligence". I particularly enjoyed the quiz for telling whether the woman in your life is acting as she does because (1) she has PMS, or (2) you are a jerk.

That is all I can say. This is a wonderful book. It totally uplifted and cheered me. I love Brother Christainson, I have taken numerous classes from him. He is great!

Gale Christianson has made the science of global warming and climate change accessible to the general public with his book "Greenhouse." He has a knack for bringing the quirky personalities of the many scientists involved in the discovery of the greenhouse effect to life. He helps the reader easily understand the significance of each scientist's contribution and makes their scientific inquiries read like a great mystery novel.

Gale's synthesis of material is creative. He includes the story of the Anasazi of the American southwest, the Viking settlement in Greenland and others when discussing the impact changing climactic conditions have had on humans in the past. The author includes profiles of scientists who theorized and then later documented the greenhouse effect (such as Svante Arrhenius) as well as the entrepreneurs whose inventions have contributed significantly to the problem (such as Ford).

The author addresses the issue of why the earth experienced a slight cooling trend from the 1940s to the early 1970s, prior to the more recent period of steadily rising temperatures: the period in question witnessed twice the normal amount of volcanic activity, which helped block sunlight from reaching the earth.

The evidence cited by the author strongly suggests that the earth is warming due to human activity. Yet, Christianson inexplicably accords the well-known greenhouse skeptic Fred Singer's criticisms of greenhouse theory more respect than this coal and oil industry-funded mouthpiece deserves. If the author did this in order to appear objective, he did so at the cost of confusing corporate propaganda with real science.

In fact, my criticism of the book is that it contains precious little analysis. Christianson is a gifted storyteller, and no doubt many will enjoy his entertaining narrative. But the reader who seeks insight and understanding into why our society privileges technology at the expense of nature will need to look elsewhere.

Still, I think Christianson has succeeded in his mission of writing a great book for the general interest science reader. It should help further the cause of making the science of global warming an increasingly popular topic of conversation in our society.

Gale Christianson gives a wonderful, dynamic historical account of global warming. Gale addresses so many aspects of the controversy we now know as global warming its difficult to summarize them. She explores 16th and 17th century scientists and their discoveries about the world, from evolution to the impacts of pollution, to the creation of the coal-burning engines that caused England to erect higher and higher smokestacks believing that the smoke would simply float away into the atmosphere. Gale also speaks of the global climate changes that have occurred across the history of humankind as we know it. She explains the tortuous trip that brought the Vikings to settle in Greenland, and the climate shifts that ceased their existence on the frosty continent. She explores the history of the Anasazi and the changes in their biospheres that chased them from their homes built high in the Southwestern US. Gale explains all the differing theories that address the effects of global warming, ending with the fact that we don't really know what the impact will be in the future. She dialogues the negotiations that occurred in Kyoto Japan and the political atmosphere that makes reductions in emissions so difficult. A wonderful account, reads like a novel with dynamic characters, interesting plot changes, and mysteries that may never be solved. Although it does not bring to light anything new to explain global warming, it is a superb overview of global warming as we know it, and why it is such a controversy today.

A beautiful book full of understanding and love for the planet. Somehow I had a sense of dread going into this that what I would find would confirm many of the ideas in Al Gore's great "Earth in the Balance," and in fact they site many of the same research studies and conclusions.

And the last chapter of the book details why it is so necessary for government to be responsive and take a leadership role in caring for what we have left of our great inheritance of land, air and water.

I loved the fascinating history of our planetary environment from back in the 18th and 19th century when men were sure that the answer to bad air was simply building a taller smokestack, all the way to Kyoto, where the Oil companies, in tandem with Republican Congressonal majority maneuvers, tried to sabotage any efforts at cleaning up the environment, and largely succeeded.

Now all we have left are the powerful forces of greed: Big Oil and Chemical money (read how they pandered scientists to join them against the Kyoto accords) against the fishes, the animals, the trees, and the health of humanity and our children and grandchildren. How can fish fight Big Oil company money and the politicians they control?

I fear for our planet. We are on a slippery slope and big money--the attitude of "get yours and get out" may carry the day.

"Nature never deceives us. It is always we who deceive ourselves." Rousseau

A charming book about dads, fathers, daddies, and papas.

As to the quality of the scholarship, there can be little question. With few exceptions, it appears that all of the "i's" are dotted, all the "t's" crossed.

Christianson rightly avoids emotional involvement with his "subject," except for occasional pronouncements and conclusions about Eiseley's character, mostly negative. The author avoids hero-worship with a vengeance. This makes the book interesting in another dimension, because it starts one to thinking about Christianson himself. The downside is that this inevitable digression of thought gets in the way of thinking about the subject of the work. But at least it's not a starry-eyed whitewash.

One can't help wondering why the author, who does let some positive elements shine through via quotes by Eiseley himself, seems resentful of his subject rather than understanding. Perhaps he admired his subject so much that he went overboard and emphasized the "warts" too much. Perhaps he began as one seduced by his subject's work, but had his bubble burst when his research exposed the "warts." Perhaps he was jealous. Perhaps he took pleasure in attempting to topple one more successful than he, a practice known as "trophy hunting" in some circles. One way of "standing tall" is to put down, but it is a curious way.

Read this book for information but not for a sympathetic treatment of Eiseley. Just as an overly sentimental treatment would be flawed, this book lacks balance, lacks any depth of understanding of the complex relationships of insight and science and literature and how these were combined in Eiseley. It is linear in its "analysis," and many a reader will want that.

It is a fair guide to the facts, but not skillfully written in the sense of being "reader-friendly." While real contortions of prose are relatively rare, the writing is not easy to follow. Certainly the author knew his subject well (at least one guesses that this must be the case), but the reader does not close this scholarly tome with a coherent picture of the subject. One is left with more of a sense that one has been present while Eiseley's closets were not only emptied of their skeletons, but watched while they were scattered about. One imagines Eiseley's own skeleton among them, disarticulated, incomplete, broken, even pulverized. But dead men cannot protest, eh?

Christianson gave the work a hearty try. His facts, often presented in calendar fashion, are given in such a way that one can glimpse the character of Eiselely as he would appear to one who was observing him. In this fashion, the book is a success. But I strongly wonder that the book misses its mark in finding what was inside the man, rather than merely describing what the man did. Christianson seems to have made a real effort, but the many people he interviewed or researched that were acquainted with Loren and Mabel, seem also to have been observers of WHAT THEY DID rather than who they were. In this sense, I dont think that anyone will do a better job at an Eiseley biography, as both Mr and Mrs E seem to have made it plain that they werent to be really known.