These are exactly the type of articles I love to read on airplanes trips or in doctors' offices. Real science written for non-scientists.

These essays are phenomenal- all intriguing and all lingering in our minds well after reading. Science writing is an art I particularly relish. The math is gone- and that's good- indeed all of the qualifiers for a scientific career or training are reduced to one- fascination- and there's plenty of that in this collection. My favorite author, in this category is Jerome Groopman, M.D. a feature writer for the New Yorker and a practicing oncologist. His topic is cell-speak, the astounding discovery that cells communicate between distances. The scientific term is `signal transduction.' Groopman's prose evokes molecular music receiving and answering and generating movement. Skeleton like structures are woven by these messages and the whole stunning revelation becomes political, economic and religious in its challenges and possibilities. The least of which is nothing less than universal design and grand scale unity of all matter. Microscopic matters, as equally valuable to the private sector laboratories as to the religious nature of being and infinity.
Athol Gwande, another New Yorker writer, writes about the painful ramifications of excessive blushing. The embarrassment is so defeating that people undergo surgery- and not minor surgery- just to control it. Post surgery, people report a quality of life surge that makes the risks and costs well worth it. Perhaps the most allegorical piece is a study of the plastic surgeon who dreams of giving people wings and other improvements as implanting rods and cones to make our vision more spectacular. These dreams are oddly absent when the same physician attends to remodeling a face eaten away by cancer. At odds most dramatically by the callow bedside manner and the narcisistic ego of this Leonardo of the dream. Condemned by colleagues and despised by the residents we try to ascertain if he is a visionary, Icarus or would he create another Frankenstein.
The strange and the miraculous are in turn celebrated and given to dark reservations and caution. All of the entries are nothing less than Magnificent!

This book is great to help you play World Series Baseball 2k1. It tells you all the stats, how to create double plays, how to pitch, and how the teams rank in World Series Baseball 2k1.If I was you I would buy the book and go all the way in your season.

I was very disappointed with this book. I can understand people liking it but I cannot see why anyone would think it a great novel. The best thing about it is the writing. It is a well-written book. The plot is somewhat mechanistic. The characterization is also frustrating; the good people tend to be passive and the bad ones tend to be totally bad with no redeeming features to create a sense of well-roundedness. Finally the moral vision is somewhat bleak with so much sinister corruption in the town. If this is what small town Ontario is like, no wonder we have situations like the tragedy in Walkerton.

This novel bears no comparison with a novel like No Great Mischief by Alstair Maclean, which is just in another league altogether.

Author Matt Cohen has created a layered novel of characters tangled together in unexpected ways. But the most stunning gift is his phrasing; he renders images as clearly as a photograph..."he took her down onto the sweet cool ground and gave her little explosions and tears of pain"...or "the perfect silence of falling snow".
This intimate rendering of the quirky personalities of the inhabitants of West Gull, Ontario, include the gamut of human behavior, from the sociopathic voyeur to the powerless ageing bachelor. Throughout, it is Elizabeth who defines the commonality of life begun with such hope, now left to languish in despair or the comfort of memory. Cohen reaches deep and reminds us that his characters were once young, defined by their hopes and dreams. We know Adam only in the context of his interior life and his awe of Elizabeth. He serves as an example of the complexities within those we love and take for granted, find wanting and toss aside.
In Carl McKelvey we find the essence of his mother, Elizabeth. For all his troubles, he retains Elizabeth's authenticity, strength and ability to accurately "read" others. Carl is able to put aside his own pain and frustration in an effort to provide his daughter with the father she deserves.
This is an author whose words enrich the life of the reader. He lays out the tapestry of the human experience, making it impossible to dismiss anyone lightly. Covetous, malicious personalities stand beside the foolish, the innocent, the ignorant and the desperate. The landscape of ELIZABETH AND AFTER is a journey into the heart of man, and Cohen is the guide.

I wish I had discovered this book before. I could not put it down. It is a page turner especially from part II when we get to really know Elizabeth.The writing is quite vivid and descriptive, easy to read, it flows. The characters come alive and the author transports you into their world and uncovers their beauty, their passions, their faults and obsessions in such a unique way. I highly recommend this book and am sorry that it is the last one written by Matt Cohen.

Okay, I FINALLY FINALLY finished this book. Not a bad book in all - well written with Cohen's usual flair, but just not zingy enough. It sort of meandered along with the main character, Paul - a gimp of a protagonist with a noodle for a spine. I just hated him. In love with a junkie named Judith (oh please hand me a tissue) who in turn deceives him and treats him like the doormat he subconsciously wants to be. Now, that's all fine and fair.

But how sentimental and repitive can a book get?? This one, after reading two good ones by Cohen, was about as refreshing as a sewer breeze or one of those massive subway farts that happen in big and overly-populated cities. The go-nowhere plot had me more interested in my cuticles and screwing metal splinters into my eye sockets than in where these repugnant dolts would wind up by the end of the story. A quarter of the way through I just wanted Judith to overdose on self-pity and for Paul to get beamed up by a sadistic anal-probe spacecraft from the planet Buttron. As much as I try to support Canadian writers in general, and especially a good writer like Cohen, I cannot in good conscience ever recommend this book. Dull dull DULL dull DULL DULL DULL.

Two stars for (A) lyrical writing and (B) 'cause Cohen is Canadian, eh.

Passion may the strongest motivating force in human nature. Not to be confused with compulsion or addiction, passion can overwhelm rational thought. THE BOOKSELLER explores this frailty in the coming-of-age tale of Paul Stevens escaping the domination by an older brother only to succumb to a consuming passion for his co-worker Judith. Paul loses all common sense in the relationship, indulging in Judith's vices of alcoholism and drugs. Concurrently, the brother Henry travels in bad company incurring unpayable, life threatening debt. Henry deftly puts the onus of survival on Paul, the life-long "patsy" for Henry's ambitions and indiscretions. Passion can die. And Paul's does. But a catharsis of bitter confrontations and the dealth of Henry must take place before Paul can achieve a life of independence. THE BOOKSELLER is a chronicle of expectations met with disappointments. It may be true to life. It certainly is not inspirational