Laser cooling and trapping techniques have given researchers new tools to explore the atom's dynamics and control. The book gives a good introduction to the forces that arise when an atom interacts with a light (laser) field, and puts a lot of emphasis on giving the reader an excellent idea of what's going on when atoms and photons interact.

Rather than giving all the details of the mathematical and quantum mechanics background that is needed to understand the subject the authors concentrate on giving a clearer picture of the real physics involved.

The book starts with a review of the quantum mechanics principles used to understand laser cooling and trapping, which serves as a good remainder for a person who already has a basic grasp of it.

Although all the mathematical analysis that shows how the formulas and mathematical expressions are derived is not done in the book, the presentation is sufficient to guide the readers interested in it do the work by themselves.

The book also has an excellent reference guide that an interested person can use to get all the mathematical and experimental details on the field.

This book and CD ROM is the ultimate authority on all US politics and statistics.

I had to use this book for a college class I was taking (Anatomy
and Physiology) and I was surprised by the great detail and thoroughness of this book. I was highly impressed!
This lab book contains many different exercises to help you comprehend some of the difficult strutures and functions of the body.
A must for all those taking A&P in college!

Harold Cruse was one of the most intellectual and insightful men of his time. The Essential Harold Cruse:A Reader is a collection of essays that provides into how he was thinking and what he thought as a black man during times, past and present, of racial strife and struggle.

Mr.Cruse critiques some of the most well known people of his time. Chapter four of the book sticks out in mind, for example. James Baldwin, one of the most well known and respected author's ever, wrote a play called Blues for Mr. Charlie. Mr. Baldwin was emphatic when discussing Mr. Charlie that it was not a Negro play, but just a a play that had some resonant social themes. Cruse criticizes Baldwin for not being true to himself or to the cause. Mr. Cruse was very outspoken and always wrote or said what he thought.

The Essential Harold Cruse:A Reader edited by William Jelani Webb was a very difficult book to read at times because some of the essays were very indepth and I felt as though the author was talking over my head and overanalyzing. On the other hand the collection of essays was insightful and informative and I feel that in reading this book that I learned a lot.

Reviewed by Simone A. Hawks

Currently I am using this text book in a College course. If you read it carefully, you will find the structure to be carefully put togeter for self learning. It contains excellent examples and diagrams to follow. It even has programs that can be entered into "Basic" for problems solving. I think it is one of the better text books I have been exposed to.

I struggle with how to rate this book. On the one hand, the two main characters, NY City Detective Nat Hennessey and brilliant doctor Cush Walker are well developed. Each lost his father as a young boy, one in a racially motivated killing and the other probably so, at least tangentially. Each struggles in adulthood with his loss, with the deaths in large part driving who they have become. Tying them together is the brutality of their past and their love interest of the present. In actuality, all of this creates the potential for a great story line and a suspenseful novel. Where I struggle is with the depth of the experimental brain surgery throughout the book. Admittedly, given that this comes from the "medical thriller" genre, I should have been prepared for this. Not having read anything from Pottinger, I did not know what to expect and I found the medical experimentation threads to be a bit too weird for my liking. I kept turning the pages to see how things ended up, but I was left to wish that the underlying issues that I found to be intriguing -- race, bias, revenge, ego, and romance -- could have been pulled together in a different context.

I'm not the most patient person and therefore find it difficult, and at times irritating, to be strung along when it comes to revealing plot lines which was the main problem I had with "A Slow Burning". Pottinger would introduce this mysterious storyline, only to make me wait until the last 10 pages to figure out what it all means. Now don't get me wrong...this can be a very effective way to keep a reader's attention. However, I found Pottinger's style of the "string-along" a bit unnecessary because there would have been no harm done had the plot unfolded without the waiting game. In other words, with some mysteries this technique works well, but with this book it didn't because the mystery lost it's intrigue by the time it was revealed. "A Slow Burning" is a great story. At times it was a bit "Hollywood" and unbelievable, but overall it held my interest from beginning to end. The possibility of the medical technology introduced in the book was fascinating. To be able to repair damaged brain cells and cure all kinds of neurological diseases was a remarkable and well thought out concept. It's obvious Pottinger did a lot of medical research while writing this book. I'm not going to get into a blow-by-blow of the plot in this review because everyone can read it in the above summary. I found the characters to be a bit shallow and their dialogue somewhat unreal and stilted, but aside from that it was an excellent book that I didn't want to put down. A great "lazy-weekend" or vacation read.

What a story! Nat Hennessey and Cush Walker are the two main characters in this un-putdown-able crime/murder/love story, who really don't like each other much at all - they are fighting over the same woman who is in a coma.

The story is brilliant - so many twists & turns that I never ever saw coming. This has got to be one of the best novels I have read..the only negative aspect - it is a bit long & because all the characters are interwoven within in each other, it gets a bit confusing but definately keep reading...it is well worth the ending!

I can't wait to read another Stanley Pottinger book, these are the sort of books I love - not just a boring whodunit, or why they did it or even a boring romance..it has everything a good book should & heaps more! If only there were more like this...