After reading the book I am left with the view that here's another guy trying to cash in on the Manson name...I'm surprised that he stopped short on blaming the sinking of the Titanic on Charles Manson! A near drowing and a broken nose and the fingers start to point at Manson? The last section of the book is the regurgitated court transcripts of the parole hearings...at least we can read what Charles Manson had to say straight from the horses mouth!The rest of he book is too bizarre...

A well done project.I really liked the author,and liked the way his kind nature contrasted with that of evil man-sin.A must for those curious about this subject,it will be a good addition to your collection.plus the side story about a guy named pincushion is bizzare ,yet hilarious

I read Helter Skelter decades ago and watched the gripping television mini-series and was fascinated by both. Since then, no other Manson book has compared until this one. Taming The Beast takes off right where Helter Skelter ended without missing a beat and shows us what Manson has been doing since. Despite being in prison, his family remains alive after all these years and both he and they are just as frightening as ever. Great book!

With a book like this, many readers cheat themselves by assuming that they already know what it's about, because they heard the outline of the story before, and therefore they have no need to really read it. A lot like the way some people treat the Bible, or at least large parts of the Bible. Anyway, I recently re-read this book to one of my daughters, and can report that upon close consideration, this book is really a retrospective Calvinistic explanation for how old Dr. Boekman finds a successor for his surgical practice, following Dr. Boekman's disappointment in his only son, who never liked medicine and who in fact found a reason to run away from Holland to resettle in England to pursue a business career. The rich descriptions of Dutch history and culture form the context for this drama.

Consequently, Dr. Boekman's whole outlook on life, exemplified by his perpetual frown, descends into depression as he humorlessly goes about his surgical practice, all the while increasing his fame which radiates from Amsterdam far out into the provinces, symbolized by the transportation and communication pathway of the frozen canals, over which all ages and classes of people happily skate through what used to be extremely cold winter months in Holland. These canals have not frozen solid on a regular basis for many decades.

These frozen canals in turn exemplify Dr. Boekman's frozen heart, which ultimately gets melted as a result of the importuning of Raff Brinker's son, young Hans, who cajoles old Dr. Boekman into taking a look at old Raff, who has been an invalid since suffering a closed head trauma while working out on the dikes during a fierce storm.

Dr. Boekman ends up surgically unblocking the "brainfreeze" suffered by Raff Brinker, who comes back to life "talking like an Amsterdam lawyer" which is a complete turn around from his invalid state where he appeared to be a distant, angry, barely controllable hulk crouching in his house by the fire, and casting a gloom of social obloquy which tainted not only his children, but his very cottage, in the eyes of most of the other respectable members of Dutch society, as they skated by on their local frozen canal.

By the end of the book, the connection achieved by Hans Brinker between his remote father and the remote surgeon seems to have spread, or networked, and young Hans is a rising surgeon practicing with Dr. Boekman, and happily married, while Dr. Boekman's biological son returns, or is redeemed back from England to practice a bustling business trade also in Amsterdam. The silver skates and the races on the canals are mainly a way for Hans to prove something to himself, that he can set his mind to what he wishes to achieve, and against all odds achieve it. The fact that all of this works to bring reconciliation and happiness back into people who are disconnected and frozen, rather than constituting a sappy, Dickensian series of unlikely coincidences, instead creates more of an echo of predestination than merely a "happy ending."

But then again, this is only one explanation of what we have here in this classic book.

I thought it was a wounderful story for the whole family to read.

Is this the greatest book ever? Maybe, maybe not. Shakespeare had some good ones. Either way, this merits the five stars I've given it. Delve into one of the greatest stories ever told, and learn all about Holland. By the time you're done, you'll want to go ice skating.

So strap on your wooden skates and squeek across the ice of Ole Holland. Who gets the silver skates? Who is the greatest hero? Is hidden fortune just under the peat moss?

Dat hangt er van af . . .

This book is a great way to explore physics outside of the classroom and outside of the textbook. This book allows the reader to take Einstein's Theory of Relativity and see it in a way that is vivid and allows the reader to understand the concepts behind Einstein's great theory. The author that revised the book added extra adventures that helped the context of the book. The added illustration and charts are an added bonus that help the reader gain more of an understanding.

The famous physicist and excellent popularizer of science George Gamow wrote the original version of this book "Mr Tompkins in Paperback" in 1965. Since then the understanding of the physical world from its smallest to largest entities has shown much progress. Thus the book, which was once one of the best classics in the genre of physics popularizations, needed a revision to continue its role of introducing the modern knowledge of fundamental physics to laypersons.

Russell Stannard, an able popularizer of science, courageously tackled this difficult problem of modernizing "Mr Tompkins." Four chapters out of 17 are entirely new. Old chapters describe the theory of relativity, quantum physics and atomic and nuclear physics through Mr Tompkins' adventurous dreams and a series of lectures given by "the professor" to the lay-audience. Tompkins is among the listeners of the lectures, gets acquainted with the professor's daughter Maud, and . . . Maud's look, hairstyle and dresses in illustrations and the episode of romance have also been modernized. The new chapters treat black holes, a high-energy accelerator ("atom smasher") and the results of physics gotten by it, quarks and the Standard Model, and the relation between the life of the Universe and particle physics.

Even the old chapters have been rewritten considerably. For example, Chapter 2 newly tells about an experimental evidence by neutral pion decay for the constancy of light speed, demonstration of relativistic time dilation at CERN by the change of life time of muons traveling at high speed, etc. The "twin paradox" of relativity has also been added in Chapter 2, and its further explanation is given in Chapter 3 (here is a minor but confusing error of "she" and "he" wrongly interchanged). I like this addition very much, because the "paradox" bothered me even after I had learned the theory of relativity at a university. (For a more complete explanation of the twin paradox, I recommend Max Born's "Einstein's Theory of Relativity" to readers of an inquiring mind.)

Being one of old Japanese fans of Tompkins, I feel a little sorry that the name of Hideki Yukawa has disappeared from the present version. Surely, his meson theory of nuclear forces became outdated, because constituents of nucleons and mesons, i.e., quarks and gluons, had been discovered. However, Yukawa's theory was a strong driving force for the birth of particle physics, and a good place where his name can be mentioned remains in Chapter 13 (in the original version it appeared in a later chapter, which has been omitted in the present version).

I highly recommend this book especially to young people who wish to major in physical sciences. There are a small number of simple equations of relativity and formulas of particle reactions. For those who are eager to learn about mysteries of the micro world and the universe, however, the presence of these would not be any hindrance to the enjoyment of the book but rather be an attractive feature. Some of old fans of Tompkins would also read the new version to welcome Stannard's good job.

The results of many of the theories of modern physics are often very hard to grasp since they operate on such a different scale from most people's everyday lives. This book solves that problem by tinkering with the physical constants of the universe to bring them into the realm of human experience: the theory of relativity is described through a narrative set in a universe in which the speed of light is only 30 miles per hour, the topology of space is explained using a universe which is only a few hundred yards in length, and the complex interactions of subatomic particles are narrated from the points of view of the particles themselves. While the social and emotional struggles of quarks and leptons may not give the reader nearly as much mathematical rigor as other overviews of modern physics, they are certainly much more entertaining and provide an intuitive grasp even for readers who don't understand the underlying theories discussed.

This is a great book for anyone interested in modern physics, and a terrific introduction for junior high or high school students who might have the opportunity to study physics later in life.

I would give this book three stars because it isn't the best and isn't the worst.It also wasn't my favorite because the mystery was very un exciting.I would recommend this book to my friends because
they would like the story.

I bought this book hoping to end the "electronic gameitis" my son was displaying. I was not disappointed, first the book introduces a third grade classroom which my son relates to because he's in the third grade. Then it show how to write and decode a secret message. I'm still decoding secret messages sent TOP SECRET. Because it involves a mystery that is simple and somewhat common, it keeps the kids thinking "hey, this could happen to me!" This book is the solution to show kids that they have an imagination, no need to rely on t.v, etc... My only complaint is that's its too short.

The THIRD GRADE DETECTIVES is a wonderful series for budding detectives - like my kids are! It's also great for teaching science - something my kids weren't really interested in until they found out that the police use science to solve crimes!

This childrens book is a thin veneer of fiction wrapped around some worked examples of cryptanalyzing some simple ciphers (your basic pre-twentieth century ciphers).

The writing is a bit formulaic (but no worse than the Encyclopedia Brown books), the situations implausible, but my nine-year-old son liked it, and it's a painless introduction to an interesting hobby.

i thoght this book the code breaker kids was an excellent childrens book.it showed that if you really want to do something you can with all your minds combined .it showed good friendship because the kids never broke up and stayed as a team.

Very well-researched, with a wealth of primary source material (perhaps too much!), this book is quite academic and dry. Rather than a traditional biography, the book is more a study of various aspects of the reign of Edward VI (e.g. policies on religion, economics, land use, etc.) first under the leadership of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and later, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. I did not feel that I really learned anything about these three figures as people. "Fans" of Tudor history, having read a biography or two of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, are likely to be disappointed in this book. It is much more geared to the historian with a serious, even professional, interest in the period.

This book represents a comprehensive and conclusive study of an important Tudor figure. An academic study of a less well-known English monarch, this book is a fitting epitaph to a leading historian of our time.

I'm just finishing a semester-long course which uses this book as an outline and as a source for homework questions. Anyone with basic knowledge of analysis will have no problem picking up this book and learning a great deal about Fourier decomposition and transformations, but there are a few problems with it. The questions at the end of each section don't always make it clear exactly what is to be answered and what is to be assumed. Also, there have been a few questions that neither I, my classmates, nor my professor could solve, which leads me to believe that there are fundamental problems with a few of the questions (I could be wrong though ;) ) Finally, the last chapter seems to use different notation for some things than is used in the rest of the book, so be alert. Overall, the clarity of the material outweighs these flaws and if you have any interest in REALLY understanding Fourier and Wavelet series, get this book.

This book is state of the art Fourier analysis. The book spproaches from the beginning of the theoretical functional analysis so that very nice to the novice. And very good for person who wants to get some great procedure of developing Fourier transform and other jewerys. Definitely, this is a little bit theoretical, but it provide unexpectedly proofs of common theorems. This is fantastic! P.S. Don't have to understand everything perfectly. If you read till the end, then nothing left not understood.

This is a new and welcome addition to the Netter family of publications. IMHO, the real utility of Netter publications lies in the rendition of the plates. As an embryological atlas, this volume leaves somethings to be desired. Aside from this caveat, the images are a wonderful addition to the littany of "standard" figures that are ususally the same figure repeated with minor variations.

The use of color is of particular value in understanding the development of structures where boundaries between transient elements is indistinct. These make a nice adjunct to the more conventional texts.

This is a teaching book that will be of greatest use to those who have already grasped the basic elements of human embryology. They illustrate conceptually complex topics and are thus of real utility. I don't see this as a primary text, since it contains a great deal of anatomical, pathological and teratological images as well.

It's about time. There has never been a more lucid account of the normal and abnormal processes of human development. Netter's illustrations combined with Cochard's succinct text and learning aids go far beyond any other books published to help further the understanding of embryology.

I wish I had read the original book instead of this one, or at least read it first. The original had a charm, in both words and illustrations, that this revised version lacks. You can view excerpts from both the original and the revised versions on this website to see what I mean. They begin to show up as soon as the first page.

This revised version changes or adds some things to reflect discoveries and technologies since the original book was written. But it also changes the caliber of the story-telling that gave the orignal charm and clarity. The reviser has written 4 new chapters, three of which become the final chapters of the new book. In thsoe chapters Stannard has almost ignored the style and objectives of Gamow's original. Gamow attempted to present complex physics ideas to the interested reader in ways that might be called "spoon feeding". There was an effort to inject analogies and examples that help the reader understand the concepts. In the newly written chapters it seems like Stannard decided he didn't have time for that, or perhaps didn't have the understanding or confidence to follow through on the original approach. The difference in approach is obvious, and not for the better.

"The New World of Mr.Tompkins" is I think, a really interesting fabulous book. George Gamow uses a character Mr.Tompkins an creates an interesting world, at the same time increasing the reader's knowledge and interest in Physics. You can clearll imagine as you are travelling with Mr. Tompkins and the book really makes Physics fun for you.

Mr.Tompkins and George Gamow transforms Physics into a fun interesting subject while really teaching you the mechanisms of Physics and going in Quite deep into the world of Physics.It will spark your imagination to look at things with different perspectives. It talks about quarks, Einstein's theory of Relativity, Speed of Light, Closed Universe,space warps, the Quantum World and lots more!!

I would definately recomend this book to everyone. From people that are really interested in Physics to the people who are a little reluctant to read anything about Physics. this is the book that will wrap you up into the world of Physics.