I suspect the book is a little over my head, but it's very thorough & well-reasearched. For a layman like myself, I think I'd like photos - or colour pictures of the animals too - but as the author says, the book goes beyond the normal "field guides" which aim to help with animal identification.

If you want to know things like how the lives of a dikdik & a duiker differ (but you could tell them apart), this is the book for you!

While on a college course in northern Tanzania, I had the great honour of having Dr. Estes as my professor. The book speaks of over 2 decades of knowledge, it is a must have for the travler or researcher. Not only good as a field type guide but wonderfuly done and useful for all topics on african wildlife. I urge all intrested go buy Estes' books.

I used this book while on a course in Kenya and thought it was great. It describes various mammalian behaviors often seen in the field using plain language. Consequently, even the novice can easily identify a multitude of behavioral patterns. I am purchasing it now so that I can use it to teach volunteers working at a field site in Kenya

This book acts like an exercise guide. It has smooth pages wtih nice black and white pictures depicting each exercise. The short descriptions on "how to do the exercises" is precise and to the point. Exercises center around the neck, back, torso, hip, wrist,chest, arms, and abs. Minimal equipment is required. Most exercises are done on a mat or a chair. Other accessories are easy to obtain: light weights, pillow,rubber ball, and such. I found this book very useful and easy to follow. The exercises are fairly easy and most anyone can do them. There are programs designed for people sufferning from osteoporosis, osteopenia, and the prevention of such. I found this extremely efficient because my mother and I can use the same book for her treatment and my prevention.

I found the exercises in this book to be very helpful. The photos and descriptions of the exercises are clear, and the exercises are easy to scale up in difficulty as you become stronger. With each exercise, you are told which specific muscles you will strengthen as well as which part of your skeleton (hips, spine, wrists, etc) that will be strengthened.

Without sacrificing effectiveness, the exercises are kept fairly simple, requiring minimal equipment. More than half of the exercises can be done with no equipment at all (enabling a very complete routine), and the remainder can be done with a little supplemental equipment, including a chair, step, theraband/dynaband, free-weights, wrist/ankle weights, and inflatible stability ball.

I'm in my mid-30s and relatively active. While I found I could *do* almost all the exercises in the book, there is definitely still room for me to improve. With the optional increases in difficulty built into each exercise, this book will keep me challenged for some time to come.

Having said that, many of the exercises are basic enough that someone who is experiencing compromised mobility or who is recovering from illness will be able to manage many of the exercises in the book.

This book motivated me to get off my duff and start reversing my loss in bone mass. I'd recommend this book for anyone who already has osteoporosis as well as for those who want to avoid it.

This book is great - full of exercises, illustrated photos and instructions. I also learned some new information on osteoporosis regarding building bone and what exercises don't work (contrary to popular belief.) Dianne Daniels is a clear, concise writer making the information easy to understand. I recommend the book for anyone with osteoporosis (like me) or anyone who wants to prevent it.

In addition to the Corals: A Quick Reference Guide by Julian Sprung, the second book in the series, Invertebrates: A Quick Reference Guide, is another beautiful and comprehensive reference book, essential for all aquarists and divers. The book is well thought out and has beautiful photos of more than 500 specis of marine invertebrates.

Many invertebrate recognition books are made for divers and therefore have a different approach than a book for aquarists should have. This one has been made by an aquarist and it was made for aquarists. That's why it helps to find out very quickly whether a certain invert is helpful or dangerous in your tank, and whether it makes sense to buy that critter or not. Very recommendable for any reefkeeper.

I can't even begin to explain how excited I was to see this book was released. Outstanding photography of living species shown as they were intented to look. Current and relevant information from a known authority. What a great resource. Keep up the great work Julian and Danny!

Loads of Knowledge and observation are pumped in to this wonderful book. Its a blessing to have a copy of this book for the woodduck admirors.

Wood ducks were almost hunted to extinction during the turn of the 20th century - but with dedicated biologists and hunters, the duck survived. This book goes into the ecology and natural history of this magnificent bird. Too bad the pictures are in black and white - but the well written text makes up for that - based on real research and field data from all over the wood duck range. A wildlife manager's library is not complete without this book.

This book is an excellent compliation of articles written for mathematicians who want to understand quantum field theory. It is not surprising then that the articles are very formal and there is no attempt to give any physical intuition to the subject of quantum field theory. This does not mean however that aspiring physicists who want to specialize in quantum field theory should ont take a look at the contents. The two volumes are worth reading, even if every article cannot be read because of time constraints. All of the articles are written by the some of the major players in the mathematics of quantum field theory. Volume 1 starts off with a glossary of the terms used by physicists in quantum field theory and is nicely written. The next few hundred pages are devoted to supersymmetry and supermanifolds. A very abstract approach is given to these areas, with the emphasis not on computation but on the structure of supermanifolds as they would be studied mathematically. There is an article on classical field theory put in these pages, which is written by Pierre Deligne and Daniel Freed, and discussed in the framework of fiber bundles. The discussion of topological terms in the classical Lagrangian is especially well written. There is an introduction to smooth Deligne cohomology in this article, and this is nice because of the difficulty in finding understandable literature on this subject. Part Two of Volume 1 is devoted to the formal mathematical aspects of quantum field theory. After a short introduction to canonical quantization, the Wightman approach is discussed in an article by David Kazhdan. Most refreshing is that statement of Kazhdan that the Wightman approach does not work for gauge field theories. This article is packed with interesting insights, especially the section on scattering theory, wherein Kazdan explains how the constructions in scattering theory have no finite dimensional analogs. The article by Witten on the Dirac operator in finite dimensions is fascinating and a good introduction to how powerful concepts from quantum field theory can be used to prove important results in mathematics. A fairly large collection of problems (with solutions) ends Volume 1. The first part of Volume 2 is devoted entirely to the mathematics of string theory and conformal field theory. The article by D'Hoker stands out as one that is especially readable and informative. D. Gaitsgory has a well written article on vertex algebras and defines in a very rigorous manner the constructions that occur in the subject. The last part of Volume 2 discusses the dynamics of quantum field theory and uses as much mathematical rigor as possible. One gets the impression that it this is the area where it is most difficult to proceed in an entirely rigorous way. Path integrals, not yet defined mathematically and used throughout the discussion. The best article in Volume 2, indeed of the entire two volumes is the one on N = 2 Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. It is here that the most fascinating constructions in all of mathematics find their place. These two volumes are definitely worth having on one's shelf, and the price is very reasonable considering the expertise of the authors and considering what one will take away after reading them.

These articles are great. Fills the ubiquitous need to retract the gap between then conceptual and rigorous framework of the subjects.

Physicists interested in the mathematical aspects of quantum field/string theory would do well to read these volumes as well.

Deserving, in my opinion, more than 5 stars -- many more!!

To learn the Silent Illumination technique, you have to go to a Ch'an or Zen teacher, such as Sheng-Yen, in New York. This book is a good description of the mind states and practice attitudes associated with that method. The Chinese names have been nipponized. "Hongzhi" you may recognize as "Hung-chi". This book is very useful for S.I. practicers.

Sheng Yen's book on S.I. is "Infinite Mirror". This book is equally good.

I read this shortly after it first came out. It seemed OK and I put it aside. Several years ago --and after more sitting practice and retreats-- I reread it and now I think it is a treasure. In the translated passages/poems, Hongzhi is speaking consistently from a deeply enlightened experience.

Someone new to Zen may find this collection of talks from a twelfth century Chinese master fuzzy and not very helpful. But for someone with experience sitting, it is profound. Dogen also gave Hongzhi "five stars" in Shobogenzo.

Hongzhi's words have become my favorite sitting companion.

This is one of the best books I've ever read -- on Zen, Buddhism or Spirituality in general. Hongzhi was obviously as clear as they get, and his subtle and powerful language and insight is an inspiration to any practicioner, from any tradition. This book is a must read for anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of Reality.

I spent two months last winter in a mountain cabin far up a back road in Washington's Methow Valley, just below the Canadian border and just east of the North Cascade National Park, where there are many cougars. One broke into my nearest neighbor's house and I found fresh tracks one morning beside the road into town. So with all the cougar excitement in the Valley, I decided to learn more about them by reading two recently published softcover books. Either book is a good place to start if you want to know more about the big cats that are becoming a more common part of life throughout the West.

Mountain Lion (Cox and Grambo) is a medium format photo essay of 99 spectacular color photographs of cougars running, jumping, caring for their young, attacking deer and so forth. These remarkable pictures, mostly taken in southwestern red rock country, give a real feel for how the animals move through their territory. After being stunned by the images, I was a little disappointed to read that they were taken "mainly with captive-bred mountain lions under controlled conditions". Well, the cougars LOOK wild and at least none of them are wearing sunglasses or have their kitty litter boxes visible. The brief text is a well-written essay about the cougar's natural history and human interaction, and there is a bibliography.

A book I preferred is Cougar! by Harold Danz. It is a comprehensive historical and natural history coverage of the cats by a retired National Park Service employee. Besides a description of cougar habits and hunting techniques with each of their prey species, interesting chapters describe the human-cougar relationship from Native Americans and Colonial times, through the bounty hunter years and on to the present.

There is a fascinating section in Cougar! that describes all documented cougar attacks, both fatal and non-fatal, in the U.S. and Canada from 1751 through mid-1998. Danz reports that the only fatal cougar attack in the United States between 1909 and 1974, was of a 13-year old boy traveling on snowshoes near Lake Chelan (not far from my winter retreat) in December 1924. When his body was found it was deduced that the young victim had cut off one of the cougar's front claws (!) while unsuccessfully defending himself with a pocketknife. Contemporary cougar fans may find poetic justice in descriptions of two recent non-fatal incidents where National Park campers were forced by cougars to spend the night up in a tree (!) until someone came to their assistance. There is also a description of historic and current cougar populations in each state (Washington, with 2,300, has one of the largest populations) and Canadian province, as well as the exhaustive bibliography you'd expect from a university press.

I really enjoyed Cougar!, and while the grainy black and white photos don't compare with those in Mountain Lion, it is the much more informative and interesting of the two books.

You can judge a book by it's cover. It's just as beautiful inside as it is outside. Very informative and a joy to read. If you love wildlife or any of the big cats, you'll definitely want to add this book to your collection!

A wonderful book. A joy to read. Rebecca L. Grambo writes well with a sympathetic eye. She discusses these beauties and their plight for survival. The accompanying magestic photos by Daniel J. Cox perfectly match the content from the Author. Since the Nature of Mountain Lions are so shy, I appreciate the wonderful photographs of them in nature which would otherwise be very difficult to photograph. I recommend this book to any cat and animal lovers out there. I hope this book stirrs up the public's interest in saving the Mountian Lion from extinction.

Why not add frogs, snakes and other reptiles? Again the Audubon Society tries to market one guidebook to all of Canada and the US. For comparison Audubon's close competitor in the layperson field guide business uses three guides to cover the same area. Peterson's field guides has one for the Pacific coast, one for the Atlantic and one for freshwater. That's not even including the mammals! This guide is so broad as to be useless to the person looking at anything but the most common and conspicuous fishes. The photographs are often dark and useless, showing only the adult stages of several fishes which makes it difficult to determine what species you might have. The only plus I can give it as that it arranges fish by shape or other distinctive characteristics, this might be useful to the person unfamiliar with fish families. I made the mistake of getting it as my first field guide to fishes. From experience let me say this, get yourself a Peterson's to your local area. The color plates might be harder to learn to use, but they show a lot more.

I've been obsessed with fish for as long as I can remember. I have an entire shelf on my bookcase devoted to fish books, and this is by far the best book on that shelf. It has hundreds of pictures of every importent species in North America as well as Information on most every species. This is the definative guide on the market

Being a fishing charter captian out of Boston Ma. and a fishing enthusist of fresh and saltwater... Info provided in detail on every fish in North America....This book is a must for all fish lovers!

I recently read Mrs. Harper's book on the fabulous banana slugs of the Pacific northwest. I have to say that I was pleasently surprised by the amount of information contained in such a little book. I am currently keeping banana slugs in the zoological institution where I work and needed a little extra information on their daily lives to provide the best care for them. This book contained information from their breeding habits to nutrional requirements to morphology and everything in between. Alice Harper is definately the Slug Lady and hopefully we will see a updated edition of this book with even more information in the near future. Still, I would definately recommend this book to anyone looking into studying these wonderful yet slimy little creatures.

The book of Peskin/Schroeder represents in my view a major stepforward since Bjorken/Drell. Not only do they cover everything in moredetails but their book also reflect the considerable advancement and refinement of quantum field theory. In any case, one should still start with Bjorken/Drell in order to get a good understanding before moving over to Peskin/Schroeder. This is not to say that Peskin/Schroeder is difficult to read, quite the contrary, but the physics embedded in the mathematics will be much easier to master. The problems are very well tied to each chapter and are also clearly written for a further and deeper understanding of the subjects. Also, Peskin/Schroeder cover quite a bit in quantum field theory and one will never have the feeling that something was left out. This also makes it an excellent reference book as well.

I have used this book for the past five years, teaching a one
semester course on Intro to Quantum Field Theory.
I also taught the second half of the book two times.
I am still amazed by how well written and enlightening this book
is, and I regard it as a modern classic. After a years
worth of study, the student is really able to dive into research.
They know the Standard Model in enough detail to
perform radiative corrections in the electroweak model, and
where the Feynman rules come from in different gauges.
The book is accessible to experimental and theoretical students
in all areas of physics, and drives home all the essential
points. I wish this book had been around twenty years ago
when I was first trying to learn the material.

The authors give an excellent overview of the physical concepts and computational aspects of quantum field theory. They stress the situation behind the subject, and endeavor to remain as concrete as possible. Abstract mathematical constructions are left to more advanced texts in quantum field theory. The authors characterize their book as an updating of the two volume set of Bjorken and Drell.

The main emphasis of the book is on quantum electrodynamics (QED), the most successful of quantum field theories. The representation and analysis of the physical processes of QED is done via Feynman diagrams, with electron-positron annihilation leading off the discussion. Recognizing that the exact expression for the amplitude of this process is not known, perturbation theory is used to give an approximate representation for it via an infinite series with each term involving successively higher powers of the strength of the coupling between the electrons and photons (i.e. the charge). Each term is represented as a Feynman diagram. This is followed by a discussion of the quantum field theory of the Klein-Gordon field. The authors give one of the best explanations in the literature of why one must deal with the quantization of fields and not particles, the most important one being causality. Canoncial quantization is employed and the Feynman propagator for the Klein-Gordon field is derived. The Dirac field is also quantized using the canonical formalism. The authors show that Klein-Gordon fields obey Bose-Einstein statistics and Dirac fields obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. The all-important Wick's theorem is proven and higher-order Feynman diagrams are discussed. Most importantly, the authors show how to connect these results to experiment via the calculation of cross sections and decay rates. This entails the computation of the S-matrix elements from Feynman diagrams. The authors are very detailed in their elucication of the discussion, and those who have done these calculations know that it is great fun to do so. In addition, these "bread-and-butter" calculations give quantum field theory its ultimate justification in the modern particle accelerator. The discussion on radiative corrections is especially well-written, particularly the section on infrared divergences.

The authors do not entirely neglect the more formal aspects behind quantum field theory, and spend some time discussion renormalization and the amazing Ward-Takahashi identity. This important identity gives one further confidence in the consistency of QED in that is shows that timelike and longitudinal photons can be neglected in the actual calculations. The process of renormalization has been viewed with suspicion by mathematicians, but it has been given a firmer foundation recently using, interestingly, mostly 19th century mathematics. The authors discuss functional methods, and give an example of its use by calculating the photon propagotor. Viewing this as a constrained problem because of gauge invariance they use the Faddeev-Popov gauge fixing condition to obtain the correct results. In addition, they derive the important Schwinger-Dyson equations for QED using functional methods.

Effective field theories are also introduced in the book, with an explicit calculation of the effective action. The authors show the important connection between continuous symmetries and the existence of massless particles (Goldstone's theorem). Their discussion of the renormalization group is very understandable, and they motivate the subject well, by asking why the loop integrals over virtual-particle momenta are always dominated by values on the order of the finite external momenta.

Non-Abelian gauge theories are given a thorough treatment and Wilson loops are introduced as a comparator between gauge transformations at different spacetime points. The quantization of these theories is again done by viewing the quantization problem as a constrained problem, and the famous "Lagrange multlipiers", the Faddeev-Popov ghosts, are introduced. The authors show in detail how their introduction allows the correct Feynman rules to be produced, by showing that the unphysical timelike and longitudinal polarization states of the gauge bosons are cancelled by these fields. The BRST symmetry is discussed as a formal device to to this cancellation. The omit though how the Ward identities are derived from BRST symmetry.

The authors give the best explanation in the literature of asymptotic freedom by showing the effect of vacuum fluctuations on the Coulomb field of a SU(2) gauge theory.

The important operator product expansion is treated in the context of the Callan-Symanzik equation in quantum chromodynamics. It is applied to the deep inelastic scattering and electron-positron annihilation. Dispersion relations make their appearance here.

The authors also discuss anomalies and motivate the subject by analyzing the axial current in two-dimensional massless QED. The axial current is shown not to be conserved in the presence of an electromagnetic field, and they conclude that gauge invariance and conservation of axial currents in this theory cannot both be simultaneously satisfied. This is generalized to axial currents in four dimensions and the authors derive the famous Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomalies. The implications of anomalies for gauge theories are discussed along with observable consequencies.

The (mysterious) Higgs mechanism is also discussed and compared to the situation in superconductivity. To view it in terms of superconductivity I think gives it the most plausible and intuitive justification. Understanding the Higgs mechanism is a usual stumbling-block for newcomers to gauge theories, and the authors do a fair job here. The quantization of spontaneously broken gauge theories is then carried out, with emphasis on the Goldstone boson equivalence theorem. A brief discussion of the future of quantum field theory ends the book.

When reading this book, and others on quantum field theory, I am always amazed at the degree to which it works, and its elegance, despite the fact that it really is a collection of ad hoc strategies and sophisticated guesswork. One gets the impression that there is something profound behind the scenes, still waiting to be discovered, and which will be able to shed light on the major unsolved problem of quantum field theory: the existence of a bound state.