Connie Baxter Marlow has put together a tribute to Mount Katahdin and Baxter State Park. The people of Maine have a right to be proud of their mountain. This is not a trail guide to the mountain but rather a presentation of its flora and fauna. The photography is very good. However, the text tends to the mystical. This is not a total surprise. Mountains like Katahdin that stand by themselves tend to be regarded differently from those that are found in mountainous regions. For example, Mt. Shasta which looms over Northern California, just as Katahdin looms over the center of Maine, is the subject of legends about lost civilizations. However, this book is worthwhile for its photographs.

This book, aimed at upper undergraduate/elementary graduate level students of dynamical systems, is an excellent introduction to the basics of analysis of dynamical systems. Starting with simple one-dimensional examples, the text develops the basic mathematical tools for finding canonical variables, adiabatic invariants, and other characteristics of systems of ordinary differential equations associated with dynamics. Exercises interspersed with the text clarify the application of the mathematical techniques. Highly recommended for introductory courses in this topic.

If you are familiar with Everett you will recognize the style, if you are not this is a treasure worth owning. I found it emensely entertaining. I read it to my two year old often. Although he enjoys the story and the wonderful illustrations, I am looking forward to when he recogizes the many levels of this book. This one we will enjoy for quite a while because it is timeless.

I love the Arthurian legends, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the latest claptrap. The themes are timeless, the characters ever-mutating, and the styles used in presenting the tales tell us more of the writer's time than of Arthur's, assuming he even existed. This was a book I had heard of for many year, but had never been able to read. I would suggest that anyone reading this book already be familiar with the outlines of the Quest for the Holy Grail at a minimum; better yet, know your Chretien de Troyes very well and have a good grounding in the Arthur-as-Welsh-Celt school of writing. Aside from that, this is a very sparse book, not as in there is nothing to it, but the style and action is kept minimal. It ends more or less where Chretien ended his tales -- almost midsentence.

The tone is devastating. There seems little hope in Percival's world. There had been hope recently -- the evidence is all around, but it has passed. This is a tale of a quest incomplete, of a searcher thwarted. It is a sad tale, sad to the core, as blasted as the Wastelands.

Read it if you have a love for these tales, but keep a happier book nearby for afters...

I first read this book as a young child and fell in love with it. My mom had gotten it for me to read from the library. The story is of a young pig, Percival, who thinks everyone has forgotten their birthday. The book is a "counting book" and asks the reader to count differnt items throughout the book such as candles, cakes, presents, ect. The pictures are creative and use bright colors to attract children. The story is fun and appropriate for all children. I would recommend it for any young child's up coming birthday. Happy Reading !

I am physioterapist from Bulgaria. This is the best book on physioterapya. It help me so much in my practise. tank you very much

No one does quite what he does. The Song of Percival Peacock occupies the doorway between your cautious pretensions and your most hidden desires. Intriguing because it is character-driven, unique because it is written entirely in dialogue, this book can only be described as a surreal funhouse, a rollercoaster ride into the subconsious.

Robert Hawks, a hydrologist, finds himself caught between the FBI and a Native American group in a mystery that deals with treaty rights, civil rights and water rights. Sounds a bit heavy doesn't it? But Everett pulls it all together in this book. Interspersed with actual treaty information, commentaries on peyote use, hydrology tables, this book moves effortlessly from the central mystery to Hawks' own past, filled with a distrust for authority, to Hawks' disastrous love life, Watershed seems to have a bit too much going on to be successful, but it is. Everettt builds the tension well and only the slightly pat ending interferes with the enjoyment of this book. But the journey is definitely worth your time.

Having read Dean King's recommendation (as he is usually accurate), I was expecting something above the average - especially as it is included in a series of Classics...
Sadly, not.
Written in typical 19th Century style, it tends to verbosity and skirting around, instead of coming straight to the point.

Considering that Marryat was a disciple of Cochrane, there is remarkably little action and little detail of that... a few shots are exchanged, the enemy is boarded and the prize is taken in one easy lesson - none of the tension, tactics and strategems that feature so large in other nautical tales. Nor do we get under the skin of any of the characters, there is no fleshing-out of the personalities, so we end up not caring what happens to them.

Our Hero Percival stumbles from one lucky accident to the next in true Victorian story-telling style, but there seems to be no central theme to the plot, apart from his estranged father's aloofness and disguised patronage.

I kept expecting some surprise or twist in the tale, but only the expected happened.

Marryat displays his colors in his usual fashion: "normal" people, real characters, and the tang of salt air in your nostrils as you read.

The unacknowledged son of a post captain, young Percival strives to do his duty to achieve his father's/captain's respect. Adventures ensue.

Easy to read. Less social critique than Mr. Midshipman Easy. Less gruesome reality than The Privateersman. Not his best, but it is still a good yarn!

A truly wonderful British man of war seafaring novel. Marryat is a wonderful story teller. Good characterizations a little mystery. One difference in the Marryat novels is the stories he tells about the pranks that some of the sailors and officers get up to onboard ship and ashore. And of course this is a usual part of shipboard life but the other officers such as O'Brien don't give us as much of this side of life at sea. Some of the pranks had me laughing nearly out of control

This book is a pseudoscientific masterpiece. Laudatory reviews from the authors' own corner musn't mislead us into giving this book anything less than two-thumbs down. The authors have used many tools of bad reasoning to establish their deliberately flawed theory - for instance presenting the Cambrian Explosion as an instantaneous event; rather than an 'explosion' in cosmic timescale. So the typical high-schooler who has little idea of the scope of cosmic time (in which a million years is mere table stakes) will deduce that the Cambrian Explosion is evidence of instantaneous Intelligent Creation! Voila! How fabulous! To develop a substantial understanding of the Cambrian Explosion one has to read much more beyond an Undergrad text book - one has to comb thru a 100 papers and at least 3 textbooks on evolution. Only then will one understand that the Cambrian Explosion happened over several millions of years and it in fact is one of the strongest bodies of evidence that supports evolution. The sections on molecular biology are so incorrect that it is virtually useless. "Creationism" sympathisers derive their opinions from such pseudoscientific tracts and swallow the incorrect criticisms therein and make statements like, "there are serious flaws and yawning gaps in explanations of evolution..." instead of taking the time and trouble to read through the voluminous scientific literature on the subject or at least going through a good text book in their library. But then who is interested in the pursuit of knowledge?

This book engages in simple false alternative negative argumentation against evolutionary theory and provides no positive arguments in support of intelligent design.

The book opens stating, "...we will present interpretations of the data proposed by those today who hold the two alternative concepts: those with a Darwinian frame of reference, as well as those who adhere to intelligent design.", yet research scientist George Gilchrist of the University of Washington was able to find only 37 instances of the keyword "intelligent design" in over 6,000 scientific and academic journals worldwide. Of the 37, most were irrelevant dealing with computer software or hardware, architectural or engineering design, advertising art, literature, fertilizer manufacture, or welding technology. Only 7 had anything to do with biology, and of these, 5 were discussions of the debate over using the Pandas textbook by various school boards and 2 were comments on Behe's book in a Christian magazine.

There is not a single instance of biological research using intelligent-design theory to explain life's diversity, and though both Davis and Keynon are professional scientists, neither has apparently published anything in the professional literature about their theory.

This book is systematically dismantled by Robert T. Pennock in his book, "Tower of Babel" and has been criticized by creationist, Norman L. Geisler, professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, because the book "appeas[es our] enemies [by] avoiding the word 'creation' like the plague" and for not clearly distinguishing their view from that of "naturalistic (pantheistic) 'creationsits' who see the creator within the universe."

Pandas is guilty of violating every fallacy of argumentation outlined in chapter six of David Kelley's book, "The Art of Reasoning" ...lessons learned by first-year philosophy students, and amounts to little more than vague and ad hoc negative argumentation based on a false dichotomy with frequent hyperbolic congratulatory statements epitomizing delusions of grandeur.

Two stars because it makes an excellent example of what not to do when arguing in support of a theory, and makes excellent dissection material for students of the philosophy of science. It clearly illustrates the difference between the religious and scientific attitude: To hold on to belief come what may is a sign of religious virtue. Contrarily, science takes it to be a virtue that one withholds belief in the truth of a proposition until it is supported by the weight of evidence. And there's the basic theme of the book: To believe in Intelligent Design Theory in the absence of good evidence is a matter not of science, but of faith.

The authors should be commended for their willingness to assess scientific data objectively, even when it means contradicting the prevailing scientific establishment by suggesting the necessity of an intelligent designer of the universe. I have read many reviews of this book which claim it is pseudoscience, dishonest, and flat out wrong. Yet I have never read a single EXAMPLE of these claims. Someone please show me where these authors and scientists went wrong! The fact of the matter is that this book is well researched and convincing (to those who are open minded enough to listen to what the authors have to say). Perhaps critics have chosen not to provide specific examples in their attacks because no such examples exist to support their contentions! To say that appealing to an intelligent designer is outside the realm of science is very misleading. For if evolutionary and other materialistic theories (which are also unprovable in the strictest sense of science) ! fail to successfully explain the intricacies of life (which many scieintists besides Kenyon et al. are beginning to determine), then we have no choice but to posit an intelligent designer. That's GOOD science, like it or not.