This is a sober and informative work on pregnancy and childbirth. My wife rates it as the bible of pregnancy, because no matter what symptom she had it appeared in the book and gave her a clear and rational explanation of what was going on. On first glance this book probably loses out to competing publications which have lots of colour pictures and small amounts of text. But that's a bit like getting lots and lots of salad but finding that there's no main course.

If you are college educated, or if you can read competently, and if you demand real answers from you doctor, you will like this book. If on the other hand you do not really want to be given the gruesome details, if you are a hypochondriac who will imagine every symptom described or if you cannot follow my review because you think the sentences are too long and complicated, then this is not the book for you. Buy one with pretty pictures instead.

When buying "Pregnancy" don't expect a book full of 'colourful pictures'.

It is an excellent source of information for most of the questions you might have about pregnancy - what changes are happening to you and your body, and what is going on inside you during the nine months -including detailed information on any complaints or complications you might have.

It also gives detailed information about the different kinds of delivery and all the possible stages of labour, which I kept referring to especially as the delivery date grew closer!

I found it very informative and well written. I had a lot of questions about 'what was happening' since it was my first pregnancy and I got almost all of my answers from this book rather than any of the gynocologists I went to! It's a must as a reference book.

Through knowledge based on survival interest, but also on in-depth curiosity, Arseniev offers a narrative monument of love towards nature. His true friendship with Dersu Uzala, the native trapper, opens to us the misteries of the Taiga, and the harmonic rules of nature, on which the role of man has also a place. The style is narrative, straight forward, without artificiality, a little cold, but leaves a vivid impression on the reader through the amazing world that effectively describes. Highly recommended book for nature lovers.

I read this because I remain convinced that Mr Lowry's novel UNDER THE VOLCANO is one of the great tragic works of literature of the 20th century and its power remains with me after 30 years. In this biography the alcoholic writer's creative process is revealed in detail as well as his determination to destroy himself - in detail. I've often thought of Geoffrey Firmin/Malcolm Lowry as the essential 20th century man - we came close to destroying the world last century but failed. This is a solid well written biography and suits the general reader.

This is one of two biographies of Malcolm Lowry that I have read. The first was Douglas Day's biography--a sort of psycho-literary look at Lowry's life. It's not bad, but Bowker's book goes far beyond Day's. This book is much richer in detail--detail that casual readers might find overwhelming, but that Lowry afficionados will wallow in.

Also, Bowker has tracked down Lowry's first wife, Jan Gabriel, who adds to the story of Lowry's life a dimension absent from Day's book.

Anyone who has read Lowry's work has certainly suspected that his art mirrored his life, that much of what he wrote was autobiographical, in spirit if not in detail. This book confirms those suspicions, showing how truly excessive Lowry was in pretty much all aspects of his life: his drinking, fear, childishness...

A great biography of a great writer.

This is a much needed improvement on the Douglas Day bio of some years ago (though, I admit, a bit less fun to read). It's been covered in all the major reviews, of course, and I'm sure all you Lowryeans out there have a copy and love it for the wealth of information it contains that was absent from the Day bio and other sources...But, as a long-term Lowryean myself, I thought I'd add my bolus of criticism: Mr Bowker has a great advantage over previous writers on Lowry: He has found that the great author's first wife, Jan Gabrial, is not only alive and well, but eager to discuss all aspects of her relationship with her former spouse (with Bowker anyway). This revelation colors Mr Bowker's entire biography. It also, however, leads to the greatest flaw in the book: The simplistic polarization of Conrad Aiken vs. Nordahl Grieg as the Dark Angel and Light Angel, respectively, in Lowry's psyche. Ms Gabrial obviously detested Conrad Aiken and credited the dissolution of her marriage to him. No doubt she has cause to do so. But nobody who has spent any time reading Conrad Aiken's beautiful and much-neglected poetry can believe he was as consumately evil as Ms Gabrial, via Mr Bowker, makes him out to be. Still, this is a minor quibble for such an obviously painstaking and thorough work. It's refreshing to see the greatest poetic novelist of our century getting some attention toward the end of it!