This definitive text on aquatic photosynthesis reads like a good novel. It takes the reader on a scientific adventure through the fundamentals of light absorption and the biophysics of the light reactions all the way to the biogeochemistry and evolution. Interspersed throughout the book are particularly interesting anecdotes about everything from the molecular clock to hole burning. A scientific tour de force!

This is an extremely interesting and useful book for anyone working with or needing knowledge of photosynthesis in algae and other aquatic plants. The emphasis on biophysics in the first few chapters sheds a whole new light on the processes of photosynthesis at the most basic level. The information is general and does not give extensive citations to current scientific work, but rather focuses on the historical research leading to current understanding of photosynthesis.

My one criticism so far is with the number of errors, typographical and other, in some of the graphs and figures, making it quite hard to figure out just what is what. Hopefully there will be a revised edition which will correct these.

Hey Paul great book. Will you be writing a book as a follow up to your story in Readers Digest about the lost tribes. Pretty interesting stuff. If not, do you know of any books written on this subject. Also can you post your e-mail address I wish to inquire about purchasing a copy of the Photograph that was displayed on pages 110 & 111. I would like it large enough so that I may frame it. Best Regards C.A. Esposito

I wrote this book, so I think it is terrific.

A fascinating book whether a sports fan or not. Paul Bryant's legendary motivational skills coming ringing clear in this highly entertaining account of his life from his impoverished childhood in Morrow Bottom, Arkansas to his rise to the top as coach of one the country's most tradition rich football powers. Whether a coach, CEO or just head of the household, everyone can learn from this captivating account of the life of one of the greatest leaders of young men ever, Paul W. Bryant!

Follow as the legendary Coach Paul W. "Bear" Bryant retraces his life from childhood to Alabama's 1974 Sugar Bowl national championship game with Notre Dame. It is a look inside a man among men and a mover of men.

Coach Bryant retraces his life offering advice on his ability to lead. His unique gift of motivation drip from the pages of this modern classic.

For potential Leaders in all walks of life, this book is a must-read. It is the modern day equivalent to Sun-Tzu's Art of War.

Often learning literary terms and how to use them can be a challenge. This book makes learning the terms both amusing and enjoyable. With a small selection to read each day of the year this book allows for easy learning everyday of the year. Espy's creative set up of the book covers everything from Acronyms to Univocalic writing. Each day with a differently constructed style and purpose this book is excellent for most age levels and can be read at any pace though it is meant to last an entire year.

I have collected each of Espy's books as they have appeared; they occupy center place on my shelves of language books. The original "Almanac" and "Another Almanac" blew me away when they came out about 20+ years ago. I tried so hard to limit myself to one page a day so they would each last a year - they are almanacs, after all - but failed miserably - I remember sitting in bed with the flu and reading through both books in three days, giggling and chortling and slack-jawed with amazement the whole time.

Willard Espy is a true master - creative, erudite, knowledgeable, and howlingly funny. His Higgledy-Piddledy about Dorothy Thompson is burned into my brain for good. His ability to make the language dance is unequaled by any other writer I have read. Safire, Lederer, and Newman are articulate, yes, but not half as goofily inventive or funny, and they take themselves very much more seriously than Espy does, which is not at all. This man disproves the adage that no one is great all the time - he is.

Having said all that, I must confess that I haven't seen this Compilation - my comments are based on the absolute conviction that any compilation of brilliant material must, of necessity, be equally brilliant. I have spent the past 20 years lending out my copies of the two originals from which this volume is drawn, listening to people giggle over the cubicle walls, and plotting diabolical conseqences when they weren't returned. They are both ragged and bulging with yellow stickies - my own quick-reference system - so I can easily find and re-delight in my favorites when I need an Espyfix.

The man is gone from our midst now, so there will be no more crazy pleasure from him, and his original books are long out of print. So buy this one, I say, and prepare to laugh and be awed all at once by this explosion of sheer linquistic virtuosity.

Being one of PJP's biggest fans I was on tenterhooks to find out how the holy father starts his day and boy oh boy I wasn't dissapointed.
This booki is jam packed with amusing anecdotes like the time the holy father met Rabbi Lionel Blue for coissants and prune juice on the Mary Magdalene verranda overlooking St Peter's Square.
The good Rabbi presented the pontiff with a glass case containing the foreskins of celebrity jews including Sammy Davis Junior and Dana International.
Oh how I laughed - Papal Bull? I thought I'd had a cow!
I found it holy enjoyable and I hope the sales are mass-ive.

I'm not Catholic but I was really looking forward to reading this book and I have only been disappointed in one area. If you like the Pope -and let's face he is a pretty popular guy- then you will like this book. Much of the wit and common sense that make John Paul II a favorite even among Protestants come through in his writings of which these readings are a sample. My only complaint is that there are 120 rather than 365 or 366. I would like to have had breakfast every day with the Pope rather than being shorted. I am sure there was sufficient material to fill a larger book. Maybe they are saving it for another repast.

Pushkin greatest renoun is based on his poetry. But I like his short stories very much. They are crisp, intriguing, and educational. These stories are a treasure of Russian literature. They combine mystery and realism, persuasive language and simplicity--all trademarks of Pushkin's genius.

Pushkin is Mozart of Russian verse, prose and drama. That sounds like banality to any Russian but may help a person outside of our literary tradition to deal with the Russia's greatest writer.

Small, less than handsome misfit in a constant and direct dialog with the Muses. A man whose social, financial and matrimonial achievements are no match to his art.

His talents bloomed in the Lyceum, he was hailed by the most prominent poet of Russian Classicism - Gavrila Derzhavin, who had appointed the youngster his poetical heir.

But Pushkin made only a few contributions to the genre - he was a devoted romantic, a Byronite. Mermaids, gypsies and noble robber brothers were the inhabitants of his adolescent poems.

Drinking bouts with local Hussar officers were toppled by the boy's passionate odes to Liberty. Alexander was a celebrity guest.

The guest he remained. The officers - The Decembrists - rebelled against the tsar. Puskin was not invited. The conspirators felt that "the son of the Muses" is fond of the revolutionary rhetorics, not the cause.

Later, asked by the triumphant monarch does he regret his absence in rebellious ranks on that fateful December day, Pushkin confirmed his affinity with his hanged friends. He wanted to be taking seriously, he was ready to suffer. But the tsar was only amused and let Alexander go.

Pushkin soared high in empirea, the verse of unbelievable beauty and clarity was streaming from his quill, but his everyday life was dominated by gambling, drinking and chasing the known libertines. Yearning to be accepted socially he offered his friendship to unworthy and very often had to contend with their condescending attitude. He was not the first socially awkward creator in human history but that understanding did nothing to lessen the pain.

In his final years Pushkin decided to settle down, to accept the responsibilities, to marry, to get the position in the tsar's court.

Natalia Goncharova, the first beauty of Petersburg, consented to marry him - her family was impoverished, Alexander - insistent. He was given the court rank - kamerjunker, nearly the lowest in the hierarchy, fit for a very young man making his very first steps in the court. He was insulted but the wife's acclaimed beauty compensated for that and the other disapointments. They all envy him - the lucky man!

There was never enough money to put that gem in a proper setting. The beauty was expecting her due. If Alexander is incapable there are others.

Art remained the only consolation. Once he woke up in the middle of the night, put on a light and fevereshly scribbled the newborn lines. He read them to the wife. - Don't you ever do that to me again! - said the sleepy beauty.

His art is not able to conquer that perfection, the beauty of verse is nothing to the beauty of flesh.

Pushkin is made fun of, proclaimed a cuckold. His life is nearing the end.

In his last year the tortured genius writes Captain's Daughter. No mermaids here, no gypsies. It's clarity and restrained beauty is unsurpassed in our literature.

A son of old officer Petr Andreevich Grinev turns seventeen. He is enlisted as a toddler in a prestigeous regiment in Petersburg, now he is an officer already. He has no extensive education - just the basic ideas of nobility and some knowledge of French. His name is telling - Petr means a stone, father's name - a man, a male. The father wants to keep the son unspoiled - Petr is refused his ticket to the Petersburg. He goes to the steppes instead, to the fortress in the middle of nowhere.

On the way he gets drunk, loses money, suffers from hangover, abuses his old servant - with no harm to his inner integrity.

He begins to enjoy the simple life in the fortress, captain's daughter is aware if his feelings and seems to feel the same way. Short and ugly comrade-in-arms, Alexei Shvabrin envies him and speaks dirty of the girl. Duel puts Petr in a bed. The love flourishes.

All that a prelude to the Russian rebellion, "senseless and merciless".

The fortress is taken, the captain is hanged, his wife lies naked and dead in a dirt. Petr's life is spared on impostor's whim. Masha, the captain's daughter, is hidden in the local priest's house. Shvabrin is appointed the fortress commander and has the girl who rejected him in his power.

All will end well. The young lovers are ready to sacrifice, their love will conquer all, the empress Ekaterina is merciful - just like her adversary "emperor" Pugachev.

Like a drowning man gasping for air Pushkin had to get in contact with the qualities his life is so utterlly lacking - integrity, loyalty,love accepted and given back. He had experienced all that in Captain's Daughter.

No matter what happens Petr Grinev is true to his nature - the quality respected by friends and enemies. He is always ready to do the right thing - no matter what's the price. There are things more important than life. Or love.

Puskin's life is over, he is not respected, not loved by the woman he chose. So he escapes in art, lives another life, the dream of life he never had.

Less talented writer would have succumbed to the pure escapism, but Alexander Pushkin is a genius, what we have instead is a timeless masterpiece, clear and restrained, very modern prose, the characters we care about. No one succeed in imitating that style.

Puskin is not very well known in the West. The verse is so Russian it defies a translation, the prose is deceptively simple - it's very different from "prophetic" writings of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, the export variant of The Great Late Russian Literature. The reader used to contemplating "the mysterious Russian soul" will be disappointed.

I am reluctant to recommend that book to a Western reader.But Pushkin is one of the reasons I still live here.

I find it very funny that the dope from Minn, ripped apart the book while giving a 5 star rating. Stupid is as stupid does.

I am an upper middle-class Catholic who works with educated people in a university setting who is very disappointed by the way the Church responds to the demands of my fellow citizens for a Church that affirms and nurtures them toward a more enlightened understanding of what it means to be an empowered Christian who liberates others from the bonds of poverty, AIDS, unemployment, disabilities, etc. We need a Pope who is capable of making something more of his time and our with the platitudes that are contained in this book. There is nothing that touches us, so cold and unfeeling it is in its approach to the historical Jesus who, after all, is more like us than we can ever imagine. If other women, especially women like Mary Daly, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Starhawk, Madonna Kolbenschlag, Joan Chittister -- the true intellectuals of the Church (along with Thomas Merton and Thomas Moore -- see his work on sexuality!)our children would be the beneficiaries of the next renaissance and not His Holiness's high handed attitude.

I can't seem to find the area to post recommendations for the company I bought this book form. Mindspring.com. They were very prompt in mailing this book to me. My child has started using it yet, but the promptness of the delivery was very important to me. Thanks

hello i love the book because it explains you alot of things and it helps you to understand.it is a good book because with the pictures you understand better the lesson an this book has a lot of pictures

My wife and I read this book as we prepared for marriage, and it's the best book we've read on the subject. Though we are not Catholics, we recognize the beautiful truths of Pope John Paul II's vision of divine and human love. Crossing the Threshold of Love descibes marriage in its fullness--as God intended it. Any book on marriage that ignores such fundamental issues as fertility cycles and contraception is not worth your time. Mary Shivanandan is an honest, informed, and trustworthy guide in these matters. Though not an easy read, it is well worth the effort.

This book is stunning. How beautiful is God's gift of our body, I realized after reading it. This world proclaims that the human body is made for gratification and manipulation, but we know deep down there has to be more. Pope John Paul II has given the defining answer through his writings on the theology of the body. Sadly, many of us have not heard it or cannot comprehend it. This book by Dr. Shivanandan clearly and concisely elucidates the reader on the mind of this Pope. In Crossing the Threshold of Love, the layperson can see the link from the creation of man, of men and women, in God's image to day-to-day relationships with others.

Married couples, single persons, parents, priests, seminarians, teachers -- all can peel away years of misunderstanding the true theology of the body with their read of this book. So much of life's beauty is revealed. A profound sense of serenity with one's sexuality can be the result.

It is not for wimps, though. It took time to read and upon reflection to appreciate this work. It is more than worth the effort.

Crossing the Threshold of Love will remain a timeless resource for meditation and for improving relations with one another.