An excellent introduction to the realities of oxidative damage to the body that is promoted by toxic agents we ingest, breathe, or create within our own bodies. Well written and an easy read for those without a technical background

I'm surprised this book is out of print ... it's one of the easiest books to understand about a rather complex subject. Mr. Lin is able to explain the underlying basis of disease in a lucid, colorful manner. Extremely timely and helpful.

Correnti's attention to detail is superb and her character development outstanding for a first book. She makes her characters believeable and sympathetic. You feel like you really get to know them. Her setting descriptions make you feel like you are right there and are so accurate. I was definitely taken into the book and enjoyed Correnti's story.

Mai Lin is a gutsy, real look into the life of gang girls and wannabes in NYC. This is how punk girls talk and act. Mai Lin, as drawn by Correnti, is obnoxious but appealingly vulnerable. The assimilation of different ethnic groups in the girl gang is especially interesting. This is an erotic and violent story, told in poetic language. (Han's flashback scenes are vivid intense images.) A great summer read.

This book is good if you are learning simplified chinese. I study traditional, so it is less useful. I like that they combine the characters and give their meaning, and all of the drills. I just wish they had a series of these kinds of books to get more advanced. After you finish this book what are you left with. Another few thousand characters.

I truly found the book useful and entertaining with its various subjects. The first half of the book is mainly reference material that you will constantly use throughout the rest of the book. After a while it becomes second nature which means the book has done its job.

You will build upon simple phrases and words to actual dialog and passages. I found this section to be great practice! I have no idea why this book is so unpopular when its so useful.

The book describes the analytical techniques based on electron diffraction, reflection and imaging in the TEM (and STEM) for the analysis of materials surfaces. As with most texts dealing with analytical techniques these days it is awash with acronyms and the ones representing the candidate methodologies are frequently encountered. These are RHEED (reflection high energy electron diffraction), REM (reflection electron microscopy), SREM (scanning REM) and REELS (reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy). Many others are included, but the author is considerate enough to define them all in the early pages of his book. The dust-cover notes state that this is 'an entirely self-contained study' in which the 'theories, techniques and applications of REM, RHEED and REELS are comprehensively reviewed'. Inspection of the text reveals that this is, indeed, the case, with three parts (logically Part A, Part B and Part C) of approximately equal length covering the three areas of reflection electron studies. This is preceded by a comprehensive review of the kinematical theory of electron diffraction. This chapter is a very helpful (and necessary) prelude to the rest of the book. It deals with kinematical scattering in the usual numerical manner but the associated text makes this chapter extremely readable. The main body of the text is written in an equally attractive style with the theory of the various topics being introduced alongside the experimental procedures involved. There are many applications of reflection electron microscopy and spectroscopy scattered throughout the book; although inmost cases they serve as illustrations of particular facets of the experimental procedures rather than points which emphasize the relative strengths of the candidate techniques. This is, however, a minor criticism, and the inclusion of examples of real micrographs, diffraction patterns and spectra throughout the text may provide some readers with much needed relief from the undoubted rigour of the theoretical treatments provided.

For those with a TEM background it represents, perhaps, the definitive text for reflection methods.

There are two particularly attractive aspects of this book to be found in the closing pages. The first is an extensive set (ten) of appendices which contain much useful data along with five FORTRAM programs for interpreting spectra and modeling electron beam/specimen interaction. These have presumably been widely tested in the author's laboratory and their inclusion here is to be welcomed. The other feature, warmly welcomed by this reviewer, is the inclusion of a separate index of the materials used to illustrate the various facets of the reflection techniques. Also included as an Appendix is a chronological bibliography of REM, SREM and REELS covering the years 1975-1995. RHEED is presumably excluded as it is the most senior, and widely used, of the methods considered. This book is not one for those with a peripheral interest in RHEED, REM, SREM and REELS. Referring once again to the cover notes it is offered as an 'ideal guide for scientists and graduate students working on quantitative surface structure characterization using reflection electron techniques' and there is no doubt that this target audience will appreciate the publication of such a concise, authoritative and well written text in their chosen area of endeavor. For those with a TEM background it represents, perhaps, the definitive text for reflection methods and provides all the theoretical information necessary for a thorough appreciation of these techniques. At such a reasonable price for a very specialist text one would hope that it will soon find a place on the bookshelf of every electron microscopy unit with a practical need (or even aspirations) to carry out surface structure determination in the TEM or STEM. For those with a need for such a text this book fulfills all the claims made on its behalf. Dr. Wang is to be congratulated on writing a very accessible text. The book is thoroughly recommended.

"It contains a lot of illustrations and excellent images and a good balance of theory and experimental techniques... it is a book that any materials science or physics libraries should be holding"

In this all-girl version of the Chinese tall tale "The Seven Chinese Brothers," the sisters pool their amazing talents in order to save the seventh sister from a hungry dragon. First sister can "ride a scooter, fast as the wind," second sister knows karate, third sister can count to a high number...and so on. The story moves along quickly and works nicely for reading aloud.

As always, Grace Lin's illustrations are a visual treat--from the sisters' azure dresses to the bright red dragon to the textured background of green grasses and light blue sky. Her style is simple, yet rich with Chinese patterning and design.

There is a lot to like in this book with its model of strong can-do girls who use their heads, even in the face of a terrible dragon.

However, any update will invariably be compared to the original story, and here I find the "sisters" story seems a little more diluted and lacking in dramatic tension than its "brother" counterpart. In The Seven Chinese Brothers (by Margaret Mahy) the brothers use their superhuman powers to continuously outwit their would-be executioners. The pleasure in this book comes from being able to predict how each brother will outwit the adversary.

Though the sisters' talents complement each other nicely, the story is not as tightly crafted & the sense of anticipation is not as strong.

That said, both books are well reading to your children, as evidenced by my four-year-old daughter who asked me to read it over and over the first two days we had the book.

Note: If you liked the illustrations in this book, Grace Lin has illustrated several other excellent books for the 4-8 year-old set. Among them are Red is a Dragon, Round is a Mooncake, Dim Sum for Everyone and Kite Flying.

The Seven Chinese Sisters is a merry rendition by Kathy Tucker of a classic Chinese folk tale. Seven sisters must unite and each use her own special talent when the youngest of them is taken away by a hungry dragon. Simple and colorful artwork by Grace Lin embellishes this adventurous story. The Seven Chinese Sisters will prove to be a popular and entertaining addition to any family, school, or community library children's folktale picture book collection.

I read the book for my sociology class and I will say that I am impressed by it. It is written very well and Huang Shu-min did a great job conveying the changes in Lin Village after the Chinese Communist Party takes over CHina. The book can be challenging to people, especially those who are forced to read it. An I feel you have to have an interst of Asia to actually get into the book. So if you do have this intrest, I recomend that you buy it.

An outstanding book that lets you see how communism worked in this village to transform the way of life. Mr. Shu-min was an American professor who had permission to spend time in this village. He made friends with the Man who was in charge, who had been born in 1946 a few short years before the communists won out. Change in village really started with the land reform of the early fifties, that tried to even out land ownership. Every thing went great for the first few years, production increased, life got better for everyone. The people became believers, then in 1958 Mao led them down the path of the insanity called the great leap forward with the establishment of the People's Communes. There was supposed to be rural industrial development by building backyard furnaces to make steel.They backed away from the farming and wasted time on the furnace. As this happened everywhere in China it led to starvation. It was made worse by local officials trying to meet assigned targets lying to higher officials about what was really happened. This led to their continuing down the wrong path. Not everything that happened in the village was such a disaster. Finally the village worked things out and started to build a better life for everyone. I found especially interesting the discussion of the way they handled birth control. Having male heirs to continue the family is of extreme importance to the Chinese. But also the curtailing of population increase means only one child per family. How all that is handled is extremely interesting. Really a fascinating story of how a well run village works.

I leafed through this book to give me some idea on how to prepare for my TOEFL-CBT essay writing section and was pleased with my full score of 6.0!

This helpful book that comes with 150 short sample essays, teaches you the rudimentaries of essay writing and development from the basic levels of English composition and grammar. Different charts and disgrams are displayed on how to develop your ideas you've brainstormed for the essay. Time is not on the side on the test-taker and it would do you well to be prepared in one way or another.

This recommended guide will prove useful for both English and non-English test-takers. For the former, it might look too easy for those confident in the usage of the Englih language and would merely be a revision of what is being taught in schools. For the latter, a little more patience, time and a lot of English essay writing practice are needed. Begin with this inexpensive guide book. It might do you some good.

I would suggest that the author and publisher come up with more challenging topics and essays though, and have the next edition of book printed on quality paper that can last a millenium.

First, you need to know that TOEFL publishes its official list of TOEFL essay topics on its website, and ALL essays that you will have to write on the TOEFL come from this list. Second, you need to know that this list is updated every year, with some topics removed and new ones added. The next update will occur around Aug of 2002.

After this book was published, TOEFL updated its topics so that there were 185 topics, not ~150 when this book was published. Many of the old topics were retired, and many new ones took their place, so many of the essays in this book will NEVER appear on the TOEFL again.

If you don't mind that, this book will give you excellent advice on how to write your TOEFL essay and will show you how to get a 5.0 or a 6.0, which will help you to raise your score. Remember, the TOEFL essay is worth the same as the grammar section (each is worth 1/6 of your total score).

Hey friends, this is for test preparation, not for English language learning; otherwise, it will call "English" not "TOEFL".

Its grammer review sections are very good. It absolutely worth a buy.

This book is full of lovely language, subtle references to the ballad of Tam Lin, unadulterated nostalgia for life at a liberal arts college in the 1970s, and characters who are flawed but endearing. I wore out one copy of this book and had to buy a second, which disappeared into a friend's library, so I had to buy a third. I reread it at least once a year, or whenever I want to read a beautifully written book which will reveal more on each successive reading.

However, lots of people hate this book. Some of the people who hate this book are people whose literary tastes I otherwise trust implicitly. It's hard to know why they hate it. They say they hate the cardboard characters (but the characters seemed to me to be both wonderful evocations of the archtypes they represented and also quite well-drawn as individuals). They say the book is pretentious (but I went to school with a bunch of people who talked like that -- we outgrew it, but the dialogue sang to me). They say the fairy tale is just nailed onto the ending of the book (but if you look, the details of the ballad are present from the first page -- and surely one of the things Dean is trying to say is that the fantastic has as its context the mundane). They say the writing is wooden (I disagree).

If you love lanugage, if you were ever a somewhat pretentious young intellectual, if you want to remember what it felt like to be 18 years old at a liberal arts college (and you didn't have to go to Carleton to feel the tug of nostalgia), you will probably like this book. But if you don't, you will be in good company.

Some people say Tam Lin is a bit 'slow'. I find the book to be at a perfect pace for me. You get time to know all of the characters and you get a real feel for the college and for the way life is there. I have read this book several times and I'm always stasified with the ending, which is rare for me. Too often I feel that books chicken out on the ending, not letting the book fall into a natural ending it deserves. But Tam Lin ends perfectly and doesn't sacrafice the characters, the situations, or the ballad for a cheap ending.
I think that the book needs to be as long as it is in order for it to fufill everything Dean sets out to do. The book is slightly more enjoyable when read over because you pick up on a lot of things you missed the times you read it previously. Also, I don't believe one can accuratly judge the book until one has read the whole thing; The book may seem odd and off at times but it all comes together in the end. So give it a chance and don't give up hope. Are you a lover, a lunatic, or a poet?

The first time I read this book, I was in high school. The book was ok. I thought the author was being terribly self-indulgent in expanding a nice shortballad to a 500-page epic. Since I really didn't understand many of the literary allusions, the only part of it that really drew me in was the plot which developed in the last hundred pages.

The second time I read Tam Lin, I was in college. All of a sudden the things Dean had written about had frightening relevance and similarity to my life. I enjoyed the literary allusions more this time, but it was the way in which Dean captured the college experience as a whole that really drew me in.

In very general terms, the book is 4/5 about being a literate woman in college, and 1/5 about re-working the fairy tale. Those who are interested solely in the fairy-tale plot may be disappointed. Others, like me, may find themselves one day in graduate school (why not be paid to keep reading?) rereading Tam Lin for the 30th time--because somehow Tam Lin captures, along with the mystery of the original ballad, the essence of "College", which is, in itself, a fairy- tale-land worth revisiting.

I'm at amazon.com today to send a copy of the book to a friend, with the caveat that it may take a while, and a couple of close readings, for the book to reach full potency. Do you read it. It may capture you the second time around.

I work in several Microsoft languages and have needed to explore VB.NET just like all the others. Ever since PDC I have been programming in C# as much as I can and have explored VB.NET so make sure that anything non-specific to C# can be accomplished in VB.NET. I also read books for recomendation to others. This book is not one that I will recommend. Not because VB.NET is less of a programming language, but because this book does not cover the amount or topics needed, IMO. A super sound knowledge of OOP is needed because it's maditory in VB.NET. You can not get away from this and you need to understand this first. This book covers these topics so minimally that you don't really have any real-world application and looks sort of like someone explaining the Impliments keyword in VB6. My recommendation is to NOT get this book. And if you are determined to go to VB.NET then please get a book dedicated to OOD (Object Orientated Design) and/or OOP (Object Orientated Programming). The last few chapters are interesting but so high level that it's difficult to get full understanding of how to really use the material. I rated this book a 2 instead of a 3 because of the lack of meat on OOD and OOP. The syntax is there, but the knowledge is just not expressed to where you know why or when.

The only other .NET book I've read is the Wrox "Preview of ASP+" which I thought lived up to it's title. For me, this book goes well beyond a preview.

I read the whole 433 pages over a span of seven days and with the knowledge I've gained I'm preparing to recommend using the .NET beta technology to begin development on an Enterprise system that (in our architecture) would otherwise require use of Visual C++ and the ATL. Now I know that with VB.NET you can easily create free threaded applications and objects and you can just as easily create Win32 services.

Everything you need to know about the changes (and there are many of them) is explained in detail. Chapter 5, covers object-oriented programming for those who are new to the concept and explains how VB.NET handles: inheritance, and function overloading.

Even if you can't find it in your local bookstore, buy this book (if you have the public beta of course), after you read this one you'll likely be ready to go in to your manager and build and a case for reasons to mirgate to .NET

What another pair of shoes to wear! I'll have you know that I am wearing 6 pairs already! Well folks watch out 'cos you ain't seen nothing yet: for the best dressed VB developers, VB.Net - is a pair of shoes made for giants!

No, you don't have to be a giant to try them on, its just that when you do, and you walk around in them for a while, you start to grow and you start to feel like a giant!

A good place to get that powerful VB.Net feeling, is to start with this excellent book - 'VB.Net Programming With the Public Beta' by Billy Hollis & Rockford Lhotka.

Billy & Rocky, hand you a passport to walk from the world of VB6 to the pure object orientated world of VB.Net and the .Net paradigm. OK, it's a book on a beta, but all the basics are there, and with VB.Net you really need a lot of pre-release training!

Having a copy of Visual Studio.Net Beta is cool, however you don't need one to understand the book: there are plenty of excellent screenshots and diagrams, not to mention the easy to understand descriptions. Just by reading it, you can feel your confidence grow, as well as your shoe-size.

What is also impressive about this book, is the amount of content that is covered in a limited space. It is technically comprehensive & well balanced: half of it walks you through the new environment - the Visual Studio.Net IDE, the .Net framework, the language, UI capabilities, ADO.Net & ASP.Net, whilst in the other half you get a gentle work-out on the hot topics: object orientated programming, web development, web services & application migration.

Billy and Rocky, know that you want a quick and comprehensive overview - and that is exactly what you get! For example, if you want to understand web services & SOAP, and do an example in which you create and consume a web service: 8 pages! That's all it takes! Next topic! The book is full of such great 'short-sharp' presentations!

I also consider the narrator completely unbelievable a gay man. The self-hating, pathetic aging man is a cliché, but then so are the musings on Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, and art house films beloved by would-be cosmopolitan students of the 1960s. For a 166-page book with few words per page, this seems VERY long. The pleasures and insights are very few. Anyone who wants to read about desolated Chinese homosexuals lost on Taiwan, Pai's old novel _Crystal Boys_ is far more engaging.

of a book that advertises itself as "this postmodern, first-person tale of a contemporary Taiwanese gay man reflecting on his life, loves, and intellectual influences."
I was surprised at how easy it was to read. I do hope the author is making a bit of fun of her narrator. There is some great stuff here, including emotional and intelligent responses to people like levi strauss and foucault, that are more cogent and more interesting than stuff you might find in 'theory' books.

This is the story of a Taiwanese gay man dealing with the death of his best friend from AIDS. His reflections on culture, literature, and life in Taiwan are fascinating. I was reminded of Rabih Alameddine's "Koolaids" at times. In some of the passages, the writing is rough and dull, and I'm not sure whether that's the translation or the original. Overall it's an intriguing voice that stands out in the ocean of gay lit.