"Wireless Nation, the story of the cellular revolution in America" is well written, containing 24 chapters and 338 pages. The writing mechanics are good, but the style is bland. Murray narrates the lucrative development of the mobile phone and how it evolved into the ubiquitous cellphones people use today. For this reason, the general storyline is lackluster and generally uninteresting unless you are involved in communications research or just passing time in the coffee lounge. Murray relies totally on his essaical format, lacking both bibliographic references and cited sources. I find such writing hard to accept at face value. "Wireless Nation" can even instill a sense of regret that we were somehow left out of the millions of dollars that cellphone CEOs garnered in the 1980s. You may then ask yourself why you missed the boat, having missed your slice of profitable pie, with something as wide open as unissued FCC licenses which gave you your own territory to issue pagers and wireless telephones. It's all strictly after-the-fact; you can't really do anything with the information that will benefit your life. Therefore, this text makes a satisfactory reference book of a sort, but without references of its own it reads more like a novel. It lacks a hook to keep you reading, and because of that I don't see "Wireless Nation" becoming a bestseller.

Murray has written an immensely entertaining view of the development
of cellular telephone, the wrangling over FCC spectrum, the con artists
and hucksters, the visionary businessmen, the unprecedented methods
of haggling used to settle license ownership. My own background gives
me familiarity with the Internet revolution; it was quite interesting
to compare and contrast the cellular revolution with it. Those who
studied the cellular revolution were probably better able to understand

what was going to happen with the Internet than those who didn't.

OK, so I gave away the "big surprise", but it's true. This book does an amazing job of detailing the early days of the FCC "dispensation" of the cellular phone spectrum, the companies and individuals involved, and how everything played out.

Sure, it's like watching sausages being made. The good guys who played by the rules often got chumped. The guys who bent the rules got away with a lot of things that they shouldn't have. The real sleazeballs sometimes went to jail, but sometimes just made a lot of people angry and still got to keep a lot of money. In short, it's just like America: Under the table wheeling and dealing with lawyers smoking cigars.

If you care at all about how so many people made so much money at cellular than this book is for you. I loved it. If you are expecting a nice antiseptic chronology of cellular from beginning to today you'll have to read about the personal foibles of McCaw, Yampol, and others to get it, but it's there.

This is a great book. It tackles a task that could fill 100 books. Amazing pictures and interviews w/NYC's top writers. Only two criticisms: 1) Type print is TINY! Very taxing on the eyeballs to read the interviews (which, as I mentioned, are incredibly insightful). 2) No illegal bombing. This book does a great job of documenting the productions/legal pieces. And, I suppose if that was the goal of this book, cool. I just would have liked to have seen at least a few pages of bombing. Overall, definitely worth the scrill.

this book is great, big ups to HI CREW

THIS IS AN AMAZING BOOK! IT HAS PRODUCTIONS BY ALL THE MAJOR CREWS IN NYC, ILLEGAL PIECES AND BOMBING BY SOME OF THE BEST. GREAT INTERVIEWS ALONG WITH INCREDIBLE FOLD-OUTS. A MUST HAVE!
IMAGRE, NYC

At 1773 pages, the "Manual of Clinical Microbiology" is a good (medium size) reference for a clinical or diagnostic microbiologist. It offers detailed information on both practical and theoretical aspects of the subject. Its authority is unquestionable. Pathologists, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and anybody whose business concerns infectious diseases will find the book useful.
The only setback is that it is awkwardly expensive. Many potential buyers would be enticed by cheaper alternatives: there are lots of them out there.

This book is comprehensive, well put together and thorough in all of its aspects. It is an invaluable text in the microbiology department. I and my workplace have a copy, and it is the most often refered text in our laboratory only Bergeys and Mandell come close. All aspects including bacteriology, virology, parasitology, mycology, laboratory metheds etc etc are covered it is a one stop clinical microbiology text. I have no resevations in wholeheartedly recommending this book. The only thing I would add is that I would like to see it on CD-ROM

this is very good book , but u have to know the basic back ground of microbiology because , it give u the smallest detaile , and the unusuall things in microbiology, but it is the bible of clinical microbiology

This book used to be the bible of image formats. Unfortunately, this bible is starting to show its age. Depending on what your interest is in graphics, you might find all the formats you need or be really disappointed. Most major image formats (like those used in web pages) are in there, but some very important ones that have appeared in the past 5 or so years are missing: Avid's OMFI, Softimage .pic, Maya's .iff, Pixar .tx, etc. The lack of an extensions index is an area where the book fails for me as an encyclopedia. While the final index does lists extension names, having a separate index for them would be nicer. So that if you had a file with extension .pic which you cannot read, you could easily figure out what formats it could correspond to. This is a problem with AVI, which is listed as Microsoft RIFF. Funny thing the book mentions that most people know AVIs by their extensions, but unless you look in the index, you will think it was missing. Still, some Microsoft image formats are missing (.ico files, for example). Other contradictions like those are listing the format for Pixar's .rib files, but not for their .tx files. Yes, the book also has descriptions of several popular non-image formats, such as 3D scene & object formats (Wavefront, Inventor, Radiance, etc), which can be either an annoyance or an added bonus depending on what you are looking. Animation formats (Quicktime, etc) are introduced but not covered in detail and given web links to search for more information. Formats not covered in the book are VRML, font formats (TrueType, etc), or Audio formats. If you are looking for source code or a library you can use to plug into your application, you will be very disappointed. The CD-ROM is just a web reprinting of all the info in the book, and the only software provided is Mosaic, a first & now slowest web browser, which in this day and age of Netscape and IE, is a big annoyance and a waste of disk space (you have to install it, since the installer looks for it & pages are named .ht_ instead of .htm or .html!). On a more positive note, the book offers beginners a good introduction to coding image loaders -- warning & providing solutions to problems such as byte ordering, alignment, etc. RLE encoding is given a very thorough description with several of its possible variations. The principles of other types of encoding (LZW, Huffman, CCITT, JPEG & Fractal) are described but not in so much detail. Wavelets are not even mentioned. In summary, most of the information is nothing you cannot get on the web if you spend enough time searching. The book & CD needs to be updated for the new millenium and since it is already pretty heavy, I would vote to split it in two: one for image formats and one for 3D formats.

My only negative comment: The section on GIFs doesn't discuss animated GIFs. There's just a little note that "the format supports multiple images in a file, but this is rarely used". If only they knew back then...

I've kept this book next to my computer desk for quite some time because I consider it an essential reference. There has never been a question about graphic file formats that I haven't been able to answer using this book. I feel the authors have done an outstanding job describing everything from the basics to complex file format features in a language that someone who isn't an artist can understand. As an application developer, I often need to know what's going on behind the scenes and this book makes everything clear.

This book is getting a tad dated, but still extremely valuable and a good buy. I'd love to see the authors update it. I know that I'd be the first in line to get the next edition.

This book is perfect for any teacher that wants to teach children math, so that they will learn with understanding. This book examines the elements that are necessary in a classroom that teaches with understanding. This book also examines several different, diverse classrooms that serve as examples. This book is an excellent resource and will help any existing or pre-service teacher better understand mathematics and how to teach mathematics within the classroom.

This book offers common sense for marriages, but now it adds math. If both partners have the mathematics background and enjoy complex equations, this book is worth the value in entertainment. Modelling your marriage is just plain goofy, which adds to the novelty of this book.

If you don't enjoy sitting down and going through a math book doing the problems and setting up equations, this is not the book for you.

This is an unclassified version of a study originally done by OSS psychologists on the selection of personnel suitable for clandestine operations. This means those in which the individual is inserted into enemy territory and then left alone to live under deep cover, always living in a state of stress and tension.
Compare this with covert operations in which groups of individuals are inserted for the purpose of operational support to indigenous forces or for independent raids and sabotage. On covert ops there is usually a safe zone where some can relax and unwind while others watch and the individual is not only armed but often uniformed as well. Wearing a uniform does not protect one from summary execution as a spy if captured but it does gives a valid claim to POW status and one can hope it will be granted.
Thus, it takes a very special mental state to operate alone and to expect nothing but torture and death if captured. And hope that execution will be swift. Few can stand the tension that results from being alone in a hostile environment.

I had the opportunity not only to read Dr. Young's book, but to interview about it as well. He is a knowledgeable historian and very fact-conscious, as well as understanding the larger issues at hand. I recommend this book to anyone who is seriously interested in the American Civil War because it will provide you with a unique story about one player in this immense drama.

This is by far the best biography about Richard Feynman to date. All the others, even the ones written after this book, pale in comparison. It is wonderfully written. It lets you see and feel Feynman not only as one of the giants in 20th century physics, but perhaps more importantly, as a human, with his passion, his idiosyncracies, and the same struggles and pain he had to go through just like everyone else.

Ironically, Gleick never met Feynman, which goes to show how great a writer he is. I never spoke to Feynman, but he was invited to our freshman physics classes once (at Caltech), shortly before he died. I remember waking up the morning after he died, found out about it, and was very much saddened, and saw the banner "We love you Dick" hung across the Milliken Library on the Caltech campus. For readers who never met or saw Feynman in person, this is truly a great biography. I read it a few years ago, and I still recommend it to my friends all the time.

-- Ed Lee, Santa Barbara.

A man as brilliantly lucid as Richard Feynman deserves a biography equally brilliant and lucid. James Gleick achieves this. And though Richard Feynman is painted in human tones, the reader still experiences the mystique which surrounded this legend of science.

Some of the most enjoyable sections of this book deal not with physics or biography, but Feynman's philosophy and refreshingly rational worldview.

This book is a testament to the power and beauty of a great intellect, in its all its humanity.

My only reservation with this otherwise astounding book is that it was, at times, a bit too glowing and not critical enough. Feynman is presented as a scientific hero, but as we all know too well, even heros are not without their faults. As for these, as Feynman himself said, "it does no harm to the mystery to know a little about it."

The author not only succeeded in portraying the wonderful life-loving Richard P Feynman but also in writing a book even a layman (my girlfriend) could enjoy. Writing about Feynman is a rewarding experience, I think, for an author. All the ingredients are there: Creativity, drama, originality and fun. He (Feynman) rubbed shoulders with the all the great players in the scientific community of the 20th century. I was always interested in the people around the development of modern physics. Feynman was one of the key players in that field. I recommend this book to everyone interested in original people.

Simon Winchester answers this question with a story of violence, passion, tragedy, and sympathy. What more could you want in a story about a dictionary? I love books that shine with the author's enthusiasm for the subject. _The Professor and the Madman_ is just that type of book. Winchester obviously loves language and word origin. He gives the reader a look at etymology that is detailed enough to make you feel like a scholar, but selective enough so that you aren't overwhelmed with the rather dry science of language. But this is only the secondary plot. The main story, that of the obsession of the scholarly but homicidally deranged Dr. W.C. Minor, the focused and driven brilliance of Dr. James Murray, and the Oxford English Dictionary that brought them together is thrilling and tragic. Winchester does a great job of sharing with the reader the sadness and regret of Dr. Minor's amazing intellect trapped inside his deranged mind. If you've ever had a relative or friend succumb to Alzheimer's or another mental disease, you can understand the tragedy of such an intruguing person losing a battle with sanity. The story is so unique that it could only be true, and Winchester seems to have researched it thoroughly and accurately. I highly recommend it.

The Professor and the Madman deals with the role of asylum inmate Dr. William Minor in the development of the Oxford English Dictionary, and with the relationship of Dr. Minor to James Murray, the OED's longtime editor. The book's main strength, and also its primary emphasis, is its treatment of Minor's downward psychological spiral, beginning with his traumatic experience as a surgeon in the US Civil War, continuing through the murder that landed him in the asylum, followed by his extremely productive years as a volunteer researcher for the OED, and finally through his severe sickness in his later years, when he no longer channeled his energies into the OED and slipped even further into insanity in the absence of the obsession that had linked him to the outside world. The book deals with many tangential matters as well, giving a brief but interesting history of the dictionaries predating the OED and going into some detail regarding the development of the OED itself and the lives of its primary editors, notably Murray.

Especially near the beginning of the book, I felt that Winchester was going off on a few too many tangents, as though he thought he needed filler to give the subject a book-length treatment; for example, he spends nearly four pages discussing the definition of the word "protagonist," and, after telling us that in Shakespeare's time there weren't any English dictionaries, proceeds to do nothing but restate that fact for the next two or three pages. His tangents are, admittedly, written in a charming style, but they can be frustrating for those of us who might like Winchester to simply get to the point. Another thing that disappointed me was that Winchester spent very little time speculating on why it was that Minor chose to obsess himself with the OED, and why his contributions tapered off around the turn of the century. Of course Minor was bored and had relatively few options because of his detainment in the asylum, but clearly most people in his position found other things with which to busy themselves. The fact that both Minor and one of the other greatest volunteer contributors to the OED, Fitzedward Hall, were Americans with psychological problems is an interesting fact. Considering that Winchester was audacious enough to speculate that Minor's autopeotomy near the end of his life may have been a result of his shame over romantic feelings or possibly even acts involving the widow of the man he murdered, it's disappointing that Winchester didn't spend much time considering the much more central question of why the OED attracted Minor so.

Despite these weaknesses, The Professor and the Madman is an interesting book and on the whole does a very good job dealing with Minor's schizophrenia. Short and written in an engaging style, it's a quick read and was well worth my time.

Part biography, part history, The Professor and the Madman is the tale of two of the pivotal individuals in the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Although the title implies a balance between the two people, this is more a story of the "Madman", W.C. Minor, a doctor beset by mental illness, confined for life after murdering a man during one of his more paranoid episodes.

Minor gets a chance to find some personal redemption by his vast contributions to the OED. His unique approach to research, along with his involuntarily large amount of free time, made his the single largest contributor to the OED. Murray (the "Professor"), the editor of the OED during a large portion of its creation, corresponded with Minor and was a huge force in maintaining the OED's existence during its early years.

This is a book about genius. Winchester draws a lot of parallels between the lives of Murray and Minor and shows how the gift of genius can be both a blessing and a curse and can lead to triumph or tragedy. Well written and a delight to read (its only real weakness is the lack of an index), this book is definitely worth the time to read.