Out of all the books on Gould, this is one of my favorites. I very much enjoyed it, and I believe that anyone who loves Glenn Gould as I do will love this book. :)

I found this book to be the best overall general biography on Glenn Gould. Mr Friedrich did not personally know Gould, so we have what is a good look, objectively, of Gould. He had some very good interviews with some of Glenn's closest friends and those whom he worked with. I've read it more than 4 times. We are not overwhelmed from a Musician's biographical data here, but more of what is percieved through others here. Of Course, Friedrich has some personal views but really helps to move the book along. The biggest surprise is finding out how some individuals coped with having discussions (pre-written by Gould), and their responses prewritten for them....Interesting.
Great Book....

I am a fanatic when it comes to Bach keyboard music, and so Glenn is my hero. This biography is astounding in its depth, breadth, and compassion. The writing is excellent. Read it... full stop.

Surely, we can't talk and think enough
about the state of mankind!
But these are hazardous waters! Where should we begin
and where do we want to go from there? So, Having
Gould and Eco as guides seems like a clever start!

According to the book, the hebrew language has
no exact present tense?? The infinitely brief, the
very essense of the present, is not to be found - it
can be neither fixed, nor measured. It is therefore
completely justifiable, grammaticale speaking,
to leave out the present?

Yet, obviously, it is from the present we look at the
past and towards the future.
Stephen Jay Gould is always a pleasure to listen to -
and the right one to put time into perspective.
For a palaeontologist, like Gould, 7000 years
(timespand of human culture) is really no more than
the twinkling of an eye. So all we know is really in
the present - which hardly exist!

From this position we look out into concepts like
the eternity - which we obviously really can't grasp.
And into ourselfes were e.g. DNA was discovered as recently
as 1953. Mystery upon mystery.
So, we struggle to discover instances of regularity and
to fit them together with the help of stories. We throw
in a little religion "were religions do not
ask questions, they answer them". Still we are far
removed from any real "understanding".

And that is what these conversations are about.
With Umberto Eco and Stephen Jay Gould - it is
of course an ok read. But only an appetizer.

-Simon

Conversations About the End of Time is a a discussion of questions and answers given by four thinkers. Stephen Jay Gould, Umberto Eco, Jean-Claude Carriere and Jean Delumeau all answer questions and are given a chapter in this book to espouse their respective answers.

Just think of a coffee table discussion, of a one on one discussion and you get to read the answers on questions of import. Each answering these questions with their respective insights and down-to-earth style. Each having their respective life experiences to draw from to unravel perplexing questions.

With fascination you read the thought-provoking answers. The answers will suprise some, others may be right inline with what you'd expect, but nerver boring... challenging, educational, lucid and erudite are more what you'd expect and you are not dissapointed.

This book reads fast and the questions are cogent with the general topic. Each respective thinker answers in a style of their own and the reader does not feel irrelevant. This is an interesting book in that questions asked make the reader think as well.

I found the book to be highly interesting and it has a fascination woven throughout the text captivating the reader.

---------- ----------

I'm talking about that Darwinian theory of Natural Selection you keep telling as if it were true. It is "differential reproductive success". So then that means I need at least 2 different things to call some event NS. So then I ask myself what do these 2 different things have to do with each other? So then I say well either they influence each other's reproduction some way, or they could as well be in different environments. So they must influence each other's reproduction some way. So then I ask, what ways can the one influence the reproduction of the other?

+/- increase reproduction at cost of the other +/+ mutual increase of each other's reproduction -/- mutual decrease of each other's reproduction +/0 and so on -/0 0/0

but what you do, is pretend like there are only +/- relationships. You ignore all other type of relationships with NS. Your natural selection theory is false, for being unsystematic in describing the relationships between living beings. You make teachers into liars by it.

i had to spend a mini fortune for this book since i'm from india and this title is not availiable as an indian edition.
Buttt !!! it has been completely worth it.The author takes no chances with the level of confidence you have with maya programming/scripting.Every thing is explained like youre a two year old and the why's and how's are in abundance as well.
Although i havent finished the book i'm confident i'm going to be reading it another time because there is sooo much to digest.
i hope mr gould's next installment is bigger because he has so much to share and give.
buy buy buy
b

This is book is far more better than I expected, just like the previous guy said I can't put it down, its got stuff that explained extremely well, and damn fun to read.
If you are an artist this book is easy to understand.
If you are a C/java programmer this book is very easy to understand
if you are some sort of computer science or related student, this is damn easy and very fun to read.

I have loads of text books some I read few pages and now is in the dust, but this one is one of a kind that you can't get anywhere else.

Technical books by and large are difficult to understand and sparse due to the fact that aside from class room instruction they are very difficult to absorb.

This book is excellent and different. It takes a approach that is an absolute must for people like myself in that It explains the why and theory behind something first and fore most. This makes the "voo doo" of programming not totally disappear but shrink considerably. I have an extensive background in 3DS MAX and it's accompanying programming language. I learned to use MAX script via technical books about MAX script and non have been close to the quality that is in this one is.

The major difference being that this book offers even the experienced user an understanding of why MAYA was built the way it is and how it thinks. Which as I learned is truly unique and awesome and worth the price of the book in and of it's self.

Good job and Thanks,

Jason Brummett

American Passages was the textbook used for one of my American History courses. As my instructor said, it was a much tougher book than the previous one that had been used for the course, and I can understand why. The chapters are very long, sometimes inordinately so, and even though I was interested in the material and a good reader, they often took an hour or more to read through. However, the material _was_ interesting, the pictures, maps, graphs, and additional information well done, and it was well written. It does not go into full coverage of some topics, but I found it to be well-rounded, exploring many of the diverse issues that influenced our history and culture. It's an awe-inspiring journey to look through the past of our nation and see how it has impacted the present!

The book covers history from pre-Columbian days all the way through Clinton's presidency and the various scandals. Not many books can claim to be that current! Certainly a beautiful addition to any collection, and a wonderful resource for anyone interested in American History - just don't wait 'til the last minute if you're reading it for school!

If you are looking for a text to supplement your AP History classes, this book has lots of good material, and many helpful readings. If you combine this with some history readers, you will have a great basis to get your program off to a positive start.

In contrast to the previous rather bitter review, I think this is a very good book and a lot better than the the racism masquerading as science that is the Bell Curve - which Gould has read and demolished.
In terms of factor analysis, I used the Urchin in the Storm to teach factor analysis it's that clear and concise. Stuff the political viewpoint just read some very good essays.

An Urchin in the Storm by Stephen Jay Gould is about books and ideas, but more so about writing, thinking and study in method.

An Urchin in the Storm is divided into five different sections. The first two sections of this book group reviews that discuss the irreductibility of history, along the way the pleasures and challenges of contingency, in its two principle domains of life and the earth. The first section on evolution focuses upon structuralist and hisoricist alternatives. While the second, explains nature's complexity, (Evolutionary Theory, Time and Geology).

The third section of this book explores the theory and consequences, both political and intellectual, of biological determinism. The fourth section deals with "Four Biologists." While the fifth works with "In Praise of Reason." As we read on throughout this book, Gould makes his point and scores, as he exposes fallacies, expands on geology, give thought to biological determinism, and gives the reader a clearer picture of evolutionary theory.

This is a fascinating little book, as Gould works through this little tome, like the urchin, always presenting a tough exterior and continues to prickle the enemy.

For a collection of disparate essays this hangs together in the classic Steve Gould style. If you're a 'fan', this is a book you may have missed, but its definitely a 'must have'

For a few chapters, I thought this was simply the worst book about baseball I'd ever read. The late genius Prof. Gould seemed less interested in entertaining or informing than in impressing us with obscure allusions and dropping the name of every other genius or celebrity he's ever met. But then it occurred that perhaps Gould was parodying the pompous blowhards he probably spent most of his life enduring in academe. Consider these two sentences from Ch. 8 alone:

"We may, on the rarest of occasions, enjoy the privilege of watching a person who can do something so much better than anyone else on the planet that we have to wonder if he really belongs to our universal tribe of Homo sapiens. I can cite only two such experiences in my previous fifty-seven years of life, both musical: when, in the late 1960s, I heard Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing Schubert's Die Schone Mullerin, and even his triple pianissimos penetrated like pinpricks of utter beauty to my seat in the last row of the last balcony of Symphony Hall; and when, two years ago at the Metropolitan Opera, I saw the world's greatest performers in each part boost their combined talents far above the sum of their individual strengths when they sang the first act of Wagner's Die Walkure: Placido Domingo as Siegmund, Deborah Voigt as Sieglinde, and Matti Salminen as Hunding, with James Levine conducting the finest orchestra ever assembled in operatic history."

Phew. Now that's remarkably boring and self-absorbed--but when you imagine an arrogant snob like Frasier Crane delivering those words, it becomes sort of amusing. And could it be that was what Gould was going for? To satirize, rather than nauseate?

Naaaa. This book is not about baseball or much else beside Gould's need to impress us with his Big Brain, Refined Taste, and Fabulous Life (which he remembered in excrucitaing detail). Don't waste your time.

This is a fan's book, in every sense of the term. Thanks to his writings about baseball in such unlikely places as the New York Review of Books, and his appearance in Ken Burns' documentary about the sport, Stephen Jay Gould's position as one of the premiere intellectuals who also happens to love baseball will forever be secure; this collection of works will keep that legacy alive for a new generation. Because these writings are generated from Gould's own love of the sport, the focus tends heavily toward the two teams he spent most of his life watching--the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. And that's fine, because no other two teams have encompassed the heights of triumph and tragedy this sport has to offer. For the non-scientist, Gould may get a bit technical at times, such as his explanation of why the .400 hitter is as extinct as the dinosaurs, but even this journalism major managed to wade through it all. A passionate lovesong to the sport from a fan who left his seat too soon.

Stephen Jay Gould grew up in New York City as a Yankees' fan during the late forties and into the fifties, a great time to learn to love the game of baseball. For those of us fortunate to grow up during this era many of Gould's stories are familiar yet entertaining from his point of view. Dusty Rhodes' heroics during the '54 Fall Classic and Don Larsen pitching his way to perfection in '56 are two examples. The only drawback to the book from my point of view is the emphasis on why he feels noone will ever hit .400 anymore. I am not a fan of statistics and charts, and a special section is devoted to figures which I realize entertain many baseball fans, but not this one. I prefer stories, and Stephen Jay Gould has provided a number of them for baseball fans to cuddle up with. It's a shame that his life was cut short in May of 2002 from cancer, but he did provide us with this book in addition to his comments on Ken Burns's video history of baseball a few years ago.

I picked this book up for some light, entertaining reading but the overall structure is so garbled that I gave up in the final chapter when I realized it had run out of time to improve.

The beginning of this book tried to outline the history of the Q School, but jumped around in time so much that it was very difficult to get a good grasp on the chronology of events.

There are lots of anecdotes as promised in the promo literature, but for the most part they each about 2-4 paragraphs long and not nearly in depth enough to get a sense of the characters involved. Some of them don't have a real point (Golfer A has 5 good rounds, he needs just one more to get his card and is very upset, he has a good round and the story becomes a non-story). They are strung together often in an unrelated way.

Finally, the last third of the book is appendices showing results from all the Q-Schools in history - nice for historians, but extra weight to carry around for the casual reader. I guess it gives the book more heft when you're looking at it in the store.

Some anecdotes are entertaining and I did learn a little about Q-School, so I did give up a couple stars.

Gould is an excellent writer and researcher and this book shows it. The book definitely gives a satisfactory overview of Q School, whether you are just curious about it or a potential qualifier. The problem is that the book goes into far greater depth than the typical reader will care about and I found myself skimming large portions of it. I think most readers expected a book that dealt with today's Q School, how it works, and colorful anecdotes from the past years.

However, the book is bloated with the school's history which I was not particularly interested in. In fact, the greater part of the book focused on the history, rather than the contemporary structure, which is what most of us are curious about.

There isn't anything else like this out there to my knowledge, so if you are really curious about Q School then by all means buy it. But be prepared for less info about contemporary players you know and love, and more about the obscure and confusing history of Q School.

If you've ever watched golf on television and thought "Yeah, I can do that," it's time to read Dave Gould's excellent, insightful, and entertaining account of how guys like you would really go about trying to qualify for the PGA Tour. Gould's stories and observations are funny and poignant, and his book captures all the drama and comedy of the people crazy and dedicated enough to try to earn a living playing professional golf. A must read for anyone who's ever thought that maybe, with a little more practice . . .

Being one who visits the Golden Road almost yearly, I purchased the book with enthusiasm. My experience was mostly positive.

Gould demonstrates vast knowledge about the area. He describes: the realities of the Maine woods experience, personalities of the inhabitants, varieties of visitors, wildlife, history and industry.

One area of disappointment was Gould's frequent choice of vocabulary and references. While reading, a dictionary had to be at my side. Also, frequently used french, latin and some historical references made reading more difficult and not fun.

Mr. Gould did at times poke fun at his intellectual perspective. However, his choice of words does not seem suited for most.

All in all, the book is a positive experience. One can take a trip to Maine's Golden Road, from their favorite arm chair.