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Why aren't you reading this?
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In 1945 a woman is murdered in Austria. Solomon Kessler picks up an album of concentration camp photos her killers sought. Fifty years later an Argentine assassin kills CID Special Agent Stan Erland. Erland's boss McKenzie Rockett and Angela Becker are on the case. Erland had also been investigating the execution style murder of psychic Leo Weiser who, it happens, was Soloman Kessler living under a new identity.
Angela, an ex-model who grew up wealthy, now a cop and part-time social worker who loves fast cars, is an all around great character. Rockett brings in Roland Troy, ex-homicide detective and martial arts pro with a complicated past to team up with Angela, and a great partnership is formed.
Leo's wife Justine tells Angela that Leo had recently spotted someone from his past. Before Angela knows it, the reader realizes Leo saw Novac DuCharme, a super rich white supremacist who was a sadistic concentration camp guard in 1945.
At the halfway point another force comes into the story, Chotoku Nakama a.k.a. Bassai, an Asian warlord who nursed Roland Troy to health after an incident in Viet Nam. An Iranian arms dealer comes to Bassai offering a shipment intended for DuCharme, and Bassai takes an action that lets Troy know he's around if he needs him.
After 280 pages the bang-bang pace suddenly drifts to something more serene. Troy goes back to Vermont. Then Leo's widow Justine reappears, and things start back up. It builds to an exciting conclusion, a little more violence than necessary, but overall a great action story tying past and present together in a well balanced, exciting finale.
TELL YOUR FRIENDS
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Having said all these great things about the book and how it's changed my lifestyle, I want to point out a few caveats. (1) I would not follow the %protein, % carb & %fat guidelines he recommends without checking with a registered dietician or doctor first. I generally agree that people are probably not eating enough protein in their diet (I certainly wasn't), but some of the proportions that he suggests for certain body types may not be safe. Please, please check with a health professional before radically changing your diet. This also applies to the water drinking as well. I mentioned the spring water vs. distilled water issue, but I'm not a specialist and I advise you to talk to somebody who is. (2) Phil includes some sample meal plans for every week of the program. I think I got as far as week 1 or 2, and then stayed there. Had I continued, perhaps the changes to my physique would occur faster, but there were some things I just refused to do, like give up bread. Yes, Phil recommends that for certain weeks of the program, you do not eat anything with yeast + sugar, e.g., bagels, whole wheat bread, sour dough, ... only flat breads like pitas are allowed. Instead of cutting it out of my diet completely, I eat smaller portions and eat it with some protein. (3) For some weeks of the program, you're supposed to get the majority of your protein from fish. That sounds healthy, but I've just read a scary article ...suggesting that eating a lot of ocean fish (e.g., halibut, tuna, seabass and swordfish) can increase the levels of blood-mercury in your system to dangerous levels. Salmon, however is fine. I would look into this research to make sure it's valid. (4) Phil lost some credibility with me when I got to the seciont of the book which talked about supplements (and wouldn't you know, he sells his own line of supplements). I avoid that stuff since I am a big believer of eating "real food". My issues with supplements is that you have to keep on taking them to get the benefits (if any), they are expensive, and I'm not sure which of them are medically proven to "work" in a material fashion.
After weighing all the pros and cons, I still think this is a fabulous book. My advice is to read the whole thing through and then pick and choose what works for you. Everybody is different and you just have to use trial and error to find what your body responds to, especially in the long run. After all, fitness is a lifetime goal.
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Early in the past century a revoution started to develop in materials technology, as scientists and engineers began to experiment with creating molecules and structures not found in naturally occuring materials. At the molecular lever, chemists created long-chain polymers that had some of the characteristics of natural materials, but greatly improved resistence to wear and temperature. At the macroscopic level, materials were combined into composites like plywood and epoxy reinforced fiberglass. New structures unseen in nature, like matrixes of carbon and boron fibers embedded in metals, became possible. By the end of the century, it was possible to start moving around individual atoms to create entirely new materials with designer properties.
Ball's narrative covers both the history of materials science, and the future and its possibilities. He's particularly good at the historical story, and at drawing parallels betwene natural and artifial structures. As in Ball's other popular works on science, "Made to Measure" is approachable without being trivial, and rigorous in its attention to detail without becoming numbingly pedantic. This is a book that would serve admiribly as either an introduction for the educated reader or a supplimentary text in an introductory materials engineer course.
Its not a technical book (but good pointers) yet not non-technical popular-mechanics type work. This book describes what science is pretty much all about! Its easy to get bogged down in your own world of work so a book such as this helps get your eyes open to the possibilities of the opportunites that come from hard, hard work. :)
This book talks about whats going on at the molecular level of things (my version is 1997). For the non-specialist this book is just great though I suppose if you work in micro-optics or semi/super conductors you might find that research is moving on a bit.
things discussed:
Optics (photonic material), superconductors, medicine & applications: biomaerials (chapt 4 - my fav), biomedical materials (cool), polymers, smart materials. energy, and more.
there is also a rather extensive bibliography so you can look for more info with Google.com(r) or other site.
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You won't find how to dx and rx a AAA or SAH, but when you can't remeber for the life of you how ESE to try and remove a nasal foreign body from a 3 year old, you'll be glad to have it.
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The book is a large format, with numerous full color, full plate images. Personally, I did not find the accompanying essays particularly interesting but thought that the notes on each specific work more compelling. The choices of artwork included in the book is primarily restricted to portraits, but not only paintings but paper drawings and minatures also.
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I was impressed, and have added this book to my library of books to keep forever!
Don't get me wrong, this wasn't some deep, intense book. It was also very entertaining. I learned a lot about early aviation, and the early part of the war between England and Germany. But at the end of it I got a much better inside view about what it was like to live during World War II, and to enjoy the life we're given.