I attempted every single question for the first 8 chapters of this book. I really enjoyed this book and had only a few problems with some of the questions (the answer in the solutions guide was far different than what I expected). I really thought this book would live on past the first edition. If you are an aspiring organic chemist, I believe this book will give you the fundamentals to a successful career. After a year with this book, I got A's in almost every Advanced O-CHEM class I took thereafter.

Crafted by a master of hyperbole, this author has mastered the art of bringing coffee table reading on genetics to the masses

The legendary deer known as the Milu, was thought to be extinct until a Basque missionary, Pere David stumbled upon them in the Chinese emperor's private park in the second half of the 19th century. Pere David smuggled a specimen to Europe igniting in the process, a clamour among several European nations to acquire a live animal. Eventually the Boxer rebellion led to the deer's extirpation from China but a herd survived in England on the private estate of the 11th Duke of Bedford. Robert Twigger's tale is a mix of whimsical, sometimes cheeky romps through history, and modern day divergences into the meaning of truth, myths and evolution.

The book "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court"starts out with a man named Hank Morgan getting hit over the head witha crow bar during an argument. He awakes to find himself in 600ADCamelot where he gets taken captive by a knight and is to be burned at the stake. Hank tells everyone he's a magacian and uses a solar eclipse to his advantage to be freed from death. He becomes good friends with the king and goes on many adventures with him. Hank tries to modernize civilization but in the end fails miserably. I absolutely hated this book. It would go for pages on end where you wouldn't understand a single word they said. Many times they would attempt to throw in humor but... This book was VERY unrealistic with warping through time and having a solar eclipse fall right on the day of his execution. In conclusion, this book was a waste of my time and and will probably a waste of yours too.

I am a fan of most of Mark Twain's works; his wit and charm are unsurpassed, and are ultimately what makes his books worth reading. However, although the book contained elements of these traits, I felt it read more like a technical manual for modernizing a backward people. This made it a tedious read.

I read Connecticut Yankee and found it quite good. However, instead of reviewing the book per se, I would like to post a rebuttal to the views posted by the person from Minnesota and the person from Tibet.

The Minnesota person claimed that reading this book was a complete waste of time and furthermore that there were long passages that seemed incomprehensible. I can see how this might be true for a person of finite literary sophistication, so I'm going to assume that the reader must have been a high school student who tackled reading beyond his/her level of understanding, patience, and appreciation. The book is rich with historic accuracy about medieval life and every page is packed with subtle, humorous digs at both 6th century ignorance as well as criticism of his own 19th century attitude toward progress in the industrial northern states from where our protagonist hails. Obviously, the reader from Minnesota missed the point.

The reader from Tibet accused Twain of having anti-religious views. Twain's criticism was not of religion; it was of the church's hypocritical practices in _both_ the 6th and 19th centuries. It is still true today. In chapter 10, Twain writes: "Everybody could be any kind of Christian he wanted to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But...I was afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by-and-by gets into selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to human liberty, and paralysis to human thought."

When was this more true than in the middle ages, when the Catholic Church orchestrated Crusades, was genteel in an age of feudalism, and later killed infidels in their inquisitions? It's clear that Twain simply doesn't wish to have a sectarian bias influence secular affairs; our First Amendment supports Twain's point of view.

You'd do best to disregard those other reviews, which hold Twain responsible for their own lack of understanding and appreciation of his novel, and read the book for yourself. It will be well worth your time.