D.M. Thomas, author of the acclaimed White Hotel and Flying into Love here turns his attention to the tense, serious world of international politics, and compleatly makes a mockery of it.

The book centers on the Summits held in the 1980's between the leaders of the USSR and the USA, who are thinly veiled characatures of Reagan and Gorbrechev. The novel has little positive to say about either of them, and generaly terrifies the reader who thinks that all summits run as this one does.

Thomas's book is insightful, readable, and absolutly laugh out loud funny. It is quite possible, in fact, that this is the funniest book I have ever read. It is short, you can read it in one sitting, and you will have a fantastic time doing it. I highly sugest you read this book.

This book contains one of the most extensive catalogs of the bats of the world that I have ever read. Not for pleasure reading, but great for research.

really wonderful book on hematolog

The book is a good read for busy times. You can pick up the book for short periods of time to enjoy and reflect. The stories were from everyday people with extrodinary insight into the people in their lives. Most of us have these individuals in our lives and need to "see" them as they have impacted our lives. The book offers the opportunity to do just that. I found Dr.Waldinger's enjoyment of people refreshing. I particularily enjoyed his poems, and read them a number of times. He gave words to the feelings I have for people in my life.

Dr. Waldinger's book exhibits tremendous insight into the lives of his patients. From the heart warming stories to the many insightful comments of Dr. Waldinger, the reader is able to feel compassion and understand the human condition.

In sharing the touching and soul searching stories of his patients, Dr. Waldinger reveals his own compassion and that of his mentor and friend Dr. Ulrich. Dr. Waldinger's book also provides a taste of life in this midwestern region enriched by its diverse population. Readers will be heartened by the genuine regard that Dr. Waldinger has for his patients. This is an inspirational book you'll want to share.

Your book is truly frightening in its final chapters, while much of the initial chapters are seductively scientific, biological and, thus for me, quite compelling. You suggest no realistic neurological mechanisms for "limbic resonance" which is offered as a means of fundamentally communicating love, and also (by implication) as a means of therapy for the love-dysfunctional. You suggest that such therapy may take many years. I find it hard to believe that we are sufficiently ill to require this degree of intensive relations with a professional who is, after all, conducting uncontrolled experiments with our minds (this will remain true until we completely understand the mind). The initial biological basis of your book is compelling, but it falls short when you simply walk away from the essential questions of "how" and "why." You correctly note that at least one side of our neocortical brain processes emotional information, yet you totally ignore the connection that this part of the neocortex has with its limbic foundation. This is critical if there is to be any real hope for those who believe that "insight therapy" (based on neocortical function) will in any way help their problems. Your last chapter is utterly devoid of hope for the epidemic of anxiety and depression that, as you correctly observe, plague our modern culture.

As an evolutionary biologist, I welcome your refreshing approach to psychobiology, but I have three concerns about your work. (1) It ignores the power of our recently-evolved neocortex to influence affective disorders. Although I do not understand how this can occur, I would suggest that more research should be done in this area. The physical connections between the two parts of the brain exist. Why? Truly debilitating affective disorder did not develop with the limbic system alone (these organisms would be extinct). Modern affective disease requires interaction with the neocortex. We are missing something here, although I certainly lack the expertise to tell you what it is. You completely fail to recognize that cultural evolution is far faster and potentially more powerful than biological evolution, and how this might relate to the problems that you pose. (2) You offer no mechanisms for the central feature of your theory, "limbic resonance." It could be that we are simply not using our neocortex to its fullest capacity to solve these problems, or perhaps, we are failing to understand the appropriate way to communicate between the two parts, i.e., your poorly defined "limbic resonance." (3) Your final chapter offers no explicit solution for affectively ill individuals, or, for that matter, our society as a whole. While much of the pathology of modern society that you cite is without question true, your link between the limbic brain and these ills is merely assertion, although, I admit that the possibility of such a link is frightening in the context of our evolutionary future.

In sum, this work should go through the peer review process. I would be very interested to learn what your anonymous peer-reviewers might have to say about this book.

For a tri-authored book, this is remarkably clear, eloquent and thoroughly engrossing. Drawing on the latest scientific discoveries and 70 years of collective clinical experience, plus a host of literary references, three psychiatrists posit that a primordial area of the brain, far older than reason or thinking, aka the lymbic system, creates both the capacity and the need for emotional intimacy that all humans share. In short, our brains link with those of the people closest to us, and establish wordless, powerful ties that determine our moods, stabilize and maintain our health and well-being, and change the wiring of our brains. It also means that better relationships can be cultivated to rewire negative structures. It makes total absolute sense. It FEELS right. Who we are and who we become depend, in great part, on whom we love. At least the authors have convinced me of this.

I'm an emotional intelligence coach, that is, I teach people how to understand and manage their emotions and those of others for better living and feeling better, and this book has probably advanced my understanding more than any book I've read in the past 5 years. I think it will be a landmark book and don't know why I don't hear about it more. It provides a solid understanding of the what's and why's of LOVE, and a good number of other things. Like why we need one another ... why isolation is so bad for us ... why we can't talk ourselves out of anger or make ourselves love someone when we don't ... why coaching works while reading self-help books doesn't! If you're seriously interesting in finding out what makes you -- and the rest of us -- tick, read this book. And whoever wrote it, writes like a poet. An absolute lyrical gem and a treat for both the limbic brain and the neocortex, I might add!

Can't say enough about this book. The subject's life is truly epic, spanning the Russian Revolution, World War II and the cold war. Thomas is right when he says that if you judge a writer by how he affects history, Solzhenitsyn is the greatest writer of our century. Plus his life is riveting. I loved this biography as much as any I've read since Robert Caro's wonderful LBJ Volume One. It's neat to have a novelist doing a biography too, as that seems to add a dimension here. Anyway, this is a brilliant work about a riveting subject. Can't say enough about it.

Tedious? Hardly! This critical biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a brilliant and masterful piece of work. Solzhenitsyn's life and art, his epic and singular 20th century struggle, are persuasively treated with courage and truthfulness, and absolutely first-class literary accomplishment by novelist D. M. Thomas. Rarely have I encountered a more affecting piece of biographical literature! Solzhenitsyn's complexities seem to overload the century, and Thomas' patient and exceptionally intelligent narrative follows the thread of every turn with a novelist's master plan giving us, in the end, a scorching and beautiful appreciation of one of the rare writers of the 20th century. The book is a compendium of modern Russian history as much as anything else, and it serves its subject well in refusing to varnish either the man or his milieu; Soviet history, especially with respect to the jarred lives of most of its great artists, is already known as one of history's great tragedies, and Thomas traces Solzhenitsyn's life-long transformation from Soviet man to Russian icon with meticulous care, and with a miraculous understanding of the wayward chagrin of history not often articulated in the biographer's art. It's a massive book, yet because every word is made essential the narrative sails with genuine authority, and with a special beauty. This is an important book, I would say even a gifted book, as indeed befits the story of one of the authentic geniuses of modern literature. Highest recommendation without reservation.

If you're a student or fan of the Russian poet/novelist, then this book is a must-read. It is a superb critical biography of the man who is a giant in the literary world. The book enlightens the reader on Solzhenitsyn's life and politics, in his timeless as well as his contemporary significance.

As is the subject of being written about, this is a giant read - 559 pages in hardcover edition. This is not only a finely wrought literary biography but also a chronicle of twentieth-century Russian history.

Thomas was masterful in his research, ferreting out the myriad substance that forms the great Russian author/writer. A rich and rewarding read.

We use this as the main text in my US History AP course. It's a good, fairly comprehensive, yet easy to read text.

I used this textbook as a junior in high school and recently purchased a later edition. Although the wonderful charts plotting the states and electoral numbers of the Presidential elections are long gone it is still a great reference book on our nations history.

My students really enjoyed this textbook because it was so inclusive of all American heritages. It is up-to-date with current trends in American history and has a little bit of everything your students might be interested in.

As a surgeon about to embark on a secular mission to Nepal I enjoyed this book immensely, despite the proselytizing. Hale is obviously a gifted sawbones and wriggles out of quite a few strikes, demonstrations and oddities. Particularly ironic is his bout with angry villagers after killing a (sacred) cow. The use of limited resources is a must read for physicians chronically complaining about the over-manged US health care system. I wish he had spent more time on the techinical aspects of the surgeries he performed, although the book is intended for a lay audience. The absence of a contemporaneous account or forward from the Nepali point of view is also noted. A good read, although shackled by it's Evangelical message.

I love the book from the start and I have bought it for many friends since my first reading 7 years ago. I love the candid portray of faith and the author's struggles of finding ways to introducing God to the Nepalese who were not introduced to the concept of mercy and unconditional love in Budhism. And above all, the author has a great sense of humor and, his faith in God is an inspiration to all. A refreshing reading for all.

A demandingly-structured work whose parts I didn't connect until the second or third time I read it. Frau Anna G. is treated by Freud for hysterical pains in her womb and breast; Freud assumes all this arises from incidents in her childhood and from her repressed sexuality. A point he does not pick up is that Anna G has second sight. As the story unfolds, we discover that her pains are indeed the expression of pain, but pain arising from events in her future.

I read The White Hotel in '82, the paper back emblazoned with the promise "soon to be a major film". 18 years on I gather that major film is finally in hand, again. Frankly I'd say this book was unfilmable. Is it genius? Maybe, if genius can be a one-off occurrence. D. M. Thomas' other fiction (mostly out of print now) is distinctly second-rate compared to this, the only work in which his faux-naif narrative style works properly.

That said, the depiction of Anna G as a symbol for Europe literally buried by barbarism is superbly achieved, and 18 years on I'm still reading it; if this isn't brilliance then it's not far off. Profound, disturbing, extravagantly sexual.

This novel on the surface seems to be a shocking exploitation of human sexuality and historical violence. However, the reader takes more away from this novel than an uncomfortable silence; this book beautifully weaves Virgin-Christ and Freudian imagery into a deeply introspective look into the mind -- the place where desires, memories, and even the capacity for the future lay. The heroine, Lisa Ergman, is treated by Freud and is the basis for his notorious "Anna G." case study. Thomas delves more deeply into this woman's life, illuminating the discrepancies and the events which lead up to her debilitating condition. Then he ties her suffering in the mind into the suffering of all humanity in the Holocaust. This is a book from which the more concerned and deeper reader can take away a valuable lesson in the human roots of psychoanalysis and the inner workings of humanity -- the torture and ecstasy from within and without. "The White Hotel" raises serious concerns about the validity of our own memories and the value of dissecting it. I would have given it five stars, but the last section of the novel seems tacked on and inappropriate.

His greatest literary work to date has taken the most reprhensible crimes against humanity and conveyed them through a sexual psychosis background/dialogue. The disturbing brilliance of that provokes the reader to examine oneself individually, and to judge humanity corporately. This book is not for the light-hearted. It is profound and deeply intellectual while at the same time subtle and emotionally challenging. One cannot read this book and not have some kind of emotional reaction to it. Upon my first read-through (this is a book that takes several reads to fully absorb all the nuances and insights), I was disturbed by its presentation. On the second read-through, I was amazed by the artistry of the picture painted by the words written. This novel will have a forceful impact upon the reader. You will come away fully embracing the writing or standing in judgement of the writer. There are no inbetween views. This novel takes the story of a young woman as she lives life in the midst of the Holocaust, and conveys the depravaties, the dehumanizing activities, the destructions that were exerted against humanity. A unique combination of massive war crimes and psycholanalysis makes this a book near impossible to put down. If you want a true challenge in your reading, if you want to be provoked out of your personal comfort zone, if you want something to deeply ponder, then look no further than The White Hotel. You'll go to that place and not return the same individual.

I enjoyed reading this book as a layperson, not having gone to medical school. I have a number of minor skin problems and this book allowed me to differentiate the insignificant ones from the ones I need to pay attention to. I think that this book should be in every household, because a person or parent should know what skin affliction(s) they have and how serious they are before they rush off to the doctor. One thing that should have been elaborated on more is the sub-section on The Nails as Clues to Multiorgan Disease. There are only a few pages of examples of this, yet there are dozens of correlations between abnormal fingernails and systemic disease. The book only gives blantant and graphic examples of serious nail problems and then gives the possible associated underlying disease. It should be expanded to include more "soft sign" nail problems to help doctors make educated guesses about what tests to run.

This is the best quick reference dermatology book available. It is concise and well organized. The pictures are excellent. There are great explanations, differential diagnosis, and treatments. This is an absolute necessity in every resident/medical student library.

I am Dr.Azeem Alam Khan,a consultant dermatologist from Pakistan.I have consulted this book alot while doing my M.Sc in clinical dermatology from St.John's Institute of Dermatology.It really helped me alot!.I find it an excellent book for undergraduate as well as postgraduate students.I shall be grateful If somebody can donate some of its copies for our hospital library.