This is a great book for optometry students, and optometrists alike! If you've got any questions about the peculiar disease of glaucoma, read this book. Not only does it explain diagnosis of the many forms of the disease, but has an in depth section that explains pharmacological management as well as surgical management. The discussions are fairly up to date, and easy to follow. The text does a good job at integrating as much new information and research as possible. There are some editing errors, but hey we're not all perfect!

This is an excellent book which systematically reviews Lewis's reading and his reaction to different types of literature. This book provides a thorough background in Lewis's reading and thinking patterns. This is a must for anyone serious about Lewis!

"The Shenandoah in Flames," which looks at Phil Sheridan's Valley Campaign of 1864 makes a nice counterpart to "Decoying the Yanks," the earlier volume in the Time-Life Civil War series covering Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Jackson pops up in the opening pictorial essay that talks about the Virginia Military Institute, where Jackson was an instructor. "The Valley Imperiled" tells how General Grant decided to move Union forces into the Shenandoah Valley in 1864 to force the Confederates to defend the state's richest farmland. Unfortunately, the commander of the Union forces, Major General Franz Sigel, who had risen to his rank because of politics rather than ability, and who was beaten by Gen. John C. Breckenridge's forces at the Battle of New Market. "'Black Dave's' Orgy of Fire" details the efforts of Sigel's replacement, Major General David Hunter, who had to abandon his attack on Lynchburg and almost lost the Union's hold the Valley. "To the Gates of Washington" finds Confederate commander Jubal Early try to put pressure on the Union capital after forcing Lew Wallace's outnumbered troops to retreat from their defensive position behind the Monocacy River. "I Want Sheridan" obviously tells how Grant finally found the right man for the job, placing the commander of the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry Corps, Major General Philip Sheridan, in command of the four departments in the area. Sheridan proved his worth at the battle of Winchester. "Showdown at Cedar Creek" provides the historical context for the cover picture of Sheridan on his great horse Renzi rallying his troops after a surprise Confederate counterattack, which ended up being the last gasp of the Rebels in the Valley Campaign. When I was young I read a book called "Blow, Bugle, Blow," which told the story of a young Union shoulder who took part in Sheridan's Valley Campaign, so I especially enjoyed reading the "true story" of that event. The back of this volume has a fascinating set of contemporary artwork by James E. Taylor, a artist-correspondent for "Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper." These are reproduced with the original blue tinting, accompanied by Taylor's narrative of the Cedar Creek battle. Like all of the Time-Life Civil War volumes this won is illustrated from start to finish with historic paintings, etchings, and drawings as well as maps of the pivotal battles. I have had this series for years and I still enjoying looking through these volumes from time to time. The episodic approach, where a volume can focus on a particular campaign or battle like this, can be quite effective.

A very comprehensive book; everything from dog behavior in the wild, to your pet's behavior, to how to take care and train your pet. I own 2 dogs and have obedience trained them and this book was correct on so many points that are so important to a successful pet/owner relationship. Wonderful photos and captions emphasize all the learning points. I especially liked the Dog Care section that showed basic health care for your dog. Overall a wonderful and broad range of topics that helped me understand my dogs even more.

This is a wonderful coffee table book. It gives you a comprehensive look a wide variety of animals from many different habitats including forests, mountains, plains, deserts, ponds, rivers, seas & the arctic.

An adorable baby bears climb a tree. A porcupine mother kisses her child & a mother blue jay lovingly feeds her young. You get a close-up look at an owl stretching its wings & a glimpse of a cougar in mid-air ready to pounce.

Sun-dappled dolphins are seen diving in the sea & a large group of walruses are shown wading to shore. There is even an amusing photo of a polar bear resting on its back. Over 100 species are pictured in all.

The finest work of 19 photographers spans the continent. The captions are detailed and informative and there is additional text in each section going into further detail on a few of the animals featured.

A theory of everything book begins with the big bang and concludes either with modern humanity or our someday-to-be colonization of the stars. This offering by the mother/son team of Margulis and Sagan is now 16 years old and a bit ragged around the edges, but still an informative read. Margulis' claim to fame is the symbiosis theory now standard fare in college biology texts. It states that mitochondria and chloroplasts were once free living bacteria that became trapped in other bacteria, giving rise to eukaryotic cells. Margulis also hypothesizes that flagella were once free living spirochetes. Her emphasis on nonhuman life (mostly prokaryotic) as the dominant biological mover is refreshing and she takes us on a virtual tour of the inception of life on this planet, accompanied by a nifty geological time chart, through to some pretty farout scenarios of how life might escape our one day to be dead sun. She goes as far as to posit Homo photosyntheticus, or plant people, who have chloroplasts in their skin and eat light.

Most of us think of evolution as darwinian survival of the fittest, with cheetahs and gazelles in a competitive arms race for survival. This book more accurately portrays selective mechanisms as predominately cooperative and microbially based. Certainly we would not be here to contemplate at all were it not for our ancestor bacteria, and this mocrobial history is written into our very genome. Approximately 5 % of our genome is putatively defunct viruses for example.

Chapter 2 is a pretty good synopsis of prebiotic chemistry. Chapter 4 gives a good definition on the disparateness between sex and reproduction. Chapter 5 shows how bacteria are essentially one ubiquitous species that casually transfer genes horizontally. Chapter 10 gives a great account of meiosis and mitosis and their permutations in the two biological domains, as well as fairly debunking the notion that the value of sex is its superior ability to offer genetic variability over fissioning prokaryotes. In Chaper 11 she gives a good account of how plants and animals (veritable colonies of bacteria) came to colonize the land on earth. Humans enter the scene in chapter 12 via neotony. The last chapter, chapter 13, goes out on a variety of speculative limbs in conclusion.

While this book contains its share of factual errors, probably due to its age, its a well crafted popsci book that makes geotemporal biology accessible to the lay reader.

If you're one of those who has felt worried that the earth might not survive what we're doing to it, then worry no longer! We, as a species which has brought 'wholesale ecological carnage' to the planet may not survive, but the earth surely will! What soon emerges from this insightful book is that humankind is a relatively young species, still 'vulnerable, error-prone.' Humans are not seen as the dominant species - the pinnacle of evolution - but as one of the still immature species. The real players are the species that have been here the longest, the bacteria. 'Even nuclear war would not be total apocalypse, since the hardy bacteria underlying life on the planetary scale would doubtless survive it.'

Margulis and Sagan relegate Darwin to a secondary place within the order of things: the most powerful and important changes in evolution happen not through mutation - as Darwin would have it - but through symbiosis, '...the merging of organisms into new collectives, proves to be a major power of change on Earth.' In particular oxygen-breathing bacteria merged with other organisms to enable oxygen-based life on the once alien surface of this hydrogen filled planet. 'The symbiotic process goes on unceasingly.' 'Fully ten percent of our own dry body weight consists of bacteria - some of which.... we cannot live without.' That's an estimation of ten thousand billion bacteria each!

Imagine a droplet of water with a membrane holding the water in place and allowing certain nutrients in. This is a simplified description of how it is imagined the first becteria came into being. The book offers a fascinating history of the evolution of life on our planet. This is a wonderful story full of fantastic developments spanning thousands of millions of years. Every now and then we are reminded by the authors that none of it could have taken place or could be happening now were it not for the metabolic abilities of bacteria. It gives a really eye-opening account of bacterial sex with the insight that all bacteria, all over the planet, are really part of one organism because they are all able to exchange genetic information. For instance it's thought that bacteria obtained their now well-known resistence to penicillen from their bacterial cousins in the soil. But also, you begin to get the impression that perhaps it's the bacteria which have used every means possible and are now using us too to spread onto the land and all over the planet and beyond from their original wet home in the ocean. Humans are defintely relegated to a secondary place within something much, much bigger that is (consciously?) evolving.

This is a fascinating book which has radically changed the way I perceive life and the universe. I read it with great excitement and completed it with a new awe for those minute beings, the bacteria, which have, until now, had a very bad press. The best non-fiction book I've read this year.

This is an outstanding and very readable book on the world of microbes. Beautifully written and filled with insights, it should be required reading for biology students. I couldn't put it down and I hated biology in high school! I takes you from the beginnings of our planet to the present time, showing the reader the crucial role of microbes in the creation and maintenance of all life. This book will also be of interest to any serious student of the Gaia hypothesis. Read it and you will never think of cells, bacteria and viruses the same way again. You will come away with a humbling and enlightened view on man's place in a world created, dominated, and maintained by microbes.

For those of you who don't know, Lyn Margulis is the ex wife of the late Carl Sagan (prior to Ayn Druian) and Ms. Margulis is Dorian Sagan's mother.Together, they make an excellent writing team.

... Most Americans believe that people should grow up to be autonomous individuals through the sustained exercise of personal will and effort. "A General Theory of Love" is an un-American book.

Lewis, Amini, and Lannon, all psychiatrists, argue that we develop confidence, happiness, and feelings of independent competence only through ongoing dependencies within intimate human relationships. True maturity is achieved not by scorning dependency but by continually satisfying our need for it throughout our lives.

Of course, op-ed writers tell us that children need time with attentive relatives instead of with TVs and computers, and psychologists commenting on recent school shootings theorize that teenagers with violent tendencies lack strong, healthy bonds with their families. "A General Theory of Love" takes such ideas further and grounds them in brain research made possible by new technologies.

Recent research into the physiology of the limbic brain is especially revealing, says the book. Scientists once believed that this part of the brain only coordinated sensations from the external world and internal organs. But recent brain-wave experiments show that experience lays down patterns in the limbic brain which regulate our emotions, and that these patterns change and grow throughout our lives.

Thus our nervous systems are not autonomous or self-contained, but continually rewired by intimacy with others. No wonder two lovers feel like one person: their closeness forms new psychic patterns in both. No wonder psychotherapy takes time: we heal by connecting with healthy therapists long enough for our minds to become more like theirs.

This persuasive, moving book is wise about the heart as well as the nervous system. But the writing can be exasperatingly verbose. Sometimes Lewis whips a sentence to a froth as if hoping the jargon will vanish among the bubbles; sometimes he just seems anxious to impress. If he listened to his prose as attentively as he listens to his clients, he'd create stronger, healthier bonds with his readers, but despite the book's overwrought style its fascinating content makes it well worth reading.

Exposed as children to imperfect relationships, many of us slip into the same stale and ineffectual patterns as adults, inexplicably falling for those who will hurt us, driving away those who don't, or habitually avoiding the intimacy that we need. No matter how senseless our behavior seems, we stick to the formula, married to conscripts of love that--time and time again--leave us broken-hearted.

Enter this sizzling new book called "A General Theory of Love," which--with unsurpassed eloquence--explains why love confounds us and why it is finally within our grasp. The authors--Drs. Lewis, Amini, and Lannon--are practicing psychiatrists from the University of California. Melding cutting-edge neuroscience with real human experience, they make a sober but uplifting case for the elemental tie between love, health, and happiness. Their argument will grab you by the seat of your pants. It is grounded in fact but spelled out in lovely prose with compelling allusions to history and literature. Believe me, this unusual work is a far cry from the stagnant drivel of many scientific journals (and some evolutionary biologists). Nor is it anything like a typical self-help book. It is a lifeline, masterfully woven from the hefty secrets unveiled within its pages.

To a few, love may come easily. For the rest of us, "A General Theory of Love" is indispensable reading. Why wait?

This thoughtful, sensitive book accomplishes the impossible; itcombines lyricism with science to help a lay person like myselfunderstand the biological basis of the human psyche. The authors make complex neuroscience accessible. The book explains what we intuitively know: attachment and human bonds are critical to happiness.

I'd compare this book to the works of Carl Rogers, Arthur Sullivan, and Rollo May, for its new approach to the science of the psyche. I'm sure some of the authors' conclusions will be controversial, but that just makes the book more exciting. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in exploring the scientific basis of love. It's no accident that this book was released just before Valentine's day.

Like other Ambrose books that I have read, Undaunted Courage is well written and researched. It tells the tell of Lewis and Clarks' great adventure across the USA. I have not read much of anything about this epic adventure before finishing this book, so I expected to learn a lot from one of America's best historians- I was not disappointed.

You get some great insight into what America was like in the early 1800s. America was full of great promise (the pioneer spirit, the land of opportunity, etc), but we also faced some serious problems (treatment of blacks, indians, woman, etc). One of the great ironies of the book is that some of the people who help Lewis and Clark to fulfill their mission, are treated the worst by the pair. Makes you wonder how such highly educated men (to include President Jefferson) could be so wrong about certain things, yet inspire others to accomplish great deeds.

Ambrose is a great storyteller, one of the best. His passion runs deep for this subject, so he gets long winded (as many other reviewers have noted) at times in the narrative. I think that is my main complaint about the book. Ambrose takes forever to get the explorers across the country, but returns them in a whirlwind. The book would have been better served if Ambrose took a more balanced approach to the expeditions timeline, giving equal weight to both parts of the trip.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the cross-country adventure of Lewis and Clark. If you are ignorant about the subject, like I was (I thought it was just the pair with their female indian guide for most the trip), you will gain greater insight into one of America's truly historic events. Lastly, this book will make you appreciate many of the advancements we have made since then (i.e- transportation and communication systems), although it may also make you want to spend more time enjoying the wonderful outdoor parks of America.

This book is inimitable Stephen Ambrose. Like all of his books, he turned this book of history into his story --- a nonfiction adventure story. Stephen E. Ambrose actually evolved into what can be called a nonfiction novelist. Starting with historical facts, he blended-in a judicious amount of hyperbole, added a pinch of sensationalism, and came up with a new metamorphosis called creative history that was very successful at holding a reader's attention. There are now other authors (including yours truly) who do the same, but, Ambrose was the first and the best. "Undaunted Courage" is yet another book in a long line of his books that shows he knew how to inform by perfecting the knack of making history interesting. He shall be missed.

The previous review is right on the mark, so I won't rehash all of the points already made. This is the first Stephen Ambrose book I've read and it won't be the last.

Of course, this book details the historic journey of Lewis and Clark. I found the text beautifully written and appreciated the great lengths the author went to in order to report the events of the expedition honestly and accurately. Ambrose does an amazing job of recognizing and answering questions that lay people might think of in contemplating what America was like in the 1800s. The extraordinary effort and planning required to make a journey into the unknown wilderness, across the continent is completely dissected and wonderfully revealed in this extremely readable book.

Strangely, considering the subject matter, this book is truly rivetting and every page is filled with excitement! I found it hard to put down. I strongly recommend it to everyone and anyone!

I stay away from books with the pharse "learn XXXX in XX days" in the title as if they are the plague. And I have always been a little leary of books with the word "Introduction" in the title.

I read this book on the recommendation of a friend, and former collegue, to determine if it was an appropriate publication to get about 6 of our begining VB programers, ex fox pro guys, up to speed on COM.

This book not only met my criteria for this application but I found myself continually shaking my head in agreement with the author while I read the book. His methodologies are VERY sound and his approach to teaching COM is EXTREMELY easy to follow. Also, the author's writing style is very easy to read. This is NOT a 2 asprin per chapter book and I read it in about 4 days.

This book is a PRICELESS tool to get begining and seasoned VB programmers up to speed in COM. I promise you that you will be able to converse intelligently about COM in a week.

Mr.Lewis... I owe you a cold one!

Steve

PS. My only minor qualm with the book would be the step by step screen shots. However, for the intended audience of this book, I can see how they would be helpful.

Every VB programmer needs to understand COM, and VB Com by Thomas Lewis teaches you just that. It starts off with an introduction to what COM is, and its history. Subsequent chapters go in depth in COM components, such as Automation, ActiveX EXEs and DLLs, and ActiveX Controls. These chapters are very detailed and have several examples for each type of COM component. The DCOM chapter is especially interesting. It is one of few books that describe DCOM and its architecture, along with how to create VB applications that utilize DCOM.

The number of pages is relatively small when compared to other Visual Basic books. Nonetheless, all 320 pages are choke-full of information, without all the jargon. I don't recommend this book for the beginner programmer. It is more for the intermediate to advanced programmer. Thomas Lewis's writing style is casual, which makes it easy to read and understand.

Overall, it is the best book for learning COM with Visual Basic.

VBCOM by Thomas Lewis provides an excellent insight to the how VB programmers can use the power of Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) to develop robust components for todays distributed applications.

This book is really aimed at beginners/inexperienced programmers who are just starting out with VB, but is also very useful to experianced programmers like me who just want to know more about COM, as it provides information and documentation that just can not be found in the VB on-line help.

The book gives the reader an excellent introduction to COM, and then goes on to discuss DCOM, ActiveX control and MTS development, giving tips on how these technologoies are best used. The book also has a good chapter on the future of COM, otherwise known as COM+ & DNA (Distributed interNet Architecture), so you also get an insight into Windows 2000, and Microsofts visions for the future of distributed component development.

By the end of the book you will appreciate how important a good understanding of COM is for really successful VB development, and how COM is actually very simple yet so powerful once you understand the basic concepts such as components, interfaces & coclasses.

Looking forward to the next book in the series.

Rich. VB/C++ Programmer.

I'm a senior in high school and am taking an enriched novels course. My teacher somehow discovered this book and tried to get us excited to read it by lauding all the sex and incest contained within. Well, there hasn't been much sex, and what little there is is described as "giving into passions" and other flowery phrases. My teacher would have made me more excited to read the book if she hadn't lauded the incest as much as simply telling me that it contains three main plots, all richly described and woven together, and that it doesn't feel nearly as old as it is (it was written in the 1700s). There's Ambrosio, the monk who falls in love with a cross-dressing novice monk, there's Agnes the nun who has fallen in love with a man (who in turn was almost killed at a bandit's cottage in the woods) and wants to escape the convent, and there's Lorenzo the cavalier who meets a young woman named Antonia. The author was ahead of his time, because the fairytale-like story is much more captivating than any other old, old novel I've ever read. It's an easy read, but swell nonetheless.

Matthew Lewis wrote "The Monk" in ten short weeks at the age of nineteen. Immediately the subject of controversy upon its publication in 1796, Lewis was prosecuted and subsequent editions of the book were heavily censored. Coleridge described it as blasphemous, "a romance, which if a parent saw it in the hands of a son or daughter, he might reasonably turn pale." Yet, "The Monk" was so popular that its author became a minor celebrity-coming to be known as "Monk" Lewis--and Sir Walter Scott prounounced that "it seemed to create an epoch in our literature." And whether "The Monk" truly created an epoch in English literature, or merely marked the early apogee of a genre, it stands as a stunning example of the Gothic novel.

"The Monk" tells the story of Ambrosio, the ostensibly pious and deeply revered Abbot of the Capuchin monastery in Madrid, and his dark fall from grace. It is a novel which unravels, at times, like the "Arabian Nights", stories within stories, a series of digressions, the plot driven by love and lust, temptations and spectres, and, ultimately, rape, murder and incest. It is sharply anti-Catholic, if not anti-clerical, in tone, Ambrosio and most of its other religious characters being profane, murderous, self-centered hypocrites cloaked in displays of public piety. And while it sometimes seems critical of superstition, "The Monk" is replete with Mephistophelian bargains, supernatural events, appartions, and spectres, as well as entombment and dark forebodings of mystery and evil. It is, in short, a stunningly entertaining, albeit typically heavy-handed, Gothic novel, perhaps the ultimate classic of the genre.

Lewis' The Monk is a winding Gothic tale of love, revenge, secrets, blood, the Inquisition, and pain. It discusses the fall of virgins, the wisdom of fools, and the death of good nuns, all centered around the evil of one man, Ambrosius or the Monk. Ambrosius is obsessed with his own supposed goodness and too proud of his reputation for virtue and glory in the eyes of Madrid. The clergyman has never before been tempted, and therfore never been tried, until he falls into a dark love for an unmolested virgin, Antonia. There are enough side plots and characters to complicate the story nicely without overburdening the plot.

Preserving typical Gothic elements, such as ghosts, murder, bleeding nuns, corrupt churchmen, and illegitimate children, the plot stays interesting even when a bit predictable, and it is understandable why Matthew Lewis came to be called "Monk" Lewis when this book was published c.1800. Like Shakespeare's Lear, when you think it can't get any more depressing, it does, and then it does again. A reflection of the human soul in all its glory and debasement, The Monk also manages to be entertaining and fun.