This is an excellent review with chapters by leading researchers in the field at a critical turning point when the unintelligible jungle of the respiratory chain was beginning to become comprehensible due to resolution and reconstitution, the use of SDS-PAGE to characterize protein fractions, sequencing of the mitochondrial genome, and clever experiments based on Peter Mitchell's chemiosmotic hypothesis that demonstrated that the respiratory complexes thus resolved were in fact electron-transport-driven proton pumps.

Since the publication date is 1981, the book is mainly of historical interest now. It should be pointed out that contrary to the information at Amazon, the book had two editors, both of whom did a fine job: Vladimir Skulachev and Peter C. Hinkle.

Last night, as I was digging through the books and resources my children and I studied during our Great Egypt Semester, my 12 year old looked at our copy of Angela Wilkes' Deserts and said, "Dad, can you find any more fun stuff like that for our history?"
What a great little book, easily read by our then-first grader, enough full of fun facts to hold the attention-and seize the memory-of my older two a couple of years later.
This book (recommended to us in The Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Egypt), is chock full of fascinating pictures and facts about deserts around the world. In fact, Deserts helped us introduce a much-needed science component to our history study, since the history of Egypt was so influenced by its desert terrain.
I recommend this book heartily for any child who can read. If your child can't read yet, read it to them and then talk about it.

This is a great book not only for young people who want to learn about castles and the medieval lifestyle but also adults who are first learning about the period.

It's one thing to read text but it's even better to see pictures which bring it to life.

In this picture book, we get information about the people who live in a castle, its defenses, a medieval feast, a hunting party, preparation of a siege and then each step showing how the siege and battles take place.

Invigorating to read. Also, check out THE WORLD OF THE MEDIEVAL KNIGHT by Christopher Graven (another illustrated book).

My 8-year-old son and I both enjoyed this book. "Tiger Tales" presents a lot of information in text, drawings, photographs, and a map. And I learned something new, too. Do you and your children know why tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, and leopards have stripes or spots but lions and pumas do not? Well, if you don't know, this book is a good source for the answer!

My wife and I are both Sunday School teachers and have found the illustrations and side-bars very helpful. There is an amazing amount of additional information in this book about archeology and history. The bible truly comes alive.

We originally bought it as a book that our family could go through. It is such a helpful teaching tool that my wife and I use it exclusivley as a reference resource and have yet to get into it with our family. It is well worth the price.

As with all of the National Audubon Society's field guides, the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States" is a most worthwhile purchase, perfect as a gift or for your own collection. The guide is durable and very portable, which makes it well suited for use in the outdoors. More importantly, it has excellent content. Despite its small size, the field guide contains a wealth of information. In addition to the usual focus on flora and fauna species, there is information on constellations, parks, ecosystems, and more. While the depth and detail of the information in the various sections is not vast, the breadth of subject matter more than makes up for this; the information presented is ideal for a general field guide. Moreover, the book is beautiful, filled with gorgeous color photographs. Residents of the Rocky Mountain states and non-residents will both love it.

This book starts out in Idaho. It's about a woman named Sacagawea, who was taken away from her family. A few of her friends left her. The men who came for her called her bird woman.
Sacagawea got married when she was 15 and had a baby. She guided Lewis and Clark across the Western United States. They had to map it out for Thomas Jefferson after the Lousianna Purchase. It took a long time for them to travel to the Pacific and back. She was a huge help to them because she knew what food was safe to eat and what to use for injuries, and helped communicate to the Native Americans they encountered along the way. Lewis and Clark and her took a ship to find here family and they did. Lewis shot himself. Sacagawea died in1896. I think another title for this book should be The Life About Sacagawea. I think she should have lived longer. I will like to tell people to read this book because it's a great educational book. The best part was when she had her baby. The part that I didn't like was when she died. She is a true American heroine.

This is a beautifully presented book. My students like it enormously, because of the conversational style, the illustrations, and the overall readibility -and this is perhaps the highest aim a textbook can aspire to achieve.

However, I find that the authors have gone too far in their attempt to abridge and simplify their previous opus -Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBOC): some topics are insufficiently or superficially discussed. Also, the style is slightly verbose at times. Finally, I think that the book could benefit from some reorganization.

The following examples illustrate my point.

*Osmosis is given a very brief mention.(p 382).
*The repulsion for anything mathematic continues the tradition started by MBOC. The Nernst equation, is given just a little box in page 393. The Donnan effect doesn't even have a walk-on part.
*The discussion of action potential contains the usual story of the voltage gated K+ channels, when these channels are not found in myelinated mammalian neurons.
*Myelin itself is not even mentioned.
*The discussion on G protein-linked receptors -a key topic- is very superficial.
*Membrane potential is introduced in a rather convoluted fashion. Furthermore, the concept is used several times before it is finally explained.
*Certain sections may leave the reader confused. For example p53 is described as a gene regulatory protein which arrests the cycle when DNA damage occurs (p 580). But when tumor suppressor genes are discussed, only retinoblastoma is given as an example, which would tend to convey the mistaken idea that p53 is not a tumor suppressor gene.

I used this book as a studying supplement during the cell biology module of my first-year biology course. It explains key cell biology concepts clearly, thoroughly and concisely. The text is very well written and has wonderful photographs and diagrams throughout. Updated and recent biological and biomedical findings are used to further tie in the concepts of cell biology. Those that prefer a more detailed source of information should look to Molecular Biology of the Cell, but for beginners, Essential Cell Biology is an excellent place to start.

I read this book during the summer prior to me senior year in high school, and literally could not put it down. I read the whole work cover-to-cover in a week.

Going in, my background in biology was an introductory cell biology course and my background in chemistry was an introductory chemistry class. That I had little formal training in the sciences was irrelevant when reading this; it explains all the concepts so clearly that I think even a person with no background in science at all could understand it. The diagrams and photos are well-done and highly pertinent.

This is not to say that this book is only for non-scientists. Indeed, I even used knowledge gleaned from this fantastic book to teach my teachers a thing or two. Perhaps the section on muscle contraction is the best written of all - no other book I have ever seen comes close to this in clarity, and this section was one that I recommended to my Anatomy and Physiology teacher for clarification about a few concepts.

I am soon to be a sophomore in college, and this book continues to inspire me on my path to be a professor (I study chemistry with an emphasis on chemical biology). This book was invaluable even in a rigorous microbiology course, not to mention other introductory courses.

In summary, I rarely leave home for extended periods without this text (literally). If there is ONE BOOK that you should buy for studying cellular and molecular biology, let it be this one (or, if you are so inclined, its larger brother, Molecular Biology of the Cell).

The book allows us to witness World War II through the experiences of German soldiers and civilians. These first hand accounts are remarkable and somewhat chilling at the same time. For example, there are accounts that talk about the success of the German military in Europe, and accounts that describe the Russian front in great detail. I found the accounts on about the Russian front to be very disturbing. The soldiers suffered through many ordeals that its amazing they survived at all. Overall, this novel would be a welcome addition to anyone's library.

This was perhaps the best of Johannes Steinhoff's books, since it does not deal with his own stellar yet tragic WW II and post war career. The insights of the average person living in Germany are of great importance to both social and military historians alike. Steinhoff offered this collective testament as a warning to all of us regarding war and the rise of a dictator. As Johannes said in an interview, "It is always the civilians who suffer the most, yet are remembered the least."

This book is an excellent work that shows the German side of World War II. Through many accounts, the tome reveals slices of German life from the rise of Hitler to the toppling of the Reich. It shows that the German people, even during the monstrous horrors of the Holocaust, were still just people trying to survive. It is a fine work and is worthy to be included in any library.

This book is a good introductory field guide to the region. As expected from an Audobon Society book, the photographs are top-notch. Sections on topography, habitats, the night sky, and area parks and preserves are particularly helpful. The flora and fauna identification sections don't go into a lot of detail, but will allow you to identify most common plants and animals. I can see where this would be helpful to scouts and young adults in particular.

However, I was disappointed that the book wasn't a bit more comprehensive. Obviously, as a portable field guide, it can't cover every single species. But in our area (northern Virginia) we have so many more butterflies and other insects that this book simply does not include. In some cases, I had to refer to the Audobon Field Guide for *Florida* to find a particular species. And with crayfish all over the creekbeds of this area, their omission under the crustacean section just seems strange.

That said, I would still recommend this book as a basic field guide. It does provide good background information on the area, and the photos are spectacular. Just don't expect to identify everything you see with it -- you'll need to do further research on your own.

I bought this book to take on family hikes. Whether your interests are as general as that, or whether you are inclined toward serious plant/animal identification, this book should be helpful.

It is oriented toward quick identification. The pictures are clear, colorful, and though small, should enable many matches out in the field. Although the write-ups are brief, and don't go much further beyond identification and some basic facts like location, there are occasionally some additional helpful information. For example, the section on mushrooms clearly identifies which ones are poisonous and deadly poisonous.

The book has some additional chapters on parks in the region. It is well organized. I would imagine that for weekend walkers, this field guide might be the only one you'll ever need.

This series has answered a long outstanding need ... an one volume field guide that you can actually carry into the field. As a birder, I still carry a more detailed bird guide such as National Geographic or Peterson's. But I'm always running across a flower or tree or animal I'm curious about. This guide is the ideal second volume carry with you since it explains the the most common things you'll run across in areas other than your primary interest. Another valuable use is for leaders of youth groups, such as Scout leaders. As a Scout leader myself, I'm always being asked by the boys to help them identify a salamander or other animal. This guide allows you to do this in the field wihhout having to carry a whole library of field guides in your pack. In addition, by being regional guides they eliminate the things you won't find in an area, such as saguarro cactus in New Jersey. In sum, the appropriate book from this series is a good reference to carry with you as you explore the outdoors in your part of the USA.