Very few surgical fields demand a complete and comprehensive knowledge of the entire human body. Plastics and reconstructive surgery is right up there when it comes to that. A successful Plastic surgeon incorporates knowledge of Gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, tissue physiology, physiology of the patient itself and the innate aesthetic sense to recreate from tissue and prosthesis alike.

Grabb and Smith's text offers a comprehensive and engaging review of the essential aspects of Plastic surgery. Each Chapter starts with a review of clinical anatomy and leads on to Clinical aspects of diease. Historically important surgical approaches as well as current techniques are discussed. Disease classification is also described in excellent details through the use of tables.

I do firmly believe that this book is a worthwhile investment of time and money.

When I received the Book with Cd I thought that Cd will contain some interactive materials or MCQ self test kind. To find the CD as exact version of the book makes me wonder whats the idea behind.

clear examples, well explained, a helpful textbook

I read this book as part of a systems engineering introductory course. I found it to be very helpful and easy to understand. The book is well organized, and the contents of the various chapters flow together smoothly. One critique is that this book would have benefited from a greater variety of practical examples. Instead it continually used a motor model. While this example was very usefull, I would have liked to have seen some other examples. Overall, a solid text.

The best thing about this book is the way the author lays out the examples. Every step and calculation is explained in a very easy to understand format without taking up too many pages. If you want to learn how to do ANOVA tables this is the book to get.

Even for a non-believer, like myself, a very interesting book of the Bible. Indeed whether or not you are a Christian, surely the King James version of the Bible must rank as one of the glories of English literature.

I was struck when reading the Book of Job about how much I empathised with Job throughout - he gets a very rough deal. A good man, he is basically beset by trials and misfortunes at the hand of God all because Satan contends with God that Job's is a fair-weather faith.

Thereafter, Job bemoans his lot, despite the efforts of four of his friends to convince him that he should accept his misfortunes (for various unconvincing reasons). This goes to the root of a fundamental question of faith - how can we accept the existence of a benevolent deity when our own and others' existence is beset with woes, and when there is so much (unpunished) injustice in the world?

Part of the answer is belief in redress in the next world. The main counter-argument in the Book of Job, however, seems to be that we cannot possibly appreciate God's reasons for doing things - we are not capable of that. Therefore the answer is a stoical acceptance of our lot and faith that God is, overall, doing things for a good reason. This leap of faith is too much for many (see Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus" for a critique).

In the Book of Job, God does not answer Job's lamentations at all well. Rather, in a bombastic passage at the end, He boasts about his achievements rather than addressing the philosophical problem - His argument is funadamentally that might equals right.

Fascinating.

A pious study and difficult for the modern reader, but it gives the most spiritual interpretation of any commentary, a pity he did not write on the second half of Revelation. Not a light read but worth a serious study.

Men Against the Sea is the second book in the Bounty Trilogy. Mutiny on the Bounty recounts the tale of the voyage of the H.M.S. Bounty from England to Tahiti and a little way back, the mutiny, and the subsequent events that affect those of the Bounty's crew who remain on Tahiti. When last seen in that book, Captain William Bligh is cast adrift far from land in a small vessel overladen with 18 other loyal men and about 7 to 8 inches of freeboard above a flat sea. Practically speaking, their chances are slim.

Men Against the Sea begins with the mutiny and describes what happens to Captain Bligh and those he commands as they make their way eventually to the Dutch East Indies. Along the way, Captain Bligh and his men traverse around 3,600 miles in their fragile vessel while suffering many horrors including attacks from the native people, lack of sleep, storms, bailing for their lives, cold, thirst, too much sun, and hunger. The authors make a good decision in choosing to have the ship's surgeon serve as the narrator of this saga. This perspective made it possible for the book to include his physical descriptions of the deprivations of the Bounty's abandoned crew to help make the story more compelling. In the true spirit of a story about English tars, there is a considerable discussion of how the starvation the men experienced affected their intestinal tracts.

Captain Bligh comes across very poorly in Mutiny on the Bounty. The opposite occurs in Men Against the Sea. His leadership is one of the great accomplishments of seamanship of all time.

But the men are only human after all. Someone steals two pounds of pork. Another shipmate sent to capture birds is overcome by the need to eat them, and spoils the hunting for everyone. In their weakened state, they miss many wonderful chances for food. When they reach civilization and begin to recover from their privations, complaining quickly returns.

My test of how well written such an adventure tale is that I often felt like I was in the boat struggling with them. The main weakness of the book is that it skips many days on end, when the circumstances were at their most dire such as during unending days of storms. By doing this, the reader is denied the chance to have the full horror of the crossing bear down more strongly.

Most of the weaknesses of Mutiny on the Bounty are overcome in Men Against the Sea. So if you found that work unappealing, give this one a chance. It has many of the qualities of great survival and adventure books.

After you finish this remarkable tale, I suggest you think about the ways that adversity brings out the best in you. How can you do as well when times and circumstance are not adverse?

Squarely face the challenge, with confidence that success will follow!

Before reviewing Pitcairn's Island, let me note that it contains explicit scenes of violence that would cause this book to exceed an R rating if it were a motion picture. These scenes are very effective in enhancing the emotional power of the story, but certainly exceed what had to be portrayed.

Pitcairn's Island is by far the best of the three novels in The Bounty Trilogy. While the first two books seem like somewhat disconnected pieces of the whole story of the events leading up to and following the mutiny on H.M.S. Bounty, Pitcairn's Island stands alone as a worthy story. In its rich development of what happened to nine of the mutineers and those Polynesians who joined them, this book ranks as one of the great adventure and morality tales of all time.

The story picks up with the H.M.S. Bounty under sail in poorly charted seas, commanded by Fletcher Christian and looking for Pitcairn's Island. On the ship are 27 adults (9 British mutineers, 12 Polynesian women, and 6 Polynesian men). Everyone is a little edgy because Pitcairn's Island is not where the charts show it to be. After much stress, Pitcairn's Island is finally sighted. Then, it becomes apparent that the Bounty cannot be kept safely there in the long run because of the poor mooring conditions. If they commit to Pitcairn's Island, there will be no leaving it. What to do?

The novel follows up on what happens in the 19 years following that fateful decision. The key themes revolve around the minimum requirements of a just society, differences between the two cultures of British and Polynesians, the varying perceptions and expectations of men and women, and the impact of immorality on the health of a society. Anyone who has enjoyed Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, or The Lord of the Flies will find this novel vastly appealing. Here, part of the fascination is that real-life events are being described.

The decision to turn this into a novel is a good one. The accounts of what occurred vary, and cannot be totally reconciled. So no one can really know what happened, other than it was dramatic. Towards the end of the book, the narration becomes that of one character, and the use of that character's language, perspective, background is powerful in making the novel seem more realistic and compelling.

This is a story where the less you know when you begin, the more you will enjoy the story. To increase your potential reading pleasure, I will say no more.

After you finish reading the book, I suggest that you take each of the characters and imagine how you could have improved matters for all by speaking and behaving differently then that character did. Then, think about your own family, and apply the same thought process. Next, make a change!

Think through the long-term consequences of your potential actions very carefully when many others will be affected!

The book is divided into daily devotions for each day of the four weeks of Advent. Each day has a passage from the Bible already included. The devotions for Sunday inculde songs, prayers, a family activity, a passage from the Bible, and a short story written by one of the contributing authors. We have used the book in our family for a few years. It helps to bring the true meaning of Christmas alive for children. I would recommend the book especially for families with children who are 5 years of age and older.

The price is a bit dear but worth it for those interested in pre war gay Britain. Gives insights into a very Edwardian gay couple and as a bonus lots of info about gay men in Britain and where and how they connected in the years before World War 2. I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend it.

A Different Kind of Victory is - as far as I have been able to ascertain - the only biography of ADM Hart, CinC Asiatic Fleet at the start of WWII. Kept on past retirement age because of the high regard he was held in, he was then brusquely relieved of command when it became clear his task was impossible. The desire to not have an American associated with another defeat so closely following Pearl Harbor led Washington to consent to his replacement as ABDA naval commander by a Dutch admiral, who then threw away all of Hart's remaining forces. Based heaavily on Hart's own monumental diaries, author Leutze manages to salvage Hart's reputation, which had been damaged by politicians and rival US commanders like MacArthur. If any criticism of Leutze can be made, it is that his study is too reliant on Hart's diaries. That does not detract from the achievment the author has made, contributing a well-written study of one of WWII's most misunderstood and maligned naval officers.

A CD-Rom jammed with articles from EXECUTIVE EXCELLENCE. I actually got my copy as a bonus for subscribing a couple of years ago. Many of the articles are interesting, but they are all quite short, almost MTV-ish. This seems to be the preferred style for this publication. If you are a fan of Warren Bennis, or one of the writers who regularly contribute to that publication, this is a good way to pick up some new material from your favored writer. The articles are on a variety of topics, which means that there will probably be something for everyone with an interest in this subject, but by the same token, there will be a lot that won't interest you. The CD includes a search engine that is workable. I benefitted from the magazine and the CD, but they didn't set my world on fire.