Whatever the virtues of the American Continental Philosophy scene, the lords of SPEP and Perugia have also earned a deserved reputation for cliquishness and frequent self-promotion. When I first saw the announcement of this book, I was worried that it would provide just one more shameless platform for the canonization of second-rate thinkers. But in fact, the book left me with quite a positive impression.

Each of the 22 professors featured in the book is allotted 4-6 pages to tell us what they stand for as philosophers. Given this sort of brevity, none of those in the book can hide who they really are; their merits and vices come through in strikingly compact form.

Bernd Magnus uses his pages to present a Holcaust memoir that is among the most moving I have ever read. John Caputo gives an autobiographical account of his early religious interests that manages to be surprisingly modest. Thomas Flynn makes an equally modest statement about the past and future of Continental philosophy in the United States. Alphonso Lingis gets down to business in typical fashion, refusing to drop any names or preen any feathers in the mirror, giving us a genuinely philosophical argument in his ever-brilliant prose. There are other good chapters as well; these were my favorites.

Other chapters leave a mixed impression on the reader. Robert Bernasconi explains his recent interests with clarity and apparent sincerity, yet he is tellingly defensive concerning his limited publication record. Patrick Heelan meditates interestingly on the relation between science and philosophy, but his tone borders on abrasive in his attitude toward those philosophers who lack training in the hard sciences.

Ironically, the worst chapters are written largely by those who are currently the most fashionable and politically powerful of Continental thinkers. Charles Scott's section is a vague muddle of which little can be remembered 20 minutes after completing it. The essay by John Sallis is pointlessly entitled by means of an ancient alphabet (note: if the pre-Socratics were alive in America today, they would write in English and would regard Sallis' essay as sheer pedantry), and the content of his essay is correspondingly pretentious. David Krell reaches new depths of embarrassing literary behavior, while Hugh Silverman insults the reader's patience with an endless prose version of his curriculum vitae.

American Continental philosophy has had a troubling tendency to rest on whatever laurels it may have had rather than pushing forward into fresh domains of philosophical thought. By allowing us to take stock of what has and has not been accomplished by the SPEP/Perugia movement, Watson's book is a surprisingly potent contribution to its possible top-to-bottom rennovation.

"Portraits" does a nice job, but there are a few people mentioned that were left out, and others that should have been excluded. Krell and Caputo's essays are worth buying it alone, but they left out some pretty important people like Hubert Dreyfus, Hans Sluga, and Edward Zalta. Anyway, I liked the book and it shows that the American or "anglo-continental" scene is getting pretty big nowadays among the past 10 year generation of grad students. Sometimes a little arrogant, but I guess that's ok since their foes (the analytics) have that, and worse problems such as being obsessed with paradoxes, puzzles, and liberal philosophy.

One wonders why a man with such a splendid scientific intellect, generating analytical and critical thoughts when it comes to how nature works, can be so uncritical about himself. Indeed, GENES, GIRLS, AND GAMOW presents interesting cameos of the Who's Who of 20th Century science with whom Dr. James D. Watson spent some time. We are given a view filtered through his personality of how these people entertained themselves. It is somewhat written, however, like entries in a laboratory notebook.

Perhaps what Watson most candidly reveals about himself is why his life and, indeed, his public pronouncements were so punctuated with misogynisms. Man and boy, he was quite socially and sexually immature. He could get the double helix, but he had a lot of trouble getting the girl. Watson's search for the "perfect woman" is similarly grotesque. Life is short. How about a good companion who simply loves you, and you love her back, Dr. Watson?

I think that the cast of characters and author's candor in this book make it interesting and worthwhile reading. However, it ironically accomplishes in uncovering how someone who can't get the girl also doesn't want her in the laboratory. Thus it reveals that just like the notion of a "perfect woman" is a grand illusion so is the idea of a perfect scientist.

James D. Watson produced a delightful and frequently hilarious book, _The Double Helix_, his 1968 account of how he and Francis Crick and their fellow researchers managed to jimmy molecular models into just the right positions to reveal the structure of the huge molecule DNA. It was one of the greatest discoveries science had ever made, announced in 1953 and gaining the Nobel Prize in 1962. Watson's book wonderfully well recounts the race to get the structure down, and it was a classic scientific memoir exciting enough to make it a best seller. Watson was only 25 years old when DNA was cracked, and besides biochemistry, he had other things on his mind. Girls. Thus he has produced _Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix_ (Knopf) to tell what happened to him after his epochal success. "I felt the need to have more than the double helix below my belt before winning the prize. I did not want to be overpraised for what was not very difficult science." That sort of modesty pervades his book.

Although genes get the first mention in the title, and there is plenty of science here, the chief part of the memoir is devoted to "girls," always on Watson's mind. It is amusing that a scientist who will be remembered forever for his monumental discovery often sounds like a confused loveless teenager seeking female solace. He frets when a girlfriend doesn't write, for instance, and stumbles in sexual endeavors. The final part of the title refers to George Gamow, an amazing physicist who pops up all over American science in the forties and fifties. His heavy drinking ("his idea of a tall drink was a tall glass completely filled with whiskey") and uproarious pranks made him disliked by many in the staid science world, but Watson reflects, "His role was to have a good time no matter the consequences to the ethos of science." Pranks were not only Gamow's stock in trade; the book is surprisingly full of them, perpetuated sometimes in official journals, sometimes by Watson, sometimes against Watson. He writes about the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, "I deeply offended several old-timers by giving lectures in unlaced tennis shoes and wearing my floppy hat at night as well as during the day. My water pistol was also judged inappropriate, even though I generally restricted its aim to a pretty girl from the South taking invertebrate lab work too seriously."

It is great fun to see giants of science, like Feynman, Crick, and Delbruck, wander through these pages, usually in informal style. It is also interesting to see the international nature of serious scientific effort, with competition that is generally friendly. Watson is a breezy writer; the events described here, especially the details of his personal life, have none of the importance of the discovery of the double helix, and his amused and tolerant attitude comes forth on each page. It is a fond look back at a happy, busy life.

I was a research fellow in CalTech's Kerckhoff Laboratories of Biology when Jim Watson arrived in the autumn of 1953 to join us as a research fellow. Everyone was curious about the person who had come from nowhere to make, along with Francis Crick, one of the great discoveries of the twentieth century. I found him to be very bright, friendly, and bubbling with ideas. Genes, Girls, and Gamow describes the ferment in biology at that time, and his attempts to apply intuition to the problem of how information in DNA translates into proteins. But much of the book is a candid account of his search for the perfect girl to marry. We go through his attempts to woo a string of CalTech girls - all failures. I once suggested to a pretty, intelligent lab assistant that he would be a good catch, since he was sure to get a Nobel prize. She gave me a look that would have frozen melted steel, so I kept silent after that. The account of his pursuit of undergraduate student Christa Mayr is almost painful to read, since he loves her, but she is only lukewarm. It all comes out well, however, when he finally finds the girl of his deams. The third part of the book's title, the physicist George Gamow, flits in and out of the story in the same way that he would appear at CalTech and then disappear. The book reminds me a bit of The Diary of Samuel Pepys, since we read where Watson went, with whom, and what they discussed. If you would like to read an insider story of the way that much of our current biology developed explosively in the 1950's, this story gives you a month by month diary. Jim Watson's candor makes it fascinating reading.

This was my assigned text for GCSE English Literarute some years ago. The writing is far from flowing, the dialogue between characters unrealistic and annoying, and the storyline clumbsy and seemingly not well thought out. It was hard work and frustrating reading this book and I surely wouldn't have had I not had an exam on it.

Full credit to James Watson for the work and effort he is putting in for those he portrays in his book, but there are surely better ways of putting this message across.

Maybe if you live in the UK, this book doesn't do it for you. But from New York, New York, this book is a great read. It was assigned reading for my Ninth Grade Honors Global Studies Class, but I have read it since then because it is so good. It brings up a topic most ninth graders don't lose sleep over: human rights and dictators. It so interested me in these issues that in my senior year of high school, I constructed a 17 page thesis paper on the historical climate of Chile in the time this book was written about. Interesting and thought provoking, a great introduction into new ideas for young adults.

Talking in Whispers was a great book which brought up the topics of Dictatorship and Communism. Andres Larreta was a young boy who played music in a band. His father was taken away by the Junta because of the songs that he wrote. Andres meets up with Two others, Isa and Beto. They escape the Junta and take refuge in a mill. In Chile the government acted as a dictator and many innocent people were killed. When Andres is handed a Camera from an American Reporter, he obtains the means to bring about the downfall of the Chilean government-the Junta. Isa, Beto and Andres start to speak up for what they believe. Andres is subjected to violence and torture but keeps the information a secret. I think that the title 'Talking in Whispers' is very apropriate and is mentioned in the book quite a few times. I think that it means that the people in the story have to keep their opinions to themselves and have to watch what they say. On the whole this book is excellent and I would suggest that anyone read it.

'Point Man' writes from experience. Although this is 'fiction', he has 'been there, done that' and knows what he's talking about. Might be a little confusing, but so is combat, esp. close quarters combat! There are many authors who claim to write 'true' books, but how many do you know who write 'fiction' that's from REAL EXPERIENCE? Good reading...ENJOY! Also, check out his Non-Fiction books! "Point Man" & "Walking Point" to read the true stories!

It doesn't even acknowledge derivatives and thus limits or integration, the basis of calculus!

I was not too thrilled with this book. If you're into memorizing math, then it's great. If you want to know WHY things are the way they are, you'll end up relying more on other textbooks, which is what I did in the end. I used it for a college undergrad course.

For me math has always been my best subject but since using this book in my precalculus class i have become more confused than ever. in my last math class i recieved a 3.9, in my precalculus class i have a 1.8. just thought i'd let everyone know that i have had trouble with the text of this book.

I read all three books and they are out of sinc, book one should be book 2 or maybe 3 it is hard to tell in any case they are really hard to read in any kind of order, the main seal is to hard to believe and it really borders on bordom and same thing over and over.

I've read quite a few spec ops books; fiction, historical, good, bad...and this book falls in the "eh" catageroy. It was mildly entertaining, the characters were mildly believable, and the story was predictable at best. Thankfully, the monotany of the pedestrian plot was boken up by action sequences and jungle tracking/stalking scenes. But even those were defeated by the fact that you *knew* that they would always make it out safe or find their man. if you have nothing better to do pick up this book. You might like it you might not. enjoy.