I must confess it is over a year since I read this book but it has to be one of the best I've read in several years. Its ability to give an insight or recount an incident helps us look not only at the world in a new light, but also the people who brought about the advances.

The range of history and the range of topics is very wide and it should appeal to anyone with an enquiring mind, whether or not they have a science background. I would strongly recommend it and have already lent my copy to several people

"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe," wrote Einstein, "is that it's comprehensible". Comprehensible to scientists, anyway -- most of the rest of us abandoned the scientific method back in high school, along with the periodic table and pickled frogs. Today the general reader needs the mediation of a thoughtful, lucid guide to make sense of it all. Luckily there are plenty of good science writers around , and even some scientists, who have a gift for communicating their stories with childlike wonder intact. These authors can not only make the universe comprehensible to us, but enchanting. Good scientific prose is more than a minor literary genre; it's genuine magic realism. The Faber Book of Science has a cast of characters no less colourful than those from the pens of the Latin American fantasy-weavers: black holes and battling ants, quarks and quasars, and a man who mistook his wife for a hat. "Like any anthology," editor and Oxford professor John Carey writes in the introduction, "it is meant to entertaining, intriguing, lendable-to-friends and good-to-read as well..." Readers need not worry about mental meltdowns. Carey spent five years reading "many books and articles, ostensibly for a popular readership, which start out intelligibly and fairly soon hit a quagmire of fuse-blowing technicalities, from which no non-scientist could emerge intact." These, along with the articles he felt he'd never read twice, were "instantly rejected." The result is a guided tour through the best articles, essays, and memoirs of scientists and science writers, from the Renaissance on. The chapters are brief: Carey is following the toxin principle of anthologies -- a trace amount of a technical topic is a stimulant, anything more is deadly. The book begins with a few pages from Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical notebooks, and then we alight on Galileo's reflections, and just as quickly are into Anton Von Leeuwenhoek descriptions of the tiny "animalcules" discovered by microscope in a drop of water. Carey inserts biographical information and other asides throughout each chapter, breaking up the material and giving continuity to the journey. He's along as a guide, nudging the reader's interest and sharing in the discovery of the unexpected. Some of the selections seem a little odd (Freud seems out of place here, as does Orville Wright). And why the inert gas of Isaac Asimov, at the expense of better storytellers of science -- Timothy Ferris, Dianne Ackermann, or Heinz Pagels? Still, The Faber Book of Science will have you digging in for weeks for the many little treasures within, particularly the selections from the past quarter-century. In Italo Calvino's The Gecko's Belly, the author constructs a meditation on a tiny creature that slowly moves from literary-scientific inquisitiveness into a Zenlike awe. And in an excerpt from Primo Levi's writings, we follow the progress of a carbon atom: "It was caught high by the wind, flung down on the earth, lifted ten kilometers high. It was breathed in by a falcon, descending into its precipitous lungs, but did not penetrate it s thick bood and was expelled. It dissolved three times in the water of the sea, once in the waster of a cascading torrent, and again was expelled. It travelled with the wind for eight years: now high, now low, on the sea and among the clouds, over forests, deserts, and limitless expanses of ice; then it stumbled into capture and the organic adventure..." Magic realism indeed! John Updike has his famous "Cosmic Gall" here, a poem about subatomic particles called neutrinos. Every second, hundreds of billions of these neutrinos pass through each square inch of our bodies, coming from above during the day and from below at night, when the sun is shining on the other side of the earth. Neutrinos, they are very small./ They have no charge and have no mass/ And do not interact at all./ The earth is just a silly ball/ To them, through which they simply pass,/ Like dustmaids down a drafty hall/ Or photons through a sheet of glass.... / "Not many poets have written about atomic particles", Carey approvingly adds.

This is a book that goes hog-wild with descriptions of twenty-four varieties of domesticated pig and thirteen of their wild relatives. It is larded with many interesting and important facts about the development of today's common breeds. Although the author does ham it up with some of his observations, he has succeeded in fashioning a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

This book is delightful...for those of us who are infatuated with these bristly critters, it gives all the loose-end info that the other books don't. From tail-curling descriptions to grunt analysis, this book brings home the bacon. It included pig folk sayings, poems, pig songs, pig superstitions.. and the piggy illustrations were extremely detailed and captivating, if you adore porkers! It's a fun book to page through, and is chock full of obscure piggy facts that you would never find anywhere else, such as pig trails of past times, or the four varieties of spam. I am sure that any pig lover would be perusing through it as fast as I did.

This is a great artist's amazingly beautiful garden. And the photographs are not just pretty pictures of flowers, but are full of emotion.

Stephen Shore's The Gardens At Giverny: A View Of Monet's World is a breathtakingly beautiful compendium of forty four-color photographs inspired by the paintings and subject matter of Claude Monet and a celebration of the restoration of the gardens at Giverny, Paris. Here are sumptuous images reflecting the many moods and textures of an inspired and inspiring landscape. A superbly presented work of landscape photography as art, The Gardens At Giverny is also available in hardcover (0-893781-113-0, $40.00) which would be the preferred recommendation for academic and community library photography book collections.

Being in the military myself I have had the opportunity to work with John Gaps recently while deployed to Kosovo. His pictures grab you and show you the shocking truth about what is real. This book is a must read for all future War Correspondents.

John Gaps III is a combat photographer for Associated Press. Wounded three times, he clearly gets close to the action. It shows in this book.

This book shows us how God uses us, not despite our weaknesses, but through our weaknesses. The author uses many examples from literature and life. It is an uplifting book, and can be life changing for those who feel that they are useless to God because of their failings and weaknesses. Read this book!

This is a well-written, powerful work on how God is most present when we are at our weakest, and thus most open to God. Timmer's literary and biblical references are well chosen and well presented. They support his concept of a God who loves those in need with experiences from both fact and fiction. I found this book very uplifting and hopeful.

Definitely one of the best 3D Pop-Up books I've run across in a long time! I just purchased an armful of them for gifts. Wow! Not only is John Garrity a fab writer for Sports Illustrated, but he certainly has a knack for this 3D thing... I wonder how I missed this when it first came out.

Look out, FOUR! Aficionados of that game of games, Golf, and the ultimate in Paper Art, pop-up books, will be struck with this delightful collectors item from John Garrity. It details, with great text and illustrations, a large slice of golfing history and the reader is hooked into participating in the book from T off to final putt down. Enlightening pop-ups, and there are 6 major and 10 minor spreads, go a fairway towards depicting the games origin, development and future possibilities. It chips away at the notion that golf is only for the rich and drives one to the inescapable conclusion that it truly is a wonderful game. A must for collectors, the green fields approach and no rough edges, allows one to have a ball displaying ones newly acquired knowledge. Mark this one on your card!

I am Public Relations Manager for GreaterGR.com, the Greater Grand Rapids area website. As such, I am often asked which publications about history and life in Grand Rapids are the best. "Greater Grand Rapids: A City that Works" tops my list! It is a unique look into life in Grand Rapids as Gerald R. Ford experienced it. You will find this book in the reception area of many businesses in the Greater Grand Rapids area, most likely because the pictures are exceptionally vivid, capturing the essence of city life. It is a great coffee table book and conversation piece!

Being new to the Grand Rapids area, this book is the most effective and efficient way to get a glimsp at the Grand Rapids business and private sector as well as a view of Grand Rapids through the eyes of Gerald Ford. This is a must buy for anyone who is looking at Grand Rapids for fun and fellowship.

In "Harmonizing Europe," Duina and his unique perspective facilitate his ability to do a splendid job of concentrating on the intricacies involved with the merger of Europe into one, more uniform, entity. His detailed analysis of the effects of equal pay and environmental issues on the EU is enlightening. As we move into an era of more political, economic, and social mergers between nations along the lines of NAFTA, ASEAN, CARICOM, etc, this book serves as a model for understanding these phenomenons.

It is not easy to understand a totally new experiment like the one putting together many States with so different racial and cultural background. There are no previous examples to use as reference. Duina decided to take a very detailed picture of a moment in the EU evolution. If we had more pictures like this, that would allow the assembly of a movie, the closest thing man has devised to link together actual information and time. The book is very clearly designed and assembled, an excellent example of normative science implementation.

This is a great book. It's encouraging because it gives you a chance to find out about some of the dynamic ministry that is going on in cities today, and it is practical because the authors are doing it day in and day out. Each chapter deals with a different issue related to urban ministry. The chapters are written by a whole host of contributors from "big name" Christian ministers, to the faithful, but relatively unknown who are just slogging away in the trenches to bring the gospel to the inner city. Interested in urban ministry? This is for you.

Got this book hot off the press in Chicago. This is a wonderful book on the philosopy of urban missions. I am making this a required text for all my staff and volunteers. Following the priniciples of Christian Community Development, it gives a great theological defense of ministering to the city and many practical examples from people who've ministered in the trenches. Each chapter also includes questions for group discussions. Praise God for this urban ministry handbook.

This was one of the first books by J. C. Ryle I ever read. Ryle's introduction alone was worth the price of the book. One by one Ryle pokes holes in many of the popular evangelical presumptions of his time; presumptions that haunt the evangelical church to this very day. "Holiness" is a call to serious Biblical Christianity that avoids the traps and snares of popular evangelical cliches.

The is the ultimate book on the clarity of the major bible themes. It addresses major topics in a format that is easy to follow and tough to deny. If you look up the references in scripture you will find that he has an amazing understanding for exactness. I challenge anyone to find a better work on Bible comprehension. Please email me if you do. I have never had any takers to date.