Customer Reviews (4)

Informative book on Death Valley
I found this book to be a very good book on Death Valley.It's very informative and fun reading.It's got a nice table of contents which makes it easy to find things.Everything is nicely organized.The thing I like best is the beautiful pictures and there are plenty of them.Whether you are planning a visit to Death Valley or just want to read a book about it I think you will find this book of great value.I like this book and I'am happy with my purchase.

Good as an introduction to death valley
I recently visited Death Valley and relied heavily on this book for planning my trip. Its divided into two halves, with the second half dealing with Death Valley and the first part with the rest of the mojave desert. It covers most of the star attractions within the park, along with some phenomenal pictures. If you are visiting Death Valley for the first time, this book is indispensible. However, I would have like to see more of the "off beaten path" attractions... for ex. I couldn't find information on such places as Falls Canyon. This is the reason for the 4 stars. Nevertheless, this book is a very good starting point for your first trip to DV.

An exemplary guide to an unfamiliar place
This is a most worthy companion to the visitor's guide to CALIFORNIA'S EASTERN SIERRA, previously reviewed by this writer. Written in the same clear, direct, organized style, and similarly divided into sectional analyses of various attractions and history, this guide also has the same outstanding color photography.

It is difficult to sufficiently praise the clear travel directions given to find each discussed attraction. Not only directions, but anticipated road conditions, are set forth at the conclusion of the section addressing each feature.

As you will discern, Death Valley should have been made a National Park a long time ago.It is the hottest, driest, and lowest place in North America.It has recent volcanoes, enormous sand dunes, totally indigenous wildlife, great mineral deposits, a playa where the stones move about from unknown forces (called the Recetrack), marvelously beautiful rock formations and salt flats, and even a castle.Each is discussed in riveting detail that beckons the reader to come there.

You will also read about the history of Death Valley, including marooned pioneers, borax mining and the twenty-mule-team methods of transporting out the borax, old ghost towns, etc, etc.Each section is endlessly fascinating.

The book also takes the reader to many facinating areas outside Death Valley, including the now-dry Searles Lake, with its eroded towers of tufa resembling a city, the Pamamint Range bordering Death Valley, various canyons, and even a waterfall in the desert.You will repeatedly enjoy vicariously wandering this enormous, desolate, but incredibly beautiful and peaceful region.

There is some small overlapping between this book and EASTERN SIERRA, but the effect is magnify the fascinating nature of the regions, and not too distract or bore the reader.

I recommend purchase of both guides before taking any trip to these areas.Reading the guides first and during the trips will increase your enjoyment and understanding manyfold, and help tremendously in planning the trip.

Needless to say, both books are recommended to the hilt.

A beautiful and informative read !
This book is a wealth of amazing information for anyone from a photographer to someone wanting to know more about the history of this amazing area of the United States. The photos are up-to date (no 1970 fuzzy poor quality images) and the read is nicely paced.

Quotes from those that founded this land, history about the ages of the stone and rock types found here. Lots of info on the animals, plant life and the story behind many if not all of the ghosts towns that are found here (one used to have around 10,000 people living there but shrunk to 1 in less than 10 years).

Of course on top of all this history and images, are descriptions of each area of the Death Valley National Park and what to see in each area (along with driving instructions).

I'm going to Death Valley to photograph this amazing land in two weeks, this book is my must-have companion for the trip. ... Read more

Product Description
"The fourteen stories in this dazzling collection continue acclaimedauthor Lauren B. Davis' exploration into her characters' psychologicallandscapes, and ensure her reputation as a writer of razor-sharpintellect and deep compassion. Weaving these stories together is thenotion that what one wants and what one needs is not always the samething: a tale of a heart-broken father coming to terms with thedrug-overdose death of his son; a child who must choose between thesafety of her mother's controlling over-indulgence and the wider, moredangerous world; a young girl outsmarting a pedophile during what shecalls "the summer of naked men;" to a brilliant but socially awkwardwoman who deals with betrayal by taking on the persona of a bear...Davis hits the nail on the head each and every time." - From the publisher ... Read more

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Provides historical and cultural information as well as a guide to the sights of Chicago and its suburbs. ... Read more

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For honest, unbiased information, College Prowler delivers an inside look at college, straight from the students' mouths. Complete with hundreds of quotes, grades, stats, and reviews, each student-written guide offers a comprehensive collection of information on one particular school. See how students rate their campus when it's time to look beyond the brochures and talk about key issues that really matter. ... Read more

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Chicago is famous for its architecture, deep dish pizza, outdoor sculpture, baseball, ethnic neighborhoods and foods, Lake Michigan, museums, gangster memorabilia, and more. ... Read more

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Every son has or has had a father. There are few books that explore that relationship with the character, quality, insight and range of complex emotions as this one by Charles Israel. In Son's Eye, he writes, "My father died when I was twenty years old. He left me a slue of unanswered questions about his life. Mysteries, actually. For a long time this didn't matter to me. So I thought. Then all at once it did matter, and I realized how carefully I'd been deceiving myself all those years. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

More Lauren Davis, please!
When Lauren B. Davis writes, you're not reading: you're THERE.Smack in the story.Smelling, tasting, hearing, and above all, knowing people and places and things you never quite understood before. If only the publishing environment had a little more taste formoving, whip-smart prose and less of an appetite for junk, our souls would all be healthier. If you haven't read The Stubborn Season or The Radiant City, search them out immediately. They're that good. Oh, and Ms. Davis? More please.

Rat Medicine:And Other Unlikely Curatives
Powerful, unsettling, funny, sad, thought provoking. I want to read more of her writing.

A definite must read!
Rat Medicine was a book that I read, reread, and keep on hand to read again. It is amazing that the author has so many voices, so many stories, and it becomes difficult to decide which one you prefer...the young andfragile eight-year-old girl, the seemingly self-assured woman nipping sipsfrom the liquor cabinet, the Irish mute in a land of magic, and so manyothers.Davis' stories are moving, witty, funny, insightful, and writtenwith such wonderful detail that your imagination travels to numerous placesand into the vast array of characters' minds. A wonderful gift for yourselfor someone else, I thoroughly enjoyed and continue to enjoy her work.

A book to be read and reread
Review Lauren Davis' Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives is an astounding collection of twenty stories thatslowly work upon the mind and the imagination of the reader. Timothy Findley is right in saying, "Herelies buried treasure." These stories deserve to be readand still more they deserve to be reread. That'swhere the treasure is,where the rat medecine starts to work, where the spirits "draw goldencircles." From the first story, Rat Medecine, where Nell sees ratssitting on the windowsill, insidethe refrigerator,to the last story,The Golden Benefactors, where Brewster sees spirits hovering around theirliving kin likegrand moths, the author is the alchemist, burning throughthe dregs of human nature to sift out thenuggets of gold. Nell will turnthe tables on her booze-ridden husband, Brewster will share his secret with little Liam.The prose mesmerizes, the reader enters the underworld,following Ms.Davis' characters as they losethemselves in alcohol, drugs,sex, and violence - heads exploding in starbursts of yellow and red lights. The stories hurt, the bleakness is invasive. But scattered throughout thecollection there are indeedstarbursts of light, the stray twin sisterJanet is sheltered and loved, the crazed poet Roddy finds friends inthesubway tunnels, and the remarkable Millicent Argyle dances. Ms. Davis'writing is spare, well paced, and insightful, with vivid description anddialogue that jolts thereader with its exactitude. The characters,whether male or female, young or old, walk right into thereaders memory.The points of view, be they told in first person or in third, are equallystrong. And thereis one exceptional story written in second person, YoursTruly. From the first sentence, "You walk out thedoor and down thestairs, with your suitcase baning on the wooden steps and his voiceclanging in yourhead. . .", the reader is prisoner ofthe story,entering into the very skin of the narrator.Davis' mastery is relentless.There is not way out, but through the darkness.

A cure for what ails us all
In RAT MEDICINE, Lauren Davis reveals a cast of charactersof subtle complexity, their stories unrelated on the surface, yet bound together by the tendrils of the human heart. The characters in her stories, most oftenwomen, are scrappers, survivors. They are strong, frail,wounded, abused,excitable, weary, frustrated, lost --in short : completely and utterlyhuman. Crack the spine on this tome of riches and find yourself immersed ina world perhaps all to recognizable to anyone who claims to carry a soularound in their earth-bound corpus. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great contemporary read
Feels like I just walked in someone else's shoes on an extraordinary journey. Vivid, intense, and with such thoughtful and nuanced sensory detail.

The fragile. the beautiful, the scarred, the ever-intense
What's radiant is always a bit suspect, it calls into question the eye of the beholder, and that uncertainty lurks everywhere in this novel, troubling yet soaring, & altogether a knockout.The title refers to Paris, or to Paris for starters, & that might be the first element that engages us.Lauren Davis provides an in-the-round guide to the "the city of light" -- one savvy enough, as well, to puncture that cliché.Instead, RADIANT CITY offers the sort of roaring, oleant, mouth-watering & historically informed urban embodiment that only the most alert creative minds can provide. Her Paris includes a lot that's off the beaten tourist path.Intense scenes take place in the woods of the city's periphery (woods that startle us with a wide variety of sexual opportunities) & in a former industrial building converted to a skin-of-the-teeth commune & rave space.But those exotic settings, in the sort of combinatory effect that distinguishes a terrific novel, also bring to light crucial conflicts & turning points in the central figures.Chief among these is the traumatized war correspondent Matthew Bowles.Not for nothing does Matthew share a name with Paul Bowles, the white outsider who achieved such sympathy for the oppressed of French North Africa.Matthew too identifies with the abused & betrayed, too much for his own good, really.He's Paris to lick his wounds, ideally by writing about them, pulling together a memoir about the horrible things he's seen.Those horrors raise a bit of narrative problem, in that Matthew seems to have suffered too much to sustain what depth & self-knowledge he does; he verges just slightly on the superman.But just slightly, no more, & certainly the scorching excerpts from Matthew's work in progress provide Davis with a counterpoint to this fortunate city in which he's now come to rest. So do the photos & recollections of his scary friend Jack, a former mercenary w/ terrible secrets out of Vietnam & elsewhere, & so do the refugee Lebanese, the Ferhat family, still haunted by the beloved folks who never made it out of Beirut.All these damaged goods (plus others still) reveal fascinating cracks, their mechanisms of self-protection intrigue as well, & they come together warily, gingerly, movingly.When violence is done, it's the innocent who suffer, & when healing occurs, it's never without scars. No, Lauren Davis has no truck with cliché or easy answer.Her very title comes from Le Corbusier, a bad idea of his about how to house a city's underclass.At its best her reframing of that notion brings to life the fragility of all the world's gilded palaces; it brings off a powerful reminder that there is no Magic Kingdom.

Down and Out in Paris
George Orwell's 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London, comes to mind when reading Lauren B. Davis's thought-provoking novel. Orwell, having lived among the downtrodden, intimately portrayed poverty, misery and despondency in the first decades of the twentieth century. Davis sets her story against the backdrop of a contemporary version of Paris' underbelly. Far away from the tourist sites and the city's glamour, her characters are refugees, immigrants and survivors of violence and war, seeking forgetting, physical and emotional healing or redemption in the anonymity of the "radiant city".

The novel centres around war correspondent Matthew Bowles, who, having witnessed most of the world's recent wars and civil conflicts, is struggling with accumulative post-traumatic stress.He is "hiding" in a tiny attic flat in the 8th arrondissement, attempting to write his memoirs, courtesy of a solid book advance. Sometimes, images of recent trauma are so immediate and overpowering that he has to escape into drink and the haze of sleeping pills. He runs into a former colleague, Jack Saddler, Vietnam vet, ex mercenary and now photographer, who has his own demons to fight.The shady bar scene, the dark corners and alleyways of the city's immigrant quarters bring as much temptation as danger to body and soul of the vulnerable. Matthew is drifting into a downward spiral of mental fog and easy violence.Will he be able to save himself?

A kind of counterbalance to these "walking wounded" is Saida Ferhat, who runs the Lebanese cafe across the square from Matthew's place.She exudes calm and competence on the outside, yet under the surface she also has to struggle with her own traumas and memories.Increasingly, she is also deeply worried about her sixteen-year old, impressible son Joseph.She hopes and prays that Matthew and his friends can influence the boy away from the gangs and dangers in the neighbourhood...

Davis's novel depicts a colourful cast of characters: each is trying to deal with life and the obstacles, real or imagined, that stand in the way.She astutely captures the vulnerabilities and the dramatically and constantly changing moods of her primary protagonists. In small doses, the back story to each of them comes to light, allowing for a fuller understanding of their current conditions.Her straight forward and precise descriptions and her detached tone, even when recounting highly disturbing incidents, create, in this reader's view at least, a sense of distance and detachment from the characters.We can observe without much engagement. Matthew and to a lesser degree Saida, are the only characters allowing the reader some insights into their inner self, their emotional turmoil and struggle to cope and to attempt recovery.

Paris is an exciting and vividly evoked setting, the author's intimate knowledge of the city is evident.Having lived in Paris for some ten years, she leads the way through back streets and alleyways just as confidently as she depicts the steamy and lewd nightlife in the Bois de Boulogne.At times, however, the elaborate details are in danger of moving the reader away from the essence of the story. [Friederike Knabe]

Compelling Story - Highly Recommended
How much pain and tragedy can one person absorb?How do such experiences change us?This is the riveting story of a war correspondent who has seen recent history up close and way too personal, his friends who have dealt with their own measure of violence, and an exiled Lebanese family he befriends.These are people whose personal suffering forces them to grapple with responsibility in new and different ways.Set in Paris, where the author has lived, and whose neighborhoods and changing immigrant face are vividly portrayed, the novel is finely written.Some passages, even when they are describing impossibly difficult issues, are extraordinary. ... Read more

Product Description
Where does one person end and the other begin? That's the question thathaunts Irene, a girl growing up in Toronto during the Great Depression.Living with her father, a pharmacist who finds comfort in the bottle,and her mother, a woman teetering on the edge of her own depression,Irene's crumbling family situation mirrors the economic and socialturmoil just beyond the front door of their respectable, working classneighbourhood home. As she grows into a young woman, Irene finds herself consumed by her mother's increasingly erratic moods and isolated in aworld where unemployment, poverty and bigotry have taken firm root. Yetin the midst of lives that seem lost, Irene finds strength in theunlikely form of David, a young man from the Jewish farming community of Sonnenfeld, Saskatchewan, who is fighting his own battle for dignity,hope and a place in the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Stubborn Season, Lauren B. Davis
Irene's story, set in Toronto, Canada in the 1930's, describes family life, The Depression, alcoholism, and mental illness, as a child grows up amidst dark and adult issues. The sentences of Ms. Davis are eloquent and lovely, deep and clear,haunting and worthy of a second read. Each character becomes alive as you wish to learn more about them, because you care. Stones from the River (World War II) comes to mind while reading Ms. Davis's compelling book, in its honesty, and researched historic content of the Depression. I highly recommend this book, and look forward to delving into it again and again.Ms. Davis is a gifted writer, using words flawlessly to ease the reader into her world.

Excellent book!
The Stubborn Season is one you won't put down. I felt as though I knew the characters. I wanted to be living in the story, sharing the experiences with them. There were times when my heart raced and my palms were sweaty as I devoured page after page, eagerly anticipating what was to happen next. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Lauren is an amazing writer!

spectacular book
The Stubborn Season is a captivating read. You are drawn in by the tightly written prose, the breathtaking character development and the
morose family where Irene this sensitive and observant main character finds her way , showing us the resiliency of the human spirit .
And yet without ruining the novel, you are left unsettled, this is not a romantic ending and things seem precarious,
as if you are also aware of the fragility of yearning to be loved and not sure if it happens.
Great read!
Nancy

Emotionally Moving!!!
A very touching story… emotionally bond to the characters… very realistic descriptions of Toronto’s streets and buildings. A great read!

Praise For The Stubborn Season
Lauren Davis' book tells the story of a family and a nation coming of age during the Great Depression.Irene is a little girl struggling to find her own voice and her own truth while her mother, Margaret struggles to maintain her sanity. Margaret's world does not include change or any little shift in the wind that could threaten her balancing act. She needs her daughter and her husband to stay cocooned in their tiny little house.At the same time the farmers in the dust bowl that the prairies have become, are fighting to survive. Workers are fighting to be safe. Political activists are fighting for truth and dignity for everyone.
The great joy in reading this book was the honesty of all of the voices, particularily the ones that make the reader uncomfortable.The characters in this book are all in the end ordinary people faced with difficult choices. Sometimes they fail, but sometimes there are moments of grace that are breath taking. ... Read more

Product Description
Fight for Life:
Maggie MacKenzie is great with dogs, but her homework is out of control. Dr. Mac, her veterinarian grandmother, puts her on a short leash until her grades improve. Four new volunteers show up to help Gran in the clinic, but none of them knows a boxer from a pug. When the clinic is flooded with sick and dying puppies, Maggie has to find a way to help, no matter what Gran says. Maggie is sure it can’t be a coincidence – somebody must be running a puppy mill. If she doesn’t find it soon, more puppies will die!

Homeless:
Cats love Sunita Patel, and she loves them back. Since her mother won’t let her have a kitty of her own, finding a feral cat colony is a dream come true. But Animal Control is going to destroy all of the cats unless Sunita does something drastic. If she can tame one of the wild cats, maybe she can save them all. Then disaster strikes and Sunita is rushed to the hospital! What will happen to the cats now?

Trickster:
David Hutchinson is a funny, goofy guy who is always looking for the easy way out of his chores. He also has a gift with horses. When he meets Trickster, a high-spirited chestnut gelding recuperating from an accident, David vows that he will one day ride him. But his reputation for messing up gets in the way of his dream. Things go from bad to worse when a mysterious illness races through the stables. Can David find a way to help Trickster survive? ... Read more

Product Description
Giggles the Green Bean Turns Stinkytown into Greentown is the first book in the Giggles the Green Bean series. In this fun story the young reader will learn the 5 special secrets Giggles learns in order to turn Stinkytown back into Greentown. Giggles teaches kids important green concepts and skills including recycling, water conservation, healthy eating, and energy conservation using tangible, real-world examples that even the youngest readers will be able to adopt and discuss with family and friends. In keeping with the environmental message, a portion of net proceeds will be donated to the U.S. Forest Service Plant-A-Tree Program. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great Book!!!
I purchased this book for my 3 & 5 year old and they both love it.Great topic for this audience.Big thumbs up!!!

EXCELLENTBOOK!
This is a great book for kids! Definitely teaches them how to take care of our planet and how to be responsible little individuals!

What a great book!
My 18 month old daughter loves this book and laughs every time we read it.What a great concept to share with kids!

My 4 year old LOVES Giggles!
Fun. Vibrant. Educational.

The illustrations are really fun and vibrant and the book feels like a book that'll last. My 4 year old is all about Giggles before bed, and she is even remembering to use less and not throw everything away before it's done.

Giggles the Green Bean

Green with Envy for Giggles
My search for a book to help my kids learn about saving the environment has ended with Giggles! My kids love the characters and illustrations and I love the message of what we all can do to save the earth. Every class in the world should have this book in it. ... Read more

Product Description
Rat Medicine is a collection of stories by an important new and emerging talent. The voices of the characters in this collection have an unmistakable individuality which reveal themselves in a very sparse prose style. The title story explores the innermost feelings of an Ojibway woman trapped in an abusive relationship who begins seeing rodents intruding into her home. Another story probes the voice of a club fighter on a fast downward slide. Another explores the quality of a woman who recognizes an old friend in the face of a homeless man. All the stories attempt to strip away the disguises that define people and to unmask the truth about our existence in its diverse forms. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Accountancy, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2007. The length of the article is 2820 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Building long-term value: objective financial analysis focuses clients on business revenue growth.
Author: W. James Lloyd
Publication: Journal of Accountancy (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 204Issue: 5Page: 56(5)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
Introduction from the Author

Bucknell is quite an interesting name for a top university. When people ask me where I go to school and I say, “Bucknell,” typical responses are “Buck what?” and “Wow, an Ivy League.” At this point I either enunciate and say, “Bucknell is a university in Central Pennsylvania,” or “No, I think you’re thinking of Cornell. I go to Bucknell.” While Bucknell may not be a part of the prestigious Ivy League, it’s definitely a top private university that many people refer to as a “baby Ivy,” whatever that means.

Ivy or not, Bucknell is known for its great academics, with small classes, professors who genuinely care, and top-notch facilities. Because of BucknellÂ’s rural surroundings, there is a real sense of community present all over campus. ThatÂ’s something I noticed the very first time I visited. Students and professors alike are friendly and upbeat, and always willing to take the time to say hello. I came from a large public high school in California, where I didnÂ’t feel that I had much of a presence in the community, both academically and socially. At Bucknell, though, everybody is an individual, as opposed to just a number on a professorÂ’s role sheet.

When I was researching colleges, Bucknell was on a list of about twenty other private colleges and universities on the East Coast. Somehow, I managed to visit all of these institutions, but none of them made an impression as much as Bucknell did. IÂ’m sure part of this was due to BucknellÂ’s breathtaking aesthetic beauty. Its brick buildings and sprawling lawns give Bucknell that traditional college look that I had always yearned for. If I made my decision to go to Bucknell on more superficial reasons, I can look back now and say that it was the right one. Bucknell has given me an intimate academic setting that has allowed me to open up and be more expressive. Socially, I have become much more extroverted and involved. I think this is due to the fact that I feel comfortable, safe, and happy in supportive surroundings that have truly allowed me to flourish as a person.

If you are like I was, and have made a list of universities that appealed to you initially, this book can help you set Bucknell apart. Bucknell is more than just a place to get your degree. ItÂ’s a place that prepares you for the real world by providing you with a supportive environment. At Bucknell, you can discover your passion and have lots fun along the way!

Lauren Davis, Author
Bucknell University
... Read more

Product Description
With this rollicking novel--hailed equally for its satiric bite, its lightly borne scientific savvy, and its tender compassion for foible-prone humanity--one of America’s preeminent storytellers returns to fiction for the first time in a decade.

Guy Carpenter is a regular guy, a family man, an obscure NASA scientist, when he is jolted out of his quiet life and summoned to the corridors of power in Washington, DC. Through a turn of events as unlikely as it is inevitable, Guy finds himself compromised by scandal and romance, hounded by Hollywood, and agonizingly alone at the white-hot center of a firestorm ignited as three potent forces of American culture--politics, big science, and the media--spectacularly collide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

Delightful
I'm a bit baffled by the negative reviews this has received.No, it doesn't have the epic scale of The Caine Mutiny, but it's a fascinating, fun story nevertheless.The subject matter is genuinely unique; who else has written a realistic novel about the intersection of science, politics, and entertainment?

My only criticism is that even though this is definitely a contemporary novel, much of the dialogue has an old-fashioned quality.The characters frequently use idioms and expressions that aren't heard much anymore, like "hat in hand" and "cat got your tongue," and the bantering between the scientist and the congresswoman sounds like something out of a 1940s movie.

If you're tired of political thrillers with implausible plot twists, you may find this refreshing.It's a quick, fun read.

A Hole in Wouk's Reputation
Sheesh.

This was just awful. Hard to believe that is was written by the genius of The Winds of War.

Bought it fresh from the publisher when it was first released. I was so excited that after about 10 years, Mr. Wouk had graced us with another book. That excitement was premature and undeserved.

The blurb calls it a "rollicking Washington tale". I call it a waste of time. The "mystery" just isn't. The "romance" came across as being written by a hormone-driven teenage male (redundant). The "science" was boring.

In fact, the most accurate part of the blurb is the reference to Wouk's very early Marjorie Morningstar. It does have the same feel. I granted Morningstar some credit as it was produced very early in Mr. Wouk's career and, in fact, did explore very well the reality vs dreams that young women and self-absorbed young men can inflict on each other.

I can't grant A Hole in Texas: A Novel any credit at all. Mr. Wouk is far more experienced now and should have known better than to publish such drivel.

Where on earth were the editors who usually give feedback to an author? They must have been mute with astonishment that such a respected writer would actually perpetrate this fraud of a "book" on the buying public.

I suspect this is Wouk's last book. He is 95 years old. Real shame to end his life and career with this offering.

You don't have to be a scientist to enjoy this novel
Technology has been part of our daily life for a while now, and yet there is still too much work to be done. A novel like "A hole in Texas" helps average people to engage in interesting subjects even whitout knowing it. On top of that, it is a fun book to read. Highly recommended.... of course, this is just me talking, ok?

A Fun Light Read
When I started this book, I wasn't sure that I would be interested enough to complete it.But it turned out to be a well-written, entertaining fast-paced page turner that maintained my interest.

The story involves a physicist who used to work with the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) in Texas, a mammoth project until governmental funding was abruptly canceled.Now the Chinese claim to have discovered the Higgs Boson particle, which the SSC would have found if it had been continued.This starts a political and media firestorm that carries the physicist in its wake, jetting back and forth across the country dealing with politicians, Hollywood celebrities, and fellow scientists (including one who is an old flame).

The story is light-hearted and a bit tongue in cheek.It's not epic literature or profound drama, but I found it very enjoyable as entertainment, and as a fantasy of what it is like to move within the circles of the powerful and influential in America.(Plus you learn a little bit about the SSC and Higgs Boson.)

high stake sub-atomic physics
I was intrigued by the idea that Herman Wouk was still writing books, and being a native Texan, was attracted to the title.The story involves an astrophysicist who was formerly involved in the now defunct Superconducting Supercollider.Now he gets involved in the national uproar over the Chinese discovery of the Higgs Boson (which the former SSC was supposed to find) and the potential superbomb it might enable.Our hero gets connected with a romantic congresswoman, his former Chinese love, a zealous reporter, many lawyers, and former academic colleagues.And to top it all off, he must save his marriage while keeping America safe.This light hearted romp is interesting. ... Read more

Product Description
What am I going to do with the rest of my life?!Graduating college is so full of confusion and mystery, I just had to consult a few people... ... Read more

Product Description
This thesis argues that artworks commissioned for permanent integration into the public realm through percent for art programs have processes and considerations more in common with fields such as architecture and urban design, than with artworks commissioned for inclusion in personal collections, museums, or galleries. Architect and academic Robert Harris developed a Remodeling Theory for the reexamination of features of the built environment, which presents a relevant method for evaluating percent for art public art. The application of Harriss method systemizes the artworks value through consideration of its relevance to the surrounding environment.It demonstrates how pieces may be reconsidered to adapt to their changing context and improve their potential to meet the goals of the commissioning agency.Case studies will be provided through the lens of Downtown Los Angeles and the artworks commissioned through the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles. ... Read more