Extension Books

This book really helps me on my work. I need to write some DreamWeaver extensions and this book is perfect. It's easy to follow and have practice sessions. Before I read this book, I tried to read the DreamWeaver extension help page and I was totally confused. I highly recommend this book.

Dreamweaver MX Extensions is a must have for any DWMX extension developer. It explains the development steps the DW reference manuals leave out. I tried my hardest to learn how to build extensions from the reference manuals included with dreamweaver and failed miserably. Stop screwing around and get yourself a copy of this book! I highly recommend it.

Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX is a powerful tool in web development. To my knowledge it's the only one of it's kind to allow you to "extend" it. This book, Dreamweaver MX Extensions by Laura Gutman (a New Rider's paperback!) goes deep into the "how to's" of "Extending" Dreamweaver MX. I was inspired to go to the Macromedia Exchange to download pre-made extensions, after just reading the introduction! I discovered that there was much more to Dreamweaver than meets the eye. I also discovered that being a newbie web "developer"... this book made my head hurt. There is very good information, and seems to be laid out very well, but extending dreamweaver is probably not something I'm ready to do quite yet. If you are a novice programmer, or bored with what DW can do right out-of-the-box...this book may be for you! This book will teach you to create custom objects, commands and even floating panels, as well as configuring what's already there! This book may be going on the shelf for a few months, but when I get a little more programming experience under my belt.... look out!

As a 3 time Macromedia Certified Advanced Cold Fusion Developer and a Macromedia Certified Instructor and contributing author to programming industry magazines I must say that this book is excellent. I have not been a fan of Dreamweaver, until the recent MX version, but I think it's a great tool now. Extensions also give developers a way to write functional code modules for themselves, for others or for profit.

Although, I have years and years of programming experience I wanted to pick up a book specifically on extensions before tasking my organization's development team on the task of creating a few sophisticated extensions for the developer community. I'm glad I found this book. It was not only easy to read, but it also maintained a great focus throughout the book on what the reader is trying to learn. There are so many books out today that spend the first 200 pages describing the history of the internet and evolution of man that by the time you get to the good stuff you're reading the appendices. This book is not like that. It is a superb mix of content, examples, tutorials and reference materials. I would definately recommend this book or author to anyone.

-Steve Parks
Macromedia Certified Instructor
Macromedia Certified Advanced Cold Fusion MX Developer
Cold Fusion Developer's Journal Contributing Author

There are very few books on the market that successfully explain the extensibility of Dreamweaver. This book breaks down a complex subject into small understandable parts that anyone can follow. The book has very well written hands on tutorials and you can download the source files from the companion site.

If you are not a hard coder, you might want to dive into the fundamentals of HTML, Javascript, and XML before you buy this book. For the seasoned DW user and coder this is a very nice addition to the library.

Well Done!

I stumbled across this book many years ago, while searching for information about 'Walden Two' (the book by BF Skinner).

A Walden Two Experiment is the first-hand account of a real life community inspired by the fictional community in the book Walden Two. Written by the only surviving founder of Twin Oaks (the community this book is actually about) who still lives there over 40 years later, this book chronicles the first five years (but primarily the first three years) as the community struggles to stay above water.

The book details the community trials with economics, personal relationships, labor, housing... and pretty much everything a fledgling community faces as it tries to reach equilibrium. The book is straight forward and a bit grim, as the author explains toward the end of the book, she decided to focus on the difficult aspects to try and create 'a more interesting read'. Personally, I wish there had been more focus on the joys and happier times, but the book is well worth reading and very informative for anyone considering joining an Intentional Community, or perhaps trying to found one themselves.

Another important book to read is her follow-up Is It Utopia Yet?: An Insider's View of Twin Oaks Community in Its Twenty-Sixth Year written in the community's 26th year. And Ingrid Komar's "Living the Dream" - which is another perspective on Twin Oaks from 1979-1982.

In 1967, Kathleen Kinkade's life changed when she read BF SKinner's utopian novel, Walden Two. Inspired by this vision of
community, Kinkade founded Twin Oaks Community in rural Virginia (an income-sharing intentional community still in existence today).

In this first account of the early history of Twin Oaks, Kinkade outlines the community's earliest struggles for everything from
enough money for survival to learning how to erect buildings with
virtually no material or skill. She tells the stories of Twin Oaks' earliest members and how they contributed to this communal experiment. Throughout these struggles, Kinkade maintains both her wry sense of humor and her humanistic vision.

Kinkade's book remains as fresh and funny as it was in 1972. I highly recommend it as an introduction both to the intentional communities movement as well as for those with dreams of pioneering their own community someday.

The main problem with this book is that Twin Oaks is not, and never was, a Walden Two experiment. It's a hippie commune, plain and simple. It was founded by some hippies that thought Walden Two painted an interesting picture of communal life, and hoped that by merely starting a self-described "Walden Two community" that behavioral scientists interested in instantiating the paradise that Skinner described would eventually show up and make it happen. But the behavioral scientists never came. What happened was that people lived in the same $3000 building, worked "communally," and initially were paid 25 cents a week for their efforts. There was no heating or cooling, and people who came with dreams of a true Walden Two community saw that it was anything but, didn't like living like a pauper, and left. Many hippies came who saw it as a rejection of capitalist repression, or whatever, and these were the people who stayed. The interesting thing is, however, Walden Two did NOT describe a socialistic commune thriving on true democracy, where decisions were made by having everyone in the community vote. Skinner argued, rather, that we should be governed basically by scientists, who use their knowledge of operant conditioning to construct our environments in such a way so as to improve society. This is more akin to fascism than communism. (I'm not saying that's bad either--fascism WOULD be the best form of government provided the rulers are intelligent and benevolent, but when does that ever happen?) Skinner also did NOT believe that all people should make the same wage. He argued, rather, that the jobs that no one wanted to do should pay the most. Why do actors make so much, for instance, when EVERYONE wants to be an actor? Fry cooks should make more than actors, etc. In short, Twin Oaks is not and never was a community based on Walden Two, and doesn't even have anything to do with any behaviorist principles. If you want to read about a real "Walden Two community," research Los Horcones, in Mexico, instead.

I am interested in getting involved in, or help build and intentional community. This book was perfect for helping me see the ins and outs of community life. The author was candid about their mistakes, as well as their accomplishments, in the first few years. I found this very helpful.

i can't believe such a funny & influential book (for me at least *grin*) is out of print! my advice is to send in a request. ask for a copy for yourself, your crazy hippie kid sister (no apologies offered as i wear that title with honor), your library, your child's school, for everyone you know. this is an honest, funny, and inspiring look into the early days of one of the longest standing intentional communities in the u.s. (yep, it's still around) the sequel perhaps provides more insight (as they'd been experimenting an additional 20 years), but this first account makes a great supplement to b.f. skinner's _walden two_ as you can feel more of its presence with the group of motivated readers who decided to see if they could actualize his ideas. b.f. skinner even wrote the introduction to this account!

fact is often stranger than fiction ~ go ahead, indulge yourself!

"What She Wants" is Chick Lit at it's finest. Like Maeve Binchy's books, this will leave you feeling like you just returned from an Irish holiday, and missing all the new friends you made. Even before I had finished it, I ordered another one and sent it to my mother-in-law.
Perfect for a rainy day, with a glass of chardonnay.

You know her books are going to have happy endings which is the kind of book I want sometimes. This book, which I think is the best Cathy Kelly book I've read, is full of interesting people who are all connected or become connected in some way. It made me want to move to the town of Redlion in Ireland which is where much of the action takes place.

Cathy Kellys' books aren't literary triumphs--they're sort of middled-aged chick-lit. However, they are entetainment triumphs. I don't think many writers can keep readers interested for over 700 pages like Ms. Kelly can.

I have become a big fan of Cathy Kelly's books and have read six of them and enjoyed them all. Her ability to bond women of all ages (from a young aspiring singer, a single businesswoman, a married mother of two, and a widowed woman) all meeting in a small town in Ireland, sharing modern situations that probably everyone can relate to, either in their own life or someone they know. Cathy Kelly can show you that women can make changes in their lives, especially with a good support team!

Open Cathy Kelly's newest novel and you enter a world full of characters you would like living in your neighborhood. They instantly warm the atmosphere around you with fresh cooking aromas, English gardens and pets so adorable you'll ache to cuddle them. Curling up with WHAT SHE WANTS is an ideal way to pass the lazy days of summer. It's a great feel-good book.

Hope Parker has a gorgeous husband, Matt, and two children whom she yearns to spend more time with. But when Matt unilaterally makes the decision to uproot his family and transplant them to Redlion in County Kerry, Hope balks at the idea. He argues that he needs the freedom and atmosphere to write the great novel that is bottled up inside him. Always compliant, Hope bites her lip, smiles and agrees. Writer's block isn't the only problem that faces the couple in Ireland.

Hope's sister Sam lives the life of the high-powered businesswoman in London, pushing herself through a daily grind that constantly assaults her physical and mental well-being. It takes a medical scare and a trip to Redlion to make her step back and see herself as those around her do. A surprising change comes into her attitude and, ultimately, her life. What had at first seemed a pesky new neighbor blossoms into an enchanting new male friend. Their verbal sparring lessens, but there are still rocky roads to travel.

Meanwhile, Nicole --- young, beautiful and talented --- has hopes of becoming the newest pop star. Darius, Sam's business colleague, discovers Nicole at a karaoke bar one night and falls hopelessly in love with her and her husky voice. Nicole, feeling her usual responsibility for her mum and little sis, wrestles with her conscience over her newfound love and freedom. She wants to share any success with all of them.

Widow Virginia Connell, a year out from losing her beloved husband Bill, picks up stakes and moves to Redlion, her goals manifold. She wants to cherish his memory, but without painful everyday reminders. And her three grown children and their families worry about her too much. Being a greater distance away, she hopes, will give her the breathing --- and grieving --- room she longs for. Then along comes Kevin, a Redlion widower, and he and Virginia strike up a friendship. The awkwardness of seeing a member of the opposite sex is quickly apparent to both of them after lengthy, happy marriages. Settling into a rhythm with each other proves challenging.

Mary Kate, founder of the Redlion Macramé Club --- a euphemistically named group organized as an excuse for the ladies to get together and indulge in cocktails and frank talk --- is the voice of reason, dishing out sage advice along with her wild martinis. She is the glue when their lives fall apart.

Cathy Kelly has a Maeve Binchy style about her. There is something so wholesome about WHAT SHE WANTS, yet primly erotic, that it's seductive. Don't try to put it down. Hope, Sam, Virginia, Nicole and the Redlion community will beckon from the pages, drawing you deep into their lives, their problems and their joys.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

Cathy Kelly is a most enjoyable author to read. Her contemporary stories feature likeable women facing problems we can easily relate to, and the characters grow with a lot of self-motivation and help from dear friends. WHAT SHE WANTS follows this pattern beautifully as readers meet Hope, Sam, Virginia, and Nicole and are intimately drawn into their lives.

Hope is a young mother with two small children and a handsome husband she never feels worthy of. Hope lacks the courage of her convictions and meekly adjusts her life to whatever Matt decides, even when it comes to uprooting her family, quitting her job, and moving to a strange town where she knows no one so that Matt can "find himself" and become the author he has always dreamed of being.

Her single sister Sam is a career-driven executive at a major record company in London. She has an impressive resume, money in the bank, a designer wardrobe, but lots of fears as her fortieth birthday arrives.

Virginia is a widow with three grown sons. The unexpected death of her husband Bill leaves her alone and depressed. She struggles with finding the strength to face each day and becomes a virtual recluse until a chance meeting sets a new life in motion for her.

Nicole is young, beautiful, and talented. When a colleague of Sam's discovers Nicole at a karaoke bar, the possibilities of fame and fortune open up for her. But does she have the ability to leave her mother, grandmother, and little sister behind?

You will enjoy spending time with these four plucky women and the friends and lovers who enter their lives. Follow them as they each confront a personal crisis and find fulfillment in unexpected ways.

This is the best book I have ever read about life after death and more. This well researched and documented book provides concrete information on many things behind the veil, some I did not even know, even though I have been reading and have been interested in related subjects for quite a while. George Meek is a truth seeker and this book is testimony to his hard inquery. I highly recommend this book.

This book is hard to categorize. It's a kindly, non-gonzo description of an afterlife system that lacks a personal God, and from what I can tell draws heavily on the Theosphical tradition, even though it is supposedly inspired by direct communications through mediums with spirits from the Next World.

The author shows a great deal of empathy and the book is oddly comforting, even for a guy like me who believes in the whole Catholic Thing. If you know an atheist who's dying and starting to get nervous about it, this might be appropriate reading

_It is strange how you can consider yourself well read on a subject and then suddenly become aware for the first time of a true classic on that subject. This is such a book. I am indebted to P.M.H. Atwater for citing it in her _We Live Forever_.

_The first of the five parts of this volume deals with the true nature and structure of both the human body and the worlds in which it functions. The human being is a multi-dimensional entity composed of physical, bioplasmic (etherial), astral, mind (subconscious, conscious, superconscious), and soul bodies or levels. Above all, it is hammered home that the brain is not the mind.

_The second section deals with the evidence of survival after physical death. Extremely good, succinct, descriptions are given of eleven types of evidence: 1) historical and religious writings, 2) death-bed, near-death, and out-of-body experiences, 3) apparitions, hauntings, and ghosts, 4) obsession and spirits, 5) spirit doctors, 6) spirit photographs, 7) materialism, 8) reincarnation, 9) space-time relationships, 10) conservation of matter and energy, and 11) communications through mediums and telepathic channels.

_Part three gives detailed descriptions of the interpenetrating planes of existence: the physical plane; the low, middle, and high astral planes; the mental-causal planes, the celestial planes, the cosmic God Head, the end of manifest creation, the void of pure consciousness, Nirvana, and beyond.

_ The fourth part gives 50 specific questions and answers to the system put forth. This includes the proven path for individual soul development (which agrees with the perennial philosophy and the core teachings of all the great religious founders.)

_Now, part five gives some truly mind-boggling examples of communication with the dead via electronic instrumentation. I had read Sherman's work years ago, but this goes far, far beyond. The heart of the historic O'Neil-Mueller communication is included.

_Not only did this book strike me as having the "ring of truth", but it verified so many of my own experiences and conclusions over the years. Perhaps that is why my "library angel" didn't point it out to me- it was to serve as independent verification.

_By the way, there should be a large, full-color teaching poster included in the back that clearly outlines the planes of existence and their nature. As for those people who smugly tell others that they will go to hell for disagreeing with their social and political dogma, well, it seems that the lowest astral planes are populated by greedy, resentful, unloving, self-centered people- often with dogmatic religious obsessions that fuel fear and hate...

I'm glad to see more books like this. I believe the greatest question for us mortals is the life after death theory. Mr Meek lays out all the facts, the research, and the actual events that indicate that life beyond the grave is very real. This is a book I would like my family and friends to read but I'm keeping my copy for daily reference.

This is an interesting book, describing the lifelong hobby of a guy who is nice, smart, energetic, and slightly nuts. A vast input in work and ingenuity returned communications from dead people that most listeners can't make out. This is persuasive only to the persuaded, but if you want to build electronic gear to provide earthly voices to humans dwelling on the astral plane, this is the best review of prior art, what there is of it.

I hate to say it, but this book made me somewhat regret studying Ancient Greek. I was given a copy by a friend and utterly adored it. It lived in my purse. I found the poems graceful in their simplicity, the imagery beautiful. Then I was asked to translate some Sapphic poetry for class and attempted to use this book as a reference by which to check my work. I unfortunately found that many of the translations had words and lines missing and added (including the title-like fist lines of each translation) and some were so different from the original poems that I had a hard time even finding a correlation between the two. If you want a lovely book of poetry then I highly recommend this book, if you want a brilliant translation of the Greek then I would suggest you do it yourself, as I have, as of yet, been unable to find a competent translation.

Beutiful. Read it to someone you love.

The copy may seem spare at first but the power of Sappho's words more than fill the page. I was first introduced to this text by a dear friend. That is how you should share it. This translation is both complete and avoids overly politicizeing her life. Well worth the price.

Rich Mullins once wrote "there's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see." And so it is with the poetry of this ancient Greek lady Sappho. Without her extra eyes, I would be robbed of some sights I could not have found without her. For instance, in one of her poems, she writes:

"Awed by her splendor

Stars near the lovely
moon cover their own
bright faces
when she
is roundest and lights
earth with her silver"

Not only is there beauty. There is a straightforwardness and frankness to the poems of Sappho. It is a clear distillation of the poet's vision confronts the readers of these pages.

There is also wisdom and humor. As when she writes:

"Experience shows us

Wealth unchaperoned
by Virtue is never
an innocuous neighbor"

Mary Barnard is to be praised for these clear, unvarnished translations. Likewise, the introduction is very useful in dispelling so much of the myth that has sprung up around the legacy of this great poet. I recommend this book highly.

Bernard's translation of Sappho is a translation of a poet who is down-to-earth, who pays attention to the detail.

Some of the fragments are so brief that you are reminded of haiku: "The nightengale's / The soft-spoken / announcer of / Spring's presence"

Other poems speak specifically of feminine concerns - the lost of the maiden-head, the color of ribbon that fits best in her daughter's yellow hair.

I read a great deal of poetry in translation. In other translations I have not found Sappho to my liking. This translation appears to me to be truer to the author's earthliness and less concerned with making Sappho fit into preconceptions. In short, I highly recommend this translation.

Because Sappho was a Lesbian who wrote about lesbian love, her poetry was banned at times throughout the ages, and therefore to this day there are only surviving fragments of her work and almost no complete poems. But of the fragments there is more than enough to ensure her place as one of the great female poets of all time. She wrote mainly love poems about things like passion, jealousy, and hostility towards her enemies. This book includes all of her surviving verse in a very readable and enjoyable translation.

David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"

This book about the codes from WWII, how they were used; who knew what when; and how it changed the course of the war was fascinating, but dry as dust.

I could only read a few pages at a time before my eyes started to cross, so it took me forever to read.

Lee's masterful account draws you in like a spy novel, even though you already know the ending! His book provides the clear reasoning behind why allied leadership made decisions that, until this book was written, looked like blunders. As the reader learns how Marshall and his generals applied the information gained from the routine interception and decryption of high-level enemy communication, his understanding of the grand strategy of WWII will be greatly enhanced. A stunning achievement, this book will become a "must read" for WWII historians and buffs alike. Everyone who has read this book on my recommendation has been equally impressed.

It further provides clear information which soundly debunks the convoluted rationalizations of those "politically correct" Smithsonian historians and their fellow travelers who have been so eager to portray the allied side (or at least America) as the "bad guys" in the war.

Read it. It takes away the schroud of politics into the reality of a very difficult world situation, with life and death decisions, troubling potential alliances, and knowledge available to only those who could be counted on by the fingers of one hand. A must read.

Marching Orders reveals for the first time what the Allies knew about Axis plans and strategies during WW II . The combined information revealed to them by Ultra and Japanese codes is staggering. Throw everything you know about WW II out the window, for this book will teach why events unfolded as they did. Direct quotes from Axis leaders read by the Allies in real time. An amazing fountain of information that must be savored! You will never view Allied generals in the same light again!

This book is perpetually on my desk, whenever I cannot easily figure out how to do something, I check this book before going to MSDN, etc. Critical member of my bookshelf.

Are you an experienced C# or .NET developer or just a novice user? If you are, then this book is for you. Authors Jay Hilyard and Stephen Teilhet, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that is designed for users of all levels, and provides solutions to problems that developers face every day as well as some that may come along less frequently.

Hilyard and Teilhet, begin by covering Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and its usage with objects, ADO.NET, and XML. Next, the authors cover both String and Char data types. Then, they discuss recipes dealing with both class and structure data types. The authors also focus on the generics capacity in C#, which allows you to have code operate uniformly on values of different types. They continue by examining recipes that make use of collections. Next, the authors show you how to use two features of C# to solve very different programming problems. Then, they focus on the best ways to implement exception handling in your application. The authors also present recipes that use data types that fall under the System. They continue by showing you how delegates, events, and lambda expressions can be used in your applications. Next, the authors cover a useful set of classes that are employed to run regular expressions against strings. Then, they deal with file system interactions in four distinct ways. The authors also show you ways to use built-in assembly inspection system provided by the .NET Framework to determine what types, interfaces, and methods are implemented within an assembly and how to access them in a late-bound fashion. They continue by covering how to access a web site and its content as well as programmatically determining web site configuration. Next, the authors explore some of the uses for XML and how to program against it using LINQ to XML, the XmlReader/XmlWriter, and Xml-Document. Then, they explore the connectivity options provided by the .NET Framework and how to programmatically access network resources. The authors also explore areas such as controlling access to types, encryption and decryption, securely storing data, and using programmatic and declarative security. They continue by addressing the subject of using multiple threads of execution in a .NET program; issues such as how to implement threading in your application; protecting resources from and allowing safe concurrent access; storing per-thread data; and, how to use the synchronization primitives in .NET to write thread-safe code. Next, the authors discuss recipes for those random sorts of operations that developers run into over and over again, such as determining locations of system resources, sending e-mail, and working with services. Finally, the authors focus on the numeric and enumeration types and recipes on using enumerations that consist of bit flags.

This most excellent book is laid out with respect to the types of problems you will solve as you progress through your life as a C# programmer. In other words, each recipe contained in this book is designed to help you quickly understand the problem, learn how to solve it, and find out any potential trade-offs or ramifications to help you solve your problems quickly, efficiently, and with minimal effort.

This book covers all the needs for those who want to learn a little bit more of C#.

I'm very pleased the way the author examplifies using design patterns, 3.5 features and explaining all the time the pros and cons of the code given.

As bottom note I should recommend this for all you who wants to gather a little more experience in c#.

Greets from Brazil, Diego.

This is a good intro book that eliminates the need for some of the first books I bought on C#. When compared to other "cookbooks", however, this book is incredibly weak (see: XSLT Cookbook, SQL Cookbook). If you have used C# for more than 6 months, you will know how to iterate over an array, to use String.IsNullOrEmpty, get the index of a value within a string, and use a generic arraylist. These are just some of the junior "recipes" you'll see in this book. The "recipes" just exercise the fundamentals (i.e. how to boil water) rather than how the fundamentals work together to solve complex problems in elegant ways. The easier the concept, the more information. There isn't really any analysis or best-practice justification present. I'd like to see some performance analysis of generics or at least some depth on partial methods. Nothing to see here for mid-level developers. Not written or organized poorly, just simple. If it were titled "Intro to C# by example", I'd give it a higher score.

i found the book very usefull and helpfull in my EU law graduate studies and i wish we will have a new updated edition of the book.

I bought this book because it was recommended by the University of Maastricht (Netherlands) as a textbook to study for the entrance exam that must be passed for non-lawyers to take their Master's course in European Law. I also recently saw it as part of the library of the Munich Intellectual Property Law institute - a program I am also considering.

This book provides definitive coverage of European law and some community institutions. The index, table of cases and acronym definitions are thorough. The history of the European Union and European institutions is laid out and important paragraphs from numerous European Court decisions are quoted and their implications are analyzed.

It is also incredibly boring to read. No author can save the mind-numbing decisions of the European Court. The convoluted and nearly impenetrable language is almost beyond mortal understanding. However, the analysis is also very dry - and while the cause of objectivity is a noble one, an occasional subjective opinion can make a book far more readable. The authors also occasionally refer to cases before explaining them - giving the impression that the book was, at least partially, compiled from previously written articles. This is a bit irritating - particularly in a 3rd edition, you would think that sort of thing would have been filtered out in the previous two versions.

Despite its flaws, this book is useful as a reference and has value for anyone making a serious study of European Law. I would not recommend trying to read it cover-to-cover. How about taking a stand in the next edition? Spice things up a little. In Hartley's, European Union Law in a Global Context, the author makes his point of view known throughout the book, and while the reader may not always agree - it makes the material ever so much more interesting. It would be nice to see something similar from Craig and De Burca, particularly since this book appears to be considered definitive by at least 2 European academic institutions.

I used this book in England where it is the standard text. I'm now studying EU law in the US and am struggling through Bermann, Goebal et al (West 2002). Craig & De Burca is a clear and comprehensive exposition of all the substantive EU law. It also provides some structural background on the EU, though admittedly not as much as the Bermann book and therefore possibly not as much as is necessary for a standard US law school course. Nevertheless for anyone who wants a clearer understanding of EU law, I cannot recommend this book more highly.

This is the most detailed and best written textbook on EU law that I have seen so far. I use it as a reference all the time.

(**** 1/2)

Stephen Hall has chosen a title that represents his book very well. What he sets forth, in supple, thoughtful, smoothly readable prose, is the saga of recent advances in "life extension" - both longevity research and research into the healing and regeneration of tissues with the aid of stem cells. As his title suggests, the emphasis is on the scientists involved, and on the public face of that science.

Along the way, he clarifies a good deal of the science itself: the discovery of the Hayflick limit, the finite limit to the number of times a normal cell can divide; the connection of that limit to the telomeres, the shoelace-tips on the ends of chromosomes; the chimerical enzyme telomerase, two parts protein and one part RNA, which repairs the telomeres and helps make cancer cells immortal; the sir-1 gene and its congeners which can double or sextuple your lifespan, if you happen to be a roundworm. And so on. Little of this will be news to those laymen who follow the science pages closely, but even for us it's good to have the timeline neatly laid out.

The bulk of Hall's attention, though, goes to the rivalries between laboratories to be first to publish and patent each of these breakthroughs; to the lineages of the biotech startups bankrolling the races; to the contrast between the solid if limited gains made by the biologists and the fairy dust sprinkled on investors; and to the enormous ferment surrounding all these new technologies as they began to impinge on embryonic stem cells and thereapeutic cloning.

Wandering through the scene from chapter to chapter, popping up repeatedly whenever the action gets hot, is the energetic true believer Michael West, the ousted founder of the premiere telomere outfit Geron, and the leading light of Advanced Cell Technology, which set the country on its ear two years ago with a premature announcement that it had cloned a human embryo. In his infectious zeal for abolishing the tyranny of old age, West serves not only as a central figure in the unfolding commercial and political saga, but as a stand-in for the insistent voice in all of us, whispering that all men may be mortal, but hey, maybe *you* can beat the rap.

Hall's conclusion, offered with a full appreciation of the fact that "It's hard to predict things, especially the future," is that a dramatic cure for aging is not likely to be in the cards. Just as cancer turned out to be a whole class of diseases with a host of different causes, so aging is turning out to be more complex than the discipline's pioneers imagined. What we can reasonably expect is a steady advancement of the average life span over the coming century, by another decade or two. How long we have to wait for breakthroughs in tissue regeneration in particular will likely depend less on science than on politics.

Two intriguing lines of lifespan research, the one tracking the sir family of genes, and the one investigating the effects of free radicals, are not ignored but, perhaps because they haven't caught the public fancy sharply, get relatively short shrift. Less than halfway through the book, the spotlight shifts from the study of aging to the study of stem cells. Because the U.S. for the last quarter century has enjoyed an effective moratorium on experimentation with aborted fetuses or discarded IVC embryos, American scientists' attention has focused more and more on the other theoretical way of obtaining human embryos: inserting the nucleus of an adult cell into an enucleated human egg.

If anyone were to succeed in doing that, and coaxing the result to divide until it reached the blastocyst stage - that would be "therapeutic cloning." So far, no one's done it, or at any rate no one who's done it has felt like advertising it. In a political squaring of the circle, President Bush managed to permit NIH to fund limited therapeutic cloning in a way that ended up outlawing funding in practical terms. As a result, scientists in the field face the classic NRA nightmare: when federal stem cells are outlawed, only maverick venture capitalists will have stem cells. At press time, no one knows what's really happening, what kind of ethical oversight private companies are bothering to put in place, or how restricted access to resulting medical breakthroughs will be when it's all proprietary, with no NIH ownership at all. For the moment, the U.S. is stuck with the worst of the "pro-life" and the "mad scientist" worlds, while the rest of the world does its research in the sunlight and steals a technical march on us.

All the players on both sides of that circle-squaring, and the principal shakers, movers and move-blockers in the relevant research, are profiled here, some in full screen 3-d and some in fetching thumbnails. The field is unlikely to be surveyed by a more complete or more even handed chronicler for some while.

If you're looking for a book describing what it's like to be a research scientist in the academic world, or if you're looking for a detailed history of stem cell politics, this book is for you.

However, if you're looking for cutting-edge science, exciting discoveries, and an up-to-date look at the modern day "quest for the fountain of youth" - look elsewhere. You may eventually find some of it, but not without wading through pages of tedious "personal struggles".

This book fits far more easily into the "Biography" genre than the "Popular Science" category.

Hall is a fabulous writer, given to wonderful turns of phrase. He's also a meticulous researcher -- the "Notes" section of the book is gigantic, citing sources for even the most off-hand of remarks.

This is really two books in one It begins discussing Leonard Hayflick and the discovery of programmed cell death, and the resulting search for the telomerase enzyme, then it takes a pretty sharp right turn into being a book about stem-cell research. Although some of the players are the same, they're really two different stories.

Hall's conclusion is that no rolling back of the clock is likely, and that "immortality," or even profound life extension, is probably not in the cards. But it's a fascinating journey nonetheless, and well worth reading.

So, when will stem cells come into widespread medical use? If you answer twenty years from now, you'd be wrong by about 60 years--they first became widely used in the 1960's! Only they were called "bone marrow transplants." Today thousands of them are done every year.

Hall has written a dozen so excellent books on medicine, biotechnology and molecular biology, and this is one of the best. Here he recounts the development of the idea that aging in humans can be scientifically understood and modified. He starts off with the wonderful story of the Hayflick limit with an account of his first interview with him and brings this maverick character to life. How often are the big ideas discovered by rogues and rebels--fearless men?

He covers a very wide swath of current developments in the cutting edge of biology and medicine--telomeres, stem cells, transplants, cloning, and aging--all told in enough depth that you can't help but learn something, even if you are pretty well informed. The history, the personalities, and the ideas are all here.

One thing I appreciated is that Hall makes no pretense about being disinterested in the subject--he takes some of it personally, and is not afraid to relate what his gut is telling him. He is partisan in the best sense of the word. He unflinchingly challenges the idealistic "bioethicists" who have lately ejected such nonsense into the public space, pretending to a certainty only a bishop could appreciate.

Hall also relates in some detail the evolution of the stem cell/cloning debate that has resulted in the policy that federal money can go to research only on the 70 embryonic stem cell lines already in existence, now known to be more like 6. And none of them suitable for therapeutic for humans because they are grown on a substrate of mouse cells and their viruses. The yokels and theologians have managed to set back this important avenue for improving human health by who knows how many decades... Sad to think we'll be looking for progress to the South Koreans, who recently generated human embryonic cell lines by nuclear transfer. Americans have yet to duplicate this

The quality of Hall's prose, and the nature of the subject itself, conspire to produce a book that I found very hard to put down. A terrific read!

A great book for those of us that fondly remember power changes at Harlowton, pacing the "XL Special" west of Piedmont, or camping alongside the St. Joe River waiting for the "Thunderhawk" to leave Avery!

Extensive coverage of the surveying, funding, and trackwork required to build our favorite railroad's Pacific Extension, with particular focus on the area between Three Forks and Avery; the crossing of the Cascades is covered, but not in as much detail as lines east of Othello.

Afer several chapters of general interest discussion of surveying and funding the line, as well as recruiting trackworkers in Europe (Montenegro? Who would have guessed!?)five chapters take you from Mobridge, South Dakota, to Tacoma, Washington, with particular focus on Pipestone and St Paul passes, and construction of the line through Sixteen Mile Canyon, above Harlow's Montana Railroad.

While certainly not a picture book, there are many superbly reproduced photographs depicting life along the right-of-way being built; most of the images I've never seen, and I have most of what has been published on the Milwaukee Road since the 1960s.

Unusual for railroad books, there are many "quality of life" images such as Milwaukee Road sponsored boxing matches, baseball teams, and dancing bears (real ones!) for the entertainment of trackworkers and their families. You'll also note the high per capita presence of saloons in these towns, like Taft, Montana. Guess the "hell on wheels" towns made famous by the Union Pacific four decades earlier was still alive and well in the early 20th century American west.

Author Johnson's latest addition to literature on the Milwaukee Road explores lots of new historical ground and is a fascinating read and a detailed examination of the construction of the Pacific Extension of one of America's greatest "fallen flags!"

This book is great if you are a Milwaukee RR fan. It has alot of history not covered in other books. It also had alot of story and photos on the 1900s fire.

Stan Johnson's treatment of the building of the Milwaukee Road's Pacific Coast Extension is a masterpiece. He has done excellent research, and his writing is easy to follow. As a product, the book is impressive, too. The layout is pleasing, and many photographs complement Johnson's text. The only negative about the book is that the proofreaders let the author down; there are a lot of editorial errors in the text.

After the terrible 1893 depression (when much of the country's railroad mileage went into bankruptcy) the U.S. entered into a tremendous boom (the Great Northern's earnings quadrupled over 15 years from 1890). So in 1905 the Milwaukee Road decided to build to the Pacific Coast, partly so as not to get locked into just local Midwest business and partly because some directors controlled Anaconda Copper in Butte, and wanted to break the Great Northern-Union Pacific-Northern Pacific pool so they could get lower rates for Anaconda (in one of hundreds of errors in the book, the author suggests that only the Northern Pacific served Butte).
So Stan Johnson, based on a more than lifelong association with the Milwaukee Road (his stepfather was a conductor with the road, going back to construction days), has written the story of the road's remarkable Western Extension. The book has a fabulous collection of photographs, showing all phases of the process. The author goes down the whole route from Mobridge to Puget Sound, covering the major projects and mishaps involved, with detail added from years of stories from Milwaukee railroaders. As a result the book is highly recommended to all Milwaukee fans (of course), and also to anyone with an interest in western railroading and rail construction. Unfortunately there is no good map of the whole route. Readers with access to the Internet can use Terraserver-USA (with USGS topographic maps and aerial photos, with almost all the line covered) and Google Earth (the line can be followed fairly well, even where abandoned west of Miles City). While the construction process is well covered, Johnson says nothing about the financing required or the ultimate fate of the railroad (and the Extension), nor does he discuss the horrible cost overruns. Originally estimated to cost about $ 60 million (evidently from a rather casual estimating process, based on replicating the Northern Pacific), the cost in fact ran over $ 220 million, while electrification added another $ 23 million. The Milwaukee had bad timing, as its construction coincided with the rail construction boom at the beginning of the century (the Western Pacific, SP&S, Santa Fe's Belen cutoff, rebuilding the Central Pacific, plus others) so costs went up, while competing roads made it pay much more for land needed. But the worst came from the U.S. government; the Panama Canal was finished in 1914, forcing down freight rates, the newly active ICC (egged on by politicians) fixed rail rates while inflation (unknown since the Civil War) took off, and it sharply forced up labor costs. In addition to the directors' favoring their own interests over the railroad's (the Montana power contract for electrification for example), there was a lot of incompetent management. The 3,000 volt DC electrification chosen was a very poor choice (requiring manned substations every thirty miles), while it's hard to understand how the cost could have been justified on the Milwaukee's traffic base (but all that copper wire helped Anaconda again). Largely as a result the Milwaukee went bankrupt in 1925.
Unfortunately the text seems not to have been edited at all (except for spell check). There are hundreds of obvious errors. Parts of the text have had words added, while other words are deleted. The author's syntax is sometimes rather tortured, and his material could have been better organized. This is really unfortunate, as this could have been one of the great rail history books, a source of pride to everyone involved. Instead it's a terrible display of sloppiness, with only the picture editor deserving credit for a job well done.