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I did not know what a bone density test was until I picked this little book up at an airport. May be the best purchase I ever made. I read it on the way home and decided I was at risk for osteoporosis. My mother had it and my grandmother. I am 45 and had an early menopause. I made the appointment for the bone density test and to my surprise I have low bone density. This book saved my life. Easy to read and describes the risk factors very clearly as well as the latest treatments. Thanks!

I'm technical writer with a broadband company in Atlanta, and had never heard of osteoporosis--until a bone density test showed I had osteoporosis at age 48. My bone density at that time was like a woman, age 65!! Imagine the fear I faced. My doctor put me on Fosamax and HRT. I started walking 5 days a week--started weight lifting every other day. I added calcium tablets and 2 more glasses of skim milk daily. Last year (2 years since I was diagnosed), my bone density had actually increased!! I'm stronger now--and more well-informed. This book confirmed what I was told--and what I did to save my bones. I hope it will help you, too.

This book is a real eye opener. I thought it was a disease that old folks got. Now I know I need to start a plan right away for myself and my children to make sure we prevent this disease. Great book, easy to read and the suggestions on prevention are now a part of our daily lives.

Gayle Brandeis's debut novel, winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, is a mistily vivid story that unfolds like a flower. Drawing on the complicated mother-daughter relationships, it's a haunting and delicately-drawn story.

Ava Sing Lo, the child of a Korean immigrant and an African-American GI, has been accidently killing her mother's birds since she was small. After graduating from college, Ava is directionless, aimless, lonely and not feeling at home anywhere. In an effort to make up for her accidental bird-killings, she volunteers to help save sick birds on the Salton Sea. While there, she is reminded and haunted of her mother's past.

Many years before, Hye-yang (thought to be unlucky) left her native village, then the new home she had made for herself. Tricked into a hell of abuse, murder and prostitution at a segregated American army camp, Hye-yang (now called Helen) escapes and is married by a white GI -- only to be dumped when her baby is born with dark skin. The thought of her mother's past haunts Helen as she stumbles across a corpse on the beach, falls in love for the first time, and starts to really get to know her mother.

Reading "Book of Dead Birds," you can almost smell the birds and salt of the Salton Sea. Brandeis has a special talent for putting her readers into the places she writes of, even if they've never been there. And she knows how to tug at the heartstrings without straining them.

Brandeis's writing has an understated lyricism, a sort of poetry without self-consciousness. Her social commentary is all the stronger because it doesn't beat you over the head, and the tragedies all the more terrible because they aren't milked. Ava's sections are more introspective and far-reaching, while Helen's are starker. Sprinkled between chapters are bits of Helen's "Book of Dead Birds," saddening and humorous at once.

Ava is a startlingly vivid character, whose life is not so much sad as it is empty. It's fantastic to see her gradually coming into the happiness she deserves. Helen is quiet, repressed, keeping her past hidden and only letting her sorrow show for the birds. Supporting characters, like the unfortunate little girl Jeniece and the fiery prostitute Sun are equally well-done.

As pretty and deceptively simple-looking as a bird, this book is a haunting, ultimately heartwarming look at mothers and daughters. Highly recommended.

I wasnt quite sure what to expect because of the title. A book about dead birds..huh? But you know what? I enjoyed this. A lot.

I learned about the Salton Sea and the bird situation. Ava Sing Lo is impacted by her mothers past and Gayle Brandeis draws you into the world of a Korean prostitute trying for a better life before Ava was born.

The writer of this book is so talented. Her writing voice is lyrical and sometimes almost poetic. I love the way she uses all five senses to really pull you into the book.

I also recommend her other book, Fruitflesh. I look forward to more books that Ms. Brandeis may write.

What a beautiful and complex book. Gayle Brandeis' poetic background comes through in the lyrical writing, especially when she's describing the birds in their natural world and when she's delving into the push-pull relationship between mother and daughter.
Book of Dead Birds deals with many issues: gender, race, culture differences, environmental concerns, immigration, guilt, survival, redemption - and love.
Ava Sing Lo is the daughter of Helen, a Korean woman who was forced to work as a prostitute on a military base; Ava's father was one of her mother's 'clients.' Brought to America by a white husband, Helen found herself quickly abandoned after she gave birth to a black baby (Ava) who grew into a child and young woman who never felt full acceptance from her immigrant mother. The birds of the title are her mother's, and they carry heavy symbolism in the story. And Ava has been killing them. To atone, she finishes graduate school and volunteers to work with birds that are being poisoned by agricultural run-off.
Very moving and lyrical first novel. 4 ½ stars.

What would it be like to live in North America before Columbus? You get an idea of how beautiful our country was before industry and population changed it all forever.

Make no mistake about it. An interdisciplinary interpretation of history is here to stay. Thanks to farsighted historians like Dr. William Cronon and his ethno-ecological study of New England, circa 1600 to1800, entitled Changes in the Land, an enlightening perception of colonial times in New England is depicted by a well-documented mix of anthropology, ecology, sociology, biology, and environmental history. The actual text of the book comprises 171 pages with no less than 35 pages of notes, and an innovative bibliographical essay encourages further study. Cronon clearly states his thesis and purpose for the book in the preface, "the shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes" (vii). Cronon not only evaluates the reorganization of people but also stresses the effects of changes on the New England plant and animal populations. With political and military history kept to a minimum, an intriguing analysis compares the ecological histories of the New England Indians to the European settlers and reveals the resulting environmental alterations incurred. There were basic ethno-ecological differences between how both cultures viewed the earth. The New England Indians perceived the natural world with reciprocal sustenance (63) for 10,000 years (33), but the colonists envisioned commodities and wealth in what the earth could provide (75). Within the short period of two hundred years, the environment of New England could not sustain the few Indians who survived the diseases of the Europeans, because the land, plants, animals, and even the climate had changed (169).

These changes seemed very subtle at first. In order to trade for metal utensils, the Indians killed more and more beaver (83). In this way the Indians started to view nature, or their environment, as a commodity instead of a gift to be shared (92). Cronon does not assume that the Indians had no effect upon their native environment (viii) nor that the colonists came to a pristine wilderness (11). What Cronon does enumerate is how the two sets of ecological relationships, Indian and colonist, came to live upon the same land (15). Early in the affiliation, the European settlers came to disrespect the Indians, because although the Indians lived in a land overflowing with natural "wealth," the Indians looked like the poor back in Europe (54). Marshall Sahlins is quoted by Cronon, "there are in fact two ways to be rich, [. . .] Wants may be 'easily satisfied' either by producing much or desiring little" (79-80). The indigenous residents of New England desired little, while the European colonists seemed economically motivated to produce much from the land and introduced the Old World concepts of value and scarcity, using cost as the only constraint to consider (81) (168).

Unfortunately, neither the land nor the Indians could withstand the monumental alterations to come: an Indian "money" system in the form of wampum (97), epidemics which wiped out entire villages (85-90), the severe reduction in native animal populations (98-101), domesticated animals that grazed wildly on indigenous plants and even ocean clams (128-150), deforestation (109-126), the surface of the earth responding more drastically to climatic changes (122-123), flooding (124), the "drying up of streams and springs" (125), land ownership and pastoralism replacing shared land conservation (137-141), soil depletion (147-152), and the introduction of weeds and migrant pests (153-155). The New England landscape went from forests and freedom to "fields and fences" (156). This book vividly correlates the significant and divergent relationship between the New England Indians, the colonial settlers, and the environment they could no longer share. Changes in the Land by William Cronon, winner of the 1984 Francis Parkman Prize, serves as a fine academic example in cross-curricular historical documentation.

What Cronon does with this book that is quite ground-breaking is to understand the events surrounding the arrival of colonists in the new world not in terms of colonists arriving in a pristine, untouched wilderness. Instead he carefully shows how the Native Americans had been shaping their environment quite significantly for hundreds of years before contact with europeans. He also shows how the idea of the commodity shaped the differences between "Western" and "Native" land use practices.
The book is immaculately researched and thouroughly footnoted. It is a must read for anyone interested in the history of New England or even just in how people interact with their eco-system in general.

This book is a MUST read for parents and parents-to-be. If it has ever even occured to you that the medical system is not infallible, this book will open your eyes to a reality that most people would prefer to ignore. Vaccinations DO cause temporary and permanent damage to children every year in this country, and many of the diseases against which we are vaccinated are not as frightening as the damage caused by the vaccinations themselves.

This book focuses solely on the DTaP vaccination. There are many case histories of children who were permanently brain damaged and even killed by this vaccination. In some cases more than one child in a family has been permanently injured. In others parents have had to fight in court to retain custody of their younger children when they refused to vaccinate them following severe reactions in their older children.

The companies that manufacture vaccinations are making millions of dollars per year. When a child has a permanently debilitating reaction to a vaccine, the manufacturer is not even held financially responsible - the government uses our tax dollars to compensate families through an official program called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Would this program even exist if it weren't obvious that vaccines DO cause damage in some instances?

This book gives great information about the kinds of children who are more likely to react to vaccinations, including those who were born prematurely or with a low birth weight, those from families with allergies and food sensitivities, and those who had family members experience vaccine reactions. It also describes in great detail the kinds of reactions one can expect from vaccinations - and which ones should not be considered "normal" despite what your pediatrician's office may tell you. If your child has received some vaccinations already and you feel uncomfortable about any symptoms he or she exhibited in the days following, READ THIS BOOK before you allow any further vaccinations. MANY children who were eventually permanently injured exhibited reactions to earlier vaccinations that were ignored or considered unimportant until hindsight provided the obvious answer.

When I read A Shot in the Dark I was both saddened and enraged. Saddened because I have a vaccine-damaged child and enraged that the government, the medical establishment, and pharmaceutical companies use our children as guinea pigs. This is one of the most well-researched books I have ever read and I strongly urge any person who has received vaccines themselves or has children (or intends to have children) to read this book and investigate this issue for themselves. I only wish I had access to this book before my daughter was born.

Trying to decide just how vaccines are for your children? Read this and learn what can happen, what people have been through, what the doctor isn't telling you, and why they don't tell you.

The book is easy to read and hard to put down.

Dr. Mindell is known world wide for being the top authority on vitamins and supplements. Everyone needs to have a copy of this Bible to help them decide what they need to live a healthier,longer life. Dr. Mindell's ground breaking research has led to the development of products to improve the quality of life for people all over the world. Any questions you have on what vitamins you should be taking for your health and the health of your family will be found in this book. The vitamins that Dr. Mindell has formulated can't be duplicated by anyone!!

Dr. Mindell has written the best book on vitamins by far! This book is very interesting and fun to read. The format is clear and easy to understand. I highly recommened it to anyone who is seeking better health and understanding about the roles that vitamins play in our lives. Don't purchase vitamins until you read this book!

Mr. Mindell continues to provide the reader with concise, accurate information regarding the usage of vitamins for health reasons.

If you desire to participate in your own healthcare - then this book will be beneficial to you as well. Use this book to help when deciding on the purchase of nutritional supplements or in cooking healthier.

Mr. Webster has documented a sobering and horrific walk through time. He has described the international problem of Unexploded Ordinance (UXO) from past wars, which continues destroy lives even 80 years later. We have all been exposed to the images and the glorious stories of armed conflict over the decades, which society teaches new generations to honor. Much of the sheer inhumanity, the utterly cold necessity of combat is ignored. Mr. Webster traveled the world to seek out the continuing reality of sudden death, perpretrated by soldiers long gone or dead.
This reader, even while working in the field of disposing of such items safely, was stunned to learn how widely the problem spans the globe. The brutal maiming and death of hundreds of people, the inestimable expense of cleaning up the trash of war will do doubt continue for decades, if not centuries. I admire Mr. Webster for his unenviable task of collecting these horific stories to share with people who know nothing about the massive problem.
This collection of observations is a must-read work for anyone who wants to know more about the struggles of millions of common people around the world. I would have liked to have more detail in many sections, hence the four stars. Still, a very moving portrayal of a deadly serious issue.

Webster explores an interesting topic -- he revisits sites central to twentieth century warfare, and writes about the continuing physical effects of warfare on those battlefields. This book is part history and part travelogue. His opening chapter on the World War I battlefields of France and the men who work there to this day removing unexploded artillery shells is particularly beautiful and haunting. The subject matter is intriguing, and Webster's writing and approach are elegantly simple.

I did not expect his book to grab me the way it did, yeah I'd read about all the land mines left in Iran etc. but to learn about the extent of unexploded munitions left worldwide from conflicts dating back a century was a shock. Mr. Webster took me around the world to places I wouldn't have imagined, the affluent young French wife who found her son playing in the yard with live German artillary shells, the plains of Russia still hiding live munitions, even a forgotten test range that is now a San Diego suburb where children playing found live unexploded artillary.

Twenty, forty, a hundred years later this stuff is unstable and more dangerous than new, triggers have deteriorated, anything can set them off, and men go to work daily risking their lives to clear high explosives from places that were once battlefields and now are parks, farms, and residential areas.

This was one of those books that left a permanent impression on me, Mr. Webster's frank narrative showed a world more dangerous and unpredictable than I ever imagined.

Now generally I don't take to books that were written around the time my parents were born. In reality, I really don't take to books much at all. But The Effects of Gamma Rays On Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds seemed to make the boredom that I usually associate with reading cease, as I downed the entire two-act play during a class period.
This book was your not-so-simple story of a little girl's triumph in overcoming the realms of an emotionally abusive household. This little girl was named Tillie, and she was brought up in an old, converted vegetable store with her airhead sister Ruth and sadly entertaining mother Beatrice. They reside there with an elderly mute woman known as Nanny and try to survive in some sort of harmony.
Beatrice is insane. It is clearly stated in the book without the reader knowing how or why she became this way. Her daughter Ruth is desperately in need of attention and almost always selfish. This is a complete opposite of Tillie, the independent main character who finds an outlet from her family in science projects. This is an outlet that in turn becomes her greatest talent and creates the main moral in the story.
The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds is not what I would consider a classic because I don't think it ever really got the acclaim or recognition it deserved. But it is still a story that will always provide entertainment whether you read it or see it. Because of this I would have to suggest that this book be read by intelligent young adults or adults themselves. This way the reader (or audience member) can understand the all of the humor expressed through Beatrice and the symbolism between the marigold and Tillie. I would have to give this book a total of four and a quarter stars. It is a great quick-read and I'm almost certain any theatre group would do it justice on stage. The author, Paul Zindel, is loved throughout the world and was the 2002 recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards award for his book "The Pigman."

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds, is just as interesting as its title is if not more. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama, this book illustrates the story of Tillie, a young girl who escapes through science the bitterness of her surroundings - her featherheaded, thanatophobic sister Ruth, the unstable mother Beatrice who doesn't seem to find any meaning in life. The author, Paul Zindel, takes you through a short play of laughs and tears as you realize that beautiful marigolds can bloom from compost heaps such as Tillie's home... and the story behind the compost heap.

"Atom... ATOM... what a beautiful word." - Tillie, "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" by Paul Zindel.

I can't say enough about this gem of a play by the extremely talented Paul Zindel. It is one of my favorite books of all time. If you grew up reading his novels, as I did, then you know how impossible it is to put down any of his books once you've started. I never did see a stage or tv production of this play - although I have read it so often that I have satisfactorily imagined every detail. In other words, you don't have to see it performed to fall in love with this story and these characters. Tillie, the little girl who studies the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds is struggling to grow in spite of being suppressed by a neurotic mother (who has led a "half life half lived") and an unstable sister. I felt that I already knew the Tillie character very well, but Beatrice is the real heartbreaker. When you read this story, you'll see what I mean - if you do, you may start to appreciate the Tillie's of the world and perhaps understand where the Beatrice's of the world come from. This play plus THE LITTLE PRINCE and THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE (all three) make a great gift for anyone!

I am an artist and tend to learn art things quickly. However, I am a very slow learner of anything to do with computers. I now know how to do a lot on Paint Shop Pro from reading this book. I need to just keep studying with the book while at the computer screen. My only real complaint is that the visuals on each page of the book need to be larger. I am more used to stand-out visuals in the computer books which say they are visual learning books. If the size were increased on the visuals, this book could well move up to a 5 star rating.

Once I got Paint Shop Pro 6, I was excited but a bit frightened about the complexity of the program. My previous artistic/graphics experience consisited of art class in high school. I didn't know what a mask or a raster layer (or much else) was. Visual Insight explained everything I needed in simple terms with appropriate illustrations. It is a great book for beginners. The projects at the second half of the book helped me to see what this program is capable of. After going through this book, I am now able to create the graphics that I need.

I loved everything about this book. The language, the graphics, the projects, the pace. As a computer junkie, I read lots of technical books, and this is one of the my favorites.

This book is the third in a collection of short stories by Woody Allen that includes Getting Even and Without Feathers. As with the other books, I found the book entirely delightful as well as a very quick read. As in any collection of short stories, some are better than others, but there are at least three classics that make the purchase worthwhile regardless of how you feel about the others.

In this book Woody Allen keeps the one-liners coming at such a pace that I cannot believe anyone could be so witty. His writing is always filled with puns and intentional misdirection that keep the reader actively involved in the book. I found myself reading the stories straight though, and finished the book in two sittings, though each story is short enough to read on the fly when you have some extra time.

If you are a fan of Woody Allen, then this book is another in your obligation to get more Woody. If you don't like his movies, then you will likely not like this book, as his idiosyncratic mannerisms come across in the writing.

Certainly not all of this is funny only if you have read enough philosophy to catch the drift. Is Needleman a metaphor for Heidegger? Or is this whole tid bit on existentialism per se? Will Free Press add a "Woody Allen" to their series on the World's Living Philosophers? Is Woody living? Is he a philosopher? And if so, is he a living philosopher?

Equivocation: I am convinced that all jokes are logical fallacies. The conclusion is the punch line. We should be able to analyze each joke and find which fallacy it takes. A rough review of what I remember in this book strikes me that equivocation is all that Woody uses. Or are there non-sequitors as well? That is what Dave Barry always uses. Booger booger booger. Woody is much more sophisticated. Hence, has a smaller audience.

Is it still politically correct to let everyone know we still like Woody or would this suggest bad things about our characters especially if we have adopted daughters? If Woody writes an autobiography and we go to a magician who throws in Woody's book with us -- what would happen? What would happen if the magician throws in this book? Would we find ourselves back in the same magician's office?

Why is there no sequel?

I usually have a hard time finding the time to read books these days, but this one was well worth the time I put aside. The stories are hilarious and his form of writing is brilliant. This book contained some of the most entertaining stories I have ever read. You must buy this book!!

The book is ok if you are an experienced user. If you are new to photoshop, I fear you will be lost. The author makes it very difficult to duplicate the samples by not saying what size and resolution canvas he is using, and is very vague on issues such as "use a little blur" etc. Blurring the alpha channel is what helps cause the beveled and raised effects, and without some type of number to go off of, I had a very difficult time trying to duplicate his samples.
I did enjoy coming up with my own new and unique effects of of some of his suggestions, but over all I felt the book needs more detail to be useful.

Wow! even if this book didn't give detailed instructions on how to creat the type effects, it would still serve well as a coffee table art book - because type effects shown are that good and the color and layout of the book are museum book quality. This is a book you just want to sit down with a cup of coffee (tea works too)and just spend time browsing through it. It reminds me of the old Photoshop Type magic series with the exception that the type effects shown in this book don't look cheesy (which many did back in the days of Photoshop 4). The book is packed with a wealth of different effects that are breathtaking and as I read it it conjured up all sorts of ideas as to where I wanted to use the effects. The author gives excellent instruction in how to create the effects but does assume the reader has a working knowledge of Photoshop. While is this more of a challenge for a novice Photoshop user, it also means that pages are not wasted explaining what a layer is or where the Text tool is located. If you do any work with text in your creative designs, this is a must for your library.

Roger Pring's book is not only exemplary in its content but also in how the author has designed the presentation of that content. I might have never thought of Photoshop as a source generator for super typography effects had it not been for happening upon Pring's excellent book. Now I think of Photoshop before I try manipulating type in any other application. I'm hooked. But beware! Before picking up Roger Pring's book I was just a normal PowerBook page designer desktop publisher. Now I'm one of Pring's minions. This book about type is just my type.