X Books

Creole America: The West Indies And The Formation Of Literature And Culture In The New Republic by Sean X. Goudie (English Department, Vanderbilt University) explores how literary culture in the New Republic era became framed amid a background of both expansionist desires of the North American continent and a push for commercial empire along the routes of West Indian trades. George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury and West Indian immigrant Alexander Hamilton came to personify the unease felt by Americans about the relations between the slave colonies of the West Indies and the supposedly free and democratic states of the independent mainland, a state of mind that Goudie terms the "creole complex". Chapters scrutinize the resulting repercussions on literary expression and daily culture in the annals of history. A serious, college-level scholarly dissection of cross-cultural dynamics.

My Autistic son enjoyed hearing a chapter read out of this every night and could easily remember what had happened before. It's a great way to learn about the history of our United States.

Nice little book, most of the content is very basic to common CT diagnoses. The best part of this book is the introductory chapters to eash modality, esp MRI physics. Recommend for medical students.

This collection of the best of Kennedy's career spans an amazing variety of tones and themes, frequently with wit and poignancy. It justifiably won the Los Angeles Times Book award for poetry in 1985. Kennedy almost always adheres to strict rhyme and meter, placing him squarely in the tradition of past masters.

This book should be one of the best introduction in crystal structure analysis for the beginners! Everybody wanting to start with x-ray structure analysis should read this book at the very beginning, since it's, in fact, a International Union of Crystallography Text on Crystallography. It covers the most important topics of x-ray structure analysis in an easy understandable language without boring the reader with mathematical details. You can get a good impression about what the basic principles and problems of x-crystallography are, and how they can be solved.

The book covers diverse areas about clay minerals and describe very clrarly how to identify their structure using X-ray diffraction. The book is written in an ordered way, very easy to understand, allowing quick use. This subject is very interesting, because new worldwide researched technologies, nano-technologies, are dealing with clay minerals. although the book was written at 1980, I greatly recommand it. New books about this subject are not available, and other books are much less detailed and friendly to the reader.

The book "Crystallography in Modern Chemistry - Resource Book of Crystal Structures" by Thomas W.C. Mak and Gong-Du Zhou (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1992, ISBN 0-471-54702-6) is always on my bookshelf - and I constantly refer to it.

Why? The answer is simple: It is the best resource book about chemical structures I know. I use it constantly to compare the molecular structures I obtain with the ab-initio calculations I do with Gaussian 98W with the structures discussed in the book.

The authors have collected crystal and molecular structures to illustrate chemical concepts for their introductory and advanced lectures at several universities over a period of 25 years. And what a magnificent collection of structures they have managed to collect, reproduce, discuss and place in perspective!

This collection covering 1323 pages ranges from the "run-of-the-mill" structures for freshman chemistry courses (Chapter 2; 27 structures; about 160 pages of structures, data and illustrations), main group inorganic compounds (Chapter 3; 43 structures; about 280 pages), inorganic compounds of the transition elements (Chapter 4; 23 structures; about 260 pages), organic compounds (Chapter 5; 23 structures; about 110 pages), organometallic compounds (Chapter 6; 16 compounds; about 160 pages) ans inclusion compounds (Chapter 7; 9 compounds; about 130 pages).

I must emphasize that the term "compound" in my list in the previous paragraph is far wider than just a single compound, for instance, the discussion of the compound "Zinc Blende, ZnS" compares it with many of the other compounds having the ideal zinc blende structure; a useful set of references for further reading is also provided for each compound type.

The authors did not include structures haphazardly, but put a lot of thought into the selection of structures which are useful for illustrating chemical concepts, for instance, including hexamethyl benzene and its structural problems. The crystal and molecular structure of benzene, the symmetry of the benzene molecule as deduced from vibrational spectra, the actual equilibrium geometry of the benzene molecule, the structures of the hexa-substituted benzenes (hexachloro-, hexanitro-, hexaamino-, etc.), as well as borazine and its P- and Al-analogues, etc are also discussed. The discussion emphasizes the similariity, as well as the differences between these intriguing compounds, and the list of about 30 references to the original and extended literature invites the reader to delve deeper.

A book which compliments the book by Mak and Zhou is the very valuable book written by Kozo Kuchitsu (Editor), "Structures of Free Polyatomic Molecules - Basic Data", Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1998, ISBN 3-540-60766-8), which collects the structural data of some free polyatomic molecules. However, since it's purpose is to provide a collection of critically evaluated structural data and references, it does not provide a discussion of the individual structures.

In conclusion, I can say that I recommend that all teachers of chemistry should use the book by Mak and Zhou, and that all libraries should own copies of it for the use of their students. The only reason why I use the library copy is the cost of the book - namely, US$240.

And I wish that the book were available in electronic format on a CD-ROM - it would make it a far more useful teaching tool, since its structures and tables could then be electronically projected from a laptop in a well-equipped classroom and discussed without the need of Xeroxes and copyright problems! In addition, a CD-ROM ought to be cheaper than the printed version and students could buy it. Strange, in this age of the information highway, that this has not been done. I would strongly recommend it!

If you haven't yet discovered Diane Pearson, you are in for a real treat. What a comprehensive writer she is .. developing her characters well, then carrying you and them into well researched historical facts interposed into fiction. She is a phenomenal writer, although I haven't seen anything "new" from her since 1992. I believe her earliest works were published in the mid 60's. If you treat yourself to one of her books, you will surely want to read everything she has ever written, and she won't disappoint you! This is truly top-level reading .. you can't put it down until you realize you are nearly finished with the book and don't want it to end, so you start pacing yourself .. only 2 pages per day to make it last as long as possible. Everyone to whom I've loaned this book has loved it and wants more.

We love the plan book and it is very functional but part of my order was shipped first and then when the rest was shipped it was lost. I had to scramble to find the plan book elsewhere.

If you thought you knew all there was to know about Charles Darwin and his evolutionary hypothesis, but you haven't read this book, then think again. Eiseley's research is impeccable, but his findings strike to the very heart of the Darwin legend, revealing a deeply flawed and basically dishonest seeker after self-aggrandisement. No wonder it's out of print! Despite his findings Eiseley remained a Darwinist and an evolutionist to his dying day. This book is no slice of creationist propoganda, it is a carefully written, highly readable review of the facts. If you have any interest in the history of evolutionism - pro or con - this book should be very near the top of your reading list.