G. Wayne Miller Books

I am a patient that has had heart problems for awhile now. I just had surgery in 2006, so reading this book really helped me to understand where heart surgery all started. It brought it all home for me at the end. There is something about this surgeon that I now have a close connection to, and I didn't even realize it until the end! Those of you who have read "King of Hearts" would understand! This book has taught me a lot, but it also has a lot of great stories intertwined within. Totally worth the read!!

The medical history related in this book is one of the boldest and most amazing one. If it wasn't for these highly risk taking individuals, open heart surgery would not be possible today.

When a friend gave me this book to read, I thought I'd skim a few chapters and either get bored with the technical details or be bothered by them since I have had heart surgery for congenital heart defects myself.

I thumbed though the first chapter and I was hooked! The writing demonstrates the intensity found in intense pediatric cases very well and uses that and the determination of Dr. Lillehei to move the story along at a fast clip. I finished it in about 36 hours!

I had gotten to the point there I was trying to take care of myself well as an adult with congenital heart disease (treated defects), but I hadn't quite grasped the details of my own surgeries nor did I want to. After I read this book I ordered my surgical records immediately and was excited to read them! The book filled the descriptions of the surgeries with such excitement that it carried over into my own personal education about my health.

I like how they told the story of Dr. Lillehei as a person who did great things, but was also human being as much as his patients - with faults of his own - but also clearly, great gifts.

For more information about the long-term outcome of patients with congenital heart defects/disease and how we continue to lead the longest and healthiest lives possible for us, please visit the Adult Congenital Heart Association's website at www.achaheart.org

Once I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down. What a fascinating subject and such wonderful storyteller. From the mom of a "heart baby" it just amazes me how far we've come in such a short amount of time.

It's a good story, and Dr. Lillehei blazed an amazing trail, but this man appeared to be a sociopath who destroyed everything and everybody he touched - except, of course, his patients. I can't believe nobody addressed this yet, or maybe they were so fascinated by the story that they missed - or dismissed - it completely. This was more than a massive ego; this guy could have been a Dr. Swango had things been just a wee bit different.

I realize the book was about Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, but his brother Richard was also a transplant surgeon, as are his sons Craig and Kevin.

Men And Speed is an informative survey of NASCAR racing history and is written by a journalist who had exclusive access to Roush Racing, a large motorsports operation. Miller spent a year on the NASCAR racing circuit with owner Roush and his drivers: the result is an epic of racing events.

This book is a must have for any and all Roush Racing/NASCAR Fans. Every page I read sent chills up my spine and tears down my eyes. G. Wayne Miller gets up-close and personal with the Roush Guys and tells all the stuff we want to hear and all the stuff some of us would never come close to knowing. He is a super writer and a great person as he keeps the Roush fans up-to-date with his continuing adventure with the Roush guys. I hope he would consider a Pt. 2 because I know it would be just as great! Thanks for this wonderful insight!

Interesting look into the workings of a NASCAR Winston Cup team.

This book gives the reader a wonderful glimpse inside the 2001 NASCAR season as seen from the eyes of the drivers of Roush Racing. This particular season can be seen as the breakout year in which NASCAR gained much prominence for the following reasons: 1) the death of Dale Earnhardt 2) the intense media scrutiny regarding safety 3) the heightened public awareness and growing fan base 4) the relative under-performance of many racing teams.

This book will give you the inside story on all of these events and more. Highly recommended for the NASCAR fan and casual observer alike!

This is an awesome book. Somehow, Miller manages to write a compelling review of a year in racing which is enjoyable by both NASCAR novices as well as diehard fans who don't make non-race related appointments on Sunday. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about NASCAR from the inside. The anecdotes are exciting and amusing. The overall view of the Rousch racing endeavor is fascinating. I couldn't put the book down. Great job Mr. Miller!

I highly recommend this book which tells the story of Dr Hendern,American child surgery and Boston Children Hospital. It is very well written and beautifully describes one of the hardest working men in the US.Mr Miller deserves a medal for a job well done .

This book has a real sentimental value to me because Dr. Hardy Hendren is my doctor. I had a kidney condition when I was born and the hospital I was at did not know was what wrong with me but when my parents brought me to the Boston Children's Hospital where Dr. Henden works at, he knew what to do and preformed my surgery. The book is brilliant because of the man it is about.

It's not easy to find words adequate to do this book justice. It's primarily the biography of Dr. Hardy Hendren, recently retired chief of surgery at Children's Hospital in Boston. Dr. Hendren has performed operations that seem to be nothing short of miraculous. The book is a tribute to his indomitable spirit, and an inspiration to anyone looking for examples of what a man can accomplish when he puts his mind to it. I don't throw words such as "towering" or "genius" around lightly, but even those words seem inadequate when applied to Dr. Hendren. Read the book, and be inspired.

I agree with an earlier reviewer that the book seems to get side-tracked occasionally with descriptions of other surgeons at Children's Hospital. However, I found this a microscopic negative compared to the overall value of the book. Hence the five stars.

the author tries to do too much in this one book. On the one hand it is about a plastic surgeon who specializes in pediatric congenital anomalies. The biographical information with details about some of his cases is excellent. However, the author takes on too much by making it a book about Children's Hospital also, including cases that have nothing to do with the featured surgeon. I enjoyed it but it could have been better organized into two books.

"The Work of Human Hands" is an excellent story detailing the work of Doctor Hardy Hendron - a fantastic human being - This story is impossible to read without gaining a heightened sense of what is truly important. I am also a writer and I have suffered a dire family emergency that has a happy ending - I am detailing the work of the terrific surgeons at The Children's Hospital of Buffalo, New York and I can only hope to do as terrific a job as G. Wayne Miller did.

Although "Toy Wars" is subtitled "The Epic Struggle Between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies that Make Them", Miller's tale trains its spotlight almost exclusively on Hasbro. This, however, does not make the tome any less interesting and insightful. The toys themselves take a back seat to the colorful personalities that run the industry and shape the imaginations and desires of millions of young minds.

We learn that running a toy company is not only about designing good toys. It is also about licensing, mergers and acquisitions, focus groups, `cartoons-as-subtle-advertising'--and a lot of Machiavellian wheeling and dealing.

Hasbro's story was a story worth telling-and Miller tells it well.

Although "Toy Wars" is subtitled "The Epic Struggle Between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies that Make Them", Miller's tale trains its spotlight almost exclusively on Hasbro. This, however, does not make the tome any less interesting and insightful. The toys themselves take a back seat to the colorful personalities that run the show and shape the imaginations and desires of millions of young minds.

We learn that running a toy company is not only about designing good toys. It is also about licensing, mergers and acquisitions, focus groups, `cartoons-as-subtle-advertising'--and a lot of Machiavellian wheeling and dealing. Miller also subtly introduces a `battle of the sexes' undercurrent in the conflict of the two titanic players, Hasbro and Mattel.

Hasbro's story was a story worth telling-and Miller tells it well.

The toy wars were one of the most interesting conflicts in Business history. How Mattel and Hasbro divided up the toy industry is a fascinating story and one that anyone interested in business should read. This book is very well written and Miller had access to all of the relevant material for weaving an excellent story together. The downfall of GI Joe and the everlasting presence of Barbie are two very interesting ideas that I won't spoil here. I will just say this is a must read for those studying business and want to learn about cutthroat competition.

The book gives an excellent history of both companies - Mattel and Hasbro, but devotes more time to Hasbro and seems to favor Hasbro as the sentimental, fun bunch while Mattel is the coldly calculating toy monolith. While this may be true to some extent (I don't know), it may be a little too strong in the book.

My favorite part of this book was the description of the history behind specific brands such as GI Joe, Mr. Potato Head, Barbie, etc. It's amazing how these brands have been developed and remain strong.

A well written book that makes for very interesting reading. It is the story of Hasbro and the events that unfold around it. Since the author had a good access to the Hasbro team, he has been able to write up about Hasbro executives in great detail. Competitiors, esp. Mattel get seen through Hasbro eye's and hence maybe make for a one sided perspective.
The book talks well about how toy brands have evolved from simple objects to complex products involving Hollywood, comics, cereals, mega blitz promotions and the like. It offers a good understanding of how the toy business is not a childs play any longer.

It seems like the more progress we make, the more we realize just how much we don't know.

Transplanting animal organs into people sure sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? It's been tried for decades with invariably disastrous results; the "Baby Fae" debacle, mentioned in this book, is by far the best known.

I'm deducting a star for the way the book seems to drop off a cliff, with a hint of propaganda.

OTOH, like other G. Wayne Miller books, it remains a good story with interesting and colorful characters.

G. Wayne Miller's The Xeno Chronicles: Two Years On The Frontier Of Medicine Inside Harvard's Transplant Research Lab focuses on Dr. David Sachs, a pioneer in immunology who has made many contributions in the field of organ transplants. His real passion lies in xenotransplantion: using animal parts to treat and replace human parts, and The Xeno Chronicles here examines his decades of work and the genetically engineered, cloned pig Goldie designed for organs which are not rejected by recipients. From limits of research money and time to moral and ethical concerns, The Xeno Chronicles does an excellent job of keeping a fast pace and a scientific eye on Dr. Sachs' promise and progress.

G. Wayne Miller is a journalist with a keen interest in the personal and professional lives of medical pioneers, who are little known outside their field. His past books include King of Hearts and The Work of Human Hands, both of which recount the day to day experiences of pioneers in the field of surgery.

In The Xeno Chronicles, Miller documents the behind-the-scenes activities of Dr. David H. Sachs, a legend in transplantation research. Dr. Sachs is determined to advance the field of cross-species transplants, known as xeno-transplantation. Miller gained exclusive access to Harvard's transplant research laboratory where Dr. Sachs and his colleagues attempt to harvest genetically modified pig organs and transplant them into baboons as a first step into animal-to-human transplants. With an ever increasing number of people needing organ and tissue transplants, and the immature promise of stem cell research, xeno-transplantation could be a saving grace for millions around the world. But Sachs's work, and the work of his counterparts, is being slowed down by politics, animal activism, and above all, financial constraints.

Miller does a wonderful job in not only focusing on the scientific work of Dr. Sachs, but also by touching-up on stories of animal activism and financial hardships experienced by animal research scientists. Patients who are desperately waiting for an organ believe that animals are the last chance they have at life, but activists think animals deserve the full respect bestowed on us humans and should not be used as spare body parts. This is why animal research scientists have become similar to undercover agents, proceeding through a plethora of security checks and biometric checkpoints to reach their labs. The corporate firms backing the research impose further restrictions on open scientific discussions, and many believe such restrictions slow down the progress of xeno-transplantation, if not all of medical research.

The Xeno Chronicles reads much like the latest best-seller novel, with complex characters, heroes applauded by some and criticized by others, and a sophisticated plot of secret research and political mongering. But this story is not fictional; it is in fact the real life drama of scientists on the fringe of medical greatness.

Scilitera.com

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I live in the same town as the high school profiled and I enjoyed reading about teachers and students I am familiar with. This book gives an indepth look into American schools. I recommend it to everyone. A must read!!

If you want to learn integration techniques and become a whiz at basic computational calculus, you need another book. If you want a book that gives you a lot of proofs and tons of examples, you also probably need another book.

So why do I give the book 4 stars? The answer is _the problems_. I used this book for 3 semesters of calculus, and I felt like _I_ actually discovered a lot of the machinery of calculus just by doing the problems. It's a great feeling to discover rather than be taught. That's what this book helps you do.

Of course, this means you will probably have to do a few more problems than the teacher assigns (unless the teacher is very in tune with the book and knows exactly which problems are related). Also, when you get to techniques of integration, you'll probably need to refer to other books for examples. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it is always better to learn from multiple sources.

One big downside is the cost. But, unfortunately, that's a problem with all American text books. Try to get a used copy.

Oh and about the book and solution manual not giving many solutions... Don't worry about it. When you solve most of these problems, you _know_ when you get the answer because everything will click and make sense. As for integration problems, just plug 'em into your TI-89, Maple, or the free Wolfram Online Integrator to check your answers!

In summary, this is a genuinely enjoyable book for problem solvers. Don't be scared by the other reviews. They are actually correct, in a way, but are simply coming from a somewhat narrowed perspective.

I don't know why so many people dislike this book...I probably learn in a different manner than they do. I've had to learn most of my calculus through Stewart's Early Transcendentals book, which I found very dry and mostly uninteresting. Luckily, I bought this book while I was taking a year off and taught myself calculus, having never even heard of a limit or a derivative before.

If you like thinking about the ideas behind things, and then learning about the formalism and mathematics of it, then this book is for you. If you prefer proofs, analysis, and "learn these steps and solve these problems" examples, you'll probably want to find a different text.

I can remember, though, the JOY of actually deriving things for myself, like how to calculate the volume of a solid rotated about some line or some such nonsense, because I could understand exactly what was needed. That is how I would describe this book: It's not a book about proving theorems and making you memorize a bunch of rules. Instead, it makes you really understand the subject matter, so that you can use the ideas of calculus to solve a variety of problems, even if they're problems you have no idea how to solve when you first read through them!

That is one thing that this book taught me that I found indespensible. You don't have to know how to do something, because you might be able to figure it out yourself instead of having some professor or text book or internet article tell you how to! Perhaps this approach is a little too ambitious, and I'll admit I spent a lot of time going through this text trying to reason things out, but it was time well spent.

So I suppose my advice would be not to buy this book unless you have to (for a course), or you're really willing to go through those problems spending a lot of time thinking about how to apply the IDEAS presented in the examples and text to the problem at hand. In the latter case, I think you'll find that the time you invest in this book will give you unexpected rewards.

I am using this text to teach myself Calculus. Explanations are skimpy, and offer very few practice problems with each of the steps worked out. Only odd answers are printed in the back (and some odd answers are not printed). I'm using the Schaum's OutLine Series, and it's MUCH MUCH better. I bought this book used, and for what I paid for it, I could have gotten the Schaums Calculus and Pre-Cal, and still had enough left over for dinner and a movie. Sad.

This is the worst calculus book out there.

One reviewer says "This book is for good students." I disagree. I am a good student at a tough university and I hated this book. Out of 35 students who took my calc class only 2 got an A. I was one of the two. So you can take my word because I worked my ass off to get that A. THIS IS THE WORST BOOK ON THE MARKET. Why?

1. Not enough examples
2. The examples are either super easy or super hard
3. Poorly explained concepts
4. Questions on things hardly explained
5. Tons of ambiguous questions
6. Poorly designed text

I could go on and on... Just skip this book. Please. It will make me feel better.

Ok this textbook does not teach at all. It basically just provide examples that is it. IT doesn't say why you do it or explain the calculus at all. The way the book explain calculus does not help at all when it comes to doing the problems. The answers in the back of the book does not match the problems throughout the chapters.

As an undergrad, this book is not student friendly at all. I basically did not use the textbook and depended on the professor and math tutoring. I love math and I understand it, but this book does not help. I am unable to learn from this textbook.