Reviews Books

Rapid Review for Physiology Online helps me grasp the material. I'm excited to say that I finally understand physio, and I know I will be successful.

Understandable, affordable, and memorable - this product is essential material for the boards. Physiology is the foundation for superior scores on Step 1 and is what second year pathology is based on. With so much resting on understanding this subject, you can't leave it to researchers, irritated they are away from their lab, to teach it to you.

This is awesome - I just wish I it had come out sooner.

What a great program! The video's are so easy to understand.

Finally, I get physio.

The book is very impressive. I am surprised not many students are using it. Great pathophysiology (specially the cardio section) and the online questions are worth the price of the book. compares favorably to BRS physiology.

Very concise and easy to read review of physiology. I found the clinical vignettes and correlations especially helpful. Extremely useful as a resource for first year medical classes or as a reference for board review.

The hybrid format of this text was very helpful. It provides more information than texts with simple outline formats without overloading like a comprehensive textbook. For me it is the ideal format for a review text. The many diagrams are clear and helpful, great for visual learners. The depth of information is just right for studying for USMLE step 1 and includes "notes" that tie the physiology in with relevant anatomy, pathology and pharmacology. There are even relevant "clinical notes" that I found useful on the wards.

RQ series(Parthenon Publishing Group inc) are lesser known than other board review books, but offer in depth review in a question and answer format similar to the "Recall" series books, but with multiple choice questions. RQ is a bargain for the number and quality of the questions!!

This book is absolutely, hands down, the best source of anatomy review questions! I loved using it for anatomy and it is hard to believe it is out of print. I can't imagine why they wouldn't keep printing this book. Every essential concept is covered and if you know these questions, you'll ace your written anatomy exams. Very good investment.

My anatomy exam scores differed based on whether I did the questions in this book or not (did questions=did well; no time to do questions=barely passed). There are A LOT of questions in this book - which is great, because most concepts repeat and this of course reinforces learning. It also means that you should start the questions ASAP - don't wait until you've finished reading the text, dissector, whatever. Use your text and atlas as references while you start the questions right away!

All questions are in multiple choice format, either in "standard" type A format (A-E, single best answer), or in type K format, which I had never heard of before this book but got used to it fairly quickly. There are no pictures, tables, or diagrams (that's what your text and atlas are for). The thorough explanations are on the right side of the page opposite the question.

I highly recommend this book based on my anatomy experience.

I love this book. I used Robbins before but it seems like it highlights a lot of research info than true pathology. Rubin is very illustrative, simple to understand, and straight forward. It's all a matter of preferences. I'm very visual and a very graphic book is excellent for me than a thousand words.

This book is clearly the best for learning the basics in this field. As already written, it takes a while to understand the content but works excellent as a reference.

If You have a 8 week course and decide to be the best student, You may have to put no less than 10-12h on studies each day including repeated reading. Which of course, in the long run, demands a lot of energy even if You decide to skip classes. It is, unfortunately, one thing to understand the content while You read, it is a complete different thing to have all the names, patterns, details, text boxes recalled on demand to a molecular level and still not get lost in all the data. One good method I recommend is taking key notes for concepts, names on enzymes, transcription factors and important genes while studying. (Even if all You will get in the end is some stupid names memorized it actually makes the book a lot easier to learn. It is just the way the mind works).

Remember that having a good memory requires sleep!
Some people are genius, I am probably not one of them ;-)

Simply put, this is the end-all be-all when it comes to pathologic analysis of disease states. Typically this is for 2nd year Medical School Students and/or Pathology trainees. Unless you are going into pathology as a sub-discipline, you may be overloaded with this information. If you want a concise primer on all things pathology, look into "Essential Pathology" by Rubin, which is intended as a summary of the 4th edition seen here. Of note is that the Essential Pathology does not include the CD-Rom that comes with this book, which is the best pictorial-based review I've ever seen -- worth the cost of the book alone!

To expand, IF PRESSED ON TIME, DON'T GET THIS ONE! If you are willing to spend the time and effort required for a HUGE book like this (over several semesters), your money will be well spent. As a book itself, this one has 5 stars easily; as a text for a course, I'd give 4 1/2, only for the overabundance of information for a short period of time.

I have had Dr. Rubin in classes (and some courses using the same text but with other Thomas Jefferson University professors), and the man is a genius in the field. This is just one student's opinion, so take it with a grain of salt, but I mention this only to describe the wealth, if not overabundance, of information contained within this book.

This book was recommended by a professor since the final grade was based upon a final paper. I wish I had this book since 1st year. Great for people who plan to "write on" to law review as well as write any kind of legal scholarly paper. Highly recommend this.

"Why didn't we learn this in law school?!!"

Anyone who survived the confusion of case-method during first semester law school and never learned anything useful until studying commercially available outlines the night before final exams knows the feeling of relief this book provides.

SCHOLARLY WRITING FOR LAW STUDENTS is not a crutch for the lazy. It's an extremely well-organized and comprehensive guide to figuring out the precise steps required to produce quality scholarly legal writing.

Fajans & Falk don't spoon-feed you a "how-to" on scholarly writing -- they simply give you a clue and then help you find your own way. They are unpretenious, funny, and inspiring. Buying this book is easily the best investment I've ever made.

I've never written an amazon.com review before -- but this book inspired me to do so. I've bought a copy of this book for every law student I know. I refer to this book at least once a week to assist in my own legal scholarship...

Superb resource. I would suggest reading this, probably twice, before showing up for first year. I wish I had, although I got hold of this in time to make a difference in what I produced. I mean it - if you want to suck all there is to get out of the Law School process, pick this up.

I have heard through the grapevine that this book actually might make it out of print. If it does this is a must book for fans of seventies sci-fi!!

This is a great look at the best and worst of the Science Fiction films of the 1970's done with insight and humor by someone who obviously loves SF films and knows them well.

Science fiction enthusiast and author Craig Anderson's Science Fiction Films Of The Seventies is an entertaining, fact-filled reference and guide to the science fiction films of the 1970's, an era when only 5% of the box office movies were science fiction. Over forty science fiction movies are each looked at individually, including a synopsis, information about the making of the movie, and thoughtful critical appraisal. a segment of black-and-white photographs lets readers unfamiliar with certain films get a glimpse of what they were like. Science Fiction Films Of The Seventies is a "must" for connoisseurs of such great classic movies as Logan's Run and Soylent Green, as well as film history students with a strong interest in the evolution of silver screen sci-fi!

This is a fantastic book about sex -- it will make you want to have more and more of it. The book is more exciting than "Wordsmart Junior" (another Princeton Review book by Brantley), but it's written for a different audience. It's a thoughtful, intelligent, humor-filled look at sex on campus today, including the down side, like STDs and rape. Should be required reading for everyone who's going to college.

A tremendous guide for any student or parent. Worth its wait in gold

As a college student and lover of non-fiction, I found this book not only enjoyable, but a good bit fascinating. In a time when sexual activity is becoming much more public, this book has many answers that a student may find embarrasing or awkward to ask. Most books based on statistics are dull and used for reference only. "Sex on Campus" was not, putting the reader at ease with its candid language and humor. A great read.

Highly recommended for someone who has some familiarity with the plays and wants to see this terrain through sharper eyes. This is not "CliffsNotes." These are essays by a master critic who loves Shakespeare, written *for* readers who love Shakespeare. But be prepared when Van Doren plays the critic, not the worshipper. If your favorite is "Henry V," for example, keep an open mind and wince along.

A pleasant aspect of this book is that you can take the essays in any order. This means that if, like me, you know some of the more popular plays (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Lear, Julius Ceasar), but not some of the seldom-performed ones (Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, King John, Pericles), you can see what Van Doren has to say about "your" plays and then come back when you have hunted up the others.

Van Doren's prose is familiar, easy, and full of love. It is almost a conversation, and hardly less a joy to read than Shakespeare himself.

How often have you encountered a book on Shakespeare or his works that attains a level of writing that is often heart-meltingly gorgeous, even at times comparable to the beauty of the Shakespeare quotations it contains? Probably only once, and this is the book.

A helpful introduction by David Lehman reminds us that Mark Van Doren was a celebrated professor of literature at Columbia University, and a poet of considerable accomplishment, who served as mentor to a long list of students who later achieved great things. In his courses he generally spoke without notes, and this 1939 book on Shakespeare's works was also written without notes or references, other than a well-thumbed one-volume edition of the works, printed in about 1906.

Any modest power of description which I might possess fails utterly for this exquisite book. Instead, let me give a sample of Van Doren's commentary: "It may well be that Shakespeare in 'The Tempest' is telling us for the last time, or consciously for the last time, about the world. But what he is telling us cannot be simple, or we could agree that it is this or that. Perhaps it is this: that the world is not simple. Or, mysteriously enough, that it is what we all take it to be. Any set of symbols, moved close to this play, lights up as if in an electric field. Its meaning, in other words, is precisely as rich as the human mind, and it says that the world is what it is. But what the world is cannot be said in a sentence. Or even in a poem as complete and beautiful as 'The Tempest.'"

I have always loved Shakespeare but, even though I have studied it, sometimes, he is a little difficult to pin down on what exactly he is saying or meaning and it is often hard to get the feel or mood for certain scenes. After all, he was a playwright, not a journalist! And he wrote five centuries ago in the idiomatic English of that time. This critique is absolutely brilliant. Van Doren's feelings on Shakespeare are that he wrote his plays to be enacted on a mostly-bare stage in front of a noisy crowd of Joe Q. Publics, not enacted in an elaborate hushed stage setting in front of a group of phychologist, phychoanalists, etc. I have often felt that some critics see deep, mystical, dark meanings in Shakespeare that he never intended (I feel it is more a reflection of the critic's own phyche). Not to say that Shakespeare is shallow! I feel his "well-written" plays are awesome and unmatched by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Van Doren brings Shakepeare to the light of day in a clear, logical, yet so very elegant way. This book literally brings me to tears, it's so beautiful!

Sleeping Upside Down will stun you with its poetic brilliance and raw honesty, its starry adolescent dreams and gritty farm girl observations, its unearthed and pulsing passion. Its carefully constructed lyrical poems weave the narrative threads through gardens and bedrooms and into your heart.

As soon as I began to read this slim, beautifully-bound volume of poems, I realized that I had slipped into a world of honest emotion and brilliant observations. These poems are sensual and soft as a first kiss, hard-edged and raw as the first shuddering sob after a difficult breakup with a lover. Hibbard evokes human sensuality and desire with a deceptive simplicity and clarity; second and third readings create echoes that resonate long after you have put the book down. There are poems here to delight and astonish, not only about love and loss, but about the isolation and joy of farming in the Midwest, about coming to terms with the aftershocks of rape and violence, about being middle-aged and slowly becoming one's mother. Hibbard's eye is acute and wise, her range is broad, and her hopeful vision is grounded in the physical. The title poem is one of the most original and finely detailed poems about nascent desire that I have ever read, and the opening line from "The Trouble with Language," "The trouble with language is / it follows you everywhere," could be said of the poems from this book. I recommend it both for those who already love and appreciate brilliant, well-crafted poetry, and for those who are new to poetry. Both will be more than satisfied.

I read Sleeping Upside Down under a spell of wonder. These poems are accessible but cover complex ground between men and women, women and women, and the writer and her subjects. The title poem is a beautiful coming of age poem in which the narrator describes the electricity between two teen girls on a hot night in the Midwest. Awakening sexuality is made visceral through "[...]ing/as if threaded with wires." The heat and vibrancy inside a young woman's bedroom is in interplay between the dark night outside and "the crackle and hiss of the electric fence on the all night Top 40 radio." This evokes the buzzing and heat present everywhere in pubescent adolescence. Juxtaposed against the energy of desire is a claustrophobic closeness, which captures the discomfort many of us have known when faced with an attraction that can't be expressed. What the narrator is seeking is barely suggested beyond the hint of an open "pajama top," which is remedied by "feigning sleep." The phrase, "sleeping upside down" is a superb use of metaphor for the confusion and worldview changes that occur when people recognize their attraction to the same sex.

There is a lot of humor throughout this book as well. In Fever, Hibbard expertly establishes the tensions between lovers about to split up. Certainly the idea of sex with someone we're about to leave is a compelling premise for a poem. While having sex with her male lover for the last time the narrator is distracted: "she noticed things the way she thought a firing squad victim would." The sweating and haze of fever leaves the woman "too witless and weak to argue" and "she felt a great reverence for what the body is still willing to do." Quite the opposite of pathetic, as break-ups can often be, the tone of this poem is hilarious and all too familiar to anyone who tried to leave a relationship gracefully.

Buy this book. It is delightful, brilliant, reverent, funny, and original.

So I've Heard: Notes Of A Migratory Music Critic comes from a music critic whose published music criticism column has decades of appearance here gathered under one cover for the first time. From an unenthusiastic account of a Leonard Bernstein world premiere to encounters with conductors and classical musicians in different settings both on stage and off, So I've Heard provides a set of rich insights on musicians, their inspirations, and the future of music as a whole.

There are people who understand music so well, and write about it so well that their writing is far more than educational but highly entertaining as well. Many of these people write for transient media such as newspapers and their writing tends to disappear with yesterday's trash (or hopefully it's recycled).

Once in a while one of the masters at the trade finds a publisher willing to publish some of his work in book form. This is one of those. Alan Rich is more than just a music critic. Over sixty years he has written about music.

He has writen about the ancient Medieval chants. He has written about the electronic music produced by instruments that bear little relationship to traditional musical instruments. Over the years he has had a close relationship with musicians, conductors, performers, composers - basically the entire musical world. He wrote about them and here those words are preserved.

If you've never read an article by Alan Rich, you're in for a treat. As a music critic, his opinions are easy to disagree with, but the insight he offers into the lives and works of composers (especially contemporary ones like Ligeti and Glass) is truly thought-provoking. Living in California, he reviewed many local symphony/opera performances.

With catchy titles like "Let's Hear If for Ockeghem" (one of my favorites :), "Armen Ksajikian: Akbar of the Armadillo," (about a movie villain actor/accomplished cellist) "La rondine: Momma Domingo Gets It Wrong," and on and on - Rich compiled an amusing and educating collection of articles spanning a good chunk of the American music scene (Rich turned 80 in 2004).

This is also a great book for those who enjoy picking up a book every so often for a short excerpt.