Reviews Books

IT TELLS HOW THEY PUT THE SHOW TOGETOTHER AND TI ALSO GIVE A LITTLE INSIGHT INTO THE SHOW. BUT IT STILL LEFT ME A LITTLE CONFUSE AND IAM A FAN OF THIS SHOW AND I STILL DO NOT GET WHST THE HELL THEY ARE DOING TO THE SHOW.

Terry J. Erdmann has chosen a great direction for exactly what he discusses in "The 4400: the Official Companion Seasons 1 and 2" that places this and his previous work for the official "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion" well above episode guides for any other series. This guide has all the right stuff. No offense to the crew, but it didn't waste time on technical details like special effects, stunt coordination, or location shoots. It just focussed on the writers' inspirations and difficulties, the actors' experiences, and the studio and network producers' thoughts. My one complaint about it was that there wasn't enough of what it already had. I just wanted more -- more stories and funny anecdotes from the actors and writers, more discussion by the writers about how they came up with certain ideas, who exactly came up with what, and who wrote what.

One aspect that either wasn't covered or was barely touched upon was the political exploration of the show. In Seasons 1 and 2, The 4400 discusses issues of religion, identity politics among a minority, and the conflict between freedom and security. Just as with Ira Steven Behr's guidance of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," we increasingly find here serious and fair illustration of historical issues that have only come to the fore of the mainstream US media's focus (and only superficially so) in the post-9/11 world. There are certain thematic links between that pre-9/11 series and this one. Later seasons of The 4400 additionally delve into the nature and causes of terrorism, torture, religious fundamentalism, religious and political revolutionary movements (including rarely-expressed doubt among leaders), the complicated nature of faith (because religious motivations are always complemented by pragmatic concerns), and conflicting visions of the good society between socialist equality and hierarchical, unfettered capitalism. (I've written some Season 4 reviews on tv.com and other sites in an effort to bring to light these themes and connect them to historical and present-day issues.)

Unlike most TV fiction that formulaically posits a conflict between our absolutely good heroes and some inherent evil in "the other," The 4400 increasingly succeeds in mimicking the real world by avoiding absolutes; all the heroes are fallible, and all adversaries have the potential for kindness. It shows quite brilliantly that conflict comes from varying perceptions and interests and not between good and evil, as some world leaders would have us believe. It might be a good idea to explore the political nature of The 4400 in future guides, especially for Seasons 3 and 4, and -- hopefully -- seasons beyond.

It's definitely as much a testament to the show as to Mr. Erdmann's wonderful work that he has written a guide leaving me starving for even more insight into this dramatically-realistic and increasingly politically-insightful series.

When I purchased this book I thought it would just be an episode guide and maybe a character summary. I was wrong. This book is complete with developing the show, hiring the actors, episode guide, character summary, and story line development. This is an absolute must for any 4400 fan.

This a very well presented book. It's legible, atractive and concise. It's very usefull material in reviewing differents and importants subjects in the surgical area for rounds, discussions and presentations with my medicine students and surgery residents.

How many times have you taken a written exam, an oral board type test, or been bombarded with questions while on hospital rounds that simple textbook consultation failed to prepare you to handle? This book is great for medical students doing surgery rotations as well as general surgery residents trying to improve their knowledge base. I read it twice during my surgery residency and found it quite helpful. Shell out a few bucks and buy this book. It's worth it.

This book is like having all the best advice one might hear during a 6 week clerkhsip condensed into a few dozen hours reading. Not to be missed

Sophie Aldred was the last companion for the longed lived Doctor Who program. She and special effects wizard Mike Tucker give their thoughts on the last three seasons of the show. The book is filled with pictures from the show and behind the scenes. It also contains quotes from various people including Sylvester McCoy, AKA the Seventh (and final of the series) Doctor. It really is a good read, whether you like Sophie or just like Doctor Who in general. It also contains mainly behind the scenes antics, even the infamous tank scene, where Sylvester became an actual hero.

This really is a perfect companion book to go in any collection.

This book has it all; full colour pictures, many from the private collections of Sophie and SFX creator Mike Tucker, the technical working of the show, and witty, genuine commentary from Sophie herself. By reading this book you get a real understanding of how episodes in the Ace era were produced, what the cast and crew thought of them, and what they got up to on set. Sophie is full of information, and you'll want go back and watch all your videos again and go "Ah! i know how they did that!"

If the cover of Sophie Aldred having dealt the Black Dalek with her aluminum bat doesn't convince Who fans that she's the toughest companion since Leela of the Tom Baker era, nothing will. Sophie is well-placed to tell her experiences in Doctor Who, as she was the series' last companion. She came in the wake of a tough transition in Doctor Who's history--following the dismissal of Colin Baker and the installing of Sylvester McCoy, Sophie was chosen to succeed Bonnie Langford as the new companion.

Mike Tucker, her collaborator of this work, was the visual effects designer during Doctor Who's dying days. He too provides his point of view and remembrances with equal aplomb.
In each of her nine stories (Dragonfire, Remembrance Of The Daleks, The Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis, The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, Battlefield, Ghost Light, The Curse Of Fenric, and Survival) she provides vivid commentary and detail from her diary of her experiences. There's lots of behind the scenes photographs in B&W and colour, early design sketches, listings of the cast and production team, director, story number, number of episodes and date broadcast--it's pretty comprehensive.

And yes, the famous incident of her while shooting Battlefield is included. Basically, she was in a water-filled tank and was to be pulled up. Sylvester McCoy noticed the glass bulging and then... CRACK! Sylvester shouted for the crew to lift her out, which they did, before anything happened to her. She also tells about this in the More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS video.

Considering how she was one of the few ex-alumni of Who to come out in the More Than... video, it shows how much she loved the show. She was very heartbroken when Sylvester McCoy told her that there wasn't going to be a 27th season, and that too is included in the book.

At the end of the book are photos and text of some of her post-Who efforts, including More Than A Messiah, an episode of the Stranger, the short-lived Colin Baker series, and Shakedown, a Who-spin off that not only featured the return of the troll-like Sontarans but paired her with Carole Ann Ford, Dr. Who's first ever companion. Then there's an interview where she tells what her favourite story was, plus her favourite Doctor. I have to commend her on her answer--she has good taste.

This is a splendid companion-piece after watching any of the 7th-Doctor/Ace stories. If you can find this book--get it. Break through hoardes of Daleks to get this treasure.

Wonderful and delightful. A combination of the Wonderful Magic the world of Disney brings us, along with the encouragement and lessons that will lead a child to the begining of love for self and life.

This book combines classic animated feature frames with lines from their movies that will move, touch, inspire, and delight anyone and everyone. Makes a great gift. Deffinetly worth reading and keeping on your coffee table for easy reference.

This book is truly to be a favorite for any Disney fan. Not only is it inspirational, but it is fun at the same time. Seeing all of the Disney characters,and their quotes,brings back many memories. It's amazing how all of the quotes from the Disney characters can really be applied to your own life. I highly reccomend this book for any one. It also makes a great gift for a friend who may be going through a rough time. It definatley will make them smile!

This guide provides some important information for African-Americans who are planning to apply to colleges. I'm writing this in October 2006 and got this book out of the library. Too bad that there isn't an updated version around. I think it speaks volumes about how African-Americans are disenfranchised in the college process. In my area, most tend to just go to the local community college or the poorest state college in the area. My feeling is that many people are steered to these colleges and very little information is provided at the high school level to encourage African-American students to research colleges and take a deeper look into the process.

I wish this book was available when I was in the process of choosing a school. I think every African American student needs a guide to help them through the process of picking the right school for them. This book gives them the feeling that every question no matter how big or small is an important one. Ms.Parhams comical antedotes also make the book believable and easy to read. I think every high school senior should have this book in their suitcase as they pack for school this fall.

Ms. Parham has written the definitive book for African-Americans planning on pursuing a college education. The trick is getting in and staying in...her thoughtful, humorous insights and practical observations make this book very easy to read. A truly gifted author!!

You don't need this book to pass the ABIM. But this book will make you a better clinician.

Easily the BEST practical guide for physical diagnosis of all. A MUST for all physicians and trainee house staff, whether or not they are taking any examinations. The authors present an entirely different way of practising physical diagnosis, that is simple and easy to repeat.

Cases are listed in the order of their frequency of appearance in the MRCP examination and the skills and methods of physical examinaton are centered around the diagnosis itself.

Also, the methods focused on completing the entire examination of a case within a short period of time, which is key in acheiving success in the MRCP exam.

A wonderful book overall.

It is an excellent review of all the possible short cases for MRCP part 2. It is organised according to the frequency of occurence of the case and also includes experiences of several examinees which are extremely helpful. In the recent times, I do not know of a person who passed MRCP without using this book.

This is one of the best music books I have ever purchased it has reviews on almost every hip hop album ever made for all the Youngsters of the rap game that have no education in hip hop buy this book at once and find something out on Kool DJ Herc-Grandwizard Theodore-Grandmaster Caz the originators if you dont know the Message you dont know rap-Good day

Just to reiterate what was mentioned earlier, this book goes nicely in depth, going back to originating artists as well as current mainstream as well as underground heavy hitters. I have alot of fun looking through this guide. Any big Hiphop fan should love this book. There were a few artists I felt should definitely have been included in the book, but were not. However, there was a good effort put into this book.

This is the real kind of rap music, not just the kind you hear on the radio. This book goes into detail not just the mainstream artists of rap, but also underground favorites. It also rates each artists albums out of five stars. It provides a (usually)small biography on the artist as well as who he/her worked with in the past. The book also gives you a well rounded vision of hip-hop in general by showing you where all the different genres of rap originated, and what distinguishes them. Every time I go to buy an album I look it up here first. It is also very recent, going all the way up to the summer of 2003. Overall, well worth your money.

Amazing Grace received the 2003 Western Heritage Award (Poetry Category) from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Amazing Grace received the prestigious 2003 Western Heritage Award (poetry category) from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The sixty-four poems in this collection, the second book from up-and-coming Texas poet Larry D. Thomas, probe the complex interrelations between the land and the creatures that inhabit it. The book won the 2001 Texas Review Poetry Prize and it is easy to see why these lean, sharp-edged poems were selected by the judges. Geographically and thematically, Amazing Grace encompasses all that is integral to Texas and Texans, while at the same time transcending the merely regional to explore universal human truths.

The collection is divided into four sections, each of which anatomizes a particular region of the state. The first quarter of the book, Their Heaven of Bleakness, is set in West Texas. It is the most tightly-knit of the four sections. Opening with a poem entitled "`Of Dust Thou Art'" and closing with "`And to Dust Thou Shalt Return,'" these twenty pieces are linked by interwoven themes of living and dying-the springing from the soil of life, death's return to the land, the miracle of rebirth from earth's dark womb-and by the ever-present tie between the dry West Texas country and its drought-resistant denizens. The imagery of these powerful lyric poems is as rugged as the Guadalupe Mountains and their language cuts like a blue norther, bone-deep. Here be turkey vultures, rattlesnakes, claret cup cactus, cattle, and above all an unconquerable people who "take to their gritty beds, / ease the quilts of grandmas / over their leathery bodies / like slabs of red earth, and they pray."

The setting for the second quarter of the collection, Near the Big Thicket, moves east across the Balcones Escarpment into the shadow of the Piney Woods. The dark shadows of the pines are echoed in these twenty pieces by a deeper darkness that underlies so much of the human experience. In "The Slough," Thomas interweaves concrete natural imagery of death's rank decay with the figurative putrefaction of original sin so that the poem becomes an extended metaphor whose vehicle is the dark bayou and whose tenor is the human condition. The viewpoint character of the piece "can hear / the muffled steady engine of its rot" as the slough "works its timeless wonders / under still, dark waters. Its film / has already claimed his pale, blue eyes."

In the third quarter of the collection, At the Jetty's End, Thomas revisits the Gulf coast that he portrayed with such poignancy in his debut collection, The Lighthouse Keeper (Timberline Press 2001). The ten pieces in this section are filled with a tone of longing that contrasts nicely with the dark tone of the poems in section two. The land-dwelling speakers and viewpoint characters of these bittersweet lyrics seek with varying degrees of success to merge themselves with the sea. "Mooring Line," a piece reprinted from Thomas's debut collection, addresses the difficulty of making this connection-and its tenuousness once the connection is achieved. The controlling image of the poem, the mooring line of the title, lies half-buried in sand, "sponging the screams and fleeting / shadows of the gulls, / tethering uselessness / to the slow, consuming pull / of ruin."

The fourth quarter of the book, A Short Distance from the Border, circles back to far West Texas like one of the hawks Thomas uses so effectively in these high desert poems. The fourteen pieces in this final section celebrate the diversity of the West Texas and Northern Mexico country and its people with subjects ranging from bikers and tattoo artists to young boxers to the "chocolate eyes of young mothers / so comfortable with death / they candy its skulls / for the tongues of bronze children." In "El Camino del Rio," Thomas employs the Rio Grande as a metaphor for the geography the river has carved and the cultures and peoples it has nourished. Some, like the Apaches, have gone to "the places of no return" so that "Only / the screams of hawks, bouncing / ad infinitum off the canyon walls, / sound as if they belong."

As promised in the title, the poems of Amazing Grace are rendered with a poise that almost belies the strength of the language and images from which they are made. Thomas has captured the spirit that underlies the physical geography of the land and the hearts of the people who have helped to shape it. In the dust from which his characters spring, and the "rich / red fields / of deep lineage" that so patiently await their return, lie the beginning and end of us all.

I bought both this book and Volume 2 in the series [Anatomy and Physiology Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations (Volume 2: Orientation of the Body, Cells, Tissues, Integumentary System) by Patrick Leonardi] and both these books helped me get an "A" in my A&P class!! They helped to reinforce the book material and quickly showed me which areas I didn't understand so I could study and get better grades for each exam. Many of the topics in A&P are complicated and it's VERY helpful to have a wonderful resource guide such as this to anticipate test questions so you can make your mistakes with the resource guide and not on your tests.

As a pre-nursing student, the competition is fierce to get into a program. When I first received these study guides I thought I had paid way too much for what I got and thought the material simplistic. What I found is that 25% to 35% of my test questions were very close to the examples given. If you are a serious student, these guides are another tool in your total study regime. They are not intended to be your ONLY source of study and review. There are no easy ways to learn the Sciences, but these focus on some of the commonly tested areas. I wanted all the resources I could find and it paid off with A's.

Great study guide to enhance your knowledge of Anatomy and Physiology and most of all ACE the exams.....

Use this tool for passing...college exams

I went to Tulane Med and attribute a lot of the clinical pearls I learned to Wiese. I'm currently an intern and find his student/intern handbook indispensble. He's strength lies in effectively communicating complex teaching points by breaking them down into easily understood concepts that stick for years.

Torang Sepah, MD

I went to Tulane Medical School, and Dr. Wiese is my mentor! He's the best teacher I've ever had. This book will be priceless for any medical student or resident.

As a 4th year student who had a terrible 3rd year (poor teaching, malignant attendings/residents), I was dreading my AI. I felt I did not have a good handle at all on how to deal with patients on the wards. I wish I had read this book before my 3rd yr! It points out WHAT TO DO on wards, etc. in a crystal clear way.

Much better than 1st aid for wards or even scut monkey (which is too detailed for a 3rd yr students). For the 3rd yr who needs something quick and easy to read this is it.

Warning: If you are the type who does not like things being told to you and would rather "jump in" without prior knowledge, this book will suck for you. However, if you are like me, and want somebody to tell you what to do and how to do it....this book is great!