Environment Books

Okay, so this is probably as preachy as Dr. Suess gets, and it just might get on the nerves of some people, but the tree hugger in me salutes him for it, even as he paints a grimmer picture of environmental destruction than Al Gore ever thought of.

Even so, it's clearly Suess with his imaginative worlds and funny characters.

It's a solemn book of warning that it pretty darn good into scaring kids into being careful with the environment.

And that's not a bad thing.

I could not wait to present this lesson to the class this year. Teaching seventh grade and the 5 themes of geography this book lends itself to many of those themes but mostly human-environmental interaction (how human interact and change the environment to fit their needs). Not only does this book show that but it really visualizes how we negatively impact the Earth for our own selfish needs. Again my students are in love with the facts that I am reading them a storybook and after the discussion they see that it isn't a plain, old storybook but it really does have a significant meaning.

Review by Sherry North, Author, Because You Are My Baby

While most Dr. Suess stories are pure fun without any heavy message, The Lorax delivers an extremely blunt lesson on ecology. What's amazing is that Dr. Suess does this with a narrative that is engaging, entertaining and ultimately inspiring. You might think a book with such a heavy message could be a turn-off to young children, but I have found the opposite. My preschoolers find this story absorbing. I think they understand there is something truly important at stake, so the book means more to them than other Dr. Suess titles.

Is it a coincidence that Thneed rhymes with Deadly Sin #3? Growth for the sake of growth is where we are today. This too shall pass, UNLESS....

Dr. Seuss, turned holier-than-thou by his elevated status in society, decides to preach to us about the evils of industrialization. Does he realize that the many millions of copies of "The Lorax" were all made in factories, using paper that came from trees?

Lovers of fishing, or Oregon, or life, or the search for life's meaning should love this book. So should readers interested in thoughtful, creative and honest writing; or of clever, insightful and profound character development. Gus Orviston is an enduring main character, and his discovery of his brother, Bill Bob's, unique and beautiful self, by itself, makes the book worth reading. With a comfortable, unique, often zany style, author David James Duncan has created an unexpected, very joyful book. The ending falls a bit short of the earlier 99%, but that's just quibbling.

So, I purchased this book and didn't really expect to enjoy it. I loved The Brother's K, but I thought that maybe I was biased towards the book because I'm such a big baseball fan. I have no interest in fishing.
The River Why is not about fishing. It's an exceptionally insightful look at life. Our idols, our loves, everything. I was so impressed by this book and especially by the writing of David James Duncan.

I think one wouldn't pick up this book casually. There'll never be a lot of hype about it and it takes about 100 pages to hook one. And then: oh, it is a good story. Reading a few chapters a time at night before I went to sleep, I was conscious how I came tired to this book as to bed, and left it with new energy - courage? Laughter? A sense of well-being.

What did I learn from this book? On page 227 in the paperback edition, there's the story of Nick which seems to me the book in miniature. A certain quiet is needed to tell a story which depends on the listener. Setting and introduction are essential (that's why the main story takes 100 pages to get going.) We cannot be in a hurry for the story of our lives. It's worth the read.

The best book I have read in years. I would recommend this book to anyone that has a hard time believing in the traditional answers to the questions of life. Great!

Even though I hate fishing and have maybe done it once, the first few chapters of this book are humorous and interesting, in particular Bill Bob, Gus' younger brother. Unfortunately, Bill Bob's role is small to almost nonexistent as the book goes on and the author makes him say some pretty idiotic pseudo-philosophical/religious ramblings, such as a long discussion with Gus about how shadows are our guardians.

The book is largely predictable from the beginning until the end and it's almost like a bunch of authors get together to provide the same theme. The overall structure of the book is Gus starts to question life, including death, ultimate meaning, his meaning, and other philosophy 101 questions. And, of course, Gus ends up finding his meaning in the eyes of some backwoods hippie chick and has a religious experience (if you can call it that) while walking home from a long, incredibly drawn out trip down a river following a fish in his line.

I'm sure many people will see this book as being "deep" or "an interesting discussion of blah blah blah", but if you've even remotely dipped your foot in philosophy this book is hardly enlightening. I pushed through the book simply because I got past the half way point, then promptly threw it in the trash when I was done.

WPF is a remarkably inconsistent tool including contradictory settings, rules that only work some of the time, confusing shortcuts, and other inconsistencies. This book covers so much detail, that the many quirks of WPF sometimes get in the way. It might have been better if the book ignored some of the more arcane details. At times it gives so much information that things are more confusing than necessary.

Still, the book does cover a vast amount of information. If you just want an introduction to WPF, it may be a lot more than you're looking for, but if you want to know all about the weird details, this book includes a lot.

I have read this book. This book is very informative. The author has explained the concepts in detail and in good way. It covers the .NET Framework 3.0. So i don't know is there any changes from .NET 3.0 to .NET 3.5.

This book was the easiest book I have ever read. It kept me interested and awake. Not to mention the information was given in a way that was easy to understand. The extra sidebars that were included added very useful linformation as well. They really helped to drive the point home as well as well as provide more functionality to whatever was being discussed. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

Book gives an excellent introduction of WPF. However, I think that the 2D/3D-part of the book is a bit over the top if you are looking for basics.

Money well spent.

On first opening this book you are struck by the beautiful full colour pictures and syntax-highlighted code samples. [Though the experience was slightly marred by the tears and damage to the front cover which occurred during shipping, as was also the case with another book in the order.]

I did a quick flip through and thought... "Beautiful presentation, but the content looks a bit over-simplified. Maybe all the reviewers were seduced by the full colour pages."

Then I started working my way through the book. I was blown away. The writing style is simple and to the point. But it doesn't lack depth. There are indications of the little things that are likely to catch you out, as well as discussions of some pretty advanced topics too.

So, Yay! The content of the book was just as good as the way it was presented, if not better. My only criticism is that in some cases there could have been more code examples.

On the other hand this would probably have made the book very bloated and not as useful as a reference book. There's enough information to point you in the right direction, and from there google will get you to all the code samples you need.

So let O'Reilly do the cookbook style books with lots of code snippets. They do that so well. This book takes a novel approach, and it works brilliantly!

this was a nice book on diversity. i think one of the things people get the most worked up over is spirituality. it's one of those things that can touch a person more deep than anything else, and everyone's perspective will differ, even if only minutely. wars have been started over the issue, and all because we're too pig headed and focused on our own validity. this book starts off with animals and rocks and trees each saying that what they think god is is indeed the true god, and that god seems to resemble the speaker. then the old turtle stops them and tell them of the coming of a new group, humans, and how they are supposed to be a message from god the the earth and a prayer from the earth to god. then people come and after while start to do not so nice things and nature says to stop. then the beings that said god was like themselves at the beginning of the book said they saw god in that which was opposite themselves. i guess the moral being have an open mind about that which is different from yourself, because it really isn't so alien to what you believe.

This book begins with the beings of nature having an argument as to who God is, an age old question. The old turtle speaks up and tells everyone to stop! And tells of a new being that will come and be in the likeness of god out of his love, humans. Then the humans start to argue and fight and destroy the earth. Till again the turtle said stop, and the people began to listen and realize the beauty they were destroying, the earth. The story is not specifically religious but more of a lesson of not to destoy what we have been blessed with. The illustrations are chinese watercolors and they are imaculate! Definately a must to add to your collection.

This is a book for children, but really is a lesson for mankind. Beautiful drawings. A good read out loud for children.Simply beautiful!

"Old Turtle" has become a tradition of giving in our family. When we recieve the announcement that a child has been born, we get a copy for the babe. We like to think that this is one of the ways this child will first hear about creation and our place in it. The illustrations are simple and exquisite, the narrative compelling. I'm a "big kid" and I love it.

I am so torn here. I love this book - my mother would love this book. So what's the problem? It's a feel good book that seems like it would better reach a new parent, a teen, or someone going through hard times better than a child.

The story clearly has a moral tale to convey. I tend to like that, and I love the message on diversity. Unfortunately, as far as plot/story, it falls short. It fails to go beyond just a morality lesson. And for this, it failed to captivate either of my children.

If the target audience are children: For lessons on friendship with story intact, try pumpkin soup. For a story about diversity and acceptance, try The Woman Who Outshone the Sun. For general moral tales - Zen Shorts.

I have a friend that recommended me this book and I have to agree with him that this was a very well written book. Don't let the fact that the title says "Windows NT" discourage you from getting this book. There is a lot of useful information in this book that is still standard practice for scripting in Server 2003. Probably one of the few and only outdated commands in the book is the AT command that was replaced by SCHTASK. Even then, the author goes into detail on how these different commands work and how to use them in your work environment to you benefit. I recommend this book as a learning tool and as a reference for my fellow scripting brethren.

Great book on NT shell commands that Microsoft doesn't even document. Not even "command /?" gives you any help.

Great for reference and to learn.

Although this book was authored in 1998, it is still as relavent today with Windows Server 2003 as it was when Windows NT 4.0 was first released. The fact is that the Command Shell hasn't changed all that much over the years and Timothy Hill's book remains the best guide to using and writing command scripts that I could ever recommend. And with Windows Server 2003's push to be able to do everything from the command line that one can do from the GUI, it's even more important to fully understand how the Windows Command Shell works.

Windows NT Shell Scripting is less about Windows NT than it is about how to write shell scripts. It covers the details of using the Command Shell in interactive mode, its configuration and how the 32-bit Command Shell differs from the 16-bit DOS box. Then it delves into the structure and syntax of the Command Shell language, providing a clear understanding of how the program control features such as IF and FOR work. Finally, it shows you how to create sophisticated shell scripts using the internal commands and external command-line utilities included with Windows and their Resource Kits.

Not everything in this book has survived the test of time. The old task scheduler using the AT command, though still supported in current version of Windows, has been mostly replaced by more powerful Scheduled Tasks of Windows 2000 and later. And you will want to supplement this book with a modern reference of the utility programs available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (such as OReilly's "Windows Server 2003 In A Nutshell"). Yet this represents only a small part of the book and majority of material stands up very well. Certainly there is no better and more in-depth tutorial for building command scripts than Timothy Hill's book.

I like this book because unlike many technical books, the first three chapters aren't a pedestrian introduction to the basic fundamentals. This book spends chapter 1 with insight, similar to the way Applied Cryptography immediately gives you knowledge. I'm an experienced NT command shell user, and this book was valuable for me as well.
The DOS shell has become a requirement and skill relegated to the background by the direction of Microsoft curriculum, this book explains it and teaches it.

The authors instructions are easy to follow, without doting like the Teach Yourself "whatever" in 24 hour books, Tim Hill doesn't waste your time, or your money.

If you have a bit of programming experience, this book together with access to the NT Resource Kit tools will provide you with the foundation for doing almost anything you could imagine within Windows NT Shell Scripting.

The book can be used both as a tutorial and a reference for Windows NT scripting and gives good examples of the commands, tools and concepts covered. For Windows NT, this book does the job as your Shell Scripting Bible in less than 400 pages.

Since Windows NT 4.0, a lot has happened in the Windows scripting field though. With the release of Windows 2000 and the subsequent Windows XP and .NET Server, shell scripting has become much more powerful. A second edition of this book covering the new commands and tools would be most welcome. Until one exists, you might also want to look at newer books covering shell scripting for operating systems based on the Windows NT kernel.

You might also want to look at other, often more powerful ways to script your Windows NT-based environment. For that matter I recommend looking at other books covering WSH (Windows Script Host), ADSI and WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation).

A book on what most if not all childhoods are missing nowadays, very engaging, very intelligent, just like Nader himself, I definitely enjoyed reading this book and learned alot from it. More than recommended!

I learned so much from this book, especially in regard to how small town values don't necessarily translate into conservatism (the modern day conception of it anyway). These 17 traditions Nader reflects on are exceptionally relevant insights for today's culture of consumerism and waste. From the outstanding introduction, to each of the following concisely written chapters, you will find the cumulative pieces of an anecdote to living a full and meaningful life and also be inspired to become a more active and concerned citizen.

I highly recommend this book!

This book is one of Nader's finest published works. It chronicles his life, and how he was raised. He takes the lessons learned as a kid growing up and puts them into seventeen specific traditions that are very easy to read.

The rare and valuable part of this book is that it's one of the only times you can find Ralph Nader willing to talk about his life rather than about politics. There isn't much, if any, political discussion in this book other than a few instances of how his family used politics to bring home values.

I highly recommend this book to all of my friends and family. He touches you with stories of how his parents immigrated from Lebanon and the lessons passed on to him and his siblings. The book will give you an appreciation for spending time with family, and does so in a way that is easy to read and enjoy.

This book offers greatly needed insight for a nation filled with antidotes, from fast-paced labeling of psychological disorders to quick fix prescription drugs and self-help book remedies. Ralph Nader takes the reader back to a slower paced society--a world enveloped by the wisdom of his parents. Chapter by chapter, Nader shares pithy, memorable maxims such as, "Jokes are to words as salt is to food" (81), along with other valuable scenarios which serve as life-enriching lessons. For a sampling of the earnest adult figure many of us may have missed while growing up, Nader's book is analogous in resource value (on a smaller scale) to The Discourses of Epictetus.

A short book that reflects on society, democracy, and the peace
of a good life.

This book is full of practical recipes for almost anything you need, and safe for the environment as well. I use it like a recipe book, whenever I need to mix a cleaner or make a product, I look up the thing that I need, and the variations of it, and make it with the basic supplies that I bought. I am really enjoying it, and feel like I'm making a small difference for the environment, and a big difference for detoxifying my home.

This is an absolutely great book for anyone interested in "greening" their home. Their recommendations are great for the enviornment, for your health, home and save you money!

It's amazing all the products you can clean with that are already in your kitchen and, more importantly, not toxic.

This is a great book. I got it not really thinking I would use it as much as I have. I use it for body creams, cleansers and moisturizers AND I use if for household cleaning, furniture polish, sachets, and more. And her explanations of how different ingredients work is also very helpful. I now buy very few commercial cleaners (Bon Ami, Ecover laundry detergent) mostly because I can't find washing soda anywhere locally.

This book is filled with natural and non-toxic cleaning products, personal care products and more. I have made a number of cleaning potions from Better Basics and am loving the way my house smells when I clean it! Meaning...instead of the old days using harsh chemicals, my home smells like almost nothing--just clean!

I was going to post a review for Annie Bond's Home Enlightenment: Practical, Earth-Friendly Advice for Creating a Nurturing, Healthy, and Toxin-Free Home and Lifestyle, but noticed it is no longer in print. Too bad, because it was good. However, if you want similar information, check out Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your PlanetBoth of these books deal with the next steps to take once your home is non-toxic, including ways to make your home your sanctuary.

The book is just what I was looking for - simple and short, yet effective and precise. It contains just enough intro on the scientific background on how plants purify the air, it gives some info on how this has been tested, it gives practical advices on how to use plants and finally it rates the tested plants according to four criteria of effectivness (removal of chemicals,transpiration rate, ease of growth/maintenance,resistance to insects).Great for reference with some great pictures and guide how to take care of each particular plant. Simply great!

Very well written-- fascinating -- and I was impressed and appalled by reading about the studies that showed -- more than TWENTY years ago -- how our inside air is just as bad sometimes -- and even WORSE at times-- than the outside air.

I would HIGHLY recomend this book as a guide to ALL public building administrators who have a say in what kind of plants (LOTS OF EM please) should be in their lobbies and offices and EVEN- YES -- on the ROOF.

The only gripe I have with this book is the over-generous use of abbreviations liberally sprinkled throughout the text -- and NONE of those abbreviations are in the Glossary!

More then 10 years ago, we bought some indoor plants for better air quality in the house. We end up throwing them away because we knew nothing about plants. So this time we thought we better get some knowledge before we purchase. This books came highly recommended by Dr. Chen, a famous Chinese Naturopath doctor who wrote couple of best selling books in Taiwan. We think this is a great book because it's simple and to the point with pictures. We decided on Rubber plant, Peace Lily and Janet Craig... They are good-looking and easier to care for, besides the capability to remove indoor toxins and keep indoor air fresh.

"How to Grow Fresh Air" is the best book I've found on the topic of using plants to improve air quality. It has easy-to-use recommendations, rating plants' ability to improve air quality and listing information that will help the reader decide if they can keep this plant alive.

There are a few problems. First, the book does not describe the 50 best plants -- it describes the only 50 plants tested. Second, this book doesn't indicate how many plants should be put in a room. An internet search of unknown accuracy indicated 1 to 3 plants (size medium to large) for 100 square feet of floor space (attributed to the author). Third, the book doesn't tell you about any patterns the authors observed in their research: does plant size matter? Leaf size? By how much? Growth rate? If there were a simple pattern (like large fast-growing plants are best; or that air-cleaning appears to be a characteristic of certain plant species), then this would be very good to know. Forth, the research is at least 12 years old, and there doesn't appear to be any new research on this subject. Fifth, I found two conflicting tables in the technical section. This doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about the book's technical accuracy -- like Al Gore's "time goes backwards" Global Warming chart. The whole thing reads like an exploratory research project that wasn't funded further -- but should have been.

With that said, this book has useful advice, and seems to be worth the purchase price. I'm going to give buy a few of the highest rated plants for my office, and see if their gas-elimination properties (combined with my air filter) yields improved air quality.

Not many products both clean the air and are beautiful. How to Grow Fresh Air explains how houseplants do just that. Beautiful book, well written with plenty of information, this book is wonderful.

Ms Muir is a great storyteller. I was interested in the topic and prepared to slog through boring text to learn something, but this was AMAZING. Read like a novel. She sees inter-relationships and draws conclusions which taught me a lot. Now I want to read everything she's written. I was sorry when I finished this book.

It is hard to imagine how Reflections in Bullough's Pond could have been better written. Diana Muir gives an account of the interplay between New England's economic history and its environment in a lapidary prose which never leaves the reader behind. By the end of the book we are enlightened about the ebb and flow of these matters over the five hundred-odd years from early European settlement to modern times without ever being overwhelmed, for Ms Muir always wears her erudition lightly.

She breaks new ground in her treatment of the environment as both an economic resource and as a complex-often vulnerable-amalgam of ecosystems. Her thesis is that we are living on capital, be it fossil fuel, topsoil or forest-she is particularly compelling on the vulnerable biochemistry of these last. Unusually, however, Ms Muir is scrupulous in her use of statistics and fastidious in her argument. She never seeks to undermine the legitimacy of the economic impulse, though she does not flinch from her conclusion: an argument for restraint in economic activity and population.

Nor does she lose sight of the propensity of ecosystems to renew themselves, albeit often in new forms: she is pleased-almost amused-by the return of the beaver and the moose, while regretting the extinction of the elm and the emergence of local spruce monocultures. Indeed Ms Muir expresses herself more forcefully on the loss of flora than fauna. Perhaps this is because the long life cycles of the former make it harder to take an optimistic view of their capacity to renew themselves. Alternatively it may be because the collapse of agriculture in New England following the opening up of the West, has stimulated the return to southern New England of so many species formerly evicted to Canada.

Reflections in Bullough's Pond is no naïve elegy for a Paradise Lost; it never loses sight of a human interplay with the landscape which long antedates industrialisation, not to say European settlement. In a particularly ingenious section of the book, Ms Muir reminds us that in the middle of the nineteenth century, the courts and legislatures altered common law doctrines of liability to free up industrial activity. This reflected the climate of the times. Ms Muir argues that the climate of our own times may well give rise to more extensive liability concepts to restrain the corporations, notions very much with the tail wind of popular and professional thinking.

Given the book's generosity and elegance, it seems curmudgeonly to cavil at any part of it. But a couple of issues do arise. First forests. Since the invention of agriculture, we have cleared them for the simple reason that we have better uses for the land. This has been going on in the Old World for millennia. Of course there have been local environmental disasters, eg in North Africa and Mesopotamia, but nothing sufficiently general to justify veneration of forests as a precautionary measure. This is an artefact of late-twentieth century sentiment in the New World. There such virgin forests as have not lost within living memory are being destroyed even now, thus the local salience of the issue. Over the past fifteen years their defenders have sought to enlist support by arguing that they served one or another vital purpose: producing oxygen, acting as feedstock for drugs, now Ms Muir points to their role in topsoil. The first two arguments are infrequently heard these days. As to the last, let me point out that where I grew up in the eastern part of England, the ground was cleared eight or nine hundred years ago, but the topsoil remains sufficiently fertile for the local farmers to get out record yields.

I was also left uncertain as to the course Ms Muir might prescribe for the several billion who have never seen Bullough's Pond, and whose habitats have been profoundly altered by economic activity for millenia rather than centuries. The residents of Asia's great river valleys cleared the forests long before Columbus saw the New World. They have to eat-with luck raise themselves above thoughts of the next meal. Ms Muir has practical suggestions as to how the courts might restrain US corporations, but nothing on how to restrain the aspirations of those who dream of a fraction of American prosperity. I suspect she is wise enough to know that there is nothing to be done on this score. In a rare nod towards the nether reaches of environmental alarmism, she hints that she expects nature to impose population restraint, if we do not. I am more sanguine. In whatever might come to pass as in what has come before, we will wade through. As we must.

Other reviewers have discussed the virtues of the book, so I will only add that the lessons to be learned from this well written and fascinating study are relevant to the entire planet, not just New England. As such, the book is highly recommended to anyone anywhere who is interested in mankind's relationship to the environment and its effects on culture and economics.

This is one of the best books I have ever read- period! At the core of the book is Ms. Muir's message that we are part of nature, not separate from or above nature, and we have a great responsibility to maintain the integrity of the environment. Granted, this message is not new. Where this book is very different is how Ms. Muir leads up to this message. She shows how the New England landscape changed from one where farming dominated to one that was a mixture of many different types of mills and factories. You learn the consequences of everything that was done along the way: the consequences to fish and birds of damming rivers; the consequences to forests and to the air we breath of heavy logging; the consequences of catching too many of one type of fish, etc. What is great about this book is that Ms. Muir does not deal in hazy generalities. She takes you step by step and shows you specifically how certain actions cause certain changes in the environment, often unforseen. There is nothing simplistic in her observations and she knows there are no easy answers. She lays out the data for you and you can come to your own conclusions. But what really takes this book to another level is the fascinating biographical information that Ms. Muir provides concerning the many, many New Englanders that invented the machines of the Industrial Revolution and kept the economy vibrant as the importance of agriculture diminished. The way this book is put together is very unusual, due to the combination of all of the above factors and in the space of 248 pages you will learn a great deal of information. The research Ms. Muir must have done in writing this book is staggering and her knowledge across many different areas is amazing. Don't miss reading this book.

Using a pond near her home in Newton, MA as a backdrop, Diana Muir weaves a compelling view of New England history, which she argues is a series of ecological crises.

From pre-Columbian times, Muir says, New England was populated by individuals struggling on a land that was not conducive to making a living. Radical solutions to unsolvable problems were their only escape. In the 1790s, when farming was the only occupation, a growing population and a soil spent by generations of misuse, resulted in a dearth of farmable land. With no prospects and no future, individuals like Eli Whitney and Thomas Blanchard, were forced to look for creative solutions to society's problems and set in motion an industrial revolution.

I was particularly intrigued by the story of Frederick Tudor, the man who in 1806 introduced ice to Martinique. It is one thing to sell ice to people who because of their location, understand the concept. It is quite another, to sell ice to people who have never experienced it, to say nothing about the practical necessities of ice houses to warehouse the product.

His father's real estate speculation losses left Tudor with nothing but ambition and a house with a pond in Saugus, MA. He succeeded after two difficult decades. There was always a wrinkle to be solved before a fortune could be built. Iceboxes had to be designed and then marketed in southern ports to people who had to be taught how to preserve it.

This phenomenon explains why there so many Crystal and Silver Lakes dot the New England landscape, relics of an enterprising age. Savvy ice dealers understood that attractive names sell products. For a brief period even Muir's Bullough's Pond was briefly renamed Silver Lake.

Diana Muir e-mailed me twice during the past two years introducing her book to me. Having read her book, I am grateful for her persistence. If you enjoy reading unique looks at our history, I implore not to wait for her to contact you. Read her book; you will not regret it.

Please be aware that this book is now published by Square One Publishers and has been since earlier this year. To get brand-new copies of this book, you need to go to the "other" product page for the book HEY! WHO'S HAVING THIS BABY ANYWAY? as listed on this website. It doesn't presently have the "Search Inside the Book" feature at that product page, but the book is immediately available to be ordered over at that other product page. So to paraphrase Dylan (a.k.a. Zimmerman), "This ain't the book you want, babe / Go to the other page." Now go have those babies over at the "other" product page . . .

I wasn't thrilled with this book. I found it a little didactic (albeit in an overly breezy style)--not the book for people who aren't sure about natural birth; it'll make middle-of-the-road moms feel inadequate.

The style is blog-like and too personal to the author at times for an instructive book, in my opinion. The section that's nothing more than quoted emails is interesting for a couple of pages, then becomes overkill; I felt like I was reading a message board.

I noted numerous typographical errors (including a major one in statistics that was corrected with an errata sticker), which detracted from the professionalism of the book.

The section on Cytotec is excellent, with an appropriately firm stance, and the facts and documents to back that up.

I have the pleasure of teaching this course to my clients during their childbirth education class, all are finding this book to be a very easy read with clear to the point FACTUAL information! This is a must have and every one of my Doula clients get it for FREE and must read it by their 37th week of pregnancy!

I had the pleasure of attending one of Ms. Hawk's workshops recently and found it so informative. The information in this book is not new - it's just written in a way that the layperson can understand. Ina May Gaskin and Henci Goer have lots of great information about the unfortunate state of childbirth in the US, but Breck Hawk has "broken it down" for the average expectant mom without condescending. I highly recommend it!

As both a childbirth educator and a labor doula, I find this book has great (and accurate) information, with worksheets that are perfect for discovering what you want as a pregnant woman, good research to help backup all the claims, PLUS it's written by a midwife! I could go on and on, so just put away that copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and get this one instead! Inform yourself and respect your baby!