Barton Books

"Sue Barton, Superintendent of Nurses" features Sue as the superintendent of the new Springdale Hospital School of Nursing, along with the concurrent story of Sue and Bill Barry's first three years of marriage. Sue is uneasy about her administrative role since she prefers hands-on nursing, but with the guidance of her staff, she carries the new job through to the best of her ability. Her natural warmth and interest in the students also help her to sort out their problems and personalities; from taming a sophisticated smart aleck, to guiding an unhappy nursing student into the teaching career the girl really wants. Meanwhile, Sue and Bill have to adjust to life together as a married couple, (learning about tolerance, for example).

I think this is one of the best "Sue Barton" books. Sue and Bill's long-awaited wedding is beautifully described. And the characters really grow and develop during the course of the story. (There is also a nice surprise at the end.)Well worth the reader's time.

This book provides several good strategies that can be used to teach reading. The back of the book literally has step-by-step instructions for using the strategy as well as a worksheet that can easily be copied and distributed. The beginning of the book is pretty repetitive of what you would hear/guess you would hear from a teaching reading class. The strategies, however, are great.

This is a great historical accounting of the life of an American aviation pioneer. Tex Johnston's life was a colorful mix of barnstorming through the flight testing and air racing of WWII fighters, and finally the experimental flight testing of the Bell X-1 (prior to Chuck Yeager) and the Boeing aircraft when the jet age was underway. The book is a little scant in his accounting of the famous (infamous?) barrell rolls of the 707 prototype over Lake Washington, which is disappointing. Overall, a great book and must reading for any fan of the early years of experimental flight testing.

J Barton Payne has done an outstanding job on the issue of Soteriology of the Old Testament. Anyone who wants to learn more about O.T. Soteriology should consult Mr. Paynes work. This work is Chirst centered and Christ honoring.

THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN
From the Back...
Hot. Demanding. Inescapable. The power of destiny had joined Nate Hodges and Cyn Porter together, but the savagery of man seemed fated to tear them apart. A warrior who walked alone, Nate could never mean anything but danger for any woman who dared to love him. Yet Cyn, touched by tragedy herself, realized this soul-scarred soldier needed her strength. Though stalked by a madman bent on revenge, Nate succumbed to the pull of a passion older than time. Cyn, the brown eyed beauty of his dreams--his impossible love--brought him peace. She was his very soul. But he knew with heart-shattering certainty that he could be her death.

In my Opinion...
Cyn loved her minister husband and mourned him when he was killed. Cyn hates violence and danger. Nate Hodges is a soldier with a violent past and danger still surrounds him. Nate and Cyn are attracted to each other. Nate, however, knows that it is dangerous to get involved with Cyn. A man from Nate's past plans on finding Nate and killing him. Nate does not want Cyn to be there when that happens. They want each other and staying away seems impossible. Nate can only pray that he can protect Cyn when the time comes. This is a great start to Beverly Barton's The Protector series.

This book basically says that you should step outside your particular national and cultural environment, and get a good glimpse of movie making in a global sense. Of course, for most of us, movies means those made or financed by Hollywood. Inarguably, Hollywood by itself is a global viewpoint. Possibly the predominant one.

But Badley and other authors in this book enliven us with understandings of movie making trends elsewhere. One chapter discusses the ferment in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism. While another chapter relates the struggles of African cinema, both during and after colonialism. And Mottahedeh describes the travails of Iranian cinema after the fall of the Shah. Where directors and actors often vie against Islamic censors. Further east, Teo gives an all-too-brief synopsis of Chinese cinema after World War 2. It would be nice to have a more thorough commentary on the Hong Kong industry, for example.

Of course, no book on global films would be complete without a section on the vibrant Bollywood scene.

The only criticism of this book is that the lack of space permits only brief coverages of many complex national cinemas. Though this might be unfair. Badley was not trying to put together a huge tome. But to give you a sampling across the world.

My interest in this book was: 1. To investigate the possibility of exciton-chlorophyll based computation via the genetic engineering of the chloroplast. 2. To obtain a background in just what can be done in plant transgenesis from a commercial point of view, in particular ornamental plants and other horticultural applications, such as the genetic engineering of lawn grass for pathogen resistance, controlled height, and color shading. 3. To gain more insight into the current conflict between genetically-modified and organic crops being waged in the media and between continents. 4. The possibility of using synthetic methods for inducing plant transgenesis. Not all of these were addressed in the book, but it did serve to give more insight into how transgenesis in plants is done, and examples of each, up until the year of publication. The field of course has considerably advanced since then.

Chapter 1 begins with various definitions of gene transfer and a brief history of attempts to create transgenic plants. The authors emphasize the great changes that have taken place in the last two decades, but acknowledging the plant transgenesis is still in relative infancy.

Chapter 2 is then a discussion of techniques for transformation, such as Agrobacterium-mediated, in planta, direct transfer, and biolistic methods. The omit though any discussion of the exact laboratory protocols, and they caution that the ratio between transient and stable transformation can have vary widely. Some of the more interesting discussions in this chapter include: 1. The fact that different agrobacterial strains have different host ranges, with some being limited, while others having broad host ranges. 2. The molecular mechanism by which T-DNA is transferred in the plant's genome. The T-complex's ability to wait and "catch" a naked fragment of plant DNA is brought out with enthusiasm by the authors.

In chapter 3, the authors discuss the various tools for genetic transformation. Some interesting disscussions here include: 1. The reduction of expression due to the removal of scaffold attachment regions. 2. Killer genes, such as the Barnase gene and TA29.

Chapter 4 is an overview of the regulation of gene expression. Interesting discussions here include: 1. Light-regulated gene expression and light signal transduction in the context of photomorphogenesis. The authors emphasize that single genes can possess many responsive cis acting elements which can interact or independent. The combinatorics of the cis acting elements and the transcription factors make the possibility of plant transgenesis seemingly unlikely, the authors emphasize. 2. Protein targeting into the chloroplast and mitochondria. 3. The SAR/MAR effect via the higher order structure of chromatin and its relation to gene silencing. 4. The occurrence of gene silencing and the complications it causes for producing transgenic plants. 5. Antisense RNA and its role in suppressing gene expression. Because of the book's date of publication, RNA interference, which was discovered in 1998, is not discussed in this book.

In chapter 5, the authors review the genetic engineering of crop improvement. They address crop protection from biotic and abiotic stress (such as viruses and fungal pathogens), improvement of yields, crop quality, and the genetic engineering of ornamental plants. The discussion is thorough and the authors bring out many interesting facts that shed light on the current debates on GM crops, one of these being that the use of lysis-producing antimicrobial toxins in transgenic crops is not harmful to mammals. The now well-known (and controversial) bacillus thurigenesis (BT) endotoxin and its use as an insect pathogen is discussed in detail. Also discussed, and equally as controversial, are transgenic crops with herbicide resistance. As for abiotic stress, the authors discuss various transgenic strategies for salt and drought resistance, and tolerance against metal toxicity. The discussion of ornamentals is a sample of the intriguing future that is ahead for horticulture.

The authors discuss some of the many products that can be manufactured using transgenic plants in chapter 6. They begin with the use of transient expression of heterologous genes, overviewing a few cases where this has been accomplished. They they turn their attention to where the heterologous gene is integrated into the genome of the transgenic plants, one very interesting example being the production of antigens, such as that for hepatitis B. Another interesting example is the production of antibodies, such as the production of secretory immunoglobin A. By far the most fascinating discussion of all though is the one on the use of using plant transgenesis to produce degradable polymers.

The production of transgenic plants for the commercial market has raised quite a fuss in recent years, and so the authors devote the last chapter of the book to the discussion of the risks and benefits of doing so. It is a fair discussion and addresses the main concerns, with the authors expressing caution but clearly supporting the genetic engineering of plants, as long as it benefits humankind.

You might think some people predicted the present-day campaign of denial 85 years ago. In any case, James Barton, head of the American missionary outfit, got all his missionaries who were in Turkey during the Armenian massacres and deportations to file signed and sworn statements. The statements are valuable, because they come from parts of Turkey where there were few other foreign eye-witnesses. One of the statements was book-length, and that was published seperately as "Days of Tragedy in Armenia," by Henry Riggs.

Some of the statements were boring to me, because I didn't recognize the place names. But the book is like a collection of short stories, so I just skipped to the next author. It might make a neat classroom project to have each student read one of the 21 reports and make a presentation, marking up a map. Just a thought....

A swashbuckling adventure written in the first person, this is a wonderful and exciting story taking place in the France of Louis XIII, and Cardinal Reichleu. De Berault, the main character, is a notorious duellist. He is arrested for for killing a man in a duel, despite the Cardinal's eddict against duelling. He is given a choice, either he hangs, or works as an agent for the Cardinal. Guess which he chooses...

Samuel Palmer, disciple of William Blake, created his visionary masterpieces in his twenties -- see the Colin Harrison book for some of these glimpses of an earthly Paradise. In his later years in Shoreham, his artwork is more Tolkienian than Paradisal. See if you don't think some of these pictures are visual correlates of Tolkien's descriptions. The booklet is, I am sure, a work of love by admirers of Palmer's work who live in or near the Kent where Palmer created so many wonderful works in so few years.