Carlson Books

This was my textbook for Behavioral Neuroscience (Pysch 390 I think) at UMass Amherst. It can get kind of verbose, but its immense detail more than makes up for it. I still use it for a reference source. I think it's also worth noting that Barron's GRE Psychology prep book recommends this book.

I got an A in the class, and the science side of psychology is really not my thing at all.

It's a good book, you should get it :)

the book came in a reasonable amount of time but was not the same quality as was initially stated. It said the book was brand new but it had bent corners.

Company was prompt and service was great. However, the book was listed in 'good' condition and it is not. I can ignore the writing and hilighting but it had a defect in which it was missing about 50 of it's pages. To me missing pages does not qualify as 'good' condition. These people obviously do not check the quality of thier books.

I would like to find Neil Carlson and shake his hand. This is is without a doubt one of the best textbooks I've had the pleasure of using.

I'm in my senior year of studying cognitive sciences and so far I've had two courses that used this book. When studying for exams in those course I simply read the relevant chapters. The material is concise, well-organized, summarized just when you need it to be summarized, pockmarked with occasional interesting tidbits and stories, just to keep you interested. Every once in a while there's a small terminology box to refresh your memory on the terms you've just encountered.

Simply put, it's a book that makes studying the (rather complex, actually) subject of physiology of behaviour easy.

If you need this book for a course, I heartily recommend you buy it instead of just borrowing from friends. I'm not sure why you would want to buy such a book for non-academic purposes and just to read it for the hell of it - but if you do - it's a book that supplies a lot of information in a very easy to digest manner.

Two thumbs up. Good job Dr/Prof/Mr/Whatever Carlson...

This is a good introductory book for psychology students with little or no background in physics, chemistry, and biology. The author does a good job in explaining difficult concepts in simple layman's terms. I do wish however that he would expand a little bit more on neural development.
Folks with a good background in neuroscience should consider using Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell's Principles of Neural Science instead.

I bought this book for my research on my college thesis, which is about how the Faith-Based Initiative and Charitable Choice reflect a growing trend in government to privatize welfare services. I want my research to be fully informed by all the various differing voices in the debate over Charitable Choice, and thought that this book would yield thoughtful, intelligent analysis and discussion. I was sadly disappointed. This book is not meant to be a resource for any serious scholarly discussion, as I found it greatly oversimplified many of the topics it approached, and is written very much in a consumer-friendly fashion. If you are looking for a book that will lay out the basic positions of supporters of Charitable Choice and the Faith-Based Initiative, and a simple explanation of what Charitable Choice is, then this is the book for you. However, if you are looking for serious scholarly discussion, don't waste your money.

This book is an argument for people in faith-based organizations to become involved in the federal government's service projects. It makes the point that the tide has turned against anti religious sentiment among decision makers who issue grants. In spite of this new trend, there continues to be a lingering anti faith element.

Dave Donaldson describes how a tragedy that occurred in his family early in his life caused him to realize help is needed from multiple sources when such incidents take place. He says the faith-based initiatives are nonpartisan, that they were actually started under President Clinton. President Bush followed through by adding emphasis to what was already on the books.

Other places in this book clear up some legal misconceptions. For example, a faith based organization does not have to hire someone outside their set of beliefs if they accept government money. Additionally there are both direct and indirect means of obtaining government funds.

A Revolution of Compassion is a fair and objective look at the relationship between the faith-based community and government. I found the interviews with government, corporate, social and faith-based leaders to be insightful, while representing both sides of the issue of seperation of church and state. The reader will gain a helpful historical perspective of the history of this current hot-button along with where we stand today on this unresolved issue. More specific ideas as to what initiatives might be taken in local communities would add a necessary component to the book. However, the insight gained is more than useful

This is a very good book and definately worth reading. David Donaldson's personal account of his early life is an inspiring account that leads to an obvious logical conclusion; We must encourage and support the church to continue one of its prime directives, to feed the hungry, give to the poor, etc.. The current effort of acknowledging and encouraging the church to not abandon its efforts to the "professionals" is laudible.

The authors of this book have done an excellent job giving vision and information to any corporation, nonprofit, public agency or faith-based ministry who wants to make a difference in their community. The best way, the authors argue, is to work together.

Filled with interviews with top leaders in all sectors, this book both inspires a new way of thinking and provides a road map for accomplishing it. Highly recommended for all those who want encouragement for their existing efforts, who wish that they could do more, or for anyone who would like to see our communities renewed.

Great teenage stories that draw students to want to read the book. I can't keep the series of books in my classroom. As soon as it's checked in it's checked out by someone else.

This was a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed. I admit it's not for everyone's liking - it is a long book with many sub - plots. But Chloe covered some great issues. I think that Melody Carlson has done a great job!

Did you like what happened with the last book? I did.That's why I decided to read the next book.I liked how it started where the last book ended.I wanted to see what was going on between Chloe,Laura,and,Allie.
In this one the girls start to become serious about the band and their music.They start playing gigs and they become more and more "famous." They also become serious about their faith in God.They go to church and to youth group.They have become role models. Meanwhile, Laura's pastor doesn't approve of their music.It's not "christian" enough.They're trying to fix the problem and move on but they're not sure if they can.This book was a great follow up to the previous one.

After giving her life to God, Chloe Miller begins to face many challenges, including her music. Laura, the band's bass player, is forbidden, by her priest, to play in their band, Redemption. The priest thinks that Chloe and the band is a bad influence on Laura. He believes that Chloe's Church is teaching false doctrine and he feels that the music Chloe writes should all be about God. The problem is that Laura's priest does not even know that Chloe's music is about God. However, Laura is stuck in a situation and does not know what to do, so the band has to find another bass player while Laura tries to put the puzzle pieces together. What should she do, band or church? Everyone realizes that Laura is miserable but no one knows exactly what to do to help. That is when Chloe Miller, steps up as a friend to save the band but also help Laura's priest understand that they are all Christians. Does Chloe have enough bravery to stand up to Laura's priest?
During all this confusion, Redemption, their band, receives a chance to travel to Nashville to perform for a recording company. This is when their life as celebrities begins, their entire class treats them like they are rich and famous but will it end up being anything? Will the fame disappear or will they get signed?
I enjoyed reading this book because it makes you realize that no one is perfect and you have to except them for who they are inside. This book shows you how many teenagers deal with the problems that come their way. I recommend this book to any teenage girl, who has a tough time dealing with the challenges that await her.

I have read all of the books in this series prior to reading Sold Out. I enjoyed the series immensely and would have recommended the books to any teenager; however, after reading Sold Out, my opinion has changed. Chloe's initial character was appealing because of her harder edge and atypical image. Unfornunately, as I read the book, I felt as though I was not reading the words of a teenager. The slang was dated, including words such as "groovy" and "pretty tough chick" as if these are typical of today's teenagers. Casual conversation throughout the story was far too structured to be that of teenage lunchtime banter, making the story seem spurious. Also, the issues in this book were either exaggerated or trivial. Few issues that Chloe faced were relatable to teenagers today. The book was trite, dated, melodramatic, and mawkishly sentimental.

I confess that I have a bias in regard to this book. I grew up in the same neighborhood as Ron Carlson at the same time. He has captured the essence of what youth was like in the west side of Salt Lake City. I can't help but believe that he has captured the essence of life in many cities in the late '50s and early 60's. Narrated from the point of view of a sixth grader, he has recreated a community in which violence is subtly present at all times, yet not acknowledged by the powers of the community. It is a community in which 15% of those who graduate from high school were expected to graduate from college (and many didn't graduate from high school). At the same time he has profoundly presented the naive (innocent?) point of view of children who grow up in such a setting. I remember sleeping out and playing car baseball. Sorenson Park was my hangout in my junior high years, and I remember the bully who tried to take over the park. Miss Talbot was one of my teachers. Carlson has described it well, but the value of the book is not in mere nostalgia. His narration explores numerous themes of adolescence and the responsibility of adults to protect and teach them. Carlson's narration accurately reflects the emotions and thought processes of an adolescent in a working class neighborhood. At the same time he keeps the interest of the reader, who can't help but wonder what's going to happen next. In the last chapter, rather than tell us what happened to every character, he hints and tells us about the meaning of it all. This is a novel I will treasure for years.

This book is about normal kids who love the summer time. They count the days until school gets out and have the time of they're lives in the summer. They love to play baseball and make up all kinds of wacky games.
My favorite part of the book is probobly when he's sitting with Karen on the swingset at the park and then he beats the crap out of Benny. This shows that he is maturing and learns how to stick up for himself and his brother. Benny and Cling have picked on kids for a long time and nobody has ever done anything about it. Finally they got taught a lesson.
I would defianately recommend this book. It never really got boring and I'd just want to keep reading it. I felt like the characters in the book and I were alike. They liked the summer and liked playing baseball and so do I. This book wasn't very hard to read and it's just an interesting story. This is my book review.

The Speed of Light is about three friends Larry, Witt and Rafferty. They have just began their summer and next year will be going into jr. high. The book takes them through the summer and all the changes they went through.

My favoite part of the book is every time the author really gets into Larry's(who narrates the whole book) head because it shows what Larry is really thinking and feeling. The author gets into how Larry notices all the chnages in his friends and how he feels when he proclaims himself as "a nocturnal butt-looker". My point is the author captures all those "first" things during that one magical and changing summer and revolves it around three young friends. The author shows that Larry is a normal baseball-loving kid who has many things going through his mind that weren't there last summer.

I would and would not reccomend this book. I would not reccomend this book because for me it was a little hard to follow. I didn't understand all of the games they would play and there would be a part in the book where it would say how much Witt hated a certain game and in the next paragraph or so it would say how much Witt enjoyed the game and how good he was at it. I would reccomend this book because I think it shows a powerful message: Everything and eveyone is changing. The summer in the book is that special summer where everything has changed and in the book this is probably the last summer Larry will spend with his three best friends because, after playing an excellent game of baseball, Rafferty suddenly is thrown into the popular crowd and Witt moves to Pocatello, Idaho to live with his uncle for a while, while Witts' abusive father gets therapy. Over all,this was an "ok" book, not quite what I expected, but it had its moments.

I can�t believe there are not more people reading this book. This memoir of the summer between grade school and Jr. high is a classic. The all-star chapters about getting Rafferty voted an all-star, the �baseball goggles,� and corking the bat are just some of the classic adventures of this part of adolescence.

Don�t get the idea that there is just a fun summer of boyhood sleep outs in the book. The retrospective look at Witt, Rafferty, Larry and their families are a look into our own lives and the lives of those around us. It�s a heart jerking look at growing up with lots of laughs.

This novel may be considered a young adult work by some readers, but it's a young adult novel in the way that _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ or _To Kill a Mockingbird_ or _Great Expectations_ or any number of other books with young protagonists are. It's about 3 friends and their adventures over that strange, wonderous summer between eleven and twelve... That summer when suddenly the girls become interesting, and dancing is no long to be abjectly feared but possibly even sought out; when there are things in life that are slowly becoming more interesting than baseball or time travel. Carlson has always been excellent at portraying innocence lost and recapturing those whimsical moments of our youth (see "Plan B for the Working Class," "Oxygen," "Keith," to name a few of his stories), but this novel captures a time that most of us have shared in our life so perfectly that it's sad and sweet as nostalgia brewed into a heady and soft liquor. It's suitable for young adults, sure, but this book will do a lot more for grownups than Harry Potter novels ever will.

Does not mention the creation scientists Edward Blyth who Darwin ripped off and spun the theory of natural selection from.

This book is by far the best I have ever seen on this facinating topic. It is an extremly insightful work that is a pure joy to read. Mr. Elof Carlson is a brillant writer and this is some of his best work. I feel it is the quientessential work on Eugenics

This book was well written and appeared well-researched and thorough for the most part. There was a wealth of information, and I particularly liked the biological perspective on eugenics. I often hear eugenics addressed in moral and social terms, while the bad science behind it goes unmentioned. I have two major issues with the book, however.

First, Carlson includes a couple blatant Biblical inaccuracies that, to a certain extent, cast doubt over the accuracy of the whole book. In his section on the Jews, Carlson writes, "Abraham's two and two concubines produced 12 sons, 11 of them forming scattered tribes and the 12th, Joseph, founding the state of Israel." In fact, Abraham had one wife and one son, Isaac, who himself had one son, Jacob (known as Israel), who had those 12 sons, all of whom became part of the nation of Israel, which was not founded by Joseph. He also quotes a saying of Jesus, that a bad tree does not produce good fruit, as referring to heredity, when any Christian could tell you he's talking about a believer's faith and works (fruits). This is Sunday-school level stuff.

Also, the book seemed somewhat disjointed. The chapters were self-contained packets of information, with lots of names and compressed biographies, and I didn't get a good sense of how these people and ideas interacted with each other. The first few chapters, on Biblical ideas and (...), never really come up again. He also jumped around in time quite a bit, so it was hard to pinpoint any development or narrative in the ideas and culture surrounding them. I have more information now, but the book did not put it in enough context.

I'm not a biologist, but I've done a fair bit of reading on eugenics. I feel "Unfit" doesn't doesn't make the case it sets out to make. Although there are certainly very silly ideas associated with eugenics in the past, it doesn't mean the science hasn't since become quite refined and persists under different names.
That there are people who are unequal to others is a reality, that some are even "unfit" to reproduce, is opinion, and one that the author doesn't really prove to be wrong.

This stunningly brilliant book explores the birth and consequences of eugenics in the world, and its connections to the Holocaust. "The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea" is thoroughly researched, yet the writing is so beautiful it reads like a novel - a fascinating and disturbing one, which should be read by millions.

Charles B. Carlson's Winning With The Dow's Losers is an excellent resource for today's investor. The wealth of information provided between the covers is both unbiased and rich in content.

Carlson provides extensive charts and graphs displaying key statistical information where anyone can easily evaluate for their own purposes. The section where Carlson evaluates each of the 30 DOW stocks is quite exemplary. Even though the information is pretty current, Carlson keeps into account the trends of the market. He is conscience that such DOW Stocks as Eastman Kodak and AT&T might not be in touch with the current market conditions. Therefore, it may not be profitable to investment money in thoses stocks even after a battered down prior year. He also provides insight on future changes in the DOW and possible new candidates in the 30. Further analysis into the DOW Transport and Utility stocks are given as well.

The main focus of the book is to guide the reader on the simple stragegies of investing in reliable DOW Stocks and to turn over your portfolio systematically from year to year. However, the supplemental points as illustrated above certainly make this book fully loaded with valuable information. Therefore, I say keep this one handy on your shelf.

Charles Carlson's recent book is a variation of the "Dogs of the Dow" and like the Dogs books, this one also is flawed in the overall strategy. I suggest one take the data as presented in Carlson's book and calculate what percentage advantage the worst-to-first stocks have in order to double the DOW 30 from 1931 through half of 2003. When I checked out the ten worst price performers, Carlson's top performing portfolio, I found that the advantage only amounted to 1.22%. That means Carlson's strategy of selecting the ten worst performers by price as the stocks to purchase the follow year, outperformed the DOW 30 by 1.22% per year. This small advantage results in a portfolio that is doubles the DOW 30 over a 72 year period.

What Carlson fails to tell investors, or at least does not emphasize, is that commissions, taxes, bid/ask spread, and market impact will more than use up that 1.22% advantage. Therefore one is significantly better off to purchase an index of the DOW 30, sit back and do nothing. This is an investment book where you can save your money and invest in an index. You will be further ahead seventy years from now.

Charles Carlson, the author of seven previous investment books, has uncovered a simple strategy using the worst calendar-year Dow performers to beat the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) at its own game! Carlson's strategy is a twist to the Dogs of the Dow (DoD) strategy presented in Beating the Dow (1990) written by Michael O'Higgins. O'Higgins selected the ten highest paying dividend stocks in the DJIA and bought them at year-end and held them for a year, and then bought the next batch of highest yielding stocks, etc. That strategy did great in back-testing, but has not done well in the past few years.

For the uninitiated, Carlson provides the historical basis of the DJIA and devotes an entire chapter to the DJIA components, developments, and changes in the index. At least one page is devoted to each stock in the index with complete information on its historical significance and business. Another chapter is devoted to counterpoint arguments against the naysayers of his strategy.

Carlson's strategy does not use dividend yield as his selection criteria, but instead focuses on those stock(s) that have the worst yearly percentage price performance. He simply buys the DJIA stock(s) with the worst annual performance at the end of the year and holds it for one year, then he selects that year's worst performer and buys it, etc. In addition to the one stock portfolio, Carlson also shows the comparative results using the worst performing 3-stock, 5-stock and 10-stock portfolios. The 5- and 10-stock portfolios show the most consistent performance and have less risk than a one stock portfolio.

The book focuses on the performance of the worst 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-stock DJIA portfolios, and provides statistical information showing how these different stock strategies compared to the DJIA annually since 1931 (using back-testing) on a dollar-term, percentage, annual return, and percentage difference from its 200 day moving average basis. He also provided comparative results for last 30 year, 20 year, 10 year and 5 year periods. In addition, there is as 37-page appendix containing the performance of each DJIA stock since 1931 as far as annual performance change, the DJIA annual change, and the performance of each of his stock strategies in each of the years.

In a separate chapter, he even compares his strategies with the Dogs of the Dow and indicates their superiority over the DoD since 1999. The performance before that time showed mixed results depending upon which of Carlson's strategies are used.

Overall, the author presents a credible case for considering his DJIA strategies. He warns investors that they should only invest a portion of their money in any of these strategies, and to be sure to have a diversified portfolio overall to be successful. This book offers investors a mechanical stock selection process that takes the emotion out the investment equation. In that respect it has much to offer.

In this book "Winning with the Dow's Losers", Chuck Carlson describes a simple strategy to beat the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) with the Dow's biggest losers: The worst performing stocks of one year will outperform the Dow in the following year. This had me raise an eyebrow, because a well established theory says that winners will keep on rising, and losers will keep on falling. That is the idea behind all the momentum strategies and relative strength strategies, and it has been outlined in O'Shaugnessy's acknowledged book "What works on Wall Street".

The author admits honestly that he got the idea about this strategy from just the two years 2000 and 2001: In 2000, Philip Morris was the biggest winner in the Dow (+91%) after being the biggest loser in the previous year (-57%), and in 2001, Microsoft (+53%) and AT&T (+36%) were big winners after trailing the Dow the year before (-63% and -66%, respectively). Carlson gives plausible reasons why it is likely to outperform the Dow with the laggards. The DJIA is a price index, i.e. cheap stocks don't have as big an influence on the index as expensive stocks do. Thus, if a cheap stock (and most laggards have come down in price considerably) increases by 10%, the Dow will increase by less than 10%. The other reason is his theory of "reversion to the mean".

Does Carlson's method leave room for criticism? It sure does. Some of it the author addresses himself in Chapter 9. But my main criticism is that the worst-to-first effects were most pronounced over the last 5 years (that's when the author noticed the effect).
He then extended his theory back to 1930 to show that it also works long time. And indeed, he did find a slight advantage for his worst-to-first strategy vs. buy-and-hold. During this 74 year period, his method returned 11%, while the Dow Jones returned 10% p.a.
If you consider, however, that you have to buy and sell shares once a year, the brokerage fees and commissions (usually 0.5% to 1% round turn) will eat up this advantage.
Also he mentions (on p. 105) that in his historical calculations all dividends are reinvested. Not only does this cost additional fees and commissions, but he just cannot invest all dividends because they are subject to tax (currently 15%).

The book was written in the second half of 2003, and most trading systems suffer from the fact that they were adapted to the past. Now, with three more years gone by, we can check, if the worst-to-first method stood the immediate future after publication. The following data were taken from Carlson's website (www.dowunderdogs.com). If you use his preferred worst-to-first version (a portfolio of the 5 worst performing stocks), in 2004 (+5.7%) he barely outperformed the Dow (+5.3%).
In 2005, his portfolio (-9.5%) underperformed the Dow (+1.7%).
And in 2006, he outperformed (+31.5%) the Dow (+16.3%).
So from 2004 to 2006, the worst-to-first outperformed the Dow by just 0.3% annually. And that is before fees and taxes! Do these results create confidence in his method?

Be it as it may, the book is well written (I finished it in just over a day) and easy to understand, and it is worthwhile reading because it outlines a coherent concept.

The main idea of the book is explained in a few first pages. The big goal is to buy low, sell high. The way to achieve that is to buy the worst performing stocks of the Dow and sell them in a year and one day. A purely mechanical, emotionless, low overhead approach. The rest of the book gives you some information on how Dow index is calculated, what companies are included, how to buy stocks and use options etc.

How good is this strategy? The author's own goal is to be able to outperform the Dow index. Well, it does beat Dow in most cases. So should you use it? Before you decide, consider this:

1. Dow has been pretty much flat for the last 6 years, so the bar is not that high. Even not investing money at all would outperform Dow in some of the recent years.
2. Dow stocks are typically US large cap companies. If US runs into a new recession, they'll probably all go down. How about more diversification?
3. If you buy the worst performer year after year, do you think it's likely one of them will eventually file bankruptsy and your investment will become worthless?

So if you were thinking about investing in Dow index, this strategy is a reasonable alternative. But keep in mind that typically "mechanical" "automated" "emotionless" systems tend to work for some time and then their performance degrades. The market is changing and locking yourself into some automated process can be very risky.

Here is an example. A few years ago everyone was talking about investing in indecies. Dow was beating most of the funds and buying index was so much cheaper, so over time you were supposed to enjoy top performance with no research effort. Sounds familiar? Guess what happened. Dow Jones is still lower then it was 6 years ago. Did you have other options? Or yes! International stocks, real estate, natural resources, gold, energy etc. But diversification accross right sectors in right time is not what mechanical systems do well.

So my advice is don't be too excited about "no brain" systems. If something looks to good to be true ...

This book was a wonderful, wonderful publication. It helps to show how canines are working in the world of humans, helping us to become well, to stay safe in the world, etc. This is the kind of story that should make headlines in newspapers, but rarely does. These dogs and the people who help them/handle them/love them SHOULD be spotlighted!

As for the reviewer who felt that this book added nothing because another book like it was published before, I say that there are NEVER enough books out there like this. I loved reading these stories, just as I did in the other book. I enjoyed watching the stories on Animal Planet, as well. People who appreciate *working* dogs would never be able to get enough of these stories. :)

Lots of fun dogs doing lots of interesting things. We liked the bowling dog and the singing dog best.

This book is a mediocre (...) book. (There is another book) of the exact same title pulished a year or so ago, "Working Dogs" by C. Owens. I found the original much more entertaining.

The book just popped out at me and I had to get a copy. Absolutely adorable! It really does make you realize what great hearts and minds dogs have. Great writing and photography too!

I was looking for a book for my 5-year old nephew - who is a dog nut - when I stumbled across Working Dogs. After getting it and reading some of the stories to him, I got a second copy for myself. The story and pictures are fabulous and the story of Wheelie Willy brought tears to our eyes.

As a veterinarian, amateur historian and life long boviphile i am always interested in literature about cattle. This book is a nice addition to my short shelf of books on the subject. It is part science, part history and part philosophy, in the style of Michael Pollans books The Botany of Desire or The Omnivores Dilemma. The author seems not to be a farmer or zoologist but she has done a lot of research I think and she offers some interesting philosophical insights.

Carlson tackles a huge topic with interesting facts and details. She argues FOR cattle in a way that makes sense for both environmentalist-minded readers as well as ranch types.

For a sociology/history book, this book is amazingly readable. Although it does not hold itself out to be a treatise, it is filled with well-documented facts, and the book's endnotes and references provide a wealth of material for those seeking further academic materials. It was published before the case of Mad Cow disease was found in the United States in December 2003, but it contains a very informative discussion of BSE and discusses the outbreaks in Great Britain and Europe. It presents a balanced view of the commercial cattle industry in the U.S., addressing both its problems and benefits, without advocating positions or taking sides. I bought extra copies to give to my cattle grower friends, including those who are trying to raise grass-fed cattle to supply the growing demand for grass-fed beef and dairy products raised without growth hormones, antibiotics, or stimulants.

The history of cattle was an attractive subject for a lifelong city dweller interested in learning new things. Unfortunately, much if not most of the book is neither a history nor about cattle. Carlson takes a quirky, scattershot approach to her subject and is never able to focus her thoughts. Unfortunately, there apparently was no editor to bring some order to the book, or even to correct the numerous factual errors. The author is something of a mystic, and as such uncritically collects myths and regurgitates them. Cattle have a mystical significance for her, and this somehow seems to give her license to include her ill-informed musings on many unrelated subjects within the pages of the book. However, there was some useful information about cattle and the products made from them scattered through the book; hence the two star rating. If you have a high tolerance for irrelevance and are not a stickler for accuracy, the book may be worth reading.

It taught me whys of geometry while the others present the material routinely. Lang has talents which make mathematics easy and interesting. He never frustrates his reader at the difficulties.

After I had read this Geometry book, I soon became a fan of Lang's. Now I have almost all his undergraduate texts in mathematics, i.e., A First Course in Calculus, Calculus of Several Variables, Introduction to Linear Algebra, Undergraduate Analysis, and the like.

I majored in engineering. I didn't like mathematics. I just needed the tool for doing my work. But this book with others of Lang's makes me think, 'Ah, how beautiful mathematics is...'

He is very innovative. Sometimes that makes his books a little 'unorthodoxy' as one pointed.

You need to put your trust in the book you are confronted. Otherwise you cann't learn anything with any book no matter how well a book is written. And this book deserves the trust.

I found this text interesting because it does not follow the standard approach to high school geometry. In a standard high school geometry text, the material is developed from Euclid's postulates (axioms) and common notions in the manner that he did in the Elements, albeit in modern language. These books generally cover much the same material, although some include right triangle trigonometry and transformations. The authors of this text choose to introduce their own postulates, which leads to a quite different development of the material and alternative ways of proving standard theorems. Having previously read a standard development of geometry, I found reading it developed in an alternate way fascinating.

The authors omit some topics in a standard geometry course, including inequalities, theorems about tangents, secants, and chords of circles, and concurrence theorems. The presentation of other topics is truncated. Instead, they include material on dilations, vectors, the dot product, transformations, and isometries. Right triangle trigonometry is not included. Another way in which this text differs from standard texts is that proofs are written in paragraph form, which is standard practice among mathematicians, rather than in the two column statement and reason format favored by geometry teachers for pedagogical reasons. I should caution you that some of the terminology and notation is also nonstandard, which could pose problems for you in your subsequent reading or examinations. Consequently, I recommend that you read a standard text before working through this one.

The text begins with a discussion of lines and angles. Postulates are introduced. However, some statements initially stated as postulates about distance and parallel lines are later proved as theorems. Then coordinates are introduced, allowing the authors to use algebraic arguments throughout the text. From there, the authors cover area, the Pythagorean Theorem, the distance formula, circles, perpendicular bisectors, triangles, polygons, and triangle congruence. Dilations are used to explain similarity. Volume formulas are derived for some standard figures. The authors present fascinating geometric arguments that enable them to obviate the need to use calculus to find some of the limits involved in the derivations. The book concludes with nonstandard topics, including vectors, the dot product, transformations, and isometries. This material is the greatest strength of the text, which concludes with a proof that any isometry can be expressed as the composition of at most three reflections.

The writing is generally clear, but there are errors. In one proof, there is a triangle whose three vertices are actually collinear. The authors do not distinguish between the Angle-Side-Angle congruence postulate for triangles and the Angle-Angle-Side Theorem for congruence of triangles, arguing that since the sum of the measures of a triangle is always 180 degrees, the measures of two angles of a triangle determine the third. Where this causes problems is that when they express that triangles are congruent, corresponding vertices do not necessarily match, which can be confusing.

The problems in the text are both interesting and tractable. The problems in the final section of the text and those listed as Additional Exercises are more challenging. There are no answers to the problems in the text. A solution manual, Solutions Manual for Geometry: A High School Course: by S. Lang and G. Murrow, written by Philip Carlson is available separately. Also, a problem involving similar triangles and another that hinges on the Side-Angle-Side congruence postulate for triangles are introduced before the relevant topics.

I recommend using this text as a supplement to a standard course. That way you will be familiar with standard terminology and notation. You will also know what a standard course covers and the usual way in which the theorems are proved. That will help you appreciate the nonstandard material covered in this text and the alternative proofs that are presented.

Alternatively, you could work through the text Geometry by Edwin E. Moise and Floyd L. Downs, Jr. That text, which is known for its challenging problems, is comprehensive enough to cover both the material in a standard course and much of the nonstandard material in this text.

"Geometry:A High School Course" is a fabulous textbook with concise, and sometimes even witty explanations of key concepts in high school geometry. With clear illustrations and diagrams to aid in many important proofs and excercises,this book far surpasses Cliff Notes!

Although the book's approach is good, it omits a lot of theorems, mostly those involving circles. The book emphasizes too much coordinate geometry. I recommend this book for self-study, but it is clearly not intended to be a textbook to cover all the material in a standard high school geometry course.

The text goes through all usual syllabus of high school geometry.All the subjects discussed have very important and basic applications.The authors don't try to give solid mathematical proofs to all theorems; but they just want to concieve the student in the best way possible and they have suceeded in doing so.I think this would work as a very interesting reading to anyone who really wants to learn about fundamentals of geometry.

Is it as simple as a princess in love being able to save her beloved's life? You read it once and it sounds as a tale for kids. You read it twice and you can understand there's a circle that never ends. The lady or the tiger? or What would you choose when the choice is love or death?

"In my idea the doors at the end of the story represent the struggle for someone in love and the travisty it causes."

Is it as simple as a princess in love being able to save the life of her beloved? You read it once and it sounds as a tale for kids. You read it twice and you can understand there's a circle that never ends. The lady or the tiger? or What would you choose when the choice is love or death?

I would loved this story, except that it doesn't give you and ending to the suspense, the story however is well written and descriptive