Hughes Books

Rick Bass does an excellent job of using short, usually off topic notes, that when put in chapter and book form are most enjoyable. He intertwines his geological skills with his philisophical view on humanity and also his personal life-well done. He has some very unique analogies, such as a geologist drawing a surface map thousands of feet below the earth's surface by using basically what he sees through a hole the diameter of a fire hydrant. Mr. Bass is also very ecologically concerned with our planet, his views on this subject are quite refreshing.

Rick Bass's little oil book, originally published in 1989, is a good read for those who know something about oil production. But it is dated, very badly, by recent developments in the energy sector. One of his "notes" -- page 19 of the SMU edition -- states "I hate coal." This goes to two pages of nonsense written by someone years ago, like me, that could not have anticipated the significance of coalbed methane.

If you read this book, realise it is from a well-head mentality. This oil genius probably has never spent a day underground or a minute to understand why we must mine coal. Perhaps he could run his word processor off the crude pumped into a generator adjacent to his office. That's a patent I'd like to see.

Rick Bass, a petroleum geologist and environmental activist is known for his knowledge of the earth and oil. The book, Oil Notes, written by Bass, gives the readers the feeling that they are petroleum geologists. Bass allows the reader to understand what he is referring to and how everything on an oil rig works. At first glance or first read, the reader might think that the book is solely about oil. But as the reading goes on, the reader finds out differently. Oil Notes is not only about oil; it is an analogy for life. Bass also uses searching for the number one oil field, the one that will make someone rich, as an analogy for a man trying to find his place on earth.
Throughout the book, many facts that are in oil exploration also coexist in life. For example, Bass claims that "Nothing lasts. Old seas are buried" (42). Not only is Bass talking about the soon to be scarcity of oil, he is talking about life. No matter how much you try, you will not live forever. Rocks do not last forever; eventually they become stones, pebbles, and eventually sand. That is the same with life. Life does not last forever. Unfortunately, death is inevitable. Everything that is thought to last forever...love, hatred, and friendship...will cease to exist when the person dies.
Another example of life being told in terms of oil is when Bass talks about leadership in the field of geology: "A leader-in a profession of men and women who cannot be led, and will not" (135). Bass says that those are the type of geologists that everyone needs to stay away from. They are the geologists with the egos that are bigger than their head. In life, staying away from people like that would help a lot. People with big egos refuse to help people and also refuse to be helped. They are solely dependent on themselves. Unfortunately, they will not learn in life until they drastically fail at something. Only then will they hopefully realize that there are sources other than themselves.

Time and change coexist and have a big effect on the oil business and life. Everything revolves around time. Bass is amazed that in a lifetime "you will see a picture more different than could ever be imagined" (134). Things can change drastically in a lifetime. Just look around a city. Remember what it was like 10 years ago or 20 years ago. No matter what duration of time, change always occurs. In the oil business, drilling can go smooth for fifteen hours, and then it becomes tough due to different rock. The flow of oil can trickle and then it can spew out one-thousand barrels per day. It can change that drastically in a short period of time. In life, the health of a person can drastically change as the person ages.
In the oil business assumption can make or break your career as an oil person. In life assumption can do the same. Bass says, in reaction to not knowing about your oil well, "You've got to be careful not to judge it too quickly or too harshly" (145). If a person assumes an oil well is in shale, and uses a bit that only goes through shale, it will ruin their day to find out that the $10,000 bit is useless because they are actually drilling through granite. The oil well can be lost and the geologist can be out of a job. In life, the same can occur. If a person judges another person before getting to know them, that can prove to be a big mistake. Maybe that person could have been a good friend or something more.
Finding the perfect oil field is similar to one's efforts to try to find out where they belong in the world. Bass claims that "Someday I am going to drill my own well. There is no geologist who does not dream of this. It is what you are after" (89). In any profession, a goal is set. A pilot might want to fly a certain plane or so many hours. In oil, the goal is to own a big money making petroleum company, owning a well. Life provides goals similar to those and with a similar pay off. The fact that Bass says "someday" means he is going to try. That is an analogy for life. A person may look all of their life to find out who they are, where they belong. Once the person "knows himself" then the world is his. They know what they are capable of and what they are made of.
Not only is Oil Notes about oil, it is about life in general, about one person's effort to find their place in the world.

Oddly enough, I was far from home doing field work in North Georgia when I found Oil Notes in a little bookstore. I am a geologist. However, unlike Rick Bass my job was to look for fresh drinking water, not oil. I found time to read his book between logging boreholes and setting wells. By the time I was finished I (with the book) I had a renewed interest and spirit in my profession and in the environment around me. Rick Bass found a way to express in words, the excitement and passions associated with being a field geologist, environmentalist and a man in love.

Oil Notes is a fantastic book, and Rick Bass is an equally outstanding author. I have since read everyone of his books. He vividly defines his feelings and passions in everything he writes about, be it drilling for oil or studing wolves.

You can almost feel Rick Bass' concentration as he considers each and every word before adding it to this sparkling little journal. The resulting prose is lean and crisp, fresh as the air after rain. I savored the writing in these little essays almost as much as I enjoyed the bits of life-wisdom found a dash here and a pinch there.
No matter how intriguing, these elements are relegated to the status of sub-currents within the framework. On the surface, Bass treats the reader to a large helping of fascinating details about the oil business, and it was this that first attracted me.
Of course, as I read the author began to make contact on a second level, and my interests shifted. Years later, original motive no longer relevant, I enjoyed Oil Notes again. There is much to be learned here. Bass seemes to be that rare creature; the sensitive male. I'm not sure, but now that I've read it several times, I think maybe some of it might be about to rub off.
Art Tirrell - author of The Secret Ever Keeps - Mar 2007 from Kunati Book Publishers.

The best thing about this book was that it dove right into an engrossing story from page one. It had interesting twists that I really enjoyed and was not stayed and predictable. This was consistent throughout, rocketing down the rails to an uproarious ending that did not drag on. Give it a try, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

This is more than a very well written murder mystery. In addition to keeping you turning the pages to keep up with the exciting story line, this book also offers insights into a range of emotions and lessons learned... the hard way.

Rick Edison is an Atlanta firefighter who, two days after his wife divorces him finds out that she was brutally tortured and killed. The investigation carries you through a roller coaster of events leading to a thrilling conclusion that you didn't really see coming. As the body count climbs, Rick suddenly realizes that his own indiscretions and sins of his past have come back to haunt him in a way that puts him squarely in the killer's sights.

The author is to be highly commended for accurately and effectively capturing the psyche of a man. I was repeatedly surprised at how well a woman could write a story with a male protagonist. This surprising and yet welcome trick has made for an extremely well written novel that shows her talent, and professional ability.

This deserves a five star rating, and is highly recommended. Hopefully, we'll see more from the talented pen of KC Hughes.

Once you pick up this book, it's hard to put it down. K.C. Hughes has produced a mystery loaded with realistic events with twists and turns as the story unfolds.

You know how some books Start, Stutter, and then Stop; This is not one of those books. This book Starts, Speeds Up, and then Soars. One of the best that I have read in a very long time. Kudos to you K.C. I can't wait for more.

If I had to summarize (in one word) SCARLET MOON, I would say,
"realistic." As we move through this journey called life, our experiences often times shape our character. This book is a great read especially for those who have been loved and not appreciated the blessing! I can't wait to purchase the next book.

Not being a fan of contemporary, popular fiction, this is not a book I would normally have selected. It was one among many I received, so I read it not really knowing what to expect. Unfortunately the most noticeable aspect of the book was that it was pieced together in a distracting way. Although by the end one is used to it, the timeline of the story jumps around excessively to the point that it is not simple to follow at what point the characters do various things, making it too easy to forget what is going on. Despite being based very loosely on actual events (the author is imagining what perhaps transpired in her great-grandmother's life), and though readable and somewhat entertaining, the book does not make a particular "impression" or connection. The dubious heroine of the novel, Victorine, does not make choices that make sense to me as a reader, or at least the reasoning behind her choices (whether logical or not) is not clear. Victorine's choice to leave her husband and two children behind to pursue adventure and love in Indochina does not seem remarkably agonizing, painful or difficult. Although there are passages hinting at her ambivalence, the book does not delve into Victorine's mind or feelings at a level that can persuade the reader to understand what she has chosen for herself. It is never entirely clear that her desire for adventure and love was so strong that it would propel her to make a reckless choice like leaving her family behind. Nor was it entirely clear that she had any great love for the two children she abandoned, although she returned to them eventually. Somehow, her choices and feelings seemed hollow and artificial in a way that, for example, Anna Karenina's did not (Anna Karenina of course being literature's greatest unfaithful wife and mother). The most truthful aspect of this book, in my estimation, is the idiocy of French bureaucracy, as the government first offers Victorine's lover Antoine a promotion while at the same time informing him that they cannot tender a renewal of his employment contract.

Victorine is an absolutely gorgeous novel. Lucid, poetic, romantic and sensual, the story tells of one young woman's defiance of social convention in the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Victorine, a young schoolteacher, lives in Vendee, a quiet province of France. She becomes pregnant at an early age to Armand, and in keeping with the propriety of the time, is forced to marry him. But Victorine's heart is with the blond, virile wonderer, Antoine, and in a fit of lust and abandon, she embarks on a highly passionate affair. Falling desperately in love, and trapped in a loveless marriage that is like an "ever-tightening corset," Victorine abandons her husband and her two children, Madeleine and Daniel. Together with her new lover, and tormented by guilt and remorse, she travels to Indochina to start a new life.

Told in a type of duel narrative that effectively switches backwards and forwards in time - from eighteen ninety nine to nineteen forty - we journey back with Victorine to her home in France with her family, and to her adventures with Antoine along the Mekong River. Victorine is torn between the question of love and the question of marriage, and for her, marriage for love seems to be forever rendered moot. But she can't resist Antoine's desire and ends up defying the entire social rules that she's been bought up with. She describes herself as "always cold in the early winters" of her marriage and she wonders if there is something amiss in her heart. It is as though she has kept the feelings of Antoine's "fingers on her wrist buried under the smooth surface of her life."

The novel is quite compelling because of the power of its thought and its writing, and it steadily crescendos towards Victorine's decision to abandon Armand and her children. Her small, original lies gradually blossom into elaborate stories as she tries desperately to keep her affair with Antoine a secret from her family. She realizes she's only buying time in a land of "fuzzy boundaries" where truth - already a shaky concept, gradually gets corrupted, and irremediably altered. Texier has crafted a complex portrait of a woman who is a dreamer longing to escape, and who is irrevocably bound by stuffy conventions.

Texier's style is deceptively reserved, quietly crafted, and with a simple beauty that is impossible not to like. Witness the "sun melting in apricot trails along the horizon," and the "moonlight playing silver circles on her naked arms." And the colours of Indochina: yellow stucco and green shutters, the smells of frangipani, jasmine, overripe mangos, and dried fish.

Texier writes throughout with a fine ear for the sound and rhythms of her sentences and there is a constant pleasure in reading her prose. She also has a way of describing Victorine's sensuality while managing to avoid judging her actions. Like the loosening of her corset, which she does with a sigh of relief, her sensuality awakens and also becomes loose; it suddenly appears to her as an object of desire, "dangerously intimate and precarious." Victorine is a gorgeous evocation of a time and place and is a startling account of one woman's search for independence and freedom from the oppressive restrictions of the time. Mike Leonard June 04.

Have you ever wanted to leave the husband, kids and family behind and start a new life? Victorine and a man she has carried a torch for since she was a teenager do just that. The consequences from that decision made for a great discussion with my book group and we got down to core values and women's roles in a hurry. Well written and very captivating.

Loved this book. The author`s writing style reminds me of Anita Shreeve.(The Pilot`s wife). Only this book is about France and indochina. It`s definitely a chick book and worth reading.

I don't have nothing to add to other reviewers you review this book, expect the 1st one. I totally disagree because she did the review the day it came out and just read the editorial reviews and based her review on that or read the book fast. I bought the book when it came out, but finish it last night and loved it. I felt book was much better then the 1st reviewer thought it was. Hope this has success and maybe a it will be a movie as well. Thank you.

This book was fun to read; a good mystery, interesting characters as well as craft projects that sound fun to do.

I love this new series. I like the characters. I love how she works them all together and she doesn't leave anyone out. Very real. These people could all your friends and neighbors. Very believable. She keeps it going. I can't wait to read the next one.

After her husband is killed, Jo McAllister moves from New York back to Maryland where she grew up and opens up her own craft store, Jo's Craft Corner. Having put all her money into the store, Jo needs as many customers as possible and on opening day she hires a clown, Cuddles, to attract customers. But her store gets the wrong kind of attention when someone murders Cuddles in her storeroom using one of her knitting needles. Police Lieutenant Russ Morgan seems to think Jo not only killed Cuddles but also arranged the explosion that killed her husband. Jo is anxious to clear her name and with the encouragement of some of her loyal customers, she begins to investigate the murder with the help of 15 year old Charlie, the son of her best friend Carrie. Jo has plenty of suspects but when there is another murder and someone poisons Jo, causing her to crash her car, she realizes she may be getting too close to the truth.

"Wreath of Deception" is the well-written first book in the Craft Corner Mystery Series. Jo is a sympathetic character as she struggles to rebuild her life after her husband's devastating death. One of the things that made this book so enjoyable is the friendship between Jo and Carrie and Carrie's family. Carrie's family is well developed and the strained relationship between Charlie and his father is well done. Charlie's relationship with his "Aunt" Jo is also well done and he's a great help in solving the mystery as his character grows during the course of the book. Jo's Craft Corner's customers are also well written, especially the ones that take her craft workshops: elderly Ina Mae Kepner, who has the energy of someone half her age; Deirdre Patterson, who is married to a senator and very aware of her image; Loralee Phillips with her large tote which seems to carry everything but the kitchen sink; dentist wife Javonne Barrett; and doting mother to twin toddlers, Mindy Blevins. The craft elements are deftly weaved into the story and figure more into the mystery than first appears. Author Mary Ellen Hughes has a nice way with words that is shown when Jo wonders if she is dragging Charlie into dangerous waters and decides it's okay as long as she swims beside him. The mystery itself is well plotted and the identity of the murderer comes as quite a surprise.

"Wreath of Deception" is a well-done cozy mystery and I look forward to reading more books in this series.

Wreath of Deception (A Craft Corner Mystery) I am an avid reader of cozy mysteries. Like many career women I am exhausted after a 9 or 10 hr day and I love a distraction in the evening. This is a most enjoyable book for mystery lovers. Not too serious, but enough suspense and some fun. I do recommend this book and am looking forward to the 2nd in the series. DG in FL

This was an enjoyable read although I had figured out the killer early on by chapter 7. It was not hard for an avid mystery reader. I am hoping her next in the series is harder to figure out.

A must read for business leaders looking to gain a full perspective of branding as a management strategy. The authors do a fantastic job leveraging expertise in the car industry to share insights and tons of examples of branding gone wrong and what it takes to do it right. What's great about this book is that the auto industry truly is a great benchmark and educational view for other industries to follow. My company is not in the auto industry, however, insights, suggestions and key learning's provided by Hughes and Jeanes are very much applicable to my company and most company's I know of. In particular the "strategic" Brand Triangle provides a logical view of how a company's brand image is driven by not only the product quality and retail experience but also how the organizational culture becomes the "glue that holds everything together". This book points out and provides examples to prove that "Culture, in the center of the triangle, drives the brand".

Leaders in virtually all industries will benefit from this read!

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS BOOK AVAILABLE. YOU SAVED ME -IT WAS AN ASKED FOR CHRISTMAS GIFT

This writing is the best prescription for a very sick patient. Surgery followed by very closely prescribed med's leads me to believe that all hope is not lost.

No nonsense analysis of the current state of affairs as it relates to the US auto industry. Very current and on-point. Anyone in the automobile business (especially those in the glass tower) should take a serious read.

This was a much anticipated read, as the topic is timely and the authors are known to have the auto industry experience necessary to produce an insightful book on car branding. While worth reading, at least for auto industry geeks like myself, Branding Iron suffers from three weaknesses. First, there are several editing gaffes (not unique in my recent reading experience). Second, the advice on getting from a poor branding situation to a strong one is thin at best. To be sure, the authors make clear recommendations on reducing brand count, especially in the case of Ford, but how to get from point A to point B is easier said than done. Perhaps that is why they shied away from offering definitive advice for GM, which has the most complex global brand situation of any auto company. Lastly, the authors state that they don't want to get into the economics aspect of branding, but by not doing so their theories have to be taken entirely on faith. Nice try, guys, but you came up a little short.

Reading this book was highly recommended by some associates. I was hoping for more other than recommending the domestic auto companies reduce the number of brands and dealers they carry. Or they should have more corporate courage. Having read it now I find it a bit too much like some of Tom Peters works which were prone to picking out outstanding companies that have since fallen or ignoring the global changes that caught the truck and SUV heavy domestic auto makers with their proverbial pants down.

I got more out of Barbarians to Bureaucrats Corporate Life Cycle Strategies.

I've used this planner on my wedding and also other weddings. I like that it lists all the different services. My church is non-denominational so I was able to pick and choose the parts I liked. They had everything from Baptist, to Lutheran, to Catholic. They had some of the best vows listed that I've seen (or heard) lately.

Drawbacks: very dated material. They actually recommend that you go with audio tapes due to the higher quality of recording. I got a laugh out of this. And obviously their recommendations on music is quite dated too.

What a wonderful book to keep an all-ready nervous and hectic bride on track! I used it faithfully and managed to have a beautiful wedding. I kept my sanity as well as my husbands! A great buy!

I used this book 3 years ago when I was married and recently passed it along to my sister-in-law to be. It is an invaluable resource and a very **different** resource. It isn't a book about different wedding "ideas" ("how to arrange the tablecloths", "how to deal with new in-laws", etc.) It is a **GO-TO** resource on the actual planning of the ceremony/celebration. It gives template sheets that I found helpful to simply xerox and put in a 3-ring binder and create my own workbook. (The best part is the book is still blank for my sister-in-law now!) Your money will be well spent here.

I used this planner for my wedding in 1998. It never left my side, I took it everywhere! It helps you plan everything from the day you get engaged to the honeymoon...

If you're a listmaker and love checklists, this is the planner for you! There are tons of lists, calendars, and how-to's for the entire process. Four years later, it's still on my bookshelf for easy access. It's a fabulous planner that I'd recommend to anyone!

This book SEEMED like it would be helpful, but except for *some* info on premarital counseling, it really came very close to being like any other *secular* wedding book. Some of the advice is really dated, too.

is what I'd actually give this book. This book does not really follow the typical methods of storytelling. For starters, the narrator is a fictional biographer, but much of what the real author wrote is largely factual. In plain English it is a study in contraries. The book was relatively humorous and touching at times. Howard Hughes was an incredibly fascinating individual - the likes of which we will probably not see again in our lifetime. During my reading I kept thinking "Wow, this guy was nuts but I damn if I don't like him". I think that the author did a great job of making Hughes likable and most of all he really conveyed the magnetism that Hughes embodied. What I didn't like about this book was the narrator Mr. Reece. He was a pretty unlikable character. He came off as pompous and full of himself which I realize was supposed to be a comparison to Hughes but let's face it - Hughes is one individial who defied comparison. It's one thing to have an unlikable character and it's another to allow that character to have narrative rein. Reading this book was much like reading the diary of someone I did not like and having the content of the diary be about someone I did like. I wouldn't recommend purchasing this book. It is a better library read and for God's sake try not to read this before you have see the movie The Aviator which is out right now. I think that some of the magic that was Hughes may be lost to you at that point.

This book offers an intoxicating immersion into the world of Howard Hughes and his imaginary biographer, Alton Reece. As a former aerospace employee, I was highly interested in the details author Steven Carter wove into his tight, dazzling narrative. Anyone who has driven by the Westside and South Bay area of LA should realize what rich turf Hughes lived in, including the airplane factories that dotted and still grace the landscape (if you know where to drive). This book creates a small gem of a world that reflects the larger intellectual possibilities that Hughes once embodied, and sadly, lost along with his fiction biographer Reece.

Oh my gosh this book was so funny. I could not put it down. I had no idea who Howard Hughes was until I read this book. I laughed out loud so many times. It says right in front of the book that some of it is based on fact and other parts are made up - but it all felt so real and true. I believed every word because I don't know any better! I had a hard time separating it from a made up novel to a biography of an eccentric man's life - but wow what a womanizer he was. Another reason I liked this book is because it's off the wall - not mainstream. It's unique and entertaining!

This is a unique work. It would have been easy for Carter to go for cheap laughs. He doesn't. He stands aside and lets the story run. Biographer Alton Reece is everywhere. Amazingly, we do not even sense the presence of Steven Carter. Most writers can't do that.
The scenes with Hughes' body double were among the funniest I have read in a lifetime of reading. The work is brilliantly understated. Cater has literally created a literary form unlike anything seen before. How wonderful! How rare!

Beneath the humor of this work is a deep sorrow. We are all Howard Hughes on one level or another. Every damn thing is insane and Carter knows it.
I Was Howard Hughes is the most original book since A Confederacy of Dunces. It is similar to Barth's The End of the Road. It's funny as hell but will also wring you out and throw you in bed for a week. I hope it gets the audience it deserves. Carter should win the Pulitzer Prize.

Smart, eccentric, and by turns hilarious, Carter's first novel is more compelling and accomplished than at least ninety percent of the mouthy, self-referential, post-postmodern drivel that fills the pages of McSweeney's and passes for literary "art" these days. Melding fact and fiction into one cohesive story, Carter resurrects a number of American icons--Hughes, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, J. Edgar Hoover, Robert Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa, Bugsy Seigel, to name a few--but without the hardboiled punchiness of James Ellroy or the mechanical syntax of Don DeLillo. In this extremely impressive debut, Carter weaves together a multiplicity of voices without missing a beat. Most impressive is Carter's ability to channel the quirkiness of both Hughes and his shady biographer without turning them into one-dimensional jokes. A timely release given the forthcoming Hughes biopic directed by Martin Scorsese. Read the book of one master storyteller (Carter, or should I say Alton Reece?), then watch the film of another!

I bought this text when I was first interested in learning the math behind quantum mechanics. I was attracted to the exposition of the mathematical formalism of spin. That part of the book did not disappoint. But the remainder was almost unreadable: longwinded, pretentious pontifications on the "meaning" of quantum mechanics. The author could have saved many pages by substituting the following: "I really don't know what the "meaning" of quantum mechanics is". No shame there. As Richard Feynman once said: "Nobody understands quantum mechanics." And he should know.

This is one of the most lucid accounts of a subject famous for its obscurity.

Hughes is one of a precious few who has one foot firmly planted in the science and the other in the broader philosophical tradition.

His text, a contemporary classic, sits comfortably on the shelf in the company of Jammer, Cushing, Shimony and D'Espangnat. Everyone from beginners to seasoned professionals can profit from this work. I heartily recommend it to anyone keen to understand the foundations of quantum theory -- a timely subject, now stirring to life after 60 years of slumber.

This is a superb teaching book for taking your understanding of quantum mechanics to the next level. Much of the book is devoted to understanding a good deal of the underlying math and mathematical formalism, such as Hilbert spaces, Hermitians, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, Cantor's calculus of infinities, the analysis and representation of spin properties, and other very cool stuff which I didn't have a very good grasp of before. And yet the previous math required is minimal, really only high school algebra, and Hughes defines new concepts as he goes along. Actually, there is some calculus here and there, but not a whole lot, which is fine, as my advanced calculus is pretty rusty at this point. So Hughes keeps the advanced math to a minimum. This doesn't mean the book is easy reading, as the algebra of Hilbert spaces includes such things as the logical properties of inner products, spectral decomposition, vector projections, the analysis of different vector operators, and so on, and that's only one small section in the book, not to mention the fact that Cantor's ideas in number theory about the ordinality or sizes of inifinite series is pretty mind-boggling stuff. Basically, Cantor established the improbable and surprising fact that certain infinities are "bigger" than others. One way he did this was to show that some infinities are "countably infinite" and others are not. Fun stuff.

All this is just preparation for understanding the quantum mechanics, however, and the author does a fine job of linking the mathematical concepts with the applied ideas in quantum theory. This is important, since quantum mechanics is basically a purely mathematical theory. Unlike Einstein's Special and General theories of Relativity, which, although pretty mind-boggling theories in themselves, can still be explained by using more or less intuitive and easy to understand spatial concepts and illustrations. You've probably encountered these in some of the books on the subject, such as doing the fun thought experiment of having two observers, with one travelling at the speed of light and the other stationary, to demonstrate the relativistic effects on space, time, and matter in the case of the Special Theory. But unfortunately those kinds of entertaining and informative thought experiments are difficult to do in quantum mechanics, which is why a book like this that explains the concepts at a relatively high level clearly and concisely is such a great find. Overall, this is an excellent "upgrade" book written by a gifted teacher on a very difficult subject. There are very few books like this that bridge the gap between the purely popular presentations of quantum theory and the very difficult technical quantum physics books.

This book provides an excellent analysis of relevant and interesting points raised by quantum physics in philosophy as well as detailed and useful explanations of the physics itself - something many books cannot do. The explanation of the physics, the experiments and their results provide material to think on. Simple, arbitrary conclusions leave no room for thought - analysis of real life experiments provoke thought.

The math is not easy for an inexperienced student, though the subject in general tends to preclude those. I had just taken a class on matrix mechanics and I was so greatful I had, as it let me actually visualize the equations rather than simply read the letters and symbols.

An excellent launching pad for those who are already familiar with EPR, the slit experiment and quantum spin, etc. and want to know what it all means.

This book was recommended to me as a very nice introduction to quantum mechanics for the mathematically-inclined. It looks like I'll be awaiting the publication of the new edition of Sudbery's text instead, because, at least for me, this book didn't quite end up filling the bill. It's true that, unlike so many popular introductions to quantum theory, Hughes' book doesn't shy away from mathematics. The mathematics for me was fine (although I wonder what a person who'd had "only high school algebra" would make of the derivatives and integrals that show up unannounced). It's in trying to make sense of what the mathematics is supposed to be modelling that I felt that this book lost a star. (How much of the problem is due to the author's exposition and how much is due to my shortcomings as a reader is something I'm not prepared to judge.)

Again, this is a good book, but I have no idea where people are coming from when they write "this is not only the best book ever written, but also the best book that ever will be written".

this is a great "light" mystery to read. The charachers are funny & interesting.
this author is witty & entertaining all at once!
loved it. Especially the mystery aspect of the book keeping me entertained without grossing me out!@

I chanced upon these older books written by C. Hughes before she started writing her comedy romance books. I LOVED them! This book was suspenseful and thrilling with a touch of her humor rolled into the plot. Although the book was scary, I still found myself smiling at some of Hughes' slight humor. I do think you would love these and I wish Ms. Hughes would write more of these types of books. I am currently reading Night Kills (another one of her early suspense novels--it is excellent, also) this is such a talented author! I am tempted to write her website begging her to write more like these! Maybe my wish will come true!

Boy I wish I could think of the fast comebacks Meg did! She cracked me up, never missed a beat. The mystery was a little lacking but the comedy (Meg's mother for example) made up for it. I did have some unanswered questions though. Why did Clay marry Becky? Why did they get divorced and why did he pay her so much to get out of the marriage? How did Meg and Clay leave things between them when she left town? Oh well, guess we never get all the answers but definitely an enjoyable book.

I loved this! This has my vote for one of the best books of the year

I enjoyed the author's sense of humor, but found it grating after a while. The characters did not seem real to me. Instead, they were overdone and somewhat stereotypical. It felt like the main character was trying too hard to amuse us with her witty take on everything. I hate not to finish a book that I have purchased, but I gave up on it. The storyline definitely had potential, but I wouldn't recommend this for people who prefer more serious suspense novels.

Pros: gives numerical solution algorithms for isotropic and kinematic hardening, etc; covers a wide range of plasticity problems.

Cons: lack of detailed step by step deduction for some important equations, difficult to swallow by first time learners

the book is in excellent condition and reached me well before the estimated time. Worth the money...Great transaction and look forward for many more ahead on Amazon.

I strongly recommend this book. It gives insights that no other books give. A solid mathematical background and a wide scope are the fundamental book characteristics.

This book is really well organised, and the theory is well presented, particularly Chapter 1. It is among the few which I highly recommend, and it is value for money.

I bought this book several years ago, and keep going back and study more in it. As usual, I didn't read it from front to back. Instead I started from the middle, jumped around and then settled for chapter 7. That's mainly a review of continuum mechanics, and one of the reasons I keep this book handy. It is very comprehensive and very clear. I think the reason Simo and Hughes could explain things so clear is because they just really deeply understood it. There is hardly any superfluous talking or name dropping, it's all just clear, well printed math and neat little diagrams that lets you get the point. Somehow I understood chapters 8 and 9 much better by first reading chapter 10 on nonlinear viscoelasticity, finally getting the idea of dissipative processes in solids, and how one can actually compute all this. Recently I studied more of the first part of the book: finally this stuff about yield surfaces makes sense. It's a real mystery buster. Another thing that makes this book very useful are the boxes: detailed algorithms, neatly printed, that actually work if you turn them into computer code. In general, this book is not for total beginners, but if you understand the very basic mathematical underpinnings for continuum mechanics, this will bring you to the next level. If you get stuck, read around in other books, but go back to this one, because that's were you will understand.