Research Books

Ev's a wild man, he's crazy, ya gotta love that guy. Bada bing! Land grab, way to go, pow! What a loon! Sign me up!

An interesting book that covers a range of strategic issues involved with space. Lays out the basics of space operations. An insightful read.

The geopolitics of space will be a more timely topic in the years ahead with so many spacefaring nations seeding fleets to 'the Moon, Mars, and Beyond.' The serious treatment of geopolitics of space is of growing importance. The space regimes fashioned by diplomats of the past must evolve in the years ahead to foster commercial activity and private property ownership. Astropolitics is abound as most recently evidenced by the reaction to President George W. Bush and his space policy internationally. This book is essential reading for those seeking to grasp the multiple issues that must be addressed on the direction ahead.

The introduction of the beliefs and dictums of geopolitics, the school of thought bringing together geography and international relations, in space theory and practice was, admittedly, long overdue. This is masterfully accomplished in this book, which, while been accessible and democratic in its style, is highly informed and thought-provoking.
With the traditional struggles over terrestrial supremacy being far from over, the arena of space offers a new field for the realization of the power strategies of the contemporary "Great Powers". This is turn directly affects the power relations back home (Earth, that is), shaping thus the political landscape of the near future.
The author, drawing from a plethora of geopolitical, historical and space-related records, has produced a compelling and essential read, concretly laying the foundations for a new, inter-disciplinary and highly relevant ground.

Dolman's thoughts in Astropolitik should be essential reading for anyone interested in space power and its relationship to the security of freedom, democracy and the United States in the 21st century. This book will definitely be required reading for military space leaders in the future, and should be read by every space leader or enthusaist today be they from the military, civil, or commercial sectors. Realist politics and unilateral action may be disheartening to some, and many may be opposed to Dolman's 'advice' at the end, but the logic and arguments he presents are sound and must be addressed by any potential opposition.
In all, Astropolitik will become a classic of space power theory.

I thought it was an excellent book. The author was clearly very knowledgeable both as a basketball player and as a quantitative analyst. Probably this dual identity is also what allowed him to communicate the findings so well to non-analysts while preserving enough of the meat of the analysis for pure analysts to see where it would all lead to.

Best book on sports statistics that I've read.

First of all, I am the author, so the 5-star rating is admittedly biased, but also honest as I wrote the book under the influence of award-winning books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel," "Good to Great," and "Ender's Game." Now that it's 3 years after Basketball on Paper went to press, a couple years after the description here was written, and a year or more after the book got me a job in the NBA, I wanted to add an updated description.

I wrote the book in the hopes of presenting a scientific _method_ for approaching basketball. By "method", I mean that it doesn't present a magical all-encompassing rating for players, but rather a _structure_ for basketball as genetics provided a structure for understanding life and biology. The possession-based concept introduced early in the book allows you to evaluate strategy, the chemistry of a team, and, yes, who are better players. It doesn't matter whether it's the NBA, WNBA, college, high school, or the international game -- the methods apply and I've applied them. The book focused on the NBA and WNBA because that was where the statistics were most readily available going back more than a year or two. That is changing and I have already seen foreign leagues incorporating my work into their game.

This structure does introduce formulas, nothing more complicated than the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division that I learned through baseball cards when I was 10 years old. For coaches who want to avoid these, I actually recommend reading the last chapter first because it summarizes the conclusions of the previous chapters. For people interested in player evaluation, the book has numerous lists of player stats, how many wins and losses they contributed, and how they did it. This includes players as far back as Bill Russell, but as recent as Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, and Allen Iverson.

For baseball fans, I should say that Bill James' work on Win Shares in baseball paralleled mine in basketball, though we did take slightly different approaches. Bill has even said of the book, "Excellent writing. There are a lot of math guys who just rush from the numbers to the conclusion. . .they'll tell you that Shaq is a real good player but his team would win a couple more games a year if he could hit a free throw. Dean is more than that; he's really struggling to understand the actual problem, rather than the statistical after-image of it. I learn a lot by reading him." I am happy to say that experts in statistical evaluation of baseball (like Bill), football (like Aaron Schatz and Ben Alamar of Pro Football Prospectus), and basketball are all communicating about the common goals we have for doing scientific evaluation of team sports, where analogies to business team environments and global politics abound.

I realized as I wrote the book that there were a million projects that I could do from what is in the book. Those projects have come about and grown even before I joined the Seattle Supersonics in October of 2004. Evaluating strategy has grown so much from the basics in this book. Player evaluation, especially as they move from one league to another, has evolved. And, with the experiment of the 2004-05 season, I got to show how the work significantly helps coaching a team. That season, I joined the Sonics with a fixed roster that was universally picked for last in their division. I worked with the coaches, management, and players to provide a different perspective to their own backgrounds, one that complemented their own expertises. At the end of the season, we won our division, we upset the experts by winning our first round series, and we gave the ultimate NBA champions one of their toughest playoff battles. I felt that we should have won the championship -- perhaps naive, but also a measure of the belief I had in not only the work in Basketball on Paper, but also in the ability of the staff and players I worked with.

Now that I do work in the NBA and apply new tricks of the trade, I can't really write another book sharing my secrets. But Basketball on Paper contains the framework, the basic insights, and a lot of the numbers for understanding a lot more about the beautiful game.

Oliver's work shows a maturity that has been lacking from many basketball evaluation books--John Hollinger's "Basketball Prospectus" being another exception. Not only are players evaluated statistically but their roles on their teams are considered in context in relationship to their numbers. If you want to gain an understanding of basketball as perhaps you've never had before, and are willing to accept the ambiguous nature of numbers themselves, this is the book for you!

I have been using the formulas and ideas presented in Dean Oliver's book for the past three years. I was never a math fan, but my spreadsheets for calculating basketball statistics are the most complicated I have ever created and it was this book that started my obsession. The book inspired me with a fascination over a new way to look at the game and the players that bring it to life. Mr. Oliver's work was just a starting point and over the past few years I have added other formulas and other mathematical approaches to looking at the game, but I would not have gotten anywhere without this book. It is an essential tool in my toolbox for evaluating and enjoying the game of basketball.

This is a great book for people who are both numbers geeks and basketball geeks. I wish that there was more of a focus on college basketball, but that's just me. The author even replied to a couple of my questions regarding some of the formulas via email. Highly recommended for a basketball fan intrigued by statistics and indexes.

The news about public school education has been bad for almost 30 years. Statistics published by city, state, and federal information banks show that kids are just not learning what they need to know, schools are overcome with violence, teachers are demoralized, and yet billions of dollars are literally shovelled into the system. Where does this money go, we have all asked,as we walk down our children's school hallways and have seen the paint falling off the walls and ceilings, the broken desks and chairs, and we have heard about the lack of services and resources going to our kids. There has been little documentation of the misappropriation of these funds until now. Lydia Segal has written an excellent and important book on this topic that will become THE textbook on corruption, theft, fraud, and patronage within the Board of Education not only in New York City, but also in Chicago and Los Angeles.
Lydia Segal, a former Investigator of the New York City public schools, says that very little of the dollars allocated to students in our public schools actually gets used by them. She details how coding problems, the procurement process, compartmentalization and opacity of information leave administrators with only two options: good corruption (which ultimately helps the kids) and bad corruption (which never helps anyone but the perpetrator and his/her allies and accomplices). Indeed, the system fights those who try the good corruption route. Ms. Segal describes in graphic detail the "godfathers" and "godmothers" (the school board members), who obtain jobs for their "pieces". Furthermore, no one who reads her chapter "Lessons From Local Political School Control", with the sub-headings "How Language Illuminates the Pathology", "No Real Accountability", "The Ease of Building a Patronage Army", "Controlling the Tools For Patronage", and "Exploiting Parents' Poverty" will ever listen to a school Principal, Superintendent, or School Board official in the same way. Our perception of public school education is changed forever by this book.
The pathology of this corruption suggests the remedy, Ms. Segal says, which is decentralization of power into the schools and the hands of the Principals. The 52 pages of footnotes, interviews, and reference materials as well as the easy reading style make every word Ms. Segal writes believable, although depressing. There is no question, however, that anyone who is interested in school reform and/or who works toward a goal of establishing an education system that puts children first must read this book.

I almost did not buy this book. I would like to understand why our schools are doing such a bad job at educating our kids. The title to this book suggested a narrow focus on issues such as bribery, which, while interesting to a District Attorney, do not seem central to the problem.

What I discovered, however, is that this book really covers alot more ground that the title suggests. Yes, Segal is a lawyer, and she started out in this area by investigating honest to goodness corruption. She is concerned about bribery, waste and abuse, all of which are larger problems than I had realized.

The book goes way beyond those relatively small issues, however. It really gets to the heart of WHY our schools stink, in a way that I have not seen anyone else do. What Segal really gets into are the reasons why our largest school districts are such ossified bureaucratic dinosaurs. She tells a number of really hair-raising stories about how totally the system does not care about efficiency or educational quality, and, perhaps more imporartant, she explains WHY the system can not care. It is a very interesting story. It goes back to the early 20th century when the Progressive Movement was fighting urban corruption, and scientific management was all the rage. The bottom line, however, is that our large systems have fundamental, systematic problems that make it astonishing that they teach as well as they do. As Segal makes very clear, tinkering around the edges with curriculum reform and such like will do next to nothing, until the organizations are fundamentally retooled so that basic efficiency and educational quality become a focus again. As things stand, there is so much red tape, so much administrative ho-ha and general bureaucratic nightmares that there is no possible way that the system can deliver a quality product at a reasonable price.

Very important book.

As a mother of two, facing the tough choice between public and private schools, I found this book full of critical insights as to how the public schools really work. Segal's analysis of the perverse incentives, corruption, and overwhelming bureaucracy that are dragging down our schools is compelling and persuasive. Her suggestions for what should be done to fix the system are intelligent and long overdue. Everyone with school-age kids should read this book now!

A real eye-opener, this very well-written and powerfully argued book finally helped me understand why
urban public schools never seem to have enough money
to educate our children despite repeated national and local efforts to change that. Ms. Segal contends that waste and abuse are the primary culprits and offers thorough and persuavie doumentaion that this is indeed true.
Because she concludes that the problem is with
pathological systems, not people, she spends a good quarter of the book discussing how to overhaul the systems.
The suggestions are overwhelmingly intelligent, inspiring, and above all, realistic.
This book is a must-read for anyone looking for concrete and specific ways to improve our educational system.

A real eye-opener, this very well-written and powerfully argued book finally helped me understand why
urban public schools never seem to have enough money
to educate our children despite repeated national and local efforts to change that. Ms. Segal contends that waste and abuse are the primary culprits and offers thorough and persuasive documentation that this is indeed true.
Because she concludes that the problem is with
pathological systems, not people, she spends a good quarter of the book discussing how to overhaul the systems.
The suggestions are overwhelmingly intelligent, inspiring, and above all, realistic.
This book is a must-read for anyone looking for concrete and specific ways to improve our educational system.

This book was my one & only source of study for the MTEL F.O.R test. I had heard nothing but horror stories from people who had taken this exam. I have been out of college for 18 years and therfore out of practice taking exams. I used this for the F.O.R and not only passed but did very well. I also bought MTEL (the yellow & black book) for the Communications & Literacy and passed with flying colors. Good Luck!!

I just want to say how helpful I found this book. I do not have an education degree, and have never had a course in teaching reading or anything like it, but reading and studying this book helped me pass the MTEL Foundations of Reading the first time! Everything you need to know really is in this book. I am usually very skeptical about the claims of books like this, but I am definitely a fan. Many thanks to Chris Boosalis.

The MTEL subtest-Foundations of Reading, felt like it was impossible to pass. I had missed passing by two points more than once! I contacted Chris Boosalis who gave me tips and strategies on how to pass the test and what exactly the people who scored these tests were looking for. I am now a certified teacher and I could not have done it without his help or his book!
[...]

I took the MTEL Reading Foundations test and everything that was in this book was on the test! It was amazing. I am so happy I bought this book!

I highly recommend Dr. Boosalsis Book to anyone who wants to pass the RICA. I had completed all my classes, and studied a lot, but I felt totally unprepared for the RICA test. I just had no idea how to prepare.

I learned important strategies, including time management, that helped me with the test. Most importantly, it instilled confidence in me by assuring me I would pass.

And I did! It made me feel a lot more confident going into the test, and I think all future teachers should read this book.

I lost my husband suddenly and tragically, - a widow at age 26 -- having lost my high-shool sweetheart, my first and only love, my best friend, my center of gravity - my world......
My mother gave me this book in the hopes it might bring me out of my severe depression.......
While I found myself greatly upset by the fact it focuses on losing a child, - and not your life companion, I felt bitter as I read it.... but because it was so well written and such and lovely book, - and because regardless of our losses being so very different, - I could still very much relate to much of her emotions, her questions, her fears..... - and my sincere heartache for this woman having lost her young child, then seeing how she managed to find hope, healing, gratitude, and so much more --- even way she was able to view this loss as a blessing -- in that her precious child blessed her by teaching her what was important, and encouraged her to make much needed changes in her life, change her focus, recognize the signifigance in all things and take nothing for granted --- it was so very touching, so inspiring, - so beautifully written. Even though it did not relate to my own grief or personal tribulations, being so very different to lose a husband than to lose a child, -- still, -- I must give this book five stars -- And I hope that anyone who is grieving the loss of their child will consider this empowering, comforting, and inspiring book above all others. I promise you, no matter how deeply you ache or how great the abyss in your heart -- this book will indeed sow the seed to begin mending your broken spirit and to heal your heart.

Lost in my own tragedy, the passages and lessons in the book gave me hope for the future. It reconnected me with the world and put life and death in perspective.

The book consolidates the many readings available on the afterlife into to one concise easy read. Dr. Geller leaves you aligned with a higher spiritual power and life purpose.

This book is a rare gem. A book about dealing with the tragedy of death that offers comfort and hope and maybe some kind of answer for the bereaved. So many of these books have the author wallowoing in sorrow for the 150 pages and do nothing to ease the pain. But this book is different-it brings comfort to the bereaved. What an achievement! Thank you for this book. It it meant to be read over and over again and to passed on and recommended to other people in pain.

This an excellent book combining the many facets of our spirituality, validating many of my own conclusions. I especially enjoyed the chapters on pre-birth experiences and near death experiences. Each chapter flowed into the next relevant topic. I also liked the way Dr. Geller looks at different belief systems as "costumes". I have believed this for many years.
I recommend this book to anyone with questions about one's past, future, or anyone who has witnessed death or lost a loved one. I could not put this book down and am looking forward to reading some of the referenced books.

After loosing my sister three short years ago, I have read many books and been confused, upset or lost with a great deal of them. Dr. Geller gives you an outline, if you will, of her own loss and then describes the feelings and emotions of dealing with such devistation. Through this journey together the reader begins to empathize with her and learns from her emotions and spiritual guidance. Not guidance as these are the steps to mourning but more the spiritual enlightenment you can open yourself up to be guided by.
I found her spiritual growth to be a relief and a light at the end of the tunnel. Well written and easy to follow.

Having experienced schizophrenia firsthand in my immediate family beginning in the 1950s, I was interested in seeing what medical explanations are being explored and what progress has been made regarding this devastating illness. This book beautifully presents necessary background data on brain function and on basic chemistry and genetics, and then gives lucidly presented information about new strategies and treatments. Various fields of medicine, genetics, and chemistry are coming together to present the real albeit complex picture of what these awful illnesses are about and how we can work to live with them or overcome them. Mental illness must be liberated from individual guilt, shame, and social stigma, which are still very strong in human society. Only knowledge of the facts can free us from these crippling attitudes, and this terrific book goes a long way to help. The author's PhD in literature also adds a humanistic touch to a scientific work, which I deeply appreciated.

BRAVE NEW BRAIN follows up the classic THE BROKEN BRAIN, both written by Dr. Nancy Andreasen. She is a recent winner of the National Medal of Science, and a great thinker in the fields of medicine and philosophy of medicine. The book is written for the general public so they will become part of the great revolution of knowledge in the neurosciences. She details not only traditional psychiatric illnesses, but expands this view into the neurological illnesses. This is important as now psychiatry and neurology begin to merge, each developing a new respect for the field of the other. She details how psychiatry cannot solve all of our modern day society's woes, but must turn these over to individuals to seek answers. A recommended book for any public or private library.

As a society we face, is it medicine or out of my house. We have some knowledge of medicine but what we don't have is knowldege of what to do with our nations poor, we need to think about this. Walking is important for people on medications but they don't tell you about this. What they don't tell you is not to drink coffee's etc. Or that many over the counters in general are bad. Our knowledge continues to grow as a society, however, there are many things we don't know. Nancy C Andreason gives a good review of things, and a well rounded perspective of things in her Brave New Brain. I am interested in also her genetics research as well. I believe the NAMI which she has mentioned is not the best helping organization though, and there is not much outside support or resources to help disabeled people which I think we need more of, when they don't have there families anymore. We need to think about how we are going to house homeless etc.

Having experienced schizophrenia firsthand in my immediate family beginning in the 1950s, I was interested in seeing what medical explanations are being explored and what progress has been made regarding this devastating illness. This book beautifully presents necessary background data on brain function and on basic chemistry and genetics, and then gives lucidly presented information about new strategies and treatments. Various fields of medicine, genetics, and chemistry are coming together to present the real albeit complex picture of what these awful illnesses are about and how we can work to live with them or overcome them. Mental illness must be liberated from individual guilt, shame, and social stigma, which are still very strong in human society. Only knowledge of the facts can free us from these crippling attitudes, and this terrific book goes a long way to help. The author's PhD in literature also adds a humanistic touch to a scientific work, which I deeply appreciated.

Nancy Andreasen is one of the top researchers in the field of Schizophrenia so is a good person to write this book. This is a very good book on the underlying causes of schizophrenia and other brain diseases and prospects better treatments and cures based on this knowledge. Great reading for a person who wants a better understanding of how the genetics revolution is impacting our knowledge of mental illness. Writen for a layman with some background or interest in science and biology.

It's a textbook. That being said, it is filled with extra material, like case examples, a CD-ROM, etc. I didn't look at any of that because my business law class went at such a slow pace we only looked at about 10 of the chapters. If you are buying this for a class, you should come away with a lot of good information from this book without feeling it is too much of a boring chore to read through.

Very fast delivery, thanks I was in a hurry and you have made me very happy.

This is an excellent text at various levels of interest, desire, talent and time. The text is arranged that given the time, the Instructor can dig deeper and deeper into thorny topics. Additionally, curious students can rely on numerous web sources for enhanced views and greater depth.

Further, there are additional sources for the Instructor available through test banks and outlines. This is my favorite text to teach from. It is neither dry with enough cases to stir the imagination of the younger students nor MTV'd and contains sufficient current cases to give older students and retired students pause to consider. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury

This is an excellent text. It incorporates the law, as well as
legal research methodologies. For instance, a standard chapter
contains an outline, common law sources,constitutional,
statutory and administrative laws/rule-making. The work cites
computerized legal research in WESTLAW and LEXIS. Relevant
international legal citations are listed. The applicable
United States Code is cited by Title and specific paragraph.
In some cases, individual state legal codes are cited. There
are exhaustic sets of historical and statutory notes, cross
references and federal practice notes. Each chapter has a
comprehensive case study with a brief synopsis, cited case
and final disposition. There are teaching suggestions at the
end of the instructor's manual together with discussion
questions, research assignments and an explanation of footnotes.
In addition, there is an exhaustive section on essay question
answers.

Here is a model answer:
Stare decisis is a doctrine that prescribes following earlier
judicial decisions in deciding a current case if the facts and
questions are similar. Courts attempt to be consistent with their
own prior decisions and with the decisions of courts superior
to them. Stare decisis is important because part of the function
of law is to maintain stability. If the application of the law
was unpredictable, there would be no consistent rules to follow
and no stability.

The volume has detailed coverage of the following areas:
o Business Ethics o Int'l Business Law
o Employee Rights o Employment law
o Occupational safety o Accounting and the law
o Securities o Mergers and acquisitions
o Insurance o Real Estate
o Financial institutions o Unfair competition
o Advertising o Environmental law
o Health Care o Sports and entertainment
o Hospitality management o Communications
o Government contracts o Legal representation of business

There are significant software support systems; namely,
o Legal Clerk Research Software System
o Computerized Instructor's Manual
o Computerized Questions/Answers
o Case problems on diskette
o CD
o Lecture Builder Software
o Westest
o A Classroom Management System
o WESTrain
o Transparency Masters
o Sample Moot Court and much much more

This text is an excellent purchase for collegiate law students.

I am using this textbook in several of my classes, and let me just say- it has everything I could have hoped for. The chapters are laid out well, many cases are cited, and the student is given actual cases to figure out, with the citations given at the end so he can find the actual outcome. I've found this to be among the best textbooks. It is so good, in fact that I've reccomended it to several of my friends who are going into business for themselves. This covers nearly everything they'll need to know regarding contracts, secured transactions, warranties, etc.
Love the law!

Have you forgotten a formula? More than likely it is contained in this book. It has formulas for everything from all disciplines of science and engineering including astrophysics, e&m, fluid mechanics, and series and expansions. But all you get is the formula and what the letters mean, you will need to know how to use the formula. This is one of my most cherished books.

It contains:
- units, All constants, conversion between units, dimensions
- Math: Differential Equations, Vector algebra, Integration tables, Series, Limits, Trig, Complex variables and analysis, polynomials (all kinds), some probability and statistics, basic geometry (perimeter, area and volume)
- Dynamics and mechanics (including fluids)
- Quantum physics
- Thermodynamics
- Solid state physics (With periodic table)
- Electromagnetism
- Optics
- Astrophysics
These are just formulas, there are no concepts descriptions or solved problems, yet is the most handy reference of college level math and physics for science, CS, math, phys majors

This book is one of the best, and I mean best, purchases I have ever made. It provides clear, consistent tables of physical values and equations, which can be a godsend in a land of inconsistent,confusing, and sometimes odd notation. Also useful is its Rosetta Stone-esque conversion table, which shows the values of myriad measures (including the US and UK values of the firkin, should one ever need to know,) into nice, clean SI units. The comprehensive index and well-organized sections make finding the proper equation easy as well.
This book has been useful in practically all of my physics coursework so far, and I anticipate it remaining a useful reference beyond my undergraduate years.

It might be an indication of superficiality to judge the book by its cover, but in this isolated case, the cover does truly indicate what lies ahead. In terms of aesthetic, it is really beautiful.

The book is true to its declared purpose in that it serves faithfully to provide esoteric formulas and equations of interest to physicists and applied mathematicians; that and that only. The intended audience is not the virgin tyros to whom the equations appear for the first time, but those seasoned virtuosos to whom the equations are as quotidian as a slice of bread in the morning but would rather commit the engravement to paper than to memory. In some cases knowledge of convention with regard to the uses of symbols is tacitly assumed, in most cases knowledge of proper contexts with regard to the applications of equations is likewise assumed.

I got the hardcover version of the book free upon joining a book club sometime three years ago, therefore I am not able to perform the cost-benefit analysis.

This book is worth it's weight in gold. It gives not only the formulas, but each symbol in the formula is explained as to what it represents. This book helped change a C in Physics I to a B in Physics II in college classes. Best money I have invested in years.

This book is beautifully written and the story is powerfully, artfully told. Alex Prud'homme's eye for telling details and anecdotes brings to life all of the egos, greed, outsized appetites, and fat wallets that intersected in Sam Waksal and Martha Stewart's world. I couldn't put it down.

This fascinating story has appeared just as the Martha Stewart trial is getting underway. The book is crammed full of details not only concerning the principal characters, but also cancer treatments and the burgeoning world of biotechnology. Sam Waksal comes across as a mercurial salesman with no true sense of right or wrong, a classic striver seeking recognition and aspiring to great wealth, but also dissing the hopes of many with cancer. It's a good read -- fast-paced, up-to-date and accurate. If you really want to know why Waksal is in jail for seven years and how Martha Stewart became involved with his world, read this amazing and well-researched tale.

This is about the Cancer Game, which might be seen as a part of the Cancer Industry, a kind of bizarre and ghoulish phenomenon of modern times that exists precisely because there is no cure for cancer. Indeed, Alex Prud'homme, who is a gifted researcher and prose stylist, whose work has appeared in such prestigious journals as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, etc., might very well have called his book "The Cancer Game." I wonder why he didn't. Would such a title have offended those who play the game?

It is specifically about the rise and fall of one Sam Waksal, oldest son of Jewish emigrants and Holocaust survivors, a man of irresistible charm, fabulous energy, and great intelligence, a man driven to success and the high life, a man who had bounced around academia without much success until in the 1980s he saw an opportunity to become a player in the cancer game, and, along with his younger brother Harlan, founded ImClone Systems, Inc.

It is also about an anticancer drug called Erbitux, originally known as C225 because it was the 225th drug tested by its discoverers, John Mendelsohn and Gordon Sato in 1980. It showed promise because in tests it stopped the growth of tumors in mice.

And finally it is a story about how drugs get discovered, how they are developed, and especially how they get approved (or not) by the Food and Drug Administration. And of course it is about the Byzantine and incestuous relationship that exists between that August government agency and the massive pharmaceutical industry.

The curious thing about all this is that Imclone never turned a profit, Erbitux never came to market, and most of the people associated with Waksal and ImClone either made out like bandits or got stuck holding the bag. The drug itself, which works against cancer tumors, particularly colon cancer, by cutting off the blood supply to the tumors (an "antiangiogenesis" drug), was touted as a miracle that would save the lives of innumerable patients and make possibly billions of dollars for ImClone.

At least this was the hype delivered by Sam Waksal, and bought hook, line and sinker by pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, and by desperate cancer patients as well as salivating Wall Street investors who jumped on the bandwagon as ImClone's stock rocketed skyward. Because of the promise of the drug, Waksal himself was able to live his dream life as a New York socialite, throwing lavish parties for celebs (including Martha Stewart while he dated her daughter), collecting fine art, popping open $600 bottles of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild while secretly selling stock on the side, sending the proceeds overseas, buying expensive apartments and houses for himself, etc., etc.

But the cold hard facts of Erbitux, like those of almost any cancer drug one can name, are very far from the hype. As Prud'homme notes on pages 332-333, "these agents...[Erbitux and others like Avastin and Iressa] are remarkable scientific advances, [but] they still only benefit some 10 to 20 percent of patients, and they only extend patients' lives by a matter of months."

That's it. That's the bottom line. And yet these drugs are so valuable that the companies that end up selling them can make hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.

Waksal apparently came to this understanding sometime during the early eighties. He realized first the simple fact that the way the cancer industry works is doctors have to prescribe something rather than nothing. Then he realized that living a few months longer can mean a lot to people. Therefore any FDA-approved cancer drug will automatically fill a need. What this means is that the PROMISE of a cancer drug, if cleverly promoted, will spark a rally in the shares of the company that owns the patent. If, like Sam Waksal, you own millions of those shares, you can get rich on mere promise alone.

Furthermore, should the drug have any real value at all, and be approved (or even look like it's going to be approved) by the FDA, you might be able to get some pharmaceutical giant like Bristol-Myers Squibb to front a whole lot of money on that promise since they are desperate to find a cancer drug to replace those that have gone generic.

This works because even drugs with very limited effectiveness are better than no drug at all. This is true for many patients, for many doctors, and is especially true for the big pharmaceutical companies.

Note that these drugs are valuable because the people who need them are typically people of relative means who can afford to pay large sums of money for them, either through their HMOs, their government, or their own funds. In contrast a drug that would prolong the life of poor people in third world countries would be of only marginal value to the big pharmaceutical companies.

I should also mention that Prud'homme spends some serious ink in this book on Waksal's long-time friend Martha Stewart and her troubles. Her personality, her empire, and the way she handles herself are vividly detailed. In fact, some readers might find her story the most interesting part of the book.

This book is a fine character study of an amazingly talented man whose endless need to gratify his own appetites and emotional needs led him to careless and even cruel behavior. There is no denying the great talent of Sam Waksal, but to this day he doesn't seem to understand that his talent and accomplishments do not provide a license to indulge himself at other's expense.

It is amazingly sad that all of this misery was so pointless because Erbitux has at last been approved. It almost certainly could have been approved earlier if the talented team at ImClone would have had a culture of discipline and getting things done and documented in ways that everyone knew the FDA required. If they had, all this pain and loss would never have occurred and Dr. Waksal would be a real hero instead of the one he only pretended to be.

Mr. Prud'homme writes with style and vitality. The book moves along well and has a great feel for keeping the story personal and emotionally accessible for the reader. We don't get overwhelmed with the scientific side of things, although it is always interesting to read about this emerging science and the wizards who are making it happen.

I could hardly put this book down. Never mind the Martha Stewart trial, this is where the excitement and drama in the ImClone story lies.

Sam Waksal, a scientist and business developer with a checkered past, lives a celebrity lifestyle, hanging out with the rich and famous, owning several fancy houses, driving fast cars, and heading a firm that is working on a cancer drug so promising that people with no other hope of treatment are flinging themselves at ImClone, begging for a merciful dose of "Erbitux."

The drug apparently does reverse inoperable tumors in a few test patients who had no other hope of living. Now the race is on to fast-track the drug through the FDA approval process based on the glowing clinical trials. But the FDA reviewer is unaccountably unencouraging when meeting with one of ImClone's top scientists. What is wrong? Is Erbitux, instead of being approved , instead going have its application refused? Why! And what will this mean for the high-flying ImClone stock?

The book reads like the best thriller, and author Alex Prud'homme is adept at making you feel like the proverbial fly-on-the-wall during the action. If you are at all interested in what happened behind the Martha Stewart debacle, you must read this. It's fantastic.

This book presents the Density functional Theory (DFT), for Chemists. It is divided in two parts: (A)The Definition of the Model - where the theory is presented; (B) The Performance of the Model - where the applications are explored. If you are interested in Computational Chemistry and want to learn DFT, then this book is for you.

This book is an excellent introduction to density functional theory. And it is not difficult to read straight through.

Unlike Parr and Yang's Density-Functional Theory of Atoms and Molecules, this book doesn't have many rigorous while lengthy derivations. However, it gives readers a clear clue for DFT ,and most importantly, a way to appreciate this theory as a chemist. I think this book is a perfect complement for Parr and Yang's book.

Computational and Theoretical chemists concerned with the applications of canonical quantum chemistry (molecular orbital) methods to chemically interesting problems know too well how (computationally) demanding is going beyond the Hartree-Fock (HF) approximation by employing the so called post-HF methods. Hence, very often they must resort on using Density Functional Theory (DFT). Here, however, they need to confront themselves with the terminology invented by their physics collegues: Kohn-Sham orbitals, Fermi hole, local and non-local spin-density functionals, generalized gradient approximation, pseudopotentials, and so forth. Any terminology is associated to a certain model of thought, which requires lot of efforts to be fully comprehended.
The book of Koch and Holthausen represents a praiseworthy attempt of presenting the basic concepts of DFT to research chemists. This 300-pages book is organized in two parts and it contains 13 chapters. Part A is concerned with the definition of the (DFT) model, while Part B discusses the performance of the model in dealing with molecular structures, vibrational frequencies, thermochemical, electrical and magnetic properties, H-bonds, and chemical reactivity. A rich bibliography is appended at the end of the book. Clearly written and logically organized, this book can be considered "THE Chemists's Guide to DFT" and it deserves five stars.

From a physicist's point of view this book is very clear at explaining Density Functional Theory (DFT). The authors use many chemical examples, but still can be applied to physics. Many physics books on DFT assume the reader knows most of the material so skips many important details that can leave the reader confused. Surprisingly, these chemists spend entire chapters on just about every piece of DFT. They even give many examples, using the Hydrogen molecule as an example quite a few times.

This book is fairly recent, published in 2001. It talks about many DFT codes used today and important functionals such as B3LYP. The book is a little relaxed on the math, so if you are wanting to see some of the detailed math I suggest "Density-Functional Theory of Atoms and Molecules" by Parr & Yang as a good companion book.