Redwood National & State Parks: Tales, Trails, & Auto Tours

Book Description

A fully illustrated guide to the country's largest redwood park, RN&SP features 50 amusing and exciting tales of the region's colorful history, 25 precisely described hikes, and a dozen dazzling auto tours. Acclaimed park artist Larry Eifert,

Customer Reviews:

The Best Little Guidebook Ever.......2003-05-04

Part natural history, part local history, and chock full of fascinating details about Redwood National and State Parks, this is the guidebook to get for the Northern California Coast. I purchased it primarily as a hiking guide for the all too brief period I first spent in the Park, but have enjoyed reading it ever since.

The book covers Native American peoples of the region, the history of conservation efforts to save the Redwoods, and provides detailed descriptions for those who want an "auto tour" through the park. But the most enjoyable aspects of the book for me were the many sidebars within the text and their selection of hiking trails. The sidebars deal mostly with local history, and are written with a healthy dose of humor. Indeed, such titles as "The State of Jefferson: Not just a jest" and "Big Diamond: The Prehistoric Pachyderm of Prarie Creek" are so enjoyable that they deserve a separate book in their own right. The selection of hikes the Rohde's offer is also excellent. These parks offer lots of hiking opportunities, but they have picked the best of bunch, a real help to visitors with a strict time budget.

Why is it that all the truly wonderful books are 'Out of Stock' or, worse yet, 'Out of Print?' This book deserves better. Buy it if you get the chance. It's an excellent investment in any vacation on the Northern California coast.

Customer Reviews:

Scant on Needed Details, Poorly Written.......2003-04-01

My three friends and I just returned from Honduras. We each had a different guidebook. This one was by far the worst (even compared to books which covered central America in general rather than Honduras specifically).

Significant problems with this book include: seemingly random selection of lodging and food choices, almost no coverage of smaller towns, inaccurate public transportation information, and no ordering to hotels and restaraunts at all (neither alphabetical or - more logically - by cost).

Worst, the book is poorly written - we often had trouble figuring out just what the author meant. One particularly frustrating example arose when we tried to follow the book's directions to get to Tela (a city on the North Coast). The book states: "From San Pedro, take a bus from the Tupsa/Catisa station, 2 Avenida, 5/6 Calles SW, for Progresso, and change there for the bus to Tela. Buses leave every 15 minutes for El Progresso. However, you should take the direct bus to La Ceiba (same bus station), and tell the driver you want to get off at the entrance to Tela." Huh? So do we take the bus to Progresso, or to La Ceiba?

The book's history and culture information was fairly good (arguably better than the other guides we took with us) but it simply doesn't make up for the deficient selection and poor presentation of the information travellers really need. A passable second or third book, but not to be relied on as your primary guide to Honduras.

Amazon.com

Subtitled Cages of Mind and Body, this collection of short pieces by critically acclaimed young adult writers explores the plethora of ways in which human beings can feel like trapped animals. Lois Duncan edited the collection, and in her introduction she tells readers that the theme was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," a story she still finds "resurfacing in fever dreams in hideous detail." Poe's terrifying tale is about a character being sealed alive into a crypt, but Duncan has not limited her foray into claustrophobia to horror. Humor, romance, fantasy, and adventure all make appearances here, as do a variety of literary forms, including the traditional short story; a play by Rita Williams-Garcia; an unusual dual-perspective piece by Walter Dean Myers; and poetry written by Duncan during her teenage years. Topics range from physical to emotional to mental entrapment--Francesca Lia Block writes about the shackles of anorexia, Rob Thomas explores a day of upheaval at a battered-women's shelter, and Joan Bauer takes a humorous look at a fastidious pancake-house waitress overwhelmed by a sudden Sunday morning rush. Readers will not only find the stories compelling, but are also sure to recognize the queasy sensation of being trapped. --Brangien Davis

Book Description

TRAPPED!

Featuring original works by:

Apollo, Joan Bauer, Francesca Lia Block, Gary Crew, Lois Duncan, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Walter Dean Myers, Gillian Rubinstein, David Skinner, Marc Talbert, Rob Thomas, and Rita Williams-Garcia

Customer Reviews:

Trapped... weird book.......2003-06-10

This is a strange and demented book that will make you wonder how these stories might have come about. You have nothing to worry about if you read this book because after each short story is an author's note about why they wrote their story. The stories are about how a human can feel trapped in a cetain siuation, may it be mentally, or physically. The author of the story has something to relate to their work in their note. The psycological ways of our minds is unveiled in Trapped!. The uncomprehensible human mind is manipulated and isolated in words to show our fear and apprehension. If you read it, you might learn the ways of nature, and how humans react in a situation when they are TRAPPED!

This book is SO good!.......2000-02-26

Some of the stories in this book were a little boring but I really loved Pancakes by Joan Bauer and the Woeful Princess. It's really worth reading the book cause all the stories are interesting. Just some are a little slow. Read it!

I loved this book!.......1999-04-18

This book was simply wonderful. It was interesting to read the different definitions of the theme "trapped" illustrated magnificently by these extremely talented young adult authors. I loved the story "pancakes" written by Joan Baurer, and "the Woeful Princess" and "Fountain of Youth" was good too. If you're looking for a good read, you should definately buy this book. Trust me, it's worth the sixteen bucks!

Excellent Short Stories.......1998-11-17

If you like Lois Duncan, you will love this!! It shows a different side of everyone from all sorts of views. My personal favorite was "Pancakes" by Joan Bauer. A Must Have!!!!

Book Description

This timely volume provides a comprehensive account of the natural history of the organisms associated with the deep-sea floor and examines their relationship with this inhospitable environment--perhaps the most remote and least accessible location on the planet. The authors begin by describing the physical and chemical nature of the deep-sea floor and the methods used to collect and study its fauna. Then they discuss the ecology of the deep sea by exploring spatial patterns, diversity, biomass, vertical zonation, and large-scale distribution of organisms. Subsequent chapters review current knowledge of feeding, respiration, reproduction, and growth processes in these communities. The unique fauna of hypothermal vents and seeps are considered separately. Finally, there is a pertinent discussion of human exploitation of deep-sea resources and potential use of this environment for waste disposal.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent overview of deep sea biology.......1997-10-03

An excellent overview of deep sea biology for the biologist (not a good book for people without a scientific background). Some of the material is a little dated, but the information for the most part is very good.

Book Description

Noble Gas Geochemistry gives a comprehensive description of the physical chemistry and cosmochemistry of noble gases, before leading on to applications for problem-solving in the earth and planetary sciences. There have been many developments in the use of the noble gases since publication of the first edition of this book in 1983. This second edition has been fully revised and updated. The book will be invaluable to graduate students and researchers in the earth and planetary sciences who use noble gas geochemistry techniques.

Average customer rating:

Noble Gases and Their Compounds
g moody
Manufacturer: Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0080108431

Book Description

The classic of contemporary science writing by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist explains what happened when the universe began, and how we know.

Customer Reviews:

A book that satisfies no one........2007-07-30

There's no questioning Weinberg's knowledge, but he doesn't present it well. This is a book that, unfortunately, can't satisfy anyone: it's too technical for the lay reader, too simplified for the scientist. It's also thirty years old, and a lot has happened in cosmology since. For those looking for just an overview of the history and science, try Timothy Ferris, Brian Greene, or Stephen Hawking.

Steven Weinberg: Nobel leaureate and biographer of nature.......2007-07-04

In 1979 Steven Weinberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.

This book is his 1976 take on the origins of the universe.

To understand why Weinberg was honored we need to understand first how nature is organized. As it stands, there are four fundamental forces in nature:

1) Gravity -- best described by Albert Einstein in his 1916 general theory of relativity -- gravity is the property massive objects have to distort the contours of space time itself.

2) The strong nuclear force -- which operates to hold the nucleus of all atoms together.

3) Electromagnatism --still best described by James Clerk Maxell over 100 years ago whose unification of electricity and magnetism actually prompted the likes of Albert Einstein to his turn of the 20th century discoveries.

4) The weak nuclear force -- which operates among leptons.

It was these last two forces that Weinberg preseciently forecast the unification of in 1971 and for which he won the Nobel prize.

As has been rightly pointed out by other reviewers, this book is a democartically short 149 pages making it accessible, well, to anyone, willing to take the time to read them.

And in exchange for that time, one is rewarded with Weinberg's then existing take on the origins of the universe (most of which still holds up) as well as is thoughts on the direction of physics itself.

Long story short: Weinberg said that the Big Bang was like a great freezing which hid the original constituent elements of nature in a great phase transition. So just trying to infer which atoms went where in a glass of water from their current status as ice cubes we're necessarily a little at a loss trying to figure out what todays hadrons were doing prior to the end of the first billionth of second after the Big Bang.

Interestingly enough Weinberg's bottom line remains todays bottom line: we don't know.

Have to disagree.......2006-11-21

This is NOT a book for non-physicists. I have a doctorate in Dentistry and began reading the book, thinking it would become less obtuse. Ten pages later, I resorted to flipping each page in the hope that I would find something that made sense to a "layman"...no such luck. It could have been written in a medieval Persian language and I would have learned as much from it.

Failure to Planck?!.......2006-11-15

Steven Weinberg is without a doubt the closet thing
we have to a Newton or Einstein alive today.
But he isn't perfect as much as his books are almost required reading in physics!
This popularization was imitated by others...
Weinberg made the big bang go off in modern times.
But he fails to mention a basic in modern cosmology:
the Planck scale.

A Classic--Any Edition.......2006-04-18

True that the first version of this book--appeard some time ago, that does not diminish its usefulness to the layman or person interested in the history of the popularization of cosmology--which is a steady business with many competitors.

To find one such book so clearly written is valuable in itself, even as a landmark in this stream of such publications. As such, it belongs on any amateur astronomer's bookshelf, as well as any true scholar who wishes to place more recent findings in their appropriate context. I can add one personal note, my father, Dr. Ralph A. Alpher, commented to me when Dr. Weinberg's book appeared that this was the first book to have the history of cosmology through 1977 "right." And he was in a position to know...on that basis alone, I'll recommend it--if you can find the early paperback edition, it is a fun and short read, also.

Highly recommended!

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe

Average customer rating:

Nobel Laureate explains the beginnings of time

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe
Steven Weinberg , and Raymond Todd
Manufacturer: Blackstone Audiobooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

General | Books on Cassette | Audiobooks | Formats | Books

Cosmology | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Universe | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Nobel Laureate explains the beginnings of time.......2005-01-15

This short book is very accessible to smart high school level or undergrad level people interested in cosmology. Narry an equation nor 'physics jargon' to be found anywhere. Not even any latent promotion of "big science," experimental rather than theoretical physics. Weinberg was one of the big proponents of the Super Collider.

Given Weinberg's credentials, I am confident that this book is accurate and true to the time it was written. Much work (and observation) has been achieved since then. Check out the magazine "Sky and Telescope" for news, articles, and wonderful images from space telescopes (Hubble, Chandra, others) to get updates on news about the early time of the cosmos.

This book is a clear, led-by-the-hand but not patronizing tour of how the cosmos got started, who the major theorists were if you want to do further reading (such as Alan Guth's Inflation theory, which I will get to someday. It's not as easy to read) and is well written, too.

Average customer rating:

THE FIRST THREE MINUTES A MODERN VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
Steven, Illustrated by Yes Weinberg
Manufacturer: BASIC Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000PGISYE

Average customer rating:

The First Three Minutes. A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe.
Steven. WEINBERG
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OG1CFM

Average customer rating:

The Three Minutes that Never End

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe

Manufacturer: Bantam Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0553114255

Customer Reviews:

The Three Minutes that Never End.......2005-01-03

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe by Steven Weinberg is an in-depth look at the Big Bang and the events following it. The author did not lie when he promised to stay out of the more complex math and quantum mechanics involved in his study of the physics of universal expansion, but he dives right in to everything else. It contains a large amount of complex information in a deceptively short space, with sentence structures to match. This is a hard read, and though this high school chemistry student can force down most of the information in the book, some of it was a few inches over my vertically challenged head.
The First Three Minutes does do a "bang up" job of explaining the Big Bang and universal expansion and a few lengthy digressions, but it had a very irritating aspect. It is broken up by the history of dozens of scientists throughout. Parentheses containing only obscurely relevant information about each one are persistently present. For example, a piece of data is given regarding the scattering of two electrons due to magnetic repulsion. This is followed by parentheses containing the date the method of calculation to find their rate of separation was worked out, who figured it out, what college he professed at, and a random bit of information about the method he used, in that order. This, while a possibly interesting tidbit to some, disrupts the discussion of Feynman diagrams. Instances like this occur on most pages, sometimes without parentheses. I found this very distracting from the already difficult reading material.
The information in this novel was interesting and useful, but the writing style was a nightmare. If you want a really specific in-depth rendition of the Big Bang and universal expansion, the ways it is being studied, and the people studying it or its components directly or indirectly, and you have some extra time, patience, and brain cells to burn then go for it. This is an informative book by an extremely credible author and, though it may be worth the challenge to read, I did not personally find it enjoyable.

Average customer rating:

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe

Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0553141317

Product Description

In the beginning... It began with a "big bang." Here, for the first time, is what is now believed to have taken place during the explosive first three minutes of the universe. A leading Prize-winning physicist from Harvard and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory clearly, memorably describes how it all happened.

The First Three Minutes: modern view of the origin of the universe

Average customer rating:

The First Three Minutes: modern view of the origin of the universe

Manufacturer: Scientific Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H5JM3E

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (Unabridged)

Average customer rating:

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (Unabridged)
Steven Weinberg
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B000776JJC

Average customer rating:

The First Three Minutes A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe
STEVEN WEINBERG
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JZZV6O

Average customer rating:

The First Three Minutes: Modern View Of The Origin Of The Universe
Steven Weinberg
Manufacturer: Andre Deutsch Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQ144G

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books