Determining the Economic Value of Water: Concepts and Methods (RFF Press)

Book Description

Water provides benefits as a commodity for agriculture, industry, and households -- and as a public good for scenic values, waste assimilation, wildlife habitats, and recreational use. However, even as the nature and needs of economies change, water continues to be allocated to other than high priority uses, water quality continues to decline, environmental uses get inadequate attention, and floods and droughts take an unnecessarily severe toll. One reason for this is that price signals that reflect scarcities of goods and thereby guide investments and resource allocation in the private sector are usually distorted or absent in decision-making relating to water. To aid in cost-benefit analysis under conditions where appropriate price incentives are absent, economists have developed a range of alternative or "non-market"methods for measuring economic benefits.

Robert Young aims to provide the most comprehensive exposition to-date of the application of nonmarket economic valuation methods to proposed water resources investments and policies. He provides a conceptual framework for valuation of both commodity and public good uses of water, addressing valuation techniques appropriate to measuring public benefits -- including water quality improvement, recreation and wildlife habitat enhancement, and flood risk reduction. However, in contrast to the existing environmental valuation literature, the emphasis here is on the commodity uses of water by agriculture, industries, and households. The discussion describes the various measurement methods, illustrates how they are applied in practice, and discusses their strengths, limitations, and appropriate roles.

Determining the Economic Value of Water :Concepts and Methods [A book review from: Ecological Economics]

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Determining the Economic Value of Water :Concepts and Methods [A book review from: Ecological Economics]
R.J. Johnston
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Elsevier | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000PDT1BQ

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Ecological Economics, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Book Description

What would happen if everyone in your company followed a disciplined approach to cost reduction? How can it be done? With smart cost management. Two powerful strategies-target costing and value engineering-will get you well on your way. You will find both in this comprehensive book, the first in a series guaranteed to increase your profits. Effective cost management must start at the design stage. As much as 90-95% of a product's costs are designed in, meaning they cannot be avoided without re-designing. That is why effective cost management programs focus on design and manufacturing. The primary cost management method to control cost during design is a combination of target costing and value engineering.

Customer Reviews:

Not just a waste of money but also a waste fo time.......2004-01-13

Organisations are complex structure and different organisations exist in different competitive environments and most of all provide different services.

Unfortunately this book does not take account of the differences. It draws black and white pictures of the organisation and its processes. It does not go into detail in how to structure and implement Target Costing and where the hurdles and challenges are.

It is full of buzz words that sound great but have not real meaning.

Book Description

The first decade of 21st century witnessed several changes, world wide, in technology management, restructuring and down sizing global trade and competition, international quality standards, information exchange, lean manufacturing and virtual enterprises etc. In this age of globalization, the survival of any industry mainly depends on its cost of production and quality of its products. With the rapid growth of competition and shrinking product life cycle value engineering has become an essential tool for attaining a competitive edge. This volume provides a logistic view of value engineering. The chapters written by experts in their respective fields are organized into different sections covering. · Basic concepts of value engineering · Information Technology and Value Engineering Systems · Situational Case Studies / Industrial Examples · Role of value engineering in profit improvement and effectiveness.

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Target Costing and Value Engineering -
Robin Cooper -
Manufacturer: Institute of Management Accountants Press -
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000P0X0HU

Product development process with focus on value engineering and target-costing: A case study in an automotive company [An article from: International Journal of Production Economics]

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Product development process with focus on value engineering and target-costing: A case study in an automotive company [An article from: International Journal of Production Economics]
U. Ibusuki , and P.C. Kaminski
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from International Journal of Production Economics, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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This research suggests a methodology for the product development process in an automotive company, aiming at the correct systematic approach of Value Engineering (VE) and target-costing in cost management. VE and target-costing are complementary processes, because while one allows the identification of where cost reduction could be achieved, the other shows the target to be achieved to guarantee the long-term profitability plan of a company. In order to do that, work plans were developed, with the application of the VE methodology at three subsequent stages: concept, project and validation. This proposed approach was validated in a case study focused on the engine-starter system of a vehicle, aiming at improved product cost, functionality and quality accomplishment, in accordance with customer needs and the company strategy.

Book Description

The dairy sector continues to be at the forefront of innovation in food processing. With its distinguished editor and international team of contributors, Dairy Processing: Improving Quality reviews key developments and their impact on product safety and quality The first two chapters provide a foundation for the rest of the book, summarising the latest research on the constituents of milk and reviewing how agricultural practice influences raw milk quality. The remainder of Part 1 focuses on key aspects of safety: good hygienic practice; improvements in pasteurisation and sterilisation; and the use of modelling to assess the effectiveness of pasteurisation. Part 2 reviews some of the major technological advances in the sector. It discusses on-line control of process efficiency and product quality, shelf-life, high pressure processing, drying and the production of powdered dairy products, and the use of dissolved carbon dioxide to extend the shelf-life of milk. Part 3 looks in detail at key advances in cheese manufacturing. This volume serves as a standard reference for the dairy industry in improving process efficiency and product quality.

Book Description

As recently as 11,000 years ago--"near time" to geologists--mammoths, mastodons, gomphotheres, ground sloths, giant armadillos, native camels and horses, the dire wolf, and many other large mammals roamed North America. In what has become one of science's greatest riddles, these large animals vanished in North and South America around the time humans arrived at the end of the last great ice age. Part paleontological adventure and part memoir, Twilight of the Mammoths presents in detail internationally renowned paleoecologist Paul Martin's widely discussed and debated "overkill" hypothesis to explain these mysterious megafauna extinctions. Taking us from Rampart Cave in the Grand Canyon, where he finds himself "chest deep in sloth dung," to other important fossil sites in Arizona and Chile, Martin's engaging book, written for a wide audience, uncovers our rich evolutionary legacy and shows why he has come to believe that the earliest Americans literally hunted these animals to death.
As he discusses the discoveries that brought him to this hypothesis, Martin relates many colorful stories and gives a rich overview of the field of paleontology as well as his own fascinating career. He explores the ramifications of the overkill hypothesis for similar extinctions worldwide and examines other explanations for the extinctions, including climate change. Martin's visionary thinking about our missing megafauna offers inspiration and a challenge for today's conservation efforts as he speculates on what we might do to remedy this situation--both in our thinking about what is "natural" and in the natural world itself.

Customer Reviews:

Thought-provoking arguments and speculation .......2007-08-02

This is one of those books that may jolt the conventional wisdom implanted in your brain, especially if you are an environmentalist. First the negative...I thought the first 5 chapters, about one-half, of this book to be a bit boring, telling me more about sloth dung than I really wanted to know. But then the book picked up -- way up -- in interest.

The true "natural" environment of the United States, in Martin's view, existed 13,000 years ago before man got here and that it has been out of balance since. Martin comes down strong on the side that human beings were responsible for the extinction of many large mammals in the Americas about 13,000 years ago and his argument is persuasive. He also makes a strong case that human beings have lived in the Americas for little more than 13,000 years. This is a hot-button issue among archaeologists, but Martin's point is: if the Indians were here more than 13,000 years ago where are the signs of their presence? Not many, if any, have been found in a hundred years of looking.

His most interesting point and new to me was his proposals to re-people (wrong word, maybe "re-animate"?) the New World with representatives of the large mammals that became extinct. For example, why is that our government is trying to kill off the burros and wild horses in national parks? Horses originated in the Americas; they became extinct about 13,000 years ago. Why not allow them to reestablish themselves as a native species?

And then he really gets off on a speculative tangent, "rewilding America." Camels and Llamas lived in the United States until 13,000 thousand years ago; why not reintroduce them as native, wild species. Similarly rhinocerous, elephant, lion, tiger and other mammal species. To be sure the species of the mammals that became extinct are not exactly the same species that now live -- but close enough, in his opinion. An Asian elephant, he says, is closer genetically to extinct mammoths than it is to the African elephant.

Smallchief

A hypothesis is just that..........2007-02-18

Twilight Of The Mammoths by Paul S. Martin is a book I wanted to read because I wanted to see what the author had to say about the overkill idea. That Ice Age extinctions were caused by human invasion of the New World and not by germs and sudden change in the climate.
I have to say he did a good job not only of explaining and defending his hypothesis but at pointing out the weak points in the other theories of how the mass extinctions of the megamammals came about. The book is a solid read but somewhat dry. Lots of data on kill sites, pollen, climate changes and lots of dung.
He also takes a few chapters to talk about the idea rewilding the New World. In some ways that has already been going on so we may wish to take a controlling hand in the process.
Published in 2005 the information is up-to-date and hard to argue with. But who knows what will be discovered in the years to come?

A convincing argument.......2006-04-16

For years Professor Martin has been making a convincing case that mass extinctions and extirpations occured whenever people arrived at a new location, from Hawaii and New Zealand to North America and Wrangel Island. In the book he shows that arguments against human-caused die-offs do not hold up. What was interesting to me was his idea of reintroductions. It had never occured to me that it might be beneficial to the ecosystems to replace the extinct populations with new populations. I would love to see it happen but of course I'm not holding my breath. It is hard enough to convince people to live with pumas, despite the indisputable fact that you are far more likely to die in a collision with a deer than by getting eaten by a predator. But reading the book gave me a new perspective on some of our debates about wild areas. In particular, I will definately look at feral horses and donkeys in a new light.

Onward with Pleistocene Park!.......2006-02-28

"Twilight of the Mammoths" is a gem of a book that traces the career work of one of America's most distinguished ecologists: University of Arizona Emeritus, Paul Martin. Martin begins the book with a crash course in Pleistocene ecology: a who's who of magnificent megafauna, from mammoths to mylodon ground sloths - most of whom vanished suddenly some 13,000 years ago ("Near Time," according to Martin). Surely readers will be surprised by how little this awareness has penetrated even the ecologically schooled. Martin aims to correct that oversight, by bringing the dimension of time - near time and "deep time" - into ecology.

Paul Martin is best known for his "Overkill Hypothesis." The great beasts of Ice Age America went extinct, he maintains, not because of climate change but because of us - specifically, the first mammals to arrive on this continent, across the Bering Land Bridge, equipped with weapons that could kill at a distance. This scientific memoir does a splendid job of helping the reader step by step engage with that issue and to acquire a deep sense of the historical twists and turns of its reception. Along the way, we are treated to sensory rich descriptions and storytelling of events and experiences that shaped Martin's outlook. The author is not only a scientist but one of the world's great naturalists - feeling and tasting his way through the landscape. And he is an elegant and sensitive writer:

"It will come as no surprise," Martin writes, "that I define 'the last entire earth' differently than did Thoreau. Prehistorians find that any given land begins to lose its wildness not when the first Europeans arrive, but when the very first humans do. In the Americas true wilderness was more than 10,000 years gone by the time Columbus reached our shores. It disappeared with the megafauna, whose calls gave voice to the forests and prairies." (p. 183)

He continues, "A great many large animals, gifts of the evolutionary gods, were destroyed before anyone drew their images on bone or stone or on the walls of American caves."

Just before "Twilight of the Mammoths" was published, Paul Martin was among a dozen authors proposing in a commentary in the prestigious journal Nature that it is not enough to mourn the near-tiime passing of the great beasts. Rather, we must embark on a kind of "resurrection." ("Rewilding North America", Donlan et al., 18 August 2005).

Martin's final chapter, "Resurrection: The Past Is Future," brilliantly and movingly establishes the argument and begins to develop the details. But it all began thirty years ago, and with just one man as lonely advocate. "Twilight of the Mammoths" revisits the highlights of those years.

To begin: In the mid-1970s, Paul Martin publishes an outlandish proposal in Natural History Magazine: "Bring Back the Camel!" Martin is advocating a return of the camel to shrubby rangelands in the western United States - in part because overgrazing of grasses by horses and cattle would be ameliorated by the browsing prowess of camels (which prefer noxious shrubs to silica-rich grasses). But he is also urging the introduction of camels as a kind of "repatriation" of a type of animal that not only used to live on this continent but whose family originated right here.

Paul Martin was, thus, bringing an evolutionary understanding to range management and conservation biology. His proposal to bring back the camel was met by a resounding silence. As decades passed, Martin kept at it: arguing (to no avail) for officials at the Grand Canyon to look upon feral burros not as troublesome aliens but as suitable proxies for the native members of the horse family that lived throughout the western United States until going extinct just 13,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, this Pleistocene ecologist was authoring and co-authoring all sorts of technical (but, nevertheless, always engagingly written) scientific papers supporting the theory for which he is best known: Overkill.

Finally, in the late 1990s, Martin published an idea that made his camel and burro advocacy look tame: "Bring Back the Elephants!" he declared in Wild Earth Journal. Well, this time, somebody was listening - several somebodies, important somebodies in the realm of conservation biology (e.g., Michael Soule) and in environmental activism (Dave Foreman). The commentary they co-published in Nature is bringing an exciting and monumental expansion in the scope of conservation biology. "Twilight of the Mammoths" is the historical foundation.

"It could be argued," writes Martin, "that taxa have an inherent moral right to continue evolving free of human intervention, or even that Earth as a whole has a right to demonstrate its fullest possible evolutionary potential. It could be argued that, as the species responsible for the extinction of so many taxa, humans have a corresponding responsibility to attempt their restoration when feasible. Like all sweeping philosophical and ethical arguments, these are open to intense debate." (p. 202)

Provocative Read.......2006-01-04

As a student of the Quaternary, I was excited about this book from the acknowledged near time expert, Dr. Paul S. Martin. I was not disappointed. Dr. Martin does a great job of building a pyramid of background information so any new student to Ice Age Extinctions will have a firm foundation. He even parenthesizes definitions behind terminology that might be new to the lay reader. For those new to Dr. Martin's angle on Ice Age Extinctions, he attributes all of the near-time megafaunal extinctions to pre-historic hunting. He dismisses climatologists' assertions that changing weather patterns contributed or were solely responsible for the end of so many large terrestrial animals in North America. Following his logic, Dr. Martin proposes a "rewilding" of America with not only wolves and horses, but with similar species of those animals no longer in existence, such as elephants and African antelope. Whether you agree with his assertions, assumptions or conclusions, you will find this book provocative and full of good science.

TWILIGHT OF THE MAMMOTHS.(Twilight of the Mammoths : Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America by Paul Martin)(Book Review) : An article from: OnEarth

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TWILIGHT OF THE MAMMOTHS.(Twilight of the Mammoths : Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America by Paul Martin)(Book Review) : An article from: OnEarth
Sharman Apt Russell
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000EDWMTU
Release Date: 2006-01-27

Book Description

This digital document is an article from OnEarth, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 780 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: TWILIGHT OF THE MAMMOTHS.(Twilight of the Mammoths : Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America by Paul Martin)(Book Review)
Author: Sharman Apt Russell
Publication: OnEarth (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 27 Issue: 4 Page: 40(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

What became of the megafauna?(Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America)(Book review): An article from: American Scientist

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What became of the megafauna?(Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America)(Book review): An article from: American Scientist
Robert S. Feranec
Manufacturer: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Science & Technology | Subjects | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000FTBU00
Release Date: 2006-05-22

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Fine book

Olympic Gold or Living Forever

my thoughts

A great tale from behind the scenes in skating

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating's Olympic Gold Medals
Christine Brennan
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

International | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Olympic Games | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books
Ice Skating & Figure Skating | Winter Sports | Sports | Subjects | Books
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Inside Edge: A Revealing Journey into the Secret World of Figure Skating

On Edge: Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed

Skate Talk: Figure Skating in the Words of the Stars

Champions on Ice: Twenty-Five Years of the World's Finest Figure Skaters

The Second Mark: Courage, Corruption, and the Battle for Olympic Gold

ASIN: 0140280650

Amazon.com

The author of Inside Edge updates the behind-the-scenes saga of professional figure skating to include the results of the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Beginning with the 1997 U.S. championships in Nashville, Brennan chronicles the ambitions, achievements, frustrations, and personal hurdles for the American skaters in a pivotal year that culminated with the Olympics. The year's drama is palpable, including highlights such as the competition between the two top-rated women, Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski, along with the ever-increasing athleticism of the men. Along the way Brennan makes detours to check up on recent favorites from the past such as Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, Oksana Baiul, Brian Boitano, and Scott Hamilton. And always rinkside are the stories of coaches, choreographers, parents, and fans who have transformed figure skating into one of the world's fastest-growing professional sports.

Book Description

* Updated with the latest on Tara, Michelle, and many other skaters-including the intriguing months following the 1998 Olympics

Respected sports journalist Christine Brennan tells the riveting tales of the world's best figure skaters during the most intense year of their young lives. The story opens with the 1997 U.S. national championships, when Michelle Kwan, the overwhelming favorite for the 1998 Olympic gold medal, leaves the rink in tears. Enter Tara Lipinski, a seventy-five-pound jumping machine--soon to become the youngest world skating champion.

Chronicling the year leading up to and including the 1998 Olympic Games, Edge of Glory offers portraits of the famous and infamous, the hopefuls and has-beens-Nancy Kerrigan, Oksana Baiul, Tonya Harding, Elvis Stojko, Todd Eldredge, Ilia Kulik, and many more. Edge of Glory also takes the reader behind the scenes of the sport: the aggressive sports agents, the career-fostering coaches, the eager reporters, the choreographers, and the attentive, stern judges. Ultimately, Edge of Glory is about the athletes themselves. What drives these skaters to a profession that promises retirement at such a young age? How do they survive in a sport where one fall decides it all? What do they fear? And, most importantly, who will win, and who will lose?

Customer Reviews:

Fine book.......2006-08-22

This is book is a nice book, but it seemed to focus on Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan, along with the Tara-Michelle thing a little too much. Skaters listed in the front are supposed to be the ones the book focuses on, although some of these skaters get only one paragraph of writing about them. In the final part, "The Olympics", the whole thing was basically about Tara's win and Michelle's silver. There was a little bit about the mens' event, but I found it confusing.

My other complaint about the Olympic section is that it mentions nothing about Elena coming back from 'Skate in the Head', or Artur/Anton (I forget which one) becoming the first man to win two Olympic gold medals with two different partners. I am not a big ice dancing fan, but not a single ice dancing couple was mentioned, which annoys me. Overall, it's a great read that could be even better.

Olympic Gold or Living Forever.......2004-02-29

Christine Brennan wrote in Edge of Glory that Tonya Harding has more raw jumping talent then anyother female ice skater in US history. For all practical purposes, Brennan is calling Harding the most talented female ice skater to ever live.
Brennan also recounted how Harding used CPR to save an old man's life.
If I had to choose between an Olympic Gold Medal and Brennan's description of Harding, the medal wouldn't have a chance! Gold medalists are a dime a dozen. Some of them go on to big careers in fast food places.
When a world class journalist like Brennan spends such words on a genetic parasite like Harding, the earth momentarily stops spinning on its axis. Harding would live forever even if the assault on Kerrigan never took place.
Most of the book is excellent but some of the trivia about Kwan's career bored me to tears. I also wish Brennan had given more details about Nicole Bobek's reasons for breaking and entering.

my thoughts.......2004-02-12

although i found this book engaging and enjoyed reading about the lives of these skaters, i personally felt that the anti-taraism was uncalled for. Having had the opportunity to have met both Tara and Michelle, I know that Tara did have her ways of coming off as arrogant, but so did Michelle. She is not as sweet and even tempered as christine made her out to be. It's a wonder why she doesnt mention the reason to why her past dress maker [Marie Talbot] stopped making her dresses. Her comment about her scores in the kiss and cry area [apparently she felt that she deserved a higher score regardless of her mistakes] . Dont bash on one skater and make the other skater come off as the nice one, they all have their ways of being arrogant.

A great tale from behind the scenes in skating.......2003-07-18

Did you know that Tara Lipinski's mom got in constant battles with her daugher at the rinks?

Did you know that Tara would go on "frenzies" and do unbeliveable amounts of triple triple combinations at her practice rink until she got them right? (this is what caused her hip surgery).

And did you know that Nicole Bobek was a chain smoking teen at one point?

Well you will know all of this after reading this book. I would have to say that this is one of the many views from behind the scenes, but one of the best. Christine B. gives a detailed look at how it all happens on the road to the Olympics.

Different skaters are profiled in this book as we learn about the skaters, coaches, endorsements, and many other things. Most of all we learn about americas 2 leading ladies (at the time) Michelle Kwan, and Tara Lipinski.

This author will tell it like it is so be prepared...and shocked.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly.......2002-11-13

I am a huge fan of the sport of figure skating, so when this book came out, I had to read it. I found that it was very interesting and read the whole book in a few hours. While some people do not care for the format of the book (Brennan jumps around from chapter to chapter writing about various skaters), I did not find it confusing. Brennan does a very good job of brining insight about what goes on "behind the scenes" where the cameras and lights do not shine so bright. I thought that Brennan was not biased with her writing, rather she did not attempt to "cover anything up" or fluff up reality. She told the stories and facts like they are, whether or not they gave a favorable impression on the skater. I also enjoyed how she focused on many different skaters and covered a broad range. Some of the major highlights include Tara Lipinski, Michelle Kwan, Nicole Bobek, Elvis Stojko, Michael Weiss, Rudy Galindo, Ilia Kulik, Todd Eldredge, Alexei Yagudin, Evgeny Plushenko, Alexei Urmanov and Lu Chen. Brennan did a good job of blending both the past and the present. She told of how the skaters got where they are today, as well as writing about the current competitions and issues surrounding the skating world during 97-98 season. I had hoped for a better quality photo section in the book. The hardcover edition has a small black/white section of photos. This is my only true complain. This book is a must have for any skating fanatic.

Edge Of Glory - The Inside Story Of The Quest For Figure Skating's Olympic Gold Medals

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Edge Of Glory - The Inside Story Of The Quest For Figure Skating's Olympic Gold Medals
Christine Brennan
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IUW956

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Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating's Olympic Gold Medals
Christine Brennan
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OIYZ3G

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Linguistics and Education, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:

Book Description

"Hold your Horcruxes!" *

Talented, enigmatic, wry--Snape, the Slytherin Potions Master, has fascinated Harry Potter fans since the series began, and now we know exactly where he stands and what part Jo means for him to play in the final book of her epic mystery.

Or do we?

Join your fellow Harry Potter fans as they take a good long look at Severus Snape; his upbringing, his motivations, even his Patronus—and how he might have gotten himself into the position he found himself in during Book 6. They touch on other stuff too, of course—but Snape's many sides, his past, his present, and his future, is a subject that permeates this book. And with good reason. . .

Horcruxes, as undeniably fascinating as they are, aren't the only mystery in Harry Potter. Severus Snape was there at the beginning, affecting Harry Potter's life before Harry was even born. There are questions still to be answered about him, very important questions. Severus Snape will be there at the end. So will you.

Be ready with The Plot Thickens. . .Harry Potter Investigated by Fans for Fans.

* nawaan/Random Factor, MuggleNet New Clues Moderator

Customer Reviews:

Guesses on the Harry Potter Plot... to come..........2006-05-16

As a big Harry Potter fan who has read all the books, and listened to the audio versions multiple times, and seen and own the movies so far.... I looked forward to additional information from the prior clues books.

I found them to be a mixed bag of taunting hints, some insightful review of prior books, and interesting speculation about what MIGHT come...

That's the key. The prior works did not know what was to come, as the books hadn't been written yet... and not published... so it was all speculation, and much of it off-base.

However, that being said, these earlier two works DID keep the excitment alive. While not a prose novel, these are more research/analytical works that attempt to drum up interest and provoke new lines of thought about where the stories might go.
As for that purpose, they are interesting and valuable.

I'm not sure that I would buy these for any child who is not old enough to read the original JKRowlings novels themselves. They might become very confused by the questions posed and the form of the book.

An interesting attempt to capitalize on the success of the book series, but stick to the originals... unless you want to pay to hear someone else speculate on the series.

Fun Discussion guide.......2006-03-22

THis is a very well researched discussion of the first 5 harry potter books. I really enjoyed it. I highly suggest it.

Some Good Theories to Chew On.......2005-12-16

This is collection of essays about the Harry Potter books written by fans from around the world. Each essay presents a theory of some sort on the backgrounds of characters, relationships between characters, what role certain characters and events will play in the future of the septology, etc. Most essays are two to three pages long, which makes it a great book to read in short spurts - in short, an excellent bathroom book.

Most of these authors have read the Harry Potter books several times, and have picked up on various clues that you may not have noticed if you've only read the books once or twice. In addition, some of the theories present some really good ideas to chew on. Some of the theories are way out there, but even the most outlandish ideas can work as building blocks to formulate more valid theories.

If you are a big fan of the Harry Potter books and would like something to read that may deepen your understanding of the magical world created by JK Rowling, then I would definitely recommend this book. There are only a few possible drawbacks that I might bring up. One is that this book was published between books 5 and 6, so some of the theories are a bit outdated now that we have been given much more information in the latest book. There are also a few errors that a perfectionist such as myself has to laugh at, but I suppose that's understandable when the authors are devoted fans rather than professional writers. Finally, if you've already spent hours reading through online forums discussing the Harry Potter books, then you might not find too much new here. I wouldn't know because I just don't have the time for all that, but this book seems to provide a pretty succinct summary of all the discussions that have gone on amongst Harry Potter fans on the web forums.

All in all, however, I really am enjoying this book. I'm currently on my second read-through of the series, so it's really interesting when I'm reading an essay that discusses an event that I just read through the day before.

loved it.......2005-08-30

I thought this book was great. The only problem I had with it was that some evidence supplied for the theories had been confirmed or unconfirmed at the time of printing so the theory was proved or disproved already. Maybe a bit extra proofreading for the next one. Other than that it was fantastic

Harry Potter Investigated by Fans for Fans.......2005-08-06

Good book...the font size is a bit small and the printing is a bit light but over all a good book.

Plot Thickens... Harry Potter Investigated by Fans for Fans

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Plot Thickens... Harry Potter Investigated by Fans for Fans

Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 1417666927

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