If I didn't know Ricky Jay's fine reputation as a magic historian, I'd think this book was a joke. The people and acts described are too outlandish, too impressive to be true. But I trust Jay to strike awe into me, and he does so repeatedly and without fail in this book.

The book's illustrations and photographs are marvelous supplements to Jay's smoothly written histories of performers--memory artists, dwarf magicians without arms or legs, women who walk into ovens. This is the quintessential introduction to this bizarre world.

Organized into chapters by skill by oddball skill, Jay is sometimes able to document such performers back into the 1700s by tracking newspaper reports, handbills, etc., many of which are reproduced in color plates and black-and-white photographs.

Ricky Jay occupies an engaging hole in intellectual space between enthusiast and academic. He is comprehensive in the extreme, but his writing style is anecdotal and he does not go for any elaborate sociological explanation of why such performers exist or what they 'mean' to society. He just wants you to have fun, and perhaps to freak you out just a wee bit.

The book is also very nicely designed; its large wide pages lie flat and there are loads of remarkable illustrations. Definitely worth a look!

The cover frays and acquires "dog-ears" in a relatively short time of field use. In contrast, the Audubon field guides use a much more resilient plastic softcover. The pages smude easily from finger oils - remember, this is a guide you should be able to use for 8 years or so (until the next edition) so these are unacceptable shortcomings IMHO. By far the biggest gripe I have with this book, however, is the the choice of red to identify galaxies, star clusters etc in the atlas charts. These marks completely disappear under red light(!!!), making the charts useless for finding deep sky objects in the field. Finally, how are you supposed to operate equipment and keep the book open? Because it lacks spiral binding, the only way to use it hands-off is to put a weight on the page you're referencing.

If you're looking for a great reference to use at home, this guide is hard to beat - in fact, I highly recommend it. However, look elsewhere for more useful star charts with deep sky objects to use in the field.

Great charts for finding stars. Thanks to this book I now understand how to find a star from a star chart. Great pictures, and again I cannot state how clearly they explain things.

This book made me think about social class mobility in a different way. The authors study middle class people on their way down. They show how people with good educations and in decent jobs can have their lives turned upside down by a layoff, a job transfer, an illness, an accident, or a divorce. According to the authors, more than a million families each year are going to the bankruptcy courts for protection.

The book is well-written, lively and sometimes witty. A good, but disturbing, read.

The authors devote much of their book to the increased amount of credit card debt consumers in general and bankrupt debtors in particular carry and why this has happened. This is especially timely, as Congress seems well on the way of passing so-called bankruptcy "reform" that would benefit credit card companies to the detriment of debtors by forcing more of the latter into Chapter 13 or denying them bankruptcy access altogether.

This is a very readable, very well-researched book by three of the top experts on bankruptcy law in the United States.

OK, the first few chapters, when the never ending succuesses of the Bylsma boys in athletics became almost as difficult to read as the phone book are a bit numbing after a while. Once parental pride calmed down the book turned into a compelling look at how difficult it is for a parent to find balance in their children's lives, to teach life lessons as well as sports techniques and to turn out a good person who also happens to be an NHL player.

The struggles Dan had after leaving home at such a young age are dealt with forthrightly, which multiplies the shock you feel at stories of sexual abuse and the physical sacrifice players at the lower minor level make to reach the NHL. That shock is no stronger than when the reader learns that Dan and his wife lost their first child just as he was establishing himself in the NHL.

This book gives the parent of an athlete much to think about. In a society where it seems more and more boys go through life without their fathers this book shows you that those boys lose something that may be irreplaceable.

Bylsma is a true role model, especially in today's world.

Jay Greenberg of the NY Post writes, "THE BEST ADVICE SINCE DON'T RILE GORDIE HOWE!"

For all sports, for kids and parents alike. Inspiration, motivational, I couldn't put it down

There are 33 essays in the tome that are unparalleled and are far beyond any of his contemporaries, but brought to us by his unmatched ability, so the common man can understand his intrinsic intuitive profundity.

Gould brings us essays on Darwiniana, Human Evoution, Odd Organisms and Evolutionary Exemplars, Patterns and Punctuation in the History of Life, Theories of the Earth, Size and Shape, from Churches to Brains to Planets, Science in Society-- a Historical View, The Scince and Politics of Human Nature. All of these are thought provoking with a sophistication unmatched in the realm of science today.

As we read on in the book, we see the knowledge brought to us. Can we who read this comprehend both the lessons and the limits of scientific understanding here? Gould brings us his thoughts, as we read, I can only wonder and learn. This is a remarkable achievement.

One can argue that no scientific theory has caused more controversies than Darwin's theory. Not to mention the history of the conflicts between religious beliefs and the evolutionary theory, many people today still have trouble accepting it, no matter how all the evidences appear to favor the theory.

Ever Since Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould, however, is not a mere collection of praise songs for the triumph of science. In his essays, Darwinian interpretations of evolutionary biology are illuminated in light of the (enjoyable, at least for us) struggles of those thinkers of conflicting theories. Through citing rich evidences in the history of evolutionary biology, Gould emphasizes the inevitability of having human bias in scientific process.

This is a kind of book that I strongly recommend to students who tend to develop a misconception that science exists only to make their academic experience at school painful. Textbooks do not teach science as much as Gould's essays do. Why?

Science often tends to be seen as the culmination of the infallible facts and evidences deriving from perfectly logical thinking by a few great minds. Gould provides numerous examples to show this is not really the case. In fact, you learn that scientists, who are supposed to thrive for objectivity, suffer quite often from their own agenda and intellectual bias. It is as much a creative, human activity as art and literature, and Gould's excellent essays illuminate that endeavor, not just the bits of accepted facts to regurgitate. All this is done via the discussions of various interesting topics from a baby fly eating its own mother to the dubious attempts to link biological findings to justify racial inequality.

The only thing I fear about this great work is that it will inevitably be dated, having written during 1970s. Nevertheless, the essence of Gould's writing should not be tarnished by newer discoveries. After all, Gould's point is to illuminate science as a dynamic activity.

I honestly tell them it's like sailing into uncharted waters, offering both the excitement and the fear of the unknown. There are no safety nets. Over time I have learned to trust my internal compass--my intuition--to make tough decisions. Still, like anyone else, I harbor doubts. Have I charted the best course? How reassuring it would be to have a navigator at my side, someone who could steer me in the right direction through rough seas time and again.

Jay Goltz's "Street-Smart Entrepreneur" fulfills this role for me. This is no ordinary guide to better business. No stuffy language. No abstractions. Just straightforward common sense.

Jay's book is creatively organized into 133 one-page "lessons" that cover everything from intelligent marketing to smart hiring, cash flow, business growth, and customer service. Jay shows how he learned each lesson the hard way, offering real examples from his successful picture-framing business. Believe me, you won't learn these lessons in any school or textbook!

I keep my copy of "The Street-Smart Entrepreneur" on my desktop. It comes in handy when I need a dose of sound advice to shore up my gut instincts. Pick up a copy of "The Street-Smart Entrepreneur" before you plot your course. You'll be glad you did!

However, some of his essays really needed editing, and one piece on some geological minutae once again proves how dull a topic geology can be. His liberal POV matches mine, but he's yet another scientist sho can't find one nice thing to say about religion. And we don't need any essays from him on baseball. I love baseball too, but I don't read science books to read about Joe DiMaggio any more than I read Mike Lupica to learn about Einstein. I guess it's nice to be so famous that you can be self-indulgent every time.

Still, this book has a lot going for it if you like your science hard and your approach to weighty matters light. Just don't expect the same kind of breeziness that Arthur C. Clarke's essay tend to have.

In these twenty-three essays an erudite discussion comes to light from on of the most fertile minds of science today. We are educated... better enlightened to a point of view which only Gould can provide. As with all good things, they must come to an end since this is the penultimate work of essays... which leaves one more to astonish us.

But I'm sure that we will not see the end of writing from him. I highly recommend reading this brilliant collection of essays from a the most revered and eloquent author and educator of our times.

Two factors make Gould's essays stand out from most science writing--the depth of his ideas and his unmatched ability to peel back layers of approximate understanding and convenient storytelling to get to what actually happened. Whether he's detailing the founding moments of palentology and geology or excavating Alfred Russel Wallace's forays into predicting the future, you know that you're going to get the real story, impeccably told, straight from the primary sources. As a science writer, I'm awed as much by Gould's impeccable scholarship as by the quality and originality of his thinking. Gould is absolutely clear-eyed about the progress of science. The tales he tells reflect it as a richly human enterprise, groping its way forward despite misconceptions, hoaxes, and the personal quirks of its protagonists.

This book is not a light or easy read, but it is a richly rewarding one.

Robert E. Adler
Science Journalist
Author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation