This is for soda bottles only

Then again, even if you are a librarian, don't bother.

I shouldn't say these types of things about this book as I studied under one of its authors in graduate school, but let's be perfectly honest for a minute... it's boring!

Actually, "For Information Specialists" is not that bad. Bates, White, and Wilson make some interesting hypotheses about the way people gather information, so the work has merit, it's just that the writing style is lacking and the content, dry as a bone.

Betty Bates tells a story of Maggie, whose sister marries a "great" guy. Well, he doesn't turn out to be so great. After leaving the sister of Maggie, Maggie decides all men are horrible, and are only out to hurt women. She basically cuts of ties with men and hangs around with her sister, neglecting her friends as well. After it's all over, Maggie learns not all men are the same, and that it totally depends on the person. Betty did an excellent job of portraying this, though the book moves rather slowly, and is more for a younger audience, say about 10 to 14 years old.

I've been interested in Gregory Bateson, ever since I came into contact with his work when I studied NLP. I'm still intrigued to find out how exactly he approached science, how he thought about doing scientific work. While this book gives the reader an acceptable overview of Gregory Bateson's roots and his life, I was particularly disappointed with the section discussing his life since 1970, the year he gave the Korzybski memorial lecture. In these last 10 years of his live he published "Steps to an ecology of mind" (1972), "Mind and Nature (1977) and "Where Angels fear to Tread". Paradoxally, this author only met Bateson in 1971 and must have more details about these 10 last years, during which Bateson taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz (1972-1979) and influenced a whole generation of students at the Kresge College. These last 10 years of his life only get some 25 pages from this author. In contrast, the history of his family and youth get over 100 pages. Also, for someone who has had the chance to meet Bateson extensively in order to write this biography, we don't learn much about Bateson's real thoughts, motivations. All by all this is a pretty dry book. This book has the merit of existing, yet for me, the author missed some opportunities here.

While I recommend everyone interested in social sciences, communication, anthropology or psychology to read Bateson's books, there isn't much to learn from this book by reading "about Bateson".

Patrick E.C. Merlevede - author of "7 Steps to Emotional intelligence"

Olga Masters has complied an interesting selcetion of short stories dealing with a range of issues. Her use of description is very powerful and often avoids describing step-by-step what is happening in a action sequence, instead describes the reaction from people and the effects of what has happened. This combined with her writing in third person creates an atmosphere for the reader like they are right in middle of the room watching.

Each story is told from th point of view of a middle aged woman or a little girl. The thing I like most about each story is the way they all end. It can be very fustraiting as we don't get told what will now happen but it is also very interesting. The thing I dislike most about the stories are the way they start, often in the middle of an action sequence and very confusing.

I would reccomend this book to people who enjoy reading from the point of veiw of adults aswell as children. Also for people who don't mind a selection of short stories that are set in very different times with very different characters to one another.

I read this book because it won a Pulitzer Prize, and because I so greatly enjoyed the biographies of Keats by Aileen Ward and by Robert Gittings. But I found much of this book tough going. The study of some of the longer poems simply did not interest me. But the account of Keats' last year is very well-done and absorbing.

"Natural History Museums: An Illustrated Guide to over 350 Museums in the Eastern United States" by G.W. Bates is unfortunately, a little more than a directory or mailing list of such museums. In the center of the book are photos, generally of exhibits, of about 25 museums. However, there is no information on hours, nor any descriptions of exhibits, etc. Moreover, with a nominal publishing date of 1992, most of the addresses are probably 15 years old at this time (mid-2000), and so, many, if not most have probably changed. Apparently, Volume 2 was never printed, which also limits the utility of the book as a mailing list.

This is an update of Cadillac Desert. Marc Reisner felt that half a decade later his book Cadillac Desert was out of date given current trends in Western farming. Somehow, this book is really not that convincing. Marc Reisner's arguments seem a lot weaker than in Cadillac Desert. You almost feel that this book was written at gunpoint, with the rice farmer lobby holding the gun.

In other words, Cadillac Desert is far more insightful and prescient than this book. I would definitely read Cadillac Desert first.

I often randomly select a book from our files to read and review. Having just sent my oldest off to college, and with two other teens at home, I found the book to be more of an affirmation of raising them correctly, than dealing with specific time-sensitive issues. We dealt with more than our share of medical, educational and family issues as the children were growing up, and the one thing I learned was that no advice is the correct advice when you are in the middle of a crisis. If the problem is so severe that you are even tempted to write to a neutral third (or fourth or fifth)party, chances are you won't be able to read the answer on a neutral basis (that is, if you GET an answer). The questions were a bit polite, but poignant, and would need to be rewritten for the new millenium (and corresponding teen issues), but it's nice to thumb through the book and land on a question/issue to find that you would have dealt with it the same way. There are some incredible letters from "concerned grandparents" that will amaze you with the audacity, and led me to wonder if they were actual letters or just an exaggerated essay in which to attach an appropriate "speech." In general, a good book but, as the subject line reads, "Don't ask for advice while you're in the middle of a crisis."

This book was okay, but parts of it were kind of corny. Like breaking into Joe Hagan's farm and all that stuff with Paula. I thought it was pretty dumb how they made a big deal about how big of a racing farm Graytops was, I mean it only had 15 horses at it. That's pretty tiny compared to most barns. Oh well, overall it was a pretty good book.