when i first started reading poetry, stuff like this used to impress me to no end. then as i read different kinds of stuff, i realized poetry was more than just attacking "the man," and telling people how much you hate america. medina's shtick gets old quick and i didn't bother to finish the book. i'm not a card carrying republican, but i've got other issues to deal with in my life....

Medina's work packs an enormous amount of power and honesty. His work is not for the weak hearted. It is brave and in your face.
N. Mercado

This book gives me inspiration. He tought me alot from his book. This book tells you how homless people are treated.If I liked this book, you should like it to.

Reading this book reminded me of a ride I once took at Disneyland where everything gets bigger and bigger so that you feel as if you are being reduced to microscopic size. You then travel into the human body, then a cell and then see the molecules that make them up. Medina starts with the human face of ageing - the final moments in the life of his aged mother - and then takes us on a journey from the outward signs of ageing to the molecular machinery which makes what he calls the "clock of ages" tick.

Despite our anxieties of "getting old" ageing starts long before we see wrinkles or grey hair. In fact, ageing is a complex developmental process which starts at conception. Despite taking such a biological view Medina never loses sight of the individual. The effects of ageing on the lives of many famous people are interspersed through the book with amazing facts about the body: Florence Nightingale was a hypochondriac who spent most of her adult life in bed and each of us contains about 60,000 miles of blood vessels!

Some in the field claim that our exploding knowledge of the mechanics of cellular renewal and DNA will see us living twice or three times our current life spans in approximately 30 years.

Medina's work is an excellent, readable summary of what's currently known about aging. As it turns out, there are more questions than answers.

However, in amongst all the discussion of immortality I wish he had devoted a chapter to the wisdom of such a quest. He mentions in passing the ants and bees who each perform a distinct function and, separated from their hive or nest, expire rather quickly. Medina repeats the oft-quoted maxim that they are more like a single organism with independently-functioning cells than like distinct individuals.

I wish he had extended this analogy to mankind, and showed how immortality would be to the detriment of long-term species survival in a changing environment. "Descent with modifications" relies on continual refreshing of the genetic material. Lewis Thomas and Stephen Jay Gould (and even Richard Dawkins) have put forward the idea that the individual is not the prime target of evolution, and I think this paradigm shift helps explain the causes of, and need for, aging.

"The Clock of Ages" by John J. Medina is subtitled 'Why We Age, How We Age, Winding Back the Clock.' Dr. Medina more adequately addressed the 'Why' and the 'How' of aging than the 'Winding Back the Clock.' As might be expected from a molecular biologist, Medina is at his most technical and most detailed when he is describing the major theories of aging--error accumulation and programmed death. Generally, he succeeds in clarifying technical concepts for the non-technical reader. The book is liberally seasoned with historical vignettes, analogies and diagrams. "Clock" clarifies various definitions of aging, different philosophies of aging and various theories of the biochemistry of aging. At the same time we are introduced to such diverse people as Casanova, Billy the Kid, Isadora Duncan, Alfred Nobel and Florence Nightingale. The vignettes of these people often liven up the book, but at times the analogies made from person to concept are a bit of a stretch. Medina serves as a tour guide of the aging body with stops at the skin and hair; the bones, the muscles and joints; the brain; the heart; the lungs; the digestive system; the senses; and the sexual anatomy and physiology. "Clock" is mostly a story of decline and fall of the human body with predictions about future high-tech genetic and hormonal antidotes. The third part of the sub-title 'Winding Back the Clock' only consumes 17 of 316 pages which is not in balance with the other two parts. Medina acknowledges but underplays the role of diet and exercise in winding back the clock. And although Dr. Medina recognizes the wide variability in the way people age as well as the variability of aging within individual body systems, he does not fully recognize the affects of culture and attitude on the aging process, but coming from a biologist this is to be expected. Overall, "Clock" is engaging and thought-provoking. I would, however, recommend several other books to give other views on aging other than the biological--try Betty Friedan's "Fountain of Age," Deepak Chopra's "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind" or Delany, Delany & Hearth's "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years."

writing on the body provides good sample-sizes of a variety of feminist theorists ranging from judith butler's essay on gender performativity to sandra lee bartky's (amazing) essay using foucault's work to analyze how various mechanisms of control affect women's bodily experiences. while writing on the body does an excellent job covering a range of theorists, the reader is left with literally only a tiny piece of each theorist. therefore, this anthology serves as a good beginning for those looking to investigate feminist theorizing about the body.

This is a wonderful collection of essays for anyone looking for an introduction to feminist theory, or simply for new ways to perceive and analyze the body. The bitesize samples of Judith Butler, Catharine MacKinnon, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks challenge the reader to confront contemporary issues such as rape, gender, and representations of women of color in ways that are radically different from mainstream thought.

What I like most about biographies is that they display the struggle of being a man. I like it when the biographees are somewhat tainted, tragical in the dramatic sense of the word, and yet they are able to surmount themselves and render a moment of true glory.

This biography of the well-known bandido Villa is a good piece of biographical writing. It shows a brutal, ignorant man, able to commit huge cruelties, lusting after power and money, who nevertheless had one big virtue: he knew how to be fatihful to President Madero, in many ways his better.

The life of Villa was full of romance and of military genius of the rustic kind. This book gives thorough comment of Villa's impromptu victories, of his instinctive grasp for tactics. And it helps to penetrate into the mystery of the only man who has ever introduced an invader commando into the United States.

This Volume covers the first four years after the Hicrat. Among various excurcios to neighbouring tribes or caravans the volume covers Badr and Uhud battles. Marriage of Mohammed (AS) to HZ. Aisah, conflicts with Jews in the city of Madina. Tabari uses Ibn Ishak, Ibn Hisham as his sources and time to time provides variant stories on same subject with chain of isnads. Contrary to his Tafsir, he does not say which one is more acceptable to him. The translators have some preface and time to time expalanatory commentary in Fine Prints which I found most of them unacceptable. I did not appreciate sometimes their twisted opinions in a book which is supposed to be a translation. But again I appreciate their work for making this book available to English readers.

A great collection of dishes from the Monterey area. All the recipes tasted wonderful. I would recommend this book to anyone, no matter what their level of cooking experience!

The author really introduced the charactors well. You could tell she was a new author, but she didn't hold anything back. Her talents lye in the fact that she could show us the love that we can have for one another.

She also showed a lot of promise. I will definitely love to read her next novel. The love scenes were so pure and sensative. She added humor, love and sadness but never lost where she was going.

Rainbow of Love is excately what it states, the love in the book flows through all of the characters, and the author shows us how life should be and can be lived.

Congradtes to the author.

Betty Long

I used this book in a 1st year college course and found it to be very thorough in it's content, It did not assume I already new the basics but explained every section thoroughly. I recomend it.

I HATE SPAWN. Absolutely hate him. I've read a few Spawn-related books, and haven't liked one of them. I picked up Sam and Twitch: Udaku because of writer Brian Michael Bendis alone. I'm a big fan of his work on books like Powers and Ultimate Spider-Man. So.....

For the first half of the book it seemed like the "Curse" would hold true for Udaku. It just didn't hold my interest. I fixated on the numerous production problems, like- A)- Art being lost in the binding. This was especially troubling in the double-page spreads. In addition, the art itself doesn't flow smoothly; Page after page is crammed with 16-panel grids, and when you put pages like that side by side, the eye doesn't know which way to read- side to side across both pages, or one page at at a time. It got irritating after a while. I mostly blame that on problem B)- The black-and-white format. McFarlane says in his foreword it's to preserve the "Film-Noir" feel, but I think it's just cheapness on his part. For a Black-and-white book, Udaku is WAAY too pricey, and as with other books that were meant to be presented in color, the art in the book, not being drawn specifically FOR the black-and-white medium, is hard to follow at points; It's too cluttered and busy. Too many fine lines all blending together. And finally, C)- Word baloons didn't become prevalent for nothing. The dialogue floating around in the panels, with a squiggly line pointing to the character who is speaking doesn't work in a panel with five or six characters. I often had NO idea who was saying what to whom. Bad idea.

The story picks up in the fifth chapter, as we find out just who or what Udaku IS, leading up to what may be the most cinematic finale I've ever seen in a comic. I thought the revelation of the killer proved to be a little too Sci-Fi for my tastes, and I still don't really understand the signifigance of the body parts at the crime scenes. Bendis might have been better served by leaving the more far-fetched aspects of the tale on the cutting-room floor, but overall, Udaku had SLIGHTLY more pro than con going for it.

This is another production from Todd Mcfarlane, maker of the famous Spawn. The concept is based on a intrigueing down-to-earth, no super hero setting. The story is a standard cop plot, nothing new, however the characters are very interesting and distinctive for their own unique qualities. The art of this graphic novel is superb, even for black and white. The style of spawn is easily reconizable while new aspects bloom from the cold and dark New York setting. The comic scenes are well drawn and set up so action and movie cinema can play fluidly in your mind. Action scenes will make you want to play with action figures like when you were five years old. The pictures are very discreptive/detailed, with a heavy dose of expresion in every street and police officer. The story is geared to action while comedy spurts in every once in a while. The main characters are a duo of misfit cops which enrich the story considerably, with their unpredictable behavior and action. Conclusively, I'd give two thumbs up for the visuals (you actually might need a third thumb for this level of work). And the story... eh, not much. Characters were good too. I would definitly encourage all comic enthusiasts to buy this masterpiece (ya get the bang for your buck). I'd also recomend this comic to anybody who has even heard of the name "spawn".

I picked up an issue of Sam and Twitch at random. Totally at random. My name's Sam, so I said, hey, I'll buy it. It was really interesting, so when I saw the TPB for sale and happened to have the correct amount of money in my pocket, I picked it up. And the book amazed me.

The characters are interesting, and are far from the standard "two badass, muscular cops laying the smackdown...on crime." Sam is a fat, disgusting bear. Twitch is a little twig, with a kind of mad scientist/stick figure look. But the two really complement each other well. Their dialogue and interaction was well done, and surpisingly real at points. Great writing throughout.

The art was great and the panels were laid out in a manner that was slightly offsetting at first, but laid out an logical path for the eye to follow.

Although some have complained about the series being printed in black and white, I honestly enjoyed it more than the color form. It really made it feel much more like the grittier crime noir movies and old-school comic books that inspired this book.

So, it's a great book, but nonetheless there are problems. The first is that there seems to be no margin on the sides of the paper, and thus the binding takes out some of the middle of pages. This is only really a problem with the full page spreads, but is really upsetting since it can totally ruin the flow. The fourth page features an awesome spread of Sam and Twitch, with Spawn in the background...and Twitch's face is totally distorted by being set in too deep. The second and last is that it seemed to me two often that panels in a succession zoomed in on a character's eyes up to the pupil.

These complaints don't take away from the book, though. Get it, and you'll almost certainly enjoy it.