The book is pretty good. Its clear and concise--straight to the point. I wish it would contain more of the different styles, but it mainly focuses on two--humanitites style and scientific style (MLA & APA). It would really help students to sort of have all of the styles in one book so we do not have to get like four or five books just because our professor wanted a paper a certain way. This book also focuses on the online citation (most books fall short of the online stuff because it is so new).

Citation of materials from the (extremely) volatile web was a major problem. Creating a summary, and providing a hyperlink to the original content, proved a major issue since electronic content moves so frequently.. The Columbia Guide gives some assurance that proper citation can be given. Some of the citation style suggestions seem very redundant, and there is no clear table or quick summary to highlight the proper method for common usage. Still, as the first work of this type, it gives an excellent baseline for referencing, building, managing on-line content.

Although the material may be accurate and relevant to the topics found on the MCAT, it would be difficult to learn it from the format presented here. The text and explanation are extremely minimal, and the review questoins at the end of the book are far from excellent.

Excellent review for the MCAT, although book covers more than one needs to know, it is very high-yield and an excellent reference especially for urgent questions. Unlike many other texts that just summarize college Biology textbooks, Bresnicks outlines the most important concepts and definitions. Just one word of caution: THIS IS NOT A TEXTBOOK, you cannot learn biology from scratch from that book, but it is an excelent review.

Certainly a MUST HAVE book.

The book gives a good overview of the areas with many addresses. Anyhow I found it a bit too black and white. It gives useful maps, but no coloured pictures from the areas, which would make it a bit more pleasant to read.

I highly recommend this guide to anyone who will be traveling in the Northeast as well as Canada. This guide gives you everything from upcoming events for the year to where to stay & eat. The maps are easy to read and follow. I have been a reader of the Mobil Guide for many years and it is continuing to give the most accurate, up-to-date travel information. This is the MUST-HAVE for the Northeast traveler.

interesting story. good involved plot. I found that the detailed references to Vancouver and surrounding locales distracted from the story. If you are from Vancouver, you don't need them and if you are not they don't matter. I think the characters are good. Would like to hear more about Jackson Cole.

I picked up this book at the recommendation of a Chapters salesperson in Vancouver on a recent trip. Started reading it on the plane on the way home. I enjoyed the Vancouver references since I'd just visited a few of these places. It even referenced blueberry tea which I ordered once thinking I was actually getting blueberry tea!

This book had a lot of characters which I sometimes had trouble keeping straight, but which I wanted to know more about. The book could have been longer, with more development of the characters. But I was instantly grabbed by Jackson Cole, and desperately hope Ms. Smith includes him as the main character in a series. I loved the pace of the novel and the tension it created. I was left wanting the story to go on, and will look for the sequel. I do fear, though, that my memories of Vancouver will now be influenced by this book . . . was Jackson Cole someone I met on my trip, . . . or not?

I kept waiting for this book to develop something: a character that seemed real, a situation with depth, a conversation with substance. And to no avail--I finished the book without any of those things happening

L.R. Wright moves us with the intelligent portrayal of a life wasted. Her central characters of Karl Ahlberg and his fiancee Cassandra are well rounded, likeable, and all too human. You will find your heart aches for the boy in this book, and at the same time he will frighten you. Wright has the gift of eliciting emotion from her readers. Her supporting characters (Sid & Bernie) flesh out the story such that you want to read more about them as well. Altogether a great read!

White says he "will measure the book's success by the extent to which is surprises its readers, catches them offguard, and forces them to think about new ways not merely about the Columbia but about nature and its relation to human beings and human history."

Well if this is his standard he failed miserably. The book is an absolute bore because it focuses so much on ancient history. White tries to bring in Native Americans and salmon as a way of bridging the gap between nature and humans - it does so, but it is painfully slow, dull and uninteresting. The book changes a little as it moves into more modern times, but his ending thesis would have been just as strong had he not tortured the reader with a 50 page history lesson.

The last chapter also includes the term "Organic Machine" about a dozen too many times. We figured out from the title what the term meant, rampant repetition doesn't bring out his meaning any more.

Richard White's "Organic Machine" is a neat display of erudition and intelligence. Through the prism of the Columbia river, the book delves into the difficult relations between native Americans and white settlers. It shows the stronghold an aluminum multinational on local economy and politics. It informs us about the megalomania of giant state bureaucracies. It analyses the emergence and subsequent (enormously expensive) blunders in managing nuclear reactors, followed by the immense human and economic costs. It explores the society's attitudes to endangered species such as salmon, threatened with extinction because of technical progress. It shows us the power and resilience of a large river, unwilling to yield to the numerous dams built during the last 100 years.

The Organic Machine compares to John Barry's "Rising Tide", which treated the Mississippi's history as a classic epic in 400+ pages. "Rising Tide" is a compelling page-turner, not at all times sharp in its analysis, but centered around brilliantly narrated biographies and societal sketches. The Columbia's history has been just as rich, but Richard White took a totally different approach to explain the river. All elements which made Rising Tide such a fun read are there, and more. But Richard White chose to strip the story to the bone. What remains is 112 pages of crisp, flawless analysis. "Organic Machine" is very smart, but I thought the author was too dispassionate. Every page in this book screams for more illustrative anecdotes, it should have been at least three times its actual size.

Hands down the best history book written in English on a river. It rivals William Cronon's "Nature's Metropolis" as the best environmental history book I've read. Anyone who spends time near/on rivers (especially the Columbia) will appreciate this book. White tells a fascinating, compact story (~100 pages) that will force the consciencious reader to rethink his/her relationship with rivers as a source of energy. The book is also a lesson in form and style.

The book is actually a farce--one of the authors is currently employed by Columbia (at least that's what I gathered from the credits), the other seems to be your typical middle-management consultant. So much for unabiased analysis. NOWHERE does any one discuss the government case against Columbia/HCA. The FBI raids are mentioned but there is no discussion whatsoever about what precipitated them, what evidence was found, and what the governments case ultimately proved to be.

One great line does stand out: "If anything can cast a pall over a leadership retreat, it's an FBI raid."

The book does point out a glaring omision in analysis of health care policy. There needs to be an indepth analysis of what went on (and is going on) with Columbia/HCA. This book, however, is not it.

If you can get through all the pages of mergers and acquisitions, the book does a very through job of explaining Columbia/HCA's corporate philosophies and what happened that led to their downfall.

Lutz did a fine job encapsulating the meteoric rise and subsequent fraud investigation of the monolithic Columbia/HCA. A well balanced, ammoral perspective on the Richard Scott and Tom Frist philosophy that gives the latter '90's health care administrator a thought provoking benchmark of where the "for profit" model took us, and how it will influence our decisions tomorrow. Enjoyable read, the chapters on Lessons Learned and Implications most worthwhile.

Stuart Little has always been a wonderful book and it would have made a wonderful movie if the producers had used the original text as a guide. Instead, they strayed so far from the original text in making the movie that they were forced to publish books like this to bridge the gap. The E.B. White text is beautifully written and has captured the imagination of children and adults for decades. Do not buy this, buy the original.

I Read Stuart little when I was little in the late 70's I enjoyed the book I allways felt it would make a great cartoon, it's about time they made the movie if you like Stuart little Reald Mouse and the motercycle and Runnaway ralf

The information about the subjects may be adequate, but it does not explain it very thoroughly and the MCAT is about having a full understanding and being able to link concepts together. In addition, the tests have many mistakes! After having done a few passages, I started carefully picking through them after I had finished and found a few answers which directly contradicted the passages - these practice tests served only to confuse me. It feels as though no one proofed this book. Since then I've bought a book from Kaplan and Princeton and although they are a bit more expensive they have been used by many pre-meds with reliable results - and they don't have mistakes.

I don't understand how this book could get anything but a "1 star" from anyone. The questions are downright wrong! I've only done a few of the passages and found numerous mistakes where the book outright contradicts itself. You don't have to be a genius to find the mistakes, I found them in the verbal section. This book needs to be tossed - do yourself a favor and spend a little more money buying Kaplan/Princeton or basically anything else.

Hey, pre-meds! I had 4 weeks to concentrate on studying for the MCAt after my summer session last year. I have a great grasp of the concepts in the pre-med courses and just needed the STRATEGY of how to do well for the MCAt. This is THE book. If you really understood the stuff in your classes the first time around, this book gives an excellent review and supplements the stuff you didn't learn but need for the MCAT. All in all I did 1 week non-stop studying/section then a week of tests I went over with friends. With such intensive studying, I fared well [9v 11p 11b]. I know of one person who got a 37 using this alone to study! Good luck to all.