What these other revievers said is absolutely true. Angel's Visits is an eminently readable and enjoyable book that I highly recommend. After being out of print for some time, it's now available again under the title "Zin".

Over recent years I have given copies of this excellent, entertaining book to friends because, although not large, it seemed well-rounded as well as a good read. The book explored the mystique of a wonderful grape from its mysterious beginnings to its contemporary California status. Perhaps some of my interest is parochial, as it touches on familiar San Francisco Bay Area milieus. Nonetheless, now that "Angels Visits" is now out of print, I regret that I didn't merely loan out my last give-away.

It is an insightful and interesting primer on Zinfandel. I have tried to locate copies of the book and was saddened to learn it was out of print. It is a must read for ZAP people and would be a run away best seller at their annual tasting. It would be an appreciated gift for anyone who enjoys Zinfandel.

GPF is a comic written for Geeks and those who love them. As a geek groupie, I love this comic!

GPF tells the story of a group of computer programmers that work for a company named "General Protection Fault" after the Windows error message. There is humour, paranoia, geekiness, slime-moulds that have been lying around so long that they achieved intelligence (and are now teaching correspondance courses), and fun. Buy this book for the computer professional in your life, and keep an eye out for the new book: "Gone with the Windows."

I loved it as a Internet Comic strip. I love it as a book. Funny, witty--a must read; especially if you are a computer geek or someone who loves a computer geek. Good, clean humor.

For those of you unfamiliar with the world Internet Comic Strips, this one is an absolute must see. Jeff Darlington does a great job of characterizing the geek world, with hillarious story lines and fantastic drawings. Keep it up Jeff!

Sara Marie Hogg has written a wonderful book about growing up in a small Ozarks community in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Catho Darlington, the quirky young protagonist of the book, is a character everyone can relate to in some way, especially if you grew up in a small town between 1950 and 1975.

I found the book very enjoyable.

This, Phil Darlington's last book, is an eloquent "summing up" of many of the principles of Natural Selection and evolution as presented by one of the titans of the Great Age of Biogeography. Darlington was born into an age of fixed, stable continents & lived to see his entire world view overthrown by Continental Drift, yet he seems to see this upheaval as an enormous relief -one that took care of many troubling inconsistencies that had bothered him as a biologist. In E. For N. he turns his writing skills to showing how Darwin & Wallace's theory can help make sense of an enormous range of issues in ecology and natural history. The final chapter, which revolves around the then-very-new Sociobiology controversy is a remarkably gentle but authoritative call for both sides to stop bickering and get on with doing science. It is a shame that this book is out of print & it is well worth your time if you are interested in evolutionary biology from the perspective of someone who revelled in "facts on the ground" and lucky enough to stumble upon it.

C. D. Darlington looks at history from the perspective of biology and human behavior. Instead of simply declaring that thus-and-such happened, followed by such-and-thus, Darlington tells us why things happened. He describes the engines which have driven both historical individuals and civilizations to do as they have done. It's all there, from soup to nuts, in this comprehensive treatise on human civilization . . . and not in the least boring, I might add.

This book explores the evidence of structural and functional differences between the male and female brain. The author examines in great detail the evidence from both recent and historic research supporting these differences, and provides many case studies. It is well illustrated, and provides a comprehensive list of references, as well as suggested reading. A background in neurophysiology would be beneficial to the reader, but not required, as the second chapter provides a good introduction to many of the terms and concepts used throughout the book. (I do not have any background in biological science myself but was able to comprehend it using only the material supplied.) The author also provides recommendations for overcoming the biases of the scientific community, both in the research and treatment of many diseases and disorders.
This book is not for the light reader, but should be comprehensible by most, and is well worth the effort.

Two voices share compassion and humor in relating their concerns for the education of young women. The prime mover of the English Revolution advises his daughter on how to deal with her husband when he comes home drunk, with his friends, and needed reserve in expressing her emotions in church; Phoebe Taylor describes her own uncertainties in the depression of 1910 and on raising daughters 3 centuries later. Her mentor is a college professor of psychology, as wise as the Marquis. Great period reading with delightful illustrations.

If you are interested in endangered species - this is the book for you. Not only does the book outline the reasons for the decline and near extinction of the California Condor - it also talks about other species in the Carrizo Plain that are near extinction. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Natural History of the Southern San Joaquin Valley.

This is an amazing book that covers the entirety of the sport from the local short track to daytona. It is a unique historical anecdotal look at the sport during the early 1970's and much legend and lore from that period is covered. This is quite simply one of the best books on the sport that i have had the opportunity to read. If you are a fan or a student of NASCAR Stock Car racing then you must read this book.

I was initially attracted to this book because I HAVE been to Ponape (now known as Pohnpei) and was surprised to find the obscure island a location for a novel. I was further intrigued by the idea of a novel in verse form (although I must admit that this aspect alone might have led me to avoid it). I'm glad I didn't. The verse is musical without being obvious, distracting (or obtuse), and the story is an interesting one--a love story on many levels and one that makes insightful observations about human nature, natural selection, adaption and evolution. Despite the joy it brought me, I did find myself at times wanting more--more detail, more exploration, more connection between the "writer" and his "subject." But that is a minor complaint, for a book that surprised me in so many ways.

Novels in verse are fairly rare: Pushkin's 'Eugene Onegin', Vikram Seth's 'The Golden Gate', and Nobelist Derek Walcott's 'Omeros', come to mind. This novel is composed of ten-line stanzas with a rhyme scheme that mandates each line-end have a rhyme-mate somewhere in the stanza, but these ryhmes occur in irregular places, e.g. ABCCADDEEB, as in this sample verse, chosen at random from page 161:

(Nothing on earth, surely there's nothing on earth,
So hopeful, so suggestive of some gilt, goaled kindness
Or mercy at the heart of Nature than the notion
Of convergent evolution--
This thought that the ranged obstacles to any birth
Are immaterial and can be sidestepped . . .
The eye, for instance--look how Nature kept
Contriving it anew, freshly seeing its way
Out of the darkness--as if, at the end of the day,
The mind were _destined_ to escape from blindness.)

The language used tends to be only slightly elevated in tone, and conversational American English creeps in comfortably. Other reviewers have summarized the plot about the life of a boy prodigy who becomes a lepidopterist, has a terrible fall on a remote Pacific Island that cripples him. The protagonist is a gentle, lovable man whose training in Darwinian concepts leads him to accept the randomness and cruelty of life, but whose Wordsworthian love of Nature is never dimmed. I found the plot to be quite involving (as well as involved) and I had trouble slowing down my reading to savor the poetry.

A book to be treasured and re-read.

What a wonderful combination of left brain and right brain this book is. It communicates in ways that no novel or poem ever could. No poem could have the emotional drive of this story with these characters - and yet the verse does much to heighten that drive in the most dramatic sequences. No novel could match the satisfying, complexly intelligent structure of this verse - but the sweep of this novel allows for intellectual explorations which - for me at least - no poem could ever support. Actually, I've never been a fan of long poems before, but I found the verse here very accessible - it supports the characters and the story, rather than simply calling attention to itself. I really enjoyed this book.