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Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter Paperback (01 January, 1999) list price: $22.00 -- our price: $14.96 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Twenty years after it topped the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think. Hofstadter's great achievement in Gödel, Escher, Bach was making abstruse mathematical topics (like undecidability, recursion, and 'strange loops') accessible and remarkably entertaining. Borrowing a page from Lewis Carroll (who might well have been a fan of this book), each chapter presents dialogue between the Tortoise and Achilles, as well as other characters who dramatize concepts discussed later in more detail. Allusions to Bach's music (centering on his Musical Offering) and Escher's continually paradoxical artwork are plentiful here. This more approachable material lets the author delve into serious number theory (concentrating on the ramifications of Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness) while stopping along the way to ponder the work of a host of other mathematicians, artists, and thinkers. The world has moved on since 1979, of course. The book predicted that computers probably won't ever beat humans in chess, though Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. And the vinyl record, which serves for some of Hofstadter's best analogies, is now left to collectors. Sections on recursion and the graphs of certain functions from physics look tantalizing, like the fractals of recent chaos theory. And AI has moved on, of course, with mixed results. Yet Gödel, Escher, Bach remains a remarkable achievement. Its intellectual range and ability to let us visualize difficult mathematical concepts help make it one of this century's best for anyone who's interested in computers and their potential for real intelligence. --Richard Dragan Topics Covered: J.S. Bach, M.C. Escher, Kurt Gödel: biographical information and work, artificial intelligence (AI) history and theories, strange loops and tangled hierarchies, formal and informal systems, number theory, form in mathematics, figure and ground, consistency, completeness, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, recursive structures, theories of meaning, propositional calculus, typographical number theory, Zen and mathematics, levels of description and computers; theory of mind: neurons, minds and thoughts; undecidability; self-reference and self-representation; Turing test for machine intelligence. ... Read more Isbn: 0465026567 |
$14.96 |
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Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder Mass Market Paperback (01 March, 1996) list price: $7.99 -- our price: $7.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Wanting to understand the most fundamental questions of theuniverse isn'ttheprovince of ivory-tower intellectuals alone, as this book's enormous popularity has demonstrated.A young girl, Sophie, becomes embroiled in adiscussion of philosophy with a faceless correspondent.At the same time, she must unravel a mystery involving another young girl, Hilde, by using everything she's learning.The truth is far more complicated than shecould ever have imagined. ... Read more Isbn: 0425152251 |
$7.99 |
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Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk Paperback (15 October, 1999) list price: $13.00 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review The only person who gets called Ballardesque more often than Chuck Palahniuk is, well... J.G. Ballard.So, does Portland, Oregon's "torchbearer for the nihilistic generation" deserve that kind of treatment? Yes and no. There is a resemblance between Fight Club and works such as Crash and Cocaine Nights in that both see the innocuous mundanities of everyday life as nothing more than the severely loosened cap on a seething underworld cauldron of unchecked impulse and social atrocity. Welcome to the present-day U.S. of A.As Ballard's characters get their jollies from staging automobile accidents, Palahniuk's yuppies unwind from a day at the office by organizing bloodsport rings and selling soap to fund anarchist overthrows. Let's just say that neither of these guys are going to be called in to do a Full House script rewrite any time soon. But while the ingredients are the same, Ballard and Palahniuk bake at completely different temperatures.Unlike his British counterpart, who tends to cast his American protagonists in a chilly light, holding them close enough to dissect but far enough away to eliminate any possibility of kinship, Palahniuk isn't happy unless he's first-person front and center, completely entangled in the whole sordid mess.An intensely psychological novel that never runs the risk of becoming clinical, Fight Club is about both the dangers of loyalty and the dreaded weight of leadership, the desire to band together and the compulsion to head for the hills. In short, it's about the pride and horror of being an American, rendered in lethally swift prose. Fight Club's protagonist might occasionally become foggy about who he truly is (you'll see what I mean), but one thing is for certain: you're not likely to forget the book's author.Never mind Ballardesque. Palahniukian here we come! --Bob Michaels ... Read more Isbn: 0805062971 |
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The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene Paperback (29 February, 2000) list price: $15.95 -- our price: $10.85 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review There is an ill-concealed skeleton in the closet of physics: "As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right." Each is exceedingly accurate in its field: general relativity explains the behavior of the universe at large scales, while quantum mechanics describes the behavior of subatomic particles. Yet the theories collide horribly under extreme conditions such as black holes or times close to the big bang. Brian Greene, a specialist in quantum field theory, believes that the two pillars of physics can be reconciled in superstring theory, a theory of everything. Superstring theory has been called "a part of 21st-century physics that fell by chance into the 20th century." In other words, it isn't all worked out yet. Despite the uncertainties--"string theorists work to find approximate solutions to approximate equations"--Greene gives a tour of string theory solid enough to satisfy the scientifically literate. Though Ed Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study is in many ways the human hero of The Elegant Universe, it is not a human-side-of-physics story. Greene's focus throughout is the science, and he gives the nonspecialist at least an illusion of understanding--or the sense of knowing what it is that you don't know. And that is traditionally the first step on the road to knowledge. --Mary Ellen Curtin ... Read more Isbn: 0375708111 |
$10.85 |
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Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by JAMES GLEICK Paperback (05 September, 2000) list price: $14.00 -- our price: $11.20 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Never in the history of the human race have so many had so much to do in so little time. That, anyway, is the impression most of us have of civilized life at the end of the millennium, and Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything only sharpens it. Elegantly composed and insightfully researched, Faster delivers a brisk volley of observations on how microchips, media, and economics, among other things, have accelerated the pace of everyday experience over the course of the manic 20th century. Author of the pop-science triumph, Chaos, James Gleick brings his formidable writing skills to bear here, creating an almost poetic flow of ideas from what in other hands might have been just a mass of interesting facts and anecdotes. Whether tracing the modern history of chronometry (from Louis-François Cartier's invention of the wristwatch to the staggeringly precise atomic clocks of today's standards bureaus) or revealing the ways the camera has sped up our subjective sense of pace (from the freeze frames of Eadweard Muybridge's early photographic experiments to the jump cuts of MTV's latest videos), Gleick manages to weave in slyly perceptive or occasionally profound points about our increasingly hopped-up relationship to time. The result is the kind of thing only an accelerated culture like ours could have come up with: an instant classic. --Julian Dibbell ... Read more Isbn: 067977548X |
$11.20 |
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It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by LanceArmstrong, SallyJenkins Paperback (04 September, 2001) list price: $14.00 -- our price: $11.20 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review People around the world have found inspiration in the story of Lance Armstrong--a world-class athlete nearly struck down by cancer, only to recover and win the Tour de France, the multiday bicycle race famous for its grueling intensity. Armstrong is a thoroughgoing Texan jock, and the changes brought to his life by his illness are startling and powerful, but he's just not interested in wearing a hero suit. While his vocabulary is a bit on the he-man side (highest compliment to his wife: "she's a stud"), his actions will melt the most hard-bitten souls: a cancer foundation and benefit bike ride, his astonishing commitment to training that got him past countless hurdles, loyalty to the people and corporations that never gave up on him. There's serious medical detail here, which may not be for the faint of heart; from chemo to surgical procedures to his wife's in vitro fertilization, you won't be spared a single x-ray, IV drip, or unfortunate side effect. Athletes and coaches everywhere will benefit from the same extraordinary detail provided about his training sessions--every aching tendon, every rainy afternoon, and every small triumph during his long recovery is here in living color. It's Not About the Bike is the perfect title for this book about life, death, illness, family, setbacks, and triumphs, but not especially about the bike. --Jill Lightner ... Read more Isbn: 0425179613 |
$11.20 |
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J.R.R. Tolkien Boxed Set (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) by J.R.R. Tolkien Paperback (01 January, 2001) list price: $29.96 -- our price: $19.77 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Hobbits and wizards and Sauron--oh, my! Mild-mannered Oxford scholar John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had little inkling when he published The Hobbit; Or, There and Back Again in 1937 that, once hobbits were unleashed upon the world, there would be no turning back. Hobbits are, of course, small, furry creatures who love nothing better than a leisurely life quite free from adventure. But in that first novel and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo and their elfish friends get swept up into a mighty conflict with the dragon Smaug, the dark lord Sauron (who owes much to proud Satan in Paradise Lost), the monstrous Gollum, the Cracks of Doom, and the awful power of the magical Ring.The four books' characters--good and evil--are recognizably human, and the realism is deepened by the magnificent detail of the vast parallel world Tolkien devised, inspired partly by his influential Anglo-Saxon scholarship and his Christian beliefs. (He disapproved of the relative sparseness of detail in the comparable allegorical fantasy his friend C.S. Lewis dreamed up in The Chronicles of Narnia, though he knew Lewis had spun a page-turning yarn.) It has been estimated that one-tenth of all paperbacks sold can trace their ancestry to J.R.R. Tolkien. But even if we had never gotten Robert Jordan's The Path of Daggers and the whole fantasy genre Tolkien inadvertently created by bringing the hobbits so richly to life, Tolkien's epic about the Ring would have left our world enhanced by enchantment. --Tim Appelo ... Read more Features Isbn: 0345340426 |
$19.77 |
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Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life by Spencer Johnson, Kenneth H. Blanchard Hardcover (01 September, 1998) list price: $19.95 -- our price: $12.03 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their lives. Who Moved My Cheese? is a parable that takes place in a maze. Four beings live in that maze: Sniff and Scurry are mice--nonanalytical and nonjudgmental, they just want cheese and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Hem and Haw are "littlepeople," mouse-size humans who have an entirely different relationship with cheese. It's not just sustenance to them; it's their self-image. Their lives and belief systems are built around the cheese they've found. Most of us reading the story will see the cheese as something related to our livelihoods--our jobs, our career paths, the industries we work in--although it can stand for anything, from health to relationships. The point of the story is that we have to be alert to changes in the cheese, and be prepared to go running off in search of new sources of cheese when the cheese we have runs out. Dr. Johnson, coauthor ofThe One Minute Manager and many other books, presents this parable to business, church groups, schools, military organizations--anyplace where you find people who may fear or resist change. And although more analytical and skeptical readers may find the tale a little too simplistic, its beauty is that it sums up all natural history in just 94 pages: Things change. They always have changed and always will change. And while there's no single way to deal with change, the consequence of pretending change won't happen is always the same: The cheese runs out. --Lou Schuler ... Read more Isbn: 0399144463 |
$12.03 |
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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gregory Rabassa Paperback (01 November, 1998) list price: $14.00 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, ColonelAureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his fathertook him to discover ice." It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will bemany pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before thehero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before thefiring squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struckwith insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics: A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room,went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along theStreet of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left,made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door,crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, wenton to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-roomtable, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seenunder Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to AurelianoJosé, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, whereÚrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread. The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village foundedby José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants allsporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano,and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and JoséArcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful ofRemedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air.If it is possible for a novel to be highly comicand deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years ofSolitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreamsshatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, withsorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez'smagical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whomJosé Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man'sshade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with whichto clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "thenext time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what hewas looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about thehouse." With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel GarcíaMárquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated intomore than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss inMacondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber ... Read more Isbn: 0060929790 |
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The Stranger by Albert Camus Paperback (13 March, 1989) list price: $9.95 -- our price: $8.95 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review The Stranger is not merely one of the most widely readnovels of the 20th century, but one of the books likely to outlive it. Written in 1946, Camus's compelling and troubling tale of a disaffected, apparently amoral young man has earned a durable popularity (and remains a staple of U.S. high school literature courses) in part because it reveals so vividly the anxieties of its time. Alienation, the fear of anonymity, spiritual doubt--all could have been given a purely modern inflection in the hands of a lesser talent than Camus, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and was noted for his existentialist aesthetic. The remarkable trick of The Stranger, however, is that it's not mired in period philosophy. The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so muchthe arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficientcharacter. The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing ofincidental trivialities--that Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his ownmother's death and then attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable. Meursault remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate,clinical, disengaged from his own emotions. "She wanted to know if I loved her," he says of his girlfriend. "I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." There's a latent ominousness in such observations, a sense that devotion is nothing more than self-delusion. It's undoubtedly true that Meursault exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with "the gentle indifference of the world" remains as compelling as it was when Camus first recounted it. --Ben Guterson ... Read more Isbn: 0679720200 |
$8.95 |
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The Metamorphosis (Bantam Classics) by FRANZ KAFKA Average Customer Review:  Mass Market Paperback (01 February, 1972) list price: $5.95 -- our price: $5.95 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (140)
Isbn: 0553213695 |
$5.95 |
Good story, too much analysis
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Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind : Perfect Collection Boxed Set (Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind) by Hayao Miyazaki Average Customer Review:  Paperback (01 January, 2001) list price: $69.95 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Hayao Miyazaki is probably best known in the West for his films; My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service are celebrated for their lavish animation and sophisticated treatment of their young heroes. But among his many fans in Japan, his epic manga tale, Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, which Miyazaki later made into a animated movie, is often cited as his greatest work. Indeed, the Comics Journal once described the first volume as "the best graphic novel ever." Many critics favorably compare the story to such fantasy classics as C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia or J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In Nausicaä, as in most of his work, Miyazaki centers his narrative on a strong young woman who struggles to create peace in a world torn by war. Readers of Homer's The Odyssey will recall that Nausicaä is the name of the Phoenician princess who healed Odysseus when he washed up on her shores. Miyazaki took that character as the inspiration for his Princess Nausicaä, but their worlds could not be further apart. Underscoring the book's deep ecological messages, Miyazaki's Nausicaä is a passionate defender of the natural world, and her ability to commune with the creatures of the forest appears almost magical. As a princess, she is testing the waters of leadership as her father languishes on his deathbed. As a citizen of the Valley of Wind, she has mastered reading the shifting wind currents and air pockets as she navigates the skies in her glider. Readers learn at the beginning of her tale that the Earth has become a hostile place. Environmental crises have made the forest--known as the Sea of Corruption--into a kingdom of spores and giant insects called Ohmu. The remaining humans huddle in the valleys and sheltered cities while holding on to the remnants of technologies long-since rendered mysterious. Now, the Imperial family has begun a massive campaign to extend its hold on the remaining pockets of civilization. However, intrigue between the reigning Princess Kushana and her brothers suddenly place Nausicaä and her people at the center of a civil conflict that could extinguish the last people on earth. With the grandeur of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and the grace of Miyazaki's Totoro, Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind is a classic of fantasy literature and one of the finest works ever in the comics medium. --Patrick O'Kelley ... Read more Reviews (112)
As you know, Naushika's story don't finish to the movie. The truth story start from reading this comic. Even if Japanase read them, the story is a little difficult, but there are more wondeful things than the minus point. And in addition to the wonderful drawing,the expression of the character's face is very excellent, for instance joy, sarrow, longing, anger... Mr. Miyazaki can write their expressions very well. There are writers that can write comics very well in the world, but there will not are writers that can write their expressions of face very well. If there are people that was moved when watched the movie, absolutely we recommend this comis..art series. You will not waste your money by buying this arts series. I am sorry for my poor English. ... Read more Isbn: 1569313482 |
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The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility: The Ideas Behind the World's Slowest Computer by Stewart Brand Average Customer Review:  Paperback (01 April, 2000) list price: $14.00 -- our price: $11.20 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (16)
Wrong, wrong, wrong (I was).Now, three years late but better late than never, on the recommendation of a very dear person I have read this book in detail and I find it to be one of the most extraordinary books--easily in the top ten of the 300+ books I have reviewed on Amazon. At it's heart, this book, which reflects the cummulative commitment of not only the author but some other brilliant avant guarde mind including Danny Hillis, Kevin Kelly (WIRED, Out of Control, the Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization), Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor (Lotus, Electronic Frontier Foundation) and a few others, is about reframing the way people--the entire population of the Earth--think, moving them from the big now toward the Long Here, taking responsibility for acting as it every behavior will impact on the 10,000 year long timeframe. This book is in the best traditions of our native American forebears (as well as other cultures with a long view), always promoting a feedback-decision loop that carefully considered the impact on the "seventh generation."That's 235 years or so, or more. The author has done a superb job of drawing on the thinking of others (e.g. Freeman Dyson, Esther's father) in considering the deep deep implications for mankind of thinking in time (a title popularized, brilliantly, by Ernest May and Richard Neustadt of Harvard), while adding his own integrative and expanding ideas. He joints Lee Kuan Yew, brilliant and decades-long grand-father of Asian prosperity and cohesiveness, in focusing on culture and the long-term importance of culture as the glue for patience and sound long-term decision-making.His focus on the key principles of longevity, maintainability, transparency, evolvability, and scalability harken back to his early days as the editor of the Whole Earth Review (and Catalog) and one comes away from this book feeling that Stewart Brand is indeed the "first pilot" of Spaceship Earth. It is not possible and would be inappropriate to try to summarize all the brilliant insights in this work.From the ideas of others to his own, from the "Responsibility Record" to using history as a foundation for dealing with rapid change, to the ideas for a millenium library to the experienced comments on how to use scenarios to reach consensus among conflicted parties as to mutual interests in the longer-term future, this is--the word cannot be overused in this case--an extraordinary book from an extraordinary mind. This book is essential reading for every citizen-voter-taxpayer, and ends with an idea for holding politicians accountable for the impact of their decisions on the future.First class, world class.This is the book that sets the stage for the history of the future.
The idea of 'deep' or 'geological time' is hardly new, but arguing that a 10,000 year view of history is beneficial is simply fatuous.Brand somehow manages to miss the obvious First Nations concept of stewarding land for future generations rather than owning it, and the Inuit concept of making decisions based on what's best for the seventh generation to follow.And by doing so he misses the larger lesson contained therein - that such long views are always eclipsed and subsumed by more powerful, shorter views with more immediate returns. Brand is also hampered by recurring (and surprising) technical errors - a supposed 15-year lifespan for optical media, a four-digit date for computer dating, sufficient digital storage for all the information in the world(!), etc.His "Long Now Foundation" -- a dodge for attracting short now investors -- envisions a huge mechanical clock built into a mountain somewhere, which completely ignores the lessons of long history that he claims to revere.We still have a few 10,000 year clocks that our predecessors left us, but having lost the owner's manuals, Stonehenge and the pyramids at Cheops have become all but useless. Documentation is everything - and documentation is ephemeral.That's why his proposal for a 10,000 year library brought guffaws - daily newspapers?Books on computer programming?How long does he think 10,000 years is?I was reminded of Rudy Rucker's "Saucer Wisdom" which imagines itself (with a good deal more humor) still popular in the year 4004 - and that's less than halfway there!!!Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is much more mind-boggling, and he had the good taste to look forward only100 years. John Lennon as usual summed up everything pertinent when he said, "Life is what happens to you when you're making other plans."
These days time seems to be getting ever shorter, our subjective "now" shrinking from generations to years or less. People need to think on the longer term, for the sake of earth and civilization. Brand broods on how to accomplish this with a series of short, themed articles addressing everything from a visit to Big Ben to a commentary on how the digital age has made things more impermanent rather than less. (Want to try to run a Commodore 64 program? Well, you might almost as well forget it.) He provides a list of levels of paces, from fashion (the quickest) through commerce, infrastructure, governance, culture, and (the slowest) nature. He points out the twentieth century phenomenon of organizations and movements devoted to historical preservation, both a luxury that earlier ages would have found it hard to afford and perhaps a need to be filled in our fast-paced age. A fascinating and thought-provoking read. ... Read more Isbn: 0465007805 |
$11.20 |
Facile Yet Ultimately Specious
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Fermat's Enigma : The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem by SIMON SINGH, JOHN LYNCH Average Customer Review: Paperback (08 September, 1998) list price: $12.95 -- our price: $10.36 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review When Andrew Wiles of Princeton University announced a solution of Fermat's last theorem in 1993, it electrified the world of mathematics. After a flaw was discovered in the proof, Wiles had to work for another year--he had already labored in solitude for seven years--to establish that he had solved the 350-year-old problem. Simon Singh's book is a lively, comprehensible explanation of Wiles's work and of the star-, trauma-, and wacko-studded history of Fermat's last theorem. Fermat's Enigma contains some problems that offer a taste of the math, but it also includes limericks to give a feeling for the goofy side of mathematicians. ... Read more Reviews (216)
Isbn: 0385493622 |
$10.36 |
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Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain Average Customer Review: Paperback (08 May, 2001) list price: $14.00 -- our price: $11.20 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn ... Read more Reviews (416)
Isbn: 0060934913 |
$11.20 |
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Siddhartha by HERMANN HESSE Average Customer Review: Mass Market Paperback (01 December, 1981) list price: $5.99 -- our price: $5.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to theriver. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, likethousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons.But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born theson of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, andcharisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising futurefor the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then alife of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until hewas just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. LikeHermann Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has agood dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphanychallenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither apractitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes toblend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending thereader's ear down to hear answers from the river. In this translation SherabChodzin Kohn captures the slow, spare lyricism of Siddhartha's search, puttingher version on par with Hilda Rosner's standard edition. --Brian Bruya ... Read more Reviews (360)
Isbn: 0553208845 |
$5.99 |
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A Shortcut Through Time : The Path to the Quantum Computer by GEORGE JOHNSON Average Customer Review: Hardcover (18 February, 2003) list price: $24.00 -- our price: $16.32 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (12)
Isbn: 0375411933 |
$16.32 |
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The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number by MARIO LIVIO Average Customer Review: Hardcover (29 October, 2002) list price: $24.95 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (52)
Isbn: 0767908155 |
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Terrible!!!!
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The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown Average Customer Review:  Hardcover (18 March, 2003) list price: $24.95 -- our price: $14.97 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history. A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself. Brown (Angels and Demons) has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. --Jeremy Pugh ... Read more Reviews (3049)
Isbn: 0385504209 |
$14.97 |
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Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King Average Customer Review: Hardcover (01 January, 2003) list price: $28.00 -- our price: $17.64 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Almost 500 years after Michelangelo Buonarroti frescoed the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the site still attracts throngs of visitors and is considered one of the artistic masterpieces of the world. Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling unveils the story behind the art's making, a story rife with all the drama of a modern-day soap opera. The temperament of the day was dictated by the politics of the papal court, a corrupt and powerful office steeped in controversy; Pope Julius II even had a nickname, "Il Papa Terrible," to prove it. Along with his violent outbursts and warmongering, Pope Julius II took upon himself to restore the Sistine Chapel and pretty much intimidated Michelangelo into painting the ceiling even though the artist considered himself primarily a sculptor and was particularly unfamiliar with the temperamental art of fresco. Along with technical difficulties, personality conflicts, and money troubles, Michelangelo was plagued by health problems and competition in the form of the dashing and talented young painter Raphael. Author Ross King offers an in-depth analysis of the complex historical background that led to the magnificence that is the Sistine Chapel ceiling along with detailed discussion of some of the ceiling’s panels. King provides fabulous tidbits of information and weaves together a fascinating historical tale. --J.P. Cohen ... Read more Reviews (60)
Isbn: 0802713955 |
$17.64 |
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