Customer Reviews:
Desolate Island that Holds a key to the past AND future.......2007-01-04
I've not read many books that have done such a respectable job in bundling the past, with its deadly history, the present, encapsulating research and discoveries, and the portents of the future. Often inhospitable, shifting, and ever dangerous we may be losing a piece of naval navigation lore and beauty to the relentless re-shaping by the ocean's fury and the, seemingly, irreversible onslaught of global warming that will eventually raise the ocean levels enough to shroud an historic place of incomprable beauty, fear, and destruction.
A must read for "The Perfect Storm" crowd, those interested in maritime lore, and everyone who can 'see' the effects of global warming. Enjoy!
A Detailed History.......2006-06-01
This is a fun book! But it is not an adventure story of the like of Robinson Caruso. When one thinks of islands, the most likely image is of a romantic, heroic struggle against, and with nature. Well, some of the narrative is that, but there is much more, perhaps too much. It is a political, social, economic, cultural, geographic and geological history book. If you have a degree in history (as I do) it will probably be more pleasurable reading. Without a background in historical terms and events, it might be confusing at several points.
At times the language roams into the realm of what I will call "fractal minutiae." That is, one wonders if the levels will go as deep as quantum physics, or ever stop. The lineage of families who had political or de facto control over the island at various times, the legitimacy of their claims, and what happened to them and their heirs occupies too much space. This seems unnecessary. There were a couple of chapters I forced myself to get through.
Nevertheless, there is much about the work that is compelling. One is left with a deep feeling of respect for the powers of nature and the island itself, a seemingly living, evolving entity whose fate is in doubt.
Poor execution of an interesting concept.......2006-04-17
Sable Island is undoubtably a fascinating subject, and so it must take an exceptional talent to write such a uniformly dull book about it. I bought this book on a whim hoping it would live up to the mild acclaim paraded on the cover, but I've had to force myself to finish it over the last few days. The previous reviewer is spot-on regarding the topics covered, but he fails to mention that De Villiers managed to leach almost every ounce of interest from them. The only spark of vitality comes from other writers who De Villiers quotes extensively and to his own detriment. The book also lacks any sense of organization and I found myself repeatedly puzzled over how the chapters, not to mention the contents of the chapters, were supposed to be tied together.
Excellent human and natural history of a fascinating island.......2004-12-08
Authors Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle have produced an interesting book on the history of the Canadian island known as Sable Island. One could be forgiven I believe for thinking the place uninteresting and unworthy of a nearly 250 page book, the island described by some as a "desolate and barren and storm-swept sandbank in the North Atlantic." A crescent shaped island, with arms at east and west reaching to the north, the center bulging towards the south, it is the last lonely outpost of land between Canada and Europe (or Bermuda). Located a hundred miles south of Nova Scotia, it is a mere thirty miles long and at its widest less than a mile wide. A treeless place, it is an island of dunes - some bald, most covered in vegetation - and small ponds. Not a particularly high island, on the north beach dunes reach 85 feet in height, but on the south beach they are rarely more than 8 feet high, considerably shorter than some of the waves that occur during the many gales and storms of the region (though waves that rarely reach the island directly - at least at that height - owing to numerous sand bars miles out to sea around the island). What fame the island has is generally not from it scenery; located on major shipping lands, in an area that is frequently prone to storms and fog, and often not very visible far out to sea, the island has been described as the deadliest piece of real estate in Canada, with hundreds of wrecks having taking place in its waters, fully ten wrecks for every mile of coastline. An additional dangerous feature of the island are its spits located out to the east and west (washed over too often for much in the way of vegetation) which extend between four and nine miles out, as well as the submerged east and west bars, which extend out to eighteen miles - though a massive storm can radically change the size of the spits and bars overnight.
The authors spent a great deal of time discussing the geology of the island, introducing many concepts of that science. Sable Island is an island of sand - not rocks, shale, slate, boulders, or really much in the way of soil - as indeed the name Sable is the French word for sand. Geologists have pegged the island's age at around 15,000 years and they believe the island represents a by-product of the glaciers that once covered Canada, that originally Sable Island was the terminal moraine of a glacier's advance (though much of that original sand has since been moved by wind and wave). The island has not been a static one, changing in size and shape numerous times over human history. Many believe that the island will eventually vanish, its sand vanishing into the depths of the Gully, a huge canyon cut in the continental shelf that almost touches the tip of the island's eastern bar, massive in size (largest submarine canyon in the western North Atlantic at 25 miles long, 10 miles wide, and 8,000 feet deep). There is a great deal of debate over whether the island is moving east, moving west, growing, or shrinking, a subject covered a length.
Meteorology and oceanography around the island are very well covered, with much discussion of global currents and wind systems. The island is very windy, with average winds at 16 miles an hour, gales of up 85 miles an hour routine, and winds of over 120 mph recorded during hurricane-strength storms. It is also wet - annual precipitation is 55 inches, mostly rain, monthly averaging between 3.6 and 5.7 inches - and foggy (July routinely boasts upwards of 20 foggy days and one June had 126 straight hours of fog).
Numerous animals call the island home. For decades the island was known for cattle that had been let loose on the island, though they were all harvested by the 1630s. More famous -and still present - are the ponies of Sable, owing their existence to the politics of the Expulsion (or in French the Grand Derangement or Great Upheaval) of the Acadians in the 1750s. The authors go into a great deal of detail on horse genealogy, firmly showing that the horses bear genetic (and historical) relationships to horses from Acadia. At various times rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, and foxes plagued the island though all have since been removed. Native animals include many species of insects (including three endemic moths and a beetle), a unique nematode, an endemic freshwater sponge which lives in the island's numerous ponds, the Ipswich Sparrow (a subspecies of the Savannah sparrow, breeds only on Sable), numerous nesting seabirds (mostly gulls, terns, and sandpipers), and seals (mostly gray and harbor). The walrus once occurred on the island but has been extinct since the mid 17th century though for many decades afterward their tusks were collected from the shifting sands.
Much of the book (I would say over half) dealt with the human history of the island. It was comprehensive, going all the way back to debates over whom first saw and may have landed on the island, whether they were Viking, Basque, or Portuguese. There was much confusion in early maps over where the island was, its exact shape and size, and indeed who owned it. At various times the island was called Fagunda Island, Santa Cruz, and Isola della Rena (rena being Italian for sand) before the name became Sable Island (or Isle de Sable) in 1601. Unfortunately, most of the human history of the island is associated with the numerous shipwrecks, many of them with few if any survivors and at times hundreds of lives were lost, leading eventually to life saving services and lighthouses being set up on the island. Much of this made for exciting reading, with many first person accounts quoted of shipwrecked sailors and those involved in life saving.
An interesting book, I would have liked some pictures though.
Average customer rating:
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Solanaceae Biology and Systematics
William G. D'Arcy
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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ASIN: 0231057806 |
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Hiking Guide to Poland & Ukraine
Tim Burford
Manufacturer: Bradt Travel Guides
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ASIN: 1564405516 |
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- My encyclopedia has more information on Newgrange
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To the Land Where the Sun Might Never Set: The Story of Newgrange
Paul Francis
Manufacturer: Roberts Rinehart Pub
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Customer Reviews:
My encyclopedia has more information on Newgrange.......1998-04-10
This "book" is apparently aimed at the 3-10 year-old age group. It reads as a "Dick & Jane" book. No photos and "illustrated" by a comic-book wanna'- be artist. Fifteen "pages" of "text", 1-3 paragraphs each. An insult to Celtic/Irish heritage. Totally worthless.
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Modern Analytical Ultracentrifugation: Acquisition and Interpretation of Data for Biological and Synthetic Polymer Systems (Emerging Biochemical and Biophysical Techniques)
Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Boston
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High Sulfur Coal Exports: An International Analysis
Manufacturer: Southern Illinois University
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ASIN: 0809311224 |
Book Description
The
papers in this book were generated by the proceedings of the United States Senate Field Hearing and High Sulfur Coal Export Conference held June 8–9, 1981
, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The chairman of the senate committee was Senator Charles Percy of Illinois.
One of the central concerns confronting the held hearing was “Factors Affecting the International Utilization of High Sulfur Coal.” More specifically, the committee addressed itself to “developing international markets and marketing mechanisms for America’s coal, evaluating the domestic potential for American coal production and exports, and Illinois coal’s potential as an emergency fuel in the event of an international energy shortfall.”
Coal experts from American industry, labor officials, state and national government leaders, and dignitaries from Europe and the Far East gathered to discuss this important global issue.
Topics included “Emergency Utilization of Coal”; “High Sulfur Coal Exports: Assessments by Foreign Officials”; “High Sulfur Coal Exports: Production Capacity and Reliability, Extraction, Processing, and Transportation”; “Marketing of High Sulfur Coal: Assessment by National Specialists”; and “Marketing of High Sulfur Coal: Assessment by International Specialists.”
Other discussions included “Production Capability and Reliability for Export of Illinois Coal”; “Special Processing for Export Markets”; “Transportation to Export Markets”; “Export of Technology to Use High Sulfur Coal”; and “Strategies for Developing Export Markets.”
There were also panel discussions moderated by United States Senator Charles Percy, United States Representative Paul Simon, and John Castle, Director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs.
Average customer rating:
- A great reference book
- An interesting book
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Mechanics of Materials and Interfaces: The Disturbed State Concept
Chandrakant S. Desai
Manufacturer: CRC
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ASIN: 084930248X |
Book Description
The disturbed state concept (DSC) is a unified, constitutive modelling approach for engineering materials that allows for elastic, plastic, and creep strains, microcracking and fracturing, stiffening or healing, all within a single, hierarchical framework. Its capabilities go well beyond other available material models yet lead to significant simplifications for practical applications. Until now, however, there has been no resource that fully describes the theory, techniques, and potential of this powerful method. Mechanics of Materials and Interfaces: Disturbed State Concept presents a detailed theoretical treatment of the DSC and shows that it can provide a unified and simplified approach for mathematical characterization of the mechanical response of materials and interfaces. Within this comprehensive treatment, the author: · Compares the DSC with other available models · Identifies the physical meaning of the relevant parameters and presents procedures to determine them from laboratory test data · Validates the DSC models with respect to laboratory tests used to find the parameters and independent tests not used in the calibration · Implements the models in computer procedures · Validates those procedures by comparing predictions with observations from simulated and field boundary value problems · Solves problems from a variety of disciplines, including civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering If you are involved in the mechanics of materials, you owe it to yourself to explore the disturbed state concept. Mechanics of Materials and Interfaces provides the first-and to date, the only-comprehensive means of doing so.
Customer Reviews:
A great reference book.......2001-12-20
I found this book to be an excellent source for engineering students and practitioners. The distinguishing feature of the book is the way in which it introduces reader to complex modelling concepts in an easy to understand manner, covering both ordinary and partial differential equations. The book is rich in practical examples, and useful tables and graphs. Earlier prints suffer from typographical errors that are found to be corrected in the latest print of the book.
An interesting book.......2001-03-09
The book presents the disturbed state concept, or the concept of correction functions, as it applies to the modeling of engineering materials. The book is well written, simple to understand, and full of new ideas.
I take great pride in stating that my thesis under the author, Professor C.S. Desai, at Virginia Tech in 1979 was the beginning of what the author has named "The Disturbed State Concept." The thesis was subsequently published as a book:
"Fundamental Aspects of the Normality Rule and Their Role in Deriving Constitutive Laws of Soils," EP, 1980.
At that time a flier for the book read, "This book which establishes a link between theoretical mechanics and engineering is the only one available of its kind." The same can be said of the book by Professor Desai.
In essence, the Disturbed State Concept (DSC) says that for some materials, well founded equations of theoretical mechanics apply only when a material has attained some characteristic state called the fully adjusted state (FA) by the author. For other states, we must incorporate suitably chosen correction functions in order to model the OBSERVED material behavior. The correction functions attain a value of unity at the the characteristic state.
A typical example of the characteristic state is the critical state attained by a class of geomaterials at some unique combination of stress, strain, and internal structure.
The author asserts that with the help of DSC, we are able to apply some standard concepts of theoretical mechanics, e.g. the Drucker-Prager associative plasticity to a nonstandard material behavior such as nonassociative plasticity.
The beauty of the concept lies in its simplicity -- to an extent that the concept appears childish at times -- yet the concept gives us a powerful tool for making some abstract notions of mechanics work for engineering.
In the beginning chapter on introduction, the author sounds like a professor of Budhists Philosophy. Here is an excerpt.
"For a given material, the fully adjusted state can be described as the critical state at which the material approaches the state of invariant properties......The critical state is like the state Buddhist call NIRVANA, in which all biases, pushes, and pulls, due to KARMIC action (like nonsymmetric forces on materials, say, causing shear stresses), disappear, leading to the equilibrium or isotropic state."
An interesting chapter on DSC has recently appeared in the following book.
"Modeling in Geomechanics," Eds. M. Zaman, G. Gioda and J. Booker, Wiley, 2000.
Book Description
“Bette is a wronged soul; and when her passion does break, it is, as Balzac says, sublime and terrifying,” wrote V. S. Pritchett. A late masterpiece in Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine, Cousin Bette is the story of a Vosges peasant who rebels against her scornful upper-class relatives, skillfully turning their selfish obsessions against them. The novel exemplifies what Henry James described as Balzac’s “huge, all-compassing, all-desiring, all-devouring love of reality.”
Customer Reviews:
Worth Reading But LONGISH!.......2006-08-22
I guess people in the 19th Century had alot of time on their hands to spend reading a long book that goes over the same material again and again.
I read this as a book on tape. The book for me was alittle longish and dull so I doubt I would have been able to read it in its hardcopy form without giving up on it. However, thanks to books on tape, I was able to stick with the book until its end.
Yes, do read the book! Apparently Balzac, poor fellow, was himself a victim to debts and even penury. I read in the bio that he never made much money from his writing. I was sorry to hear that. In this book there are innumerable mentions about the financial plight of his characters----their debts, going into debt, mortgages on houses that can't be paid, borrowing money that can't be repaid, the threat of debtors prison and arrest imminent. So, if you think you have "financial problems" your "problems" will seem miniscule compared with the characters in this book!
Yes, this book is worth reading as long as you are patient and don't get bored too easily. I at first gave it 3 stars but then I felt sorry for Balzac so I raised it up to 4---I suppose a 3.5 would be more a more accurate guage of my opinion about this book. Actually, it is well written. Don't let me dissuade you from giving it a try. You'll find alot in the book to enjoy and you will learn about what life was like in Paris during the first part of the 1800's. The courtesans sounded interesting to me...but don't tell my wife! :o) Email Boland7214@aol.co
Love as a Ponzi Scheme.......2006-05-30
This was Honoré de Balzac's last great novel. Within a few more years, he would be dead of overwork. His last great scheme -- the marriage with the Polish Countess of his dreams -- finally came off, but poor Eveline Hanska had nothing on her hands but a ruined hulk of a man who had given everything for his art and had little left to give her.
COUSIN BETTE is about "love in all the wrong places," to quote a popular country & western song. Baron Hulot d'Ervy is a former Napoleonic officer who now serves as an official in the Ministry of War. But mostly, he serves Cupid. At the start of the novel, his faithful wife Adeline is besieged by a rival philanderer who tries to make a play for her, even as the Baron is getting dumped by his current mistress Josepha -- who was taken away from him by none other than the Célestin Crevel who is currently besieging his wife.
Two very important things occur that set in motion a diabolical scheme for revenge on the part of a poor old-maid cousin living with the Hulots, one Lisbeth Fischer. She has a protegé in a young Polish count named Wenceslas Steinbock who has shown some talent as a sculptor. Lisbeth has him practically caged up in his studio because she believes that (1) he has talent and (2) he might one day come to like her, though she is by far the older of the two. When Hortense, Baron Hulot's daughter, learns of Steinbock's existence, she becomes intrigued and takes some trouble to locate him, throwing a wrench into Lisbeth's plans when they fall in love with each other.
Enter Valerie Marneffe, Balzac's most accomplished villain. A young housewife married to a complaisant older husband, she makes a play for Hulot, who sets her up as his mistress. But Valerie's ambitions in love are truly Napoleonic: she also snares Crevel, Steinbock, and a returning Brazilian ex-lover of hers called Montes de Montejanos. And probably a couple dozen more unnamed co-conspirators. Living in Valerie's house as her housekeeper, advisor, and mother confessor is none other than Lisbeth Fischer.
When Valerie becomes pregnant, the real fun begins. She brazenly tells each lover that he is the father of the child, and each commits a princely sum for an annuity. (As in most Balzac novels, the trail of the money is fascinating to follow.)
The over-leveraged Hulot is the first to fall. Even before meeting up with Mme Marneffe, he was teetering on the edge of bankrupty. he falls so hard that he has to go into hiding, even from his family. Curiously, Adeline actually manages to make a comeback in a small way, though she is apparently in the beginning stages of Parkinson's Disease.
Marneffe's transgressions are now beginning to be talked about in society, and finally they catch up with her. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, but suffice it to say that not even Herod had a worse come-uppance than Valerie and her husband.
And Lisbeth Fischer? She, too, is ultimately foiled: First, her desired beau, Field Marshal Hulot, commits suicide; and second, she herself sickens and dies, but without anyone ever discovering her treachery to the family.
I have read COUSIN BETTE twice now, and it only grows better on re-reading. This is one of the handful of Balzac novels that stands at the pinnacle of literary greatness. The novel's vision of the ruin of great families from indiscriminate womanizing is almost cosmic.
V For Virtue.......2006-03-21
This novel examines the effects of virtue and vice on the involved characters as well as commenting on the temper of the times. Balzac's style can be melodramatic but at his best he is able to put the reader in the scene and reveal the complexities of inter-personal activity. Bette serves a doorway between the upper middle class existence of the Hulot family and the demi-monde of Josepha, Jenny Cadine and Valerie. These two worlds mingle and collide in a Paris which is transiting from Empire to Republic. The structure of the novel can be choppy as Balzac is prone to long dissertations on a variety of subjects, happily, most of which are interesting.There is no moral to this story only a cynical overtone with elements of schadenfreude. There is an appeal to religious sensibilities but it doesn't ring true.I think in later ages Balzac might have developed into a psychologist since he fascinated by the workings of the human mind.
Great to read, actually lots of fun!.......2005-09-17
Balzac is so much fun! He would be great to invite to dinner. Please read this book - you will enjoy it. The other reviews here go on at great length. Don't worry about it - I guarantee you will be taken aback, shocked and dismayed, but very entertained.
I highly recommend this book.
Hilarious.......2005-05-06
Balzac is at his best in this very witty tale about a devious old maid who schemes against her family in nineteenth-century France. It's so much fun to watch the contemptible Bette manipulate everyone around her, and to follow her pathetic and ill-placed obsession for a certain young Polish character who marries her young, beautiful cousin.
Everything fun is in this book-courtesans, lecherous old men, unfaithful young lovers, and of course, the virtuous, who get treated terribly and die abandoned and alone. Wretched Bette dies loved and valued. You will have a lot of fun reading this book and enjoying-and getting disgusted with-all the characters.
Average customer rating:
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Cousin Bette
Honore de Balzac
Manufacturer: Blackstone Audio Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: 0786159138 |
Product Description
Bette, an excruciatingly cunning, poor relation of the beautiful Adeline, nurses a terrible grudge against her cousin's family, on whom she depends. That family is slowly being ruined by the uncontrollable sexual appetites of Adelines husband, Baron Hulot--appetites that will, in time, give Cousin Bette opportunity to exact her vengeance.
One of Balzac's scenes of Parisian life, Cousin Bette is a hypnotic vision of the infinitely varied city during the bright, vital, scandalous, and sexually untrammeled era of King Louis-Philippe. The courtesans, swindlers, bankers, artists, murderers, detectives, and saints that pass before us blaze with an unsurpassed vividness and energy.
One of the most profound examinations of obsessive passion we have, this masterpiece exemplifies what Henry James described as Balzac's huge, all-compassing, all-desiring, all-devouring love of reality.
Average customer rating:
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Cousin Bette
Honore de Balzac
Manufacturer: Blackstone Audio Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM
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Balzac, Honore de
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ASIN: 0786159146 |
Product Description
Bette, an excruciatingly cunning, poor relation of the beautiful Adeline, nurses a terrible grudge against her cousin's family, on whom she depends. That family is slowly being ruined by the uncontrollable sexual appetites of Adelines husband, Baron Hulot--appetites that will, in time, give Cousin Bette opportunity to exact her vengeance.
One of Balzac's scenes of Parisian life, Cousin Bette is a hypnotic vision of the infinitely varied city during the bright, vital, scandalous, and sexually untrammeled era of King Louis-Philippe. The courtesans, swindlers, bankers, artists, murderers, detectives, and saints that pass before us blaze with an unsurpassed vividness and energy.
One of the most profound examinations of obsessive passion we have, this masterpiece exemplifies what Henry James described as Balzac's huge, all-compassing, all-desiring, all-devouring love of reality.
Average customer rating:
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COUSIN BETTE.
Balzac.
Manufacturer: P/B
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8MHGS |
Books:
- Sacred Mushroom Seeker : Tributes to R. Gordon Wasson
- Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert
- Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey
- Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams: Enlarged and Updated Edition
- Simon & Schuster's Guide to Dogs
- Simon & Schuster's Guide to Shells (Nature Guide Series)
- Sound of Mountain Water
- Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture of Natural History Museums
- Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy
- The Compleat Angler: or, The Contemplative Man's Recreation (Modern Library Classics)
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Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather
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