Mitchell, David

Average customer rating:

Wonderful, sensitive and funny
An real English novel
Not Mitchell's Best Work,
Perfectly good Coming of Age Story (circa 1982)
An author who should be winning major awards

Black Swan Green: A Novel
David Mitchell
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0812974018
Release Date: 2007-02-27

Book Description

From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new.
Black Swan tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran Lps, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.
Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date.

From the Hardcover edition.

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David Mitchell is the author of Ghostwritten, Number9Dream, and Cloud Atlas, the last 2 finalists for the Booker Prize. Granta magazine named him one of Britain’s best young novelists in 2003. He lives in County Cork with his wife and daughter.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful, sensitive and funny.......2007-06-04

BLACK SWAN GREEN tells the story of Jason, an undercover poet at the brink of puberty, who is trying to survive school, overcome a stammer and thereby avoid social suicide. While clumsily venturing out into his small town world, life at home also gets more complicated as he struggles but not quite manages to understand what's going on between his parents. Following his escapades and experiences throughout the year, Mitchell writes a very touching story, which never becomes corny or too 'heavy' thanks to the refreshing perspective of a 13-year old. Jason's somewhat skewed view of the world (not to mention girls!) is at times extremely funny. It also reminds us how resilient teenagers can be in the face of the cruelty of other teenage kids. A wonderful book!

An real English novel.......2007-05-27

So many "English" novels pamper to an American audience- not David Mitchell in Black Swan Green. This journey through eyes and mind of a thirteen year boy in the middle of England explores the small village life and the how he moves from kid to teenager. The story highlights English life not only with idioms and slang only heard in the UK but behavior that is exclusive to the English. Any US reader should be fascinated with his language and ability to create a world not seen by many of us. Dissimilar than American novels on coming of age (Cather in Rye/ Ferris Beach/ This Boys Life) in that Mitchell provides details on Jason's English way of life at his age are remarkably and significantly different that what an American boy or girl would observe. We may remember our youth as a boring time...not so for this village and its varied characters that move Jason through age 13 in a month by month awakening. I'd say it's an epic, but nobody says epic any more in the village of Black Swan Green, not in Jason's world anyway...

Not Mitchell's Best Work, .......2007-05-09

I'ts Good, but not as impressive as Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas.

Perfectly good Coming of Age Story (circa 1982).......2007-05-01

The coming-of-age genre is a rich and well-populated genre, and while I'm not sure that Mitchell has added anything to it here, this is a fine example. Set in 1982 in a small Worcestershire town, the story covers just over a year in the life of 12-year old Jason Taylor. This mirrors Mitchell's own age and background, and since Mitchell has said this is the first novel he drafted, one can assume that like many others in the genre, this coming-of-age novel is highly autobiographical.

Jason's trials and tribulations are fairly familiar ones: he has a speech impediment which causes him much mental and social distress. His place on the elaborate pecking order of local adolescent boys is of paramount importance, and the seemingly arbitrary nature of his ascent or descent play a large role in the story. Naturally, girls are a topic of great interest and concern, though not overwhelmingly so. The buildup to the Falklands War and its less-than-glorious outcome feature prominently (Jason inadvertently plays peeping tom on a local lad turned sailor, and it's somewhat disappointing when this leads down the obvious narrative path). His big sister is off to college, and he's blithely unaware of the imminent end of his parent's marriage.

These themes and touchstones will be very familiar to anyone (like me), who read Sue Townsend's "The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole" some 20 years ago. The difference is in the execution -- the Mole books tend to be more comedic and antic, while Mitchell's approach is both more realistic and elliptical. Readers expecting the semi-experimentalism of Mitchell's other works may be disappointed by the relatively straightforward chronological episodic nature of Jason's story. That said, Mitchell does subvert narrative expectations several times by ending a particular story or incident prior to its resolution, and sometimes, but sometimes not alluding to the outcome in subsequent chapters. The reason for this occasionally annoying construction is summed up in the book's final line "That's because it's not the end."

Mitchell's established skills are in evidence, as various characters come alive within mere sentences of being introduced. However, unlike his other work, while the sense of time is very vivid, the sense of place isn't, beyond a kind of generic early-'80s "Home Counties" naivety. There are other nice touches throughout, such as Jason's internal dialogue with aspects of himself ("Hangman" is the evil trickster who brings out his stammer and "Maggot" is the cowardly or fragile part of his self). There's also a nice cameo by a Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, who was a minor character in one portion of Mitchell's amazing earlier work, "Cloud Atlas." All in all, if you like the coming of age genre, this is a perfectly good one from an excellent writer.

An author who should be winning major awards.......2007-04-22

The green, a central park or plaza area in England, named after a black swan, hence the name Black Swan Green. A coming of age tale broken into mini-stories, the first one jumping right in with the style the author is a master of: The language of the time and place, and the unexpected or unfinished ending (that may tie in later on in the book to another story from another veiwpoint). This is an excellent coming of age book. An excellent insight to growing up in rural Britian. An excellent story for interpersonal relationships and family dynamics, no matter where the family lives. And an excellent starting point for reading the author David Mitchell. Although this is his fourth book it is a better starting point as it lays ground work and ,style that becomes more complex in Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten, Number9Dream

Average customer rating:

The Sky's The Limit
Great read for the right person. Has a little of everything.
This book requires an investment on the part of the reader
Power, Time, Gravity, Love.
what's the compelling reason for the tortured timeline?

Cloud Atlas: A Novel
David Mitchell
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0375507256
Release Date: 2004-08-17

Book Description

From David Mitchell, the Booker Prize nominee, award-winning writer and one of the featured authors in Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists 2003” issue, comes his highly anticipated third novel, a work of mind-bending imagination and scope.

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

Customer Reviews:

The Sky's The Limit.......2007-06-20

In his third Novel-in-Stories, "Cloud Atlas," Mitchell proves himself to be a keen manipulator of styles and voices. He gives us six different characters from six different eras (a sea-faring notary in the late 1800s, a bisexual composer working as an amanuensis to an aging composer in Belgium during the early 30s, a hard-boiled investigative reporter from 1975, a British vanity press publisher trapped in a 21st century rest home, a fast food clone from a dystopian, futuristic Korea, and a tribesman scrounging out a meager life on postapocalyptic Hawaii), their voices as ingrossing as they are distinct. In some cases it takes patience and thought to decode the dialogue (the Hawaiian tale is written in an inventive, if not occasionally befuddling, dialect), but it is by all means worth the effort.

Mitchell's gimmick here is that each story is interrupted (sometimes in mid-sentence) by the one that follows it. The only tale that exists uncut is the sixth, which runs to its natural conclusion before passing the baton to the other five endings. The stories could conceivably be read alone and make just as much sense, but there is also plenty of connective tissue that makes each plot relevant to the other.

Mitchell's message here isn't new, and as far as themes go, he isn't blazing any trails. Each tale deals with slavery and imprisonment, racism and prejudices, worlds where the will of the weak fights the stubborn odds of the strong. Mitchell's ideology owes as much to Nietzsche as his craft owes to Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, but his multi-faceted scope, his absolute command of the language and how it is woven into six completely different tapestries, his genius for the employment of words and meanings -- this is all refreshingly new.

If there's anything negative to be said about the book, it's that Mitchell doesn't always trust his own skill. He occasionally employs plot devices (the comet-shaped birthmark) that clunk across the page like cars with square tires. And there are a few too self-referential moments for a writer who's at home in his own narrative skin. In the second story, Robert Frobisher, the composer, is creating "a sextet for overlapping soloists" called "Cloud Atlas," a musical masterpiece that is structured in the same manner as the book. "Revolutionary or gimmicky?" wonders Frobisher in a passage that tries a little too hard to play for audience sympathy.

Given the book's themes, no sympathy is needed. Mitchell juggles the five tales so expertly and dizzyingly that they blur into one colorfully infinite loop. And much like the loop of civilization -- as it rises and falls throughout history, borne up by breezes of bravery, defended by the status quo, brought down by choppy waves of change -- each tale has an ending that is bright but bittersweet. It's not giving anything away to say that each character finds victory in their lives, but these moments are all microcosmic. There's something distinctly fatalistic about the novel, as if the shoulders of the plot are perpetually bowed by the heavy weight of a world of lies, manipulation and oppression. But the six men and women who fight under that weight bring even still the hope of glory and change -- if not universal or lasting, then at least personal, intimate, and moving.

"Cloud Atlas" isn't just personal, intimate, and moving. It's hilarious, dark, demanding, and dynamic. Even if Mitchell's message is as old as the Bible, his unmistakable skill lends new credence to old words. It's a book that lasts longer than its pages, like a sky that's too small for its clouds.

Great read for the right person. Has a little of everything........2007-05-14

I really enjoyed this book. It was intelligent, had some interesting things to say, the approach was very fresh, and one section of it had me laughing outloud, and I continued laughing about it later while I was thinking about it. I think it deserves 4.5 stars, but seeing as I can't give it that many, I will work on the glass half full principle.

This book requires an investment on the part of the reader.......2007-05-02

Cloud atlas really started to remind me of Italio Calvinos 'If on a winters night a traveler' by the time I was about half way through. If you have read Calvino's story and remember its construction I think that you will enjoy seeing how Mitchell has elaborated upon the theme and produced something utterly original. This is one of those books that can be lumped in with a handful of others from each decade and be pronounced a classic of its time. I think reading afficianados will be looking back at this book with more and more affection as time goes on.

One item I kept coming across before reading this book would be the oft stated fact that Mitchell provides the reader with a tour de force mish mash of narrative styles. He does so here like a master of his craft. This is a series of stories that fit nicely together and work with one another, each story is set in a different place and different time and Mitchell gives each of them its own feel and place. He packs so much into each page that you will be washed with a sense of place and character unique to every setting. The stories themselves delve into such different narratives and plots, you will be both confused and captivated.

I would really like to read this book again in a book group setting where you could discuss each story and the unfolding pages with others as they occur. I dont often feel that way, its just that this is such a wonderful book, and so crammed with small details, I really would enjoy seeing how others react to them.

GET THIS BOOK!!!

Power, Time, Gravity, Love........2007-05-01

I just can't see myself giving this book less than 5 stars, even though there are sections of it I found long-winded and overwritten: I'm thinking particularly of the post-apocalyptic Hawaii scenario with the Burgessian patois at the far end of this circle of narratives, before one begins circling back. My favourite narratives were those of Timothy Cavendish and Robert Forbisher. Why? - I enjoy highly literate narratives full of wit.
Those who enjoy the Burgessian patois or screenplay action/adventure narratives will have other favourites. In some respects, reading this book is like holding a mirror up to your own literary likes and dislikes.

I cannot agree with other reviewers that the book is fundamentally Pynchonesque. Pynchon is a parodist, a mere parodist as far as I'm concerned. You don't get much depth out of him, lots of oh so clever verbal pyrotechnics-Yes. But that's about it.

Mitchell here tackles larger themes. Some of the other reviewers have mentioned them: Mankind's self-destructiveness via Nietzschean will to power, the individual versus society, the reliability of narratives in general etc. All quite true and thought-provoking - But the real puzzle of all puzzles this book addresses is the age old question of free will versus determinism, or fatalism seen through the trope of reincarnation, which is rather fun to follow through the different characters. Every narrative has its own take on this question, many offering quite profound meditations on it. Do we really "make choices" or is the phrase just a semantic construct for the firing of neurons in our brain? Are we merely the products, as Scottish philosopher David Hume puts it, of a "concatenation" of events? This is the question the book poses, deeply embedded in each narrative, time and again. The answer: None. While the book, taken as a whole, may seem to lean toward determinism,. the puzzle is unsolved because it's unsolvable....unless one has a Cloud Atlas, and we don't, just a book about one (or several, actually).

As a minor character in the second part of the Luisa Rey Mystery (on the way back around the circle, so to speak) puts it: "Funny, thinks Milton. Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that kick a** are all invisible"

So we're left stymied yet deeply thrilled and satisfied by this wonderful, unique, tour de force of a novel.

what's the compelling reason for the tortured timeline?.......2007-04-15

It seems like all a book or movie has to do in order to be cool is to chop up the linear timeline and reassemble it. Sometimes, yes it has a purpose, (like that movie "Memento") but maybe sometimes it's an excuse for an author who obviously has no problem at all coming up with great prose to make a messy desk look chic.

Great ideas, good science fiction. What's up with the comet birthmark?

Average customer rating:

An excellent textbook
Logistic Regression
Must have
depends on what background you are coming from...
Good for what it is

Logistic Regression (2nd Edition)
David G. Kleinbaum , and Mitchell Klein
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Solutions Manual to Accompany Applied Logistic Regression (2nd Edition; Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics)

ASIN: 0387953973

Book Description

This is the second edition of this text on logistic regression methods. As in the first edition, each chapter contains a presentation of its topic in "lecture-book" format together with objectives, an outline, key formulae, practice exercises, and a test. The "lecture-book" has a sequence of illustrations and formulae in the left column of each page and a script (i.e., text) in the right column. This format allows you to read the script in conjunction with the illustrations and formulae that highlight the main points, formulae, or examples being presented. This second edition includes five new chapters and an appendix. The new chapters are: Chapter 9. Polytomous Logistic Regression Chapter 10. Ordinal Logistic Regression Chapter 11. Logistic Regression for Correlated Data Chapter 12. GEE Examples Chapter 13. Other Approaches for Analysis of Correlated Data Chapters 9 and 10 extend logistic regression to response variables that have more than two categories. Chapters 11-13 extend logistic regression to generalized estimating equations (GEE) and other methods for analyzing correlated response data. The appendix "Computer Programs for Logistic Regression" provides descriptions and examples of computer programs for carrying out the variety of logistic regression procedures described in the main text. The software packages considered are SAS Version 8.0, SPSS Version 10.0 and STATA Version 7.0.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent textbook.......2007-01-09

The textbook "Logistic Regression" is an excellent textbook of this statistical method because it is complete and relatively easy. This method will never be really easy but the Authors present the logistic regression in an comprehensible way introducing progressively new terms. The provide many simple clinical examples.

Logistic Regression.......2006-03-14

Kleinbaum has done it again. His books are so informative and easy to understand. It is worth the money.

Must have.......2005-09-20

Simply the best logistic regression book I've seen. Concepts clearly and succinctly explained and illustrated.
A must-have for all biostatisticians.

depends on what background you are coming from..........2004-09-10

I'm a physician learning about clinical research/biostatistics etc. I found that this book was extremely helpful in guiding me through basic rules, steps and theories on how to build a logistic regression model. The examples where straight forward, even for a person without a strong math background. However, I can also see that this would not be enough for a person set out to be a biostatistician, as this book would seem rather elementary. If you are a person with a so-so background in math and statistics, and are interested in learning to adequately perform statistical analyses with logistic regression, this is the book for you.

Good for what it is.......2004-01-05

This book has a specific goal. It's aim is to give a basic competence in the use of logistic regression, related techniques, and the software that deal with them. This, it does very well. By intent, it leaves many other needs unmet.

The format is 13 chapters, possibly representing the 13 or 14 weeks in a typical school term. Each chapter has a specific statement of teaching goals at the front, a summary outline of the course to date in the back, and a few pages of questions or exercises with answers. There appear to be sample data sets available, formatted for popular stats packages, but I did not figure out how they are made available. Within the main text of each chapter, every page reads like a blackboard lecture: equations on the left and narration on the right. The presentation uses a minimum of math, just a little algebra and exponentials in a few specific forms.

For the aspiring tool-user, this book may be worth a semester's tuition. I can fault it only for an annoying habit of writing out in words equations that appear on the same page ("e raised to the power of the sum of products ... ").

This book is NOT meant for people truly interested in the theory or practice of the exact computations. For example, its use of probability scarely mentions joint or conditional distributions. As a result, some of its formulas (e.g. p.48) come across as rote memorization, instead of natural expressions of the laws of probability. Lacking joint probability, the covariance matrix can not have meaning. It is just something produced, somehow, by an oracular computer program.

The repeated phrase, "according to statisticians ..." makes it very clear that statisticians are a breed distinct from intended audience. What they do is quite alien, but somehow, sometimes leaves the student with formulas to grind through.

Before you buy this book, be very clear about what you expect from it. Beginning students may get a lot from it. Readers already familiar with probability and some stats are likely to be disappointed.

Ghostwritten
Average customer rating:

Read this book (at least twice!) - You won't be disappointed

Lovely fabulist puzzle of a book

what an awsome book

Unfortunately, not as promoted.

A Ghostly Voice Whispering Visions from other Stories

Ghostwritten
David Mitchell
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Number9Dream

Black Swan Green: A Novel

Cloud Atlas: A Novel

Theft

Arthur and George

ASIN: 0375724508
Release Date: 2001-10-09

Amazon.com

"What is real and what is not?" David Mitchell's Ghostwritten: A Novel in Nine Parts plays with precisely this question throughout its elaborately compartmentalized narrative. (That there are 10 chapters in this 9-part invention is just one more aspect of the author's mysterious schema.) With its multitude of voices and globe-girdling locations--Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Petersburg, London--this first novel offers readers a vertiginous, sometimes seductive, display of persona and place.

At the heart of Mitchell's book is the global extension of the postmodern city, and the networks (cultural, technological, phantasmagoric) to which it gives rise. A metropolis like Tokyo is quite literally beyond our comprehension: <blockquote> Twenty million people live and work in Tokyo. It's so big that nobody really knows where it stops. It's long since filled up the plain, and now it's creeping up the mountains to the west and reclaiming land from the bay in the east. The city never stops rewriting itself. In the time one street guide is produced, it's already become out of date. It's a tall city, and a deep one, as well as a spread-out one. </blockquote> At this level, urban sprawl becomes an epistemological condition. On one hand it leads to a Japanese death cult, purging the "unclean" from the city's subway with nerve gas. And on the other, it produces a certain splintering of the human personality. "I'm this person, I'm this person, I'm that person, I'm that person too," chants Neal, the narrator of the book's second part. "No wonder it's all such a ... mess." He's talking about his life as a Hong Kong trader, a "man of departments, compartments, apartments." But he might also be describing the experience of reading Ghostwritten. At once loquacious and knowing, leisurely and frantic, Mitchell offers a huge, but fragmentary, portmanteau. And while he's labored diligently to solder together the many parts--the aching bodies, the reality police, the impossibly complex machinery of contemporary life--his novel, too, may suffer from an excess of split personality. --Vicky Lebeau

Book Description

David Mitchell's electrifying debut novel takes readers on a mesmerizing trek across a world of human experience through a series of ingeniously linked narratives.

Oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their lives intersect, nine characters-a terrorist in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating "noncorpum" entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cum-art-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist in Ireland, and a radio deejay in New York-hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact. Like the book's one non-human narrator, Mitchell latches onto his host characters and invades their lives with parasitic precision, making Ghostwritten a sprawling and brilliant literary relief map of the modern world.

Customer Reviews:

Read this book (at least twice!) - You won't be disappointed.......2007-05-05

Every now and then you chance across a book and it simply blows you away. Frankly I'm in awe of the fact that this was David Mitchell's first novel. The basic structure is a series of stories with their own unique but always compelling voice spread across the world (and to a limited degree, time) but which all link in a way that is sometimes so minimal as to be dismissed as irrelevant except when you have the benefit of the reader's broad perspective. It is that aspect that gives the stories and their linkages this almost mystical feel, a feeling which tends to have a haunting resonant quality for the reader and is strongly suggestive of a greater truth that is being exposed without being described by Mitchell. In some ways you have to wonder if Mitchell's "success" will undermine the value of his art - it's a strange old world out there and to my mind its a reasonable assertion that many who would seek the important qualities of Mitchell's writing refuse to accept that it can be found in anything as mainstream as a book on some best seller list. But here it is. Read it and you will see what I mean.

Lovely fabulist puzzle of a book.......2006-11-10

It's quite a feat: a virtuosic display of technique on the part of the young writer David Mitchell, as he takes individual chapters and tells the various stories in separate "monologues", so that each chapter is in a different style. It's incredibly well-done, and, yes, a bit show-offy, but Mitchell pulls it off, with the end being very moving.

what an awsome book.......2006-08-09

I read cloud atlas first then picked this one up. I really love his work. I am reading his first novel now. I love how some characters show up in all his books.

Unfortunately, not as promoted........2006-07-30

This is the second of Mitchell's books I have read. The first was Number 9 Dream. As in that book, he writes well, cleverly and lyrically, if a little too cleverly -- parts of the book read like writing exercises from a good MFA student, with the result the overall point of the book is neglected. While he is investing so much time in his brilliant turns of phrase, the book is really going nowhere, regrettably, since it had a lot of promise. The convention of the linked stories is hard to justify, and although he does a better job than some authors with it, it never amounts to anything in the end, never arrives at the "shared destiny of astonishing impact" that the book's back cover promises. There is no shared destiny, just an amusing book that doesn't really deliver. I read it specifically to see how he managed to make the structure work, so I was especially disappointed that it did not.

A Ghostly Voice Whispering Visions from other Stories.......2005-12-24

When I started reading this book, I was initially thrown and a bit puzzled by the fact that the chapters appeared to be separate narratives with no relationship to each other. Then slowly, and quite uncannily, a line or reference would trigger a sometimes subtle, sometimes acute memory from a previous chapter.

This kept me reading, and the references kept building in layers. They were often clever, surprising, funny, tender, or shocking. By the end of the book, I could see that what initially appeared fragmented, has an undercurrent cohesiveness that makes this experimental work both intriguing and enjoyable.

The characters are varied and often weird, but never uninteresting. They range from a delusional mass murderer, to an Australian girl reading War and Peace on a train, to a young music store manager with a crush on one of his customers, to and old woman who owns a tea-shack, to a money launderer, to a kind of viral intelligence that invades human minds, to a sentient satellite.

The settings too are wide-ranging (Okinawa, Tokyo, London, Mongolia, St Petersburg), as indicated by the place names that are used for chapter titles. Mitchell freely mixes gritty newsreel realism with elements of magic realism and science fiction.

This is an ambitious but successful novel well worth reading.

Sticky Note Origami: 25 Designs to Make at Your Desk

Average customer rating:

great book
I DISAGREE WITH THE LAST REVIEW
A great disappointment
VERY CLEVER

Sticky Note Origami: 25 Designs to Make at Your Desk
David Mitchell
Manufacturer: Sterling
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1843402270

Book Description

It's clever, it's creative, and most of all, it's fun: super origami made with those stick-it desk notes found on every desk. These projects make work just a little more entertaining.

Everyone has them in the office and even at home: ordinary pads of sticky notes in a range of colors and sizes. With the help of innovative origami expert David Mitchell, they can quickly become attractive paper sculptures. All it takes is a few minutes to finish off something beautiful during an interminable phone call or while waiting for a meeting to begin. Each of the 20 projects-including 3-D animals, posies to put on a message, and geometric designs-feature detailed diagrams and a color photo of the completed piece. And every item was especially created to take advantage of the paper's sticky end. It's the sure-fire antidote to those boring moments on the job.

Customer Reviews:

great book.......2007-03-29

this book is very nice and i like it a lot there are some really cool models in this book like diamonds where if you put the mtogether it lookes like a 3 dimentional shape i like this book a lot i has some really cute models like wizards and cool shapes A great buy for anyone who gets bored at the desk (or school for that matter.)

I DISAGREE WITH THE LAST REVIEW.......2006-12-24

I thought the book was delightful. The directions for each design are extremely clear, which is NOT always the case with origami books. One great design is a sticky note take on a flexagon, which works very well since the paper comes with its own stickiness -- no transparent tape required. The models are relatively easy (till the last few), so this would be a good book for an origami novice. An experienced folder might want to take a look at a copy before purchasing.

A great disappointment.......2006-08-25

The book contains 25 designs. Many of these are pointless tile patterns. Most figures are standard designs - you join 2 post-its to make your starting square paper. A number of designs would require an explanation for a viewer to recognise what they are suppposed to be. When I ordered the book I expected I would end up with lovely little figures across my desk cleverly folded from post-its - there wasn't one figure I would display. Don't bother with this book - there are plenty better - even free stuff off the web is higher standard.

VERY CLEVER.......2006-04-26

You will need sticky notes of course
rectangles 38mm x 51 mm /1,5 x 2 inches
and 76mm x 127mm / 3 x 5 inches
squares 76mm / 3 inches

The models are
3 x 5 inches
and 1,5 x 2 inches
Plane, 3 sheets

3 x 5 inches
Elephants extreme
Flapping bird, two sheets

1,5 x 2 inches
Butterflies
Posy two sheets
My cheating heart by Oliver Zachary
Oblong carp
Shooting stars, four sheets
Octagon ring, eight sheets
Octagon star, eight sheets

3 inches
Shaggy dog
Basket hoop
Fred two, sheets
Alien, two sheets
Merlin by Oliver Zachary, two sheets
Paradox cubes, many sheets
Cairo tessalations, many sheets
Circle of squares, 32 sheets
Spinners, four sheets
Flexatron, four sheets
Simple structures by Tung Ken Lam, three sheets
Roll-up cube, six sheets
Upsilon, six sheets
Spiky ball, 18 sheets
Color-change collapsible cube, eight sheets

Average customer rating:

Mitchell the Adaptive Literary Expert
Not easy, but very well written
Two students review Number9Dream
This is a really good book
Brilliant follow-up to Ghostwritten

Number9Dream
David Mitchell
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0812966929
Release Date: 2003-02-11

Amazon.com

David Mitchell's second novel, Number9Dream, tells the story of Eiji Miyake, a young man negotiating a hypermodern and dangerous Tokyo to meet for the first time his secretive and powerful father. Naïve and fresh from the Japanese countryside, Eiji encounters every obstacle imaginable in his quest, from his father's--and in-laws'--reluctance for the encounter to occur (Eiji is the bastard son) to fiery entanglements with yakuza (the Japanese mafia) to the overwhelming size and anonymity of Tokyo itself.

The novel is cartoonish in that Eiji has a vivid and violent imagination that fills the book with daydreams. When not chain-smoking, forlorn Eiji wanders the city following vague or cryptic leads that invariably dead-end or land him back among yakuza. Mitchell (author of the critically acclaimed Ghostwritten) has a smart, eclectic writing style that seems foreign, and the novel is well paced, but the yakuza encounters are too cinematic, complete with unusual torture and pyrotechnics. Moreover, in addition to Eiji's daydreams, the last half of the book contains excerpts from the diaries of his great uncle's World War II naval heroics and bizarre short stories that Eiji reads while hiding--the latter of which make for tedious reading.

Number9Dream is crafted from too many disparate components; it does not seem to be a full expression, but an overly crowded one. Readers will sympathize with Eiji and his search, but in the end will wonder what effect, if any, all the extraneous forces had on him. The book provides many fun moments, but ultimately it doesn't really add up to the sum of its parts. --Michael Ferch

Book Description

Number9Dream is the international literary sensation from a writer with astonishing range and imaginative energy—an intoxicating ride through Tokyo’s dark underworlds and the even more mysterious landscapes of our collective dreams.

David Mitchell follows his eerily precocious, globe-striding first novel, Ghostwritten, with a work that is in its way even more ambitious. In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister’s death and his mother’s breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses—through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck—a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father’s identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer. Why is the line between the world of his experiences and the world of his dreams so blurry? Why do so many horrible things keep happening to him? What is it about the number 9? To answer these questions, and ultimately to come to terms with his inheritance, Eiji must somehow acquire an insight into the workings of history and fate that would be rare in anyone, much less in a boy from out of town with a price on his head and less than the cost of a Beatles disc to his name.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

Mitchell the Adaptive Literary Expert.......2007-03-19

I've got problems enjoying books which've been translated from their original language. I gave up on Soul Mountain after 20 pages, quit on 100 Years of Solitude with 20 pages to go and barely held out Kafka on the Shore (maybe because I couldn't stand not knowing where the heck Murakami was going towards the end, maybe the translator did an above-par job, maybe I was more patient).

So when someone slams David Mitchell for being a Murakami rip-off, I'm saying, "It's about time an English Murakami came about!" (although this probably just shows how poorly read I am). Number9 Dream is lucid, complex (what do Yakuza members blowing each other up have to do with a Silence-of-the-Lambs-like scene in which a prisoner who claims to be God proves the truth of his identity to his interrogator?), verboise, un/cyber-real (one page the main character is laser-battlin drones, another he's being swallowed by an alligator in a massive city-wide flood), weird(!), philosophical at times (can the meaning of life be both unique to individuals and shifting with said individuals' life-situations?). It doesn't hurt that this book was nominated for the Booker in 2001 (as was Mitchell's Cloud Atlas in 2004).

I think a book like Number9 highlights, for me at least, the importance of being a master of diverse disciplines. There is severe need today for "adaptive experts" (high in both innovation AND efficiency), instead of the common "routine expert" (good at what he does best but hopeless in everything else).

Mitchell is an adaptive expert to the max, his one book demonstrating his casual mastery of multiple genres: fantasy, sci-fi, romance, "magical realism", letter-writing (a'la Blind Assasin), football, computer-hacking, even comedy.

No doubt Mitchell knows reality enough to make it his page on which he writes life to its fullest.

Not easy, but very well written.......2007-03-14

Eiji Miyake comes from a small Japanese island to Tokyo to look for his father, whom he does not know. Via various ways to tries to get his identity and meet him and in the meantime he works on all kinds of odd jobs, from pizzaboy to employee of the railway lost and found office. He lives in a "capsule" above a video store together with a stray cat and a cockroach who are appropriately called Cat and Cockroach. Everywhere he meets people who are trying to help him in one way or another, but also some seriously bad guys. Slowly but surely he gets to know the identity of his father's family and later also of his father. But every story has its price...

It hardly ever takes me 5 weeks to finish a book, but this one did. This does not mean that it is not an interesting book: I found the story amusing, scary and sad at times, and the story about the Japanese kaiten (suicide torpedo's) pilots was interesting, strange and sad at the same time.

Two students review Number9Dream.......2007-03-09

Isaac wrote: Number9Dream is a depiction of the dark side of Tokyo. It isn't the fastest read, but once you pick up the book, there are few things that will make you want to put it down. This is a book about night, crime, deceit and lies. The main character, a likable, kind and easy-to-connect with guy, is awakened to the true reality of Tokyo that most people don't know about and are much better off without knowing. His wild imagination and extreme and unpredictable luck get him into, and eventually out of, horrible situations with the yakuza. His desire to find his father is one which many can sympathize with. To know how far he is willing to go and the extent of trouble he is prepared for, only the book can tell. The result of his search is unsatisfying, but up until the last page, it is wonderful, exciting, comedic, horrific and dreamlike. A must read book if you ever had a dream you thought was so real it had to have happened.

Ryland said: Number9Dream is a conventional bildungsroman told in an unconventional way. David Mitchell writes the life of Eiji Miyake as he makes a 7 week journey, through Tokyo and the underground crime syndicate of the Yakuza, in search of his father, and his place in life. Number9Dream is like no other coming-of-age story you will read. Sometimes illusory, sometimes startlingly graphic and real, most of the time cryptic, and always poignant, Number9Dream will hook you and draw you in compelling you forward right up to the last sentence. Clues and connections when mapped out reveal a brilliantly planned network that shows the greatest attention to detail. Hidden meanings are carefully placed to be found and interpreted by the reader as he or she sees fit and afterwards you will be left either completely contented or desiring more.

This is a really good book.......2006-10-29

I read Cloud Atlas first then after reading that one I had to have all his books...This was such a cool book..I was hooked after the first page.

Brilliant follow-up to Ghostwritten.......2006-10-20

Fantastic, in all senses of the word. As in Ghostwritten, Mitchell's smooth metaphors and unique observations constantly make you stop and think. This novel, like his first, hints at "a world within the world," as Delillo would say, and probably cannot be understood in a single reading. But it can be enjoyed for its touching and powerful story, with or without grasping the eerie subtext. His many allusions to Murakami are a bit more overt than in Ghostwritten -- he even has his lead character reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, with a key reference to a situation in that novel, and he uses the title of a John Lennon song for this book, as Murakami did with Norwegian Wood. Share this with friends. I can't wait for his next one.

Solid-State Fermentation Bioreactors: Fundamentals of Design and Operation

Average customer rating:

Solid-State Fermentation Bioreactors: Fundamentals of Design and Operation

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Biotechnology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 3540312854

Book Description

This concise professional reference provides a fundamental framework for the design and operation of solid-state fermentation bioreactors, enabling researchers currently working at laboratory scale to scale-up their processes. After surveying the main bioreactor types currently used in solid-state fermentation, it focuses on the mathematical modeling of bioreactors, which is covered in three parts. Firstly, the book shows how to plan a research program in order to characterize the growth kinetics in a manner appropriate for incorporation into bioreactor models. Secondly, it addresses the heat and mass transfer phenomena that occur in solid-state fermentation bioreactors and the mathematical expressions that are used to describe them. Thirdly it demonstrates, through a number of case studies, how mathematical models can be used in the optimization of bioreactor performance. The final part of the book addresses several issues closely related with bioreactor operation, namely process monitoring equipment, process control strategies and the selection of an appropriate air preparation system.

The Insider's Arizona Guidebook (Travel Arizona Collection: Arizona Highways)

Average customer rating:

Not so great....
The Insider's Arizona Guidebook(Travel Arizona Collection: Arizona Highways)
Another Masterpiece by Arizona Highways!!!

The Insider's Arizona Guidebook (Travel Arizona Collection: Arizona Highways)
David N. Mitchell
Manufacturer: Arizona Highways Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Insiders | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1932082247

Customer Reviews:

Not so great...........2007-06-09

The information is not presented in a logical order. You will need another resource if you haven't been to Arizona before.

The Insider's Arizona Guidebook(Travel Arizona Collection: Arizona Highways).......2007-05-14

We just moved to Arizona a year ago, and we need a travel guide to give information to various places throughout Arizona.

Another Masterpiece by Arizona Highways!!!.......2007-03-05

If you are going to travel to Arizona, you need this book. It is an Arizona masterpiece. Arizona is loaded with so many unique places to see, that it is hard to see them all. This book help you to see all that you can see in any one particular area of Arizona. The photos in this book are just phenominal. Arizona has it all, and this book does a superb job of showing it to you. It makes you see and feel the places before you go explore them. Even if you think you have done and seen it all, this book will show you something worthwhile that you missed. This book will show you that Arizona is not a desert, it is natures wonderland just waiting for you to explore. If you are planning a trip to Arizona, you will be happy if you purchase this book before your trip. And if you are not planning a trip to Arizona and purchase this book, you will probably be planning a trip soon. Sedona, Grand Canyon, Havasupai Falls, Aravaipa Canyon, Ramsey Canyon, Sabino Canyon, Tombstone, the old Spanish Missions, the Superstition Mpuntains, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Saguaro National Park, Catalina Highway, Kartchner Caverns, Antelope Canyon, Old Route 66, Montezumas Castle, Arizona wine country and many more await you in this book. What are you waiting for, BUY IT!

Oxford Handbook of Clinical Dentistry (Oxford Handbooks)

Average customer rating:

The Best Reference for Dental Students and Dentists

Oxford Handbook of Clinical Dentistry (Oxford Handbooks)
David A. Mitchell , Laura Mitchell , and Paul Brunton
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Turtleback

General | Dentistry | Medicine | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0198529201

Book Description

The new edition of this essential pocket guide covers the whole of clinical dentistry in a concise format. The authors have distilled the key elements of clinical practice into a readily accessible book, with blank pages provided for readers to add their own notes. This edition has been completely updated with a wealth of new information.

Customer Reviews:

The Best Reference for Dental Students and Dentists.......2000-06-09

This book is a great, fast and reliable resource to almost all aspects of clinical dentistry that dental students and dentists will need in their challenged everyday practice. Its simple format and categorization allows you to find what you need in seconds. It is a great book .. you should not miss it.

Average customer rating:

New edition
An excellent book.
Do not use (any more)
Good review of pharmacology

BRS Pharmacology (Board Review Series)
Gary C Rosenfeld , and David S Loose-Mitchell
Manufacturer: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Pharmacology | Medicine | Subjects | Books

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Test Preparation & Review | Education & Training | Medicine | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0683180509

Customer Reviews:

New edition.......2006-09-07

This is a new edition. Disregard the other reviews about the older, outdated edition.

An excellent book........2006-05-18

I was one of the few people in my medical school class that liked this book. I used it as a supplement to my class notes and pharmcards to study for pharmacology. I used it in addition to FirstAid to study for the boards. I found it to be excellent. I like the outline format. I found that it hit upon the pertain side effects and interactions, and I liked the organization. Mechanism of action descriptions were adequate for nearly all questions I was asked. Most in my class used the Lippicontt Illustrated Reviews Pharmacology book. But, they weren't #1 in their class for both Pharm I and Pharm II in medical school. I was. It is a good book. It is a little old now, and is certainly over-due for a new edition. I hope they come out with one. This book presents the facts concisely without a lot of fluff. Give it a shot. And, its cheaper.

Do not use (any more).......2005-12-22

This is a way outdated issue. I am surprised that thery haven't renewed it. It is from 1998, so the data in there are probably from 1996 or 1997. Some things are simply wrong today (such as the use as Phenytoin as major anti-arrhythmic drug). Try to get a current review, not one that is almost 7 years old. Additionally it is a hard read.

Good review of pharmacology.......2000-03-06

I used this text in my pharmacology course in phar. school. It was very helpful in understanding the broad picture. Although little is written in detail, Rosenfeld offers a good summary of such a complex topic.

Authors:

Authors

Authors