Galapagos Wildlife: A Visitor's GUide

Customer Reviews:

Excellent text and photos in this brief book.......2007-07-11

I agree with the previous reviewers: I carried this book to the Galapagos and found it a super companion. It isn't comprehensive -- and a few additional pages of IDs and photos might be desirable -- but it covers all of the essential natural-history topics: geology/volcanoes, history, fish, birds, mammals, turtles & iguanas, geography and so on -- and the photos and text are excellent. Indeed, the text is what sets it apart; there are short, interesting discussions of many of the features that are exceptional to the islands, so without any deep study you come away with some appreciation of what you have seen. Finally, in addition to the good chapters mentioned by other reviewers, there is an excellent chapter for planning your trip, which details what you will see where. It is amazing that so much good stuff was fit into this thin book. Take it with a more comprehensive treatment if you want the name of everything you see (or ask your guide).

Galapagos Wildlife, 2nd:A Visitor's Guide.......2007-03-27

Small enough to bring with me, but comprehensive enough to be helpful giving a good overview of the habitat and wildlife of the Galapagos. Pictures good as are descriptions of the islands and conservation.

Good to superficial guide, depending on your interests.......2002-12-05

Having visited the Galápagos and planning my return, I can say this introductory booklet (140 pages) is a reliable for people who want an overall idea of the ecology and want to identify some of the most prominent wildlife they are likely to encounter - it is easy to understand, has good information, decent photos of the main players and illustations of the commonest landing sites. For you, this booklet rates three stars for clarity, comprehension level and lightness in your backpack, but it fails next to Andy Swash and Rob Still's more comprehensive and better illustrated "Birds, Mammals and Reptiles of the Galápagos Island".

For those who want a more in depth knowledge of the Galápagos and their wildlife, or are traveling to some of the more remote sites or the northernmost islands: you will feel short-changed and wish you had purchased more comprehensive guide(s), so you can identify all the critters you will possibly observe and learn much more about their habitats and behaviors, climate and cvlimate zones, etc. For those travelers (birders, nature buffs, divers, etc.), this booklet rates a generous three stars for its relatively topical treatments.

Choose your guidebooks according to your interests and skills. And go there, walk softly and leave nothing. Visiting should have as little impact as possible, and in my opinion when done properly does help protect these wonderful islands of biological diversity from rampant pirate fishing, oil spills and short-sighted political stewardship. Our "tangibilitized" interest is the only one the Ecuadorian government- at least up until now- has responded to.

Galapagos Wildlife.......2001-12-06

I just came back from the Galapagos and found David Horwell's book indispensable. It is a very readable and concise introduction to the flora and fauna of the Galapagos islands. Beautiful photographs. Very informative. Easy to carry around and refer to. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the Galapagos islands.

Travel size Galapagos.......2000-01-18

This relatively small book on the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands is packed with information and pictures. The author has gone to a great deal of trouble to condense a vast amount of data into a handbook for the traveller, without sacrificing essential information, clarity or accuracy. Not only does it cover the wildlife that the visitor is most likely to encounter, it also gives a succinct history of the islands. Working in the Galapagos Travel Industry, and having considered many similar books for pre-trip briefing and ready reference while in the islands, this is the book I would recommend.

Book Description

Structure of Crystals describes the ideal and real atomic structure of crystals as well as the electronic structures. The fundamentals of chemical bonding between atoms are given, and the geometric representations in the theory of crystal structure and crystal chemistry, as well as the lattice energy, are considered. The important classes of crystal structures in inorganic compounds as well as the structures of polymers, liquid crystals, biological crystals, and macromolecules are treated. This edition is complemented with recent data on many types of crystal structures - e.g., the structure of fullerenes, high-temperature superconductors, minerals, and liquid crystals.

Book Description

Life Cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for environmental decision-support in relation to products from the cradle to the grave. Until now, more emphasis has been put on the inclusion quantitative models and databases and on the design of guidebooks for applying LCA than on the integrative aspect of combining these models and data. This is a remarkable thing, since LCA in practice deals with thousands of quantitative data items that have to be combined in the correct manner. For this, one needs mathematical rules and algorithmic principles for carrying out an LCA.
This book presents the first coherent treatment of the mathematical and algorithmic aspects of LCA. These computational aspects are presented in matrix form, so that a concise and elegant formulation is achieved. This form, moreover, provides a platform for further extension of analysis using perturbation theory, structural theory and economic input-output analysis.

Book Description

The Mysterious Stranger is set in late 1500's Austria. Twain became bitter and anti-religious in his later years, and this book reflects that trend. Thru various characters in the story, Twain offers up his opinions about the reason for life, deity, life after death, religious hypocrisy, etc.

The other stories in this book are much more light hearted and reflect the more typical writings of the humorist, Twain.

Customer Reviews:

subversive & thrilling.......2007-06-28

Provocative and subversive, if you've ever had issues with Christian theology, you will certainly be drawn to this novella. At the end of the story, the character Satan manages to sum up, in one paragraph, with biting eloquence, some of the most serious theological problems with Christianity. It is the sort of passage that you read and then immediately bang your head against the wall because it's exactly what you always wanted to say and you wish YOU had been the one to write it down:

"Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane -- like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell -- mouths mercy and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!..."

Mysterious Stranger.......2007-01-18

I would only recommend this book, if you're willing to a long, short story, but other than that it's not too bad. After all, it does have some really intriguing themes. A few boys are living happy sheltered lives in a remote Austrian village named Eseldorf, and one day, a handsome young man named Satan appears, and does several magical feats. Satan begins to share his ability to foresee the future to inform the group of unfortunate events that will soon befall those they care about. Satan proceeds to inform them of each new tragedy that will befall their friends. The boys beg Satan to intercede, which he does but always from a cynical, technical definition of mercy.
The point of view might be slightly skewed, because it is narrated by one of the boys in a first-person narrative. The story isn't too bad but, its extremely long.

The Mysterious Stranger is Essential Today.......2002-03-24

I have taught this book at the college level for a few years now; it definitely sheds Twain's unfortunate Americana image, and it reveals the darker genius of this "beloved" author. Twain's greatest work, The Mysterious Stranger will enrage fundamentalist Christians, several of whom have dropped my course because of this novella. Asking people to think about what is real, what is behind existence, though, is no crime and should be inoffensive. Young people who are harmed by systematic thinking will react to this book like people being deprogrammed from a cult: they will hate it. But Twain, who was in anguish when he wrote this, had the honesty to ask difficult questions. Read The Mysterious Stranger as a guide to Twain's futuristic thinking, his tribute to the mind above all other things.

Three supreme masterpieces, one ornery let-down........2001-08-02

this volume spans the length of Mark Twain's career, and contains some of his most famous shorter works, which all centre on the subject of Money. 'The Celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County' is the most perfect tall tale in the English language, three flawless pages about Jim Smiley and the bizarre sidelines he would investigate to win a bet, any bet, written in a miraculous mid-19th century California vernacular. If that isn't enough, Twain tops it with the best closing paragraph of any work I have ever read ever.

'The $1,000,000 Bank note' is almost surreal, or Marxist, the story of a derelict made an unwitting guinea pig by two elderly millionaires, curious to see what would happen to an honest but poor man in the possession of such an impractible note. The frightening fetishistic power of currency structures a somewhat creepily benevolent narrative, and the opening paragraphs audaciously cram a novel's worth of misfortune.

'The Man who corrupted Hadleyburg' is the masterpiece here, at once an unforgiving morality tale about the temptation of money on an incorruptible town, and a satire on the crippling effect of bogus social respectability. Twain's irony is at its most relentless here, mixing anger at elite hypocrisy with distaste for the savage mob mentality. The scenes of public justice are hilarious but terrifying; the unnamed man taking monstrous revenge on a whole town for a personal slight, exposing its shams by an experiment, could well be Twain himself.

The same could be said of the hero of his novella 'The Mysterious Stranger', Twain's last, posthumously published work. In this, an angel, Satan, nephew of his infernal namesake, comes to a late 16th century Austrian mountain village and systematically exposes the murderous herd instincts, moral deceptions and shabby pretensions of the human condition. Everything - war, religion, society, justice, family, human aspiration, childhood innocence - is ground down with misanthropic, sub-Swiftian satire.

'Stranger' is not an easy book to like. As an historical novel, it is an utter failure, with no attempt to understand the mindset, never mind the language, idiom or customs of an alien culture. As an allegory for the contemporary America in which Twain was writing, the book is indispensible, insightful, brave, bracing, honest, incredibly prescient, but monotonous, flatly written and exhausting. As a supernatural fable, the book has little sense of wonder or of the unknown, but in its story of a devil wreaking subversive havoc on a socially repressive culture by playing on their hypocritical terms, 'Stranger' does look forward to Bulgakov's more successful 'The Master and Margarita'.

Beware!! No.44 and The Mysterious Stranger are not the same.......2001-07-24

There is much confusion regarding the several editions of The Mysterious Stranger. This volume from the Mark Twain Library is titled "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger". It is NOT No. 44 in the series as often listed. More importantly it is NOT the same as the story titled "The Mysterious Stranger" to which most of the reviews refer. This story, only published as part of The Mark Twain Library, is a later manuscript utilizing some of the same themes and characters from the better known story, but otherwise very different. Neither story was published in Twain's lifetime. Following Twain's death his literary executor, A. B. Paine, selected one of three stories written on similar themes, and published it as "The Mysterious Stranger" following some changes and editing including adding an ending which was apparently written for another version. While Paine's changes were controversial, his decision as to which manuscript was worth publishing was certainly correct.

The publishers of The Mark Twain Library series would have us believe that "No. 44" was Twain's own preferred version based primarily on chronology. Twain, however, had a habit of suppressing his own work -- particularly some of his most biting satires (See DeVoto's edition of Twain's "Letters from the Earth.") believing it, perhaps, too controversial for its time.

The story of the evolution of "The Mysterious Stranger" and all three manuscripts as Twain left them can be found in William Gibson's "Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts."

This story, "No. 44," is a pleasant enough boy's adventure along the Tom Sawyer line, but -- being an unfinished manuscript and having never seen the hand of a good editor-- it rambles around and takes wild unexplained changes in tone and storyline and never really leads anywhere. The grand dark satire of the better known story is missing, or, at best, severely watered down in this version. To add insult to injury, the television film of "The Mysterious Stranger" was based on "no. 44".

I originally wrote this review for a previous edition of "No. 44", but I see that it has been appended to all editions of "The Mysterious Stranger". So let me be clear: I am referring to The Mark Twain Library edition which is entitled "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger".

"The Mysterious Stranger" is a marvelous work. "No. 44" is a curiosity at best.

The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

Average customer rating:

The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

Manufacturer: New American Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000GUU8HY

Mark Twain: Huck Finn: Huck Finn Pudd'nhead Wilson No 44 Mysterious Stranger other Writings (Library of America College Editions)

Average customer rating:

Mark Twain: Huck Finn: Huck Finn Pudd'nhead Wilson No 44 Mysterious Stranger other Writings (Library of America College Editions)
Mark Twain , and Guy Cardwell
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1883011884

Average customer rating:

A classica Twain
An improvement over the previous M.S. collection

Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0451529243
Release Date: 2004-02-03

Book Description

Nine tales showcase Twain's wit as he skewers greed and ypocrisy-and makes a memorable, tormenting statement on evil.

Customer Reviews:

A classica Twain.......2007-09-13

I love all the short stories in this book. I laughed, and cried over the fate we humans must face when we all look in the mirror. Some of the stories apply so easily to the current world situations.

An improvement over the previous M.S. collection.......2004-07-29

Where this edition improves over the other edition of "The Mysterious Stranger and other Stories" is the inclusion of the stories "The Five Boons of Life" and Was it Heaven? Or Hell?". These short but satisfying add-ons alone are worth putting a few extra bucks in. The lead up nicely to the section, and are indispensible to anyone who enjoys reading the darker side of Twain's fiction.

~D

Mark Twain: The Mysterious Stranger and Other Curious Tales

Average customer rating:

A Powerful Theology
The Book That Comes With A Warning Label On It
A chilling version of reality :author sole live being .

Mark Twain: The Mysterious Stranger and Other Curious Tales
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: Gramercy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Mark Twain is America's greatest literary humorist. Here we have a unique collection of mysterious and supernatural tales told with the devilish wit that is truly Twain's own. The collection is highlighted by the classic Mysterious Stranger, but also includes such short stories as: "The Many That Corrupted Hadleyburg," "The Five Boons of Life," "A Dog's Tale," and "Hunting the Deceitful Turkey". 448 pages.

Customer Reviews:

A Powerful Theology.......2002-06-04

When I was a young teenager (and that was many years ago) I read Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" and it had a most dramatic affect on my life. It was the summation of what my youthful mind had been trying to figure out. Let me preface my further comments by saying that I am a devoted (I hope) Christian and have been for over 15 years. However, there was a long stretch when I was a confirmed atheist and, if I was to point to a Bible for that point of view, for me it was this book. In this short novel, Twain tells his story through the experiences of some young boys who encounter a "mysterious stranger'. The stranger points out many of the inconsistencies of Christianity and the world around us. Essentially the issue is the question many people have asked over the years; Why do bad things happen to good people? Twain delves deeply into this issue and the numerous examples lead the young narrator to conclude that the rantings of the stranger are, indeed, the truth. I am comfortable today re-reading this fascinating story because it is such an excellently crafted expalantion of Twain's theology in his later years. As a student of Twain, I became exasperated by the many scholars who tended to dismiss his later writings as the ramblings of a grieving man. It is true that Twain suffered many personal losses and I am sure that it influenced his perspective. However, much of his later work was brilliant. The reviewers I read often dismissed these later body of writing. It seemed to me that most of them had the opinion that, if it didn't make you laugh or give you insight to life on the Mississippi, then it wasn't important. I heartily disagree and "The Mysterious Stranger" is an excellent example of the brilliance of his later works.

I looked over the table of contents of this collection and I noticed a lot of other good stories among them. Two that came to mind were "Captain Stormfield" and "The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg". This strikes me as a great introduction to the Mark Twain beyond "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn".

The Book That Comes With A Warning Label On It.......2001-01-07

Here's a triple-barreled detective story for you: a very badly composited book of Mark Twain stories with a warning label attached:

"Editor's Note: Certain characterizations and language of the author should be viewed as arising from the context of the time in which these stories were written. Any offense to modern sensibilities is unintended and does not reflect the attitudes of the editor or publisher of the current edition."

and an Editor's Introduction calling them "wicked", and a small note which reads:

"COMPILED, EDITED AND COMPOSITED BY FRANK J. FINAMORE"

Did I mention the compositing is of an order that would roil Shakespeare's bones? Mr. Finamore saw his handiwork and thought he would sell it anyway with a bit of bluff, so he wrote the Introduction. That wouldn't serve, as some distant near-relation of the accused might surface to claim retribution, so he slapped the warning label on it. Some angel looking over his shoulder made him sign his name to the whole business, and there you have it. Case closed.

A chilling version of reality :author sole live being ........1998-06-20

Highly presumptuous of me to review as I have not read the entire novella. However I am essaying this review to note how powerful I find Mark Twain's posthumously published thesis. The implications are truly demonic and deserve careful thought. Ironically the current film TRUMAN has a similar theme. Yesterday at a special UC Berkeley collection of Mark Twain's papers and works I saw this little book prominently displayed as number 44 in UC press's massive series on the great author. I will be interested to read the reactions of others---presuming, unlike Twain, that there are such ;!

Average customer rating:

The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
mark twain
Manufacturer: Borders Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Mark Twain Papers)

Average customer rating:

last writings form a dream-like collage
Mysterious Stranger

Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Mark Twain Papers)
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

United States | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Literature & Fiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0520014731

Book Description

Six, years after Mark Twain's death, Albert Bigelow Paine, the author's literary executor, brought out a bowdlerized edition of The Mysterious Stranger, silently cut and cobbled from three unfinished manuscripts. This volume presents those manuscripts for the first time, exactly as mark Twain wrote them.
Paine's disingenuous account of the history of his edition has, until recently, misled critics into believing that Mark Twain's creative abilities deserted him for a time, only to be recovered in the composition of The Mysterious Stranger. By writing this tale, said Bernard DeVoto, Mark Twain "saved himself in the end, and came back from the edge of insanity, and found as much peace as any man may find in his last years, and brought his talent into fruition and made it whole again." Although most critics have praised the work as the finest fiction of Mark Twain's later years, Paine and his collaborator, Frederick A. Duneka, so changed many of the book's essentials that it does not fully or accurately reflect the author's mood and thought.
Paine's edition of the book was based, for the most part, on the earliest of the three versions, written during the time of Mark Twain's supposed creative paralysis. He and Duneka suppressed a quarter of the text of this manuscript and grafted onto it the last chapter of the latest version. Mark Twain began the first manuscript, "The Chronicle of Young Satan," in 1897; late in 1898, he tried to recast the story in a Hannibal setting, then returned to his first version, only to abandon it permanently in 1900. Between 1902 and 1908, he worked on the third and longest version, the only one the author called "The Mysterious Stranger."
The publication of these texts therefore offers an opportunity to observe Mark Twain's sustained literary struggle with a central theme and to reevaluate the tantalizing question of the author's late work.

Customer Reviews:

last writings form a dream-like collage.......2002-07-22

I must first of all confess that, since reading Huck Finn as a kid, this is the only Twain I've read. I must also confess that the nearest comparison I can give for this book is the writings of William Burroughs!

In his last years Twain several times approached the idea of a story about a mysterious, "satanic" figure who appears to a small community and brings about an anti-religious revelation. This book contains his three attempts, thankfully free of the posthumous bowdlerisation that marred its previous publication.

The middle section is most like "classic" Twain, a semi-comic episode set in the familiar time and territory of Tom Sawyer. The "bookends", however, are set in a vaguely medieval middle-Europe and have a somewhat Gothic atmosphere. The first section is the most scathing, while the last is more like a dream.

The effect of these three substantial fragments being presented together is a remarkable insight into the creative processes of an extraordinarily imaginative mind. This breaking beyond narrative and into the writer's consciousness is the reason I draw the comparison with Burroughs. The result was never meant to be published as is, but nonetheless it is a challenging and haunting work, which provides a unique insight into the writer's mind.

Mysterious Stranger.......2000-03-30

THis is an excellent book! I really liked the main character and the way he love the ourdoors.

Average customer rating:

Mysterious Stranger & Other Stories
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000TYBU1U

Average customer rating:

Mysterious Stranger & Other Stories
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: Books on Tape, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

General | Books on Cassette | Audiobooks | Formats | Books
ASIN: 0736636498

The Mysterious Stranger (& Other Stories)

Average customer rating:

The Mysterious Stranger (& Other Stories)
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NXUMVQ

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books