Functional Condensation Polymers

Book Description

Although in nature the vast majority of polymers are condensation polymers, much publicity has been focused on functionalized vinyl polymers. Functional Condensation Polymers fulfills the need to explore these polymers which form an increasingly important and diverse foundation in the search for new materials in the twentyfirst century. Some of the advantages condensation polymers hold over vinyl polymers include offering different kinds of binding sites, their ability to be made biodegradable, and their different reactivities with various reagents under diverse reaction conditions. They also offer better tailoring of end-products, different tendencies (such as fiber formation), and different physical and chemical properties. Some of the main areas emphasized include dendrimers, control release of drugs, nanostructure materials, controlled biomedical recognition, and controllable electrolyte and electrical properties.

Average customer rating:

Functional Condensation Polymers
Charles E., Jr. (EDT)/ Swift, Graham (EDT)/ American Chemical Society Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and (COR)/ American Chemical Society Meeting 2001 (San Diego, Calif.) Carraher
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSJ26G

Average customer rating:

Porn Stars, Lobsters and Politicians

A prime example of an unreadable book

Another stellar essay collection from one of America's finest writers

Consider Consider the Lobster for your shopping cart

great

Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays
David Foster Wallace
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Classics | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Wallace, David Foster | ( W ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

Infinite Jest: A Novel

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

ASIN: 0316156116

Book Description

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a sick sense of humor? What is John Updikes deal anyway? And who won the Adult Video News Female Performer of the Year Award the same year Gwyneth Paltrow won her Oscar? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in his new book of hilarious nonfiction. For this collection, David Foster Wallace immerses himself in the three-ring circus that is the presidential race in order to document one of the most vicious campaigns in recent history. Later he strolls from booth to booth at a lobster festival in Maine and risks life and limb to get to the bottom of the lobster question. Then he wheedles his way into an L.A. radio studio, armed with tubs of chicken, to get the behind-the-scenes view of a conservative talk show featuring a host with an unnatural penchant for clothing that looks good only on the radio.

Customer Reviews:

Porn Stars, Lobsters and Politicians.......2007-10-05

The collection of essays features David Foster Wallace's insights into worlds as disparate as the porn industry and the Maine Lobster Festival. His erudition is filtered through a popular and provocative voice whose sardonic humor reflects a general acceptance of modern life.

Wallace's shorter essays are where he's at his best, sometimes playing the role of the critic, as in "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart," and sometimes packaging tremendous poignancy in with surface humor ("The View From Mrs. Thompson's" is one of the best essays on 9/11). While his longer essays capture intriguing topics (life on the campaign trail with John McCain, the inner psychological workings of a radio disc jockey, etc.), they start to become a bit tiresome in their organization (or lack thereof). Wallace includes footnotes or sidebars as written subtexts, and while they are witty and often important, they do constantly yank the reader away from the essay itself in a manner that might infuriate some readers.

The author's real gift is to capture vignettes of the mundane and turn them into opportunities for social critique. Even though he does this with varying success, he is able to combine intellectual conversation with absurdity in a way few authors can. Peter Grier, of the Christian Science Monitor, described him best when he called him a "snowboarder with a PhD."

A prime example of an unreadable book.......2007-10-01

I'm trying to like essayists - there's just something cute about the formalization of thoughts, never growing up of needing to be approved by the English teacher that is the literary world.

But seriously, David Foster Wallace? After I had finished this, mainly finished not finishing any of the single essays, I got the impression that this is an an attempt to create the absolute unreadable work, an anti-art prank. Not unreadable in the sense of undecipherable, more like in the sense of local newspaper meets interminably boring literary analysis.

I also thought it was a bit magaziney, in two senses of the word. First of all, it gives the impression of someone who sets out from zero-knowledge to gather bits and pieces of the topic they've selected without much personal commitment (only what you'd call intellectual vigor), as opposed to the great writer sort of thing, desperately trying to make sense of the conflict in their inner world and putting it on paper as coherently as you possibly can. I guess that's the point of it too, being an intellectual journalist, but I think it's completely unnecessary to distance yourself from the subject like that. It distances the readers as well. Second of all it was way too obsessed with details and superficial things.

It's not new or original either IMO. I'm reminded of the 80s/90s way of thinking a lot here, or what's my conception of it anyway. And people like P.J. O'Rourke. The humorists or whatever. Pretty basic stuff.

And I'm not saying that maybe it's just me. If you seriously like this kind of stuff, you're distracted from reality in some major way.

Another stellar essay collection from one of America's finest writers.......2007-09-26

Consider the Lobster is very much in the vein of DFW's 90s essay collection 'A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again'. The style is perhaps a little tighter, a little more mature, a little wiser. The effect just as pyrotechnic. Once again DFW turns his vast and wide 'ranging intelligence to tackle the gauntlet Philip Roth laid down a few years ago, namely, the 'American Beserk', and how to tackle it. Many older writers have given up, the sheer hubris and purposeless of so much modern US activity way beyond their comprehension and radar. DFW, having grown up with the twin saturating forces of TV and marketing, probably goes further than any other contemporary writer (well, maybe along with Delillo), in attempting to grapple with this mightiest of themes.

So, we have in this collection 'Big Red Son', an essay on the porn industry which adopts a similar tack to an essay I recently read by English writer Martin Amis which uses irony to undermine the whole industry - i.e., don't adopt the feminist approach of saying how disgusting and degrading it is, just point out how ridiculous it is i.e. 'Ms Jasmin St Claire's cult celebrity status stems from her having broken the "World Gang Bang Record" by taking on 300 men in a row in Amazing Pictures' 1996 World's Biggest Gang Bang 2.' DFW may criticize what he considers to be the prevailing form of commentary in savvy American life, but boy does he use that device. This book positively drips with irony.
Certainly the End of Something or Other is a short piece, a book review on John Updike's recent novel 'Toward the End of Time' which both acknowledges what a great stylist Updike is, and just how much of a GMN (great male narcissist) he is. DFW and Updike are very different beasts in the American literary firmament.

What else?: a short, fairly uncompelling piece on humour in Kafka; an essay on Authority and American usage - a 20,000 word dictionary review which is way funnier and more interesting than you would expect (with a cracking riff on DFW's own attempts to teach standard white English to his black students).

The View from Mrs Thompson's is DFW's September 11 piece, an original take on those morbid events from his original observation point in the Midwest (as an antidote to all those East Coast literary views). It is one of those pieces that spends its whole time setting up the pieces, like the game Mousetrap, before delivering a thudding whoompf in the final sentence.

How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart is a piece that takes in tennis and celebrity sports biographies - two passions of DFW. He comes to the conclusion that the banality and cliche ridden personality of elite sports stars is not only accessory but fundamentally necessary to their talent.

Up, Simba is a long political piece covering the vicious 2000 Bush v McCain Republican primaries. This is competent, and revealing to those not familiar with US political campaigns, but I felt it was too jaded and never quite took off. Far better is the political content of 'Host', the final essay, with its original sub folders for footnotes, which pins down the right wing paradigms of John Ziegler and his WHAS radio station.

If this isn't enough, a couple of thought provokers on whether lobsters feel pain when steamed alive in the eponymous title essay, and a foray into 19th Century Russian classics with a review of Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky biographies.

All in all a witty, brain fuelled tour round modern America, and some of its more interesting and original sideshows. More essays soon please DFW.

Consider Consider the Lobster for your shopping cart.......2007-07-31

David Foster Wallace is arguably one of America's greatest living writers. While he's probably best known for his fiction, particularly Infinite Jest he really shows his range, humor and intellect with his non-fiction. In Consider the Lobster, he examines everything from Kafka being underappreciated as a humorist to covering the Adult Video News porn awards in Las Vegas. While some of the essays feel a bit dated (most of them were written pre 9-11) the writing hasn't lost any of its bite or edge. It's hard to write about CTL as a whole because since its simply a collection of largely magazine articles that appeared in everything from Harper's to Gourmet magazine, and the eclectic nature and wide variety of topics makes for an interesting reading experience. The one thing that does tie it all together is Wallace's prodigious writing talents and the lens with which he views the world, which is both urbane and cerebral yet grounded and playful. When you put the book down, you walk away with the distinct feeling that DFW could dissect any topic or subject and bring it to life. The following is a brief summary of each essay:

BIG RED SON - the aforementioned essay on the porn awards. Shows the porn industry in all its self-important, crass, tasteless glory, and also shows how at the end of the day it really is just a business like any other. LOL funny at times.

CERTAINLY THE END OF SOMETHING OR OTHER ONE WOULD SORT OF HAVE TO THINK - a review of John Updike's Toward the End of Time. The least interesting essay in the collection. Unless your a fan of Updike, you can safely skip this.

SOME REMARKS ON KAFKA'S FUNNINESS FROM WHICH PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH HAS BEEN REMOVED - DFW laments Kafka being underappreciated as a humorist and on a deeper level how the idea of what humor is has changed dramatically.

AUTHORITY AND AMERICAN USAGE - A brilliant essay on just what makes a dictionary authoritative and who decides what is "correct" in a language, particularly American English. A bit dry and academic at times, but my favorite essay in the bunch.

THE VIEW FROM MRS. THOMPSON'S - Half essay on patriotism and half memoir on what DFW was doing while the events of 9-11 were unfolding. Certainly the most straightfoward of all the essays and the most gut-wrenching.

HOW TRACY AUSTIN BROKE MY HEART - Excellent essay on the insipid nature of sports biographies, and how this insipidness reveals how many brilliant athletes are genius in a way that the rest of us have a hard time relating to and understanding.

UP, SIMBA - DFW trailed John McCain's campaign trail for a week during the 2000 election as a correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine. Excellent political piece.

CONSIDER THE LOBSTER - Do lobsters feel pain? An interesting moral and philosophical essay that falls flat because it doesn't really answer any of the questions it poses.

JOSEPH FRANK'S DOSTOEVSKY - A largely academic essay on Dostoevsky and the nature of contemporary literature.

HOST - Excellent and experimental essay on talk-radio host John Ziegler and an exploration of why talk-radio is dominated by right-wing pundits.
It is a bit difficult to read due to the experimental nature of how the footnotes are arranged, but well worth reading.

Recommended.

great.......2007-05-19

David Foster Wallace is good at delving into the imponderable. I particularly enjoyed his book about the history of the contemplation of infinity (Everything and More). Here he takes on similarly heady topics, with some lighter themes mixed in.

One standout is the title essay, which explores the issue of animal sentience, the question being whether the inner life of a lobster is anything remotely like the inner life of a human. There is simply no answer to this question, and philosophers who have tackled the question in recent years have bungled it extremely badly. Consequently the most one can do is to contemplate the implications of certain answers, and DFW's essay on the topic is as good as any I've come across.

Perhaps the only thing more impenetrable than the mind of a lobster is the mind of John McCain. Here's a guy who is so principled that he apparently refused to be released from a P.O.W. camp because it violated the letter of military policy. Yet he can be seen regularly cowtowing to the likes of Jerry Falwell and G.W. Bush just to gain a few points with the lunatic fringe of the religious right. DFW followed McCain during the 2000 campaign, and his essay comes as close as is logically possible to explaining how these various attitudes can inhabit the same brain.

DFW's writing style is not for everyone. If you're a fan of Hemingway you might find that it makes your head hurt.

Average customer rating:

Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays
David Foster Wallace
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0349119511

Amazon.com

It's deceptively simple: two bright young couples meet during the Depression and form an instant and lifelong friendship. "How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?" Larry Morgan, a successful novelist and the narrator of the story, poses that question many years after he and his wife, Sally, have befriended the vibrant, wealthy, and often troubled Sid and Charity Lang. "Where is the high life, the conspicuous waste, the violence, the kinky sex, the death wish?" It's not here. What is here is just as fascinating, just as compelling, as touching, and as tragic.

Crossing to Safety is about loyalty and survival in its most everyday form--the need to create bonds and the urge to tear them apart. Thirty-four years after their first meeting, when Larry and Sally are called back to the Langs' summer home in Vermont, it's as if for a final showdown. How has this friendship defined them? What is its legacy? Stegner offer answers in those small, perfectly rendered moments that make up lives "as quiet as these"--and as familiar as our own. --Sara Nickerson

Book Description

Called a “magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom” by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.

Customer Reviews:

Crossing To Safety.......2007-10-09

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner is one of the finest books my book club has read. The beauty of the prose along with an engaging story had my enjoyment level up there. I definitely want to read this prize winning author's other works. I can't understand where his catalog of fiction has been all my life.

Wally's World.......2007-10-04

I "discovered" Wallace Stegner when coming across his Collected Stories. I hadn't heard of this Pulitzer Prize author, so researched him online. This background check proved helpful when reading Crossing to Safety. Wallace was a Guggenheim scholar, a westerner at heart, a naturalist, spent 25 years in the east at Stamford as a professor, and had, sadly, a life of trying to overcome the cruelty of his father.
Each of these aspects are presented in this fine novel which covers the decades long friendship between the Morgans and the Langs, two young couples who meet and lead intertwined lives. The Langs visit Italy as, yes, Guggenheim scholars, compare the East and West throughout the novel, observe the beauty of nature, teach in different universities and meet for many summers in rural Vermont.
Stegner vividly describes each of the four main characters, especially Charity, and these characterizations carry the book as much as do the events which impact the couples throughout the novel. Sometimes independent, but always interdependent, the Langs and Morgans learn exasperation, acceptance, understanding, endurance and more because of each other, especially through Charity Lang, whose need to help and control all around her is vividly described.
Stegner's struggle with his father is also seen in the book. Sid's dreams were not accepted by his father, while Larry's father dies early on, leaving an absence. Charity's father is relegated to a Vermont cabin, except at mealtimes, and Sally never knew hers. As well, none of the four really parent their children in the book.
Crossing to Safety is written in a concise prose and offers a number of insightful meditations. I was not sure why it was given its title, as "safety" would be open to a number of interpretations, mine being the crossing from one point of the country (New Mexico or Wisconsin to Vermont) to continue a decade's long friendship.
Stegner's final novel, my first experience with his work, incorporates not only his ability to write and tell a story, but his life as well. Stegner was a surprise find, and Crossing to Safety is well worth the investment .

Lousy, manipulative, melodramatic.......2007-09-30

One-quarter of the way through, I had to keep forcing myself to finish reading this book. But read it I did, every insipid, insufferable page. The author tries so hard to make us love the narrator and the other three characters but I failed to see their charm. I found them unsympathetic and unbelievable. Ultimately this is an old professor's fantasy, with the oh-so productive yet self-effacing wise narrator, his virile friend who, despite his wife's resistance, only wants to write poetry, and of course their supportive wives. The friend's wife is revealed to be somewhat of a nag and control freak but we love her anyway. Sure enough, each wife becomes seriously ill. With little effort, you can see how this book could be adapted into a movie for the Hallmark television series. This schlock is dated.

Beautiful story from start to finish.......2006-11-13

I have never written an Amazon review, but I feel compelled to review this book, because of how much it moved me. I read it over 2 years ago and I can still remember loving the first page, and every page thereafter. It is a thoroughly beautiful story about friendship, in particular a lifelong friendship between 2 couples. I know of no other book that explores this topic so well. After reading this I was eager to read Stegner's more famous book, Angle of Repose, which I enjoyed, but which I did not think related as well to contemporary issues and struggles.

Crossing To Safety.......2006-11-05

This is a beautifully written novel concerning two couples who have become friends and who share great affection for each other as well as trajedy. The portrait of each of the characters have great depth and clarity. You can almost predict how each will react to various events. The foremost subject explored are the relationships between the four characters and between spouses. For me, when I was not reading, it was a book I couldn't wait to get back to. I have since started searching for more of Wallace Stegner's writings and hope they will be as meaningful as this one.

Average customer rating:

Crossing to Safety
Wallace Stegner
Manufacturer: Random HOuse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H36VW6

School Crossing Guards (Community Helpers)

Average customer rating:

School Crossing Guards (Community Helpers)
Terri Degezelle
Manufacturer: Bridgestone Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

Careers | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0736809597

Average customer rating:

Crossing Guard (People in My Community)
JoAnn Early Macken
Manufacturer: Weekly Reader Early Learning Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

School & Education | Reference & Nonfiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0836835964

Angle of Repose, The Spectator Bird, Crossing to Safety

Average customer rating:

Angle of Repose, The Spectator Bird, Crossing to Safety
Wallace Stegner
Manufacturer: Quality Paperback Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RBMAG4

Critter crossings : linking habitats and reducing roadkill (SuDoc TD 2.2:2001008542)

Average customer rating:

Critter crossings : linking habitats and reducing roadkill (SuDoc TD 2.2:2001008542)
U.S. Dept of Transportation
Manufacturer: U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Office of Natural Environment
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B000113G4A

Average customer rating:

Crossing Design Boundaries
Paul Rodgers , Libby Brodhurst , and Duncan Hepburn
Manufacturer: Taylor & Francis
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Safety & Health | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0415391180

Book Description

This book presents over 100 papers from the 3rd Engineering & Product Design Education International Conference dedicated to the subject of exploring novel approaches in product design education. The theme of the book is "Crossing Design Boundaries" which reflects the editors' wish to incorporate many of the disciplines associated with, and integral to, modern product design and development pursuits. The book covers, for example, the conjunction of anthropology and design, the psychology of design products, the application of soft computing in wearable products, and the utilisation of new media and design and how these can be best exploited within the current product design arena. The book includes discussions concerning product design education and the cross-over into other well established design disciplines such as interaction design, jewellery design, furniture design, and exhibition design which have been somewhat under represented in recent years. The book comprises a number of sections containing papers which cover highly topical and relevant issues including Design Curriculum Development, Interdisciplinarity, Design Collaboration and Team Working, Philosophies of Design Education, Design Knowledge, New Materials and New Technologies in Design, Design Communication, Industrial Collaborations and Working with Industry, Teaching and Learning Tools, and Design Theory.

Crossing Guard/El Guardia De Cruce: El Guardia De Cruce (People in My Community/La Gente De Mi Comunidad, Bilingual)

Average customer rating:

Crossing Guard/El Guardia De Cruce: El Guardia De Cruce (People in My Community/La Gente De Mi Comunidad, Bilingual)
JoAnn Early Macken
Manufacturer: Weekly Reader Early Learning Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

Careers | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

School & Education | Reference & Nonfiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Infantil y juvenil | Libros en español | Formats | Books

No ficción | Infantil y juvenil | Libros en español | Formats | Books

Average customer rating:

Crossing to Safety
Wallace Stegner
Manufacturer: Franklin Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000GOX7WS

Average customer rating:

Crossing to Safety
Wallace Stegner
Manufacturer: RANDOM HOUSE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UC8BKE

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books