Environmental-Health Books

I feel so many emotions when I think of this book, I mean talk about a onion with its dozens of layers and you start to understand my love of this book. If you can't get it, that this book to me is an emotional plea from deep within her soul, well then you should stick to the bestsellers list. I have never made a comment before on what other reviews have written, but in this case I must make a exception, but than I can not, because then I would be just like them.

Let's be clear: this isn't some sob-story autobiography about some chick blaming her infertility on the power plant next door. Antonetta has written a gorgeous, unsettling book that pushes the boundaries of literary memoir.

Written in muscular, skilled prose, the "environment" of Antonetta's memoir points to the sludge-filled and strangely seductive New Jersey Pine Barrens of her childhood; it refers equally to the toxic world created by her impenetrable, neurotic immigrant family. Antonetta tells hallucinatory, poetic stories that float between the two environments while never misstepping into the sentimental.

Indeed, it is a rare pleasure for me to read a woman's story--especially one intimately engaged with problems of fertility and the body--that is so devoid of cliche and self-pity. Antonetta has plenty of honest anguish, but it is balanced with a damning dry humor, and a sharply raw perception of herself, her family, their history and the history of the land upon which the story unfolds.

Quite an accurate portrayal of the abysmal state of New Jersey. If America was a person then New Jersey would be its rectum, just slightly south of the tingling loins of New York. It is the wretched, malodorous, poison hole that is the repository for everything wrong with America. IROC's, unabashed italian stereotypes, gold medallions, the mafia, Aquanet and most abhorrent is the diaspora of foul mouthed New Jersey citizens out to destroy other states as they have destroyed their own. New Jersey "Go Home"!!!

Body Toxic, the memoir of a poet, is a great book. Instead
of having us laying in her hospital bed taking her medications
and reliving her miscarriages in detail on every page, Antonetta
almost dances around her illnesses in order to bring awareness
of the contamination to earth that is killing everyone.
Michael Klein said "Poets write the best memoirs." Three years
ago I questioned that statement; after reading Body Toxix, I agree.

I recall reading the New York Times' smug review of this book when it originally came out. How they must have loved another opportunity to slander the state of New Jersey through misinformation, distortions, and gross exaggerations. The perfect example of how well this propaganda works is the individual from Wisconsin who claims how sad it is that the Pine Barrens have been "ravaged." I wonder how someone from Wisconsin who has probably never been to New Jersey, let alone the Pine Barrens, would think they have the right to make such a comment. Just like other rural areas around the country, the Pine Barrens have been victimized by immigration-driven population growth, yet the region is still beautiful. I have no doubt the author of this book has the medical ailments she claims, yet perhaps they have more to do with her lifetime of drug abuse than with living in New Jersey. My father grew up in the industrial badlands of Bayonne, New Jersey; he is 61 and has no major medical problems. In fact, my family is entirely from Jersey City and Bayonne, two cities that are far more industrialized than Ocean County, yet nobody in my family has ever had cancer. This book is another example of junk science giddily peddled by leftist Manhattanite editors who probably haven't been outside of Manhattan in years.

As usual, the masses gobble up such pablum.

A valuable resource on environmental issues and modern diseases, Mark Jerome Walters' Six Modern Plagues is an overall enthralling read. The author is very qualified on the material of this book and even has time to incorporate a story line about the victims of the diseases making this book hard to put down. It is a fairly easy read and should be interesting for anyone who would like to learn about the environment. It also has much important information for someone studying biology, microbiology and any other in the field of biological or medical sciences.

The Six plagues written in this book are Mad Cow disease, HIV/AIDS, Salmonella DT104, Lyme disease, Hantavirus, and St.Louis Encephalitis. There is a clear connection shown in this book between the rapid spread of the diseases noted and changes in the environment caused by humans. The system of events for the victims was engaging and descriptive. The current situation is also noted at the end of each chapter so that older diseases can be looked upon to prevent future occurrences. Overall the book does contain some faults. It offers little hope for the future which makes it almost depressing to read. Also at times when describing the victim he includes too much medical data which might make it hard to follow for someone with no medical experience. The few faults that this book does have it makes up for making this an altogether great book that I recommend to anyone.

This book is disappointing. Walters offers little scientific or intellectual insight, or constructive advice for addressing some genuine human concerns. If you want to learn something about disease incidence and history, skip this book and buy Andrew Speilman's Mosquito, which is excellent!

Emergence of new diseases and the reemergence of old ones is indeed a real concern, but Walters's politically correct philosophy prevents him from offering any real useful advice. Instead, the book amounts to little more than a well-written rant about the horrors of modern society and technology. Walters's view is basically that mankind's disruption of nature is causing "ecodemics"-disease outbreaks caused mankind's tampering with nature by doing such things as building homes (or sprawl as he calls it), entering the forests, and world travel.

It is true that human actions do spread disease. But that is hardly a revelation since many diseases spread by human contact or by traveling vectors like mosquitoes. World travel throughout the ages has spread diseases across continents and Western nations are now seeing the emergence of new diseases and the reemergence of old ones. Clearly, we do have a need for disease-control efforts, and we should learn from the past, which Walters might say is his point. But that's not where his argument leads.

Walters says we must address these causes by "protecting and restoring ecological wholeness upon which our health depends." The implication is that there should be fewer people, living in smaller, more isolated communities. But Walters's cure is more imaginary than achievable. How are we going to drastically reduce population and return to isolationist societies? It just isn't going to happen, and it wouldn't be a good thing. Thanks to globalization, economic growth, and human ingenuity, the average lifespan is now longer than anytime in history. With economic growth, we have been able to make remarkable progress in the battle against disease. Aggressive human action has removed smallpox from the menu of diseases in the transmission cycle (only an act of terrorism could bring it back). Determined efforts, rather than passive responses (which Walters recommends), have made the last decade less disease-ridden.

That is not to say the challenges don't continue. In addition to emerging infections in the Western world, people in developing nations suffer from diseases on a catastrophic scale. Consider the simple fact that people living in huts lack things that most people have in those "sprawling" neighborhoods that Walters dubs "shortsighted efforts to make the world more hospitable for humans." They lack, for instance, barriers to mosquito entry such as screened windows-leaving them exposed to malaria-carrying insects that produce several hundred million illnesses and several million deaths every year. Most of malaria's victims are children. The spraying of DDT on the walls of these homes-one of the most affordable options for the poor-could act as an alternative barrier to mosquitoes. But Walters never offers such advice or even bothers to acknowledge the millions who die owing to primitive living conditions.

Walters's presentation of the "facts" about many of the diseases should also be read with a critical eye as he often doesn't tell the whole story. For example, consider his chapter on antibiotic use in animals, which he suggests is creating antibiotic resistant organisms in our food that pose serious risks. He basically says that farmers give these medications to farm animals because they are lazy and just want to make "extra money." While there is some risk of resistant microbes developing, the impact is far more limited that Walters suggests, and risk can be managed. Most resistance problems result from the use of antibiotics in hospitals. Walters doesn't note that fact or offer useful advice about how to address the problem. For example, proper cooking of meat can greatly reduce risks, but he doesn't recommend that. Nor does he note the benefits of antibiotics-which reduce other risks and make this agricultural practice a net benefit to society. Agricultural antibiotic use means that animals are healthier can be raised on less feed. As a result, less land is planted to feed animals, reducing farm related runoff problems and making more land available for wildlife. Lower production costs and higher production means that more people can eat at a lower cost. And reduced feed intake means reduced animal waste, which reduces the environmental impacts of such waste. Antibiotics produce healthier animals, which translates into healthier meat for human consumption.

I was turned on to the book by Mark's older brother, John Walters, who is executive director of the Lightstone Foundation, an environmental organization based in West Virginia. I was expecting a deary medical discourse for the mass consumer culture. What I got was a compelling read about critical problems facing and caused by our society.

Mark's writing style is very engaging and I had the pleasure of reading it straight through. The thoughts evoked are not terrifying or hysteric but rather give one the basis to weave the subject matter into our everyday decisions on how to live in an ever more complex and mobile world.

I was required to read this as part of my Intro to Microbiology course. I kept it on my bookshelf because it quickly became an invaluable resource. While it is obvious the author knows a lot about the subject material, the book itself is fairly easy to read, and has almost the elements of a page-turner at times.

The best thing about this book is that it very clearly shows the causative relationship between human change to the environment and the diseases that are currently afflicting us, including Mad Cow and Lyme disease. Even now, three semesters after the class, I still find myself bringing up this book in conversations and using it as a reference for discussions about the evolution of microbes and antibiotic resistant superbugs.

If you have any interest in microbiology... if you are going into the medical field or any of the biological sciences... or if you are simply concerned about the effect that humans are having on the world at large, I highly recommend this book.

This year it's the West Nile virus that's killing birds, horses and people for the first time where I live in Northern California. In the past year we've read about SARS appearing in China and jumping to cities around the world, about Mad Cow disease showing up here in the U.S., in Canada and in Japan, about the threat of a global flu epidemic, and of course we're all aware of the vast AIDS epidemic which continues to penetrate new populations in the industrialized world and which is devastating much of Africa.

Veterinarian Mark Walters does a very readable job of discerning a common thread that ties together these and other modern plaques. He demonstrates that they are not simply random natural events, but are all intimately tied to human activities. The strange infectious proteins that cause Mad Cow disease would not have created an epidemic if farmers hadn't gotten used to feeding cattle the ground-up by-products of other cows. HIV almost certainly spread from a primate reservoir to humans through the butchering and ingestion of bush meat, a growing practice that could easily be the source of future plagues. The deadly bacteria that are becoming increasing resistant to our armamentarium of antibiotics are goaded along this path by the use of enormous quantities of antibiotics in raising animals. Walters traces similar human factors for Lyme Disease, Hantavirus and the West Nile virus.

Readers who are interested in the plagues that have shaped human history, or in emerging diseases that have the potential to decimate the world today or in the near future will need to go beyond Walters' brief book. Still, I found it a helpful reminder of the extent to which we humans are influencing the course of events, even seemingly natural events like the outbreaks of new diseases. The more aware we are of the impacts of our activities, the more likely we are to be willing to modify them.

Robert Adler, author of Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome; and Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation.

I think the story was cool.I like the part when Ben has Matt sleepover
so they could go fishing the next day and catch some big ones which
would mean catch a big fish. Ben's dad did not catch a fish that
day and he would give up but go back the next day and then usually
catch a fish that day he went .

I thought it was really cool because Ben wanted to be just like his father and didn't want to go to college like his brother Eddie. His father told him he had to. Ben had a best friend whose name was Matt. Well, one day a scientist came to stay at his mother's Bed and Breakfast. His name was David Watchman. Matt and Ben were trying to make a boat because they needed to catch a crab for the Fair to be in a race that they enter every year. After they painted the boat, it sunk! David Watchmen took them on his boat and they caught a huge fat one! Then they named him Champ then they got entered in the contest but they didn't win. They got very sad, but then Ben got even more sad because Daid Watchmen and his father hated each other! David thought that watermen were ruining the water because there was oil in the water and watermen thought that scientists were ruining the water! Ben and Matt found a place that they had never had been before and every thing was dead and it was full of oil! They went to show the scientists and he got very sad and then he left him his phone number and he left. Next, Matt and Ben and went back to the dead place one night and fell asleep, but they woke up and caught the people who were doing the dumping oil. And then the next day he called the scientists and he called the police and then the next day his parents were very proud of him because he caught the people and then the scientists and the watermen became friends. Later the watermen asked his son what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said a scienists and his father said very good choice!

My feelings about the book were very adventorus and thrilling.The things that made the book exciting were The Crab Festival, the boating
trips,and Matt and Ben finding the oil spill in the marsh in the harbor.
Those are my feelings about the book.

The book was not like other books. It was not like other books because you never knew what was going to happen. Like,when you thought the boat Ben and Matt built was going to float,it sunk. Also, because Matt found a boat in the water and it was random. If I were going to make a prediction, I would have been wrong about it.

I thought the book was good. For one reason because I like the water and I like boating. The book was interesting and exciting when they found the dead part of the marsh and when they were hiding from the oil dumpers. But the begining was dull. I think it should be more exciting. I thought it started getting more exciting near chapter 10. But after a while I really liked it .

The book is thorough and provides many self quizzes to test your knowledge along the way.

I am really pleased with the book i purchased. I needed to find the book fast for my class because it was the middle of week one and i had no book because the college bookstore was sold out. So, i tried online to find the best rates with fast delievery and found it here at Amazon.com. Wooo! I was so happy to have found the book i needed onine with the Scantron Certificatiion Exam form included. I was in the need for next day delievery and they had that option available. My total came out to $93.83 with next day shipping fee included. That was a pretty reasonable price for me compared to other prices i've seen which would have been way over $100 dollars. I am very happy with the book and with the speedy next day delivery and also with how Amazon.com kept sending me confirmation emails and how i could tract my shipment order. I was very much pleased, which moves me to trust them and to purchase from them again in the future! Thanks Thanks Thanks Amazon.com!

This book was a required book for a sanitation class at my community college. Although some of the chapters are kind of silly ("The Safe Food Handler" - don't pee in the food, wash hands at work, don't get hair in product), the book does go over all of the basics very clearly and informitavley. The text comes with a scantron sheet that can allow you to take a certification test graded by the National Restaurant Association. The certificate is a MUST when applying to kitchens and hotels. The book is a bit pricey for the information it carries, and if you do not need the certification for your job or education, consider buying the book in either an older edition, or used.

I bought this book for my Food Microbiology and Sanitation class. It was originally $91 in my bookstore and I think about $79 on amazon.com. It's a pretty simple book, the book and certification exam is written on an 8th grade level.

The book (on amazon) comes with the exam sheet inside.

And that's about all, folks.

I am very disappointed in this purchase. The only reason that I bought this book was to receive the NEW Scantron test! The Scantron test that arrived with the book was the OLD test. All information at the Amazon site said that the new test was included. That information was in error.

We recycle and are sensible about our power and resource use in our home. While this book offers lots of information and easy ways to reduce our effect on our environment, it is a little preachy. Overall, I found this very useful as part of our story hour theme for Earth Day.

I like this little book because it's realistic and doesn't try to use scare tactics. It's not put out by radicals and it isn't trying to get us to take on too much, too fast. Those who politicize the ecology bug me to death. As if taking care of this planet that we fleetingly occupy is about whether you're on the right or the left, where you stand on gun control, taxes, what defines marriage, or whether the school board should remove Huck Finn from the high school shelves. Making the earth's environment better is selfish, because we stand to benefit from it. It's a planet we share, folks, and we're not doing all we could to leave it in good shape for those who are here now or will live on it when our time is done.

Let's get this straight once and for all: being environmentally conscious does not mean you're a tree-hugging liberal! What it means is, you like a planet that doesn't make you, your children, your grandma and your pet golden retriever sick. The Soviets were a leftist nation and they destroyed their ecology past the point of no return. On the flip side, the right-wing American President Theodore Roosevelt, as Republican as can be, has as one of his legacies the establishment of the National Parks System. "Saving" the planet is not the exclusive domain of leftists, nor-saying it again here--does it equate you with "tree huggers" if you try to do something that benefits the environment. I personally like clean air, clean water, a place to take a walk in nature without stepping in a nice glowing barrel of toxic sludge, don't you? I don't care if you're farther right than Sister Attila the Fourth-Grade Nun you can't honestly say you don't want there to be forests for you to go hunting in, or unpolluted rivers left for you to take your grandkids trout fishing in, am I right? And, yes, we ALL can recoil at the well-intended but self-defeating environmental fanatics who alienate the mainstream society of America by being too extreme and dogmatic. This book is not written for those who chain themselves to an endangered species of mollusk and go on hunger strikes to protest a TV show on global warming. This excellent little book is not like that at all. It presents what I think are really worthy ideas for cleaning up around the neighborhood where you live. It sets some nice projects out for kids (and grown ups) to get done and that is surely better than not educating our young people in environmental responsibility.

Okay, let me put it this way: would you rather have a child dear to you outside some weekend picking up litter, planting a tree in the side yard and sorting recyclable materials, or would you rather have that child sitting in front of the TV with a PS2, becoming another statistic in the epidemic of pre-teen obesity? This book is a small step in the right direction, and if it does nothing more than makes someone, whatever the age, think about the connection between personal behavior and the state of the earth's environment, then it's a nice investment of time and money.

I loved this great book on caring about the environment. It gave me facts and how I could help save the planet by not using my car, recycling and reusing. You Must read this book!

This book is totally awesome. I am interested in the environment and since this book includes quotes by kids my age, I feel I am really connected. It makes me feel really cool, like I can really make a difference in the world. And it helps. It tells you ways to help the earth- simple ways. And I learned a lot from it. It has a lot of good, interesting facts in it too.

I first read this book years ago as a child. Perhaps the few reviewers on here who do not like the book (and use this review as an outlet for their own personal politics) on here do not realize that parents, teachers, community leaders and religious leaders hardly shelter kids from the outside world as it is, and this book will not upset children, ruin their happiness or waste their childhood at all. As a kid, my friends and I readily accepted this book and were happy to carry out many of the suggestions. Adults seem to look down on kids a lot and think that they just want to play all day and have little care for anything but themselves. The things kids love, such as animals and the outdoors, are in danger, and this book lets kids contribute to help saving them. There are plenty of little tips in this book that do not advocate huge, drastic lifestyle changes. This book also does not come across as preachy or arrogant. Overall it is practical and enjoyable to read.

My friend recommended this book to me. I find this book is very interesting. In particular, the view of inventory modeling complexity is quite thoughtful. I have to accept that the authors did an excellent job to bring practice and theory together. It is not only for researchers but also professionals who want to appreciate the theory side. Highly recommended among all inventory books on the market.

For my line of work, which is strictly in support of inventory management, in a large organization, this book is the best and most comprehensive reference I have found for inventory management. Other references, such as Chopra's or Shapiro's, offer an excellent survey in the broader topic of supply chain management but do not approach the depth of this text in straight inventory management. For the person working in a large organization, in which supply chain management is broken up across large numbers of people and departments, and for whom inventory management is the main focus, then this is the book for such an individual.

The particular strength of this book lies in chapters 5 - 10 in which a very comprehensive analysis is placed on the topics of reorder quantity (Eoq) and the large array of optimization and inventory control techniques in the realm of re-order point, order-up-to logic etc. This text covers classic Eoq analysis, along with the alternative heuristic methods for items displaying an uneven rate of demand. The approach to setting re-order point rules for slow-selling, as opposed to fast-moving items, receives ample coverage. No other book I have seen covers the issue of slow-moving items as well, which is significant since in industry many items are slow movers.

The authors cover the concepts of "exchange curves" and how one can link inventory control objectives at the item level to an aggregate level. This is a critical concept for the practitioner attempting to reconcile item-level inventory control to aggregate inventory and financial planning objectives.

The forecasting section itself offers substantial treatment of the topic though additional depth, such as with an addtional chapter, would improve this book. Perhaps forecasting will receive greater treatment in a future edition.

Also of value is the overall approach to the topic of inventory control, starting with forecasting, then re-order quantity, and then re-order point rules. Also, there are valuable insights to help the practitioner "draw the line" between a fast-moving item and a slow-moving item and specific direction on the inventory control policies to pursue with both classes of inventory. Relatedly, there is excellent discussion on the rules one can apply to approach inventory management with eiter the normal distribution of demand versus when other distributions of demand may apply for slow-moving items. Books such a Chopra's do not give this critical topic the same level of attention.

Mathematical topics and formulas are presented in a manner which should be accessible and substantial for individuals with a wide degree of quantitative backgrounds. The topics are presented with a good degree of detail, rigorous yet still in well-defined sections. The book's construction supports in-depth study in addition to quick reference. References and citations of other work abound for those who wish to explore a topic further.

The Chopra or Shapiro or Simch-Levi or Factory Physics texts cover the topic of variability pooling, two tier systems, and the "bullwhip effect" more successfully than this book.

I have not used the second section of this book which deals with production planning so I will not speak to the quality of its content in these areas.

If I had to choose one text for an inventory management text it would be this one. Though given a choice I have also supplemented it with addtional texts such as Chopra's, Shapiro's and the "Factory Physics" book.

Without any doubt, Silver/Pike/Peterson is the best and most comprehensive book on inventory management. If you are searching for simplistic "management consultant concepts" then buy something else. If you want to learn how realize all these basic concepts take this book. Seriously, what are people exspecting: "too technical" ? Stupid. If you do not have any clue about basic math, why do you wanna go into logistics?

If I should teach somebody on logistics I would gave him or her one of the (thousands) books on simplistic powerpoint-like SCM concepts (if you want read Silver/Pike/Peterson you have to know these concepts beforehand). And when the question arises how to put this into practice, I would give this person the Silver/Pike/Peterson book. In the end, standard concepts are not enough. You need math. And Silver/Pike/Peterson only gives you a brief introduction about the basic math. Thus, alltogether the result will answer the question: how to run operations at the bottom line of the industry. Of course for becoming supply chain champion the book will not offer "the perfect master plan" but Silver/Pike/Peterson will give you the basic knowledge to generate such knowledge.

This is one of the most interesting books I have read, especially in such a technical area. The authors present the information in a very easy going fashion, given the reader has enough mathematical background.

This book -in my opinion- is suitable for senior level, and graduate students, and is a must for industrial engineering and supply chain research students. It is an excellent reference for any supply chain, inventory management, or production management practioner.

If you are an erudite and prolific writer in the genre of textbooks you might sample this tome for HOW *NOT* TO WRITE A TEXTBOOK. The author is obviously a keen expert in the source material (and goes to great lengths to let you know that his techniques are the best aka "silver-meal")

I'm an engineering manager and have taken a company through an implementation of an ERP system and know that this material is quite useful..however, this should NOT be your first source of exposure to the subject. A prior review put it well "VERY TECHNICAL". Not many examples in the text (except for the parts where the author likes to demonstrate his better method - which is better, but its not like he hides it :). A better source might be Fogarty. I deeply appreciate that the author took the time to acknowledge many of the other sources in this field. He goes to great lengths to pass along credit and this is highly commendable - however, a quick glance through the book will note how this acknowledgement interferes with the message as the authors and dates are spread not too sparingly across the middle of concepts.

If you have already purchased the book you might want to spend a small amount of additional change and get the solutions manual. It will help you considerably.

Traditional psychology posits a strict distinction between me, in here, and everything else, out there. While such a paradigm has a long history, it was Freud who established such duality as dogma and insisted that a theory of human behavior must be based on scientific observation. Good idea, Sig. But science marches on. Now that physicists believe that experimental results depend as much on the observer as the observed, the old "in here/out there" dichotomy is falling on hard times. Further, evolutionary theory has embraced the idea that ecosystems evolve as much as individual species, and psychology continues to reveal the constant interplay between who we are and where we exist. Enter "Ecopsychology," a framework for rethinking the causes of environmental despoliation and its impact on personal growth. The growing field includes ecofeminists and deep ecologists, Buddhist and Native American psychologists, Harvard Psychiatry professors and architects. Why are we, as a specie, so willing to foul our own nests? How does that effect us? We evolved as widely dispersed hunter-gatherers intimately connected to the natural world and now often live in close proximity to thousands of other humans largely insulated from the living system that supports us. Who can reasonably claim that this would NOT have profound impacts on the psyche? Along the way, ecopsychologists surmise that there still exists a deep connection to nature that environmentalism would do well to tap. They suggest that joyful celebration of our interdependence will touch hearts turned off by scare tactics that constantly iterate impending doom. This book is an excellent overview of a new direction for psychology and the exciting convergence of post-Darwinian, post-Einsteinian, post-Heisenbergian, post-Toastian (isn't this fun?) thought.

Assembled here are some of the leading lights of ecopsychology, with papers and excerpts from the books they've written: Roszak himself, Aizenstat, Hillman, Gomes, Glendinning, and on and on. A rare collection of important voices.

The idea of ecopsychology is to open up awareness to the unheard voice of the Earth. "Animism" is a 19th century assumption that assumes the world lives only to the degree we project into it. The authors here realize that animism is a reductionistic and outdated concept that only serves to justify the ongoing rape and dematerialization of the natural world--a world that in fact projects her presence into those of us who can learn to hear her.

This is not a back-to-nature project but a necessity if we are to preserve what's left of the Earth from our greed, haste, and the global warming of the psyche endemic to a society of rapacious and immature consumers too bent on private advantage to do what our ancestors did for a million years of history and prehistory: recognize and respect her personhood. And today, we can do so with all our critical faculties intact and a bit of help from green technics.

This book contains essays from a variety of sources. It does not tell you what ecopsychology is but tells you why it makes sence.
It quotes many psychologists, even Freud, and analises the real issues of today. Excellent material for a college thesus, but no real info on the techniques used/

This is a highly informative book. It tells about people's different points of view on the highly volatile and up-and-coming field of ecopsychology. This book is a great source of information and knowledge of the field as well as it's a pretty easy read. I used this book as a jumping off point for research for my undergraduate thesis. If you are interested in environmental issues and psychology, read this book.

To those who are environmental activists, this explains much of what the lay person thinks. This book I don't feel was meant to be a textbook of sorts, but it helps people who are trying to open up the minds and hearts of the human race to realize that we each as an individual can control how much and in what way we impact mother earth. Fact upon fact have been given out to try to convince people of the terrible acts we commit against Mother Earth and yet some people still don't feel they are responsible. I enjoyed reading the book. Honestly, I didn't rad the book to critique what the authors believe or rate their knowledge or intelligence, I read it for information on how to help! I feel it will help me to present my views to people in ways that they may understand and I will understand more of how people perceive them.

Too often, health problems are treated with magic pills, and this is especially true of mental health problems. Now here is a book that pays proper attention to both the causes of much mental illness and helpful things people can do in place of or in addition to drugs to improve their mood and mental health. The authors are a nutritionist, Gary Null, and a respected writer, Louise Bernikow. I was really surprised by the some of the information here-and troubled that I hadn't heard about it already. For example, it turns out the drugs that are used to treat kids diagnosed with ADHD (attention-deficit) disorders are associated with risk of violent or suicidal behavoir, and that the diagnosis itself is very blurry. So kids are being treated with dangerous drugs for a condition they often don't even have! And there are alternatives, nontoxic nutritional approaches, that usually aren't even considered. As usual, a big part of the problem is that doctors aren't adequately informed about exciting nutritional approaches, and doctors can only employ treatments they know how to prescribe, so it's a bit of a catch 22-with patients the worse off. But this book can help. I hope people read it, and, especially, that doctors and other mental health practitioners read it.

Although "The Food-Mood-Body Connection" teems with interesting information, its format robs it of instructive value. It takes the form of a long series of interviews with alternative-health practitioners, with occasional (and I mean occasional: more than half the book is paragraphs quoted verbatim) comments from the "author," Gary Null. If such a style appeals to you, you'll love this book; if you prefer knowledge in a usable context, however, turn elsewhere.

With real editing, this may become a valuable resource. Until then, most would be better served with Elizabeth Somer's "Food & Mood," a truly useful guide to this important subject.

There is a lot of interesting information in this book, and it's in a field that could use some more interest than it generally gets. Unfortunately the information appears in the middle of a huge mish-mash of every kind of alternative therapies. Reflexology occurs right beside various vitamin therapies, lithium treatment of manic-depression, food allergies and sensitivities, and heavy metal poisoning.

The various causes, and therapies discussed have little or no evaluation of their effectiveness, or history discussed. A fair number of individual cases are discussed, but nothing that would allow a reader to distinguish the obviously helpful from the promising from the complete hookum.

Another problem is that while good nutrition is discussed, and various ways in which supplements (vitamin & other) can help people achieve better health, there is no way given to try to sort out what kinds of supplements might do you some good. There is an exception for a couple of disorders (like alcoholism), where there is a more general discussion of what supplements a heavy drinker should take, particularly if s/he is trying to quit, but in general, no.

Last but not least, the discussion of toxic environments goes beyond unhelpful and into downright alarmist. While maintaining a healthy environment is admitably difficult in this day and age (if not impossible), it does no one any good to be looking at everything they eat, breathe, or touch as a potential toxin. So doing only raises stress levels - which as this book points out, is an environmental/lifestyle problem all its own.

In short - there's some interesting information in here, but it's not worth the effort, and the resultant paranoia from reading the book, to extract it.

In this book you can see that the solution for treating depression is not in a prescription... I'm going to try and find a doctor here that practices what this book is all about. They say that you might get depression symptoms from some food, from things in the environment, deficiency of minerals, etc. That is what needs to be found out and treated and when it is, your depression will go away. The book makes a LOT of sense. PLEASE READ IT, you won't be sorry.

In this book you can see that the solution for treating depression is not in a prescription. Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, Remeron, etc are all pills that any doctor will give you without considering what might be causing the depression and treating it. These pills have many side effects and I know because I've taken all of them, and many times they don't even work. I'm going to try and find a doctor here that practices what this book is all about. They say that you might get depression symptoms from some food, from things in the environment, deficiency of minerals, etc. That is what needs to be found out and treated and when it is, your depression will go away. The book makes a LOT of sense. PLEASE READ IT, you won't be sorry.

Have you every just fallen in love with a house, knowing that you were meant to live there? Have you ever had an apartment that seemed to suck the energy right from your body after a long hard day at work? Are there certain places in your home that are "yours" or "your spouse's"?

Unconsciously we are all seeking to become our genuine selves. In this quest, we tend to surround ourselves with ideals, examples of what we feel matches our deepest parts of ourselves. These examples come primarily from past experience. For instance, we may have had a special place in a childhood home where we felt safe, loved, and free. Alternately, we may subconsciously associate a large dining room with sadness after the loss of a parent or unvoiced hostility in a dysfunctional family setting.

House As A Mirror of Self brought to light many of the things that I had forgotten in my childhood and many of the situations that I hadn't really thought about. It is truly interesting what you gravitate towards because of your previous experiences and how those decisions get combined and complicated with that of your spouse. I even figured out why I was feeling that there was something not quite right about my home office.

I loved this book for its ordinariness with a subject that can be extraordinary and difficult to grasp at times. The writings of Clare Cooper Marcus helped define and hone many inner qualities in a very immediate manner. This book is like having a compassionate friend sitting with me.

I found this book when I was undergoing my own deep personal transformation ten years ago. It helped me understand my own relationship to the homes I had created for clients and my self. As an interior designer and a contractor it is important to understand the calling of the client's psyche and meet those needs. There is so much focus now on the spiritual aspects of one's home, and feng shui does offer up its own insights, but using this book as a primer for understanding what is calling to you will lead you to a different more integrated understanding. A carpenter builds a house, the family makes it a home. Clare gives the reader a path to understanding this complex yet simple process. The book is easy to read and offers many good exercises to dialog with the inner self. I highly recommend it to designers and psychologist alike.

This reads more like a textbook for an interior design course. It has little to do with the psychology of your own choice of home/setting. Like another reviewer said, the idea seemed fascinating, but the book disappoints right away, if not for the setup alone; the author overuses the same phrases and form to setup her next example. It is as though this were her thesis for design school. It could also pass for a really good new age book, that's how problem-centered it is. If you have watched "Designing for the Sexes" on HGTV, you have read this book. This book is only interesting and appropriate for interior designers, not for anyone seeking insight into our needs and choices when it comes to home.

I have an advanced degree in psychology and I have renovated several houses. The concept behind this book seemed fascinating to me. However, I have been very disappointed. The focus is on psychology written by an architect. She is an amateur psychologist--it would have been better if she had focused on her own area of expertise. It was a waste of money.

An eye opening book, that can inspire you to do just one small thing or change your life.

This book is so good. It's a very eye opening way to try to live your life. Filled with lots of informative facts about what is in the food that we eat, as well as what is really going on in the world around us. Enjoy and try to take some of these examples to heart and make your life a little better.

Ok...A book about a celebrity living a certain "lifestyle" I was hesistant at first to read this book but now proudly own it. It was inspiring to see a famous person walking the talk. Woody Harrelson has become someone I admire. Recommend this book highly!! Oh though I'm not a raw foodist there is a great section in regards to it.

This book made me queston many of my daily habits and allowed me to see the ways they affect the rest of the world. Go Further reinforced my decision to be a vegan, and made my roommate become a vegetarian! Great ideas, it should be required reading if the US is serious about saving the planet...

While enlightening I feel the title of the book can be misleading. The title should have been "Making the Case for Simple Organic Living". Woody gives you countless reasons why simple organic living is a path in life worth taking. The personal anecdotes are very entertaining and eye opening. Unfortunately I was expecting more specific examples of how one begins down the road. Maybe Woody and his team could write a follow up. It would certainly make a great companion book to this one.