by Mahlon Hoagland, Bert Dodson
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Amazon.com Review
Subtitled The Science Lover's Illustrated Guide to How Life Grows, Develops, Reproduces, and Gets Along, The Way Life Works is what happens when a biologist and artist share an interest in life from bacteria to humans, and collaborate on taking their knowledge public. The result is a most magnificent science book, devoted to the wonder and unity of the natural world. The chapters start with Patterns and Energy, continue with Information, Machinery, Feedback, and Community, and end with Evolution. Each is superbly written, delightfully illustrated, and supremely informative. Take the chapter on energy and its explanation of ATP, a.k.a. the conversion of light energy into chemical energy. The metaphor is dance, with an illustration showing electrons as jitterbuggers in the Chloroplast Ballroom. The text explains that as the lights spin and the band breaks into "Sugar Jump," the dancers go wild. Suddenly a bystander inspired by a couple on the floor gets dancing feet. This in turn excites a second bystander to dance and before long a chain reaction takes place, each new dancer energizing the next bystander. It's a brilliant start to a lucid explanation of a subject that plunges many a biology student into a panic, here made so readily accessible that readers, ages 10 to 100, can come away with a working mental model of the process. And so it goes for division of cells, DNA double helixes, fermentation, and the adaptation of genes. Hoagland and Dodson have succeeded in producing that most beauteous of reference books, the resource that makes you interested in what you had thought was dull as dishwater, then, once you're hooked, raises your understanding to a high standard of comprehension. It's a truly laudatory work of science and art. --Stephanie Gold
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Best Biological Science Book EVER., 2008-07-14
This book gave me far and away a much better education in the biological sciences than my 4 years as a pre-medical student at Duke University ever did. Awesome book.
My main complaint about the paperback edition is that they don't use the cover design that was on the original hardcover edition of this book when it first came out. This new design, it just plain sucks. It is plain and boring, and I hate it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 For middle school, 2008-06-20
As Exploring the way life works this book offers a very intersting view of life principles and a wonderful presentation to teach kids. Nice to have as reference book at biology class.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
the way life works, 2008-02-19
What a wonderful way to learn a bit about how and why we are, read to a child, or enjoyed as an adult. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how the human body works.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Biology concepts explained, 2005-08-15
The illustrations and text are so clear at explaining the concepts of biology that I recommend this book to everyone I know with a high school kid. I used this as my basic text for a class for homeschoolers on cell biology. My little geek daughter has read and reread this book from the age of 8 or 9, and at the age of 12 (with some other study) got a 750 on the SAT II Biology test. Hoaglund really knows how to explain life science. I especially recommend the section explaining how life staves off entropy to allow building of complexity. I learned more from this little book than from high school Biology.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Absoultely Inspirational and enlightening, 2003-06-20
This book is a masterpiece. It opens up your eyes and your imagination in such a fation, you will understand many concepts that otherwise an ordinary person like myself couldnt put together sciencewise. Thanks so much to the Authors. Big talent.
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