PositiveThe Seattle TimesFor the nonscientist who wants to catch up and join in, the book is an excellent starting point ... Rochman has found noted and well-spoken ethicists, scientists and genetic researchers who clearly articulate the pros and cons of the issues surrounding genetic screening, testing and treatments. The Gene Machine is well researched and written as a helpful guide on the choices potential parents may be called upon to make. It can also help guide society out of the ethical thickets planted by this advancing science.
Douglas Smith
PositiveThe Seattle TimesSmith meticulously examines those stories for veracity ... Smith relied heavily on primary sources: personal letters, government documents and police and press reports. The result is detailed and engaging.
Peter Cozzens
PositiveThe Seattle TimesHis detailed history sweeps across 25 years of U.S. Indian policy, gives clear accounts of battles and raids and introduces generals and chiefs, foot soldiers and warriors. But Cozzens’ most valuable contribution comes when he takes the story off the battlefields of the West and shows that the violence and treachery used against the Indians was the result of actions and planning by the Army, the White House and Congress ... None of the combatants had a monopoly on ghastly violence, and Cozzens details the torture, rapes, scalping and mutilation of corpses carried out by tribal warriors.
Ron Hansen
PositiveThe Seattle Times...may be the definitive book on Billy the Kid, the elusive character from America’s Old West ... Taking a definitive approach that plows under historical quibbles allows Hansen to add detail and dialogue to the story, character and wit to Billy — even intimate love scenes ... As Hansen says at the end of his book, the Kid has become 'to a great degree each person’s wild invention.' This is Hansen’s version — a wisecracking daredevil.
Michael Kinsley
PositiveThe Seattle TimesKinsley starts with a clever title and carries a droll sense of humor through all 160 pages. Sprinkled in are some wise nuggets of advice on how to deal with aging, disease and that awful day when you have to give up driving ... Much of the book deals with Parkinson’s disease, despite Kinsley’s halfhearted denial that it will be ... Kinsley proposes a way for the boomer generation as a whole to leave behind a good reputation... You might not die laughing, but that’s proof that laughter is the best medicine. Kinsley’s book is prescribed.
Steve Olson
PositiveThe Seattle TimesWhile its claims of exclusivity may be exaggerated, the book is an engaging read that includes an account of the successful efforts to establish the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Most important, the book can serve as a reminder that preparation is all that puny humans can do to counter the potential destruction of natural disasters.
John Donovan & Caren Zucker
RaveThe Seattle TimesIn telling the struggle to make the general public aware of autism, the authors recount the history of this condition. Not in dry clinical terms, but through the human stories of those raising autistic children, of those trying to treat, study and research it and those who are autistic.