The fact that we live in parts of the world where there are freedom of speach and print, doesn't mean that every lunacy should be printed.
Distributing, and cashing in on, the rambling thoughts of the worst mass murderer in modern times - well, that's just dispickable. Even if the expert are still arguing - this man is a complete lunatic.
As someone else said: Shame on whoever put this up for sale! And, SHAME on amazon.co.uk for allowing this to be sold through their web shop.

Readable and interesting - even for scolars from other fields of science.
My understanding is that both neuroscience and psychoterapy are fields of science where conjectures are a neccessity - there are no final proofs. Furthermore, the interrelation of these two fields is in its infancy. The author makes a good - and as far as I can see - an up-to-date description of the state-of-the-art.
Real life cases makes this book easy to relate to situations that the reader can recognise (either from own experiences or from the experiences of friends and family).
A most useful insight into the intricate workings of the brain and the damages it may suffer.

This book (and its sequel) could have been so much more.
Traveling between different universes and worlds... That sounds very exciting. Think of all the unknown wonders you could find. This would be the ultimate dream for both scifi buffs and others.
Sadly it is not so. The places that are traveled to are dull and not wonderous at all.
The main characters in the book(s) are flat, and it is not easy to get any sort of feelings for them. Each storyline is tedious and boring.
I have read Lawheads Empyrion saga earlier on, and found them to be among the best books I have read. But the Bright Empire books was a huge letdown. Of course, what the future "The Spirit Well", "The Shadow Lamp", "The Fatal Tree" have in store, I do not know, and will not ever know.

This is a tremendously useful book. First it gives the reader a very precise picture of what it means to suffer under a severe depression. It continuous by pointing out what this malady costs society (even if it only looks at the US perspective). The various forms of depression is explained in such a way that it is, if not easy, at least possible to understand how varied depression can be.
Next, Dr.Ainsworth gives a brief and understandable (and probably very basic) description of brain atonomy. She also gives a good explaination of basic neurology (I think - I am only a layman here), and the processes and the chemistry of the brain. Based on this, an briefing on medicin and other treatments follows.
There is also a very good chapter on how the depressed can help himself/herself, and also how his/her family and friends can help.
Near the end of the book Dr.Ainsworth attacks some of the common myths and misconceptions about depression. This is itself is very good. In fact, I think that this, in particular, should be mandatory knowledge for everyone (i.e. the stuff about myths and misconceptions).

For everyone who struggles with medium to severe depressions, and for everyone that loves someone who does: Read this book!!!

This is an amazing book.
The concept of the god engines are really food for thought. I read this while travelling, and lost my connecting flight in Frankfurt being entranced by this story. Now, that, is not recommendable - very expensive!.
I won't write anything about the plot, that can be read elsewhere - or even better: Read the book! Unless you take offence when someone touch the "god" concept, and see it as an attack on your religion, this is a fantastic journey.
My only complaint is that Scalzi hasn't (and probably won't) written more in the god engines universe.

This being (apparently) the only book available about Anaximander that is both available and recommended, I was really looking forward to reading it.

Certainly, the book is both thorough and interesting, but not very "user friendly". To get full value for this book, the reader needs to be able to read both classic greek and latin. This means that most layman readers will not benefit fully from reading it.

Sure, most greek and latin quotes are given an explaination, but no direct translations.

In general, I found it a tough read, but still very interesting. If the reader has a certain knowledge of modern cosmology and also some knowledge of the theories of evolution (i.e. Darwinism), he/she may find these more than 2500 years old thoughts very fascinating.

I find this book to be an excellent introduction to the subject matter. This is very heady stuff, and requires a certain ability to think both abstract and complex. To get the theories of the relevant subjects down to an understandable level is no small achievement. So many other books that tries to "popularize" modern cosmology takes the simplification too far. This, however, keeps at a level where the reader may actually learn something.

Certainly, this is not a book for the layman. Some knowledge of university math and relativity theory is helpful to get a full understanding of the contents of this book.

This book has been my first introduction to design of experiments. Being a software developer in the process of developing a DoE system, I found it to be thorough but somewhat unclear at some issues. Several central issues and techniques are "defined" by means of examples. A more to the point and general approach both to the definition of terms and to the description of techniques (dare I say algorithms?) would have been much appreciated.

I would also have appreciated it if the "supplemental material" had been included in the book instead of being inconveniently provided online as pdf files.

Sure, this is an almost naive time traveller story. But it is a very delightful book. It is not full of complex time paradoxes, it is (almost) simply a tale of people travelling in time. I found this book very entertaining, and a good companion on my own travel half way around the globe (fortunately, since the book is such an easy read, that journey took less than a day).
For me, this is a book I will remember for a long time. Only one other time traveller book of those I've read rates higher than this, and that is "The End of Eternity" (which of course is a book of a totally different calliber).

There are two things that makes me dislike this book. First, in this day and age, a book on the colorings in mathematics should be printed with colors. Without colors, this book becomes dull and uninspiring. My second issue is that I found the language in the book tiresome and difficult to read. After having struggled through the first 11 chapters, I couldn't stand to read any further.
This is a very, very uninspiring book.