Book Description
Judge Dee and his four helpers solve the murders of an honored merchant, a kindly boxing master, and a paper merchant's wife, whose corpse has no head. They succeed in spite of strong pressure on Judge Dee from higher-ups to bring his investigation, which has temporarily generated unrest among the populace, rapidly to an end or face dismissal and serious punishment. The case of the headless corpse is based on a thirteenth-century Chinese casebook; the nail murder, one of the most famous motifs in Chinese crime literature, is first described in the same text.
"So scrupulously in the classic Chinese manner yet so nicely equipped with everything to satisfy the modern reader."--New York Times
Robert Van Gulik (1910-67) was a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture. He drew his plots from the whole body of Chinese literature, especially from the popular detective novels that first appeared in the seventeenth century.
Customer Reviews:
sinister doom.......2005-02-27
Judge Dee has been a real existing person, living in China from 630-700. As a magistrate he got himself a reputation for solving complicated crimes, thus living on in Chinese folk tales for many ages afterwards. In the 20th century Dutch writer Robert van Gulik, diplomat and scientist on ancient China, partly used these tales to set up his judge Dee-detective novels.
In the fairly extensive Judge Dee-series, 'the Chinese nail murders' stands out for being unusual. Van Gulik always has judge Dee solving his crimes in a cool, rational & methodical way. Behaving with a slight distance, in the firm believe that such an attitude works best.
Not so in this book. Located in a small, distant town in the midst of winter, Van Gulik sets his three crimes-plot against an atmosphere of doom right from the start. His story also provides a touch of black magic, dealt by an evil woman. Highly unusual is the involvement of the judge's personal feelings. Another shock comes with the murder on his old, trusted & lifelong assistant, who features in many other judge Dee-novels.
At the end of the story judge Dee's rational ways of solving crimes don't work anymore. He's saved from failure, though, by a lady he shares a mutual affection with. The lady acts in the full understanding that helping him leads to her own death. Having gone through all this darkness, 'the Chinese Nail Murders' ends with an unexpected bolt of lightning.
Haunting you throughout, this unusual judge Dee-novel ranks among the best in the series.
A unique work and superbly readable.......2000-05-19
Written close to 40 years ago (first published in 1961), this book is part of Van Gulik's Judge Dee series which chronicles the cases investigated by the famous magistrate of classical Chinese detective stories.
A staple of the Judge Dee stories are the multi-layered plot and accurate historical details of ancient Chinese culture and practices and this book does not disappoint in both areas. Unique and superbly readable, this series deserves a place on the shelf of every mystery fan. One small note: This new version seems to have omitted the chinese-style illustrations found in the original printing - probably due to the (very low-key) nudity that the publisher found offensive.
My favorite book in the series.......1999-12-29
I have read all of Van Gulik's murder mysteries and this is has to be my favorite. The characters are intriguing and some sinister. The end is satisfying and bittersweet, challenging integrity vs justice. I would, however, recommend you read the others first (chronological is good, Chinese Gold Murders is first) to get to know the main characters although this book can stand on on its own.
Book Description
In the fourth installment of Robert Van Gulik's ancient Chinese mystery series based on historical court records, detective Judge Dee is appointed to the magistrate of Pei-chow -- a distant frontier district in the barren north of the ancient Chinese Empire. It is here that he is faced with three strange and disturbing crimes: the theft of precious jewels, the disappearance of a girl in love, and the fiendish murder involving the nude, headless body of a woman. And even more curious, the crimes seem to be linked together by clues from a popular game of the period, the Seven Board.
"A delight to the connoisseur" (
San Francisco Chronicle),
The Chinese Nail Murders was first published in the 1950s. Timeless and exotic, it is now reissued by Perennial and includes charming illustrations and an epilogue that details the origins of each case and how the author discovered them.
Customer Reviews:
Nailing the murderer.......2007-09-13
This Chinese mystery story is one of Judge Dee's best, although I like all of his books so far. The book was fun to read. I always try to figure out who is the murderer and how it was done before finishing the book; the author is very clever, and sometimes there is a surprise ending. I am delighted these books were reprinted. I read them 50 years ago; and now that they are again available, am rereading them. I like them even better now!
Book Description
By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. Never has a scientist been so truthful in capturing in words the flavor of his work.
Customer Reviews:
enough to fire your enthusiasm.......2006-08-09
I read this book as a new science teacher, and it made me realise that all research and teaching can be enlivened by the characters that populate the scientific world. It certainly is not just for academics. I recommend this to everybody - I loved every page. Both Watson and Crick were insufferably arrogant, loud, ostentatious, obnoxious - but it allows the reader to see that enthusiasm and shear pushiness gets places. One sees the boundries set in academic research, and understands also the content of their work. A MUST read. As relevent today as in 1968.
a favorite........2006-05-25
this is easily one of my favorite books. some dislike it for watson's dramatization of certain social elements in the story, and for the way in which crick and watson made their discovery. but i think the book should be appreciated as a text which makes science more accessible to the general public. and perhaps most impressive is how watson does manage to include some science in a way which i think will not distract the lay reader, or bore him.
take it with a grain of salt.......2005-11-24
While James Watson is not on the list of authors I'd generally recommend reading, this book is an exception. Those interested in the history of molecular biology should definitely read this book. Given the nature of the topic, it is light and enjoyable reading. Certainly this account is biased to some extent, which makes it necessary to read other books on the topic as well. Further reading on Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin, among other personalities mentioned in the Double Helix, are highly recommended, and necessary for fair balance.
2 Helix as 1.......2005-11-23
The Double Helix was a one of the books on my high school biology teacher's reading list for the class. The name itself, The Double Helix, had shied me away from reading it; it sounds like some boring old book that will describe the structure of DNA in some very big and boring words. However, after finally reading the book, I completely changed my thoughts on this book. I found the novel to be an easy and exciting to read in an almost fictious hero-like story.
Watson's story is not just a mere account of the events that occurred, but it also contains many of his personal thoughts and views of the events. Watson's purpose for writing The Double Helix was to explain that scientific research was a combination of "the contradictory pulls of ambition and the sense of fair play." Watson involves the reader in the "race" of the DNA structure with Linus Pauling and in the underhanded use of Rosalind Franklin's X-ray data. I, like many others, was sucked into the thrill of Watson's first-hand account of this dishonest race. During many points in the course of the novel, I was anxiously waiting to turn the page to see what Watson or Crick might do next. As Sir Lawrence Bragg puts it in the foreword, "I do not know any other instance where one is able to share so intimately in the researcher's struggle and doubts and final triumph."
The Double Helix was not only a good read, but also it has reinvigorated my spirit in the field of research, especially the active field of genetics. My first year of college courses in chemistry and biology had began to turn me away from research in particular areas, for the courses just did not seem to interest me anymore. However, this book has provided me with a new avenue into the exciting world and life of scientific research; I am again looking forward to going into the genetic research field.
I observed a very interesting point in the book, which is that all the data and diagrams that were discussed throughout the novel are also taught in our chemistry classes; it is in this fact that I find science's beauty, that only 50 years ago this data was used to solve the structure of a totally unknown molecule/idea and is now taught in elementary chemistry classes.
The Double Helix is an exceptional novel that I recommend to all.
A dishonourment to Rosalind Franklin's memory.......2005-11-18
This book is an innaccurate version of events in the the discovery of teh structure of DNA. What most people don't know is that Rosalind Franklin was crucial to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Watson and Crick actually stole most of her data via Wilson, her supervisor, adn passed it off as their own discoverery. She was a brilliant scientist and should have been an independent researcher at Kings College, but because she was a woman she was made an assistant to Wilson. She was extremely dedicated and plowed through all the obstacles at Kings College. However, her supervisor, Wilson, showed most of her data to his old friend Crick, who shared it with his partner Watson. They too were studying DNA, although they were on completely wrong track. The data that was pilfered included the famous photo 51, which Franklin obtained over a course of years' work and revealed the spiral shape of DNA. They also positioned the competent of DNA, such as the bases, exactly as she hypothesized. Watson, Crick, and Wilson received the Nobel Prize, while Franklin could not, because she died at the age of 38 due to radiation exposure from the X-rays she used to capture photo 51. The men only mentioned her in passing when accepting their prize, and definitely not as the source of the actual discovery. Then Watson had the gall to write a book that casts her in a horrible light, as an inferior person who was bad tempered and selfishly hoarded her information. He also calls her `Rosy' throughout the entire book, although she despised that name. He once even went up to Rosalind and demanded that she hand over her data. He was a complete bigot, and thought her inferior and was furious when she refused to share her own findings to him. He harps about her appearance in the book, and it is obvious that is the only way he perceives her, and not as a thinking person. And for the record, she was actually quite striking, and wore the latest in French fashions. She was extremely dedicated, and her level of determination would have been completely accepted in a man. That's why I give this book a one, and if I could I'd give it a zero. Watson is just begging for comeuppance for what he wrote in this book. I would reccomend reading other books about Rosalind's struggle, such as 'Rosalind Franklin: The dark lady of DNA'
Amazon.com
"Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders," writes James Watson in The Double Helix, his account of his codiscovery (along with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA. Watson and Crick won Nobel Prizes for their work, and their names are memorized by biology students around the world. But as in all of history, the real story behind the deceptively simple outcome was messy, intense, and sometimes truly hilarious. To preserve the "real" story for the world, James Watson attempted to record his first impressions as soon after the events of 1951-1953 as possible, with all their unpleasant realities and "spirit of adventure" intact.
Watson holds nothing back when revealing the petty sniping and backbiting among his colleagues, while acknowledging that he himself was a willing participant in the melodrama. In particular, Watson reveals his mixed feelings about his famous colleague in discovery, Francis Crick, who many thought of as an arrogant man who talked too much, and whose brilliance was appreciated by few. This is the joy of The Double Helix--instead of a chronicle of stainless-steel heroes toiling away in their sparkling labs, Watson's chronicle gives readers an idea of what living science is like, warts and all. The Double Helix is a startling window into the scientific method, full of insight and wit, and packed with the kind of science anecdotes that are told and retold in the halls of universities and laboratories everywhere. It's the stuff of legends. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
The classic personal account of one of the great scientific discoveries of the century.
By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a brilliant young zoologist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest unsolved mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of the life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. He is impressed by the achievements of the young man he was, but clear-eyed about his limitations. Never has such a brilliant scientist also been so gifted, and so truthful, in capturing in words the flavor of his work.
Customer Reviews:
Which edition to get ?.......2007-04-18
I ended up getting copies of two different paperback editions.
The Simon & Schuster Touchstone Book, with a little bit of an introduction by Sylvia Nasar, has easy-to-read print and the photographs are pleasantly large. Good for reading in the subway.
But the Norton Critical edition, edited by Gunther S. Stent, is the one to get if you can only afford one. Its typeface leaves much to be desired, and, in my copy, some of the pages are hard to read because the printer seems to have run out of ink in the middle of the job. But the edition has materials that are indispensable for an understanding of this classic work of science. I enjoyed, most of all, Stent's essay "reviewing the reviews," showing both the wisdom (by some) and the foolishness (by others) with which the Double Helix was received by the scientific community.
DNA discovery.......2007-03-18
Excellent book formulating the personalities and egos behind the race for DNA. Interesting and well written. Add a star if you are in the field.
The drama behind the DNA.......2007-03-09
I read this as a requirement for a class but actually found it interesting. It show the human sides to the people behing the discovery of DNA and exposes the drama and gossip going on. It also shows just how difficult it was and is to be a woman scientist (Rosalind's story).
It is a short book, an easy read, I recommend it.
Understated Account of a Really Big Event.......2002-11-08
Clarification is in order. First of all, this is not a substantive science book. For all the significance of the discovery it chronicles, The Double Helix never bothers to explain how, for example, x-ray crystallography actually works, or what the difference between a keto- and an -enol is, or even why Watson's and Crick's discovery brought on a new era in the life sciences. Aspiring students of genetics and molecular biology are urged to inquire elsewhere for answers to these questions.
Second, to label The Double Helix a book on scientific method is almost equally misleading - the reason being that there is no room in the rarefied formalism extolled by the likes of Karl Popper for Watson's subjectivity and sarcasm, not to mention the latter's frequent excursions on nubile au pairs and the deplorable student housing market at Cambridge.
Third (not that it matters for an appreciation of the book, but it's a common misunderstanding), Watson and Crick did not discover DNA itself, or even the function of DNA. Rather, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for solving the molecular structure of DNA.
With those clarifications in mind, The Double Helix is a profitable read. Watson shows us non-scientists that the practice of science is "just" another human endeavor, and not some remote, sterilized activity conducted by emotional eunuchs in white coats. Watson's first-person narrative is downright conversational, as if he's talking shop over a pint of stout in an English pub. He is unabashedly honest about both his ambitions and his naivete (he was only 23 at the time the events in the book took place). And his sometimes scathing portrayals of his colleagues - in all their brilliance and banality - give the impression that working in a world-class research facility is a lot like working anywhere else.
Francis Crick comes across as that certain guy we all knew in college (wherever and whenever that was) - impish and boisterous, egocentric but big-hearted, who might be dapper if he didn't sleep in his clothes, whose eccentricity is the bane of faculty advisors, whose attention is everywhere but on task, whose breath sometimes smells like beer after lunch, and whose serendipitous genius comes through at all the right times. The supporting cast is equally colorful: Maurice Wilkins, the quintessential English academic stuffed corpse; Rosalind Franklin, a Freudian caricature of icy feminine competence in a man's world; the godlike Linus Pauling playing with his tinker toy molecular models in California.
And it wasn't just his colleagues who made Watson's work interesting. There were the aforementioned au pairs, the pubs and the parties and the formal receptions, there was the professional competitiveness between the English and the Americans - with Watson (a Yank in Cambridge) more of an American insurance policy against the Brits getting all the credit for solving DNA if Pauling wasn't fast enough. And there was the Cold War, which had an impact on research priorities and, sometimes, hampered communication in the scientific community.
But most importantly - although Watson never deigns to make this point explicit - The Double Helix is a fascinating chronicle of the scientific method in action, notwithstanding the politics, the distractions, and the idiosyncrasies of the protagonists. The task itself was daunting. Watson and Crick already knew what DNA was composed of, and they knew with some certainty the proportions in which the bases were represented, but there could only be one correct way to put all the pieces together and the haystack was a big one. The researchers were quick to offer and to accept criticism, and false leads were abandoned without regard to ego or sunk time. Even though each wanted to get there first, London shared their findings with Cambridge, Cambridge shared their insights with London, and England and California held nothing from each other for long - admirable examples of the "sociable competition" of science that expedites discovery.
In the end, Watson's and Crick's success relied heavily on Wilkins's and Franklin's crystallography, with important contributions from whomever happened to stop by the lab during the two year period, and insights from conferences and the textbooks and articles Watson happened to read at the time. Creativity, serendipity, and openness to the ideas of others eventually yielded hypotheses, which were tested using Pauling's modeling methods. It could not have been done alone, as Watson makes clear, and the structure of DNA would have been discovered sooner or later. While ultimately it doesn't matter who gets the credit for the discovery, the world seems a better place for James Watson's being involved, if only because The Double Helix is such an entertaining read.
The Double Helix.......2002-10-29
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA written by James D. Watson is a rather engaging with a easily readable down to earth style book on the discovery of the structure of DNA. James D. Watson and Francis Crick worked on the structure of DNA, as did other of the time L. Pauling and R. Franklin were hot on the heals of Watson and Crick.
This is the story of how they made history, a story by a scientist about scientists, this is a superbly human tale of how a very unusual 23 year old American saw his chance for scientific immortality and set out to seize it.
If you like reading about about discovery and how it was done, then you'll like this book. Written in a folksy mannor, this is a book that is thrilling as you get to experience the discovery firsthand. Here you'll read about observation, the suspense of making this discovery before others and the mounting tension associated with science. You'll feel Watson's brilliance come through the narrative, his frank tone mixed with humor all making this a fast read, but never boring.
You'll be transported back to college, Cambridge, off to London and Paris, experience things like wine, movies, and girls, but you'll feel the undertone of scientific politics at its finest. This is a very entertaining book about the beautiful experience of making a great scientific discovery.
Book Description
From reviews of the
Texas Highways Cookbook:
"This is the quintessential Texas cookbook."
—
Books of the Southwest
"The oversize format, lovely color landscape photographs and...intelligent text are consistent with the cookbook's estimable fare."
—
Publishers Weekly
Whether you're hungry for down-home barbecue and Tex-Mex, or you want to try more exotic dishes such as Paella Valenciana and Thai Pesto,
Texas Highways has long been a trusted source for delicious recipes that reflect wide-ranging Lone Star tastes. The state's official travel magazine published its first
Texas Highways Cookbook, which has sold 20,000 copies, in 1986. Responding to the public's demand for a new collection of the magazine's recipes, the editors are pleased to bring you
Cooking with Texas Highways, a compilation of more than 250 recipes that are as richly diverse and flavorful as Texas itself.
Cooking with Texas Highways samples all the major ethnic cuisines of the state with recipes from home cooks, well-known chefs, and popular restaurants. It offers a varied and intriguing selection of snacks and beverages, breads, soups and salads, main dishes, vegetables and sides, sauces and spreads, desserts, and more. A special feature of this cookbook is a chapter on Dutch-oven cooking, which covers all the basics for cooking outdoors with live coals, including seventeen mouth-watering recipes. In addition, you'll find dozens of the lovely color photographs that have long made
Texas Highways such a feast for the eyes, along with tips on cooking techniques and sources for ingredients and stories about some of the folks who created the recipes. If you want to sample all the tastes of Texas, there's no better place to start than
Cooking with Texas Highways.
Customer Reviews:
Best all round Texas cookbook.......2007-03-10
I chose this book as a gift for a non-Texan, and then had to purchase another for myself! I love the variety of recipes in the book, which include traditional Texas favorites, recipes representing the numerous ethnic populations in Texas, as well as more current Texas food trends. The book is full of beautiful color photos, historical facts and trivia relating to the recipes. Well worth the money spent.
The Best Cookbook in the WORLD.......2006-04-30
I just bought this. And read it. I have hundreds of cookbooks, and 2 shelves of Texas ones. Not only is it the best Texas cookbook, it has become my instant favorite cookbook, and gets my vote for the best cookbook in the world! No kidding! Why?
This is a beautifully illustrated book, with ALL of your Texas favorites- from Tex-Mex to Czek. And nice reading on some of our local favorite producers- for example of goat cheese.
I have grown completely sick of 'chef' cookbooks. Not only are we supposed to cook like a trained professional would in a resturaunt these days, we are supposed to cook for celebrities- or so it would seem from the endless celebrity chef cookbooks out there. This is a 'real' cookbook. For real people- and it is authentic. The cookbook I read just before this one, while really very good, had loads of bell peppers in the fajitas! I mean- yikes! This book is brave enought to list the famous (and much loved) but really tacky (and chefs would cringe) Texas classics- such as Rotel Cheese Dip and Frito Pie. There are of course much more sophisticated recipes, but all look wonderful.
Lastly, any book with such a drop-dead beautiful photo of bluebonnets gets my vote. But then I have never seen an ugly copy of a Texas Highway Magazine either.
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- The Concubine's Tattoo (A Sano Ichiro Mystery)
- The Confession of Brother Haluin
- The Darkest Hour (Warriors, Book 6)
- The Drowning Pool
- The Faithful Dead (Hawkenlye Mysteries)
- The Fugitive Queen
- The Hundredth Man
- The Iron Hand of Mars: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery
- The Lesson of Her Death
Books Index
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The Chinese Lake Murders (Judge Dee Mysteries)
The Willow Pattern: A Judge Dee Mystery
The Emperor's Pearl: A Judge Dee Mystery
The Lacquer Screen: A Chinese Detective Story (A Judge Dee Mystery)
Poets and Murder: A Judge Dee Mystery (Gulik, Robert Hans Van, Judge Dee Mystery.)
