Special Cases: Natural Anomalies and Historical Monsters

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I got the feeling he wrote a book around some vacations he took. He references the Mutter Museum multiple times, so if you're really interested in a book on anomalies, look into the Mutter Museum book. Don't waste your money on this one!!

Rating:
Summary: a mediocre overview of a fascinating subject
Review: The illustrations are spectacular in Special Cases, and many of the anecdotes are vividly written. But the author also omits much of the subject matter's historical and scientific context, leaving the "special cases" looking more like simple freaks. As well, this book is poorly organized and poorly edited, so that by the end I was completely frustrated with Ms. Purcell.

Rating:
Summary: Bizarre, at times slightly interesting but very flawed
Review: This book could have been so much more. It is flawed by a very odd writing style---deadpan and stilted. The format is so odd as to make it almost unreadable at times---two blocks of print on each page, at very different levels, as if one is meant to be a caption, yet it isn't! The author doesn't seem to know whether she wants to be a book for the curious, or a book condemning you for being curious. A fascinating subject, which is why this book can be interesting at all, but really not handled well here---don't bother with this one.

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: Visually, the book is rewarding. The author has photographed her specimens imaginatively, compelling the reader to look twice to identify the subject matter. The text, however, is a great disappointment. Not only is the format confusing (as some reviewers have already pointed out), but with a writing style so disjointed and without an appreciable sense of structure, the book leaves us readers floundering in a fishpond, desperately seeking the shore.

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: Visually, the book is rewarding. The author has photographed her specimens imaginatively, compelling the reader to look twice to identify the subject matter. The text, however, is a great disappointment. Not only is the format confusing (as some reviewers have already pointed out), but with a writing style so disjointed and without an appreciable sense of structure, the book leaves us readers floundering in a fishpond, desperately seeking the shore.