Pipeline System Automation & Control
Mike S. Yoon, C. Bruce Warren, and Steve Adam. ASME Press, Three Park Ave., New York, NY 10016-5990. 2007. 450 pages. ASME members, $100; retail, $125. ISBN 0-7918-0263-9.

The latest entry in the Pipeline Engineering Monograph Series, this book discusses the methods for monitoring and controlling a pipeline safely and efficiently. Pipeline systems are growing in both size and complexity, driven by business requirements consolidating pipelines under fewer and fewer entities and with more interconnection between systems. At the same time, environmental concerns and safety issues require more sophisticated monitoring and control. The authors review the various automation technologies and discuss the design, implementation, and operation of pipeline automation, with emphasis on centralized automation systems. The goal of this book is to provide pipeline engineers with a comprehensive understanding of pipeline automation, so they may be in position to seek further expert advice or consult professional literature.

Math Doesn't Suck
Danica McKellar. Hudson Street Press, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014-3658. 2007. 302 pages. $23.95. ISBN 978-1-59463-039-2.

Subtitled "How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail," this is the first book by Danica McKellar, who is probably best known for her TV roles on The Wonder Years and The West Wing. She is an internationally recognized mathematician and an advocate for math education. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in mathematics, McKellar has been cited for her role as a co-author of a groundbreaking mathematical physics theorem that bears her name (the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem). In 2000, she spoke before the U.S. Congress on the importance of women in math and science. She seeks to demystify such concepts as fractions, decimals, ratios, and greatest common factors by giving examples that a middle school girl can relate to, such as figuring out how much time she spends on the phone every night or calculating the sale price of a dress without a calculator.

A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion Inside One of America's Best High Schools
Alec Klein. Simon & Schuster Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. 2007. 336 pages. $25. ISBN 978-0-7432-9944-2.

This book gives the reader a close-up look inside one of the most competitive academic environments in a city that itself is so unforgivingly competitive that pedestrians, in their hurry to cross a street, will make an ambulance wait. Stuyvesant High is a New York City public school for outstanding students, who must pass an entrance exam. Math and science are its strong suits, the author says, and four of its alumni have won Nobel Prizes. Author Alec Klein graduated from the school in 1985 and went back for six months in 2006. He came away from the experience with a vivid snapshot of the culture of the halt, the lame, and the very bright. Take Jan Siwanowicz, for example. Extraordinarily gifted in mathematics, he is a protégé of Daniel Jaye, the math department chairman. Siwanowicz was hired as a school aide, because he wasn't able to complete his college degree and is assigned to cafeteria supervision when Jaye would have him working with kids on math instead. Siwanowicz is one of the few who makes a connection with another misfit, a 10-year-old wizard named Milo, who is too young to enroll at Stuyvesant but came to take the advanced math courses. The cast of extraordinary characters, which the author says are faithfully reported with no attempt to glamorize or cover up, include the self-destructive Jane, half-heartedly fighting a heroin addiction; her long-suffering mentor, Eric Grossman, the English department chairman; Romeo, the dreadlocked star of the school football team, the Peglegs (named for Peter Stuyvesant's trademark handicap), who also tutors other students in math; and a host of others, some briefly sketched and others drawn in detail, who make up a culture that is unique unto itself and yet, at the same time, remains somehow strangely familiar.

Pump Handbook. Fourth Edition
Igor J. Karassik, Joseph P. Messina, Paul Cooper, and Charles C. Heald. McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. 2008. 1,632 pages. $150. ISBN 978-0-07-146044-6.

A long-established seminal work on pump design and application, the Pump Handbook has been revised and updated with the latest developments in pump technology. This impressive volume, originally published in 1976, shows how to select, purchase, install, operate, maintain, and troubleshoot cutting-edge pumps for all types of uses. The book has new sections on centrifugal pump mechanical performance, flow analysis, bearings, adjustable-speed drives, waterhammer, and application to water supply, pumped storage, and cryogenic LNG services. There are also revised sections on pump theory, mechanical seals, and intakes and suction pumping, among other subjects. SI units are used throughout the book, and it contains 1,150 illustrations. This work was last issued in 2001.