This book has a lot of great information but it is very densely written. To me it seems more like a research/term paper than a book for the general public. While she does explain things in laymens terms, there is a LOT of data and facts thrown in that are tedious to read. Overall, I'd recommend the book if you are having multiples because it does bring up a lot of points to consider as your raise your kids. The biggest point for me was the differences in fraternal and identical twins and how they really are different and not all just "twins."

There is a lot of information in this little book, although her conclusions from some of the research seem premature (especially because much of it has not been adequately replicated). At times Segal builds off of inconclusive or contradictory studies, deducing things that there is currently not enough evidence to support. Similarly, she makes the research seem groundbreaking, when the fact that genetics influences behavior has been common knowledge for quite some time. In general, however, I found the book easy to read, enlightening, and full of A LOT of valuable information on genetics, nature v. nurture, twins, and much other data based on twin studies. One simply needs to be able to separate her opinions and interpretations from the objective findings. My last criticism is that the book can sometimes be dry, although her occasional anecdotes make it much more pleasant. All in all, I recommend this book for all of the interesting facts and the thought-provoking implications.

This is a book that is simply cram-packed with a huge hodge podge of information! Probably it has pretty much anything you would like to know about studies that have been done of twins---many, many ways in which they are alike or different, the types of twins (it's more than just identical or fraternal!), conjoined twins, twins raised apart, famous twins---it goes on and on and on! I loved reading so many pieces of information about a topic I am very interested in!

However, the book could have used much more editing, or maybe a co-author or ghost writer! It has the feel of someone saying that they need to be sure to put this piece in, and this piece, and oh, got to cram this one in too...sometimes without much of a transition or without necessary background information or follow-up information. Sometimes it also seemed like if the author was told anything she felt was interesting by the twins she studied, she wanted to quote them exactly on it, even when the quote didn't really make total sense without the whole conversation being there.

But these are quibbles---I just liked the information and the tone of the author so much I wish that the book was a bit more cohesive so even more people would get through it and gain the knowledge it holds! Worth a read for anyone fascinated by twins or genetics!

the book was in great condition and it was shipped in a timely fashion. thanks!

Had this book been less technical and more anecdotal, I would have awarded the author, Nancy Segal, PhD a 5 star rating.
Alas - it is very dry due to her habit of citing research study after research study - then of course, a long explanation regarding percentages. whew * Lends to very dry reading indeed.
Not to ignore the fact that there are many interesting facts that Dr. Segal presents in her studious little book in regards to identical twins versus fraternal twins. The sad reality is that the identical twins grab the spotlight most of the time because of their uncanny similarities that really impress!
Identical twins are the closest thing to CLONES that the world can ever see, and for this - Dr. Segal discusses numerous arguements that support the claim.
She discussed many cases of identical twins...some raised in the same home, some raised in different homes. What I am so sorry that SHE DID NOT INCLUDE were the world-famous identical twins, Ronald and Richard Herrick.
They were the first persons ever to successfully undergo kidney donorship and transplantation in the world - - - way back in 1954. Richard was only 24 when glomerulonephritis placed him in kidney failure and he was weeks away from a certain death.
His doctors had warned the family to put his affairs in order, because he was doomed to die so prematurely.
But then they learned that Richard had an identical twin brother, Ronald. THey agreed to attempt the transplant and it worked!!! I would have loved to hear Segals' spin on this amazing story - it changed the medical world overnight!
She does compare lots of data on natural identical twins, identical twins spaced by years by artificial insemination, superfecated twins, step-twins, near-twins and also some discusson on identical triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets.
A small discussion is included for the famous Dilley septuplets.
There is a frightening chapter on conjoined twins and their sad stories.
OVerall this was a very excellent book and I learned alot from it. 334 pages of twin trivia and facinating facts are contained within. I highly recommend this reading, for those minds who do not mind a whole bunch of data and percentage discussions.

In Entwined Lives, researcher Nancy Segal draws upon hundreds of case studies to explore the physical development of twins, and to tackle the thorny nature-versus-nurture question. Segal is competent and often interesting when she sticks to the former; her forays into the latter, on the other hand, are long-winded and anecdotal, and clearly highlight her shaky grasp of statistical methods, not to mention the benefits of editing.

Among the more interesting ideas raised in the book is a detailed description of the different ways in which twins develop in utero from conception onward. I also found intriguing a description of a third type of twin, one in which both siblings share their mother's, though not their father's genes. This second topic, though, is barely developed, and there is little mention of how twins of this type are identified. This is typical for the book - interesting ideas are raised and then promptly abandoned, leaving the reader with little understanding or context.

At the same time, Segal does not hesitate to make broad generalizations about genetics and socialization from small collections of anecdotes. Much of the book is devoted to demonstrating the influence of genetics upon intelligence, behaviour, and athletic ability. A chapter on twins separated at birth is well-written and its methods well-described, but it's the exception. On the whole, this section is filled with dozens of case studies and stories from which Segal draws a multitude of conclusions, some better founded than others. She has ample data to support her uncontroversial claim that genetics play a large role in determining intelligence and similarities in abilities, and belabours this obvious point for several chapters during much of the book. (Do we really need several paragraphs explaining that height and weight play a role in determining athletic ability?)

But she is just as prepared to base her theories on a story here, a fact there: one identical pair's preference for very rare meat, for instance, prompts Segal to hypothesize that not only do identical twins share preferences, but that the things they enjoy are likely to lie outside the mainstream. She also ponders at length the significance of one athletic twin claiming an Olympic gold while his cotwin ended up with the silver. After a paragraph of grade-school-level speculation, she raises the (most likely) possibility that the medal discrepancy doesn't mean anything. This book is filled with these sorts of useless, irrelevant tangents (the most bizarre involving a mention of the wholly theoretical "twins paradox" from special relativity in a section on a pair of identical astronauts) that go absolutely nowhere, and that should have been edited out of the first draft of the book. She devotes virtually no space whatsoever to explaining which of her data are statistically meaningful, but rambles at length about very minor aspects of her methodology, such as choosing the most suitable acronym to denote biologically unrelated same-age siblings.

The stories in Entwined Lives make for entertaining, if light, reading, and would have been more enjoyable if Segal didn't keep interrupting them with unsupported generalizations, or with the dozens of "see? Genetics ARE important" assertions that appear over and over again. And the scientific data would have been more useful had it been better, or more rigorously developed. As a book about human behaviour, which it claims to be, it is too long, and explains too little.

The extraordinary point about this book is that the twins research proved very decisively that nature is definitely the overwhelming deciding factor of our IQ, character, personality, etc., and not nurture. So, this book puts an end to the debate of "nature vs. nurture." This is a book that is better than a thousand other books.

Before reading this book, I wasn't clear whether nature has more effect on human development or nurture. There are so many theories and arguments for one or the other from ancient to the modern times. After reading this book, I am cleared that the research results from the identical twins separated at birth showed that nature is the most important factor in our human development.

Why does a person become a carpenter, a plumber, or a professor? The enviroment may have something to do with it, but the biggest factor is his/her inborn traits/talents.

This is a book that must be read by all educators, politicans, social scientists, and above all, parents. We will save ourselves from wasted energies, financial resources, frustrations, and useless social engineering if we try more to find out what nature has given us. Please don't get me wrong. Nurture is important, but it has to be done according to the nature's gifts to a person. In other words, "Nuture accoording to nature." We should nurture what is in the nature, not what is not there, or what is there but faintly.

I highly recommend another book, "Your natural gifts" (A new edition is published in 2002). It should be read together with this excellent book on twins.