Independent Books

"How to Become Financially Independent" is a great way to learn some important concepts essential to wealth building. The book is filled with easy to follow examples, including the power of leveraging your money, how interest works, and the value of investing in a home or investment real estate. It's easy to read for the beginning investor and filled with inspiring quotes. Some of the tax laws details have changed, but the general financial concepts are the same. Mr. simini makes the point in chapter 3 that "most families do not pass on financial information." He's so right. This book is a great way to begin the process.

With today's massive layoffs and not-so-voluntary early retirements, more people are entering the ranks of consultants than ever before. If you have never been self-employed, had to rustle up clients and build a business, this can be rather frightening. Let Tim Foster's book serve as your guide. His advice is uniformly sound and comprehensive. It's even organized so that you can work your way through the recommended steps and check them off as done. So whether you've been an engineer or a sales executive, whether you hate making cold calls or don't mind talking your way into an appointment, you'll find suitable, reliable guidance here.

This is another in a series of privately published books covering an arcane subject, although the book was brief I gained a lot of information about the Croatian airborne forces. It was interesting to note that the Croatian para's never made a combat jump but were used as regular infantry, many of them were executed after the war if captured by Russian troops or Croatian partisans. My only two criticisms would be that the photos in the back of the book are interesting but of poor print quality and it is hard to visualize uniform details and insignia. The author does not discuss insignia of the para forces, when the paratrooper badge was created, statutes for award, grades of the badge if any, and or other insignia that might have been worn by the Croatian paratroop forces etc.

This book was a gift for someone who flys through the regular 9x9 Sudoku Puzzles and boy, was it a hit! If you are becoming bored with the 9x9 or even the Samauri Sudokus (i.e. you can solve them without writing the options down) this is a fun challenging book.

Dr. James does a good job of writing a generic "How to be an Independent Consultant" book. The book assumes you already have the required skills to be a consultant. I found the outline to be structured and the content to be concise with very good examples and illustrations. Very helpful.

This guide is on par with the Peterson's Guide to Independent Schools for the United States. It includes descriptions of each United Kingdom independent school (submitted by the institution, sometimes with photos) as well as contact information and essays on choosing a school, the college search process coming from an independent school and scholarship information.

At the present day, spiritualists probably feel that they have little in common with socialists and radicals. But Barrow shows that in the early 19th century, there were connections, namely, the conviction that the ordinary man or woman could trust his own common sense, not only in politics, but also in spiritual matters. He did not need to accept the guidance of priests or academic philosophers. Barrow shows, with many revealing quotation from early nineteenth century periodicals, that the rather genteel spiritualism of the 20th century also had other roots. His book is an eye-opener.

This review is from the point of view of an adult self learner.

WHAT IT IS
This book is part of a three-book set, which includes:
1. Reading Greek: Text and Vocabulary
2. Reading Greek: Grammar and Exercises
3. An Independent Study Guide to Reading Greek

Think of the set as one book broken up into three parts, with the Greek practice text from every chapter in book #1, the grammar and exercises in every chapter in book #2, the answers to exercises in book #3. Nutty, but it works.

#1 Short passages of Greek text (with vocab lists at the end of each passage). Early passages are modern Dick-and-Jane "easy Greek" written especially to complement parallel sections of Grammar; later passages are simplified (and further on, not so simplified) passages from ancient texts.

#2 Grammar theory, forms, and exercises all keyed to parallel passages in the Text. So when you study middle voice verbs in Grammar, you read the accompanying passage in Text, and see how that form works in real Greek sentences.

#3 A. Translations of Text #1.
B. Answers to exercises in Grammar #2.
C. Hints and insights.

WHICH TO BUY?
This is an integrated set whose whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. You will want all three books. The TEXT complements the grammar, the GRAMMAR makes much much more sense when supported by the text readings. The answers to exercise in the STUDY GUIDE will show you stuff you missed learning--but you won't find that out unless you have book #3 to check your answers.

[There are other JACT RG books with short Greek passages from ancient texts. You don't need them now (or ever, IMHO Loebs are better).]

BAD STUFF
1. In my experience this is NOT a good set for absolute newbies. It was originally designed in the 1970s when students started Greek after a year of Latin, and thus already understood inflected grammars. If you don't understand inflected grammars already, you may get lost. I did. I tried (the old version) of RG as my first learn-Greek-on-your-own book about 18 months ago, and was immediately lost.

I'd suggest starting with Dobson's Learn New Testament Greek, them moving on to RG.

2. Vocabulary selection is excellent, Attic prose wise, but you're forced to make your own flip cards or memorization list. Because Greek diacriticals are a bitch, making your own computerized flip cards is a major pain. In the internet age, JACT really should have vocab flip cards at their web site.

3. Ancient Greek is still hard.

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GOOD STUFF
Since giving up on RG the first time I've been through Dobson's Learn NT Greek and memorized the forms in Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar. Now that I've come back to RG it makes much much more sense, and it seems to me the most excellent book.

1. Simple Readings Cement Forms.
After memorizing all the verb forms in Mounce, I found struggling with Greek text a frustration--passing each word through a memorized translation table. RG's solution is to teach your brain to bypass the form tables and recognize word endings-meanings directly. The reading for the Present Tense chapter is full of simple sentences like: "Dikaiopolis walks on the ship." "Then the captain walks on the ship." and "The sailors walk on the ship." - different word endings in each case. Over and over. Repetition, particularly repetition in the context of a memorable little story, cements recognition. (Of course you do still have to memorize the forms.)

This is a whole additional layer of learning that you simply will not get from table-Greek books like Mounce, or tables-and-rules books like Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek.

2. Sentence Structure.
It's not obvious till you've struggled a while, but ancient Greek has a layer of complexity on top of the alphabet and words. English brains extract word function--subject, verb, direct object--from word order; Greek brains extracted subject, verb, direct object from word endings; Greek sentences used word-order for other purposes. You've got to train you brain to process sentences a whole different way. Again, practice is the key. An RG has lots and lots and lots of text to help.

By the time I was through RG chapter 7, I could pick up Loeb's Xenophon's Anabasis and quickly recognize (via case endings) the structure of each sentence (though of course my vocab still wasn't up to an unassisted reading). This was very exciting.

Again, this is a whole additional layer of learning that you will not get from table-Greek books like Mounce, or tables-and-rules books like Mastronarde .

3. Learn By Reading; Lots Of Readings.
RG is not a tables-and-rules book with an expanded Examples section. It is an integrated system of teaching ancient Greek through a graded series of long and progressively complex reading passages. Again, a whole additional layer of learning that you will not get from Mounce or Mastronarde .

4. Attention To Detail
Someone spent a long time getting the big stuff and the little stuff right.
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COMPARING 2008 WITH EARLIER EDITIONS
1. The books are physically bigger, better laid out, with larger type and better fonts--much easier to read. A small thing that makes a big difference.

2. The Grammar has been entirely redone, and is much much better.

3. The Text readings are the same.

4. The vocabulary has been moved from Grammar to Text, which makes the readings much easier. (In the old version you were constantly flipping book to book.)
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COMPARED WITH ATHENAZE
Neither RG or Athenaze is perfect, but the both have lots of simple readings that I find most helpful. I've bought and used both, and would again.

1. Athenaze also has very good readings.

2. Athenaze is slower, with less complex early readings. Athenaze translations are also in a separate, 2d book.

3. Athenaze has NO ANSWERS TO EXERCISES. The current 2003 edition of the Athenaze main text has exercises, but the workbook with the exercise answers was created but apparently never released. For me this is the TIE BREAKER. RGs exercises are very hard, but very useful. If you ace the exercises, you understood the material. If you didn't you didn't.

I recently spent 3 1/2 months in Australia as a student, and I took this guide along for the few weeks I had to travel around. Everywhere I went, this guide pointed out pleasant places that ordinary travel guides might not bother with. The lists of accomodation and restaurants in every city or town were especially useful. Interspersed throughout are historical and cultural notes that allow the visitor to enjoy each place just a little bit more, and Gareth Powell's dry wit makes the guide very readable. My one disappointment was the comparative lack of attention to Brisbane (where I spent most of my time). For instance, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth all have detailed, color street maps at the back of the book, but Brisbane does not. Overall, however, this guide was well worth its price.

Out of the three books I have purchased, this will be the one to go with us to New Zealand. I especially like the detailed maps about each specific area. Since this is a once in a lifetime trip my husband and I are planning, we want to know as much as possible by the time we get there. It has wonderful suggestions for traveling on a budget, yet isn't afraid to reccommend the really good places not to overlook because of price. With all the information we have gleaned, we are starting our inquiries and reservations. We can't wait to go!