F Books

I saw a smaller version from a local bookstore, bought the large version from Amazon, the fonts are much more comfortable to read. I am using the book as a reference, feel very satisfied. The book is also good for random browsing, the paper and printing are both of very high quality.

THIS IS GREAT BOOK WITH A LOT OF INFO. MY TEENAGER LOVES IT AND SO DOES MY HUSBAND

This book was a Christmas request from my 6th grader who is very curious about earth sciences. He was genuinely excited to see it when he opened it. In some ways it is more like a coffee table picture book than a reference book. It is lavishly illustrated with detail-captioned photos and charts. This is not the kind of book you're going to sit down and read cover to cover, but instead are going to use like a good encyclopedia of earth science. My older child, who is interested in astronomy, received the companion book "Universe" and the two make a beautiful pair of additions to the reference library.

The book is chock full of pictures and explains many concepts in a very easy to understand fashion. However, it has many typos and factual errors that should have been remedied before it went to press. Overall, I highly recommend it as a reference book and as an introduction to geology and various aspects of earth science.

A great book with a nice balance of pictures (including some full page) and informative text about, well...about nature!

This book gave me great insight into how a people are injured by the lies of their government. I learned a lot about the Japanese culture.I could easily see myself in the mothers of Japan. I bought this book at a garage sale where the owner was selling all of the books they read in their Asian studies program at college. I was honestly shocked and heartbroken to read about the Japanese point of view.
The really scary thing is how current the idea still is that an uneducated populus can really be driven to a horrible end by their government's lies! Now I am learning Japanese (another garage sale find!) from tapes. I will visit Japan with a greater sense of their history and culture.

This was a very good well written book! It is easy to follow, and takes the reader down numerous paths of the war years and the scars that were inflicted on those who lived, and died.

I believe the book was initially utilized as a text in some colleges, but it is not written like any text book I ever had to read.

This book is an accumulation of oral interviews that helps the reader to visualize, smell, and even taste the sadness and poverty of those who fought the war; not just on the high seas, or the jungles of the South Pacific, but...on the streets of Tokyo, Nagasaki, Kyoto, and Hiroshima.

This book examines a proud culture and the utterly devestated people who lived within it.

I have sought, over the years, to try to understand the nature of our enemies in war. Some wars, like WWI, were essentially fought over the issue of power and control. Some wars, like the US Civil War, get redefined periodically and often to the advantage of who's redefining it. Today, July 4, is a good day to reflect on our Revolutionary War and, although I don't do it annually like I feel I should, reading the Declaration of Independance is an excellent way to understand the grievances that led to war. It is WWII that had been my biggest challenge to comprehend and it was the Japanese side of this conflict that I understood the least. I can't say that one book clarified everything I didn't understand but "Japan at War: An Oral History" put me on the fast track to getting there.

This is an amazing book in many ways. First, the scope of the book covers the many different facets of the Japanese experiance in WWII. For example, the war begins for them with the invasion of China and the conquest of Manchuria; aspects we generally know little about. It has a chapter on the kamikazi's and the similar sailers who volunteered to man suicide torpedos. It looks to the glory of the height of conquest and to the chaos and destruction of the waning days. It takes a look at the little mentioned Soviet invasion of Manchuria (that began after The Bomb). It takes a brief look at post-war Japan as well. It does all of this through the interviews the authors conducted with a number of soldiers, sailers, officers, civilians, and conscripts. To their credit, the husband and wife team of Haruko Taya and Theodore Cook constructed their book by publishing the reminiscences of their subjects. We read the words they heard supplemented briefly by overviews provided by the authors. This first-person recounting of events and the reactions to them brings everything to life for us. Whatever passions we may have from our own perspectives are, at least temporarily, set aside with the riminder that war victimizes everyone it touches.

The Cooks have done an excellent job of finding persons who were not only first-hand witnesses but excellent historians as well. The stories that they were able to collect were so personal and down-to-earth that the one exception (a professor's educated treatise on the censuring of textbooks) sticks out noticeably in comparison.

The witnesses let us in on many events but it is their editorial perspective of how these events changed their lives (and the lives of other Japanese) that reaches across the animosities of war and touches us deeply. There are interviews with some of the volunteer suicide soldiers who would have carried out their mission but for time and/or equiptment failure. There are stories of Koreans brought to Japan and insights on how they were treated. However, the most impressive were the stories of the witnesses and survivors of the Atomic Bombs that fell on Japan. Whatever your feeling on this subject are (and mine affirm the correctness of our actions) these first hand accounts are stunning.

The Cooks deserve a lot of credit for their painstaking efforts to amass all of these interviews. Their editing appears to be minimal as is their background introductions to each new chapter. In other words; helpful without being intrusive. Undoubtably, there were many other survivng Japanese witnesses to war who would not tell their story. Many of those who did were reflective of having been misled.

The Japanese and Americans are solid allies these days and the birth of that alliance is found in these monologues of history. Countless eye-witnesses bore testimony to their individual discovery that the American soldiers were not the devils the Japanese leadership portrayed them to be. The gratuitous stories of the acts of kindness and generosity of the American GIs were really heartwarming to read.

"Japan at War: An Oral History" was everything I had hoped it would be; and more. As a Baby-Boomer, I carry not the scars of war but the legacy of war. The history of American wars is the eventual alliance with our enemies. This book, in an indirect way, is a reminder of that tradition. We can only hope that our current conflict can eventually end in the same Phoenix of peace.

Being an ethnic Chinese, though born after the war, I just couldn't understand the Japanese inability to accept that they have been behaving in a most atrocious manner during the war, given the massive amount of evidence that has been accumulated to prove that point. Despite there being so much evidence pointing to the fact it was the Japanese who started the war, and yet, they seemed to think of themselves as the victims rather than the victimizers. That was something I couldn't understand.

But now, having read this book, though I don't agree with them, I could, in an intuitive sense, understand them.

At the beginning of Part Four, on page 259, it's printed these words:

"Umi yukaba, misuku kabane...Across the sea, corpses soaking in the water, Across the mountains, corpses heaped upon the grass, We shall die by the side of our lord. We shall never look back."

"Umi yukaba.." is from a collection of poetry known as Manyoushu, which dated from around 700 AD, around the Nara, Heien period. This specific poem, "Umi yukaba..." was set to music in 1937, and after 1943, it preceded radio announcements of battles in which Japanese soldiers "met honorable death rather than the dishonor of surrender." In a flash,I understood the mentality of the time. They were really still set in the medieval feudal samurai mentality. The veneer of modernity was just that, a veneer of modernity. They might be able to build and master complex machinery of the modern twentieth century, the mentality was still of feudal Heien period. Their treatment of the conquered people was justified. That's how the Heien period warriors behaved. Their perception of themselves as the victims were justified. That's what samurai warrior would feel. They were all prepared, or at least indoctrinated to be prepared to die in the service of the emperor.

I cannot imagine any other country which would announce their battles lost with such a song.

The army doctor, Yuasa Ken, described his wartime experience, that of experimental surgery on perfectly healthy, well except for the fact that they have been starved, perfectly healthy Chinese. To them, there was nothing wrong. The Chinese were the conquered people. The Imperial Army needed doctors to treat the wounded soldiers, so many doctors were recruited into the army, including pediatricians, dermatologists, ophthalmologists and so on. These doctors have no experience in treating trauma injuries. How to train them? What better way than to use the Chinse as experimental animals for their training. Only in the light of the concept of "human rights", a concept developed in the West, was that kind of experimenation considered wrong. In the feudal samurai ethics, that was not considered wrong.

Now look at the situation this way. From the samurai ethics point of view, they had not behaved wrongly. But after the defeat, and the acceptance of the world view of "human rights", what they have done was definitely wrong. However, in their minds, they haven't done anything wrong. How to reconcile the one with the other? How to reconcile their internal moral judgment, "we have not done anything wrong", with the now newly developed and accepted concept of "human rights"? The only way out of this psychological dilemma is to deny that those atrocities have happened. The only way out is to deny that the Nanjin massacre had happened, that the human experimentations in Unit 731 had ever happened.

This is a most fascinating book, and is a MUST READ for anyone interested in how the Japanese felt and thought of the events of the time.

A compelling set of recollections from Japanese citizens and soldiers who lived and experienced WWII. These stories give an interesting insight into the psyche of the average Japanese citizen and soldier during the war. This is one of the few existing WWII books pertaining to the Pacific Campaign that gives you insight into the thoughts and feelings of the Japanese during the war. A must read for anyone wanting to see the perspective from the "other side". Highly recommended.

My high school religion teacher just finished reading this book to us yesterday. He read a chapter everyday for worship. It was absolutely amazing. It held the attention of every student until the last page. It really drove home the fact that as Americans we are fairly sheltered from the persecution many Chrisitians in the world face. we forget that Christians are the number one group of people that are persecuted in the world today.

Sergei tells his story in a way that puts you in his shoes. It doesn't come accross as something out of a history book. It really strikes deep into the heart. I would recommend this book to anyone who is old enough to understand the hardship and brutality many Christians are sometimes faced with.

My teacher only yesterday finished readin it to us and now I am going to go out and buy it so that everyone in my family can read it as well. I, myself can not wait to read it again!

I read this book many years ago when it first was published. The thing that really stood out to me was that my husband was born just about a week later than Sergei Kourdakov and I kept thinking how different our lives were here at the same time Sergei was living in Russia. The girl, Natasha, that was beaten so much and then would be at the next meeting when Sergei would raid it was so brave. I kept thinking that she probably didn't realize what an impact her life had on this man and will only know the extent of her faith and how she was the reason for Sergei to come to know Jesus when she finally reaches her heavenly reward..what a courageous lady she was! This book is one that I have read over and over and recommend it to everyone!

Sergei Kourdakov was a Russian naval officer who grew up an atheist in a Soviet orphanage, and recruited by the KGB in the late 60s to be a member (and later, a leader) of one of a number of anti-Christian hit squads in the Soviet Far East. During one of his squad's raids he met Natasha, a believer whose persistence in worshiping God eventually led Sergei to Christ.

Sergei wrote this wonderful book before he was (as some believe) assasinated in Canada by the KGB in 1973. It was published by a protestant evangelical group.

What is NOT stated, is that the Christian tradition that Sergei converted to was, yes, dear Protestant sheep, Eastern Orthodoxy! A ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) priest at the national ROCOR cathedral in Washington DC confirmed that the Sergei Kourdakov, who is recorded as having been buried with an Orthodox funeral (not the case unless you're an Orthodox Christian) was indeed the same Sergei Kourdakov who wrote "The Persecutor."

I could not put this amazing book down from the first page to the last it is a thriller, only with a heady spiritual twist! This Kourdakov was truly a survivor, but also a witness to the power of God's amazing redemption in the life of every sinner who repents. What a glorious testimony to the power of faith and prayer! A truly unforgettable story that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Definitely a 'must-read' on your list. A nice, sound, real-life story of a russian secret police with a brilliant future career infront of him. But Sergei seems to find the truth in him, and gets to know God in a way that any person would be delighted to read. He finds the necessary strenght, courage and conviction to fullfill his goals and becomes a catholic, after escaping to Canada. This excellent book is not only a true-story dramatic and interesting novel. It is a great way of understanding and realizing everything we have: health, family, a job, happiness, and God of course.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It sure gave me a lot to think about when reading about the aftermath of shooting someone!

This book does a great job of exploring a number of gunfights (many of which involved law enforcement officers), and analyzes what was done right and what was done wrong.

When I was finished with the book, I passed it along to our Police Department training officer for use in training officers.

If you enjoy the Ayoob files in the magazine you'll love this. Unfortunately I finished 3/4 of the book and forgot it on a plane. Oh well, must buy another to finish I guess.

"Ayoob Files, The Book" is a collection of articles regularly written for American Handgunner magazine. These articles each detail and dissect an incident involving armed self defense.

The book is now thirteen years old, and many of the events detailed in it happened in the 70's and 80's. The information is still helpful and valid, although in recent years Ayoob has begun to analyze and evaluate not only the events and tactics, but the aftermath of dealing with the legal system as well.

This book is excellent reading for anyone who keeps a firearm for self or family defense. The age of the material, however, indicates that Volume Two is due and needed.

Ayoob's articles are so good that his publishers couldn't go wrong if they were simply to save Mass' articles and from American Handgunner, edit and bind them, and put out a new volume every two years.

Given the tags under which this book is normally found, perhaps this goes without saying, but it's not for the faint of heart, nor for those easily disturbed by the realities of crime and violence.

Another great Ayoob book. Many true stories of true crime and self defense. If you are thinking of getting a gun for self defense, read this book.

Did you know that in 1859 Americans consumed about eight pounds of coffee per year, per capita? Or that by 1939 it was fourteen pounds? If this is your cup of tea, then I think you will like this book. This is not a criticism, I liked the book because it looks at the growth in demand which was supplied by the entrepreneurs who formed the brands described in the book. Indeed this demand-side view is part of the book that made the biggest impact on me.
Some of this is obvious, but somewhat in the backround of our knowledge - "between 1860 and 1920 the population of the US grew from 31.5 to 107 million" - and some of this is well extracted in this book - e.g. "in 1844 (when Henry J. Heinz was born)less than 10% of American's lived in towns of greater than 2,500 population, 75 years later (when he died) 50% were urban dwellers and 20% lived in cities of greater than 250,000 people". Koehn builds up this demand side very well in each of the six cases she uses to illustrate who entrepreneurs build up branded business - Wedgwood , Heinz, Marshall-Fields, Estee Lauder, Starbucks and Dell.
Koehn, a Harvard business historian, is also quite good at showing how developing technology is put to use to serve this demand (or does it create it?) - "In 1830 it took three weeks to get calico from New York to Chicago, in 1860 it took three days, by 1880 ... less than 24 hours"
Again we all knew the importance of the railroad, but here its phrased in a way that makes sense of the dynamic growth and gentrification of the Mid West. She illustrates well the need that urbanisation created for prepared food that could be trusted and describes very well the increasing sophistication of industrial level food preparation - " by the 1860;s the introduction of calcium chloride to boiling water cut sterilization times from five hours to 25 minutes". She can even make innovations in canning technology sound exciting.

So much for the good stuff, I did find the tone of the descriptions of each entrepreneurs a bit fawning. Each had the feel of a business case, with the usual tone of awe and deference to the wit and wisdom of the main characters. With the exception of the Starbucks case - where Howard Shultz openly tells of his mistakes and wrong turnings - each case seems to highlight the wisdom of the main character, whereas it seems to me its their determination that marks them out, more than anything else. Henry Heinz went bankrupt three times in food products, before he became successful, Michael Dell was still seen as a cloner into the late 1980's.
Koehn makes no judgements about the more unpleasant side of this determination - Estee Lauder staged a meeting with the Duke of Windsor, which she had photographed and publicised, in order to make it appear she had high-society connections, Josiah Wedgwood supplied free gifts to royalty in the certain knowledge that the aspirations of the middle classes to emulate royalty would drive demand for this his products.
There are good insights into how these individuals drove modern marketing techniques - Wedgwood emphasized showrooms, Estee Lauder the free gift. And all had tremendous energy for customer service and production detail. However in each of the early cases we are told that 20th Century techniques were unknown to the industry " Brand marketing was virtually unheard of in the 18th Century" [ Wedgwood]; " Between 1869 and 1899, real per capita income increased at an annual compound rate of 2.1%. Henry Heinz had no access to these statistics. These numbers are based on economic concepts developed in the 20th Century". This kind of clumsiness crops up in each case, ok we get the point that these pioneers instinctively did something which is now solidified into great theory, but surely this point could be illustrated with more deftness.

This apart, a very useful and interesting book, a book for anyone interested in the general history of business. Some excellent details, too much fawning and praise too little criticism of the central characters who built the brands. A fascinating story.
If you liked this book, check out books by Arthur Chandler and John Drewer.

One final fact, Charles Darwin had the time and money to devote to his famous voyage on the Beagle - which laid the basis for the theory of Evolution - because his wife's grandfather was Joshua Wedgwood. Was this financial evolution at work?

Koehn has produced a weighty and informative look at the way successful entrepreneurs have used brands to achieve a number of goals. These goals include long-term differentiation from competitors, internal quality control, profit margin protection, and facilitation of additional product introduciton.

To make her case, she chose three cases from the past (Wedgwood, Heinz, and Marshall Field) and three cases from the present (Estee Lauder, Starbucks, and Dell Computers). Finally, she concludes the book with a chapter which addresses the issue of historical forces and entrepreneurial agency.

I particularly found the cases from the past persuasive in their argumentation for a long-term differentiating factor in brand. The newer cases are obviously harder to make in that (particularly with Starbucks and Dell) how long-term the success will be remains to be seen. One of the best features of the book is the depth with which she treats each case-- she provides enough information to build her thesis (and often entertain with the anecdotes) but not so much that the book becomes bogged down. The excellent footnotes provide whatever's necessary to someone looking for further information.

One minor quarrel is that I would have liked to see the further reading pulled out into a better organized bibliography. There were obviously quite a few good sources scattered amongst the footnotes and if you were interested in a particular subject matter it required some patience to pull all of the citations out.

professor koehn presents the subject of branding in a fascinating historical perspective; a interesting, insightful and sometimes surprising read. a very useful book for anyone who is managing a brand, trying to understand the value of brands, or wants to understand how branding fits into the lore of business.

an excellent reference and clearly meticulously researched

It's probably a result of less-than-fully applying myself during my college years, but I tend to pre-judge any book by an academic as boring. I'm glad that didn't stop me from reading Nancy Koehn's book, "Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers Trust From Wedgwood to Dell."

Koehn is a professor at no less than the Harvard Business School. She is also an excellent writer, and she understands that the essence of getting good information across is stories. Brand New is a book of stories about branding. It is anything but boring.

Koehn divides the book into two giant sections, The Past and The Present.

In The Past, she includes the stories of Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz and Marshall Field. All the stories are told in detail enriched by facts, insights, and quotes. All of them contain lessons for today's businessperson. Most of the lessons are about branding, but there's a lot more.

Read this book and you will find out all about how Josiah Wedgwood changed the common practice by impressing his own name in the unfired clay of his works. That's impressive. But you will also learn how his partnership with Thomas Bentley took Wedgwood's strengths and his insight about branding and turned them into a highly profitable business.

You'll learn about why H. J. Heinz packed his product in glass jars and how he kept control of his distribution. You'll hear about the 1902 giant opening at Marshall Field's and you'll learn about Field's varying relationships with his partners.

In the section on The Present, you will get the story of Estee Lauder and how she changed not only her name and image but also the face of cosmetic marketing through magnetism and incredible persistence. You'll hear how Howard Schultz wound up at Starbucks Coffee and why it bears his imprint, and you'll hear about Michael Dell without overmuch mention of the legendary dorm room.

The stories themselves make delightful reading, but the learning is probably even more important than the enjoyment. These stories illustrate how specific, successful entrepreneurs took a look around at things that were happening in society and developed products and brands and marketing and distribution systems to take advantage of them. These insightful and inspiring stories will help you understand your own business and find ways to make it more profitable.

As she completed her research and then began to write this book, Nancy Koehn made several important decisions. First, she placed her primary objective in clear focus: to explain "how entrepreneurs earned customers' trust." Next, she limited her attention to only six. Finally, she then examined them within an historical context from the late-18th century until the present time. As Koehn observes, "Before 1750,...most Britons ate off wood or pewter plates. Then came Josiah Wedgwood. In antebellum America, the majority of women made their own pickles. Then came Henry Heinz. Until the Civil War, urban retailing was a specialized activity with a wide variety of small shops offering particular kinds of goods. Then came department store entrepreneurs such as Marshall Field." It is important to stress that Koehn is a biographer and cultural historian only to the extent that the material she provides helps to advance the narrative of her core themes: how six individual entrepreneurs dealt with the "imperatives" to quality goods at reasonable prices, communicate the virtues of her or his products to potential buyers in effective ways and thereby maintain and grow a viable customer base, and, how to develop organizational capabilities to learn about their respective customers and then earn their trust.

Before 1945, Koehn observes, "few American women wore premium lipstick or facial creams, and those who did [when they could] bought them in beauty shops along with elaborate treatments administered by trained cosmeticians. Then came Estee Lauder. Prior to the late 1970s, Americans bought ground coffee mostly in one-pound cans sold in supermarkets and supplied by large food processors. Then came [Howard Schultz and] Starbucks. Before 1980, most businesses used only typewriters and copy machines for paperwork. Large companies relied on mainframe and midsize computers to handle extensive calculations and data processing. Only a small number of households owned a personal computer or printer. Few if any of these users expected to be able to specify a particular computer's configuration. Then came Apple, IBM, Compaq, and Michael Dell." It is also important to stress that each of the six entrepreneurs whom Koehn discusses fully understood what rapid social and economic change in their respective era meant for consumers' needs and desires. Moreover, as she carefully explains, all six used their knowledge of both the supply and demand sides of the prevailing economy to create high-quality goods,, meaningful brands, and other connections with customers..." and they built elite organizations that worked to [in italics] satisfy and then [in italics] anticipate buyers' changing preferences."

In Chapter 1, Koehn provides a brilliant overview on "Entrepreneurs and Consumers," then devotes an entire chapter to each of the six entrepreneurs. In her final chapter, she shifts her attention to "Historical Forces and Entrepreneurial Agency," followed by 104 pages of notes. In that final chapter, Koehn points out that the six entrepreneurs "lived and worked in different contexts. Yet they all shared a powerful gift: the ability to discern how economic and social change affected consumer needs and wants. They also understood that these demand-side shifts presented critical business opportunities -- opportunities that each exploited by creating new, best-of-class goods and strong brands." She goes on to suggest that they were "institution builders who were not interested in riding the wave of a short-lived trend or forcing their young brands on buyers. They wanted to [in italics] earn consumers' trust and keep it."

It remains to seen which entrepreneurs emerge during the next few years but it seems certain that they will also encounter "economic and social change affected consumer needs and wants" and in a global marketplace yet to be developed. There is much that they -- and we -- can learn from Josiah Wedgwood, H.J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Howard Schultz, and Michael Dell. Thanks to Nancy Koehn, those "lessons" are provided in a single volume, one which will continue to be of interest and value for decades to come.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Wolf's The Entertainment Economy, Schmitt's Experiential Marketing, Gobe's Emotional Branding, Gilmore and Pine's The Experience Economy, and Brands: The New Wealth Creators co-edited by Hart and Murphy.

One day my 15 year old son told me that he didn't know the stories in the Bible. I got to thinking...I knew bits and pieces of all the main stories, but I didn't really think I could repeat them to my son. I was embarassed, so I went right to Amazon to find a book that explained the Bible in a fun, understanding, interesting way. I also wanted something that hadn't been "modernized". I didn't want to read that God is our Mother, or words like "humankind". I wanted a good old-fashioned, biblically true book. This one exceded my expectations!! I am halfway done and have learned so much! I read it to my son, and he enjoys it. I have not been able to put it down, so my son is not as far as me. I can't believe how much I DID'NT know. I would highly recommend this for anyone. Even if you are very familiar with the Bible, it's a great refresher.

I first heard stories of the Bible from this book and reread it multiple times through high school. I grew up on the King James Version of the Bible and this book closely parallels it as well as providing the actual Biblical references for each story. When I had my own daughter in 1978, I asked my mother for our old volume, but she had gotten rid of it. At that time, all I could find was the paperback version and so had to make do with it. I continued to search for The Child's Story Bible and purchased a 1932 and 1961 version from a major on-line auction site. Nevertheless, I was delighted to find Amazon had obtained the 1986 version - the last hardback I can find of this book. I purchased one for a future grandchild and one for my daughter to give to her niece. In reviewing the text, I was pleased to see that the editors had not succumbed to making this a politically correct version of the Bible, but chose to maintain the integrity of the original text. If you are looking for a great addition to your child's library or a text that will provide many hours of delightful reading and sharing of the Bible with a child, this is your choice!

This book was recommended to me by a friend. I love this book!! My kids (7,4) and I read a passage every morning after breakfast. The stories are easily understood by my kids. They are short and capturing. Sometimes my kids will ask questions regarding our reading. I enjoy this special time with my children. Most of all it is coming from the Bible!!

This book is one that has been around for a long time. It is ideal for teaching young people and new Christians about the history in the Bible. The book is written in narative form and is such that all people can understand it well. When I was a little boy, I used to love to read it and would benefit for reading it for a review as an adult. I would recommend it highly.

I LOVE this Bible. The writing is beautiful, the insight rich and thought-provoking. Highly recommended as a next step after beginner-type Bible storybooks. Note: There are some lovely illustrations here, but unlike the Golden Children's Bible, they are very few and far between. This is a Bible for children who do not need pictures to follow the story.

As a professional certified coach, I love this book and use it as a resource in the programs I facilitate on leadership development and business coaching. Tom has such BIG HEART and through this book he provides a wonderful road map on how managers and leaders can begin to create more high performance work teams.

This will become one of your go-to books re: the coaching process. I know it's one of mine! Incredible insights as well as lots of advice, tricks, tips, etc. A must buy for coaches, or those who aspire to become coaches.

In this three-part relational guide for the development of "a performance-focused, feedback-rich organization", consultant Tom Crane offers the reader his insights on three aspects of transformational coaching; the model, the coach, and the culture. The unifying theme, the heart drives relationships, and relationships drive performance, is evidenced by the title of the book and the statement, "If you chose to incorporate any of the practices described, pay attention to how your relationships are enriched and your results are enhanced."

The 'model' part is a three-phase methodology for coaching; starting with connecting, preparing, and establishing expectations (the Foundation); progressing into exploring and issues identification (the Learning Loop); continuing with options, commitment, and follow-up (Forwarding The Action.) The 'coach' element is an introspective piece including communications and style. The 'culture' part covers both `what it is' and seven principles for creating the change.

From reading the book, it is easy to see that Crane believes in intrinsic motivation and in people. He uses a most wonderful term, "positive regard," for how a coach or leader might look upon those they work with. I could not agree more with this sentiment. If you share this feeling, this is a book worth the read, as it gives wonderful guidance for how to bring out the best in people.

Dennis DeWilde, author of
"The Performance Connection"

Tom Crane goes to the true essence of coaching. He developed a comprehensive coaching method to transform knowledge into performance and action into results. A must read not only for coaches, but also for managers and leaders.

This book does have some good background information about coaching. It is pretty dry though. If you want to learn about coaching, take an accredited coaching certification program. I did, and this was one of our required reads. It happened to be my least favorite and gave me very little practical information to use during a coaching session. If you want to read an inspiring, empowering book, read Breaking the Rules by Kurt Wright.

This is a great great book. If you are familiar with the authors' adversary cycle you will know this was the last book of the six. Let me say that he saved the best for last. This book is a horrific page turner from start to finish. Trust me when I say you will enjoy.

Wilson wrapped up his entire pantheon of characters from his horror novels in this one. I first read this without having read The Touch, Reborn, or Reprisal. Although I couldn't understand all the subplots, I got enough of it to sense the enormity of Wilson's undertaking -- he was essentially plunging into Hell the world he had created and included in all his novels. Now, years later (after having read the mentioned novels), I find the story even MORE enjoyable. I gave this 5 stars even when I was a little lost -- now I wish I could give it more.

Nightworld is a seriously scary book. Not personally scary but scary for the world as we know it. Nightworld completes the Nightworld series, which consists of six books, starting with The Keep. I've read all books and until the publication of Nightworld, it was called The Adversary Series, taken from the fact that the underlying element of this series is the ongoing confrontation through eternity and through the universe of two powerful forces.

These forces are not defined by good and evil for they are not. But one force, which is called the Other in the books, is brutal and caring nothing for humanity, tends to use evil means to achieve it's goal, while his adversary though not necessarily Good utilizes humanity to thwart His Adversary, The Other.

The Anti-Other, throughout history, has utilized a human champion to battle the Other. This champion is empowered with Godlike powers and made immortal for this purpose.

In the initial book, The Keep, which I've mentioned, the earthly agent of The Other, Rasalom, was weakened and imprisoned in a specially constructed prison by a champion of a long gone age, maybe a champion named Glaeken, whose subsequent job in The Keep was to keep tabs on The Other and make sure it didn't escape.

The Keep is a marvelous story wherein, Rasalom, because of some Nazi soldiers, almost escapes his incarceration. I won't go into the story but at the end, Rasalom is vanquished and ostensibly terminated but this is not to be and through the course of two more books, Reborn and Reprisal, Rasalom is rejuvenated, recuperated re-empowered and is set to take revenge upon troublesome humanity. The stage is set for Nightworld.

Nightworld
"If thou gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee"

What in the world is going on! Sunrise was five plus minutes late! we're in early summer, surise should be later not earlier, and then another shocker, sunset was ten minutes early! This continues on the second day etc and then a bottomless hole 200 feet across and perfectly round opens up in New York's, Central Park.

The world's scientific community, though at a loss for these occurrences, downplay these episodes and insist there is a rational explanation for these phenomenons. However, there is one who knows what's going on and he has a birds eye view of the Central Park event from his apartment.

It is the ancient warrior Glaeken, who is now in his 80s (his immortality ended after his 1941 battle with Rasalom), living under a pseudonym, Mr. Veileur. Glaeken knows exactly what's going on and he immediately sets out to gather a group of individuals to try to effect some sort of resistance, admittedly an enormous longshot but the only shot humanity has.

Main Charactersin order of appearance

Rasalom [Evil agent of the Other]
Dr. Nicholas Guinn [Physicist and friend of Bill Ryan]
Glaeken/veileur [Aged champion of the Anti-Other]
(ex father) Bill Ryan [Friend and confidant of Glaeken]
Carol Teece [mother of the reborn Rasalom]
Repairman Jack [hero of "The Tomb", a resourceful replacement for the aged Glaeken]
Kolabati [an ancient Indian Priestess who has two artifacts Glaeken needs]
Ba Nyguen [a special forces trained Vietnamese body guard for the following]
Sylvia Nash [mother of the adopted boy Jeffery]
Dr Alan Bulmer [Sylvia's husabnd and Jeffery's father]
Jeffery [a boy who has a healing power called Dat-tay-vao which Glaekin needs in his battle]

Glaeken meets with his would be recruits and of course his story is met with some skepticism, however, as Glaeken predicts, on the second night, hoards of large flying killer insect like creatures(later named by Glaeken as Belly Flies and Chew Wasps descend on an unsuspecting population and kill hundreds of people, horses, dogs etc. Also thousands of these creatures make a beeline to the home of Jeffery and his parents, in an obvious effort to kill Jeffery.

These creatures and the even more deadly creatures that follow can't stand sunlight but of course, day by day, the sunlight is slowly disappearing. In addition thousands of new holes open up around the world and every effort to cap them has been futile, with additional casualties. Humanity is quickly being wiped out and the daylight is getting shorter and shorter!

Things indeed look bleak for humanity but at least the recent horrors have solidified our cadre. Repairman Jack, with Ba in tow is off to Maui and Bill Ryan is off to Rumania, all to retrieve the artifacts that Glaeken needs to have a chance to counteract the carnage.

Can Repairman Jack and Glaeken, along with his unlikely cadre save "life as we know it", or will Rasalom rule over an Unholy Nightmare World?

Author

If you've never read F.Paul Wilson, I recommend him heartily.
He has a nice easily readable writing style and he seems to always have unusual if not unique plots to his stories. This particular book is the culmination of a series that I'm sure did not start out as such. "The Keep" was the original book as I have mentioned and is the basis for the series and as mentioned "Reborn" and "Reprisal" were definitely created to make a series out of a single novel but the resourceful Wilson managed to tie two unrelated books "The Tomb" and "The Touch" into episodes in the series in this last book and it works very well for me.

I was also glad to see Wilson reprise the ever popular Repairman Jack. Wilson has gone on to write several more Repairman Jack novels.

Reviewers Note

Because of the nature of this story. this book tends to be fairly gory and graphic about it. If this is not your cup of tea, then do not read this book. Then again, what are you doing reading any horror books?

Rarely do you come across a horror novel that truly chills you to the bone. This is one of those books. The days get shorter and creepy crawlies come out of holes that pop up all around the world. The monsters and their need for flesh make this a difficult job for REPAIRMAN JACK. Will he make it out alive. You'll just have to read it for yourself. My only critisism of this book is I thought it was rushed at the end, and the loose ends were'nt tied-up.

I just finished the Adversary Cycle with Nightworld and have read all of the Repairman Jack novels that lead up to this final novel. Unfortunately I have to say that Nightwold was a disappointing end to Repairman Jack's world as created by F. Paul Wilson. I loved all of his previous books, even "The Touch", which at the time seemed completely unrelated to any of the rest. My main gripe with this book was the final confrontation, which seemed way too easy and was clumsily written. I found it difficult to understand the scene and exactly what was happening. It also seems silly that the antagonist, while powerful enough to remake the planet to his own liking could be so easily vanquished. And finally the antagonist seemed incredibly out of character in the end. I don't want to spoil it, so let's just say that he didn't go out the way he was written through out the Adversary cycle. Worst of all, the "support" the protagonist needed from the crowd of New Yorkers in order to defeat his enemy was worse than cheesy it was plain ridiculous.

My next gripe was with continuity and was more of an annoyance than a problem. If you haven't read any on the Repairman Jack novels, particularly the newest ones, this won't be an issue for you. In Nightworld, Jack learns a great many things that he has long since known about, and as a result needs to be convinced of what is happening to the world around him. My final issue is, unlike Reborn and Reprisal, Nightworld isn't very edgy, it just doesn't have that suspenseful feeling that wouldn't let me put down either of its two most recent predecessors. Sure there plenty of disgusting scenes such as a man being gouged by a 10-foot millipede which lays eggs in his abdomen that hatch and eat him alive. But that was more gross than scary, which is true of most of the book.

I would have liked to see more scares thrown at the population of Nightworld like the antagonists ability to control the dead, not just scary insects and killer winged beasts. What I was really hoping for was a greater explanation of the to eternal opposing forces, which are fighting for the planet. No luck there.

That said, I still enjoyed the book, as it brought back characters from all of the previous adversary cycle books and my favorite, Repairman Jack. And while it wasn't the best ending to an otherwise excellent series, it still was a somewhat satisfying ending to the story arc. I just think it could have been better, and wish Wilson had waited to write Nightworld after he decides (hopefully not soon) to end the RJ Series, that way the two story arcs could have merged and ended at the same time. But if you've read the previous books in the adversary cycle you'll of course have to read Nightworld and I would recommend doing so, albeit with low expectations so that you won't be too disappointed or if you completely disagree with my review you're pleasantly surprised.

Maybe to that limited set of writers who thinak they are the Homers of today.

But a great american novel would be read by many people with differing levels of appreciation and determined to refelct the CURRENT and essence of America (oh what about south america) not just the mythical past.

THe words may flow as a poem, and cover or expound cleary or lyrically the points of life in this country but that alone does not make it a great story. Or a timeless one.

In preface to my review, I have to say that my favorite writers are Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Boll, Arthur Rimbaud, etc.
Many of the reviews here have bandied about the name of Thomas Wolfe (whose "Look Homeward, Angel" was brilliant); and the comparison is richly deserved; but the most insightful comparison came from the person who said it reminded him of an American version of Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
I've actually read "War and Peace". Lockridge's "Raintree County" rises to that level--and, in my estimation--surpasses it. I love the Russians--Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev. And I love Walt Whitman and Ross Lockridge for the same reason. They all have what the Spanish call "duende," what the American blacks clamor to express by the word "soul". These aren't weak, spineless, effete Victorians afraid of beauty, passion, shame and awkward emotions.
They cast light into the dark corners of the human soul and throw open man's collective experience for all to see--something rarely achieved in typically dryer Anglo-Saxon literature.
Ross Lockridge's "Raintree County" astounded me. It left me wondering how this great American genius has been ignored, neglected. The only thing I can think of is that Lockridge makes the fatal mistake of being honest, of writing too accurately about the time-period, of not lying and indulging in historical revisionism. As a result, spineless readers wince when the "N" word is used, or terms like "pickannies," "darkies" or various other period vulgarities are employed by despised side-characters.
For this reason geniuses like Booth Tarkington are banned and suppressed.
It's sad. They want to revise the past and make it "acceptable" for modern audiences. But if you sanitize, you gut, you neuter, you destroy the hard edges which give the time-period texture, verisimilitude. (I mean, if slaves were well-treated why did we fight the Civil War?) But modern hacks would have writers keep all profanities out of it, re-write it so that nothing crude or insensitive made its way in.
If you want lies, watch a Hollywood movie, read a trash novel; if you want genius, poetry, brilliant insights and literary talent, give "Raintree County" a try. Maybe, with enough of us protesting, the prude schoolmarms with tenure at universities will be nudged from their slumber and realize that they have neglected one of the titanic achievements of modern American literature.

Raintree County is the anatomy of a fall from Paradise-with all the Edenic metaphors placed in a fictional county in Indiana-and the process by which it is regained. The structure and scope of the book are extraordinary, a system of telling and suspension that turns one day into a hundred years, all hinged upon the American Civil War (and the allegorical death of the principal character). Like another great contemporary American novel, All The King's Men, Raintree County was built upon the wreckage of a failed epic prose poem. Also, like Robert Penn Warren's glittering classic, Ross Lockridge's best-selling masterpiece deals with a gifted primary character caught up in the vortex of human history (though Penn Warren was more interested in the problem of power than he was in the cataloging of the life of Huey Long).

Raintree County should be a standard of 20th Century American literature. It is perhaps the greatest novel ever written. I'm mystified as to why it doesn't make Random House's Top 100 Novels List. I think in all honesty that Raintree County is too straightforward, too compassionate, too wise, too loving, too optimistic, too gently humorous, and too accessible to please the moldy and myopic listmakers. Really "great" books, as everyone knows, are dry game puzzles, smug literary fogs, brutal crayon travelogues, or ancient misanthropic sphinxes that museum directors and tenured professors of the academies alike can dust off occasionally without fear of ever having to update their pamphlets.

The texture style and meter of this work is astoundingly lyrical yet clear. To wit: "The world is still full of divinity and strangeness, Mr. Shawnessy said. The scientist stops, where all men do, at the doors of birth and death. He knows no more than you and I why a seed remembers the oak of twenty million years ago, why dust acquires the form of a woman, why we behold the earth in space and time. He hasn't yet solved the secret of a single name upon the earth. We may pluck the nymph from the river, but we won't pluck the river from ourselves: this coiled divinity is still all murmurous and strange. There are sacred places everywhere. The world is still man's druid grove, where he wanders hunting for the Tree of Life."

As long as I have a mind, I won't forget this profound and wonderful book or the characters who inhabit it: Perfessor Stiles with his pince-nez and Malacca cane, the cigar-chewing bighearted phony senator from Indiana, Garwood Jones, sweet Nell Gaither, the dark lost and deranged Susannah Drake. Carefully researched (it took seven years to write), it is also an excellent freshener on historical events of the nineteenth century, especially the Civil War. Contained within, for all you philosophiles, is the added bonus of cogent and detailed arguments for free will over predetermination, the triumph of spirit over matter, a solution to the riddle of the Many and the One, an explanation of the Word, and many more.

Born four years before J.D. Salinger, who still breathes at this writing, Ross Lockridge Jr. ended his life by carbon monoxide poisoning March 6th, 1948, two months after the publication of his one and only novel. He was thirty-three. He left behind a wife and four children. His second son, Larry, five years old at the time of his father's death, has written a book (Shade of the Raintree) attempting to explain what he calls "the greatest single mystery in American letters." He largely blames success in combination with a "biological (possibly genetic) predisposition to depression" along with "suicide-personality disorder (narcissistic)." It's easy to see why a John Kennedy O'Toole battering his manuscript (Confederacy of Dunces) against the unbreachable ramparts of Harcourt Brace and Get Lost, might do himself in (and then of course win a Pulitzer). But to receive a Harvard scholarship, publish an immediately successfully and lavishly acclaimed book which wins several major prizes including an MGM contract, and then to take your life as a proclaimed lover of life and a protector of four children, is a riddle beyond the ken of my meager imagination.

You may have once wandered through an art gallery and
while walking between images both beautiful and banal
happened upon a painting unlike few you have ever seen before.
It was found placed in a more remote part of the exhibit
and poorly lit thus causing you to give it a brief glimpse.
At first glance, the quaint simplicity caused you to smile yet upon
a second look you noticed the unmistakable quality, the rich
shadings, the subtleties, the emotion upon the faces of the characters,
and within a short time you realized that the artist had captured the
very essence of humanity. Shades of life both light and dark and all
the hues in between, this is what Ross Lockridge has placed upon his canvass for
posterity. This is Raintree County.

Raintree County; a mythical place, a gentle and beautiful tale of an
age and culture that has long since been harrowed under and paved over.
A verdant and pastoral county whose heart is found at the crossroads of
two dirt roads, whose inhabitants are poised at the intersection between a young
and thriving republic and greatest wrong every allowed to fester within
its expanding frontiers. The sunny days of community existence intertwined
with the political complexities surrounding the greatest rift ever to divide a
nation. A portrait of the land and its people in the midst of life and the
trials and tribulations of life's inescapable vicissitudes.

Within the covers of this book are found the joys of love upon the banks of
a river, the excitement and pride of a community during the celebration of
Independence day, the pungent smells and prolific yet depraved lifestyle during
the last days of antebellum New Orleans, and the songs of the slaves in their
agony, joy, and uncertainty. An epic, a day in the life of a ordinary man and
how he came full circle-if that is indeed possible. A reminder of the nation and
her people who were deeply shattered by the violence of a Civil War.

Within the prose are whispers of Plato, Poe, and Shakespeare. Characters
of well developed intellect and humor coexist amid the turgid and the
unlearned. At its core is love, insanity, birth, death, family, war,
and a river that courses through the county to both nourish the smiles and
drain the bitterness. Indeed perhaps the "Great American Classic," and a
sadly overlooked book. Lockridge is of the same ilk as Wolfe, Faulkner,
and Emerson. It has been said that each of us contains a book. To have this
as your only book is a majestic feat. Raintree County can be analyzed at many
philosophical levels and I am sure subsequent readings will reveal a multitude
of lessons. To me, my first time just staying at the surface brought me
the great joy that a masterfully written novel must impart.

I have positioned this book as "The" Great American novel - in reccomending it to a dozen friends. Only one has disagreed. Nuff said.

Rebels and Redcoats is not the first book to read about the American Revolution.

I know this book has glowing reviews by others. But those readers already know the basic story. If you think you fit in that category, go for it. Fascinating as the first person accounts may be, the context of the war is sometimes lost.

The men who fought the War are not the most literate. Spelling and grammatical conventions of the late 18th century may be confusing to the modern reader.

A teacher or another reader to help with the story line would be good. Or read 1776: America and Britain at War, by David G. McCullough first. You'll get much more out of your reading.

The editor/authors do a good job weaving the tales told by various participants. The reader may find the differing styles confusing. An interesting alternative would be Joseph Plumb Martin's classic account as a teenage recruit during the Revolution.

What else can be said that has not already been posted? Scheer and Rankin nail this book! A must for anyone interested in our amazing revolution and the men / women involved in it. With actual written accounts from people who were there you could not get a more fact based account of what it must have been like. It is very rare that this book gets "dull" as some fear history must be. Written how all history should be - so that it touches you and makes you think of what it must have been like to live through such time, If you want to learn and enjoy history (esp. such an important part of history) get this book and "Angel in the Whirlwind" by Benson Bobrick = both are fantastic! A plus!

"Rebels and Redcoats" is a tremendously good read recommended for anyone interested in a history of the American Revolutionary War written by those that fought and lived it.

Authors George Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin have compiled, organized and edited a comprehensive collection of letters and papers that provide unparalleled insights into the war as it unfolds. Some of the participants, such as Paul Revere, are well known. Most, however, are not, including rank and file American and British soldiers.

The result is an extremely well written and compelling chronological history of the American war for independence through the eyes of those that won - and lost - it.

Lasting eight years, the Revolutionary War was both America's first long war and civil war. By it ends, four times more American had died (percentage wise) than in World War II. The war showed how hard it is for any nation, no matter how powerful and technologically advanced its military and economy, to defeat a people numerous, armed and far away, possessing strong allies, and fighting for their independence on ground of their own choosing.

Anyone interested in a first-hand account of a war that gave birth to the United States of America and changed the world should read this book.

Reads like a good novel. The first hand accounts woven into the narrative are well selected and perfectly integrated. A variety of perspectives was chosen and this is quite even-handed. There is enough detail to make it lively and interesting but not so much that it overpowers. Anyone wishing to pursue further personal study has broad cross section of topics, biographies and events to choose from. This is an excellent book and should be required reading for all high school and college students instead of the the race-gender-class dribble that is probably used today. 1000% better than Langguth's "Patriots".

This is a very good, readable history of the American Revolution. The book does a very good job of giving you the British side of the Revolution. I enjoyed the book, and so did my 13 year old son.

The only thing the book doesn't have is much material about the war at sea, but this is a minor shortcoming.