Interviews Books

This book is almost better than watching the series, as it contains all the scripts--word-for-word. Now you can catch all those witty phrases Basil mumbled to his wife which were lost to those of us without a clear ear for British speech. Yes its all here, all the comedy, the frustration, the dead body, even the rat. If this goes out of print before you get one, you'll kick yourself for years.

Great to read line-by-line the incredible wit that went into writing this series. (Tip: when you can't hear the mumbling, turn on captioning (if your TV has it) -- you'll catch almost every line, though the captioners sometimes use their own judgement dropping partial phrases).

If you're a fan, you should also put the word out (...to anyone who'll listen, etc.) to request FT on DVD, and as a special edition -- interviews with cast members, behind the scenes info, etc., etc.

I'm a relatively new fan of Fawlty Towers, and I think it's the funniest comedy ever written! This book (in a relatively small tome) encompasses the relatively short series's episodes in script form.

This also solves the problem of lines that we couldn't hear. Sometimes, when watching Fawlty Towers, one can't hear the actor say the line, or the laugh track drowns it out (or, very occasionally, Manuel says something weird). This book allows you to check out the lines.

In addition to that, it's almost as funny on paper as it is on the screen! All it's missing is some way of accurately describing John Cleese's physical humor!

In some ways I prefer reading the scripts to Monty Python's Flying Circus over watching the original TV series (e.g., your imagination does not have the severe budget limits of the show). But reading the scripts to Fawlty Towers, while a fun experience in itself, is not as good as watching the show. The show did have as good of a set as it needed, and the script loses something without getting to see the wonderful physical comedy of the Basil Fawlty and Manuel characters. I don't honestly know if I would find the book as funny without picturing John Cleese's expressions from various episodes from memory. As a result, while I give the book 5 stars for its side-splitting humour, I would still recommend getting the videos instead.

If you love the show "Fawlty Towers," than this book is for you. This book contains the complete scripts to every single episode that was out. I was very surprised that such a thing even exstisted, and I was very happy to purchase it since I love the show so much.

This is a great read for many reasons. If you love the show, then you will love reading the scripts. It is very much like reliving the show. I still found myself laughing while reading, although it is funnier seen on screen, so I do not suggest that you get this over the shows. This is only for fans of the show who have seen all of the episodes.

Another reason why I liked this so much was because the shows were so chaotic and rapid, it was hard to catch every single word. Basil would mouth off to his wife in a very low and quiet tone, so it would be hard to get every single word. The accents also make it hard to understand what they're saying sometimes.

My favorite episodes, both in here and the shows themselves, are: "Gourmet Night," "The Hotel Inspectors," "The Germans," "Communication Problems," "Waldorf Salad," "The Builders," and "Basil the Rat."

All in all, a very funny companion to the show. I really enjoyed reading this, and I am sure that I will read it over and over again. Every page is filled with nothing but some of the funniest lines you will ever read on paper. Just imagine John Cleese verbally and phsyically abusing Manuel, and you've got yourself a great time! Filled with witty humor, razor sharp comeback, the most outrageous situations, and the most memorable characters, "The Complete Fawlty Towers" is a fine companion to the show and is a must-have for all fans. If you love the show, get this book. I don't think you will regret it.

I think it is a great book for children to read because it shows them that people their age can make a difference in the world. The stories are inspiring.

Freedom's Children was a very good book because it involved different interveiws by thirty people so every person's story was different. It is probably one of the best African-American books for children. I really recommend it to people who like true stories and the 50's and 60's. At some points it was depressing, and at some points it was happy.

Freedom's Children is filled with inspiring real life stories of children who lived in the 1950's. It tells about their separate lives and how they fought for Civil Rights. This book describes many aspects of the movement. One part is about the Little Rock Nine. I admire them for having enough courage to attend an all white school. They were made fun of and even physically threatened by fellow students. The book also tells about the bus boycott, Freedom Riders, and all the laws passed to make a better life for African Americans. I enjoyed this book mostly because of how much it taught me and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn

Many figures and groups of people are marginalized in the study of the Civil Rights Movement. This book is an excellent forum to give voice to the children of the movement. Especially powerful are the stories of students who were among the first to integrate. One student recounts the time when he asked a white friend to sign his senior year book. the white friend wrote "there was a time when I was a bigot and a racist... but knowing you changed me. I now know that people are people, black or white." He ended the entry by saying, "We shall overcome." Annecdotes like these illustrate the profound effect young people had on the movement. This book is a rich resource, and I recommend it to anyone. Though some parts are quite depressing, enough to make you cry, in the end you will feel a respect and appreciation for what "everyday" young people did to contribute to the movement. Essentially, a priceless collection.

Touching and powerfully honest personal accounts of the daily lives of children / youth in the Civil Rights Movement. Children surviving domestic terrorism in a culture of violence, ever hopeful of realizing " all men are created equal". Though it documents 'traumatic' incidents the focus is on courage , hope, and our personal responsibility for making the world a better world. For the children each day, each choice, each action made a profound vote for justice and equality. They are truly activists, and advocates for 'humanity'. Our elementary class uses this book to learn about and portray each person. They often seek to emulate them.The children respectfully honor these young heroes, and find their own 'voice'.

"Again, there was no place to go but the bars."

It is a clear, sunny day in Los Angeles. My steaming cup of coffee, prepared by the dyke behind the counter, waits on her next lesbian customer as I move past the crowd to a small table outside this lesbian-owned coffeehouse in West Hollywood. The book before me, Zsa Zsa Gershick's "Gay Old Girls," seems to underscore the distinction between lesbian lives of the past and the one I am living today. Not only were bars the only venues where lesbians could meet in the not too distant past, but finding these bars required determination and a particular longing to be among one's own.

The elderly women whose stories come alive on the pages of "Gay Old Girls" are humorous and sad, poignant yet titillating, tragic but true. From informant Margaret Kennedy's personal account about the dearth of lesbians in San Francisco in 1940 (she could not find a single one!), to the bawdy tales told by some others about P-Town through the 1950s, we learn about growing up lesbian in the 20th century beginning around the 1930s.

Gershick, a lesbian journalist, provides her readers with an intimate account of the challenges faced by the nine lesbians she interviews in the twilight of their golden years. One by one we discover how each of these women came to embrace their sexuality, despite and in spite of the myriad of obstacles laid before them. At the tender age of 14, Murial W. read 1940s psychology books seeking confirmation about her strong feelings for girls. Rather than corroboration however, she finds that not only was homosexuality considered inherently sinister, but thought of as a male-only domain.

In the spirit of Audre Lorde's "Zami," whose biomythography highlights the bars scenes intrinsic to lesbian city life, the women in "Gay Old Girls" describe for us the ways in they came to recognize each other. Pinky rings and jade wedding bands were clues to whether a straight-looking female was in the life or not. Since the heterosexual community served as the only role-model for how couples related to one another, femme/butch roles became the norm in lesbian relationships.

The ladies in this book came out as lesbian through the post-Freudian decades when same-sex relations between women were suspect. Before Freud, according to historian Carol Smith-Rosenberg, lesbians engaged in "Boston Marriages," where professional women in the Victorian period could love and care for each other in peace. After all, the experts claimed, what could be the harm in two old maids sharing living expenses and companionship? Freud's ruminations about lesbians brought a halt to these safe arrangements and "single" women became targets for straight people's fear of homosexuality. Informant Trudy Genovese tells chilling stories about the "street sweeps" in New York during the 1950s where "anybody who looked different" were swept off the streets by police officers and remanded to jail for unspecified crimes. Trudy, beaten and raped by a female guard, said that the violence against her body "didn't cure me," and philosophically examines the guard's cruel behavior as a "power thing."

Many of the women who spoke with Gershick reminisced about their sense of community and commonality that they eventually found in their lives. In some ways they begrudge the women's liberation movement for ostracizing lesbians, and the subsequent exclusion by lesbians toward women of any sexual orientation seeking shelter from the storms of the patriarchy. One informant, Valerie Taylor, castigates both NOW's exclusionary rhetoric, as well as the separatist attitudes of her lesbian sisters.

Gershick's sample of interviewees is small, making it difficult to make broad generalizations about lesbian life through the 1960s. Still, we ought to examine why so few stories appear in this book. As Gershick explains, and as becomes evident in the stories, too many dykes in these decades remained hidden from the mainstream -- they "passed" in the straight world only to return home to the arms of their female lovers. For some, the aging process has not been enough to loosen the shackles of the fear of being discoverd. Now, as elders of our community, these women maintain their silence, as most of them still live among uninformed or ignorant heterosexuals. This particular aspect of their lives is a call to action for us "younger" lesbians (my 40-year-old self included) to work toward the restructuring of the institutions that house these senior citizens.

Although Gershick's transcriptions give voice to a group of heroes heretofore silenced, I would have enjoyed the book more if she wrapped their stories around a broader historical framework. We catch glimpses here and there of historical moments and people, but my training as an historian longed for a critical perspective of the social and cultural events of the decades. My other critique is that the stories are far too short! Since Gershick's interviews take place over a ten-year period, a postscript about these elderly lesbians would have tied up some loose ends. While I'm positive Gershick had more material than she could use, I'm also sure that fiscal and space constraints by the independent press limited the scope of the work. Nonetheless, Zsa Zsa Gershick does honor to the women in her book and "Gay Old Girls" should hold a special place on our bookshelves. After all, we too will be gay old girls one day ourselves.

I've read this excellent book twice now. The personal narratives in this fine collection are sometimes wistful, sometimes amusing, but always compelling. Zsa Zsa Gershick's expert interviewing skills and sense of humor keep these interviews clipping along. Even though some of these pieces are quite sad in places, ultimately they are inspiring: Many of these women have been to hell and back, but they are all stronger for the wear. This is must-reading for younger generations of lesbians--and anyone who's interested in a good story. Pick up this book: You won't be able to put it down.

Gay Old Girls by Zsa Zsa Gershic is a gift not only for the lesbian and gay community, but for anyone who dares to peek at its bold, moving, and frank stories. Zsa Zsa Gershic interviewed nine amazing women ranging in ages from 60 to 85 who opened up and shared what it was like to come out and love women in the 1920's-1960's. The stories are full of the exhilaration and wounds that come with love, and the pains and joys of courageously rejecting heterosexuality. The stories are about the power of the closet, leaping out to the world (and arms) that awaited these women, and the need for gay establishments which provided a (sometimes) safe respite from the often hostile outside world of churches, work, the military, and more. Like many "good women" who followed the societal rules of the time, many of these women had husbands and children before coming out (e.g.reminding us of Adrienne Rich's article entitled "Compulsory Heterosexuality"), yet there were also those who never dated a man. There were classic stories of boisterous butches with hair slicked back and fashionable femmes who waited to be asked to dance at the bar, but there were also those who wrote steamy lesbian novels and never stepped foot into the "scene." One woman found the love of her life one day during a gynecology exam--others traded love away after years of being together. Some didn't meet anyone for a long time and had a simple light bulb go off as to their sexuality as they did their hair one day in the mirror. A few women seemed to slide through life untouched by the difficulties that life can easily amass, while others struggled immensely with their loved ones moving, having surgery or cancer, leaving them for other women or men, or even killing themselves. But all of the women have something in common--they all display a remarkable resilience and hope, coupled with a profound integrity to be themselves. These lives reveal lesbian history in an up close and touching way that is a refreshing departure from thick historical or academic texts. It is filled with wisdom, humor, tears, and humanity. Go ahead--pick it up and allow these Gay Old Girls to tell you their stories--you won't be able to put it down.

"Tell me a story, grandma!" Remember saying that as a kid? Well, in Gay Old Girls, our lesbian grandmothers tell us stories--lots of stories about what it was like to be a lesbian in 1930s Chicago, during World War II, in the 1950s suburbs, and during the various revolutions of the 1960s.

GAY OLD GIRLS is an important work of lesbian history without the obscurity of academic language and analysis. The women interviewed in this book tell their stories simply and eloquently, speaking of self-discovery, coming out, work and life experiences, lovers and enemies. The nine women profiled here speak of universal experiences: love lost and found, happiness and betrayal, work and play. But they also allow us a glimpse of experiences that are no longer part of everyday life, like gay bar raids, stricly enforced codes of butch/femme behavior, and the shadowy world of secret signals and friendships.

By opening a door into a largely hidden past, Gershick has done a great service, and an even grater one by allowing the women to tell their fascinating stories themselves. GAY OLD GIRLS is immensely readable and will have you laughing at some stories and near tears at others. My main wish on closing this book is for a companion volume of oral histories for the gay old boys.

This collection allows us to visit with the kind of women we wished we could meet with when we were growing up and coming out, to get answers to the question 'what was it like when you were young?' from people who really knew. The women in this rich collection are drawn from a vast range of backgrounds and ages. Gershick takes care to invite us into these women's lives, with descriptions which really enhance the interviews which follow. It is comforting to know that some of the problems these women faced have disappeared forever, and to know that the search for love succeeded in conditions far harsher than we could know today. The style of the book makes you feel as if you a friend has taken you to visit with these very well-lived women; women who you won't forget. Time very well spent.

If you want a book that gets right to the point and gives you the tools to get a job, there surely could not be a better one than this! The author has seen it all and really provides you with hard-hitting facts and the right things you need to think about before, during and after the interview. It is a timeless treasure for both the experienced and inexperienced professional seeking new employment.

The advice that Mr. Costanzo gives in this book is superb! Both my husband and I have had many successful interviews in the course of our careers and wondered what we could learn from reading "Getting Hired...". However, there are several suggestions and points made which neither of us had really considered. Recently, my husband followed some of Mr. Costanzo's suggestions and was offered a better position (promotion) with another company! We credit Mr. Costanzo is helping him take his career to the next level!

Easy to read, straight forward approach to getting hired. It didn't just tell you what NOT to do, but what TO DO. Highly recommended, especially for those just entering the workforce. Should be required reading for every college student.

The authors insight into human resources during an interview, provides powerful information that no candidate should be without. The lessons learned helped me to choose a new job without the job choosing me.

The authors insight into human resources during an interview, provides powerful information that no candidate should be without. The lessons learned helped me to choose a new job without the job choosing me.

Dick Dobbins does the job right in "The Grand Minor League", a retrospective of the old Pacific Coast League (PCL).

The PCL still exists today as a AAA league - one step below the majors - but it is purely an adjunct minor league system to the two major leagues.

However, this book is about the PCL's glory days, largely originating during the Depression and spanning the second world war and the first twelve years of the post-war era until the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to the West Coast.

The PCL financed operations by charging admission for its own games and by selling contracts of its more promising stars to the established major league teams. But some visionaries had dreams of attaining major league status for the PCL, and it could have happened. A disproportionate amount of major-league level talent could be found on the West Coast, and PCL scouts were busy signing it up.

While one PCL owner was dryly reputed to have the reputation of throwing dollars around as though they were manhole covers, the pay could be more generous (the players whose contracts were sold to the majors even received a percentage of the sales price) and the opportunities for stardom could be GREATER than that which was available in the majors; moreover, the Pacific Coast was "home" to many of its players. Hence, some major leaguers sought to return there.

And when the majors reluctantly granted the PCL "open classification" status, players drafted by the majors were accorded the option of waiving the draft and remaining with their respective PCL teams and were often rewarded with bonuses for doing so. The PCL could have evolved into a third major league, but the opposition from the established major league owners, who saw the potential for expansion or relocation to the West Coast long before moving the Giants and Dodgers there, was too great to overcome. The moves themselves sounded the death knell for the traditional conception of the league.

Its legacy includes the players who became stars or near-stars in the big leagues, such as Lefty O'Doul, Dolph Camilli, Maury Wills (amazingly enough, he was only an adequate shortstop and a sometime base-stealer during his PCL days, who didn`t reach stardom until he went to the Dodgers), and of course, Joe DiMaggio.

Startlingly, Dobbins fails to remind his readers that years before he electrified the country with his 56-game hitting streak, DiMaggio was thrilling West Coast fans with a 61 game hitting streak in the PCL. Both records are among the few that have withstood the test of time.

One can observe other ironies. Long before Tommy Lasorda and Sparky Anderson did battle, in their respective roles as managers of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine", for Western Division supremacy during the 1970's, they were teammates on the Los Angeles Angels, working together to establish geographical supremacy against the arch-rival Hollywood Stars.

And speaking of managers, debate rages among baseball historians about Casey Stengel's managerial acumen. Was he an adept, if incomprehensible, managerial genius or a bum who failed miserably in Boston and who only attained success by piggy-backing on the vast talent of some super Yankee teams? The story of Stengel's stewardship of the 1948 PCL Champion Oakland Oaks is a huge point in his favor.

Dobbins draws some of his history from the records but most of it from the recollections of the old-time players who consented to be interviewed. My only real criticism is that it took someone too long to undertake this project. The passage of time limits the sources from which Dobbins could draw.

And how trustworthy is human memory? There is a reference in one of the narratives supplied to Dobbins about a player named Johnny Lindell who alternated between pitcher and outfielder and who "would have been in the big leagues" if he could have only hit more consistently.

Who would dare observe, in response, that the record book shows that during the 1940's, an outfielder-pitcher named Johnny Lindell played in the majors, chiefly for the Yankees (this included several World Series appearances), on a part-time basis for 12 years and that he retired in 1954 with a respectable lifetime batting average of .273, having twice led the league in triples?

He couldn't hit well enough for the major leagues. Or could he? Were there two Johnny Lindells answering to the same description?

My favorite chapter was about the old ballparks. If you are a displaced and discouraged Giant fan who lives in the Los Angeles area, you can carry the book and its pictures of the ballparks to the corners of Beverly, Fairfax and Genessee and try to envision the Hollywood Stars' Gilmore Field having once stood there. The intersections now are home to a little company known as CBS - Television City, and there isn't even a marker anywhere to show that Gilmore Field ever existed.

And you can drive to 42nd and Avalon and marvel at the human and urban sprawl that has overtaken the area. Wrigley Field, home to the ORIGINAL Los Angeles Angels and named and constructed after its more famous Chicago namesake, has been torn down, and a community center named after a politician has been erected in its place. Again, no marker commemorates Wrigley Field. Soccer, not baseball, is the recreation of choice for the locals, and the excited cries of the players and spectators are not being delivered in English.

Is there any marker on the corner of 16th and Bryant in San Francisco to memorialize Seals Stadium?

"The Grand Minor League" is a fitting tribute to the REAL baseball giants of the West Coast and to a time when baseball was a "melting pot" language, when the game was played, not by overpaid egotistical prima donnas, but by men with working-class ethics, and when teams were managed by men and not "Dustys". Where have you gone, Rugger Ardizoia?

Dick Dobbins again captures the essence of the old Pacific Coast League. By using an "oral history" format, he is able to capture the true nature of this "major" minor league. The best section in the book consist of short interviews with former players and managers regarding some of the great and notorious players in the league. The same is also done for the managers, stadiums and teams. My favorite aspect of the book is the numerous historical photographs from Mr. Dobbins collection. This book is a must buy for baseball fans!

If you are a fan of the old Pacific Coast League, this book is a must. Great photos, interesting interviews with former players. If you own Nuggets on the Diamond also by Dick Dobbins, this is a great companion piece. Just to see pictures of the old coast league ball parks is worth the price of admission.

This ia an absolute must for anyone who enjoyed the old PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE.The photographs of the old P.C.L.ballparks are worth the price of admission.This is an excellent companion piece to Dobbins other book on the P.C.L. Nuggets on the Diamond.

In this book, Dick Dobbins took a cue from the book, "The Glory of Their Times," interviewing numerous ex-PCL players and umpires about the league. This oral history of the league is an excellent look back. Reading this book takes you back to a different era of baseball and shows why the PCL deserved to be called the "Grand Minor League."

The book has chapters on the league's various ballparks over the years, the league's great teams and rivalries. There are numerous pictures of various players, managers, umpires and team owners throughout the book. There are also pictures of various teams' uniforms, hats and other assorted memorabilia.

Dick Dobbins put a lot of hard work and dedication into this book and it shows. Any baseball history fan will love this book.

This book captures - visually and through the written word - the untold story of so many of our nation's workers without whom our greatest institutions would exist on much weaker foundations. Greg Halpern - through the lens of his camera and the words of the workers he met and befriended - poignantly illustrates the unfortunate plight of so many workers who give so much to their jobs but whose jobs and employers give so little to them. This is a must-read, must-view book for anyone who cares about the state of our nation's workforce. This book is a wonderful way to pay homage to the amazing people who are the true, yet tragically invisible, backbone of Ivy League institutions like Harvard.

This is a poignant look at the people who are invisible (up until now), who are the backbone of the infrastructure of Harvard. The picture on the cover tells it all: proud, yet ignored by those who she serves. This is an important work of art and protest.

For those of you who thought that documentary photography was boring, think again. Greg Halpern brings stunning inner life to the portraits in this book. The early rave reviews in the New York Times and the Boston Globe are dead on -- this kid has serious talent and it translates into one of the most memorable photo books that I have seen in years. I bought several copies of this first edition for friends and family and I have no doubt that these books will one day be collectors' items. For those of you who are photo buffs, and even for those of you who are not, this book is a must have!

This book is long overdue. Listening to the NPR show "The Connection" I became aware that the forces that resulted in this book have actually brought about some change at Harvard...why did it take a public humiliation of Harvard to do what they should have done all along...In any case the book has beautiful and sensitive photographs coupled with startling interviews that everyone should read....

I've been waiting for this book to come out ever since I read a review in the New York Times book review. It was worth the wait. I found it to be thought provoking, informative as well as a glimpse into the lives of service workers. Regardless of your political persuasion, this book deserves to be read. I thought that the author did a remarkable job presenting the facts behind the Living Wage Campaign. I could not put the book down once I started reading it and the people profiled in the book stayed with me. Read this book!

Great explanation of the rationale behind behavior based interviewing. Guides the interviewer through the process of developing questions and evaluation procedures. Interview process is focused, to obtain more accurate and relevant information from candidates.

Selecting the right person for a job is both an art and a science. To help you improve your chances of finding the right person, author Victoria A. Hoevemeyer proposes that human resource departments and hiring managers should ask applicants explicit questions about their skills and behavior. This approach, known as "Competency-Based Behavioral Interviewing" (CBBI), provides a clear picture of what candidates actually did in their previous jobs. Hoevemeyer's sensible idea is that if candidates succeeded at certain tasks before, they'll repeat their success in their new jobs. She provides a very long list of detailed questions that hiring managers can use to learn the specifics of candidates' skills and past performance. However, the book lacks proof that the CBBI process actually results in recruiting new hires who perform well and have better retention rates. Still, since Hoevemeyer's approach clearly elicits rich information, we believe that managers and even experienced HR professionals may find her interviewing tactics useful.

"High-Impact Interview Questions" will save you both time and effort in the interview process. It provides hundreds of interview questions that you can tailor to your organization. By asking questions that focus on the candidate's actual performance, you will increase the likelihood that the people you hire will be a good fit for the position and the organization. This book is a great resource for the new interviewer as well as the seasoned HR professional.

If I had to recommend one book for anyone who is involved in interviewing candidates, "High-Impact Interview Questions" would be it! It is a practical, thorough, easy-to-use resource and reference guide for behavioral interviewing. The added bonus is that it's organized according to competencies, making it incredibly simply to use in conjunction with an organization's current competency models.

It's great for converting to behavioral based interviewing, enhancing your current behavioral interview process, or even simply testing behavioral interviewing out by converting some of your current interview questions to behavioral questions.

There is no doubt in my mind that if interviewers use the information and tools in this book that they will absolutely find the right person for every job!

This book is easy to pick up and understand what behavioral interviewing is all about. For someone that is at the other end of the interview process (the interviewee) this book helped to better prepare me for the interview process in this day and age. Interviews no longer entail just talking about your experience. A potential employer needs more information about a person in a short period of time. By reading "High-Impact Interview Questions" I feel more confident knowing what a potential employer could be looking for and what kind of quetions they may be asking. For the price, this book is well worth it!

I first came across a reference to this book in a medical ethics class. After watching an attending physician take the wrong tack in explaining a terminal condition, I decided to learn a better way. This book has excellent summaries, frequent examples of the "wrong" way and the "right" way, and is the single best book on talking to patients I've read. A must-read for any health care provider, and especially anyone who has to talk to critically ill patients or their families.

How to Break Bad News is one of the best books on the subject I've found anywhere. I wrote a book called "Difficult Conversations" which deals with some of the same issues in a broader context, and I am impressed indeed by Buckman's book. I wish healthcare workers everywhere would read it.

This is a unique, delightful, and highly practical book. I recommend it very highly for all physicians and mental health professionals. The authors explain that, despite the American focus on informed consent, some patients who develop life threatening disease do NOT want to know all the details, or even the prognosis, of their condition. A wise and useful six-step protocol for breaking bad news is proffered, incorporating both readiness to fully inform and readiness to respect the patient's psychological vulnerabilities. Since bad news comes in many forms in this life, the skills and attitudes described have wide applicability in the helping professions. A TRULY OUTSTANDING videotape also exists as a companion to this book. I don't know if it is available through Amazon or not. PKC

This is chock full of great advice when you don't know what to say, or are feeling slightly shy or uncomfortable. Just curling up with these study cases in how to tell someone their colon is infecting their entire body and they only have a few weeks to live, or that a hemorrhage in their daughters brain will keep her in a state of vegetation for the rest of her ... life is enough to make anyone feel better about their own situation. Not sure what to say at a party? Just imagine yourself in one of these terrible situations and you'll thankfully be chatting up a storm.

I am a psychololgist. I read this book very carefully and outlined it, it was that good. It is very practical information on how to deliver difficult news. I found that I deliver more difficult news than I thought. I use the six steps outlined in the book now, and teach residents about the book. This is the best resouce I found for delivering bad news to patients.

I have always had trouble with interviews. After reading this book, I have more confidence and feel that I am better prepared to handle the interviewing process.

I was drawn to this book because it was short and easy to read. I've purchased a few other books in preparation for an upcoming interview, and I found that this was easier to skim through, because I was able to find what I was looking for without much effort. I am applying for pharmacy school soon, and my interview will play a large part in determining if I'm accepted. I can use all the help I can get, and I think this book has given me a great headstart!

Aa a retail manager I found this book to very helpful in learning how to conduct an interview. It should be must reading for anyone contemplating a job search. Very inciteful and practical advice is given in an " easy to read and understand " format.

This book is an easy to read, common sense approach to a problem everyone faces at one time or another in their life.

I loved reading "How to win the job interview battle.." it was easy reading, and it made sense for me. I loved the examples, it helped me to understand what the author was saying, and how to apply it in my interviews. With all of the layoffs happening around the US right now, this book could not have come at a better time. Thanks

"Inside the economist's mind" is not a title that will attract readers without some background in economics, nor should it. This collection of interviews is by economists and for economists: there is a fair amount of economic jargon used that will make the book hard to read for laypeople.

Having said that, most of the interviews are entertaining. Getting an author's personal view on well-known ideas makes those ideas come alive, and it is interesting to read about the career paths and choices of famous people. The selection of people is impressive, although in my personal view (as a micro-economist) there is an overrepresentation of macro-economists, and within this category an exaggerated interest for the rational expectations `revolution' and monetary policy.
For those with other interests, treasures are more limited. There is a great and provocative interview with Robert Aumann that ranges from the existence of God to the foundations of game theory. The interview with János Kornai is great because having started his career on the other side of the iron curtain, he has a different perspective on the discipline. This is welcome, because it turns out that top-economists are a rather incestuous bunch, mostly bred within the top 10 or so departments in the US. This generates a lot of uninteresting institutional insider talk, the summit of which is reached in the useless last chapter in where James Tobin and Bob Shiller argue about the existence or not of a `Yale school' in economic thought, as if anyone cares.

Some reviews talk about the `astonishing revelations' or the 'fabulous storytellers' in this book. Don't get your hopes up, it's still economics, unless they refer to the fact that Cass once said "[...]" to his head of department. The reviewer who calls this "A Beautiful Mind scaled up 16 times" must have read a different book (or did not read ABM).
I would recommend getting this book from the library and reading the chapters that you are really interested in. Although interesting and occasionally entertaining, there is not too much here that you want to keep for reference. Still, 4 stars for the Aumann interview.

This is a collection of interviews commissioned for a journal, Macroeconomic Dynamics. The idea is to gauge the position of the profession by asking the people who invented large swathes of the theory their motivations for doings what they did, when they did it, and how they did it. Readers find eccentric and irascible characters behind some of the major innovations in economic science. I loved this book, and read it cover to cover in a day.

The book purports (pg. xi) to "contain[] unique insights into the thinking of some of the world's most important economists, whose work contributed to the evolution of modern economic thought", and indeed it does.

Scientific biography is a passion of mine, ever since reading Richard Feynman's writings on his life and work. Looking at the path integral method as an undergraduate, you can see how he came up with it (if, in fairness, I didn't really understand it), how startlingly original he was in doing his physics, because that's how he lived his life---he followed different paths as he felt he needed to, and arrived at different destinations that others because of his personality.

So it's great that William Barnett, the editor of Macroeconomic Dynamics, and the co-editor of this book, decided to ask these men these questions.

In future editions of this book and the further volumes to come, I'd love to see a focus on the characters behind different approaches to economics and their reasons for taking contrarian positions to the mainstream---Foley, Nell, Solow and Velupillai (my thesis advisor, in full disclosure), as well as more traditional mainstays of the profession. A focus on economists regarded primariy as great teachers would be great as well, not just the theoretical giants.

The book is a very rare thing---an economic page-turner, like The Worldly Philosopher, Adam's Fallacy, and Freakonomics. The personalities behind the science's blleding edge make for compelling reading.

Thomas Keene has an Amazon Listmania List called "Book Reviews: Must Reads." It links to each of the books in Amazon that he recommends as a "must read," and there currently are eighteen of them on his list. But oddly the Amazon system does not provide reverse links from the Amazon page for each of the recommended books back to his review.

He is the very influential Host of the radio program, "Bloomberg on the Economy." This book is on his list of "must reads." Here is his review:

"Rules are meant to be broken. Samuelson & Barnett goes on the list without a complete read. Sixteen stunning interviews; the candor shocking. But then, this is Samuelson. Taylor interviews Friedman; Blanchard interviews Fischer. You get the must-read picture."

Keene's rule that he says he is breaking is never to put a book on his "must read list" before he has finished reading the book. When he finishes reading this book, as I have, I am sure that he will not change his mind.

I have only one criticism of the book. The stellar endorsement quotations that appear on the back cover are set in a rather small font on a black background. It would seem that the publisher could have found a way to make those quotations more inviting to read. But of course this is not a criticism of what is in the book.

The editors should be commended on their choice of interviewees! A better, but still "mainstream", selection of major economists of the last half century could hardly be put together. While the selection is hopelessly skewed towards macroeconomics, it seems fitting, given the M.D. connection.

Several interviews (e.g. Modigliani, Sargent) could be very interesting to graduate economics beginners, who'd like to put the contemporary tools and theories they learn in a more historic perspective. They also show how the rumors about the demise of "traditional Keynesian" concerns are largely exaggerated. (Modigliani is not shy about his views concerning unemployment in contemporary EU-15.)

I don't find the book to be accessible to non-professionals or even to scholars in related fields such as PolSci. Some of the interviews are highly technical, which is not helped by the fact that the interviewers are often former students or junior collaborators of the interviewee. -- This is, I think, a good thing, since this level of discussion will be most useful for (future) professionals who look for insight and perspective rather than Principles hand-holding.

On the down side, many interviews read like the interviewee is simply sampling his publishing record. "I wrote X and then I wrote Y..." The more politically-minded reader will be disappointed by the policy content (or lack thereof) in several interviews.

A review of this new book just appeared on the British blog, New Economist, in London. The first line of the review is "Published earlier this week, Inside the Economist's Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists, has all the hallmarks of an economic bestseller."

I have read the book, and indeed the New Economist is right. What most distinguishes this book is its "no holds barred" revelations and astonishing statements by many of the world's most famous "celebrity" economists, including eight Nobel Laureates, a former Federal Reserve Board chairman, the current Governor of the Bank of Israel, a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, along with other economists of similar importance. This book is filled with inside information from those who know the truth, but had not previously revealed it.

The book contains some unusual photos, such as photos of Franco Modigliani with the Kings of Sweden and Spain and Paul Samuelson with Bill Clinton.