Language Arts Books

I have studied Modern Greek for 1 1/2 years using the Teach Yourself series. If you are not serious about advanced learning, then this is not the book for you. In the opening chapters I understood more of the Greek words than the English ones. Voiced plosives , labiodental fricatives, phonemes, etc. They describe how to sound out the correct pronounciation of the Greek letters and letter combinations using words like that, rather than giving examples of similar sounds using familiar English words. These descriptions along with my prior knowledge of the language did help me to understand the subtle differences that the "beginner books" could not. Once you get used to the over-the-top intellectualism you will find that this book explains the highly complex Greek language in detail like no other. The Teach Yourself series is easy to understand, but generally leaves one wondering "why", while this book provides quite the opposite experience. In the end, I've realized that it may be more valuable to understand more about the English language than the Greek language before purchasing this book.

I have been learning Modern Greek for only 3 years. I had tried many books and courses but was greatly confused by the verb forms - "the What" and "the When".
Then one of my teachers in Athens recommended this book - I found it on Amazon, bought it and immediately things became clear ......especially the explanation of Aspect!
I could go on - but I won't. It is by far, The Best Yet.
With gratitude, Jim Trueman

It is the best of all the greek grammars and I knowa lot in greek, french and english. The explanations are clear ; greek language is a very difficult one but this grammar answers all the questions.

This Greek grammar is, quite simply, the best and most comprehensive available. The detail is excellent and, whilst frequently employing technical linguistic terminology throughout, it can be easily understood with little or no knowledge of such. Highly reccommended, indeed - a must, for anyone who wishes to gain an in-depth understanding of the Greek language.

I'm giving this book a 4-star rating because it was definitely "comprehensive"...but, a little too comprehensive if you need just an explanation of the basics. This book is rather large and goes into some horrific detail on Greek Grammar...probably even more than fluent Greek speakers know. For what it is, it's good...but it's just not what I needed. I think I'll try the reference Greek Grammar book...I'll let you know how that goes.

Was very informative and easy to read. Arrived in suggested time frame.

How to Spell Like a Champ is an excellent book and really helps students with spelling. My son read this book, and became very motivated. He decided to participate in the school spelling bee. He learned excellent study habits and how words with different language origins have different rules. This book includes word lists, stories of past spelling bee contestants at the national level, and includes a CD that puts you in the life of a student competing at the spelling bee from the class bee to the final round of the National Spelling Bee.

Three authors were involved in writing this book: Carolyn Andrew, Barrie Trinkle, and Paige Kimble. Carolyn Andrew's son won the national spelling bee in 1994, Barrie Trinkle won it in 1973, and Paige Kimble won it in 1981. My son was so motivated, and learned so much, he worked hard, and in result, won his school spelling bee, and got to compete in the regional spelling bee. In the regionals, he placed third. THIRD!!! I WAS SO HAPPY FOR HIM! I know he is excited about next year's spelling bee. You HAVE to buy this book. I would also highly recommend watching the movie Spellbound.

This book is an excellent, entertaining resource for children who may aspire to go to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. It contains many helpful suggestions and is written in an interesting way. It's very readable and I'd recommend it to anyone with a child with that goal.

If you want to help your child win a spelling bee it is worth the investment. You cannot get by with out a Webster's third edition dictionary becuase you will have to provide pronunciation and definition to your child. Go more high tech and get the software version of the dictionary. It will save you hours of time looking words up.

This Champ book has a nice layout. You'll get to see previous national spellers, see what some spellers chose as careers, spelling rules, most common misspelled words and spelling games. I probably read the book more then my 5th grader did. However he did win his school bee, his district bee, and placed 5th at his regional bee.

The CD in nice too. Warning: The printer put a small slip of paper inside the book for words in the book that are misspelled accidently. Make sure you take an inkpen and change the spellings in the book before you hand it to your child. Chances are the little slip of paper will become lost.

This book was actually very helpful to me. Not knowing what would it lead me to, i joined our school spelling bee club in December, last year. I had no idea that i would actually be in our school spelling bee. Then, we had our winter break; and over the winter break, i actually saw a re-run of the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee. And i was so amazed, yet motivated at the same time. That's when I decided, I want to go to the National Spelling Bee.

Yes, it was the last week of December, and I hardly had any time. I mean, people who go all the way to D.C. study starting from the summer right? So just to get a start, I bought this book, How to Spell like a Champ. This book taught me a lot! The CD also did too. But the book was great...not only did it give you tips, but it let you live through the National Spelling Bee, and it included a bunch of words throughout the whole book! And there were so many interesting facts on every other page. It wasn't like those boring non-fiction books. And so, even though I started this whole spelling interest this year, in January, I'm glad I did.

And the best part is, I'm really going to the Nationals this year. =) And it only took two months of studying. Did I mention that this book was a big help?

"How to Write a Screenplay" is a superb guide to the craft of cinematic storytelling and the process of rendering that story into the standard screenplay format. The book also includes detailed guidance on the pitch and development stages of the screenwriting process. Schwartz effectively delivers his lessons because "How to Write a Screenplay" seamlessly marries form and function. The book itself is in the form of a screenplay, and therefore serves as an ongoing example of the points it presents. This is an extremely effective pedagogical approach because the reader's attention is not divided between separate narrative text and examples, but fully engaged at any moment in an interesting story that illustrates its points in concrete terms.

In the introduction to his book, Schwartz states he has seen the quality of his screenwriting students' work dramatically improve after utilizing this approach; I have no doubt that this has been true for him, and will also apply to those who read his excellent book.

This is by far and away the best book I've read on screenwriting. It's really insightful, informative, and entertaining. I found myself laughing while learning! As others have noted, this clever little gem is a fast and fun read, a how-to book that is actually written in the form of a character and story-driven screenplay. Like a good movie, I kept turning the pages, wanting to "see" what would happen next. Before you get to the feature length screenplay (titled Screenwriting for the Hell of It!),it has a funny short script about pitching, and takes you by example through the steps of development. I can see why a great director like Wes Craven recommends it. Very cool!

The latest edition of HOW TO WRITE: A SCREENPLAY appears in its revised, expanded edition to add a chapter on 'The Pitch' and features a screenplay-like format which sets it apart from others on the market. Danny, the hero in this story, is hopelessly in love with a star who won't date him until he proves he can write an outstanding screenplay for her. Learn the basics of writing and marketing a screenplay through a format that lends to lively insights: perfect for any public library or school collection catering to aspiring screenwriters.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The addition of a section on "pitching" in Mr. Schwartz' Second Edition is the icing on the cake of his excellent guide to screenwriting. Having worked inside the studio system for several decades as a story analyst, development executive, and producer, I've seen many cases where a screenwriter had a good story and/or script but failed to sell it because he/she blew the "pitch." As he did with screenwriting in the First Edition, Mr. Schwartz provides the keys to successful "pitching" in his user-friendly format: keep it simple, clear and entertaining. I will continue to recommend Mr. Schwartz' book to writers, producers and development execs as a very useful tool in developing, and NOW in selling screenplays.

In summary, like a good movie, this is highly entertaining and educational!
There, now that that is out of the way, let me say I was initially skeptical about this book and its overwhelmingly good reviews. The reason is a character flaw (I think): I don't trust positivity.

However, it wasn't too expensive and Amazon would ship it to me in record time so I thought, what the heck and ordered it. It's a small book, and I was expecting it to be. After all, it's in the format of a screenplay and those shouldn't be more than 120 pages or so, right?

On starting to read, straightaway, I was hooked. The story used is a bit corny, but--I couldn't believe it!--I wanted to know more: what did Virgil want? Who was the stranger in Bebe's apartment? Does Danny finish the screenplay? And right along with all that, I was actually learning about structure, character, theme, dialog and exposition; all in a way I never would have thought possible.

And at a speed I never thought possible either! I was learning how to write a screenplay and how to make it interesting and watchable, without the impediment of translating jargon and quasi-indecipherable jibber jabber. I blew through it in less than two hours and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. One of my highest recommendations and kudos to the author for finding a pleasant, funny, and incredibly insightful way of transferring knowledge.

Image processing is used to improve the visual appearance and transmission of images to a the human eye. It also concerns the preparation of images with respect to measuring an image's features and structures. Now in a newly updated and significantly expanded fifth edition, "The Image Processing Handbook" by academician John C. Russ (Materials Science and Engineering Department, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina) "The Image Processing Handbook" features an informative chapter explaining which visual cues elicit a response from the viewer; descriptions of the latest hardware and software for image acquisition and printing including digital cameras; multichannel images and an analysis of their principle components; the issues of deconvolution, extended dynamic range images, and image enlargement and interpolation, and so much more. Enhanced with more than 2000 illustrations, and with the availability of a companion CD-ROM, "The Image Processing Handbook" is a seminal and essential addition to professional and academic library Computer Science and Electrical Engineering reference collections.

This, the fifth edition of this industry standard reference book on image processing has been significantly expanded. There are some 600 new and revised images. A major feature of the new edition is to describe the new advances that have come about in hardware for image capture and printing. This includes both new versions of traditional equipment and new emerging technologies. The text has been expanded in areas like deconvolution, extended-dynamic-range images and multichannel imaging including principal-components analysis.

In general this book does not cover the background mathematics that enables image processing. Those are left to specialty books on the subject. Instead this book is intended to be used in conjunction with hands-on equipment where the reader is encouraged to experiment with different methods to determine what is needed for the particular job.

While suitable for use as a text, this book is really a handbook for technical users. The book is more oriented to what the various tools availavle to help actually do.

I am a biologist with a little background in math. Using this book and matlab I could quickly implement basic feature recognition tools to analyze microscope images. The book focuses on concepts and explains them in intuitive language rather than in mathematical terms. Overall, it worked perfectly for me, but could be over-simplying for people with technical background.

John Russ' book on image processing was never intended to be a textbook on how to understand and write your own image processing algorithms, as you might believe by looking through the table of contents. It does cover just about everything you would see in such a textbook, but from a user's standpoint of these operations, not as an author of image processing code who needs to understand the algorithms behind these operations. Instead, Russ explains all of the operations, their value in various applications, and provides many illustrations showing before and after pictures of what each operation does. There are no algorithms, pseudocode, or mathematics in this book.

The jewel in the crown of this book is the companion CD. It contains over 200 Photoshop plug-ins for performing the operations mentioned in this book. These plug-ins work on 8-bit grayscale and 24 bit RGB images and are divided into the categories of image adjustment, color manipulation, image math, boolean operations, Fourier processing, morphological operations, neighborhood processing, distance-map operations, thresholding, feature measurement, calibration, stereology, and surface rendering. The bad news is that you have to obtain the CD separately. If you need to understand the detailed mathematics behind such operations, you might consult Digital Image Processing by Gonzalez and Woods, and then come back to this book for the tools to accomplish the operations explained in that book. The updates to this fifth edition include an additional chapter on human vision and how it ties into image processing. Also, the author has updated his sections on image acquisition hardware and software to describe the latest tools available. Finally, the topic of tomographic imaging has been expanded and given its own chapter and the chapter on 3-D image acquisition has been deleted.

This is an excellent book on image processing from a systems engineering and user standpoint. You will be disappointed if you expect to learn the algorithms behind the techniques demonstrated in this book.

As others have stated, this book comes as close as you'll ever get to a single-source reference on image processing. But if I were ever going to shoot anything down in it, I'd say that a little more mathematical background on some topics (and maybe pseudocoded examples) would help. For example, in the satellite geometric correction section, only a very high level view is given yet this is a challenging topic that could use more depth. Geometric transformations in general could use more depth, e.g. camera calibrations or image warping/morphing/mapping to other projections for example. Another example would be the need for a little more depth on how to make slow algorithms fast ...like convolution multiplications for example. Sure, you could write out the multiplies and spot commonalities, then re-use results that appear in more than one subsequent equation and what not, but some exploration of matrix math and how to make it efficient would be nice. But again ...I'm picking at small things here, and if John's book covered everything that I'd like it to, then it would become 2 books, not one ...hey! Now THERE's an idea! A 2+ book set by John Russ that covers a broader range of topics and does so in greater depth! That's something that I'd pay for (and much better to read than Ballard & Brown)

When taking university courses in philosophy, this was the first text I ever used. Several years later, I now own some 200+ philosophy texts, but I consider this to be one of the most valuable. When reading original sources, I find myself returning again and again to Grayling's An Introduction to Philosophical Logic for reminders and clarification. This is my most well-worn philosophy book. If use and usefulness are measures of value, this text is a diamond.

If you are a beginner in philosophy, particularly analytic philosophy, this text and William Lycan's Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)should be your first two purchases.

I have found A.C.Grayling's _An Introduction to Philosophical Logic_ to be very helpful. It is a very non-technical and clear discussion of necessity, analyticity, a priority and other related concepts.

Sean Choi http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/sean-choi/

Enough centuries have passed that everyone should know this: If you want a clear and readable exposition of a difficult and complex subject, you ask a British philosopher.

In that grand tradition of solidity and soundness, A.C. Grayling here provides, without fanfare but with a good deal of clarity and wit, a thoroughly reliable and lucidly intelligible introduction to logic as this topic is understood within the broad spectrum of analytic philosophy.

A standard textbook that is now in its third edition (with extensive revisions and additions by the author), this volume also makes for useful reading by interested laypersons (who may also know Grayling as the author of two excellent volumes in the _Past Masters_ series, on Russell and Wittgenstein). It is highly recommended to anyone seeking an accessible introduction to the field.

Grayling is also recommended as a master of what Brand Blanshard memorably called "philosophical style." The oracular pronouncements of the world's Nietzsches, Kierkegaards, Wittgensteins, and Ayn Rands usually get all the attention, but what really keeps the enterprise of philosophy going is the much-underappreciated art and skill of writing fine expository prose. In that respect, this volume is a gem.

Lucid book on the philosophical implications of modern logic.

I wish my philosophy professors had assigned this book BEFORE they plunged us straight into rote drills in propositional and predicate logic. Grayling shows you what exactly all these sterile-seeming symbolic manipulations have to do with epistemology and metaphysics.

Also check out books by Graham Priest.

Over the years I return to Grayling's Introduction to Philosophical Logic to review and re-think some of the big issues of contemporary philosophy. Grayling clearly articulate the reasons for the debates and the sides that are battling it out. He covers propositions, necessity, existence, meaning, truth, reference, etc., and then finishes off by venturing into the fray between realism and antirealism. I just think this is one of the best philosophy books you'll ever buy, read, and use again.

I like the book very much. It is the type of book you read , put down to digest, and then pick up and read again. I love it!

This book is a great help if you are learning to journal or you are stuck in your process.

I've kept a journal for over 30 years, but books like Journalution fascinate me. On my own, I tend to settle into a mundane description of what I did that day, complete with "lunched at Burger King." etc.
A journal can be so much more, and this book certainly gets your mind to working and your ink flowing in new directions. The author also has a website with archives of her online newsletter. They include journaling prompts so you can sample her technique and see what it does for you.

This is the greatest book I have read on journaling. Sandy Grayson gives an abundance of ideas to jumpstart the reader on the path to journaling. Sandy
makes journaling fun, easy, and healing! Thanks Sandy!

This is a great book to help you get started. The prompts are phenomenal...they'll get you thinking about yourself in ways you haven't before. The prompts will also give you new ways to think of your world and and your spirituality. If you're looking to discover yourself, the way you really think, feel, and who you truley are...not the way the world or media says you should think and feel, but what your true self says...then buy this book! Sandy is a wonderful writer and has an innate ability to help you discover and search the depths of your soul.

The course that I will be taking this semester is language development and disorder from birth through adolescence and this book is a required text. I have already read through the book just to make sure I can keep up with the pace of the class. I am really impressed with the organization and readability. There are wonderful charts and visuals that really helped to solidify concepts. IEP sample pages are just general so be sure to look at what your state offers. There are great sample forms for you to tweak and use and the tables a color coded. So much less highlighting. I will definitely be using this book often well beyond the parameters of this course!

This textbook is great! Although I am not taking the class, I am enjoying the book. I am already in the field and the class size was limited, so they gave me the name of textbood they will be using an I purchased the book. I can see myself and colleages buying additional books in our field in the future. Thank you.

This has to be one of the top 5 books in the field. Dr. Paul is the most devoted of scholars, and you can tell this from the careful way in which the text is composed. Her editorial style is highly readable, and her vast knowledge and wisdom do not come across in the horrible erudite manner that so many texts do. This is a wonderful treasure for every single SLP's library.

I was very pleased!! fast delivery & a cheaper price
than the college bookstore!!

The revised version proven to be another paramount work by Professor Rhea Paul. It contains more updated contents written in a search-easy format. The updated knowledge captures the latest development in speech-language pathology for children. The author inspires the readers to be up-front with newest evidence-based practice.

Anyone who is tempted to preserve their life stories will find here an unusually attractive companion for the adventure. The attention to graphic detail (in layout, colors, fonts, and photographs) results in a book that invites readers to explore its contents and to participate in a growing trend: creating a legacy of recorded life experience for present and future generations.

All of us have personal life stories to share, but many of us don't really know how to best preserve those stories for future generations. Living Legacies: How to Write, Illustrate, and Share Your Life Stories, from Duane Elgin and Coleen LeDrew, is filled with practical suggestions on how you can "uncover the seeds of stories in your life, [and] follow a simple process for writing them."

Elgin and LeDrew on focus on what they call the "life story," which is more than photographs or a biography. Life stories delve into feelings about what happened or why it mattered. They incorporate visual images and memorabilia as well as the written word. As well as sharing events with others, "when we record our life stories, we enter a process of self-reflection that often leads to new insights about our lives."

Recording a life story can be very simple, and often only takes only a page or two. Elgin and LeDrew provide step-by-step instructions for deciding what stories to share and how to get to the essence of each one. They also explain how to choose the visual images that best illustrate the story, with lots of examples.

Stories can be simply typed out on plain paper, or they may incorporate fonts and backgrounds that enhance them. The authors explain how to choose what materials and techniques that best communicate what you want and how to best use your personal information and style.

Life stories aren't just for the older generations-one chapter is devoted to helping children tell their special stories.

The authors present their guidelines in a practical, easy-to-understand manner that allows lots of room for individual creativity. They also provide a resource guide with additional tips, organizations, and vendors of speciality materials.

Your life is filled with unique and priceless experiences. Living Legacies provides all the information and tools you need to share those experiences with others.

Rarely does one see such a comprehensive work involving this subject. Thus book has just enough detail included to help the reader to become the writer. Anyone with a family needs to read this and heed it's advice so as to be able to leave a history to the generations to follow. How often do we see folks struggle to find their heritage? Had previous generations followed the wisdom found in this book the knowledge would be readily available. Good work. I shall certainly recommend it to anyone who cares to leave their own legacy.

A book like this, which is superbly written, is long over due to come in our midst. Think about it, for generations of human kind, almost all life experiences are lost forever when we individuals pass on. We've been left with a few diaries, history books, memoirs of famous people and other literary works but none that strikes at the heart of the rich indivdual experiences from us all that can so profoundly enrich the lives of our loved ones and others.The reader of "Living Legacies" has been given an fabulous opportunity to make a profound impact on the lives of so many people by producing and sharing his/her own living legacy. This book shows the reader how clearly and simply it can be done. Every single sole owes it to themselves and to their loved ones to read this book and create their own living legacy. Too bad the rating system only goes to "5"; Id rate this one a "10" if I could.

"For it is in giving that we receive," is a phrase from the Prayer of St. Francis. I remember it so well from my childhood and am struck by how true this is in reference to this book. "Living Legacies" is the perfect gift to ourselves and our loved ones because, through Coleen's and Duane's gentle coaching, we open up memories that can bring healing, restoration, enrichment and so much more. Putting this inspiration to paper and sharing it makes both this process and the product a precious gift to the writer/giver and the recipient. I have given this book to more than 50 people since its publication in January of this year. Every single recipient has remarked on the quality of the information and the simple beauty of its message. This is a sure thing if you're looking for a special gift that communicates how much you care!

"Murrow: His Life and Times" is a superb biography about Edward R. Murrow. No one had a greater impact in defining and shaping broadcast journalism than Murrow, and in highlighting the responsibility of journalists, broadcasters, government and citizens in a democracy. Television, he observed in 1954, "can teach, it can illuminate...but it can only do so to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends...otherwise it is merely lights and wires in a box." Whether his brilliant and breathtaking radio coverage from London of World War II, or his confrontation with red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy, he was always principled, strong and courageous. Speaking of the anti-communist hysteria sweeping this country in the early fifties he would turn to Shakespeare, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves." As mass media races onto the Internet and enters a new digital era, the experiences and issues raised during Murrow's life become even more relevant. In the mid-fifties he warned, "the frontiers of knowledge have been pushed back, and the more that comes to be known, the less is understood...looking ahead to a time when human destinies are to be determined by the uses or abuses of new sources of almost unlimited physical power, one may ask if democracy will be able to develop the competence to deal with these complexities." He concluded, "If so, it must be through a broadening of education and the use of communications not yet realized, or perhaps even conceived." Murrow is a man for all times.

Edward R. Murrow was elusive. He was a pioneer radio and television broadcaster. His career arc did not include print journalism. His success was modern. Murrow, b. 1908, had a golden natured man for a father and a shrewd and enterprising woman for a mother. He ws the youngest of three sons. Black moods dogged his whole life. In the 1930's Murrow worked for a committee placing European scholars in American academic posts. He had contacts at CBS. At college, Washington State, he had been a speech major. At CBS, 1935, he became the Director of Talks. Murrow was also responsible for education and religion.

Radio was changing the world of politics. Overseas radio was primarily a novelty act. NBC had Alistair Cooke and so its coverage of the abdication crisis was better. Murrow was asked to take a job in London as the European director for CBS. William Shirer was offered the job of continental representative of CBS. When Germans invaded Austria, Murrow traveled to Vienna. His immensely successful career as a radio reporter, commentator, had begun. Murrow and Shirer used stamina and imagination to cover the developing crisis in Prague and elsewhere on the continent. Listeners were taken to Nuremburg to hear Hitler. At the end of September NBC and CBS radio braodcasts reported on Munich. Murrow sat with Jan Masaryk.

War finally came over Poland. CBS staff positions in the European capitals were filled. Murrow put in time everywhere. In the spring, blitzkrieg tactics caused the occupation of Belgium, the Netherlands. Norway fell. The Dunkirk evacuation took place. Churchill assumed office as Prime Minister. Commentators crowded into London. As neutrals CBS staff faced endless delays and red tape. A stringer, Vincent Sheean, became Murrow's boon companion. The reader is immersed with Murrow and company in rather delightful fashion in the events leading up to America's entry into World War II. A reader is able to sense in the author's careful descriptions the immediacy of war as brought to the radio listeners. Broadcasting brought facts and analysis to the audience in real time.

London was under air attack. Janet Murrow busied herself with the evacuation of children to America. The BBC moved broadcasting underground. Murrow inhabited freely both the upper class and the London ghetto. Eventually daytime operations ceased. It was not known at the time, but it was an RAF victory. Night bombings continued. With the approval of the censors American audiences were permitted to hear the sounds of a raid. Murrow conveyed the impersonal nature of the new technology of killing. Home news editor at the BBC, R.T. Clark, became a mentor to Murrow. He was versed in the classics and military history. In the fall of 1940 Shirer left for home from Portugal. He and Murrow had built up radio news from nothing. Home leave, 1941, proved to be a case of culture shock for the Murrows. In America there were no shortages. Murrow was effective because he did more than his job. Through happenstance he met with FDR Pearl Harbor night. He sat on the scoop that the President was determined to go to war. In the spring of 1942 the Murrows returned to London.

Murrow, disappointingly, had to coordinate CBS staff reports at headquarters during the operation of Overlord, the Normandy Invasion. In the end he was cut up with rage seeing the camps, Buchenwald and others. The Nazis had done a more thorough job of brutalizing the people than he had deemed possible. After an eighteen months' stint as an executive, Murrow returned to broadcasting. He was bitter over the death of George Polk in Greece in 1948. Polk had modeled himself on Murrow. In 1950 he took an unequivocal stand against Joe McCarthy and lost his sponsor. Regional sponsorship was arranged. Owen Lattimore commended Murrow for keeping the record straight on his case.

Fred Friendly and Murrow were ready, in 1951, to convert I CAN HEAR IT NOW to television. ALCOA sponsored SEE IT NOW. It needed to brighten its image. At the beginning of 1953, after doing an historic piece, 'Christmas in Korea,' he was exhausted. His view of the US was changing. Murrow's attack on McCarthy on SEE IT NOW was considered an act of courage by most people. It resulted in FBI scrutiny, he became a watched man. After McCarthy's demise, employers and news broadcasters were still treading gently. By 1957 Murrow was a celebrity, but SEE IT NOW was cut and he and Friendly were given SMALL WORLD. After speaking in Chicago to an association of journalists about the need for independence in television news, Murrow lost clout at CBS. Informally he was demoted. Fred Friendly became the sole executive producer of CBS Reports. One of the programs in which Murrow participated notably was 'The Harvest of Shame.' Murrow was appointed to head USIA under Kennedy. He resigned in 1964 and died in 1965.

Thank Heaven that this book - long out of print, I had my copy nailed down - has now been re-issued, and thank Heaven for the current renaissance in interest in this magnificent journalist and iconic human being. Murrow's speech to camera at the end of the McCarthy expose ought, if there is any justice, to be committed to memory by every American in the same way that the Gettysburg address is now.

As for the book itself - well, I bought my first copy in the early 1980s, Murrow having been a childhood hero. It's bit, it's beautifully written, and is it enough to say that my original copy is falling apart? And that all my Christmas present problems are now solved?

There are other good biographies (I'm a Murrow fanatic, if this isn't clear already)and I wouldn't fault any of them; and the newly-reissued DVD set of the Murrow Years is also essential and full of the most wonderful surprises. I guess that Sperber wrote the ur-text, and so this is probably the place to start. But thank you to everyone who remembered that he should not be forgotten. Meet a true American hero.

By the time most of us baby boomers were old enough to watch more substantive television fare than Felix the Cat, Edward R. Murrow was an aging icon without portfolio. He did not have the regular exposure of a Douglas Edwards, Chet Huntley, or David Brinkley. He would on occasion do spectacular work-as elementary school students we would discuss his "Harvest of Shame" documentary on the sufferings of migrant farm workers. But it was from our parents and older relatives that we inherited something of a sense of his importance in an earlier time, in the same fashion that they might speak of a Bob Taft or an Adlai Stevenson.

What we could not know in 1959, what biographer A.M. Sperber makes abundantly clear, is that we were watching the shell of a driven man who had exhausted his incredible stores of emotional energy to international cooperation, then to radio coverage of the horrors of World War II, and on to shape the formation of the CBS new department during the explosion of the television era and the age of McCarthy. Sperber traces the rise and decline of this charismatic, almost manic, entrepreneur from the most unlikely of origins, that of a lumberjack named Egbert who quickly realized the liabilities of his given name in the male work camps of Washington State.

Egbert, now Edward, chopped wood only long enough to scratch and claw his way into Washington State College. A student with fingers in many campus pies, he joined an organization called the International Institute of Education in 1931. The IIE in the early 1930's was a form of college student exchange program, one of its sponsors being the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time Columbia Broadcast System. When Murrow spoke at a West Coast gathering of IIE representatives, he earned himself election to the national office of the IIE in New York, a paid position there, and free air time on CBS radio. Murrow produced Sunday afternoon radio lectures and round table discussions, demonstrating a flair for attracting international speakers. As Murrow learned more about the plight of Jews in Germany from reporter [and later close friend] William Shirer, he used the machinery of the IIE in the United States to rescue as many Jewish intellectuals as possible and place them in American colleges. It was a tactic not universally appreciated, nor would his close cooperation with the Russians be forgotten by J. Edgar Hoover.

By the beginning of the Battle of Britain, Murrow was assigned full time by CBS to provide radio coverage of Hitler's assaults and to coordinate the company's European reporting network. It is impossible to capsulize here the horrors of those eighteen months for Murrow and for England generally, when every night brought a terror at least as awful as the World Trade Center bombing. Murrow created a network of European radio correspondents-many of whom would become household names in their own rights. He overcame industry biases against putting reporters on the air and using taped reports from the fields. But most of all, he revolutionized the very style of radio news into "factual storytelling" by his nightly accounts of German bombings that by happenstance occurred during the East Coast's prime time 7 P.M. radio news hour. Later, as the theater of war shifted east, Murrow was among the first western reporters to see first hand an operating extermination camp. He could not bring himself to talk about it over the air for several days.

Murrow returned to CBS in New York a conquering hero of sorts, the network's hottest property. Sperber does a good job in explaining why the postwar Murrow-CBS marriage was a stormy one. For one thing, the war years had reshaped Murrow into a cross between an Old Testament prophet and a posttraumatic stress sufferer. He would never be quite at home in an industry moving toward television, increased advertising dependence, and escapism. Secondly, Murrow was too much the prophet to claim objectivity. He would never be confused with, say, Bob Trout. Long before Woodward and Bernstein, Murrow crafted the art of investigative reporting for a presumably concerned nation, particularly through the medium of his weekly "See It Now" series, a rough and tumble forerunner of "60 Minutes." His most controversial television piece, his hour-long exposure of Joe McCarthy, was out and out editorializing, albeit accurate. In Murrow's mind, he was serving the common good. Others were not so sure. Thirdly, Murrow himself had a past that made him a potential network liability. When he produced his "Harvest of Shame" documentary, for example, hardly a paean for capitalism, those with long memories would recall his enthusiastic embrace of Russian intellectuals in the late 1930's with the IIE.

The great irony in the breakup of Murrow and CBS is that the deciding infidelity may possibly have been unintentional. In 1960, with quiz show scandals threatening the credibility of the television industry, CBS President Frank Stanton announced a policy to eliminate the appearance of deceit in any of his network's programming, not just quiz shows. When pressed as to the extent of this policy, the network cited other programming, including rather surprisingly Murrow's own "Person to Person" prime time home visits to celebrities. In one reading of this event, Stanton may have simply been protesting the pre-scripting of interview questions and the staged walk-through of the homes. Or, there may have been a subtler message. A young Harry Reasoner inquired of Murrow on air, in so many words, "why are you, the Jeremiah of the industry, wasting precious prime time with the innocuous drivel of fighters and starlets?"

Unlike Reasoner and Howard K. Smith, who felt no compunction about switching networks, Murrow lived and died CBS. Illness and ultimately death interrupted his stint as window dressing for the Kennedy administration in 1965. Perhaps his prodigious cigarette smoking had finally claimed him. More likely, it was the pressure of living so many lives in one frail human shell.

Since its publication in 1986, no other biography on Edward R. Murrow has been written that can depose A.M. Sperber's magnificent work. "Murrow: His Life and Times" is, by far, the best biography written to date on America's first, and possibly last, great broadcasting journalist.

Sperber's book captures the essence of Murrow's life from a young intellectual to his rise from college campuses to directorship of the "Institute of International Education" and to Murrow's début at CBS where he broadcasted the bombing of London during World War II. It was during this period that Murrow demonstrated, so clearly, his finesse with the American audience as they listened to his broadcast of the traumatic events as they unfolded in World War II Europe.

Sperber's methodical research, numerous interviews, attention to detail, and her writing give the reader a close and personal look at the extraordinary triumphs and tragedies that made up Murrow's life. Readers are able to follow Murrow's footsteps and virtually see into his world, as he became the voice of World War II and the voice for America. Murrow's denunciation of Senator Joseph McCarthy's treatment of Americans during the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) hearings set into motion the senator's decline and closed a dark chapter in American politics -- all with his rational, yet forceful manner of speaking.

Sperber writes of Murrow's journalistic integrity and his struggles for openness and frankness in the media -- ideals that brought Murrow into constant conflict with CBS. The author also illustrates Murrow's battle with tobacco addiction - an addiction that would have devastating affects on Murrow's health. An entire life flawlessly researched and written in 705 captivating pages that will embrace readers today as it did when the book was first published 1986. After reading Sperber's book the reader will understand why CBS headquarters in New York City still displays a plaque in their lobby which contains the image of Murrow and the inscription: "He set standards of excellence that remain unsurpassed."

"Murrow: His Life and Times" should be required reading for students of communications and those working in media. There is no better chronicle of America's greatest broadcasting journalist. Readers will find this book hard to put down once they begin reading it. It is superb in every respect and the very best biography on Edward R. Murrow.

Why did I buy this book? I was hooked at once when I began to read the introduction, where the author, Natalie Rogers, a former actress, acting teacher and behavioral psychotherapist, reports the feelings she had when she attended a class about "Oral Communication" and witnessed the students' ordeal during presentations:

"Was I the only one aware of the discomfort and loss of concentration? Apparently, the instructor was not concerned. Apart from her command to relax, she ignored the students' profound distress and continued urging them to make eye contact and speak more slowly. `Don't be so nervous,' she'd add, presumably trying to be helpful. `We support you.'

I was bewildered . This wasn't at all like the systematic training I had received in acting school, where we were given intensive coaching for concentration, relaxation, attention, and awareness. Here, except for the suggestion to relax, the sole focus was on the preparation of the speech, with no serious attention paid to the painful loss of confidence that many students were experiencing."

Natalie's book gives you the training. It teaches detailed, concrete, step-by-step methods to address the fear of public speaking. I have consulted various books about the fear of public speaking during the past couple of years, but this book provides the most powerful and straightforward step-by-step training approach of them all. Just to give only a few concrete examples of how this book is full of extremely valuable information page for page: It provides a detailed step-by-step instruction of correct belly breathing - all the other books which mentioned breathing techniques left me with the impression I had to take "deep" breathes in order to have the desired effects. Another example: The author writes "The idea of managing or confronting your fear is meaningless ... People with anxiety about speaking in public cannot overcome their problem with cavalier advice. The only reasonable solution is a method that will eliminate the fear and its devastating effects.", and later in the book explains why videotape is not the appropriate tool for beginning and fearful speakers - now I understand why training seminars with video, offered by my company, only left me embarrassed and frustrated, and with an even greater feeling of helplessness! And a last example: I always had wondered why visualization exercises had not the desired effects for me, and attributed it to my lack of commitment - now I know better!

This book is much more than only a book on public speaking. It teaches a comprehensive, systematic mind-body training approach on how to prepare yourself for performance situations. In the author's words: "Performance is any situation where you feel that you are being judged or evaluated by others. This ability to detach your thoughts from focusing on the audience and their approval, is a skill that you can develop if you commit yourself to the TalkPower program as described in this book." Buy this book - it provides you with the practical methods you need to help yourself.

I teach a public speaking class and I'm a longtime member of Toastmasters International. This is the best public speaking book I have ever seen. I am planning to make it the required reading for my public speaking class. The author, Natalie Rogers in an actress and psychologist and has helped people overcome her speaking fears for many years.
One thing Toastmasters does not teach is the psychology behind public speaking and the fear of it. I found some articles to cover this. This book does an even better job. There are templates for speeches in the book. You can read it through once, then refer to it when you need it. It is also easy enouch to follow to keep ones interest. Dr. Rogers is a very gentle teacher and I recommend this without question.

I've tried it all. Self-help books, Hypnosis, Yoga, breathing exercises, voice lessons, public speaking workshops, Toastmasters... nothing ever worked, and I never understood why.

Finally, I took Natalie Rogers' weekend workshop on Public Speaking, and at last I understood. Public Speaking isn't like other phobias out there, like a Fear of Flying or a Fear of Heights. Conquering Public Speaking requires you to do more than just overcome fear; it requires you to:

1) Learn how to WRITE an effective speech

2) Learn how to BREATHE and SPEAK well

3) Learn how to PERFORM under stress

When you have a Fear of Heights, you can curl up in a little ball and wait for the fear to pass. Therapists call this "extinction therapy"... if your patients expose themselves to the situation which triggers the fear, the phobia eventually goes extinct. This actually works for basic phobias... but it DOESN'T work for phobias that require you to actually do more than just curl up in a ball.

Natalie does a sensational job of 1) and 2) above, by giving you speech templates that really help you write a quick and effective speech... and then teaching you how to breathe and use your voice. That in itself would be worth the price of the book... but Natalie actually has developed a breakthrough approach to performing under pressure that is so powerful it is worth calling out.

Basically, the idea is this - it is IMPOSSIBLE to be nervous if you are concentrating on something. You know that feeling you get when you are really focused on something? You lose track of time, you lose yourself in your work... and in that moment, it is actually physiologically impossible to be self-conscious or nervous. Well, Natalie takes advantage of this physiological fact and taps it to help you neutralize speaking nervousness. And she's found a way to trigger concentration that doesn't require mental energy... and so you can actually achieve focus during a difficult speech, and take advantage of this physical phenomena to eradicate nervousness.

I know, I know - it all sounds too good to be true. I'll admit - I haven't recovered 100% from my public speaking fears. I can speak to groups or to someone important... but put me in front of a group of important people, and I'll get nervous. But here's where Natalie's techniques really come in handy. Before I speak, I prepare a speech using her templates. I practice my breathing and make sure that I've got my speaking voice working in the privacy of my home. Then, I use her concentration technique to mitigate the nervousness of speaking. The first few minutes are still tough, but the nervousness passes... and I am calm, confident, and comfortable.

It's such a strange feeling to be able to say that I'm calm, confident, and comfortable in front of a crowd. It's been a couple of years since my first panic attack in front of a group of colleagues, and being bad at speaking has almost become part of my identity. But, it's really true... you really CAN overcome these fears to become not only a non-phobic speaker, but a really good public speaker!

If you can afford to go to Natalie's weekend seminars, then by all means that's probably the easiest way to learn all this. But I've been to the workshop and I've read this book, and the fact is that all of the information in the workshop is right here in this sixteen dollar book. The book really is beautifully designed, and the binding actually holds up well - which is a good thing, because you'll find yourself returning to the book again and again.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Good luck conquering your public speaking fears!

I found Natalie Rogers' text, THE NEW TALK POWER, very useful for a Public Speaking college course. Rogers gives a step-by-step guide made up of "templates" for standard 5-7 minute speeches. She integrates the preparation phases with acting exercises (proper breathing, visualization, etc.)and provides the reader with many examples of speeches. The book is a valuable tool for speech classes. My only quibble is that she might have provided a little more background in interpersonal communication including providing examples and definitions of terms associated with effective verbal and non-verbal communication (i.e., emblems, rhetorical questions, decoding, etc.)

That learning a technique can overcome such a powerful fear, but it did! Very well written, and the techniques are fully explained in both the "how to" sense, and the underlying basis for them. Highly recommended.