Reviews Books

A must read for anyone interested in ancient biblical history. First in a series of 5. I finished this book and couldn't wait to read the others. Very detailed information and facts. You'll be much more knowledgeable on the early beginnings of the worlds history once you've read this book.

Have you ever wondered why God just didn't destroy Lucifer, thus preventing him from causing chaos and havoc in this world? Why did God permit him to live and why does He continue to permit him to live? The first chapter of this book explains the reason why. This book makes the Old Testament of the Bible come alive and goes right along with the Bible. I especially enjoyed readiing about Joseph. If you want to enrich your knowledge of the stories of the Old Testament, this is a good book to read.

This book is the first of a set of five books designed to be read as a companion reader to the Bible. Each chapter lists the corresponding Biblical passages. The remaining four books in the series are Prophets and Kings; Desire of Ages; Acts of the Apostles; The Great Controversy. The author is very readable and shows great insight and sensitivity to the whole plan of God in rescuing mankind from sin and restoring them to His original plan for the human race. This book begins with the entrance of sin inn heaven prior to the creation of the earth and covers the dealings of God with His earthly creation down throu the ages, and includes the fall of man, the flood of Noah, the exodus of Moses, the batles of king David, and end with Davids last years, including his fall into sin with Bathsheba and his restoration to favor with God

1. Build collective intuition that enhances the ability of top management team to see threats and opportunities sooner and more accurately.

a. Sharing information at must attend meetings is an essential part of building collective intuition. The interplay of ideas during these meetings enhances managers understanding of the data. Less successful top-management teams rarely meet with their colleagues in a group. These executives typically make fewer and larger strategic choices. When they do turn their attention to important decisions, they rely on market analyses and future trend projections that are idiosyncratic to the particular decision. Intuition is gained through experience, the ability to recognize pattern and process information in blocks. This Rapid pattern recognition is faster than processing single pieces of information.

b. Traditional approaches to strategy overemphasize the executives ability to analyze and predict which industries, competencies, or strategic positions will be viable and for how long. No advantage and no position is advantageous forever.

c. The ability to make fast, widely supported, and high quality strategic decisions on a frequent basis are the cornerstone of effective strategy.

2. Stimulate quick conflict to improve the quality of strategic thinking without sacrificing significant time.

a. In dynamic markets, conflict is a natural feature of high-stakes decision making because reasonable managers will often diverge in their views on how the marketplace will unfold. Strategic decision makers in rapidly changing markets not only tolerate conflict, they accelerate it.

b. One technique is scenario planning, creating advocate alternatives consider many future states. Remove stale thinking.

c. Another technique is to create multiple alternatives that the team can work with simultaneously. The teams come up with more varied viewpoints than homogenous teams. Teams rapidly compare alternatives and gain better understanding of their preferences. The multiple alternatives help the executives feel confident that they have not overlooked a superior alternative.

3. Maintain a disciplined pace that drives the decision process to a timely conclusion

a. Effective strategic decision makers focus on maintaining decision pace, keeping up the energy surrounding the process, and cutting off debate at the appropriate times. Decision makers use rules of thumb to determine time span to arrive at a decision. If a decision takes less time, then the decision is not strategic enough to warrant management team attention. Time frame allows executives time to adjust the scope of a decision to fit the allocated time frame as the process unfolds.

b. Typical strategic decisions including entering or exiting markets, investing in new technology, building manufacturing capacity, or forming strategic partnerships.

c. Decision making rhythm helps managers plan their process and forces them to recognize the familiar aspects of decision making that make the process more predictable. Decision timing being more important than consensus. Consensus is nice but keeping up with the time constraints is important.

4. Defuse political behavior that creates unproductive conflict and wastes time.

a. Lobbying one another, manipulating information, and forming coalitions is wasteful.

b. One way in which executives defuse politics is to create common goals.

c. The goals suggest the managers share a common shared vision of what they want.

d. A more direct way to defuse politics is through a balanced power structure in which each key decision maker has a clear area of responsibility, but in which the leader is the most powerful decision maker. (King Lear scenario)

e. Humor diffuse politics

Here is an absolutely first-rate collection of essays which, with commendable diversity but consistent brilliance, examine fundamentals of strategy and value creation, strategic flexibility in (heaven knows) a volatile world, strategy marketing in uncertain times, and strategies for growth in fast-paced markets. We should not be surprised by the quality of content selected nor by the quality of editing provided by Cusumano and Markides. As they explain in the introduction, "The chapters in this volume fall into four categories. Part One (two chapters by Ghoshal, Bartlett, and Moran and one by Mintzberg and Lampel) deal primarily with strategy and value creation in the next economy. Part Two (one chapter by Hax and Wilde and one by Eisenhardt) talks about flexibility in a volatile world. Part Three (three chapters, by Pascale, Beinhocker, and Williamson) continues on this theme but focusses on strategy and strategy-making process in times of uncertainty. Finally, Part four (five chapters, by Hamel, Kim, and Mauborgne; Markides, Prahalad and Oosterveld, and von Krogh and Cusumano) concentrates on strategic innovation and strategies for growth, particularly bin fast-paced markets."

Those (such as I) who subscribe to the MIT Sloan Management Review have perhaps already read many of these essays. How convenient to have a single volume in which they are gathered; also, to have such a well-written Introduction by the editors and then a section ("The Authors") which suggests additional resources to explore. (I consider Markides' All the Right Moves: A Guide to Crafting Breakthrough Strategy to be one of the most important business books written within recent years.) Some owners/CEOs of smaller companies incorrectly believe that strategic thinking (at least as they understand it) is not of major importance when, in fact, the opposite is true. Go back and examine the origins of what have since become the world's largest corporations and you will learn that each began with one or two basic strategies. For example, when James Cash Penney opened his first store (named "The Golden Rule") in 1902 in Kemmerer (WY), his basic strategies were (a) to treat each customer as a guest and (b) to offer merchandise of the highest possible quality for the lowest possible price. More recently, in 1983, Michael Dell began to re-sell RAM chips and disk drives for IBM PCs (from his dormitory room at the University of Texas) and by April of 1984, his computer component business was grossing about $80,000 a month. His basic strategy then and now: To sell a limited selection of products directly to consumers and then provide superior service. My point, obviously, is that this book can be an invaluable resource for senior-level executives in large companies but can also be every bit as valuable to decision-makers in small-to-mid size companies.

The authors raise almost all of the most important questions to be asked about strategy and then, together, offer thoughtful (at times highly innovative) as well as practical responses to those questions. For example: How to define a company as a value creator rather than a value appropriator? How can a new management framework address the current business environment of complexity and uncertainty by expanding the spectrum of strategic positions? How can successful business strategy emerge from a decision-making process in which executives develop "collective intuition" and accelerate "constructive combat" while maintaining decision pacing and avoiding politics? You may not agree with all of the authors' observations and conclusions. Fair enough. But I am certain that, after having read this book, you will be a much more effective strategic thinker.

This is a great collection of essays that delivers a consistent message throughout. It begins with a new management manifesto, past theory, and works its way through flexibility and growth and innovation. A great, quick-reading book for those interested in the 'new' strategy game.

I happen to know Marilyn Freeman, she is my grandmother, and a great one at that. This is the first book that she has published in her career but I bet it won't be her last. This is a great book about twins that spend a summer with their grandma and have alot of laughs. Be sure to read it, cause when your done you'll want to go back and read it again, believe me, I've read it 3 times and I still cant get over it.

I read this book with my kids, ages 7 and 9, a chapter a night for a bedtime story. We got many laughs out of Grandma's adventures with the twins and often couldn't resist the urge to stay up and read an extra chapter. It made for some great snuggle/giggle time.

This is a great book filled with humorous stories centered around a summer spent with Grandma. Twins Amy and Allen decide to teach their grandmother how to surf the web. Why does Grandma put on her bathing suit for this? What happens when Grandma gets in the wrong line at the Water Park? Will she go down the giant slide? Grandma is a wonderful sport about everything! All ages will love reading about her. I know I did.

Its rather important to understand how another health system thinks about disease. This book written by residents give an excellent initial insight into the US surgical resident's thinking. I was trained in Ireland and there are some interesting differences that this book highlights.

This book is the first of its kind to prepare you in total for the Absite examination. This book incorporates basic science with the clinical science in order to allow you to review for the tests in a short text version without having to decipher through large textbooks. It has references to O'leary, the basic science book used during my residency, as well as to other major textbooks. This book seems to cut out the redundency of larger books and includes small facts that they love to ask on the exam. A must for those with weak scores or those looking to gain extra points... who isn't.

I read this book and my in-training exam score went up by over sixty points. It's not exactly a quick read at over 500 pages, but it's very readable and it contains all the information covered in the ABSITE exam. I highly recommend it as a review book for surgery residents looking to improve their scores.

Good case selection and pictures.
Highly recommended just like all the others books from this series.

Its an excellent companion to the Chest requisites. It is the best book in the case review series based on the requisites. Combined with the requisites its more than enouch for the chest section of the residency boards. A must buy for the residents!

Presents broad range of common (and some rare) diseases/pathology with pithy, relevant discussion. Questions highlight important pearls. Quality of the images is sometimes less than desirable for demonstrating the findings, but this is a minor complaint.

I love this CD. I wish that I would've had this on my first day in the cath lab. It is beyond my expectations.

I am currently using this disc to study for the RCIS exam and am finding it to be an outstanding tool. The amount of information on the disc on the wide variety of subjects more than makes up for the cost; you could easily spend 4 or 5 times that amount on the various books listed as references in order to get the same amount of necessary knowledge. The graphics and various games and tests are not only a great way to judge your comprehension of the material, but they actually make studying fun. I highly recommend this disc to anyone studying for the various interventional examination or as a great way to bone up on this type of material.

This CD makes studying for the RCIS exam fun! And it's fast. I can scan hundreds of questions in an hour.

The CD appears to be professionally done, with color graphics, sound effects, different types and levels of questions, and sophisticated scoring and saving routines. One hardly knows that these are the same questions that are in Todd's acclaimed review books - they appear so much more colorful and interactive.

Although it is designed to award CEU credits upon completion of a chapter they do not appear to be available yet. Perhaps after the nursing organizations see how educational one of these chapters is this Todd will get this worked out.

I found this book enormously helpful in figuring out what I had seen and how the material had been adapted for the screen. The authors of this book have a deep knowledge of the Tolkien texts and they have also viewed the films and DVDs very carefully. The assessments are balanced, well informed, and not likely to be surpassed as a commentary on the transformation.

Very interesting read, well written and witty. Recommend especially for people studying Lord of the Rings.

This highly recommended title explores Tolkien's Lord of the Rings vs. Peter Jackson's film adaptation of it. The several essays chosen by the editors are all very convincing and well-researched. They're also immensely enjoyable to read for those who've read Tolkien and seen the film (or vice versa) and love to compare the two. The editors were also careful in presenting a balanced view, for both pros and cons are represented (sometimes even within the same essay.) And there are even some essays on Tolkienian fan-fiction (and slash) that's proliferated on the net. Truly an engrossing study of Tolkien's work and Jackson's successes and failures in adapting it! I hope a second volume is being considered...

With the huge success of Reynold's first dissection of modern music's bad lyrics I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE: THE 52 MOST DEPRESSING SONGS YOU'VE EVER HEARD there was bound to be an encore and this fascinating read doesn't disappoint. In Touch Me, I'm Sick Reynolds tackles those songs about love, but not the mutually consenting romantic love, no these songs are about obsessive stalking, sleeping with kids, sleeping with parents, pleasuring yourself, jilted lovers, bad break ups as well as basically anything else that you'd be serving serious jail time or even get the chair if the lyrics were real.

The amazing thing is many of these songs are highly popular and requested to be played and set the mood at inappropriate places like wedding receptions and graduations. Which means those who request these songs for these occasions are either sick in the head or have never actually listened to the lyrics and do not know what they are actually about.

Most of these songs spent time in the top ten of the UK or US charts (Reynolds tells you at the start of the dissection of each song) and there's also a few you may not have heard of. Even with the ones you've never heard of Reynolds gives a detailed account of what the song is about then tells the reader why it is creepy. For those of us who were not around in the 70's or earlier when some of these songs were hits you'll also learn interesting facts such as I never knew Michael Jackson's Ben was being sung to an injured human flesh eating rat.

Tom Reynolds certainly is a very funny writer, you'll be laughing out loud at many an observation such as on Paula Cole (p145 if you've got this with you) "She doesn't just have issues, she has lifetime subscriptions". On You're Beautiful by James Blunt (p69) being one of the most requested songs at weddings "makes absolutely no sense because it's about a guy who's too stoned to approach a girl he saw for a few seconds on a subway platform and so he just repeats over and over again how beautiful she is but won't ever see her again" On you're body is a Wonderland by John Mayer "he reassures her that he'll never let her head hit the bed without my hand behind it. I'm completely at a loss as to what this means other than the girl is a pillow chasing nut who likes to ram her skull into the headboard" (p92). These are just three examples of the gems of dissection you'll find in here. His dissection of the life of Kevin Federline is also a must read.

The whole book is actually a must read for any fan of music especially the lyrics. Artists who appear inside include Air Supply, Kylie Minogue, The Offspring, The Beatles (and Reynolds recount of a chat room conversation with a Lennon fan nut who blames every bad Beatles thing on Paul is hilarious), The Police, Pearl Jam, Jennifer Lopez, George Michael, Divinyls, Fergie, Christina Aguilera, Sarah McLaughlan, Alanis Morissette, Sinead O'Connor, Eminem, Jewel, Radiohead, Melissa Etheridge and Motley Crue.

Can't wait for the next dissecting music book by Reynolds, if it's even half as good as the first two I won't be disappointed.

This is a very funny book. Even if the songs are obscure, the stories can stand up on their own. It will stimulate debate among boomers about woeful contributions over the years. Sorry.... But hands down winner has to be "Havin' My Baby". I dare you to deny it!!

Hillarious, snarky jabs at 52 creepy songs. This includes the weird, the annoying and the icky. People familiar with popular music (from the 1970s forward) will appreciate it the most. There's a certian vindication in discovering a song you've long considered stupid/eerie/scary has made the cut. Includes some obscure but too-weird-to-ignore numbers too.

Most candidates have trouble starting to write a resume and the 20 pages of resume samples short-circuit that stumbling block. It shows numerous "actual" sample resumes in Chapter 8 and highlights sections that are good and WHY. In addition, Chapter 5 answers common questions by job candidates about what to include and provides evidence by polling recruiters and job counselors. Overall, a superb resource for the 1 to 5 year candidate and a great one for anyone looking to brush up their resume.

Having been an employment counsellor with University students for the past 25 years I have read many books on Resume writing... This book is the culmination of my views on how a resume should be written in today's ever evolving labour market. I only wish that this book would be translated into other languages (French, Spanish, and German) so that many would benefit from it's wealth of resouces in resume building. As I said...a book I would have written, is well worth the purchase... a job hunter should combine this book with Richard N. Bolles "What Color is your Parachute - 2001" and would have all he or she needed in their job hunt...Good luck and good read.

This book is very well written, and addresses its subject in an easy to follow way.

It's definitely a number one trashproof reference for people seeking help designing resumes.

This is a great book that exposes one of the greatest judicial farces in American history.During WWII,lead mainly by pressure from Jewish and Communist groups,the US government attempted to railroad a bunch of anti-communists and isolationists.The trial turned out to be a complete farce,thanks mainly to the book's author Lawrence Dennis.In many ways this trial saw the invention of "McCarthyism".(But don't expect your history professor to mention it,or Hollywood to make a movie about it.)It's all there,smears,innuendo,guilt by association,etc.,etc.Maybe it should be called Biddlism,after the Attorney General at the time.Or even more accurately Rooseveltism.

Lawrence Dennis and Maxmillian St. George wrote a classic book explaining how to proceed against bogus government charges and kangaroo trials. These men not only give the reader an explanation of their defense, but they clearly indicate that dissenting views are not the same as sedition and conspiracy.

The brief background to the trial gives the reader the diverstiy of the defendents and their plan of attack in court. Dennis refused to cooperate in any plea agreements because, as he correctly saw, the government had no case. Rather than argue the legal definitions of the law, Dennis and St. George argued that no crime had been committed, and there was absolutely no case. Admittedly some of the defendents were rabid anti-semites which could have proved embarrassing, but this was not a crime defined by statue.

Government prosecutors probably thought that because many of the defendants were poor and had few resources, these prosecutors may have thought this would be an easy case to win. What they did not anticipate was the fact that some of the defendants were intelligent, and their intelligence more than compensated for lack of resources.

One of the charges brought against the defendants was attempting to cause mutiny in the armed forces. Yet, the government could not present one shred of credible evidence to sustain such a charge. In fact, one of the defendants lost his son fighting against the Germans during the trial. As for the accusation that these defendents posed a serious threat, one of the defendants died during the trial with about fifty cents in his pocket.

Basically, the defense, especially Dennis, challenged every introduction of government "evidence." Dennis remarked that the evidence was obviously weak, but to wait until the prosecution was finished would have been an error. The jurors would be tired and give more weight to the prosecution's evidence and might be too tired or bored to carefully listen to the defense's refutation of the goverment's "evidence." By challenging the presecution's evidence as it was presented, jurors had a better chance to see just how weak the government's case was.

The diagnois of the trial was also enlightening. This trial was compared to Stalin's "Show Trials" of the 1930s. There were no criminal acts, and the charges amounted to unpopular opinions. Some of the journalists who first thought they were reporting on a fameous trial became bored with the whole event as they too saw the government's case as weak and frivolous. In other words, what was supposed to be a show trial soon became almost a non-event in the view of the media.

Basically, the government prosecutors ran into vigorous defense which they never anticipated. After months of claiming there were records in Germany and Italy that would prove a conspiracy, no such evidence was found. Government prosecutors asked for delays and still no such evidence was presented because there was none.

What began as a showcase trial ended as a dismal failure for the government. The judge died during the trial, and due to the stinging rebuke from the defense, the case was adriotly dropped. There was no crime and no evidence to prove there was. Intelligent defendants made a shambles out of the trial to the dismay of those who promoted the trial. One should also realize that the trial was a victory for civil libertarians.

Dennis and St. George wrote a long but masterful book on the corrupt and illegal operations of the U.S. "Justice" system. A careful reading of this book will show that quite often government legal "experts" are giants with feet of clay.

Many Americans today worship at the feet of FDR, regarding him as the father of social security. However, as this book shows, FDR was a virtual tyrannt able to manipulate this country into a war entangling us in European affairs against the better advice of all the Founding Fathers, including George Washington in his Farewell Address of 1796. And, to accomplish this manipulation he and his government were not afraid to resort to some of the most vicious forms of propaganda, including staging a "Moscow show trial" in which political dissidents and "crackpots" (the phrase used by the prosecution) were rounded up and accused of encouraging members of the U.S. armed forces to mutiny. One of these individuals who brought upon himself the ire of the Roosevelt administration and of other powerful forces within government was Lawrence Dennis, writer of several famous books dealing with the fascist revolution in America.
It was in light of his theories that Dennis got himself into trouble with the current powers that be. Indeed, approximately 40 dissidents and "crackpots" were hauled up by the government in a great show trial on charges of sedition in 1944. What was the purpose of this trial? Dennis argues that it was purely for propaganda purposes by the Roosevelt administration and refers to it as a farce and a waste of the taxpayer's money in this book _A Trial on Trial_. In fact, the trial did not attempt to prove the charge that the defendants had tried to make members in the armed forces mutiny, but rather instead alleged a "worldwide Nazi conspiracy" in which the defendants took part. Dennis argues that this trial was done in the tradition of Moscow, in which the government attempted to "educate" the public on the evils of "anti-Semitism, isolationism, and anti-communism" by means of a trial. For Dennis, he certainly could not be charged with the noxious anti-Semitic charge (still used so often today against those who propose another perspective) because his writings specifically showed the foolishness of anti-Semitism. Dennis argued that it was particularly ironic that the defendants were often referred to by the prosecution as "crackpots", because according to the dictionary a "crackpot" is a "harmless lunatic" but in the same breath the prosecution would call them all "dangerous".
But why was this trial staged at all? According to Dennis these individuals (the "crackpots") were easy targets. They were dissidents and quite frequently agitators who rebelled against the present order. However, many "respectable" Americans (including certain famous "isolationist" Congressmen such as Senator Nye, John T. Flynn, and the elder Lindhbergh) also shared the views of these "agitators" but were unable or unwilling to admit this in public or to take nearly such a radical stance. Indeed, according to Dennis it was not really the "crackpots" who were the target of the trial at all. Rather it was the dissident but respectable Americans who Roosevelt and his cronies were after. Afterall, by going after the "crackpots" the message to the rest of America was clear: if you share these views you'd best keep quiet because we'll go after you next, best just to parrot the Roosevelt line in times of war.
In addition, powerful Jewish groups including the freemasonic B'nai B'rith wanted the defendants prosecuted on the charge of anti-Semitism. While many of the defendants including the individual writing under the pen name Major-General Count Cherep-Spiridovich, claiming to be a Russian general of Aryan descent, were indeed virulent anti-Semites, the majority were not. (Interestingly, the chess player Bobby Fisher attempting to understand the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy behind international chess professionals has recommended the book by Count Cherep-Spiridovich entitled _The Secret World Government_, currently available from the Booktree publishers.) Indeed, anti-Semitism has always existed and can hardly be called a crime, certainly not by any legal standard within the United States and certainly not supported by the Constitution of the United States. While it may be understandable that these Jewish groups wanted to stamp out anti-Semitism, their methods for doing so were truly Machievellian and completely without regard to civil liberties. The same applies to the manner in which the ideologies of "isolationism" and "anti-communism" were being eradicated.
It is common for those among the communists to refer to every single opponent of the official "Moscow line" as a fascist. Indeed, the word fascist is a term of such abuse that it no longer has any meaning whatsoever. Indeed, when the fellow communist Trotsky deviated from the official Stalin-line he suddenly became a "fascist". So, the fascist smear is really old news and of course the left was playing this up in the sedition trial. However, many of those who certainly could not be referred to as part of the left wing extreme or communists continued to parrot the "fascist line" unaware that they were in fact unwitting pawns for Moscow.
After 6 months of unnecessary trial, the judge, worn thin from all the headache, had a heart attack and died. The trial was subsequently declared a mistrial and the defendants were all left off the hook. However, this trial had been a farce and a true perversion of American justice, attempting to cash in on the unanimous agreement of all Americans that fascism was a "bad thing" to persecute certain dissidents and "crackpots" who would not toe the interventionist/Roosevelt line. Dennis subsequently went back to his work and his writing.
This book, _A Trial on Trial_ presents the case point by point including the prosecutor's main arguments (or lack thereof) and sound rebuttal by the defense. The book is co-written by Lawrence Dennis who served as his own attorney and the defense attorney Maximilian St. George. This book is re-issued by the Institute for Historical Review and preserves one of the few accounts of revisionist scholarship dealing with the pre-World War II debacle of the Roosevelt "interventionist" administration.