N Books

I LOVE Jan Brett's books! I buy them anytime I see them whether on sale, old ones on Amazon as remainders, or new.. They make great gifts. I have a backup of many to give to children, particularly my granddaughters. The illustrations in this one are so beautiful it is really a keepsake to save as well as enjoy. Give it as a gift and you will make some child very happy and a parent happy,too.

Beautiful illustrations reprinted from over 40 sources. All illustrations are credited on last page. Book measures 9"X11.5" Only down side was that the price changes by the day. One day it's almost $11 another it's $8.97. But that's just the way Amazon works; something to be aware of. (It's worked in my favor often while shopping at midnight--price suddenly went down!)

it's a classic, so of course you can't go wrong, but as far as the best one being out there... well, I'm sure there are much better illustrated ones out there than this one

I bought this for my grandchildren last Christmas. The wording is traditional, and the illustrations are wonderful! This has become a part of the Christmas Eve tradition at my daughter's house.

These illustrations are the best ever for The Night Before Christmas...Stunning even! A worthy heirloom Christmas Book. The illustrations cover both sides of the page for a large panoramic view seldom seen in other books...

Lavryle Spencer is my all time favorite romance writer. When she retired in 1997, I seriously mourned. Pick up any of her books and it will leave you with tears, joy, laughter, and a full heart. It's hard for me to choose which is my favorite book from her, but Years has to be right there at the top (along with Bitter Sweet, Vows, Bygones, Family Blessings, Separate Beds, Forgiving). The movies in my opinion doesn't do her books justice at all. I read her book over and over again and they will never leave my library. I have yet to find a writer that matches her skill in spinning an emotionally-driven romantic story.

I purchased this book because of the high number of very good reviews here and was in need of something new and engaging to read. This was my first Lavyrle Spencer book and I didn't really care for it all that much. I thought the development of love between the characters was bumpy and their constant fights (which, I know are supposed to masquerade as their resistance to their irresistible love) were just annoying and I found Teddy's unwavering focus on the difference of 16 years incredibly senseless - I just didn't get that.

The characters were all rather weakly developed and I had trouble following and understanding their motivations for their actions: Why was Linnea suddenly throwing herself at Teddy? Why did Kristian want to join the army? Why was Linnea so angry and worked up about the older boys not attending school immediately? Why was Teddy so angry about the baby? Also, I thought Linnea's character underwent an abrupt change once she married Teddy - she became very subdued, very different from the chipper person at the beginning. It was almost as though she disappeared from the book. Very strange.

There were parts of the book that I liked - the sudden snowstorm was a surprise - the detailed descriptions of horse tack and saddling were interesting and the heated, enclosed wagon was something new. It was set in an interesting time and place - with some "modern" conveniences (cars and airplanes), but much still so primitive (wagons and chamber pots). But overall, not a draw for me to want to read it again.

Read this book right before I read Morning Glory, which I found to be a horrible read. Years is the complete opposite--wonderful story, interesting characters, sparkling dialogue, an absolute joy to read. I can't believe the same author wrote both books! I'm buying this for a Christmas gift for my mother, I loved it so much! My only two complaints about it are that the heroine is almost too pure and loving to be believable, and too many characters were killed off at the end of the book--but that's like saying that you loved the movie but the popcorn was a pinch too salty. READ THIS BOOK!! You will love it!

I absolutley loved this book, from start to finish. Lavyrle Spencer has a way of writing two people falling in love, that you feel as if you're falling in love too. My heartstrings were tugged, pulled and squeezed countless times over while reading this book. It was paced perfectly and remained interesting throughout. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

This book is about Linnea and Teddy. Linnea, 18 and fresh from her parents home, has traveled a long way for her first job. She is the new school teacher in Alamo North Dakota who is to room and board with Theodore Westgaard and his family. She has high hopes about her future and is constantly daydreaming about what her new life will be like. Parties, operas, romance.... Then she meets Teddy, a 34 year old, bitter and cynical wheat farmer, who's been badly wounded in the past and cannot bear to even be around women, much less this young and hopeful girl.

Teddy picks her up at the train station expecting not a woman, but a man and refuses to allow a woman, or this "girl" as he calls her, into his home. But because of no other alternatives, she's forced to stay there, against his wishes. Linnea's hopes and "daydreams" are shattered when she discovers she isn't very welcome in his home as she'd expected to be and also becomes bitter towards Teddy for his reactions to her. Bickering and small battles ensue as they spend more time around eachother, but at the same time, neither can understand why they both think of eachother all the time.

Teddy's 17 year old son, Kristian takes an instant liking to Linnea against his father's wishes, because she's his teacher and more importantly because his father recognizes he has feelings for her as well. This makes him uncomfortable, to say the least, but understands his son's heart and tries to stay away from Linnea as much as possible. Linnea notices Kristian's attraction and does her best to keep him at bay and remind him, that even though she's only one year older, she is his teacher and those boundries musn't be crossed.

Over time, Linnea and Teddy get to learn small things about eachother and begin to see eachother in a different light. But there is one thing that is keeping Teddy from giving in to his attraction to Linnea...the years between them. He is 16 years older, and sometimes feels like a pervert for even looking at Linnea in a romantic way. He is constantly battling with himself and refuses to give in to his feelings. Linnea on the other hand, does want to give into these new feelings she's having, she doesn't care about the years separating them, only about her heart and her heart keeps coming back to Teddy.

Overcoming their hurdles is the best part of the book and you'll have to read it to find out what happens. I'll just say....it's perfection. You will NOT regret reading this book! A true romance indeed!

I felt this was more about family and community life than romance. It took place in 1917 in a N. Dakota wheat farming community. The title "Years" refers to the age difference between an 18 year old school teacher falling in love with a 34 year old farmer. The development of their romance was interesting, but the story had its share of tears from tragedies and the harsh life. It was a nice story, but I prefer a little more romance than this offered. Sexual content: mild.

My son and I love all of Janell Cannon's books. They're beautifully illustrated and generally have some wonderful lessons in them as well.

Beautifully written and illustrated book for children of all ages with a wonderful message.

I bought this book for my four year old daughter. She loves it and wants me to read it to her over and over. She loves the story and the colors in the book. I love the educational and fun value that the book provides. I would highly recommend the book to other parents.

My 7 1/2 yr old 2nd grade daughter & I read Stellaluna off her summer reading list. I had heard of/seen this book around, but it had never grabbed me. I was quite surprized at the fabulous illustrations, the story that draws you in, & the author's ability to make a bat lovable. I was eager to read Verdi, expecting the same experience. I thought the story was OK & the illustrations beautiful, but the story itself lacked depth to me. The young whippersnapper & wise old sage qualities hit me as being more relevant to an adult reader. Children can not adequately appreciate the age contrast, & how quickly time passes, & how we all become more boring & old than our young minds thought we would. Curiously, my daughter liked Verdi as well, if not better than Stellaluna. To each his own - read & see what you think.

This is a wonderfully written story of a young python, a young yellow python, who does not want to grow old a boring like the adult green pythons he see around him. The art work in this slender book is absolutely breath taking. The artist has blended his colors perfectly and created life like studies of these wonderful snakes but not life like situations as far as the snake world goes. This is the charm of the story. Few, if any, want to actually grow older and kids in particular do not want to do and act as "boring" adults. This tale lets the child know that we all can keep our child like wonder and love of fun into our adult years. I read this one to the second and third graders and they catch the meaning of the story quite well with a bit of prompting. They love the pictures, in particular the ones where the author has made the snakes rather hard to spot. I also not that this is one of the more popular books chosen by the children when they have their "read alone time." An endorsement of a children by children is as about as good as it gets. I must say though, adults will enjoy reading this with the children also which I feel is important as kids can sort of sense when your heart is not really in the reading. Recommend this one highly. Very much recommend you add this one to your child's collection or to your school library.

I'm fairly new to Perl (but not to programming) and this book is great. I really like the format of the code examples, and there's a lot of wisdom here on writing good, idiomatic Perl.

This book shows you some efficient and interesting ways of using Perl. It is very informative and I often use it when I want to see if there is a better way of doing something.

This is a good book for getting a handle on intermediate level Perl and its idiomatic uses, arranged as a series of 60 'items' -- the debt to Effective C++ is obvious. This is not a tutorial on Perl, you should at least be at the level of The Llama and ideally be somewhat acquainted with the material covered in The Alpaca, too. Although similar ground is covered in this book to the latter, I would treat this book as a way to shore up your previous knowledge, rather than learning it for the first time.

The content holds up surprisingly well for 1997. The opening chapters cover a lot of the oddities and gotchas of life with Perl, such as slicing, the various connotations of undef, a persuasive defence of $_ and where + is necessary to disambiguate. The final 'miscellany' chapter also contains useful information in a similar vein. And this also appears to be one of the first books to detail the now famous Schwartzian transform and the Orcish manoeuvre for sorting, so it has a certain historical appeal.

Equally, the chapters on debugging, references, regular expressions and object oriented programming are also pretty good. It's just that there are now several other books that cover these topics. If you only want one book in this style, Perl Best Practices bestrides the field like a colossus, being more comprehensive, and better written. Not that there's anything wrong with the writing here, it's never boring as such, but it does feel flat.

Nonetheless, Effective Perl Programming does the job it sets out to do fairly well, and I find you can never have too much help in explaining the nooks and crannies of idiomatic Perl, so this is still worth getting hold of, particularly because you can find it at an extremely reasonable price.

Well, even though I rate this book only 3 stars, I do think it belongs to the shelf of any serious Perl programmer. (Of course, don't just let it sit there; read it!) I think the emphasis here is it's useful only for the *serious* Perl person, as it contains lots of in-depth discussion on the nitty-gritty details of Perl's idiosyncratic personalities.

The reason I don't like the book as much as I thought I would is things are not explained clearly much of the time. Take the chapter on references for example. While the authors include lots of examples, the explanation of how nested references work is just confusing. Granted, this is a nasty concept to grasp, but I expected something clearer. Instead they just say "oh this looks ugly", which is not helpful. BTW, if you are pulling your hair out over references like I am, the Dumper pragma (not the dump function) is extremely helpful. (Unfortunately, it's not mentioned in this book, nor in the camel book).

As a previous reviewer said, this isn't a book for advanced perl programmers. For intermediate users, however, it is excellent. No time wasted covering the perl basics, just lots of useful tips and hacks

A classic piece of sports writing, but for everyone. The author is a writer for the New York Times Magazine. In this book he writes about the lives of some high school basketball players/high school students (in that order).

Like the other posters have noted, it's not just for basketball freaks. It's a well written story about some kids in the 90's who live in the projects in Brooklyn, Coney Island for the most part, and how much basketball means to them. In the book it seems like basketball is their only path to success. But they are up against the recruiters, hustlers and the SATS (which they need to get a 700 on but that's just out of reach for most).

You get to meet the student athletes, Russell, Corey, Tchak, and Stephon, their parents, coaches, recruiters, local prophets, etc, and the author treats them all with a level of respect the New York Times Magazine accords the suit wearing sharks.

If you get this book, you won't have to read long before you're committed to reading the whole thing. It's a very rare book indeed that leaves me wanting more. I would have loved to read a sequel. Alas, we only get an afterward, but the story had to end somewhere and the afterward was, well, quite the shock.

The Last Shot
By. Darcy Frey

The Last Shot by. Darcy Frey takes place in the projects of Coney Island. All the characters are looking to go to a Division 1 Schools. They all have the talent but don't have the smarts to pass the SAT's. This book is a real page turner Darcy Frey is a very talented writer. I like how he actually uses an NBA superstar in this book. All the characters are great athletes. I like how it goes from Coney Island to the Nike basketball camp and follows the best player on the team Tchaka Shipp. There was no climax in this story. It shifts around so much that it couldn't really have a climax. Darcy Frey is a good sports writer. This book was rather long but it is worth reading. I give it a 5 out of 5 stars.

If you like hoops you would love this story. Darcey frey the author who's also a sports writter follows the life of three young men who's dream is to become professional basketball players.Living in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn these three men are faced with durgs violence, and everything you see on the streets of Brooklyn. A very inspirational story, and a indepth look on the career of Stephon Marbury.This is a book you would want to share with a friend.

This book should be a classic, if it isn't already. As someone who hasn't a great deal of interest in basketball, I can throughly recommend it simply for the author's style. The man's prose reads like a dream as he brings the characters to life in an inimitable way. He enables you, the reader, to go right into the streets of New York and live the lives of each of his main characters, to get to know them, understand them and - in a sense - to *be* them. A definite must for your library.

The book, The Last Shot, journeys into the streets of Coney Island in New York City, and into the lives of four young men aspiring to become basketball all-stars. These boys of Coney Island are Russell Thomas, Corey Johnson, Stephon Marbury, and Tchaka Shipp, all of whom are "to-be" high-school seniors with the exception of Stephon who is yet a freshmen. Corey, Stephen, and Russell live right in the Coney Island "projects", or districts, amidst the violent gangs, drug dealers, and drunks of New York. We learn that even the police are rarely seen in this area although a reason for that is never provided. It seems as if the only way for boys to focus on positive things is through basketball. Numerous basketball courts exist in the projects but one, in particular is important to these four boys called the Garden. Countless hours are spent on this court, practicing shots, dribbling, playing pick-up games, and organized tournaments. Also playing basketball for their high school Varsity team, these young men are recruited by a large amount of NCAA basketball coaches. They all have the potential to play college ball at Division One schools but how do they deal with the negative influences that surround them daily? Missing the required 700 point SAT score would mean, sadly their hopes and dreams of playing high-level college basketball would be shattered. This story reveals the riveting truth behind where many of our NBA all-stars originate from.


S.K. --Grand Rapids, MI

One of the most engaging aspects of M.J. Rose's writing is that she gives the reader an "insider's look" into a possibly unfamiliar venue. "Flesh tones" is set in the art world, and both the process of painting and the business end were depicted in an interesting and convincing way. The characters were attractive and made you care about them.

M.J. Rose knows writing! I finished Flesh Tones last night and have to say how much I admire her work. Her characters and the situation are finestkind, but I am most impressed with the way she tells the tale. What superb timing, and how nicely she spins a chapter strand into transition. With a tease here and a glimpse there, M.J. Rose gives us just enough to move the story along, like oars move a shell over the water: allowing us to glide between strokes, never losing momentum, accelerating smoothly to a stunning finish.

What is the dividing line between deep love and obsession? Who should be allowed to judge when a relationship crosses from one to the other?

Genny Haviland met artist Slade Gabriel in her father's gallery when she was 17. They became lovers, an affair that lasted for only weeks in reality but survived for the rest of Genny's life in her heart and soul. They meet again twenty years later, only to have Gabriel learn he has fallen victim to rapidly advancing Alzheimer's. Knowing he could not bear to live without his art, Genny agrees to help him commit suicide.

But a missing letter results in her arrest for murder, and a grief-stricken Genny has no inclination to fight the charge. Instead, as the trial proceeds, she reviews the past, the present and the relationship that has defined her emotional life, looking for an answer that may defy explanation.

In her latest novel, M.J. Rose explores yet another aspect of the relationships between men and women and how those relationships can define us even more than we define them. Child of a distant mother and a father whose love carries strange, twisted undertones, the young Genny is ripe for the kind of intense, all-encompassing passion she finds with Slade Gabriel. She is at once sympathetic and irritating, stubbornly clinging to the loss of her lover as if it will somehow compensate her for the greater loss of the emotional connections she never had -- or allowed herself to have.

FLESH TONES, however, is more than simply a study of one woman's overwhelming need for enduring love. It is also about creativity, and how the truly great artist will always have one small part of his or her soul they cannot share no matter how deeply they love another. Written with powerful emotional intensity and a clear, discerning eye for both the glories and the agonies of both love and passion, Flesh Tones will resonate with anyone who has ever loved what they can never completely have, but it will also provoke tough questions in those who have not.

I have learned that if a book doesn't grab you within the first 50 pages or so to foget about it and move onto something else. This book had me hooked within the first 20 pages. This book does a wonderful job at exploring that very fine line between love and obsession at times I felt like I was reading Genny's personal diary, but this book is much more than a smutty beach read. Did Genny Haviland kill her lover or did she save him from a terrible disease that would rob him of everything he knows and holds dear? M.J. Rose's writing style is efortless and smooth. Half the story is told in the present tense during the murder trial and half the story is told through the use of flashbacks, which normally can be hard for the reader to follow, but in this instance they are used to define very important elements in the story. Ms. Rose's writing style is masterful, the reader becomes totally absorbed in the tapestry of the story, there are passages that read like poetry that force the reader to go back and read them again. It was impossible for me not to turn the pages, I was transfixed and I will definetly be on the lookout for more by M.J. Rose!!

MJ Rose paints a portrait of an amazing bond between a man and woman. Genny and Slade, both products of the art world, meet when she is far too young to fall in love with him, or to share his passion. She misrepresents her age and background to be with him, and Rose skips forward, after laying the foundation, to Genny's immeasureable sacrifice for the man she loves. Rose is equally at home writing about art, death, the courtroom and the bedroom. She's one author I'll not soon forget!

Enjoy!

I order the book from Amazon and I just got it today and I started to go and read it and I love it because it brings me back memores seeing them in Arizona in 1999 when I saw them it is great book. I love it a lot I can know what they do offstage this for any N'sync fans you will love reading it also it is so funny too with the pictures that they have in the book. Justin is so hot in the pictures also with the back of the book Lance is so cute sleeping.

Hey ya'll. This book is a keeper. I'm the ultimite *NSYNC fan and it add's to my collection of memorabilia. All *NSYNC fans should own it. It's VERY easy to read and fun to talk about with your friends.It has big pic's full of the hotties. Esp. JUSTIN! Owww... what a hottie! Well what are you waiting for! GO AND BUY IT! Bye, Bye, Bye! ( MY saying )

If you like to look at tons of colorful photos of 'NSYNC, then you'll love this book! This book does not contain any new info, but it does contain tons of full page photos of all the guys during shows, backstage, and just hanging out. It's just a wonderful book for any 'NSYNC fan!

This is by far THE best ever that i have seen coming from the guys themselves, *N Sync. This book brings with itself the real lifes of these VERY talented guys. You are going to be SO entertain with its awesome pictures, that you won't even bother with the reading. You should read it, ofcourse, because that is the reason why they made this book. They want to let people know who they are and to also show the world that they are here to say. They are the best group ever. They don't have their 15 minutes of fame and leave. These guys make a mark wherever they go. Chris, Justin, JC, Joey, and Lance: Congratulations on your sellings and remember that GOD is on your side. I love you guys snoopy8876.

Tons of photos! If you haven't yet gotten to an Nsync concert, you'll feel like you have with all the pictures of the showl. And for those of you who have been lucky enough to see Nsync perform live, this book will show you what goes on before a concert.

Stories of successful businesses fill this book. The author got "down and dirty" and did in-the-trenches research to find the best performing companies in the world. Then he spoke with the CEO's to find out what makes them and their businesses tick.

This is not just another book about the secrets of famous companies. It is, instead, a book about the secrets of somewhat obscure but great companies. The principles that author Jason Jennings propounds are familiar enough, but most of his examples will not be familiar to the general reader. That is no drawback. Although some of these companies are less well known, they have all achieved great business success (if not fame) by applying some of the most tried, true and proven axioms of management. Treat people with respect, pay them for performance, focus on one clear and understandable mission - there is nothing new about these principles, except that they keep proving their efficacy even in the unlikeliest places. Do not look for a deep examination of management here. The book provides frustratingly scant background information about the companies themselves. But we assure those seeking a handbook of solid if venerable management advice that you will not go wrong with this interesting little book.

This book is an excellent example of the types of practices and procedures almost any company can follow to be successful both financially and ethically.
Jennings cites numerous companies who have carved out success while still remaining true to their customers, their employees and their values.
Not surprisingly, few of these companies are ones that so called pundits regularly review.
As the other reviews have noted, these companies are very successful financially, but they get there by asking the really pertinent business questions, and not by hiding behind an air of executive invulnerability. The leaders are real leaders, more focused on growing the company, serving customers, and doing right by employees.
What vividly differentiates these companies from the "name brands," is that in the "name" companies, executives are more concerned with their own compensation, preserving their own existence, and with profits at all costs, than long term success.
The questions you should ask yourself after reading this book are, "Where have all the leaders gone?" and "Why don't all companies follow many of Jennings' researched best practices?
After that, I would run, not walk, to one of these companies and see if you can start at the bottom and learn what it's like to work in a real company.

This spring, I had a night-flight from Houston to Europe. I never got any sleep due to this book. It reads like a fiction novel while the focus is very much on the softer issues of productivity businesses. The well-written behind-the-wall stories and interviews with successful top executives give us insight to many issues that usual case stories do not explain.

Business magazines often glorify top executives by telling about the grand strategic plan behind the success. This little book shows us a different story. It provides insight to the many seemingly small traits of the lean culture that only works because they taken serious by the organization and used in combination. These are the 11 traits required for the leader of a highly productive enterprise: attention to detail, high moral fiber, embracing simplicity, competitiveness, long-term focus, disdain for waste, coach leadership, humility, rejection of bureaucracy, belief in others, and trust.

I'm sure you're really not impressed of this list. Neither am I. But try challenging some of the advice. Humility? When was the last time you saw a big company using this as a standard. When you hear the story of many head offices visited in this book, you'll understand humility. Often you'll find a very simple and humble office building for a huge company. No art on the walls! No lavish entrance hall! In these companies, you don't find huge corporate staff creating immense bureaucracy and all sorts of information requirements from their operating companies or business units. These organizations do actually "walk-the-talk" on lean - unlike many fad-driven major firms who's paying lip service to a lean culture.

PERSISTENCE is a word missing from the 11 traits, though attention to detail and long-term focus do include some of it. They never lose sight of their BIG idea or focus. It includes their performance measurement. "Everyone who works for SRC gathers once a week in their respective lunchrooms and takes part in a review of the business's financial performance for the previous week. By DOING IT WEEK IN WEEK-OUT FOR MANY YEARS the exercise has also become a system".

Okay, I'm sure that the book's research on productivity could have been better. And some of the firms reported on may experience difficulties, though most are still flourishing. But don't read this book for the hard stuff. Read the soft issues that over time usually turn out to be the hardest to beat.

I agree that it resembles "In Search of Excellence" to some degree, but remember that this book is on the lean culture of Cost Leadership firms (my interpretation, not the author's).

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

Jennings reads his book on the unabridged audiocassette. He definitely has an announcers voice and is easy to understand. I found his inflections sort of larger-than-life/not natural at first but I quickly got acclimated, not a big issue. The book is fairly long and repeats many important themes like the need for healthy culture, process and vision in many different ways. It might be able to be shorter.

The research method Jennings and his team utilized for the book is the driver that makes the book so interesting. By carrying out detailed analysis to locate several under-the-radar, but incredibly productive companies, they managed to isolate some of the common threads for corporate success without being sucked into the vortex of large mega-companies whose stories are already well known and perhaps over-documented. The companies chosen represent a fairly good cross-section of international business, but I would have like to have seen at least one very high tech computer vendor make the cut. There are probably good reasons why there wasn't one, but there was no mention of this if my memory serves... In addition to the excellent research on the case companies, there are also some good insights into legendary companies like Ford and Toyota briefly provided for specific instances.

The significant flaw in this book is that when it is taken as a whole, it amounts to not much more than a very interesting, carefully crafted, indictment of most executive management in corporations today. The executives profiled all really know the nuts and bolts of their business and have been with them long enough to really cast Deming-like vision into reality. That plays well for well a while, but with 6 tapes, I'd like something more practical I can start at work tomorrow since I'm not an executive and probably never will be. The book does try to service this need for mid-managers like me towards the end of the book by encouraging that we apply at least some of the key principles to some degree in the hope of making a grass roots difference at least within our department. Actually, the department I work with abides by many of the principles given and they do help. But that doesn't stop large-scale lay-offs, frozen budgets and other realities that most managers really have to live with. The book's untitled theme is that strong success only flows from the top down. In the highly successful cases analyzed, each has exceptional Level 5 leaders (to use Jim Collins terminology). What if where I work is like 90% of all places where the executives turn-over a lot, are forced to optimize all decisions for short-term profit on Wall Street and de-rail some good plans due to economic realities? The book's primary advice to me would seem to be: go to work somewhere else, find that 10% club. Maybe true, but not particularly helpful today.

Even for those top-level executives whom this book will reach, it is likely to fall on deaf ears. Not because executives really are the "wing tip shoe wearers, peacock strutting" jerks Jennings occasionally alludes to. No, it is Jennings own inflammatory and derisive language that will tend to make executives shut the book. I wanted to lend my tapes to the president of my company because of the good macro-productivity ideas, but decided I wouldn't because he might take it as my endorsement of this class-warfare attitude.

There are other sources out there for most of the information here on egalitarian culture, continuous process improvement, open-book management, profit sharing incentives, etc. I'd be interested to know the average working hours of the employees in the case study companies as a cultural factor but I don't recall this being mentioned. In any case, the productivity measures would factor this in, just a cultural question I have about these companies.

Much of what Jennings says is true and interesting. There are some things that can be learned here, but much of it comes down to re-invent almost everything, starting with your executives. Who can implement that? Again, it is the detailed case study research that puts compelling value into this book.

The photos here are lovingly chosen by her son, and the entire book is an absolute joy.

This book was pleasant and thoughtful, as is its subject. Though admittedly the writing was far less enchanting than I would have expected; I like to think it was kept simple to further emphasize the simplicity and sincerity of Audrey herself. This book did not add any revelation for the reader about her life; but instead, allowed for a glance at Audrey Hepburn's everyday existence. I was constantly amazed at how strong and genuine her character when faced with life's sometimes complicated decisions. This book shows Audrey as a person who effortlessly put others before herself, and seemed to never question her sense of what is right.

Even the idea of such simplicity has become a fairytale in our lives, and it is so refreshing to read about someone who was capable of remaining so solidly pure, that I cannot help but read a little more. One need only look to her work with UNICEF to know how first-rate she truly was.

She has allways been one of my favorite stars.The book has a beautifull
lay-out and is a pleasure to read.Lots of photographs never seen before
and beautifull passages about her work for Unicef and what a wonderful mother she was.I can highly recommend this book.

Bought this as a gift for my daughter as she is a fan and thought that the personal insights were revealing and poignant.

I love everything about this book. I like the photos. I like the interesting story. And how Mr. Sean Hepburn Ferrer includes a reproduction of Audrey's birth certificate. Obviously, this is a
well-documented book. Authentic and sincere. I wish Mr. Ferrer had chosen a more stunning photo for the cover. The cover is kind of blurry and not very focussed I love black and white photos Colored ones are nice too but not blurry, indistinct ones.

There isn't any thing about this book that I didn't like. It grabbed my interest from the very beginning and had me reading it until the wee hours of the night, I just could not put it down. I fell in love with the characters and felt as though I were a part of their friendship. I especially loved the format of this book: journal entries, letters, etc.
I highly recommend this book!

Between Friends is the story of 2 girls that became friends at the age of 5 and remained best friends all their lives. The entire book was written in the format of letters, journal entries, and newspaper clippings. It was a strange format, and yet it seemed to give us a deeper glimpse into the lives of these 2 very different women.

Lesley grew up the oldest of 6 kids in a working class family. Her dad spent more time out of work than he did employeed, and her mom had to learn to live with him and all his faults. Jillian, the only child of Judge and his wife, grew up in the lap of luxary. And yet, through time and completely different circumstances, they stayed friends. This book encompasses decades in the lives of the 2 friends, through marriage, children, divorce, death and war. At times a little sappy and at times very touching, I found this book very enjoyable.

I absolutely loved this book. This author is so very talented and this particular book truly showcases her talents for capturing life and friendship.

My cousin showed me this book last summer. Though many people would say this is for old adults, It is my favorite book as a teenager. The heartwarming tales, and the tears strolling down your face you will really appreciate what you have in life. Read Between Friends, you won't regret it.

I normally do not read the genre that Debbie Macomber dominates, but I 'discovered' her wonderful stories, good writing, and always interesting 3 diminsional characters. And, I became hooked on Macomber, especially her Cedar Cove series.
Between Friends is a wonderful story that kept me turning the pages long after bed-time. Beautiful Jillian and Smart Lesley are as opposite as can be, and that's exactly why become and stay best friends throughout their life. Diary Excepts, Newspaper clippings, letters, as well as 'real time' scenes propel the reader forward at amazing speed with tremdous concern for the girls, who blossom into young women, mothers, and finally to professional middle aged women.
Problems, Very Big and small, do not exist exclusively in the poor side of town as Jillian and Lesley reveal their stories to us readers and to each other. Their laughter, tears, heartaches, joys, triumps, defeats become ours from the first page to the last satisfying page.