Reviews Books

Sleeping Upside Down will stun you with its poetic brilliance and raw honesty, its starry adolescent dreams and gritty farm girl observations, its unearthed and pulsing passion. Its carefully constructed lyrical poems weave the narrative threads through gardens and bedrooms and into your heart.

As soon as I began to read this slim, beautifully-bound volume of poems, I realized that I had slipped into a world of honest emotion and brilliant observations. These poems are sensual and soft as a first kiss, hard-edged and raw as the first shuddering sob after a difficult breakup with a lover. Hibbard evokes human sensuality and desire with a deceptive simplicity and clarity; second and third readings create echoes that resonate long after you have put the book down. There are poems here to delight and astonish, not only about love and loss, but about the isolation and joy of farming in the Midwest, about coming to terms with the aftershocks of rape and violence, about being middle-aged and slowly becoming one's mother. Hibbard's eye is acute and wise, her range is broad, and her hopeful vision is grounded in the physical. The title poem is one of the most original and finely detailed poems about nascent desire that I have ever read, and the opening line from "The Trouble with Language," "The trouble with language is / it follows you everywhere," could be said of the poems from this book. I recommend it both for those who already love and appreciate brilliant, well-crafted poetry, and for those who are new to poetry. Both will be more than satisfied.

I read Sleeping Upside Down under a spell of wonder. These poems are accessible but cover complex ground between men and women, women and women, and the writer and her subjects. The title poem is a beautiful coming of age poem in which the narrator describes the electricity between two teen girls on a hot night in the Midwest. Awakening sexuality is made visceral through "[...]ing/as if threaded with wires." The heat and vibrancy inside a young woman's bedroom is in interplay between the dark night outside and "the crackle and hiss of the electric fence on the all night Top 40 radio." This evokes the buzzing and heat present everywhere in pubescent adolescence. Juxtaposed against the energy of desire is a claustrophobic closeness, which captures the discomfort many of us have known when faced with an attraction that can't be expressed. What the narrator is seeking is barely suggested beyond the hint of an open "pajama top," which is remedied by "feigning sleep." The phrase, "sleeping upside down" is a superb use of metaphor for the confusion and worldview changes that occur when people recognize their attraction to the same sex.

There is a lot of humor throughout this book as well. In Fever, Hibbard expertly establishes the tensions between lovers about to split up. Certainly the idea of sex with someone we're about to leave is a compelling premise for a poem. While having sex with her male lover for the last time the narrator is distracted: "she noticed things the way she thought a firing squad victim would." The sweating and haze of fever leaves the woman "too witless and weak to argue" and "she felt a great reverence for what the body is still willing to do." Quite the opposite of pathetic, as break-ups can often be, the tone of this poem is hilarious and all too familiar to anyone who tried to leave a relationship gracefully.

Buy this book. It is delightful, brilliant, reverent, funny, and original.

So I've Heard: Notes Of A Migratory Music Critic comes from a music critic whose published music criticism column has decades of appearance here gathered under one cover for the first time. From an unenthusiastic account of a Leonard Bernstein world premiere to encounters with conductors and classical musicians in different settings both on stage and off, So I've Heard provides a set of rich insights on musicians, their inspirations, and the future of music as a whole.

There are people who understand music so well, and write about it so well that their writing is far more than educational but highly entertaining as well. Many of these people write for transient media such as newspapers and their writing tends to disappear with yesterday's trash (or hopefully it's recycled).

Once in a while one of the masters at the trade finds a publisher willing to publish some of his work in book form. This is one of those. Alan Rich is more than just a music critic. Over sixty years he has written about music.

He has writen about the ancient Medieval chants. He has written about the electronic music produced by instruments that bear little relationship to traditional musical instruments. Over the years he has had a close relationship with musicians, conductors, performers, composers - basically the entire musical world. He wrote about them and here those words are preserved.

If you've never read an article by Alan Rich, you're in for a treat. As a music critic, his opinions are easy to disagree with, but the insight he offers into the lives and works of composers (especially contemporary ones like Ligeti and Glass) is truly thought-provoking. Living in California, he reviewed many local symphony/opera performances.

With catchy titles like "Let's Hear If for Ockeghem" (one of my favorites :), "Armen Ksajikian: Akbar of the Armadillo," (about a movie villain actor/accomplished cellist) "La rondine: Momma Domingo Gets It Wrong," and on and on - Rich compiled an amusing and educating collection of articles spanning a good chunk of the American music scene (Rich turned 80 in 2004).

This is also a great book for those who enjoy picking up a book every so often for a short excerpt.

I've used this book a lot over the years, for both personal and professional research. It is an alphabetized guide to every soap opera TV show until 1987, with background info and a quite-robust cast list for each. It's amazing to read through and see how familiar the names become -- how many actors and actresses hopped from show to show over the years. Ironically, the author comments that he did a second edition because the soap opera world had changed "tremendously" from 1985 to 1987! Twenty years later, that's all the more reason for an update.

This book is just what it says, an encyclopedia of EVERY soap opera with story sumaries and cast listings up unto the time of publication. The best part of it is it's insight in the behind the scenes of the shows! I've had this book for years and still love it! I agree with the other reviewer and wish there would be an update! Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the history of soaps!

No soap opera enthusiast should be without this immaculately researched and detailed manual of daytime television. Brilliant in its simplicity and execution and I still find myself referring to it for accurate information. I don't know why there hasn't been an update, but even so...it still serves as one of the all time handy authorities on the subject of the American Soap Opera.

June Strong successfully manages to portray the world before the flood, the sinfullness of man, his lust, his greed and the loving God. She portrays a world where the children of God are despised. This book shows how God can touch lives and bring new meaning. It is one of the saddest and yet most beautiful of stories ever told.

Even though the whole concept of a story set in that mysterious world that was our earth before the Great Flood may seem naive or presumptious depending upon one's point-of-view, Strong's description of the antediluvian world and of the people who lived at that time comes across as highly believeable. We need to take seriously the lessons conveyed in this story and in the Scriptures Strong quotes. Otherwise, we will be just as doomed as the wicked antediluvians.

I am a big fan of books set during Bible times, and this one is one of my favorites. I enjoyed reading about the time before the flood. Actually, this is the first book I've ever seen written about that time in history. I think that the author does a fabulous job of helping us to understand this time period and the people in it.

This book aims to be a review of the series in pictures, and it does it very well. A lot of shots with great quality throughout the book makes it very enjoyable reading. An extensive reference for all series, even the animated ST:TOS. A lot of interesting behind-the-scenes information makes this book more then a bunch of pictures. Half of the book is on TOS, we also get a good section on DS9 (no Voyager, as it has been written in 1994). All and all, a great collection book for the Star Trek fan.

Over the years, many books have been written about Star Trek's growth from a popular-yet-low-rated television series to the huge cultural phenomenon it is today. Some are strictly technical (Gene Roddenberry and Stephen Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek), others are a mix of in-depth analysis and insider's insights (David Gerrold's The World of Star Trek), while still others are personal memoirs (William Shatner's Star Trek Memories). Most of them describe the growing pains of Roddenberry's concept of "Wagon Train to the Stars" and tell the now-familiar story of how NBC commissioned two pilots (rejecting "The Cage" for being too cerebral); how the fans saved the show for a second season but couldn't stop NBC from cancelling Star Trek in 1969; how those same fans kept the spirit of Star Trek alive during the "in-between" decade from the show's debut in syndication to the release of 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

J.M. Dillard, author of many Star Trek novels (The Lost Years, Mindshadow, plus five movie novelizations), contributed the text for Star Trek: Where No One Has Gone Before -- A History in Pictures. Published shortly after Star Trek: The Next Generation ended its seven season run and before both the premiere of the seventh feature film and the debut of Star Trek's third spin-off, Voyager, Where No One Has Gone Before covers Star Trek's first 28 years, from its creative genesis as the proposed chronicles of Starfleet Capt. Robert April and the Starship Yorktown to the pre-production of Star Trek: Voyager (which ended its run in 2001).

Although its well-written and includes two essays by the late great Isaac Asimov, informative sidebars in each chapter and an introduction by William Shatner, Where No One Has Gone Before's main asset is the wealth of pictures, many of them publicty shots of the several casts, but also many stills from the Original Series, the short-lived animated series, the first seven Star Trek features, and the first two spinoff series.

And even though it is a history of Star Trek, don't look for juicy "dark" revelations about the troubles (real or imagined) behind the scenes. Jeffrey Hunter's departure from the show is never examined in detail (the book Captain's Logs, an unauthorized history of Star Trek, blames Hunter for being excessively demanding, telling producers what camera angles not to use when photographing Capt. Pike and other prima donna behavior). It's not written as an expose -- Dillard, after all, is a Star Trek fan who also is an authorized Star Trek writer, and the intended audience is, of course, the vast number of other Star Trek fans.

It took Leonard Nimoy almost three decades to finally admit that he was Spock. It hasn't quite taken me that long to admit to being a "Trekker". The fear of being labeled a "geek" or a "nerd" was so overwhelming that I would shun any mention of the show outside of my circle of fellow Trek fans.

Well, I have come out of the Star Trek "closet", proudly announcing my enjoyment of all things Trek, past and present. This book is a treasure for those of us that have followed the original series as well as the subsequent spin-offs as of the book's publication.

Insightful background on the various shows along with great photographic stills and illustrations makes this a "must-have" for the devoted follower.

It's definitely for those of us grateful for the "journey" of which Gene Roddenberry initiated back in the mid-sixties.

It's also a good primer for those that don't quite understand what all the fuss was about.

great b/w picks and lot of links from star trek to the really worl

I liked this book. I haven't read much other Star Trek books, so I don't have much to compare to. I really liked the authors easy, concise explanations for things like warp drive, wormholes, alien biology, time... all the favorite sciences, and what's real and what's not! The segments are based on accounts from specific episodes with "science logs" from favorite Star Fleet personelle. The photo's and such add a nice touch as well. In short, if you like Star Trek, and ever wondered if what you saw was possible, I highly recommend this book. The science-minded will love it!

It is an interesting book and is easy to read. It is broken up into chapters, and in each chapter is a one to two page sections on a particular subject like telepathy. It hits a wide area of subjects.

Andre Bormanis, science advisor for the Star Trek franchise, explains the science in broad layman's terms, but enough to explain the basics and the logic behind what the team did.

I enjoyed reading it even with a sever lack of previous knowledge in some of the areas. It gave a neat look into the why they handle the science on the show. If you don't have too much time to sit down and read or you just want to have something to read during the commercials, this is an good book to have.

This is a complete collection of all the 'Misanthrope's Corner' columns Miss King wrote for the National Review from 1991 to 2002.

Every column is a joy to read as Miss King gives her views, usually jaundiced, on current affairs, and is always amusing, whether you agree with what she is saying or not. She is savagely funny writing about the Clintons, the Bushes, the feminisation of America, and anything else that takes her fancy.

she is painfully funny writing about the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. Reminising about her own teen years she recalls:

....It is 1952. Now 16, I hav elost my baby fat and gone from duckling to swan, and my mother, who normally pays no attention to anything except baseball and her hero Sen. Joe McCarthy, is being uncharacteristically maternal. We are washing dishes when suddenly, out of the blue, she says:
"If a man ever asks you to do something funny to him, you tell him to go to hell, you hear?"
"What do you mean, 'something funny'?"
"Never mind, just promise me"
Mystified, I promise. The mystery deepens as she swung off on one of her patriotic tangents.
"That's why the French can't win a war without us! It saps their strength! They're so busy doing something funny to each other that the Germans just walk right in!"

Another favourite passage of mine is where she is writing about the effect that the draft had on men of her generation:

The draft produced the kind of men that today's girls have never known, and relations between the sexes were better for it. What sticks in my mind about them is their self-sufficiency and competence in fixing things that broke and figuring out solutions to emergencies. Thanks to the draft I belong to the last generation of American women who could scream "Do something!" and get results. Most of my men were intellectuals, but they had been taught in basic traning to change a tire in 90 seconds, rig up electrical wiring, tie knots that stayed tied, and take a rifle apart and reassemble it while blindfolded. This last was never necessary in civilian life, but it made for a self-assured deftness that was awesome.

Occasionally Miss King becomes quite lyrical in her praises, whether of the Post office, of Woolworths, Mario Lanza, or Alice Faye. There is a quite enchanting description of her first trip to Paris, and a very touching tribute to her aunt.

Whatever Miss King's views on the subject she is writing about, every column is a joy to read.

"Stet, Damnit!" is the complete collection of Florence King's 1991-2002 columns for the National Review. This reviewer is one of many who used to read National Review beginning with her weekly posting on the last page. King's keen insight into human nature, stubborn common sense, and acerbic wit made her column entertaining whether she was goring sacred cows and pompous egos on the left or right of the political spectrum. Her frequent reviews of movies and books were equal parts insightful and unforgiving of sloppy or pretentious work. Her retirement was a real blow to those who enjoyed her writing style.

This volume is highly recommended for those who are nostalgic for her column. The content holds up pretty well in spite of being a little dated. Hard core junkies of political commentary will also find this entertaining.

Florence King authored "The Misanthrope's Corner," featured on the back page of "National Review" for many years. The column was known for "serving up a smorgasbord of curmudgeonly critiques about rubes and all else bothersome to the Queen of Mean," as NR put it.

It's a rare writer who is not only a skillful wordsmith, but insightful and witty as well; Miss King's columns never fail to be all three.

"She is an unconventional satirist," said Louise Rothe of the Chattanooga News-Free Press, "funny, unpredictable, sometimes raunchy. Nothing, however trite, escapes her wit."

And now, a few excerpts...here are some of Miss King's amusing musings on stress in America:

"The American way of stress is comparable to Freud's 'beloved symptom,' his name for the cherished neurosis that a patient cultivates like the rarest of orchids and does not want to be cured of. Stress makes Americans feel busy, important, and in demand, and simultaneously deprived, ignored, and victimized. Stress makes them feel interesting and complex instead of boring and simple, and carries an assumption of sensitivity not unlike the Old World assumption that aristocrats were high-strung. In short, stress has become a status symbol."

Nor does England escape her withering observations. Her thoughts after watching a week's worth of TV coverage on the death of Princess Diana:

"My saturation viewing helped me make a vital decision. For some time I had been thinking of emigrating to England to bring my nationality in line with my blood, but I have now abandoned the idea. There is no England, just this demi-realm, this scepter'd loony bin set in a sea of rotting flora, this U.K. of Utter Kitsch where the crud de la crud build teddybear temples to a gilded hysteric who was nothing more than Judy Garland with a title. If I must live in a country where people who once tipped their hats now tip the scales, I might as well stay home and save myself the trouble of learning to look right instead of left to avoid an oncoming hug. My hyphen, right or wrong."

I like how she summed up her writing efforts in another column:

"Being a writer has made me a lifelong practitioner of no-holds-barred insight, driven by an irresistible impulse to shovel through mountains of received bull to get to the bottom of things."

It was a said day in 2002 when Miss King wrote her final column and laid down her shovel. But at least with this volume we can keep enjoying all the digging she did.

Long live King, the Queen of Mean!

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.

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.