Reviews Books

Having left South West London twenty five years ago I have, like most of us, wondered what the kids I grew up with are doing now. Up until around `81' I would go back to visit every couple of weeks and the conversation would invariably turn to "Who's in jail?" "Who just got out?" Eventually the question would become "Who's dead?" "Who's alive?"

I remember one of my best friends Noel showing me a paper clipping from the South London Press reporting on his failed stick up of an off-license in Balham. By 1980 that was the way the wind was blowing. As kids we were always involved in some life threatening escapade or another, but it was more for kicks and only occasionally criminal. But by the time half my friends were in remand centres or borstals I knew I was well out of it.

So although it came as a massive surprise, it really shouldn't have, when I recently discovered that the aforementioned Noel is now better known as Razor Smith and is currently serving life for armed robbery.

Smith has shot, slashed and robbed his way into gangland legend. Before his life sentence he was the frightener in a gang of four known as the `Laughing Bank Robbers' who carried out a string of bank raids around South London, he has fifty eight criminal convictions to his name and has now chosen to write his autobiography - "A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun."

Described by G.Q magazine as "One of the most powerful and intelligent crime memoirs we've ever read" and "extraordinary" by the Guardian, I just thought it plain surreal to be standing in the middle of Waterstones seeing my name included in the `lavishly blood splattered' memoirs of a major career criminal. Names, places, incidents, half forgotten friends and enemies and even my brother all contextualised in the pre-teen remembrances of a kid I took my first and only pinch with. (For messing around on a railway track - ironically) And although Smith is no killer and I'm certainly no choirboy - I felt like Pat O'Briens's priest from the movie `Angels With Dirty Faces' reading about the gangster exploits of his boyhood chum Rocky Sullivan played by James Cagney. In fact we were all Cagney fanatics in those days, endlessly acting out scenes from White Heat or Public Enemy on the roof tops of Streatham High Road.

The book goes on to outline various `tear ups' between all those old sub-cultures of the late 70's such as the Rockabilly's, Skinheads, Punks, Smoothies and Teds which culminated, perhaps, some of the most notorious pre-gun gang wars such as `The Battle of Morden,' `The White Swan Massacre,' and the seemingly fortnightly riots at the Chickaboom Club in Carlshalton. But by the time most of these incidents took place I was lost in music and Razor had gone the way of the gun.

As I say, we all wonder about what happened to the kids we grew up with. I just never thought I'd find out in such a spectacular fashion.

Noel `Razor' Smith is currently residing in HMP Grendon.

I can't say that I am a fan of criminal autobiographies. And Razor Smith is not a notorious criminal of the Dillinger variety. He's a common thief, a man who used guns, knives and other physical violence to frighten others into giving them his money. He justifies his bank robberies, his primary vocation, by saying the deposits were insured. But who does Smith think pays for the insurance premiums? Who does Smith think pays for the stress and trauma he inflicted on innocent people who just happened to be there when he threatened their lives with his gun?

None of that, however, takes away from Smith's skill as a writer. Now serving what could be the rest of his natural life in prison, much of Smith's autobiography sounds like leftists like Leonard Bernstein during the 70s: it's the victim's fault for making the criminal. Nonsense. Smith chose his own life.

Smith appears remarkably candid in recounting his youth and how he gravitated toward the criminal life, not only because it beat working in more traditional means to earn a living, but because such petty criminality is remarkably common in England. At first I didn't believe Smith's tales of promiscuous youthful violence as a way of English life. A bit of research confirmed his claims. England is not Paradise.

As a grown man whose son had his own problems with the police and committed suicide, Smith sounds remorseful. Whether this is a ploy to advance his claim for parole is obviously unknowable. Regardless, Smith's memoir of his life is an enthrally, worthwhile excursion into the criminal's mind. Well-written and absorbing.

Jerry

South Londoner Noel "Razor" Smith's long history of crime culminated as a member of "The Laughing Bank Robbers", an armed firm known for their "gallows humour" who cracked jokes while collecting their loot - even, on one job, dressing in festive Santa hats and wishing terrified customers and staff a "Merry Christmas". Smith was also part of the Rockabilly scene who with his gang the Balham Wildkatz battled it out with punks, skinheads and other rivals at a time when the various London subcultures were tearing into each other at every opportunity with boots, fists, and whatever else was handy.

"A Few Kind Words..." stands head and shoulders above most crime memoirs. Firstly, it is not ghostwritten - Smith discovered a talent for writing whilst behind bars that eventually got him published in national newspapers. Secondly, prison is where he is right now, serving a life sentence (or technically speaking, eight of them). So let's just say that, on top of being extremely well-written, this book has an edge over much of its 'Real Crime' contemporaries in what can often be quite a tacky and superficial run-of-the-mill genre.

Smith loads his memoir with enough raucous mayhem to more-than-satisfy on the entertainment front, but also often pauses for intelligent, analytical reflections on the workings of his own criminal mind, and the life he has spent "fashioning the chains that now bind him". Through writing, he says, he has "found a more acceptable way of expressing himself" than via the violence and crime that has taken away his most basic human right: freedom.

Born in 1960 into an average Irish working-class family, Smith has none of the usual excuses of a broken home or violent abuse to account for his slip down the wrong tracks, and to his credit, insists it was entirely his own choice, something he walked into with eyes wide open to the consequences. Yet, in his exploration of the past, he interestingly cites an adolescent experience of unprovoked "torture" and forced false-confession at the hands of drunken police as a turning-point in his attitude towards "the system", sparking a rebellious spirit that - who knows - may not have otherwise been there, or atleast come so prominently to the fore. He also explains what it was like during the 70s when, with the IRA's bombing campaign at its height and anti-Irishness rife, London-Irish kids were often compelled to either feign Englishness or assert their own identity, sometimes physically.

Though such factors alone can hardly take the blame for the self-destructive one-man crimewave that Smith became, it does suggest how he would have felt the kind of outsider status that can often can lead in a lawless direction. However, with Smith's addiction to the power and adrenaline of armed robbery ("It was a rush that no amount of cocaine or Ecstasy could imitate") it is hard to imagine anything other than participation in an actual war (Smith's own suggestion, by the way) satiating such an overwhelming urge.

Smith gets great pleasure in considering himself one of the last London "Chaps", criminals who followed codes of conduct and honour taken from noir gangster films and westerns. Here he paints all the usual mythical pictures of gangsters who were honest, moral and fair (as opposed to the modern stereotypical urban criminal, cracked-up to the eyeballs, and would kill his own granny for a tenner). But in wild contradiction, he also describes himself as "a thug from a council estate" who admits to acts of violence that were "vicious and heinous" - such as his penchant for slashing faces, presumably - hence the nickname. (The book actually ends in a statement of show-off criminal no-value that defies the writing's overall intelligence.)

Nevertheless, Smith generally paints himself as human rather than hero (he doesn't always win - he often quite brutally loses), and he writes with an awareness that, due to his endless weakness for tempers, tantrums and slashings, he is not exactly endearing himself to the reader. But that is a winning ingredient, because in a crime memoir the down-to-earth honesty and lack of excuses makes a real change.

Mirroring Smith's life, much of the book is set in prison - in fact, Smith brings us on a tour of practically every prison in southern England. In these chapters he rails against what he sees as "holiday-camp" depictions in the British tabloid press where prisoners are treated with kid gloves and a revolving-door policy operates. Conversely, Smith runs through the many bad conditions, brutalities, injustices and corruption he has witnessed - which is enlightening but, of course, depressing.

Smith's endless revisits, after umpteen chances of freedom, may leave you exasperated and out of patience - Razor's life reads like a long prison sheet punctuated only by occasional bouts of freedom. But crime was evidently what he thrived on, his reason for living, and no amount of jail - despite its harshness - could quash his desire to keep going back to "the business" for more. Ultimately, in the book (until a massive life sentence in '99) he's springing back and forth like a yo-yo.

Of course, towards the end there are a few moments of regret (how could there not be?) but there's also a strong lingering sense of defiance (check out the last few paragraphs) that is quite startling. You're left remembering the zeal - an almost heady nostalgia - in which Razor Smith recounts his robberies, gangfights and prison escapes that leaves you wondering if given the chance he'd do it all again.

A career criminal is someone who is so committed to crime as a way of life that no amount of `rehabilitation' from the prison system can straighten him.

Razor Smith is a bank robber of the sort. In fact, he prefers robbing banks so much he'd rather give away three years of his life for a three-month fling with it, anytime. And when he gets bored looking at the same four walls everyday, he simply escapes. So easy, so he does it again and again and again. Life on the run has its extreme highs and lows but sooner or later it'll be back to the slammer for good when Old Bill and The System caught up. And they did. If Whitemoor is as escape proof as it's said to be, Smith could well be serving out his eight life sentences properly, this time.

In his early 30's (he's now 45) Smith took it to himself to learn to read and write properly. The consequences were quite unexpected: Not only did he discover a passion for books and writing, people actually paid attention to him and to what he said on paper. And because he had plenty of gripes against The System by now, he had plenty to say. Later, an A-Levels in Law and Honors in Journalism helped focus his anger and aggression and lend weight to his arguments. His newfound skills and plain-speaking, wry, observant prose make A few Kind Words an accomplished first memoir. It is also clear Smith now has every stab at a career that is leagues above the Road Sweeper job he once had and certainly as potentially profitable as the Other One.

But if Smith wins both our ear and our empathy, it's because he manages to talk about his condemnable behavior - and much of this is violent - without so much as a finger pointing in any direction except towards his own.

To begin with, he was at 15 a school dropout with too much time on his hands. Adrenaline Junkie might as well be his middle name. The first time he was arrested was for burglary, for which he was sent to a youth custody center. `If I came from a broken home,' he states quite matter-of-factly, `it's only because I broke it,' referring to how normal his parents and siblings were in comparison to him and not just the countless times armed police had to break down the front door of the family home, looking for him.

It didn't help either that the Irish cockney was growing up in the land of The Kray Brothers, the Great Train Robbers - the likes of John McVitie and such, where there was romance in thievery.

`There is a code (of honor) handed down by generations of infamous criminals, both real and fictional that you learn it from watching others in life and watching westerns and old gangster films.' Smith tells us, `this code meant you never needed to be ashamed of being a criminal, as long as you're the right one.'

The code included the imperative to be loyal: if a thug was caught giving evidence against his fellow thug, he will be striped (slashed) across the face with a sharp instrument in `a curving line from the corner of the mouth to the earlobe' to mark him traitor to his kind. Very likely, he'll end up starving in the streets.

So, to sum up his gentleman thief values or as a tribute to Al Capone or both, Smith took the title of his autobiography from the Chicago mob boss's quote, `Sometimes you can get more with a few kind words and a loaded gun than you can with a few kind words.'

Much later, in examining the forces that contributed to him staying in this rather vicious cycle, Smith points out the Crime Justice System for having failed to do the one thing it was supposed to do, namely in rehabilitating its criminals. Rehabilitation must help criminals secure the skills to thrive out there. How can the System realistically expect a highly-skilled ex-con to resist the siren call of crime which promises (and also delivers) a much more comfortable life for them and their family for a low-skilled, dead-end job that pays just enough to survive on carpet toast and Cup O Soup?

Most of us `straight-goers' can only guess at the reasons that keep prisoners on the path directly to the slammer and who better than Smith to shed a light. And what this noteworthy new writer drags with him into the cold light of day are the things we should not avert our eyes from.

it's very inspirational for designers to keep this handy. these posters are as good or better than the films.

This is a wonderful book in the series with wonderful reproductions of the posters of the decade. Makes a wonderful gift for someone who loves movies as well as a great coffee table book. Highly recommended

Like the other decade books in this series Film Posters of the 60's is a sensational buy. You could either keep it intact as a collection of posters in a book to show and discuss with friends, or cut the book up and actually have a vast number of posters up on your wall. This book is about a third the size of your standard film poster and most movies are full page colour. Any of them would look great up on the wall.

The 60's bought Sean Connery as James Bond to the screens. Rock stars like The Beatles also made movies. Films like Cool Hand Luke, The Graduate, Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, The Endless Summer, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Ocean?s 11 along with a heap of Westerns and World War movies like The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape have stood the test of time. Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman and others went up on walls for the first time in the 60's and you can put them up again today.

I wasn't born in the 60's but I still know most of these great movies. Buy this book.

Tony Nourmand's "Film posters of the 60's" is a wonderful and colorful coffee table style book that is a great treat to look through. There are many of the classic film poster images of the French New wave, the films of Stanley Kubrick and the classic 007 posters, just to name a few. Film poster collecting is a great adventure and this book reflects that enthusiasm. This book was lovingly organized with great detail. A superb value! Looking forward to future editions.

I felt that the book was appropriate about Spielberg's enormous contribution to the film industry over his career. The book has wonderful pictures and stories about each film from the first film, The Sugerland Express, to Saving Private Ryan with E.T. The Extra Terrestial, the Indiana Jones trilogy, and Schindler's List among the films listed here. This book chronologizes Spielberg's film-making techniques as well the special and visual effects. I am not one of his biggest fans. I admire his work and contributions to the film industry but I prefer more than the special and visual effects. There are other film-makers and directors out there that do less with more.

If you want a good read about cinema's most amazing director, then this is the book for you. It contains lots of really great insight not just on shooting the movie, but how it even started. Though author Douglas Brode tends to get a little too political, it is a really good book that I keep coming back to. Read at all costs.

This book is a great read for the major films of Spielberg. It is done with a great deal of research by the author, who puts together a very good story line of the producer/director and how he and his films progressed over time. The author also provides excellent background information on the films, from both a technical point of view and also the creative story line. The text layout, photos, and great front and back cover photos are there to flesh out the films. It is also a fun book to read. All put together, this is a very good book to understand Spielberg, his movies, his life, and his impact on very successful creative and commercial 20th century movies.

Douglas Brode's biography of the films of Steven Spielberg is an informative and interesting book that covers the life and films of Hollywood's most commercially successful film director. From his early T.V films to Saving Private Ryan, this book covers all the facets of Spielberg's work including unknown facts about the production of his films and supplementary information. With rare color production photos and stills, this book is a must- have for any Spielberg or film enthusiast.

I host a small group and have for about a year, coincedentially I called it Finding God in The Movies. I had a hard time coming up with questions for the small group and this book has great questions right inside. Eventually more people started showing up and everyone has amazing insights! I couldn't have asked for more!

The book really helped me with me class that I used it for. Even though we weren't required to read it.

Can we find God in the movies? Yes! In this outstanding cultural book, Johnston leads us to find God in the popculture. He mentions the movie as a story teller in which people communicate their values and worldviews. He, also, teaches us what the christian movies are and how christians can watch the films; the christian movies are what deal with the real human stories and what show the reality afresh. And, when we watch the movies, we, as chrsitians, have to see the christian values such as humanity, friendship, forgiveness, reconciliation, etc. In addition to these strengths, the most wonderful character of this book is the excellent complete film study guide. I enthusiastically recommend this book for all people who are interested in popculture and its application to their real lives.

Catherine Barsotti and Robert Johnston --- husband and wife --- give thoughtful Christians a book full of tools to help them view select movies (33 in all; the oldest released in 1982) through a theological or philosophical lens.

FINDING GOD IN THE MOVIES starts with an informative introduction that discusses the film genre and theological approaches to film. What makes a good film? "Head, gut, and heart. The best movies will engage the whole person." How does a viewer find God in the movies? "Unpack the story.... What is more primary in the way the story is shaped? (1) Is it the plot...? (2) Is it the characters...? (3) Is it the point of view, where a story is given value by the perspective of the narrator(s)...? Or (4) is it the atmosphere...?...Concentrate your critical attention on where the filmmakers have centered their attention. By doing this, you will prove a more receptive viewer of the story and perhaps the Story."

Each of the 33 movie-chapters starts with a two- or three-page "synopsis and theological reflection" --- a review. This is followed by "dialogue texts" (relevant biblical passages), "discussion questions," "clip conversations" (more discussion questions but about specific scenes), and several pages of "bonus material," which includes interesting behind-the-scenes information about the making and makers of the film. Movies also are clearly linked to two helpful appendices: one listing (Genesis to Revelation) relevant biblical references; one listing (A to Z) topics covered in or themes of the movies (for example, Abuse; Affirming the Human Spirit; Anger; Arguing with God; Balance in Life).

The movie-chapters are presented in 13 categories, the more blatantly religious ("Living Our Faith"; "Images of the Savior"; "Renewing the Church") placed toward the end of the book. You might want to start your exploration in these later categories or simply bounce around. The second of the 13 categories, "Beauty, Imagination, and Creativity," discusses two Pacific Rim movies, Spirited Away and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that celebrate imagination and creativity but may be hard for the neophyte to discuss theologically.

This is a book for Christians who have an understanding of common grace, "the wider work of God's Spirit throughout and within all creatures and creation," and for those who are open to dialogue with the secular world. What are some of the films discussed? Life Is Beautiful. Ulee's Gold. The Hurricane. Simon Birch. Chocolat. We Were Soldiers.

By using this guide you might get the hang of facilitating a movie-discussion group and then move on to films you wish the authors had included. We'd all have our own list. Mine? The Trip to Bountiful. Cinema Paradiso. Babette's Feast. The Quarrel. Smoke. Maybe I should check out Johnston's earlier book REEL SPIRITUALITY: Theology and Film in Dialogue (Baker, 2000).

--- Reviewed by Evelyn Bence

This book is a great read for any fan of the series.

I purchased this book for my boyfriend for christmas and I've kind of stolen it back (we live together so it's not a big deal lol). This is my favorite anime of all times. I love the story, I love the characters, and I especially love Sousuke and Kaname together. Even my boyfriend who "doesn't like anime" loves this series and wants to cosplay from it! *omgshock* I reccomend EVERYTHING that has to do with this series!

Full Metal Panic is an awesome show. I'm a girl and I think that the show is for both guys and girls personally. This book has stuff that goes on in the anime within it. A perfect item for your FMP collection.

I just got the book today, so I haven't looked at it in great detail... but the overall impression is great. Too bad that only about the first 1/3 of this book is in color...

I purchased this book to use as part of an 8th grade Grammar curriculum. It is wonderful! The stories and activities made learning the concepts fun. My son didn't even realize that he was doing schoolwork. An excellent choice for anyone learning grammar - or someone just brushing up on their skills. Two thumbs up!

This book is filled with useful information and helpful exercises. It helped me to understand grammar concepts my own English teacher could not explain to me. Thanks to this terrific and fun-filled book, I was able to get through 8th grade English easily. My teachers and parents have noticed a change in my papers as well as a better understanding of grammatical concepts. Anyone who is lost in the world of English grammar, should pick up this book.

Great book! The format is set up so that you can work straight through, or easily hop to specific grammar points. Little quizzes help you to see if you are understanding the concepts. I know this book will get a lot of use.

Terrific book! Was so helpful. I totally recommend it for anyone having trouble learning the rules of grammar!!!

This book is an excellent read, and a useful resource. Almost every common grammatical question is addressed (e.g., is it who or whom?) in a practical manner. Great gift for someone on their way to college, in academia, or for whom English is a second language.

If you've ever started a meeting by saying, Hello, my name is blank, and I love to use commas- then you have found your bible. Grossman's modern look at grammar is both fun and challanging. And unlke some others on the market- Grossman shoots from the hip. Learn from her? Yes. Enjoy her? Absolutely. Explain her? Never.

Ellie Grossman's book on grammar is one of the finest I have ever read on such a topic, and after 14 years of school I have read a lot of grammar books. I have always been bad at grammar and found it to be so boring, but this book kept me interested. Her funny stories and examples of how common grammar errors can be so stupid, that you hardly realize it. For the first time I was beginning to understand the mistakes I make and how to fix them. Plus she doesn't fill her book with grammar rules and other confusing junk she just tells it as it is. This book is very helpful and I recommend it for anyone who has had trouble with grammar.

Ellie Grossman has achieved the imposssible: she has made the grammatical pitfalls of our language easier to manage in a clear, concise, jargon-free, and FUN way! Never thought grammar could tickle your funny bone? Well, it does in this reader-friendly guide to some of our more common language blunders. This is a book to share!

This book is for preparation for the internal medicine boards, which I am currently studying for. The chapters are divided by specialty for focused review. There are over 1000 questions and they focus on points that would be found in Harrison's text.

The questions tend to be fairly difficult and I suspect they might be harder than actual board questions. However, the majority of questions focus on the key points of the "need to know" diseases of internal medicine. So knowing these questions will likely be good prep for the boards.

The answers provided are quite detailed and it is like reading a summary out of Harrison's. The incorrect answers are reasoned out, which is helpful.

In comparison to MKSAP, the questions are likely more of a "classical" disease presentation sytle and less of a clinical approach style that MKSAP often uses. Difficulty level is roughly equivalent.

I would recommend this book to anyone preparing for the boards. It should be used in addition to other question banks for diversity of preparation.

A must have for all the internal medicine residents!!!
Extraordinarilly structured questions and even better explanation focused on the highlight topics in internal medicine.

The first question I had when I was to purchase this book was whether this book was good for the USMLE Step 2 and 3.

The answer, in my case atleast, is an emphatic 'yes'. From my experience of Step 1, I have come to the conclusion that there is no quick solution to the USMLE exams - books like First Aid and some other 100 pg 'high yeild' review books can help you pass and score above average but getting great scores requires more than just that. The questions on the exam [step 1] were very varied and I don't expect the questions on step 2 to stick to what Kaplan and other review books call 'high yeild'. Being a little over-prepared is definitely worth the effort. And that's where this book is an absolute ace!

About this book - about 1000 Qs - well researched - fantastically up-to-date - it "is" the 2005 edition!. They are well arranged - meaning if you are in a chapter on rheumatology, the questions on Rheumatoid arthritis are clustered together. While solving them and while reading the solutions, one gets a wholesome idea about that disease. This also means that you don't have to read another 'review' book to get to know the subject matter. The explanations are detailed enough to make using a short review book superfluous. That the answers are referenced to the corresponding pages of the Harrison's Textbook is an added benefit.

About the questions, more impressive than the difficulty level is their construction. All choices are well thought out and there are hardly any sitters. The questions stay away from tiny details and do a great job at testing basic concepts in a somewhat difficult fashion - ideal for USMLE step 2 preparation in my opinion.

Guess that'll be it.

If you are reading this, you are probably preparing for an ABIM internal medicine exam in addition to all your other duties. There is never enough time, is there? Well, I was preparing for the ABIM recertification exam, and it had been 10 years since I'd finished residency. I had slogged through the Mayo review book over the course of five months, dutifully going over every page. Tres painful. There were three weeks left before the exam, and I figured I'd give this book a try. I quickly discovered how ignorant I was, despite doing the Mayo book. Charlie Wiener taught me a lot of critical care medicine way back when, and this text was a lot like sitting down with Charlie. If you are a former member of the Osler Medical House Staff (or did residency training at some other urban hospital), the case scenarios will give you flashbacks. The questions are well-written, and the answers give you really good feedback. The questions are highly relevant, reflecting what the ABIM wants you to know. There are a handful of errors here and there, where the letter of the answer in the key has a different letter than the same correct answer in the question... perhaps the editors changed the order of some of the answers or some of the distractor answers between editions. Mildly annoying, but not fatal.

I got my pass notice from the ABIM today. I'm convinced that Charlie's book made a crucial difference. Yeah, the book lists for $55, but it's a bargain compared to the $550 it costs to take the recert examination over. :-)

Good luck!

Much of the contextual material in this volume is out-of-date, given the fact that the eight articles originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review years ago (1965-2001). However, I think the core concepts remain sound and provide a valuable frame-of-reference for understanding the advances in decision making that have occurred during the last five years. For example, Peter Drucker suggests a sequence of six steps: classify the problem, define it, identify possible answers, determine which is "right" rather than acceptable, build into the decision the action(s) necessary to implement it, and then test the decision's validity and effectiveness. Yes, these are obvious steps. However, but the number of well-publicized bad decisions that have been made in recent years (e.g. Adelphia Communications, Arthur Andersen, Enron, Kmart, and Tyco) suggests the implications and consequences when decision-makers ignore one or more of these steps.


No brief commentary such as this can do full justice to the rigor and substance of the eight articles. It remains for each reader to examine the list to identify which subjects are of greatest interest to her or him. My own opinion is that all of the articles are first-rate. One of this volume's greatest benefits is derived from the fact that a variety of perspectives are provided by a number of different authorities on the same general subject. In this instance, "advances [to date] in strategy"

Readers will especially appreciate the provision of an executive summary that precedes each article. They facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key points which - presumably - careful readers either underline or highlight. Also of interest is the "About the Contributors" section that includes suggestions of other sources to consult. Here are questions that suggest key issues to which the authors of these articles respond:

How to make and then measure an "effective" decision? (Peter Drucker)
Comment: Effective executives do not make a great many decisions. They concentrate on what is most important.

What is a rational method for making trade-offs? (John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa)
Comment: Making wise trade-offs is one of the most important and difficult challenges in decision making. Needless to say, the more alternatives you are considering and the more objectives you're pursuing, the more trade-offs you'll need to make.

Why is humility essential to effective decision-making? (Amitai Etzioni)
Comment: Only fools make rigid decisions and decisions with no sense of overarching purpose, whereas the most able executives practice more humble decision making that offers the benefits of flexibility, caution, and the capacity to proceed with partial knowledge.

What are the most common interpersonal barriers to decision making and how to overcome them? (Chris Argyris)
Comment: One of the most common observations in company studies is that executives lack awareness of their own behavioral patterns as well as the negative impact of their behavior on others.

How to analyze the nature and extent of the given problem? (Perrin Stryker)
Comment: Even veteran managers are likely to be very unsystematic when dealing with problems and decisions, and their hit-or-miss methods often produce bad decisions based on erroneous conclusions.

What are the hidden traps in decision making? (John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa)
Comment: Bad decisions can often be traced back to the way the decisions were made - the alternatives that were not clearly defined, the right information was not collected, and the costs and benefits were not accurately weighed.

When to "trust your gut"? (Alden M. Hayshi)
Comment: Our emotions and feelings might not only be important in our intuitive ability to make good decisions but may actually be essential because they can help us to filter various options quickly.

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out the recently published Harvard Business Review on Making Smarter Decisions as well as other titles in the Harvard Business Review Paperback Series such as those on Becoming a High-Performance Manager, Change, Corporate Strategy, Decision Making, Effective Communication, the Innovative Enterprise, Leadership, Leadership at the Top, and Measuring Corporate Performance.

Being an effective manager requires being a good-decision maker too, having ability of using factual and quantitative information to analyze what is the most efficient decision to reach a well-defined objective. Making good decision by applied management science approach is the benefits that managers expect to learn combining with past experience to decide on what should be done. However, in the real-reality (as opposed to virtual reality, as a model), many decisions can be made under the highest-level conceptual understanding. In addition, a better understanding of decision making can be broken down into six sequential steps according to Drucker (pp. 2-19)

1. Classifying the problem in order to tell if it should be solved based on either principles or pragmatic concept. The problem can be categorized in three groups. The first group is the generic problems; for example, in a manufacturing organization, it may happen the situation like total amount of products decreasing. At this stage, the product control or engineering group will look at what is going on in a production line. To illustrate, the coupling in the pipe carrying steam or hot liquids, rather than the problem of production processing. This kind of problems frequently happens. The second group is a unique problem for the individual institution. The third group is a truly unique problem which happens out of exception. The truly unique events are rare and have to be treated individually. Unlike truly unique events, the other two groups require a generic solution. They require a rule, a policy, or a principle. Once the right principle has been developed, all manifestations of the same generic situation can be handled pragmatically by adjusting the rules to each specific case.

2. Defining the problem. After classifying the problem is generic or unique, it is quite easy to define what the problem is about that we are dealing with. However, it is the most important part of the whole decision process because sometimes the definition of the problem seems plausible but incomplete. In order to avoid this kind of carelessness, Peter F. Drucker suggested all of the decision makers check this process, defining the problem, again and again against all the observable facts and discard a definition the moment it fails to encompass any of them.

3. Specifying the answer to the problem to see if the decision is on the boundary conditions or not. A decision that does not satisfy the boundary condition is worse than the wrong definition of the problem. Therefore, before picking up the optimal solution, a decision maker has to deeply think about a question, "what are the objectives the decision has to reach?" Clearly thinking about the boundary conditions will help decision makers identify all of the possible decisions which can satisfy the needs.

4. Deciding what is right, rather than what is acceptable, in order to meet the boundary conditions. It means before paying attention on making decision acceptable by the compromise, adaptations, and concessions, we have to let the solution fully satisfy the specifications. However, if a decision maker does not know what will meet the boundary conditions, the manager cannot distinguish the difference between the right and wrong compromise. As the right and wrong compromise, Peter F. Drucker had an interesting description. The right compromise is like an old saying, "Half a loaf is better than no bread." In the contrast, the wrong compromise is like, "half a baby is worse than no baby at all." From this interesting description, it is easy to realize that deciding the right decision is more important than choosing the acceptable one.

5. Building into the decision the action to carry it out. Converting the decision into action is the most time-consuming steps in the decision-making process. It is true that we will not know the decision is the most efficient or not if we put the decision into practice. There are several questions that have to be answered before committing the decision, "Who has to know this decision?", "What action has to be taken?", "Who is to take it?", "What does the action have to be so that the people who have to do it can do it?" From those questions, it is obviously that an appropriate person who carries out the decision must have enough capabilities of adjusting his/her behavior, habits or attitudes once a decision becomes effective.

6. Testing the validity and effectiveness of the decision against the actual course of events. The feedback of decision action is the important information for a decision maker in order to realize the result of the decision model also for the future model building. However, information should be built on the direct exposure to reality, rather on decision makers themselves. Above all, six steps of decision process are the stepping stones for decision making. Although a good decision may be made under the decision-making process, sometimes the decision will still fail because of the mind of decision makers. The way the human brain works can destroy the choice we make. In the article, "The Hidden Traps in Decision Making, (pp. 143-67)" John Hammond, Ralph Keeney, and Howard Raiffa list nine psychological traps that may affect a way that a decision maker makes business decision.

1. The anchoring trap makes people give inappropriate weigh to the first information we receive. In business, for example, although it seems the decision that a manager predict how much product need to be produced by taking the former sales reports as a reference is reasonable, the old sales numbers become anchors because it may let a manager put too much attention on past event but not give enough weigh to other factors. Under this situation, it can lead to a poor forecast.

2. The status-quo trap means people may have biases on the situation we feel comfortable with so that we will not choose other alternatives even they are better. In order to make decisions rationally and objectively, a decision maker always have to keep in mind that the decision will be acted under the status quo and never consider status quo as the only alternative.

3. The sunk-cost trap is another serious biases. People always believe that successfully past decision even though it does not work anymore at the present. In order to put the suck cost away, a decision maker can listen other people's viewpoints and those people must to be those who did not experience the earlier decisions.

4. The confirming-evidence trap makes people find out the information to support an existing predilection, rather than to conflict it. On the other hand, people will try to discount the opposing information. In order to avoid the confirming-evidence trap, a decision maker can set up a clincher, let other people argue it, and listen people's advice.

5. The framing trap happens at the beginning of the decision process. When it occurs, the decision goes wrong because a decision maker has already misstated the problem.

6. The Estimating and Forecasting Traps have three minor traps,

a. The overconfidence trap makes people overestimate the accuracy of the forecasts.

b. The prudence trap causes people to be overcautious when people make decision under uncertain or risky situation.

c. The recall ability trap leads people to give incorrect weigh to recent, dramatic events.

The book rightly emphasizes the facts that a good decision not only relies on clearly defining the alternatives, collecting the correct information, and so on during the decision-making process, but also relate to the benefits and costs which are weighed accurately. Furthermore, the background, the experience of a decision maker will be one of the factors which affect the decision making. Except the factors of individuals, the economic circumstances will influence the decision and its action too.

There are several books from the Harvard Business Review that follow this simple format - essays on critical topics by the leading minds in the field compiled into a short book of around 200 pages. One of these critical topics is Decision Making. That topic is the focus of this book.

There are hundreds of books on management, strategy, leadership, etc. but not many are purely dedicated to treating the subject of Decision Making from a theoretical and abstract perspective. This book contains 8 short essays presenting different theories by people by Peter Drucker.

The first chapter starts off with an impressive treatment of The Effective Decision. It is impressive because of the wisdom packed into these few pages and the aptness of the title. The author (Peter Drucker) dispels the myths about the most effective decision makers being the ones that can think fast and manipulate a large number of variables in their heads. Instead he explains that the best decision makers are the ones who focus on impact instead of technique. He then systematically explains a simple process to follow to achieve the same results as the highly successful executives.

The book then moves on to topics dealing with how to make trade-offs, humble decision making (which is nothing but accepting that your first impressions may be wrong and be open to changing the direction of your thoughts as more information becomes available), interpersonal barriers, hidden traps, when to trust your gut, and analyzing problems. The essay on interpersonal barriers was very familiar to me as I had experienced the situations described several times in my own career.

The book is simple - it has no pictures, just some tables once in a while and some blank paper at the end of the book to takes notes. The size is small like a novel but very potent! When I first saw this book at a bookstore, I didn't think much of it. But I picked it up because of the Harvard Business Review name on the front cover. I couldn't put it down once I started reading the first chapter and immediately purchased a few books in this series.

These books and especially this one can be described in only one word - potent. They are like text books or Ph.D papers except they are very practical. These are some of my favorite management/business books but they are difficult to digest. Since they are abstract in nature, one has to read them very slowly and read them with total concentration. The authors don't spend time painting a picture in detail and trying to get you excited. They get straight to the point and finish it in less than 20 pages. If you read these books like you would read other books, you are likely to miss the point.

This book in particular is very unique as there aren't that many books dedicated to just Decision Making. Enjoy learning from the masters! Good luck!

Don't let the title mislead you, this book won't make decisions for you. I will however, give you the ability to make use of your most powerful business tool: a convincing guess. Many times I would stumble blindly through the veil of uncertainty, only to arrive on the otherside; lost, confused, naked, and too sore to sit down. But, now, after digesting these powerful articles, I can make my way through uncertain times; clothed in conviction and sitting on a soft pillow of apathy.

Can't say much about this Because it wasn't for my personal use. It did arrive in timely manner though. Good job to the seller!

This book is for an MBA class and as Harvard Business Cases are concerned there are some interesting factual articles in this Supply Chain Management review by Harvard.

I'm a 25 year Supply-Chain Manager in the USAF. I enjoyed reading this and relating to the changes in mind-sets in supply chain management. Logistics, Supply-Chain and Distribution managers have contributed to companies and the militaries success's or failure's...

I thought the book presented several interesting examples through eight papers covering various supply chain topics. Several of the papers have appendices with very useful information. This is a good book to take on a plane and read on one or two flights. But, subsequent research would be required to obtain the details necessary to actually implement the concepts.