Organizations Books

This book is commonly referred to as being written by the "second Martin" (the first being Martin Luther). It deeply, passionately, and clearly lays forth the Lutheran understanding of the mystery, the beauty, and the worship that takes place at the Lord's Table as we partake of the bread and wine. While I am not Lutheran I do hold to the Reformed Faith. I found this book filled with great illustrations of Martin Chemnitz's and Martin Luther's thinking. The books does reference Zwinglian views, catholic views, and even John Calvin. Some wise scholars have said that the truth of Christ's presence at His table, and the fullest meaning of the words, "Take, eat my flesh...this is my body" are found somewhere right in the middle between Luther's views and Calvin's views. There is a spiritual union with the body of Christ and there is a divine mystery as we eat and swallow the bread and the wine. This book is an outstanding volume for any pastor or theologian or any leader who desires to understand the full counsel of God's Word and to sit side-by-side with the Reformers and understand why they developed such a unique, yet beautiful teaching of the Lord's Supper. Copies of this book are harder and hard to find (at a decent price) but it is well worth the purchase, the reading, the understanding, and the challenge as we share with communicants at the Table.

In Bible college and seminary, the Lutheran view was always referred to as Consubstantiation and my Lutheran friends would wince. I did not really understand the subtle differences until I sat down and read this volume. I found the insights, the illustrations, the metaphors, and the examples to be quite compelling. Martin uses a wonderful blend of Scriptures to define Martin Luther's statements about this sacrament. Martin does not rely solely upon the lexicon to define terms, but takes the lexicon in one hand and the Scripture context in the other hand and serves the reader a feast of information. I can see why Calvin studied so much of Luther's teachings on the Lord's Supper. While they disagreed on the meaning of "the presence" within the meal, these two giants of the Reformation did agree on the divine mystery of Christ and His Table and the meeting of His Spirit and our spirit. Whether you are Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian or ???...this is truly a volume to obtain and to devour. I have read it through several times and each time more and more is learned. That is what makes a classic piece so enduring.

Like every one of Chemnitz's books I've read, this is a masterful work about a specialized area of Christian theology that's central to our faith: the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. And while Chemnitz works through the dogmatics of the topic, his approach is at the same time pastoral, showing obvious concern that all Christians (not just pastors or theologians) understand what they are receiving when partaking of the Supper.

This book ties in closely with another of Chemnitz's books, 'The Two Natures in Christ,' as the two topics are closely related.

Also helpful: the English translation in this book is well done, not wordy, but smooth-flowing and easy to read. Highly recommended.

When Jesus said, "Take it, this is my body," and "this is my blood of the covenant" did he really mean it? Do those who receive the bread and wine really receive Christ's true body and blood, the same body that died on the cross and the same blood that was shed for our salvation? Martin Chemnitz, a Lutheran theologian of the late sixteenth century, answers these questions with a ringing "Yes indeed!"

This book is addressed primarily to those who like modern evangelicals either denied or "spiritualize" the presence of Christ's body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. People with those views had formed a party within Lutheran churches, somewhat misleadingly called the "Sacramentarians," and Chemnitz was part of the opposing group which successfully stood by Luther's vigorous assertion of the Real Presence. Chemnitz demonstrates that no secure reasoning can dispute the literal meaning of what he emphasizes is Christ's last will and testament.

In a calm and charitable tone, he asserts that the Lutheran belief in the Real Presence is the only one that can be based on the plain words of Holy Scripture. It is also backed up by the various church fathers from the earliest writings of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of the second century on. He emphasizes strongly, however, that Scripture indeed speaks for itself on this as on every other article of faith.

Chemnitz's methodology is very illuminating. He emphasizes that every Christian doctrine must have a "sedes doctrina" or a seat of the doctrine, or place in Scripture where the doctrine is taught in clear and non-figurative language. He argues convincingly that the "seat of the doctrine" of the Lord's Supper lies in the words of institution recorded in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and 1 Corinthians.

Chemnitz's arguments against the "Sacramentarians" will prove of great interest to evangelicals who still follow various views that question the Real Presence. He does not in this book directly address the issue of transubstantiation or any other other doctrines of "how" Christ's body and blood can be given in the Lord's Supper. His point is that we are not to philosophize but to belive. Yet his citations of the church fathers who seem in repeatedly speak of the bread and the body as being coexistent realities in the Eucharist might give adherents of transubstantiation pause--but that's another story . . .

Chemnitz's language is remarkably accessible considering the potentially forbidding complexities of the topic. Perhaps his approach is so readable because his methodology is so Biblical. As he explains it, the Real Presence of Christ's body in, with, and under the bread is a vital truth that brings comfort and reassurance to all believers--in the Lord's Supper, we can touch Christ and receive salvation and healing by faith, just as the crowds of sick, possessed, and crippled did 2,000 years ago.

All in all a thoroughly convincing defense of one of one of the most important Biblical doctrines of the New Testament.

Martin Chemnitz's entire work on the Lord's Supper is centered on one pivotal issue: the True Bodily Presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper. Despite the singular topic, the book is remarkably multifaceted, as Chemnitz relentlessly attacks and defends the issue from a multitude of angles. Though he certainly couldn't forestall every argument that might be raised against the real bodily presence, he doesn't claim or aim to. He rather deals with the arguments that seem to be most persuasive.

Chemnitz further establishes that in regard to this most important matter of Christ's presence or absence from the Supper, we must squarely face the most relevant texts in Scripture. Those most important texts are the words of Institution, recorded four times by the evangelists. The part of the book where Chemnitz excels most of all is in the sections in the first half where he gives an exegetical treatment of each of the four institution accounts. He also lays important groundwork for the discussion on methods and procedures of Scriptural interpretation.

He lays considerable emphasis on the seriousness and urgency with which Christ spoke these words on His last night with His disciples--being under great duress. Chemnitz shows at length how it is inconceivable that Jesus could have been speaking in a figurative way when He was establishing His last will and testament to His church. Above all things, Chemnitz urges the reader to stick to the simple, plain and natural sense of the words of Christ and that if we were to believe otherwise, Christ would have made this clear in the Scriptures.

The book is excellent for its thorough organization and its excellent table of contents, which make it an excellent reference book. I think the only real criticism I could make of the book is that it becomes unneccessarily repetitive at the end. In the interest of driving home his central point, Chemnitz reiterates his argument so many times that it becomes tedious (especially if you already accept his premise). The other thing that I found somewhat disappointing was that the book didn't cover any other points of interest on the Lord's Supper, such as its significance for fellowship and confession, etc. But understandably that wasn't his purpose.

All in all the book is one to have for your library and to refer back to. One of the quotes that I think sums up the book well is this, "Why therefore do we humans oppose as an impossibility what the words of His testament state concerning the body of Christ and its presence in the Supper, as if He cannot be where He wills with His body, or as if the will of Christ revealed in the Word wills something which is not proper for His body unless we help ourselves with the aid of a figure of speech?"

The book is still the most comprehensive resource on Managed Care. Covers all its elements and increased my understanding of why managed care worked in the past to its extent and the challenges it faces. Helpful for professionals and policy makers in this field.

This book, in its latest edition, continues to be the most complete resource for all who work in or who are associated with the managed health care industry. It can be used by the novice as an introduction to the vary complex nature of managed health care, or it can be used by the more experienced managed health care warrior as a reference book when one needs a refresher on a particular aspect of managed health care operations.

I am a consultant working with health plans, providers, employers and regulators, and The Managed Health Care Handbook never fails to provide me with the information I need to be successful.

This book is a definite must-have for the new and experienced Managed Care Professional. I found the chapters on compensation and reimbursement to most helpful. The author has successfully captured every element of managed care including, but not limited to, employer groups, networks, reimbursement, and quality.

Thoughtfully edited and written by the nation's leading managed care experts, the Managed Health Care Handbook is an excellent, highly practical reference on every key aspect of American managed health care. Highly recommended to practitioners, consultants, and students wishing a thorough, up-to-date, and objective understanding of managed care strategy and operations.

Editor Laura Empson has collected papers that present the latest research on the evolution of the modern law practice. Although the writers here are academics, their papers are not overly technical. In straightforward language, they discuss the various challenges new international, corporate structures present to legal traditions, from public service to the "partnership ethos" to billing. getAbstract recommends this book to strategically minded legal executives who want to map out new directions while retaining the best of the old values and ethics.

What makes one modern law firm successful--and another less so? This compilation of chapters analyzes today's multi-national firms and clarifies why some succeed and others fail.

The authors delve into a wide variety of topics--from law firm mergers across cultures, to the morphing of traditional partnership arrangements. As Bruce MacEwen correctly points out in his detailed review, the book thoroughly explores--and challenges-- the concepts of traditional partnership and the partnership "ethos".

Lawyers working for US-based law firms will particularly enjoy the critical analysis of 200 or so large U.S. firms. Some of the results may be surprising, such as that U.S. firms with limited international presences have the highest per partner profits. In addition, the book explains why the firms that internationalized later are usually more profitable. These firms took careful note of the early internationalizers--and learned from their mistakes.

One chapter reveals strategies for successfully launching new practice areas, including giving such attorneys lots of internal support (tangible and intangible). Perhaps surprisingly, hiring a "heroic founding partner" to launch a new practice area does not correlate to the practice's success.

Lawyers at global forms will particularly enjoy the comments about the "Magic Circle" firms and their ability to cultivate a sense of teamwork and partnership despite cultural divides.

This book ranks as one of my favorites of 2007. Any lawyer working at a global firm--or aspiring to do so--will really benefit from this book's insights.

This valuable and multi-faceted collection of essays jointly comprises one of the most sophisticated and nuanced views of how 21st Century law firms are trying to cope with growing pressure on the "partnership ethos" which largely sustained them for a century or more.

The primary source of that pressure is simple: Today's global US- and UK-based law firms have become substantial enterprises in their own right. (Nearly 20 have gross revenues in excess of US$1-billion/year.) Firms such as these can no longer be managed by untutored amateurs, nor can they be governed as Athenian democracies. But if the "Quaker town meeting" style of consensus governance is no longer feasible, firms are equally loathe--rightly so--to turn to pure command-and-control corporate models.

The struggle to reconcile the high-minded and intrinsically precious values embodied in the partnership ethos, with the need to be supple and economically powerful global institutions, is what this book is all about.

While many of the contributors are academics, the approach is by no means "academic." And the final chapter, by Tony Angel, global managing partner of the UK "Magic Circle" firm, Linklaters, is alone worth the price of the book.

Finally, Dr. Empson herself is aware that not all aspects of the partnership ethos are per se good.

* While partnership can form cohesive bonds, it can also work to exclude those outside the blessed fold, such as non-equity partners and extremely high-quality C-level executives.
* Are partners who view themselves as owners entitled to exercise "extreme and inappropriate behaviors"?
* Do clients and potential recruits (your firm's two key aspirational constituencies) understand and value the partnership ethos?
* If the "socialization process" that indoctrinates one for membership in the partnership is too effective, it can "represent a potentially serious block to change more generally...[the] partnership risks becoming a self-perpetuating collection of clones."
* Finally, the partnership ethos can be strengthened not just by preferentially selecting those candidates who embody it but by dealing decisively with those who belong to the partnership but who, for whatever reason, no longer embody its principles.

Incidentally, Dr. Empson just moved (mid-June 2007) from the Said Centre at the University of Oxford to a newly created chair as Professor in the Management of Professional Service Firms at Cass Business School in the City of London.

This book is for those involved with managing law firms, especially those impacted by the move of legal practices from partnerships to corporations and from local firms to behemoths that span the globe. The papers collected here represent recent research on current topics in the legal industry. Their goal seems to be to keep the best features of the traditional firm while accepting the efficiencies and realities of the global corporate legal firm.

The book's ten chapters cover the range of topics in the book in a paper by the Laura Empson, the editor, and Stuart Popham. Chapter 2 looks the decline of partnership and the implications of the rise of the corporate structure in legal practice. Chapter 3 looks at the issues surrounding Diversity in Europe and compares them to the lessons learned from the American experience. Chapter 4 provides a recipe for successfully adding new initiatives to your practice and why failure follows efforts that vary too much from the formula their research revealed.

Chapter 5 covers the issues involved with customers and why marketing is necessary to not on create new customers, but to hold onto your existing base. Chapter 6 looks at the different kinds of value a legal practice has and what that implies about income. In a related area, Chapter 7 looks at the kinds of capital your legal practice has and how you can manage each. Chapter 8 explores the issues of competition in the modern legal practice and the evaporation of the old gentleman's agreements among firms. Ethics and the failure of preserving traditional ethics in some modern corporate law firms is reported in chapter 9. The book concludes with a plea for the preservation of the partnership ethos in chapter 10.

While the book has a definite focus on Europe, there is value for American firms and their managers if they deal in the practice of supporting global clients. You will know more about how your European competitors think and work, if nothing else.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

"Don't be afraid of strengths in your organization," writes Peter Drucker. "This is the besetting sin of people who run organizations. Of course, able people are ambitious. But you run far less risk of having able people around who want to push you out than you risk by being served by mediocrity."

Affirm your team at your staff meeting this week with Drucker's reminder that "strong people always have strong weaknesses too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys. And no one is strong in many areas." It takes a village!

Wow! The wisdom still oozes from Drucker's 1990 book on nonprofit management. Many leaders re-read at least one Drucker book a year. If you lead a nonprofit, this is a good place to start. It includes five major sections: 1) The Mission Comes First: and your role as a leader; 2) From Mission to Performance: effective strategies for marketing, innovation and fund development; 3) Managing for Performance: how to define it; how to measure it; 4) People and Relationships: your staff, your board, your volunteers, your community; and 5) Developing Yourself: as a person, as an executive, as a leader.

Drucker's interview with Max De Pree is worth the price of the book. De Pree says, "The first duty of a leader is to define reality. Every organization, in order to be healthy, to have renewal processes, to survive, has to be in touch with reality." The book includes five additional interviews with Frances Hesselbein (goals), Philip Kotler (defining the market), Albert Shanker (accountability), David Hubbard (boards) and Roxanne Spitzer-Lehmann (the woman executive).

As Bob Buford reminded us in the foreword to my book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit, Drucker was preaching to both nonprofits and churches when he said, "The purpose of management is not to make the Church more businesslike, but more Church-like."

I realized a few years ago that government as we know it is a complete failure. The US Government as we know it has failed to provide for domestic or global security, has failed to spend our money wisely, and it is broken across all three branches. At the same time, the political parties, corporations, bankers and many asset managers, have also failed, along with the media, religion, and labor unions. I decided two years ago to create the Earth Intelligence Network along with 23 other co-founders, and yesterday the IRS told me they planned to approve our 501c3 letter, so I pulled this down to refresh myself, and was surprised to find that I had read it but not reviewed it.

The book was first published in 1990 and includes interviews with nine contributors as well as original material from Peter Drucker.

Two sentences stand out for me:

1) The non-profit delivers a changed human being.

2) The non-profit leader is responsible for translating glorious mission statements into executable, measureable, visible specifics.

After a year's work with many others, and aided immensely by the recent identification of the ten high-level threats to humanity in priority order, courtesy of LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret) and other members of the United Nations High-Level Threat Panel we not only recognized that the lines are blurring as segments of government that are honest, segments of private sector marketplaces that are moral, segments of civil society that are committed to responsible stewardship of their local communities and areas and non-plenishable natural resources; but we began to see the non-profit as central to weaving a shared understanding of the threats, the policies and budgets that can eradicate the threats, and the knowledge that needs to be transferred to Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Wild Cards like the Congo, if they are to avoid our mistakes.

This book, in short, is my crutch, my reinforcement, my inspiration, and my proof positive that we can translate our mission into specifics, and do what we have set out to do.

Early on Peter Drucker emphasizes that while the non-profit is the largest employer in America, the share of money being donated to non-profits has remained relatively steady. I suspect that has changed since this was written in 1990, but his second key point in this context is that it is not enough to find donors, one much recruit contributors who wish to be active "in community" and for acommon purpose.

I confess to not being a people person, but I will also be an unpaid member of the board, so I would emphasize that in looking for our first non-profit manager, we are going to look for someone with three skills this books helps describe:

1) Ability to create logical executable specifics
2) Ability to interact effectively with high-end planned givers (humans)
3) Ability to recruit and keep happy passionate people who love life and want to pursue life-affirming, world-changing objectives.

The middle core of the book has a lot of underlining. Here are some of the highlights.

+ Strategies are the bulldozers.

+ Strategies are action-focused with measureable results.

+ Set the goals twice as high as a "normal" or business as usual organization might aspire to.

+ Tailor the message to each unique segment (e.g. one message for foundations seeking to harmonize high-end spending programs; another for individual donors seeking to find the best possible way to contribute $100 to one needy person anywhere (hint: cell phone and paid annual subscription--one per village will change the world).

+ Training matters, and not just of staff; also of donors, volunteers, everyone being helped or in any way engaged in the overall mission. [In my terms, if someone cannot recide the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers form memory, or know where to find the 52 transpartisan answers to 52 tough questions, then we have failed to train them or educate them.]

+ Planning is not just about objective results, but about a vast social network of relationships that need to be nurtured for the long-term.

+ Dissent is priceless, discourtesy should never be tolerated.

+ Page 115: "The most important *do* (italicized in original) is to build the organization around information and communication instead of around hierarchy." See the image above, something I created in the 1990's. All the candidates running for President today are top down command and control freaks, with one possible exception. Epoch B leaders create a bottom up constant churn of information, and for me, this one sentence validated, reinforced, and inspired.

+ Educate up the chain and sideways, not just downwards.

+ Ensure every person is immersed the real-world (e.g. poverty at its worse in the slums of Rio de Janeiro or Caracas) so that they are refreshed as to the reality and the meaning of their mission the rest of the year.

I was very surprised to find a chapter on "How to Make the Schools Accountable," pages 131-142, an interview with Albert Shanker, at the time president of the American Federation of Teachers AFL-CIO, but it fits perfectly. Three points:

1) CEOs and Labor Leaders need to hold schools accountable.
2) Schools that pursue long-term deep learning find that short-term financial and other objectives fall into place.
3) Hold everyone accountable for giving their all, and end complacency, a sense of tenure, a lack of passion for what should be a life-affirming world-changing endeavor (those words are from other books, see list below).

The index is excellent, and the last page of the book educated me on the continuing value and offerings of The Drucker Foundation.

My take-away from this book is that any strategy that focuses on sharing information with as many parties as possible, and finding ways to optimize sense-making of the collective, and harmonization of many different programs and budgets across multinational, multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain boundaries, will in the end produce results that no amount of government mandate, corporate bribery, foundation give-away, or wailing calls of doom, could possibly achieve.

Peter Drucker's legacy adds a new line to an old saying; the last line below:

The men who manage men manage the men who manage things.
The men who manage money manage all.

The men who manage information not only manage the men who manage money, they create new open money, information capital that enhances, influences, and exploits all else.

Great book. The audio series is ideal for those driving back and forth from bedroom communities into big cities, and vice versa.

Other links to books I have reviewed and recommend:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization
Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

I do not list books I have written, edited, or published, but urge the reader to consider some of them as well. In early March we will be publishing COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, that is free online now and forever more, and then in May, free online from April, PEACE INTELLIGENCE: Assuring a Good Life for All. And finally, in July, free online in June, COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE: From Moral Green to Golden Peace.

I am certain that public intelligence and bottom-up self-governances are going to put an end to fraud, waste, abuse, corruption and secret earmarks, and that the non-profit, and those who share rather than hoard informationl, will in fact save the world and profit handsomely from doing so, on multiple levels, not least of which is giving seven generations of their descendants a sustainable Earth where everyone is a billionaire (Medard Gabel's vision).

Bought the book for a class and have already given one copy as a gift and recommended the book to several others in leadership positions. Great read for leaders in any type organization. As a matter of fact, if you can motivate your people in a "for-profit" organization the way Drucker speaks of in this book, you can't help but be successful.

i was pleasantly surprised at the information i could gather from this book. Well written and very easy reading. i enjoyed it fully and look forward to ordering more from this author.

The story of humanity helping humanity - of a social transformation that, should we allow ourselves to drop our ego, should be more prevalent in our world today.

MANNA is more than merely a good read to be put on a shelf when finished. The people in MANNA stay with you, the lessons impact you in the deepest kind of way, and the goodness invigorates and motivates you. It leaves you feeling things that you can't describe which drove me to give it to others so that they can taste its goodness, too. I gave the book to my father (CEO of Family Services in Erie, PA) and he loved it so much he is giving it to his staff (over 100 in total) and his board because he felt it exemplified so much of what he hopes his organization will grow to model in terms of perseverance and sincerity of service.

I am a former graduate student of Dr. Smith's and loved reading his book, as it reminded me of the energy and inspiration he brought to each and every lecture he did for our class. The book inspires one to do good things, and more importantly makes one feel like doing amazing things is possible. The style of the book makes the reader feel like the auther respects him/her, and approaches the many subject matters presented within its pages gently, but also honestly. I highly recommend it.

Every so often, a book comes along that changes your perspective forever after. Manna is one of those. I will never again think of AIDS or homelessness in the same way.

Not only was Manna moving and inspirational, it also was so exquisitely written that I found myself reading it like poetry--in small doses, paragraphs at a time--so that I could absorb its beauty and meaning.

The following incident is illustrative of its impact: One afternoon, as I sat reading Manna at a friend's home, I was so taken by one of the excerpts that I read it aloud to him. His eyes filled with tears. A moment later, coming across another such excerpt, I did the same. His reaction was the same. This was repeated several more times, until we both realized that this was the case with every word, every sentence, every paragraph. He decided to get his own copy.

Indeed, everyone should have a copy to read, to ponder, to cherish.

This is a really helpful book - very much worth the $21.75 price.

The physical book itself is unimpressive (wire bound, etc), but it's what inside that really counts here. We use many of the helpful suggestions regularly. We came across it somewhat by accident, but we're sure glad we did.

There is a lot covered here. In fact, most everything you need to run, or improve a Summer Program....or any non-profit or Child Care program. I think it's all in the way you use it's many helpful hints - those that just read it and toss it aside will gain nothing but $21.75 less in their bank account. But, use the many suggestions (we love the helpful hints inside!) for improvement and you'll have a better program as a result.

If I knew what was in here before we bought it, we'd have paid $121.75 for it.

Ms. Stanco, if you ever read these comments - thank you from all of us at Rio Rancho Public Schools outside of Albuquerque!

I have both of Ms. Stanco's books and find each one to be terrific. Marketing Madness! The Essential Marketing ToolBook for Summer Programs is a must have for any educator/administrator. This book is an excellent resource and guide and an invaluable tool to assist you in marketing your summer program. I highly recommend it!

Just like her book Programming Madness, Marketing Madness is a quick and easy read with lots of helpful information. It takes the guess work out of what needs to be done when trying to market a summer program.

We own both of Ms. Stanco's books....Marketing and Programming Madness.

There are a lot of great examples of real world marketing and programming Summer Programs...just plug in and use if you need.

Text is big, and while it's not a long book, it's packed solid with good information. It's also an easy read - it can take you and hour if you skim thru it, or days if you try to gather all the wondeful details within.

This is a real find for anyone that has a Summer Camp or related situation.

I had lunch with Van Reid in August of 2001. He was as fun to talk to as his books are to read! I love the humor, the insight, the intrigue and the adventures of the Moosepath League! I agree that this installment is not as "heavy" as Daniel Plainway (at least to all but Ephram, Eagleton,and Thump!) but all the other elements are present. I laughed out loud several times while flying, which caused my fellow passengers to wonder about me, I am sure. Moxie!

How could I have missed this series? I enjoy stories set in this period because my own father was born in 1890; in Kentucky. He was a small-town boy, following the work to Ohio where he and several of his brothers settled.

I can picture him being a member of such a club as the Moosepath League and having small adventures such as author Reid depicts in this series of books. My father was not bumbling like most of these characters, but he was witty and funny and would no doubt have led them on even more exciting adventures.

Reid paints a vivid picture of a small town of the late 80s ... filled with characters who would make entertaining neighbors. They'd certainly liven up any neighborhood with their quaint, old-fashioned, yet quirky fun.

It's obvious this is a satire, and I love satire myself. (I discovered these books because on Amazon.com they were placed beside one of the books I wrote: THE TOONIES INVADE SILICON VALLEY. While the TOONIES does not disparage our lovely Valley in anyway, I certainly delighted in poking a bit of fun at our techie culture ... tongue-in-cheek humor, of course ... as Mr. Reid does in these books.)

Fun reads! Enjoy all four.

For excellent quality, humor, detailed plots, and kind, likeable characters, you can't beat Van Reid's "Moosepath League" novels. The latest, "Mrs. Roberto", seems to me to be a little lighter in tone than "Molly Peer" or "Daniel Plainway", but is still immensely involving and entertaining. This kind of writing just cannot be found anywhere else today. If you are fond of the classics or nineteenth century American literature, you will love Van Reid.

The willing adventurers of the Moosepath League of Victorian Portland, Maine, have lost none of their good-natured innocence in this fourth adventure, despite entanglements with tavern keepers, loose women, pickpockets, hoboes and worse. Indeed, Van Reid's droll storytelling depends upon it.

Misdirection and misunderstanding form the strong foundation of the meandering and digressive missions of the League's six members, who gather at the Shipswood Restaurant in the spring of 1897 for one of their regular dinners. They raise their water glasses (prohibition has been in effect in Maine for 46 years) to their only female member, Miss Phileda McCannon, who's making a journey to settle her deceased aunt's affairs. Mr. Tobias Walton, their chairman and the oldest at 48, is a bit subdued on this occasion as Phileda has not given an answer to his proposal of marriage.

Joseph Thump, Christopher Eagleton and Matthew Ephram are still in a small state of excitement after nearly running down a tavern keeper named Sparks who could have been Thump's double, but for his workingman's clothing and his high-pitched voice. The youngest member, Walton's faithful assistant Sundry Moss, 23, is the only one who dares to hazard that the crowd of ruffians backing away from the near-accident were pursuing Sparks rather than attempting his rescue.

The trio of Thump, Eagleton and Ephram have not seen the last of Sparks. Walking home through an unfamiliar and doubtful part of town, Thump happens to save a policeman from certain death-by-falling-piano, thereby incurring Mrs. Sparks' heartfelt gratitude for preserving her cousin, the perpetrator, from a murder charge.

This might again have been the end of it, but the trio, inspired by an incident in a play, determine that the lovely balloon ascensionist, Mrs. Roberto, must be in need of rescuing. Their mission leads them to a house of ill-repute (not that they ever realize where they are) and a run-in with the gang that's after Sparks, from which they escape thanks to Sparks' youngest son and his urchin friend who lead them over Portland's slippery rooftops. Sparks' network of less-than-respectable relatives continues to aid the trio as they seek Mrs. Roberto from Bangor to Dresden Mills, taking up with a large party of hoboes along the way.

Meanwhile, Moss, attempting to distract his employer, has taken Walton to visit his uncle in Norridgewock, though they never make it quite that far. The train is delayed in Bowdoinham where Walton is pressed to come to the aid of a glum prize pig. Perplexed by the locals' assumption of his expertise in porcine matters (the reader has been let-in on the misunderstanding), but as willing and easy-going as ever, Walton embarks on a visit to the Ferns, unhappy owners of the depressed pig, where Moss, a farmer's son and a bit more worldly than his fellow Moosepathians, soon susses the problem.

With digressions for the furtherance of romance and good acquaintance, Reid piles misunderstandings upon misunderstandings, constructing a hilarious journey through the towns and by-ways of Maine and the social strata of its best inhabitants. It all culminates in a spectacular and chaotic natural disaster, reuniting the League and necessitating numerous rescues and confusion and some wonderfully vivid writing.

Lots of local color and history round out the adventure. Reid's prose is playful, witty and dry, as well as eloquent and visual. The contrast between the transparent innocence of the steadfastly clueless trio and the sharp wits of Sundry Moss (think young George Burns and Gracie Allen) is a pleasure, further enhanced by the ready-for-anything calm of Toby Walton. Reid (whose Maine roots go back more than two centuries) leaves us with a tantalizing hint of the next to come in the League's adventures. These books are for anyone who enjoys wit and good-natured storytelling in the Dickensian tradition.

If you want a lot of information about the navy then this is the perfect book for you. If you don't want to read a large book with a lot of information then don't waste your money and look for the info on the internet instead (but you won't get as much detail and accurate as this book).

This product is exactly what I was looking for. It was especially informative as to how tossing the hat at graduation started.Naval Ceremonies, Customs, and Traditions, Sixth Edition

This book is clearly inteded as a manual for naval officers. I don't doubt that it would come in useful. It's a true treasure trove of information concerning US Navy custom and traditions. But the best part is the fact that it goes extensively into the backgrounds of many of the traditions and customs the Navy is steeped in. It is a scholorly book on history as much as it is about custom and tradition.

As a person who's not in the navy and just has an interest in it's history, this book was extremely entertaining and informative. If you're interested in such things, this book is defiantely worth a look.

This is an excellent source of knowledge with a wealth of information. If you want to know about the origins of Naval terms and how certain Naval traditions came about (ie..The Crossing of the Equator, Change of Command ceromonies) this book explains most of it. My only complaint is that it revolves around the officer community too much. I think it would have helped to add some more enlisted info too! So I highly reccomend this book! Fair Winds and Following Seas!

I read this book of revelations from ~1950 and I humbly profess that the insights are true to this minute at my job. I am preparing a training session inspired by the fundamental analysis that Peter Drucker conceived for the intrinsic economic, social and political dimensions of enterprises.

I delayed reading his early works thinking that they would be excellently written, but outdated. How wrong can I be? If you believe in the noble crusade of management "sheparding the scarce resources of society", then you will have every book he ever wrote.

I read the Arabic translation 20 years ago. I've trained as an engineer. Meanwhile, reading on political economy was one of my best interests. This book made the ultimate connection: The Concept of Efficiency. Since then I began to see the world in a very different way. The bigger the corporation, the more efficient it is, and the more beneficent. That's it. Corporation is GOD (It was the mistake of Microsoft to behave as an aggressive small business!). Corporation is the most likely patron of science and technology. It's simply the engine for evolution in modern civilization. Drucker's idea that corporations are made to serve not to profit is daring, sometimes hard to conceive, but in core... it's brilliant!

I read the Arabic translation 20 years ago. I've trained as an engineer. Meanwhile, reading on political economy was one of my best interests. This book made the ultimate connection: The Concept of Efficiency. Since then I began to see the world in a very different way. The bigger the corporation, the more efficient it is, and the more beneficent. That's it. Corporation is GOD (It was the mistake of Microsoft to behave as an aggressive small business!). Corporation is the most likely patron of science and technology. It's simply the engine for evolution in modern civilization. Drucker's idea that corporations are made to serve not to profit is daring, sometimes hard to conceive, but in core... it's brilliant!

I read the Arabic translation 20 years ago. I've trained as an engineer. Meanwhile, reading on political economy was one of my best interests. This book made the ultimate connection: The Concept of Efficiency. Since then I began to see the world in a very different way. The bigger the corporation, the more efficient it is, and the more beneficent. That's it. Corporation is GOD (It was the mistake of Microsoft to behave as an aggressive small business!). Corporation is the most likely patron of science and technology. It's simply the engine for evolution in modern civilization. Drucker's idea that corporations are made to serve not to profit is daring, sometimes hard to conceive, but in core... it's brilliant!

This is a must-have book for nonprofit senior staffs as well as for volunteer board members who aspire to leadership and stewardship of the organizations they serve. It definitely lives up to the promise of the assertion on the book jacket that the authors, "...who collectively have more than 70 years of experience as chief executives, board members, and facilitators in the training of more than 20,000 board members in 20 countries..."

The book is comprised of 37 short chapters (typically 3-6 pages each) in five sections, designed to address all aspects of board service and board/staff issues. Each chapter provides facts, opinions, tools, and a few "suggested action steps" to help a board address the issue or situation presented in the chapter.

In general, the authors reference John Carver as a good resource for the theory and practice of nonprofit governance, but they don't make Carver the precise and proscriptive recipe that some adherents do. They admit the possibility that other techniques and structures can work well for certain organizations, while "sticking to their guns" in presenting their experiences and insights as having inherent value for most nonprofits.

I was especially impressed by the distinction made between the role of the board and the role of board members. Many policy governance disputes stem from a misunderstanding that, somehow, all board members should have the same responsibilities and be treated interchangeably.

I would have liked to see a clearer treatment of the issue of board diversity; interestingly, the authors seem to agree, admitting that it's a very difficult subject to address. Many board "diversity" programs focus on narrowly-defined "diversity" and run the danger of leading to "tokenism," according to the authors.

The charts and checklists that supplement the text are simple and effective. They're easy for readers to re-create and use in their own organizations.

The book even admits of the possibility that nonprofits can (and sometimes should) dissolve and disband, and provides strategies for helping board, staff, and community understand, accept, and even support the natural cycle of life as it applies to organizations. It's an important message and not a negative one.

Although originally published in December, 1997, it has already had three printings as of August, 1999. With 15 million volunteer board members in the U.S. alone, the publishers could run through many more printings.

Drawing on two lifetimes of experience, Andringa and Engstrom have addressed a broad array of crucial issues. I enjoyed the fact that it was long enough to deal throughly with dozens of key issues and yet moved quickly from topic to topic. I had several, "I wish I'd thought of that" moments when Andringa and Engstrom crystallized a thought I'd been rolling around in the foggy recesses of my mind.

CEO's of Non-Profits should take special note of the practical suggestions in chapters 5, 14, 19, 21 & 26. Board members who are serious about making a contribution will benefit greatly from chapters 1, 4, 5, 7, 16, 22, 28 & 34.

The book reads quickly and can be completed in one sitting but serves best as a reference with short practical responses to frequently asked questions.

Engstrom has produced many excellent works but I hope we will see more from Andringa as well.

The book is organized with very straightforward chapters with suggested action steps. The combination of discussion and practical application makes the book the one reference book needed for anyone working with nonprofits.
Excellence in governance can be achived by following this book. Excellence in government results in the most efficient use of staff and financial resources in fullfillment of the mission of a nonprofit.

Absolutely, without exception, this should be required reading for both new and experienced board members and senior management. Andringa and Engstrom, clearly, are not theoretical "ivory tower" authors. They've been in the trenches with the rest of us--and offer sound, practical counsel. It's a helpful book to give to new board members as part of their board orientation. Certainly every board chair needs one. Well worth the price. Board meetings will get done earlier if you take just 10% of the authors' advice!