Resources Books

this book should be a companion reader to the "OZ principal" in order to "see it" you need to know what your looking for. this book gives good insight to what your workers are thinking and feeling.

Over 50,000 employees tell why company morale and productivity are low and loyalty nonexistent in 30 Reasons Employees Hate Their Managers: What Your People May Be Thinking and What You Can Do About It. In synthesizing the surveys of over 50,000, this book helps pinpoint common problem areas, solutions which apply to the real world and work, and insights on the psychology of these solutions. A focus on each issue and how to resolve it lends practical analysis to the matter, making this a top pick recommended for both managers and business libraries seeking to quickly identify problems and enact changes based not upon time-consuming trial-and-error, but tested real-world experience.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book is simple, practical and easy to read. Citing data from Discovery Solutions wide normative database created from years of employee surveys, "30 Reasons Employees Hate Their Managers" highlights many of the more prevelant problems facing management today and offers clear tips and solutions to help make things better.

This book belongs on your bookshelf.

This book will be helpful to any manager. Bruce Katcher identifies organizational vulnerabilities that are often unknown to managers and executives. Each of the 30 chapters offers psychological insights and practical solutions to management problems from an outstanding organizational psychologist. I believe that Bruce Katcher's book can be a spring-board for the careers of readers. It presents valuable lessons that could take a life time to learn.

Mark Campbell, Author, "Five Gifts of Insightful Leaders"
www.mjcampbellassoc.com

The fact is that most employees don't really hate their managers. But lots of them are frustrated. In this glass-half-empty book, veteran organizational psychologist Bruce L. Katcher plumbs the survey research he has gathered over almost two decades to distill the 30 biggest frustrations of working men and women, including managers. More importantly, for each frustration he cites, Katcher offers up solutions that are as easy to implement as they are sensible. The wonder is that solutions like these are not more widely practiced. With books like this pointing the way, maybe one day they will be.

Always good to be open to all choices.
Very detailed and helpful.

provides insightful thoughts and alternative viewpoints to attacking route causes and focus to vexing problems -- not just alcohol

Kuddos to Ms Solomon for helping break us out of this religious tyranny. A much needed resource guide
to other approaches to alcoholism and addiction. My impression is that AA is just about the best recovery
program the 12th century has to offer. It is time to get into reality based programs with some scientific
basis as opposed to this faith based psycho-christian nonsense.

Reviewed by Louise Landeta for Reader Views (2/07)

The author's main point is that there are many other programs and approaches to dealing with addictive behaviors besides Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its twelve steps; yet the alternatives, while perhaps known within the recovery community, are not widely made known or available. She contends that AA is not as effective as most people think--her statistics are quite dismal, and some of the other programs have much more success. Mainly, Ms. Solomon wants to drive home the fact that while AA might be good for some people, and she has nothing against it, there are numerous other approaches that are effective as well. People are diverse and need diverse approaches to fit their individual needs.

Ms. Solomon shares the pitfalls of her own journey with addictive substances and her attempts to find help and support through AA to no avail, even though her own father was quite successful with the program. Her inability to recover through AA was a source of great sadness for her until she came to realize that lots of other people fail to recover through it as well. It was only through her own unrelenting search for alternatives that she found other programs and eventually something that worked for her.

The author is a good writer--her verbiage and syntax are on par, she provides data to back up her contentions, the content is well-organized and she cites her sources.

The basic theme in her thesis is that not everyone accepts the concept of a higher power and the basic assumption that they are helpless in the face of addiction. I believe this is a valid point. My only suggestion is that she seems to soft pedal this. I would be more comfortable if she would come right out with it--don't skirt around it. Be right up front with it.

I was interested in reviewing "AA Not the Only Way" because my work as a chaplain brings me into contact with various types of addicts. It will remain in my library as a useful future resource. I give it an A for all of the reasons cited above.

AA Not the Only Way is a resource for those seeking addiction counselling. Everyone has heard of AA but this type of program quite simply does not work for everyone. The author has personal experience in this situation. She tried AA and like many people when she kept relapsing she blamed herself for somehow failing the program. This pattern changed when the author found a program that suited her needs and specific issues.

Since AA does not suit everyone's needs and because most people don't realize that they have other options, the author has compiled information on alternate programs. Some programs require total abstinence and others look to teach moderation. There are also programs specifically tailored for women or specifically for men. The overlying philosophy, background, and contact information is included for each of these programs. Lists of licensed professionals, treatment centers, and other useful resources are also included.

I searched for an alternative to your typical soporific journal of effective leadership/management "nuggets", and I found this book instead. Outstanding book with great lessons. This book stayed glued to my hands for the 3 days it took me to digest it in its entirety. Regardless of your management experience, many lessons are to be learned from this easy read.

I have been a supervisor for over 15 years and could totaly relate to what Justin (the main character) experienced. This book is well written and the short chapters make it very easy to follow. I also laughed, cried and experinced numerous emotions while reading this book as mentioned in another review. This is the first book a have read in a few years and I finished it in 4 days as I could not put it down. I would strongly suggest that all supervisors new and experienced read this book.

Practical business skills woven into a heart filled story that benefits all relationships.

Learning happens best when it's something we can relate to. In Ask Dr. Mac, author Greg Giesen weaves a story that almost every person in management and human resources can relate to well. Relating is easy for many because the story is all too familiar...the employee who is thrust into management without adequate preparation, thrown into the deep end of the pool with no swimming lessons. Instead of floundering and improvising for every decision, Giesen shows us how "authentic leadership" can be developed by sharing the sound principles of effective human relationships and management. Based in part on a real life mentor, who, like the author, I was privilaged to have known, Ask Dr. Mac provides a guided path through the trackless and sometimes confusing wold of the new manager. Greg Giesen adds to this wisdom the welath of knowledge that has come from his own long and highly effective career as a business consultant. Read it, and put it to use!

I laughed, I cried, I learned!
The characters and storyline are well developed making this an interesting read, not dry like so many management books. The leadership and relationship skills can, and should, be utilized by everyone - not just new managers.

Dan Poynter's book is a virtual gold mine for authors and publishers. He shares his years of experience in the publishing business with a dictionary of every aspect of publishing, promoting and sales of books. Dan shares the secrets of e-books, audio-books and where to go to get the author's books changed to digital copies for mass marketing on the internet. This is his best book yet.

Poynter's Encyclopedia and Shepards' Aiming at Amazon are both perfect manuals for anybody interested in self-publishing. Brief, informative, and easy to use - what else is needed? Highly recommended.

Yuval Lirov, Practicing Profitability - Billing Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinics and Chiropractic Offices: Collections, Audit Risk, SOAP Notes, Scheduling, Care Plans, and Coding

Poynter, as always, knows his subject: Self-publishing. This book hits all the high points in an easy-to-access format.

Loads of useful information for the self-publisher/author. I would have
preferred to have it in chapter form. That would have made it more readable.

If you have questions about the publishing industry, you will be hard-pressed to find a better resource than Dan Poynter's book, The Book Publishing Encyclopedia. This alphabetical resource guide is filled with facts, figures, tips, and tactics.

Any resource guide filled with so much information is bound to motivate a writer to continue striving for the exciting status of publication. It becomes a matter of absorbing enough information and doing enough research about all the available publishing options to make the right decision. Not all authors are destined for Random House, but that doesn't mean they have to remain unpublished. There are alternatives! Whether you are seeking an independent press, a mainstream publisher, or the convenience of a turn-key publisher, this book defines the terms you should know. - Brent Sampson, author of Self-Publishing Simplified

I think this book is great. It has a TON of ideas for learning centers and it keeps preschool simple as it should be. I love it.

I absolutely LOVE this book!! It is the best preschool curriculum book that I have gotten in recent history... I refer to it so often that almost each page has a post-it with notes attached!

The book is great because it offers something unique: It is organized by Learning Style/ Multiple Intelligences which highlights how young children learn and adopt skills for everyday!

The Complete Daily curriculum offers ideas for many different themes in enough detail that you can easily see how children will learn from it and what skills it will promote- the majority of the activities are also inexpensive and simple in procedure and materials to fit small budgets as well. The Appendices are also thorough with stories, songs, templates for games, learning centers, patterns and recipes and even a section explaining Multiple Intelligences and a sample letter to provide for parents!

This book is definitely a must have for preschool classrooms!!

This resource help me alot with my preschool lesson plans. I can fine any activity for the theme of the week.

I have a 7 year old that I homeschool and was looking for something for my 3 year old. I have been so pleased with this purchase. Both my 7 and 3 year old have so much fun doing the activities that I ordered a copy for a friend. Her and her family are also having a blast with the book. Every one with small children should have a copy of this book on hand. I wish I'd had it years ago!

I have taught five and six year olds for years. This year I'll be working with four year olds. I bought about a dozen books to help with my programming but this really is the only book I needed to buy. It's FANTASTIC! It tells you what to do for morning circle, story ideas, music and movement ideas, a range of learning centres that cater for the preferred learning styles of the children and then ideas for reflection in the closing circle. It does all this on hundreds of themes and then gives assessment ideas too. I LOVE THIS BOOK.

One of the best books on taking an outside look into how we do business, live and experience the world as people, not just consumers.Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out

I have read tons of books on business practice and ethos. Rushkoff brought a great mix of theory and practical examples that are working in the real world of business. This book is the business version of "positive psychology", which advises that we develop our strengths and most problems will self correct. In this case it is, pursue your deepest values and you won't have to spend all your resources on marketing. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is involved in an organization at any level. I am a pastor of a church and it has provided many thought provoking concepts to explore in our context.

I'll admit, it took me awhile to really get into this book. Once I got through the first couple of chapters of "Get Back in the Box" though, I couldn't wait to read more of it.

The author, Douglas Rushkoff, feels that we're in the midst of a renaissance in creativity and collaboration. As he puts it, "genuine creativity is a result not of out-of-the-box thinking, but of true expertise." Here's a great example he used partway through the book: The person that decided (years ago) to put a VCR and TV into one device wasn't really innovating. The person who came up with TiVo, on the other hand, was a genius and someone who truly had a handle on people's viewing habits.

He's got an entire chapter on what he refers to as "social currency." The retailers featured as noteworthy examples in this chapter include B&N ("the store is a social hub"), Guitar Center ("it's a place to try out pretty much any piece of musical instrument there is--and to play on it for hours") and the Apple Store (described as "a little cathedral"). I tend to think Starbucks fits the mold as well. In fact, this chapter got me wondering about what would happen if Starbucks and Apple ever decided to create some co-branded shops...

Here are a few of the other interesting tidbits I highlighted throughout this book:

** ...customers don't want to communicate with brands anymore...they want to communicate through them...

** Although we claim we want more leisure time, we are much more likely to find an opportunity for genuinely fulfilling engagement and learning at work.

** It's about learning to tinker, to tweak, and to test the most basic, underlying assumptions of one's core business or technology.

** (Regarding focus groups...) In the vast majority of the dozens of groups I've observed or led, the purpose was less to glean new insights than to confirm the insights already held.

This turned out to be a very enjoyable book with all sorts of great observations.

A great book. Reading this was like a breath of fresh air and really changed my thinking about technology, innovation, design and the hope for creating a livable world.

Where to start...

I rated this 4 stars; 5 stars for being thought provoking and reinforcing my notions of what businesses should be concerned with, and 3 stars for the authors glaring examples of old-renaissance ideas/execution that didn't/don't work, yet providing nothing more than hindsight.

I agree with the previous post that the first half of the book was better than the second half. There are so many examples that are counter to the authors examples, but I'll give a few here.

First, in the absense of fullfilment opportunity exists. While Wal-Mart may be an evil company for some of its practices it also provides people in developing countries with a job, where none may have existed before. If you have no food and someone gives you a scrap then you at least survive to move onto a larger portion. If those who are employed at Wal-Mart cannot find another job that pays more than minimum wage then I would suggest going to a library and start learning...it has free internet access...

Second, many of the arguments made throughout the book are based on a circular reference that is incapable of breaking down, when in fact it would break down. If a=b=c=d...y=z and z=a then for values of a-z that fluctuate so does the continuum. Every example given in the book relating to whatever currency units are give follows the same principle: that at some point, hidden beneath the guise of logic and play, energy will need to be expended that is not optimally or even close to optimally what any person would normally do in search of or in realizing the new renaissance. This breaks the whole model and I suppose it also degrades innovation at the same time.

Third, open-source software, though trendy, has limitations. Imagine a world where function a is performed via single open-source project composing of a single developer, then fast-foward t years where function a is now performed by 1000 different projects each with 1000 developers (who share the same egos), in the meantime you have some number of function a demand satisfied by 1000 projects so a/1000. All of the sudden you have function b that people just though of at t+1 days, but only a small portion like 1% of function a projects are compatible...but the developers of function a projects not wanting their egos to be crushed realize this and perhaps migrate over to the small % of function a projects that are compatible...leaving the other 99% of function a projects to be picked up by some developer(s), whos egos aren't as big, to try and work something out with function b compatibility. Now you have function a compatible projects with a huge number of developers wanting to make their mark with function b, but the 99% of the people who utilize function a and now function b must switch to projects that are fully compatible and relearn, etc. The point is that people want recognition, however good or bad that may be, but it's the truth...even authors put their name, photo, etc.

Fourth, I agree that understanding your "core competencies" are very important and understanding the "source code" and "patterns" is nice, but what really got me was how high people must be in order to realize that this is the path to eternal bliss or "play." I mean who in their right mind would choose to clean out a septic tank as a way of "playing" or even perform surgery on someone's brain...just for fun, when you know that someone's life depended on whether you were qualified or not. If you aren't qualified then doesn't that introduce a classe system of sorts? Who would regulate this...would this person think that telling someone they are incompetent was "playing?" It's clear that any system which qualifies someone as being able to perform a specific action, no matter how much fun they might have, is clearly old renaissance and the illusion of new renaissance is just that (not in entirety, but practicality).

Fifth, while some people prefer to solve challenging problems, others would rather just sit around surfing, etc. What do we do with those people? Where would they get their surfboards, wax, wetsuits, food? I'll tell you who...the people that have enough resources at their disposal to just sit back and ponder how the old renaissance is coming to an end in favor of the new renaissance.

Sixth, peoples faith often becomes a paramount influence in the actions they undertake. Some are at extreme ends and radicalize what is otherwise a very moral and just view of how things should be. These radicals often carry out actions against others because their convictions are so strong and so outside of the middle that even if the middle moves it will not be enough so enough will be "encouraged." This artificial skewing leads to others ultimately forgoing "play" in order to build a counter-trend necessary to prevent skewing that is non-organic. In the end you have a reduction in pure innovation (good) and an increase in pure existence. I'm guessing that the author was too busy contemplating whether or not we could he didn't think whether or not we should...

Seven, the book discusses how currency became the demise of society as it pertains to interest, greed, etc. However, in the Paypal example he exalts that business for being upstanding and trying this new thing, but it ultimately fails because of the banks...yada, yada, yada. Anyways, Paypal was earning interest on the float vs. charging money for its service. How is that new renaissance? If we take the banks out of the equation so that interest is no longer accrued then who pays for the hosting, data, maybe it's those people who like to play in data centers. But then, who builds the steel racks, elevated floors, servers, ethernet cables, routers, switches, supplies power, constructs the building, stays up all night trying to figure out why no interest is being accrued :)

Well, that was more of a rant than anything else. I'm glad this book cemented my ideas about open-source software and about how so many company executives are in such disrepair. Innovation...hmmm...whenever I have a bug in software I usually just open a debugging program that I purchased and print-out the portion of code via a printer, utilizing a driver, written by some person of gets off on that sorta thing...but would they do it for free if there other needs weren't being met...I don't think so.

There's a reason why doctors get paid so much money, there's are reason why people do jobs they wouldn't otherwise do, there's a reason why the new renaissance only exists in the imagination of Gene Roddenberry. The have's and the have not's exist today, and perhaps in the 21st century we can combat much of this gap; however, until everyone is content with their existence and opportunity for existence then we will not reach the new renaissance. Indeed, it will only exist where truly innovative ideas take place...our isolated dreams...

Steve Chandler and Duane Black present an approach to management that promises to lower your stress level, increase your happiness and allow everyone in your organization to be more creative and productive. The idea is that old-style, hands-on micromanagement does not engage today's workers. The book tries to persuade readers through emotional appeals, which can be illuminating but sometimes appear strained. The book includes interesting quotes from all kinds of people, including Peter Drucker, Deepak Chopra, Napoleon Hill (whom the authors criticize), Voltaire and others. We say the authors' core ideas are persuasive, but the style might lean a little too much on intangible insights for some readers. However, this is a great book if you are a stressed-out manager who wants to find a new approach. Read this, calm down and stop micromanaging.

The Hands-Off Manager's chapter headings include uncomplicated titles such as "Using the Power of Neutral" (Chapter 3) and "Letting Go of Judgment" (Chapter 11), but this book is far from simplistic. I began reading with the thought that I would skim the book in an hour or two. I soon found that there are truths here that deserve a slow, careful read.

The book's writers, consultant and author Steve Chandler and construction executive Duane Black, have outlined a plan for transforming a company's culture from one of judgment and criticism to one of leading employees to contribute more than any goal or KPI will motivate them to achieve. The book makes a logical, persuasive case for managing people in a way that gets them thinking about how they can contribute to the success of the company, and in doing so, make work fun and rewarding. It teaches managers how to create constructive relationships with their employees, and in doing so, significantly reduce their own stress levels.

In my work as a corporate trainer, I began incorporating principles from the book into several training courses a few months ago. The effect the book has on each group of managers is the same. They recognize the truths contained in the book, see how applying them will reduce stress and make them more effective leaders, and ask for more training based on the principles in the book.

Read this book with thought and care, and you'll change the way you think about management and leadership.

Great Book! I give this 5 stars. There are few people in life and business that look within and do their own internal work. There are a lot of teachers in the world that have helpful information. Then there are those few teachers that consistently look inside themselves and these are the true leaders of our world.

Duane Black is one of those leaders that is consistently walking his talk. As a successful small business owner for more than 20 years, I have recently found myself holding the position of manager of a small group of entrepreneurs. Duane Black and Steve Chandler's ability to take all different types of information and philosophies and bring them back to personal responsibility has been done with grace.

We are all observers of the people around us. A great manager is one that is observing himself and is by doing so, much more effective in assisting others in empowering themselves.

Great reading!

Grant Helgeson
Scottsdale, Arizona

I have experienced this type of success when leading volunteer groups but haven't been able to define the formula until reading this book. When people volunteer, you can't fire them. If you lose them you have to do all the work yourself! You have to figure out a way to use what they have to offer. The principles in this book work!

Managing the folks in today's workforce is very different than it was a few decades back. They usually don't take well to rigidity, conformity, or being told anything. Steve Chandler and Duane Black believe there is a great way to manage them and to improve their life and yours. They call it hands-off managing. That is, you don't try to control them by turning and pushing them (metaphorically) in a specific direction. What they believe is that you should spend more time helping your employees understand who they are as people and why they can use their work to help them express that unique self they have to contribute. Sounds a bit squishy? Yeah, me too. However, there really is a solid core behind the kind of soft metaphors they use to express it.

Much of the book is focused on getting you to treat yourself this way. The idea is to lower your stress levels by not forcing yourself to be a certain way, don't worry so much about overcoming and willing things into existence. Rather, relax and find your own core and your true gifts and then you will be ready to lead others this way. Several times they say (probably too many times) that the best gift you can give another is the gift of them self.

The book is full of anecdotes from their own coaching experiences to illustrate their points. They also use quotes from the likes of Deepak Chopra (this always raises my concerns about the point being made), Napoleon Hill (whom they also bash for using the work think), Voltaire (!), and many others. They also make some really odd comments. One being that DeNiro was channeling a dead boxer in "Raging Bull". Hmmm. Jake LaMotta was not only alive when the film was made (he was born in 1921), he is alive in 2007.

While I quite enjoy their point about the new work force, not trying to force things so much, focusing only on the present and the one most important task, I found the packaging of the ideas a tad saccharine. It is up to you whether you will find it appealing.

I found that this book had a great many resources online for finding physicians within particular specialties (i.e. one site for radiology doctors, one site for cardiology doctors, etc), but did not have mention of any sites that put all specialties and regions together. One such site to find a doctor is http://www.appointmentnet.com, or even WebMD... although Appointment Net has the easiest search for finding doctors, and even allows you to make appointments and renew prescriptions online.

The web is like the Tower of Babble - jammed with information but difficult to sort out. This book is an invaluable guide to the many, often confusing, sources of online health information. Buy it. Use it. Profit from it.

I found this book to be extremely valuable. Not only does it immeasurably help you to research healthcare and related issues, but it is an excellent reference for understanding how to research healthcare providers. My wife and I will keep this on our short list of resources for good living.

When I was diagnosed with cancer three years ago and spent a lot of time researching the disease and its treatment, "Healthcare Online" was exactly the kind of book I needed but didn't have. It's clear and easy-to-use, though quite sophsticated in its research assistance, and very, very helpful in providing ways to separate out the valid information from the misleading or phony stuff. In the areas I researched intensively, it lists all the sources I eventually found for myself, plus some very useful sites I never discovered. I often counsel newly-diagnosed individuals with my disease and now will pass on this book as a gold mine for their own inquiries.

Healthcare for Dummies validates the Internet as a research tool. It provides qualified healthcare sources with which to help ourselves, our families and friends.
I needed immediate information to help my mother cope with my Father who has Alzheimer's. I not only found organizations with information on Alzheimer's, but sources for my Mother (the caregiver) to contact for guidance and assistance.
Healthcare is rarely one issue. This guide can assist in the search for information on conditions, treatments as well as insurance and life stage issues -- all available on the Internet.

By Bill Seelig, President, S&C, Harnessing the Power of Families in Business

Ray Brun has written another out-and-out homerun! This booklet is chucked full of practical, real world strategies for hiring the best of the best. Ray is one of the country's premier business consultants; having worked with hundreds of successful owners of small and mid-size companies. He gets to the critical components of hiring and recruiting with clarity and a sense of wisdom; honed by years in the hiring, consulting trenches. A must read for those of us responsible for building winning teams.

An excellent instructional book filled with real world helpful input on how to attract and retain quality employees. A good read and excellent value!!

Ray has put together a must read for all business owners or any leader looking to recruit the top human capital to their organizations. "How small businesses capture talent" is a great starting point for anyone looking to successfully hire winners!
Robert L S Boroff
Managing Director & CEO
Reaction Search International Inc.

This book is the best of Ray, his insightful yet practical approach to people. Each of the strategies will work to advance solutions to that never ending challenge of getting and keeping the best team.

My clients have seen success implementing these techniques and have better organizations as a result. They have seen unexpected success with the use of "branding" which is very unique approach for a small or closely held businesses.

When "times are uncertain", it is the best time to improve the quality of our organizations. Ray's book is the right tool for today's times!!!
Thanks, Ray!

This useful guide is packed with creative tips and novel strategies for recruiting the best candidates. Pages 7 and 8 (which cover the 4 critical steps to avoid hiring mistakes by getting clarity on what you really need) are worth the price of the entire book, but don't stop reading there. Brun doesn't mince words or give flowery explanations - he gets right to the point. (Something any busy executive will appreciate) He also supports every strategy with concise real world examples.

If you are frustrated that you can't seem to get enough qualified applicants for your important positions, stop complaining and put this book to work for your business.

This book is now required reading for my clients that are building (or re-building) their team.

Chip Doyle
Sandler Sales Institute

A self-described "working class intellectual" with a passion for collecting jazz records and a "flunky gig" as a file clerk in a VA hospital, Harvey Pekar pioneered the literary comic genre. His long-running series American Splendor portrays not caped superheroes with bulging muscles, but the everyday life of an ordinary guy in Cleveland. Pekar's autobiographical vignettes are introspective, honest, and often funny, candidly revealing his flaws and failures as he pushes on heroically in pursuit of love, companionship, and creative fulfillment.

Pekar's realistic dialogue (the characters speak in different dialects, which helps you "hear" them in your head) accompanies a wide range of art styles by a number of comic artists, from the quirkiness of R. Crumb to the stark realism of Greg Budgett and Gary Dumm and the meticulous, photographic detail of Gerry Shamray.

For me, this book was a great introduction to an addictive series. Chock full of amusing anecdotes and musings on everything from race relations in Cleveland to the joy of a good pair of shoes, it's a slice of life in comic book form.

I've been a fan of Harvey Pekar's work for over fifteen years. The first time I ever read his self-published comix, American Splendor, I was impressed by its examination of everyday life. His self-effacing humor grows on those who want more than mainstream comics starring spandex-clad teens with superpowers. Compared with Pekar, Spidey has it easy.

I was happy when this movie tie-in release of his early collected work was published. The everyday brilliance of the real life interactions between Pekar and his friends, co-workers and loved ones merit more attention by discerning readers. It would behoove anyone who cares about the comix medium to claim a copy for their personal reading enjoyment. This volume is not for collectors, but for fans of alternative graphic literature who want more meat and potatoes rather than the visual eye candy of more mainstream publishers.

Pekar has been described as a "working class intellectual" (The Comics Journal), and this label is respectfully accurate. He comes from a generation who grew up devouring a culture that had more respect for intelligence than is common today. Instead of just mourning this trend, Pekar rebels from it in true beatnik fashion. His long-time association with R. Crumb (who drew the very first American Splendor story, "The Harvey Pekar Name Story") attracted other artists within Cleveland as well as from other locations as the series has progressed.

The everyday heroism of Pekar working a civil service job in order to create his vision of the potential of graphic literature comes through in every page of this collection. I am glad that there are other collections and issues of American Splendor that are available. It would be grand if future generations of comix fans could gravitate around the work that Pekar has never tired from creating. Even at the worst of his lymphoma and chemo treatments, he has never quit observing and relating the drama of everyday life.

i own i think every american splendor collection book there is, and this one is my favorite. there's a few in particular that really blow me away (the one with pekar wondering around a park, reflecting on his past marriage, his present, and whether there is a God is spectacular). there are a wide variety of artists, from the goofy robert crumb drawings to more serious ones. there are certainly weak points IMO, but not as much as in the other collections. while "the quitter" is his most consistent i've read so far, there's no replacement for finding a really cool comic collection like this and reading through it, finding a bunch of random pekar stories and seeing which ones you enjoy best.

American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar is the largest published collection of the comic series, containing the complete text of American Splendor and More American Splendor. With an introduction by R. Crumb and art by Kevin Brown, Gregory Budgett, Sean Carroll, Sue Cavey, R. Crumb, Gary Drumm, Val Materick, and Gerry Shamray this is 320 pages of a classic American comic.

Pekar's work is a cerebral approach to the comic medium. Many of the panels have no dialog and only illustrate the external while the text reveals the thought stream of Pekar's mind. His ability to portray the inner workings of his thoughts, in a humorous and sympathetic manner, is the key to the success of his writings. The comic is a working class version of Seinfeld with a populist self-made intellectual as the leading character. Yet there is a Existentialist angst to this work that puts it in a class by itself.

This collection of Pekar writings from the 1970s and 80s was issued on the heels of the film "American Splendor," and it collects some of the best of Pekar's earlier work. Although not exclusively chronological, the presentation of the material gives a good idea of Pekar's life from his post-high school days through his meeting and marrying Joyce Brabner. (For a strictly chronological memoir, see Pekar's recent The Quitter.)

In the later Pekar work, the centerpiece of much of it is Pekar's obsessive-compulsive anxiety. But a lot of this work focuses on what might be described as Pekar's existential anxiety: his terrible loneliness, his anger and alienation, his dark reflections on the meaning of life, his desire for recognition, his regret over wasted opportunities and adolescent hubris, and his worries about future contingencies (financial security, illness and death, old age). The Pekar who comes through in these pages isn't the lovable crank of the film. Rather, the person who comes through is the outsider, a self-educated man, extremely knowledgeable in literature and music, who disdains a "normal" lifestyle and seeks freedom through nonconformity. Perhaps the finest single piece Pekar has ever written, "I'll be Forty-three on Friday (How I'm Living Now)" speaks to all this. The collection's lead story, "The Harvey Pekar Name Story," in which Pekar winds up asking "Who IS Harvey Pekar?" is a perfect set-up.

Of course, there are also lighter moments in this collection. Mr. Boats (wonderfully illustrated by R. Crumb) appears here a couple of times, and he's always good for a bit of gently funny homespun wisdom. "Mrs. Roosevelt and the Young Queen of Greece" and "On the Corner: A Sequel, June 1976" are touching pieces about the bittersweetness of memory. And the penultimate story in the collection, "Common Sense," would make even a dyed-in-the-wool misanthrope love humanity.

Highly recommended.