Complaints Books

One of the most clearly wtitten legal books I have read..And for it being a legal reference book thats saying alot!!!

Having to go to court several times, this book proved to be a valuable resource. It taught me what to expect from the legal system in a step by step form. It covers how to choose an attorney to all the trial procedures. It makes the whole idea of going to court a lot easier.

The authors give honest information on every part of the trial and the trial process. You will learn how to file a complaint to answering a complaint. It gives real information on the process of the trial from filing motions, seeking discovery and settling your case. It caps with judgments and appeals.

I like how the authors make everything easy to understand and the advice is completely useable. This can be used if this is you first time in court or your tenth.

Footnote: Nolo press is the best company that produces law books for the common person. They are always easy to read and pact with good advice.


Enjoy

This is a very useful guide to achieving and maintaining optimal health.

Most of us, even those without a major illness, have some sort of health challenge - skin problems, poor digestion, insomnia, etc. Dr. Rona discusses many of these conditions, their possible causes, and how to use lifestyle changes and self-treatment (diet, exercise, vitamins, herbs) to relieve the symptoms and improve overall health. He also encourages readers to see an MD for conventional treatment when necessary. The suggestions are very comprehensive and practical, and I like the focus on nutrition. The recipes in the back (by Jeanne Marie Martin) are simple and tasty.

The tone of the book is also appreciated. It's nice to see an MD who, while evidently an expert in his field, leaves room for individual differences and doesn't talk as if he has all the answers. It's a pleasant contrast to doctors such as the aforementioned Andrew Weil, whose books firmly exhort some practices and "pooh-pooh" others, then have to change their tune when new information comes out (such as the research showing that beta-carotene supplements might not be such a good idea).

When you're addressing the great mysteries of health and the body, a little humility is much appreciated!

Dear Amazon, Today (14 June 96) I will send you a review of Returnto the Joy of Health by Dr. Bob Sager; the review was emailed to me by Dr. Rona who informs me that the review is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. Cordially, Brent Rooney (whatsup@vcn.bc.ca)

The book is easy to follow, informative, and demonstrates helpful information about content and purpose.

I have 2 books: one at home and one at work. I've been using them a lot especially when I needed to write letters to different companies or people. My letters always worked. It's a great book!

When I picked up this book, I thought it was going to be about gangsters in the 1930s. This is not what the book is about. It's still pretty good, with many funny descriptions of sex, sexual neuroses, sexual frustration, sexual mishaps, sexual acts, sexual regrets, sexual descriptions, etc. The level of Alexander Portnoy's introspection and self-awareness makes for a compelling read. The fact that there were no gangsters (as I had expected) did not, in the end, make me too sad, nor did it makes me regret reading this book.

Perhaps influeced by Italo Svevo's ZENO'S CONSCIENCE and J.D. Salinger's THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, but far more bawdy and hilarious.

Roth is at his wildest here. Using the very singular point of view of Alexander Portnoy, a 33-year-old, sexually obsessed, guilt-ridden, nearly self-hating Jew who wants nothing more than to rid himself of his parents' overbearing influence, Roth channels a thousand different voices and skips back and forth in time to tell us Portnoy's life story. Mostly, we learn about his family life, romantic conquests and sexual proclivities -- which include the hilarious and unfortunate tale of a piece of raw liver!

The book reads like one long monologue and yet is never tiresome. By far the funniest work of literary fiction I've ever read. Ten stars! Don't miss this one.

Philip Roth's 'Portnoy's Complaint' offers the reader a fresh take on the Novel while never forgetting the tradition of the great writers that came before him.

Porntoy's complaint is a character study in the form of a monologue made by Alexander Portnoy, a successfull Jew. However, Alex suffers from an inner conflict that is dividing and tormenting him. On one hand he loves his family, and he serves his community dutifully. On the other hand he is tormented by his childhood and his overbearing mother. He's also a bit of a sexual deviant, and feels guilty for indulging in a number of sexual fetishes.


The book is incredibly funny. You'll laugh out loud at the Alex's recollection of his childhood, masterbating in the bathroom while his mom calls into him, "Don't flush Alex! I want to see what's in your stool!"

The book is also highly influential. Philip Roth has invented the "Self Loathing Jew". If you're at all a fan of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, then you simply MUST read this book. It's obvious that David got many of his comic ideas about Jewishness from directly from Roth.

If there's a complaint I have about the book it would be that the novel feels incomplete. I found myself hoping throughout that we'd get to hear Alex engage in some dialoge with his shrink. Instead the whole book is a monologue made by Alex, directed at his shrink. Sometimes this approaches on overwhellming, but the length of the novel and it's pacing and the variety and quality of the antecdotes from his past keep the reader intrueged.

What exactly does Alex tell his Shrink? Well, he spends most of the time talking about his overbearing Mother. He tells about his high school addiction to masterbation. He talks about his on again off again relationship with his girlfriend 'The Monkey'. As well as previous relationships he had durring college. Finally, he talks about his trip to Israel and his sexual exploits there.

I picked up Portnoy's Complaint expecting that it would not disappoint. More than one reader whom I respect a great deal told me that I should not neglect Portnoy's Complaint in my quest to understand how highly Roth is regarded in the literary world. For the most part, I loved Roth's American Pastoral. Save for one passage that made me laugh out loud and one passage about a neighborhood softball game, Portnoy's Complaint was a 287-page rant (I defy you to shuffle through the book randomly and find a page that isn't peppered with exclamation marks) that I suppose carried a great deal of shock value when it was published in the late sixties. Roth's Afterword is immensely more interesting than the novel.

Like so many things in this world: you either love them or hate them. This book would be one item added to that list.

The topics of this book can frustrate and upset countless readers. It is semi-autobiographical - which delivers mainly Jewish humor - about the sexual frustrations of the New Jersey raised Jewish boy of his just-before-the-baby-boomer generation. From that backdrop, you are then sent to read hundreds of pages about masturbation, fellatio, cunnilingus, and more. To some, no matter how well written, these topics are taboo and not for their enjoyment.

The style of this book is a stream of consciousness narrative, flowing in and out, jumping topics and times in truly narrative fashion, reflecting basically on sexual conquests and mores. It is like a very long session with a psychologist or psychiatrist. And, appropriately ends with, "So [said the doctor]. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?"

Published when the play "Hair" was rocking the charts [1969], this book is as much about its time as it is about Jewish frustration. Having grown up in those times in a Jewish neighborhood, I liked this book - but did not love it. I loved some portions - his desecration of rabbis is unparalleled when he writes, "Oh God, oh Guh-ah-duh, if you're up there shining down your countenance, why not spare us from here on out the enunciation of the rabbis! Why not spare us rabbis themselves! Look, why not spare us religion, if only in the name of human dignity!" More of the times than of Jewish humor, yes?

Between the writing style and topics, may readers will be upset. The seemingly "private jokes" often utilizing Yiddish to accentuate their cynical zingers, really could be applied to other ethnicities, save the Yiddish terms. But, New York/New Jersey humor, even if about "clean" topics can be beyond reader's desired topics. Just not for this reader.

There are screaming times in this book when Roth shows that his comedic writing style is equal to the best stand up comics of his generation. He proves in this book, and perhaps "Goodnight Columbus", that he was a forerunner of the great cynical humor which pervaded movies and television from his generation forward. His style is copied throughout Norman Lear's mega-successful series, is perhaps what made Woody Allen a social hero in the 1970's, and may be the creator of other modern comics - including Howard Stern whose attempts to shock people about sexual innuendo today are no more revolutionary than what Roth provides in this novel.

For social importance, this is a great novel. For humor it is a great novel. As for comfort in reading, it is a good novel. I would not force this book upon any of those who may be insulted or shocked by its topics. Hence, I deliver my endorsement with caution.

Robert Hughes is one of my favorite writers on history and art, and I also enjoyed his book, The Fatal Shore, a history of the Botany Bay colony in Australia. Hughes has always had an interest in modern art (many of you may recall his great TV series, "The Shock of the New," back in the 80's), and since much of modern art has come out of America, perhaps it's no surprise he wrote this book, which takes a broader look at American culture.

Hughes's devastating critique of the foibles of modern American politics, political correctness, racial and gender issues, pop culture, post-modern criticism, and graduate liberal arts education, to name a few of the things he takes aim at, is articulate, entertaining, and deadly accurate. Unlike the post-modern critics whose obscure and turgid prose he skewers, Hughes knows how to write, and he puts that to good effect in this book. Cultural ideas, icons, and events, both high- and lowbrow, don't fail to escape his purview and his petard. (He even has an entertaining discussion of religion and masturbation on pages 56-57).

Hughes's book reminds me of another important work, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, by sociologist Daniel Bell, in which he noted America is a country where seemingly paradoxical cultural traits often find happy marriages and perhaps even happier divorces. And as Hughes points out, our increasingly politically correct Zeitgeist threatens to underwhelm us all with the ever more blanched and bloodless cornucopia of American pop culture.

Overall, this is a fun romp through the cultural minefield of modern America, and I'd actually give it 4.5 stars if I could. If we listen to Hughes, perhaps it won't become the sterile, cultural necropolis full of the "stuffed and hollow" men that T.S. Elliot wrote about in his famous poem, "The Wasteland."

I bought this book years ago, and surprisingly, it holds up very well for a political/current affairs book. Most political stuff is immediate and topical, and dates withing hours nowadays. But Robert Hughes, an Australian that has been living in the US for a while now, has managed to make a book that's lasting in its critiques of America, its government, its liberal and conversative elites, and its electorate. He blasts both the left and the right, but it's not just the easy "they're all corrupt" line. He gives many examples of their intolerance of each other and anything that may disagree with their ideology. In the 1990's, the American people were subjected to a two sided repression in which the right wing and the left wing colloborated (probably unconsciously), but both sides were conscious in their quest for power and influence. The right employed their usual "sex is evil, liberals are godless" stuff, but the left came up with their obsession with PC language, victimhood, and forced, not natural, multiculturalism. He also writes of the politicization of the arts, and how those who created "art" simply used it as a soapbox to preach to the choir and accuse anyone who disagreed with them of being a right wing fascist, racist pig. This is a really well thought out book, not just an ignorant diatribe, and Hughes can actually write. Many political writers just churn out books that end up in the bargain bin, both literally and figuratively. Despite the fact that this book is out of print, it still holds up very well, and Hughes's criticques are still valid today.

Funny, when I think of the term "culture of complaint", this book is the first thing that comes to mind as being a document belonging to that culture.This book is motivated less by thought than by curmudgeonliness. Hughes is a poor thinker and an abominable art critic. He consistently mistakes artistic innovation as "poor quality", often evaluating art which occupies an interstice between established forms by rigid and inappropriate terms.(His particular condemnation of certain artists reveals his unfamiliarity with their actual work; he perpetuates misrepresentations of the artists that were, in fact, conceived by the right wing.) Hughes does not think in social terms; rather, his naive analyses are informed only by his unexamined taste-- a taste continuous with that held by many other individuals who happen to be heterosexual, white, male, aged, and grumpy. A coincidence, Hughes would suppose.

Robert Hughes takes aim at Americans' preoccupation with victimhood, the battleground of multiculturalism, and the mediocrity of modern art in this collection of three essays expanded from speeches that he had given. I basically agree with him, but the first two sections of this book read like the ramblings of a grouchy old man, albeit a very well-educated one. It comes alive in the final section, in which Hughes laments that Americans have come to see art as something therapeutic, that the intention to heal or offer solace has come to be of more value than the technical merits of the piece. This section also includes a very interesting and entertaining account of the furor over the work of Robert Mappelthorpe.

Granted, attacking contemporary America's cultural love for the debased, the self-indulgent extreme, the hapless and unskilled mediocrity as well as the insipid cults that have risen around exhalting the helpless victim, nurturing the stunted "inner child" and bandaging the wounded self-esteem seems too obvious.

Fortunately TIME Magazine Art Critic and writer extraordinaire Robert Hughes laces his acid-dripping pen with adroit observations and incredible verbal acrobatics in an all-out attack that provides hints of solutions and actual celebrations of all that is good in America.

Hughes pulls no punches and spares no prisoners as he lambasts (always with great aplomb and wit) extremism from both sides. Liberals and Conservatives receive broadsword swashes and pin-point snipes in equal measures. Hughes calls ultimately calls for true eclectism as opposed to multi-culturalism- a movement in his mind that wrongly excludes other cultures in favor of often fictious historical revisionism.

The rich bounty of American Culture, Hughes claims-the very culture that inspired him to leave Australia and settle in New York- lies in her melting pot of culture. America, in Hughes' expert eye, is a beautiful amalgamation of many cultures: European, Native, African, Spanish, Asian and so forth. He sees history as a complex organism made up of many diverse parts. Effective scholarship, debate and production must incorperate all while eschewing the demagoguery and finger pointing that tragically seems to prevail in so much public discourse.

Make no mistake,like any good critic or thinker, Hughes is out to pick a fight and he certainly challenges all comers. One may not agree with all of his points or supports, but that isn't the point. Hughes' number one objective is to confront American apathy with an electo-shock to the system.

In short, Hughes does indeed call for a certain brand of elitism in both art and public life. An elitism bred not of social class, race or economics but rather an hierarchy based upon skill, intelligence and vision.

THE CULTURE OF COMPLAINT will challenge the reader as well as entertain. A magnificent read.

Information is well organized. I have found this to be a good supplement to my nurse practitioner text books. It puts diagnosing common complaints into a succinct and understandable process.

It's an excellent resource book to be used as a complement to other textbooks. Topics are discussed in a straight forward manner allowing the reader to focus just on the important aspects of a diagnosis. I will absolutly recommend this book.

If you want a book that really gives you differentials, buy Field guide to beside diagnosis instead. It is a lot less money and is soooooo much better.

I totally love this book. It is very user friendly and has helped me tremendously in Nurse Practitioner school when doing case studies. It is organized by the symptom, not the disease, which makes it very nice and easy to use. It is simple, the reading is not too intense, and a good tool for practice/school.

I actually ENJOY reading this book. It's as concise as many other books on differential diagnosis, but the information isn't presented in list form or with bullet points (of course, there are some lists, but overall the book is almost conversational... like the transcript of an information-packed lecture by a doctor with lots of clinical experience). Personally, I have a hard time remembering boring, dry lists; I need details to help me flesh out a medical picture in my head so I'll remember it well enough to apply its lessons when I see an actual patient.

I absolutely couldn't recommend this book more highly. It's jam-packed with clinical pearls and is immensely valuable as a virtual mentor. Reading it is like going on rounds with a physician who's been practicing for decades.

The copy was sent without a jacket--as I was collecting the entire series, this was a disappointment. I returned it but was not refunded the purchase price. Will think twice before ordering again. Buying from a bookstore is better.

'When She was Good' is not very good.
'The Breast' is a bad- taste joke which cannot approach the Kafka or Gogol that are its inspiration.
'Portnoy's Complaint' is Roth's masterpiece. And even if he has shown through subsequent years great staying power, and considerable seriousness, and truly outstanding work ( Parts of 'American Pastoral' and 'Patrimony' for example) this is the one work in which he reveals what he best has to give.
It is arguably one of the funniest books ever written, and deeply poignant one.
It is an American classic and justifies Roth's place in this series.

If I remember correctly, this book was trashed on the front page of the NY Times Book Review section forty years ago because the reviewer thought a young Jew should not or could not write about small town WASP America. I could not disagree more, both in principle and after reading the novel several years later. I was relieved to find the writer (a man!) would take the trouble to write about a young woman who had marched in her high school band and worked at the Dairy Queen. The book jacket described her as the all-American bitch but I doubt this was Roth's full intention. The ending was beautifully written and so believable it affected my own behavior. Some of the most memorable pages in Roth's prizewinning American Pastoral reminded me of When She Was Good, a book even Roth usually overlooks in talking about his work. Too bad the review may have had a searing effect for a long time.

This would make a great gift. It's an honor for Philip Roth
to be included in this series. He has never written a bad book. Just give him the Noble prize for literature and be done with it. Thanks for a lifetime of serious laughs and the playful insights,Phil.

It is a shame this book is out of print. If you want to learn how to conduct a war this book has to be one of the basic texts.

O'Ballance clearly and factually analyses the socio-political run-up to the war without getting bogged down in splitting hairs.

He then moves to an explanation of the war. He does this theatre by theatre, beginning with the Air war, followed by the Sinai campaign, then the war against Jordan, the Syrian campaign in the Golan heights and finally the naval actions.

In each section he establishes the strenghts of the players with detailed descriptions of the numbers and types of materiel (Aircraft, Tanks, Artillery, etc).

He analyses the types of troops available to each side, the qualities of the officers, the "management" style, the troop morale.

Then he illustrates the actions, using detailed maps to aid commentary, analysing as the actions progress what was going right or wrong.

Finally he summarises each action and its impact on the other elements of the war.

The Six-Day war is a lesson in the need for domination of the skies in desert warfare. Without total air superiority it is certain that the deep egyptian lines of defence in the Sinai would have held. This would have given the Jordanians, Syrians and Iraqis time to mobilise against Israel.

The Israeli strategy to fight the war outside of Israel is an important lesson for small nations.

The independence of Israeli units and in particular the ability of tank commanders to act when isolated, was a key to success in the confusion of battle. Israelis trusted their junior officers to act to fulfill an overall general plan. The Egyptians on the other hand, were constantly looking for direction from above, which was useless given the speed with which circumstances changed. This is an important lesson not only for military, but also for management.

Overall an excellent historical read, and a brilliant lesson in tactics, strategy and delegation.

This is an important book documenting the 1967 ("6-day" or "June" war) between Israel and its Arab neighbors - the 1948 and 1956 conflagrations being the first two. I was torn between giving this book 3 or 4 stars. I opted for the latter, mainly because it achieves remarkable balance and deep insight despite its reliance primarily on the sources of one side of the war. This is important considering that this book was written in 1972, well after the war to allow time for reflection and for secrets to be revealed, but close enough for the events to be fresh. Sadly, most of the modern accounts, such as Oren's "Six Days of War" don't come even close in terms of objectivity, balance, and perception. Apparently, the passage of time allowed that war to become clouded with layer upon layer of myth and legend. "The Third Arab-Israeli War" is an excellent book since it unravels these legends and tells the true story of the war, battle by battle, as it unraveled and shows how this seemingly "impossible" victory was achieved.

Looking at its list of acknowledgments, I was expecting to find a completely pro-Israeli slant since out of the 15 sources listed only one is Arabic and nearly 70% are Israeli accounts of the war. Such a bias is not completely absent. For example the book makes the Arabs appear irrational at first by focusing on the days preceding the 1967 war and ignoring the important turning point of 1948 and the creation of nearly a million Palestinian refugees. The book also glosses over Israeli war crimes which were later admitted by Israeli soldiers, such as the murder of Egyptian POWs after the war. Despite these shortcomings I found the book to be an interesting and suspenseful account of the war which was likely accurate.

The author's inside knowledge and deductive power is impressively displayed. In many cases he arrives at conclusions that were almost revolutionary at the time the book was written, but are common knowledge nowadays. For example, he deduces that Israel probably possessed one or two nuclear bombs at the time of the war, something that was not admitted until the famous Vanunu photographs of the Dimona facility. In any case, I found this book considerably enriched by the author's digestion of the material and analysis. I found the analysis of why the Arabs claimed foreign intervention in the air war to be particularly illuminating. Whereas the Israelis dismissed it as an outright lie, "The Third Arab-Israeli War" posits a different, completely plausible explanation for this odd claim.

The format of the book is also nice. A chapter covers each of the 3 fronts, the air war, and the small naval skirmishes. After every day of the war, there is an analysis of the day's event. Further discussion of the war on each front can be found at the end of each chapter. Finally, the last chapter contains a detailed analysis of the factors leading to the Israeli victory and the concomitant Arab defeat. Contrary to some "history" books today (like Oren's "Six Days of War"), who are more influenced by legend and myth, "The Third Arab-Israeli War" does not simplify the issues and refrains from simple-minded (and racist) generalizations. Instead what we get is a hard-headed analysis of all the factors involved in this war. No one is spared from the blame in the Arab defeat, not least the Soviet advisors and equipment. Similarly, the Israeli mistakes in the war are not overlooked because of their sweeping victory. "The Third Arab-Israeli War" shatters many myths by putting them next to reality, for instance, here's what it says on the most oft-brandished myth: "The preponderance of Arabs over Israelis ... can be misleading as the great majority was silent, parochial and passive. In more realistic terms the Arabs were able only to muster between 300,000 and 400,000 soldiers against Israel. Israel, however, mustered some 270,000, was able to choose the place and time of attack and operated on interior lines of communication. ... On the battlefields the Arabs and Israelis were often nearly equal in numbers." It is a pity this book is out of print.

If you have ever tried to write a complaint letter and did not receive satisfaction or even a recognition of your complaint you know the importance of getting it worded correctly the first time. Now attorney Janet Rubel has put together a collection of the standard complaint letters she uses. To make it even more convenient all the letters are also on the included CD. No matter what your need, if you want to write a complaint letter then you will find one in here that will give you the format that gets results. 101 Complaint Letters that Get Results is a recommended resource for everyone.

This book approaches consumer boycotts from an academic perspective. Meaning that it is not the easiest of reads and it is definitely not a "how-to" book. On the other hand it should be helpful to those interested in looking at different strategic approaches to be used in different situations. I think my two biggest complaints are that there are not summaries of each chapter and that the history of boycotts is attached at the end of the book.

I teach Business Administration at the University of Southern Mississippi and was interested in the how-to's of boycotts. While the internet is filled with pages on how-to organize boycotts there is precious little info on what makes for EFFECTIVE boycotts. One Size does NOT Fit All!

This book fills that gap by providing stories of past boycotts, how they were organized, and describing their effectiveness. My favorite story in Friedman's book was of Rev. Don Wildmon's attempts to clean up television programming and how he backed into an extremely effective method of keeping the targets of the boycott a secret (be advised this only worked because of the size of his operation and some unusual factors that he was not in control of). Wildmon's response to the TV networks claims of "censorship" is the basis for all consumer boycotts in a free society.

From a lay reader perspective, I would recommend that any reader avoid reading the book in order. Rather, read the book's first chapter (definitions), second chapter (factors affecting success), last chapter (historical perspective on tactics) and then the rest of the book or the parts that you feel are most applicable to your situation.

I also recommend reading each chapter and then making a summary of what you learned (on index cards would probably be best) so that you don't have to re-read the entire book at a later date looking for the parts that are interesting to you.

It may seem that I am nit-picking this book to death, but Forewarned is Fore-armed. Aside from the drawbacks I have described, there aren't many other choices for those considering boycotts to consult that have the breadth of Friedman's book. It is an important contribution to the study of various types of consumer boycotts and their effectiveness and will likely be the standard text on the subject for at least a decade.