By Class Books

Womack and Jones in 'Lean Thinking' state that each manufacturing organization consists of: An ordering system, A production System, and a Distribution system.
Womack and Jones go on to say, as part of a Lean Action Plan:" as soon as you have flow and pull...in the production System...it is time to go to work on the... Ordering System... pipeline to spur sales and increase market share." In other words - press the advantage.
Clausing's 'Total Quality Development' is about pressing the advantage that lean transformation provides to the organization.
Clausing defines 'total quality development' as "the modern way of developing new prducts that will be competitive in the global economy" and goes on to say 'Total Quality Development' "combines the best management, strategy, and teamwork resulting in greatly reduced new product development time, a reduction in new product development costs, and increased product variety that together result in increased customer satisfaction".
Fine - you say, but what exactly is 'Total Quality Development'?
It is the integration of concurrent engineering, quality function deployment (QFD), and Taguchi's quality engineering into a total product development process.
Clausing's stated objective in writing this book is "to transform product development to achieve competitiveness in the global economy"
This book takes my breath away. If you are asking yourself what is next after installing flow and pull for your product family this is it.
Relevance to the lean manager 9/10
Relevance to the lean practitioner 8/10
Clarity/Organization 8/10
Original Content 9/10

This is a really awesome book, especially for high school and college students! It has great inspirational quotes, poems, short short stories. I am a college student, and have used this book with several of my leadership positions. The content is great as a meeting opener or devotions. I would highly recommend this to all students!

This classic industrial ethnography is based on Williams research in 1919 as an itinerant industrial worker in the northeastern United States. Although guided more by a concern to save America from the Bolshevik threat, by coming to understand workers concerns, than a desire to advance labor's cause, it provides rich insights into rolling mills, coal mines, and the complex, multiethnic labor force of World War I America, and the working conditions, living conditions, and cultural dynamics of those who labored there. Highly recommended

This is a wonderful collection from published and unknown poets about work, good and bad. I take it with me to factories and read it in hotels. These are all "blood" poems. A treasure.

This is one of the best well-written books I've read in a long time. His powerful story of a ragged, poverty-filled childhood with an abusive, neglectful, alcoholic father is very compellingly told.

Bragg's focus is on his strong and yet victimized mother. The only nagging thing that bothered me is Bragg's adulation of his mother to the point that he neglects the fact that she bears some responsibility for continually going back to the loser and exposing the kids to the financial and emotional depravation that occurred.

I will read his other books because the writing is so crisp and clean.

In this first volume of his trilogy of family memoir, Rick Bragg (b. 1959) takes us to rural Alabama's deep south, and through his deft story-telling introduces us to his people and their ways. With Shoutin' and his two subsequent bestsellers, Ava's Man (2001) about his maternal grandfather and The Prince of Frogtown (2008) about his father, Bragg has earned an avid readership. It's easy to see why. His family of origin epitomized the poorest of poor white trash. His grandfather could neither read nor write, his grandmother dipped snuff, they picked the banjo, danced a jig, cussed like sailors, drank their homemade moonshine like it was water, and brawled at the slightest insult to defend "honor." Bragg spent one semester in college, then started writing, first high school sports, local stories, anything. In 1993 he won a prestigious Nieman fellowship as a journalist to spend a year at Harvard, and in 1996 he won a Pulitzer for feature writing at the New York Times.

Shoutin' works well at many levels, but it's especially about embracing one's family with all its blessings and curses. Bragg introduces us to his violent alcoholic father who repeatedly abandoned his family until his early death at age forty-one, his two brothers, and most of all to his mother Margaret. In his telling, she's a hero's hero. She was effectively a single mother who raised three boys in destitute circumstances. She picked cotton and did other people's laundry at night, swallowed her pride and accepted welfare, and slept on the sofa in their tiny shack. His chapter on taking her to New York City for his Pulitzer award is worth the book alone. She had never been on a plane before and didn't own a suit case; for her few trips before then she stuffed her clothes in paper bags.

In an interview Bragg once described Shoutin' as a failed effort at revenge. His attitude toward his past is deeply ambivalent. On the one hand, he's deeply proud, as every person should be of their family. With brutal honesty he describes the angry chip he's carried on his shoulder about the endless putdowns and insults about his people. He'd prove the cultural snobs wrong, by God. On the other hand, his journey leaves rural Alabama as only a distant reflection in his rear view mirror as his professional reporting takes him around the world. The revenge he savored would come, he thought, when he finally saved enough money to buy his mother a real house for cash. And he did; it would be "a house of healing." But the day she moved in his two adult brothers brawled in the front yard, and his mother returned to her shack before settling in to the new house. And so, he admits, life and the power of place are far more complicated and rich. Bragg has now come full circle; today he teaches writing at The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.

Destined to be a Southern classic, Bragg's "All Over But the Shoutin'" rings true. It is not only a well-written, journalist's memoir, but offers readers who aren't from the South an insightful look at why Southern men often act as they do.

On the one hand the book is a rags-to-riches story about a poor white boy from the cotton fields of northeast Alabama who reads, works and writes his way out of poverty; from being a small-town sportwriter all the way up to to heading the Atlanta office the New York Times and winning the Pulitzer Prize. Like visiting with an old friend and having a glass of ice-tea and an all-afternoon, after-funeral conversation under the shade-tree in the back-yard back home, Bragg recounts his career via the Talladega Daily Home, the Anniston Star, the Birmingham News, the Miami Herald, the LA Times (very briefly), and the New York Times. Running throughout are stories and themes of: the homeless in the mean streets of Miami; the class-structure and deaths, rapes and tortures of Haiti (which he covered two or three times for the Miami paper and the NYT); his year at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow; covering Harlem and the violence experienced by the storeowners from robberies and murders; covering a tornado that hit on a Sunday morning near his hometown in 1994 (and the resulting shock to the faith of those who lost loved ones in a church that day); and, the 1994 Smith murders in Union, South Carolina and the Oklahoma City bombing.

That said, the real theme of the book is his love, concern and focus on his relationship with his mother back near Jacksonville, Alabama, his two brothers -- one older and one younger -- and, how to regard the life and his relationship with an abusive, hard-drinking and usually absent father. Having roots in the Sand Mountain area myself, I can attest to the fact that there must be something in the water (and moonshine) around there as meanness, drinking and sn snake-handling Sunday-morning gospel religion are "par-for-the-course." There's a tightrope facing folks around there trying to rise above their circumstances - it heads upward and, instead of a net, those who slip, fall into a hard life of factory-work, or worse yet, no work at all. Then, clutching for a Bible or the bottle -- and, sometimes both -- men and their families work like hell to survive.

This book will become a must-read for anyone interested in Southern area studies, Southern literature, or just understanding the Southern psyche. While we're all different, I have to admit that the "Southern man" I see throughout this book is similar to those of my own family, and men I've known all my life -- a different breed, with a hard, determined drive to succeed be it through books, muscle or whatever. And, as Bragg points out, though we're every bit as smart in our own way as well-schooled intellectuals, don't mess with the chip on our shoulders -- as that very well may bring out a bit of the rattlesnake that lurks in our dark side.

While not easy to read from cover-to-cover over a few days, it's a great book to place on the bedside table to read a few pages at a time.

I bought this book based upon all the hundreds of positive reviews but almost instantly regretting the purchase. I found Mr. Bragg's writing style annoying. What works in a newspaper article doesn't seem to work for books. Mainly, I found the one liners coy (I think they were supposed to be zingers that put the chapter in perspective or gave it an ironic twist, or tried to overdramatize the chapter.) Whatever the reason, I hated the last lines of each chapter and felt they were smug and insulting. Really, please let me make my own emotional discovery at your words, don't insult me by forcing me to have the same emotional discovery you had when you wrote them.

Another annoying Mr. Bragg's has is another dramatic writers trick of starting many sentences with the same words. For example, the following string of sentences:
"He never said he was sorry.
He never said he wished things had turned out differently."
He never acted like he did anything wrong."

This trick is over used and jolts the reader out of the story. If you don't know what I mean, go to the library and read the prologue. Ugh.

Usually I stop reading a book that is this annoying but it was the only book available to me and I was stuck with it.

I have never read, heard, seen a better picture of the South than that in the first five pages of this book. Not the Scarlett O'Hara fictional Old South, but the real red clay and hard rocky ground of the Upland where the overwhelming majority of people live.
This should be mandatory reading for anyone who trying to understand the current presidential election. You'll learn more about who these people are and why they do what they do than you will by listening to any political pundit or blogger.
It's also a great read. Bragg is a skilled and honest writer who is not afraid to show the whole picture, warts and all.

The style is a bit annoying to read but the explanation of poses along with the (extremely dated) photos is very helpful especially for beginners.

I read the book through once... then realized that it is broken up into 2 parts -- for each pose. The top portion is for advanced students who have a general idea of the poses. The bottom portion is for complete beginners. Although Bikram writes in the book that someone who has never taken a class can follow the book, I would highly disagree with that. I think you need to have gone to a few classes to get a general idea of the flow, then you can read about each poses and tips to get a deeper stretch/proper form.

I wish they would have redone the photos for the updated copy. Now that I have read through it once, I find that I go back to it for reference for some of the poses I find more challenging. I would highly recommend this book.

This is a great book for Bikram lovers! Nice pictures of all the postures in his beginning series. Also dicusses the right way and the realistic way of doing the poses. "26 postures, 2 breathing exercises, every day!" Bikram created this sequence with his teacher Bishnu Gosh after Bikram blew out a knee in a weightlifting accident. Doing this sequence healed his knee without needing the surgery the doctors where recomending. I love the Bikram quote "you can [...] with the Gods, but you cannot [...] with the knees!" Lots of people experience this truth for themselves when they jump into a yoga practice with a little to much gusto:)

I bought the CDs set for 24 dollars becuase I thought there would be some videos that would help me to make perfect postures but to my surprise the CDs are just Audio. I mean what the heck??? How can one get the idea of what Bikram is blabering???? Total wastage of the money and CD don't even work properly if you try to copy them to your disc. How sad and pathetic...

This is the best exercise/health book I have ever purchased. Well illustrated and written. If you do Bikram Yoga this is a definite book to have.

After taking Bikram Yoga classes for five months, I bought this book, and my practice will never be the same! Bikram breaks down every pose, through pictures and words, allowing you to truly understand what the body should look like and how it should feel in each pose. Even better, he also shows you through words and pictures how the body shouldn't look, allowing you to know what you are doing wrong. I would recommened this book to any Bikram Yogi, as well as anyone who is interested in a great work out for not only your body, but for your mind as well.

Say Jack London and most literate persons would ring up "Snow, Dog Stories and nature tooth and nail set in the context of gold rush Alaska of the 1890s. Ironically, Jack London was a San Francisco native in which he sets his 1909 novel "Martin Eden" which is his fictional autobiography.
Martin Eden is a young, virile bright sailor who resuces a middle class man from thugs. He is invited to the man's home where he meets his sister Ruth. Martin and Ruth fall in love. Ruth and her family seek to help Martin obtain a good job but he insists on becoming a published author. Years pass and his work is rejected. Martin takes such jobs as working in a laundry and going to sea as he ekes out a living on a near starvation diet. Martin is a voracious reader of fiction, essays and novels. He is influenced by Darwinian social evolutionsim and becomes a disciple of Herbert Spencer. Martin also subscribes to the Nietzchian concept of a superman who is above the herd of ordinary people. Martin is a lonely soul who is befriended by the moribund poet Brissende an alcoholic. Both of these writers have soured on life. Martin has moved from Eden to Hell in his thinking and prospects for the future.
Martin eventually becomes rich through his writings but it is too late for him to have a good life. He grows to despise Ruth and her smug suburban middle class family. He hates businessmen and philistinism and pretence in society and the literary community. He befriends a former girlfriend but his autodidadic education and fame have separated him forever from his working class pals.
Martin rejects a plea for love from Ruth and sails away from the dull life of middle class respectability and conformity.
The novel is bitter and brutal in its depiction of the American dream turned into a nightmarish vision of a man sickened with life. The Horatio Alger rags to riches tale is given a wry twist by Jack London. The novel failed to win applause upon its publication. Since then the novel has grown in readership and literary stature. It is a fine book but not one to peruse if you want to be cheered up! London's survival of the fittest
is not a philosophy this reviewer finds appealing,

Martin Eden is a young man who wants nothing more that to be accepted by (and to be like) the young, educated rich he sees as a struggling writer in turn-of-the (20th) century Northern California.

Martin is certain that once in the ranks of these beautiful people (who speak in casual conversation of Greek myth and French poetry), he will finally be happy...He uncomfortably accepts the rude comments from these rich snobs, resolves to rise to their level and falls in love with a woman he feels is as a goddess walking the Earth...

His true education comes swiftly:

He "makes it" as a writer, and the man once seen as an interesting ape is now the talk of the town...It's the petty shallowness of the glittering world he had admired from afar that he's utterly unprepared for.

This is a story of a person climbing the fence to the greener grass and finding it was all an illusion....and that he has nowhere else to go.

Not a pretty picture, but very well painted by Mr. London.

This is the American version of "Hunger" - an author striving to succeed despite background and social status. There is desolation within this text, a longing fraught with energy unbound. The pulse of desires roars here. Eden is the near-transparent mask of the young Jack London himself. Reading it, the educated reader will be reminded of the philosophies of Nietzsche, Herbert Spencer and Schopenhauer. Social Darwinism, the Will-to-Live, the Will-to-Power all resonate here.

But in the long run, the philosophies are just part and parcel of the story. "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild" are excellent books, easily accessible. London, in my mind, is the Great American Author because his writing doesn't exclude readers, young and old can enjoy him. As for this work, "Martin Eden", it is a dark horse compared to his earlier works, perhaps prophetic of Jack London's later life.

If anything, this novel is about success, its consequences, and what we sacrifice to achieve it. It also concerns the inner madness of attaining a goal, how nothing else seems important. Books will come go, but this book continually moves with me, a perennial home on my library shelf.

It's surprising that London is so well known for his writings about nature while a classic like Martin Eden is practically forgotten. Here London shows that he is equally adept at setting a story in an urban landscape by chronicling a landed sailor's attempt to become a self-taught writer, no easy task for a man who has lived the rough and vulgar life of a sailor. But Martin is extremely persistent in spite of all the obstacles he faces. Everyone including his friends, family, and classy girlfriend question his ability to make such a transformation from a nobody to a somebody. It's hard to imagine anyone being as devoted as Martin is to improving himself, and it's a bit intimidating seeing how much devotion it can take to achieve your dreams. Knowing that London used his own life story as a strong inspiration for Martin Eden, you expect that Martin will someday be successful, yet the results of all his work are still unexpected. With enough reading, learning, and life experiences, do we all eventually take Martin Eden's point of view? That's a question this book still has me thinking about months later.

In Martin Eden, Jack London provides the portrait of a young man who thirsts for knowledge, for self-improvement, to join the upper ranks of the intelligent and cultured within his society. We seem to be setting off in a "Jude the Obscure" direction. Martin loves a young woman from this society, and strives to make himself worthy. His chosen vehicle from his class and station to hers is self-education, and then the writing of serious and important work. Along the way, Martain has to swallow the unpleasant truth that those he believed to be so intelligent were actually entirely superficial in understanding. Pieces of London from other novels come through. London's belief in the "superman" comes through, as well as his disdain for the oligarchs, for example. What is most striking, however, is the dead-on skewering of celebrity worship. "Where were you when I needed you" might be Martin's refrain. The same people who ignored and derided him suddenly can't get enough of him. Why? He was the same person he was before. It was simply because other people told them so. They all just want a piece of the celebirty, to be associated with him somehow. While in real life London of course courted celebrity, the stupidity of this is blindingly apparent and even more important nearly a century later. London readers may miss the absence of the "Charmian" strong female counterpart in this book (unlike in the Sea Wolf or The Abysmal Brute or Mutiny on the Elsinore, for example). The "classy" love interest doesn't measure up in terms of independent intelligence or strength of will, and her last appearance is particularly troubling. Lizzie, from the lower socioeconomic classes, has the spark but is too held back by her upbringing. This is truly an important book.

Set in a northern Chinese rural commune town, Chinese émigré Ha Jin's witty and satirical first novel centers on a young, talented artist stuck in a janitorial job at a fertilizer factory. Longing for escape from the single room he and his wife and child have been allotted, Shao Bin's ire is aroused when he fails to gain an apartment, passed over for less deserving party cronies.

Seething, Shao Bin uses his talents to gain revenge, placing a satirical cartoon in the provincial newspaper. Party leaders, secretly alarmed by the accuracy and cleverness of the cartoon, rally quickly. Calling a workers meeting, they bluster and sneer over the political incorrectness of his cartoon. "If he was not full of reactionary intentions, he at least called us names." They conclude by taking away his bonus and requiring a public admission of guilt.

The latter is impossible for Shao Bin ("People would think him spineless...") but the loss of the bonus really hurts. While he bemoans his rashness and wishes his wife had stopped him, "Now that he was already in the thick of the fight, he had best engage the enemy."

Both sides are caught in an accelerating spiral of recriminations and revenge. The officials become particularly incensed at a cartoon published in a national workers paper depicting them as fat with luxuries. " `Damn the mad dog!'" Liu cursed. `If I'd ever taken a drop of Maotai, I wouldn't feel so wronged.' "

As the pace increases Ha Jin playfully explores the universal human cycle of repression and subversion, pursued despite the obvious cost and folly. His spare novel teems with wicked humor, even slapstick.
But it's that rare thing, a comic political novel with real characters. Shao Bin is not only talented and unappreciated; he's pigheaded, arrogant and selfish. And likable for his uncertainties and enthusiasms. So too, the personal nature of their outrage (often beside the point) and their doubts, misgivings and greed, humanize the party bosses.

Ha Jin illuminates Chinese provincial life, commune politics and posturing, and the pursuit of art in a society of shortages and communist ideals while never straying from his plotline.

Winner of the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner for his second novel, "Waiting," and Hemingway/PEN and Flannery O'Connor awards for his short fiction, Ha Jin shows a wide-ranging talent.

Ha Jin takes you through life in Communist China in a unique way. Jin causes the reader to pity and, for a moment or two, dislike Shao Bin. We also recognize our own weak character flaws in Young Shao, the gifted artisan with a stiff disposition, someone who is abused, an individual who creates some of his own misery.

I felt that Young Shao's problems were resolved too quickly at the end. After following his sorted plight throughout the book, I was left wanting more at the end. See if you agree.

Jin crafts the English language with great beauty. His style shows great discipline. Jin is always an interesting read.

Ha Jin's novel "In the Pond" is one of the purest and most elegant works of fiction that I have read recently. I felt that I was reading lines of poetry, as unadorned and profound as an ode by Lao-Tzu. Jin writes of an artist's confrontation with the oppressive Communist system, but Jin's story is more about the individual asserting the power of the self against the monolith and the artist against the philistines. This novel can be finished in an hour, but its spare, simple truths resonate long after.

This novelist knows how to tell a story. This is a story of an artist who fights against all adversities in front of him. I found myself feeling so frustrated with so many of the artist's attempt to improve the living situation ended up in being usuless. Yet he does not give up. The artist's mind is well described as if a reader is actually experiencing his life. I like the refreshing end of the story. English is my second language, but the book is easy to read even for me.

The striking thing about this novel is that whatever happens seems silly and hilarious. You are reminded of kindergarden more than of the adult world of intrigues and politics. But if you have lived in China about 15 years ago, it also reminds you of the way people dealt with each other in those days quite frequently...
Jonathan, this review is for you, as the book was on your wishlist. This is Tessy writing. ttw.tauber@t-online.de

Like other readers I read the Rabbit novels as they were first published. I won't dwell on the story lines and spoil your reading. They are poignant, crisply written stories well worth reading and rereading, with Updike's poetic touch on the narrative and excellent dialogue. I first read the books as sheer entertainment, and indeed these books will entertain you, even as they jog your senses with the saga of their tragic anti-hero. On rereading the novels the entertainment was still there, but I focused on deeper meaning. The Rabbit novels inimitably get you thinking about yourself and whether you learned from mistakes, yours or others. The delight about any novel and these in particular is that you can pause, ponder, rewind, or fast forward if you are bored. I was never bored with these books. And whatever your age, neither will you.

There is always that sad feeling at the end of a great character-based novel. It's as if you just got to know and love someone and they vanish. This series is spectacular for so many reasons, but I particularly love how well I know Rabbit by now (I'm in the 3rd book), as if he were a friend of many years. Updike does an impressive job of weaving details throughout the entire series that makes the reader understand, and believe.

as a primarily non-fiction reader, i was drawn to the rabbit series by the NYT list of top fiction novels of all time.. I decided to give Mr. Updike a try, and lugged around this behemoth of a series!

updike's novels are interesting especially when you consider the historical context of the times in which they were written. for example, his references to sex and overt sexual language were highly controversil at the time of his writing.

Reading the series allows you a seat of the passenger train of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, each which their overriding "isms". An enjoyable read.

I have to admit it: finishing this 1500 page tome, which consist of the four Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom novels, each longer than the one before it ("Rabbit Run," "Rabbit Redux," "Rabbit is Rich," and "Rabbit at Rest"), gave me a sense of accomplishment. Updike is a truly great writer, but his prose can be ponderous at times, particularly in "Rabbit Run." Some of these characters, including Rabbit himself, can be quite frustrating, especially over the course of four books.

Updike's placement as one of the greatest American writers of the last half of the twentieth century, stems from, I believe, his descriptive abilities, whether it be describing the flora in a garden, typical patter on a golf course, sexual scenes, or an angioplasty procedure. The books are spaced ten years apart in time, and Updike does a nice job setting each in the context of its time, although I'm not so sure these novels work as a "time capsule" in that the characters are only peripherally involved in, or concerned with, the seminal events of those eras. Most of the characters don't really change all that much, with the notable exception of Janice, Rabbit's wife, whose character blossoms with each consecutive book. Rabbit, himself, always remains sex and death obsessed, understandably more of the latter as he grows older. He does grow on the reader, though, even after making one poor choice after another. In "Rabbit at Rest," we finally see Rabbit have a relationship based on pure love: that with his grand-daughter Judy.

If you're interested, I reviewed each book separately on this web-site, giving "Rabbit Run" three stars, and the other three books four stars. I believe that consolidating all four into a single volume was worthwhile, since there are so many references to past incidents of which which the reader would not be aware, unless s/he has read the prior Rabbit novel(s). Based on the events that are recalled, sometimes it seemed as if Rabbit has spent his life in a cave, only to emerge every ten years for a few months to experience some traumatic event chronicled in the four books that comprise this series.

Updike's introduction is very interesting, in that he's surprisingly revealing about his sources and inspiration. He even provides self-critique and analysis, which is quite rare amongst authors of this caliber.

It's great to have the four Rabbit novels as a collection in one book. HOWEVER, the type in this collection is lighter than normal, making it difficult to read and the weight of the printed pages is very flimsy. Had I to do it over again, I would buy the four Rabbit novels individually from used book sellers.

Evan Schwartz has done an extraordinary job on a fascinating subject; Juice is a real page turner. If you ever wondered how world-class inventors go about their work, how they channel their ideas, or even how they acquire new ones, you've got to read this book.

In itself, the book is a collection of stories about the best minds, and their successes and failures. However, Schwartz also uses each example to outline broader themes and to provide a bigger picture of the landscape: importance of analogies and pattern recognition, the value of building systems, identification of barriers, role of serendipity, and many others. Even if you're not interested in 'invention' per se, the stories are worth reading on their own; this book got my own 'juice' flowing like no other. An easy 5/5.

This tiny little book comprises of a suspense of eye-popping and mind boggling thriller of great inventors, what incite their inventions and how these inventions have literaly shape the world we live in today. The contents of this book will challenge you find out that there is more in your thinking tank than you can ever imagine.

I am reading 'Juice - The creative fuel that drives world class inventors' by Evan Schwartz. The book gives insights into how creative people come up with inventions by creating possibilities, pinpointing problems, detecting barriers, applying analogies and embracing failures. The stories about how some of the inventions came about are really interesting. Schwartz goes inside the minds of some of the greatest inventors, delves into their stories and explores how they thought up their inventions

This book was a sheer delight to read. I am very interested in the process of inventing. I have read a lot about innovation strategies and the creative process so I thought this book would bore me. Anything but. I found it enlightening, exciting, fun, .... I loved it.

A great read. I found myself constantly jotting notes in the margins as I read it because it caused me to think of new ideas in my business.

I find many business books suffer from having 20 pages of content that they fluff out to 200 pages to justify the price. In this case, I didn't want the book to end.

I highly recommend Juice.