Class Pages Books

At last a book that distills the learning of the last 20-30 years in business management. Drennan and Penningtons book is unique in the simple and structured way in which it helps set out action plans for us all, no matter what our role in business. An irresistible feature is a checklist for carrying out an immediate evaluation of your company and its world class status. A special aspect of the authors approach is the people dimension and how to achieve world class performance through people.

It is also a great reference book for picking up and putting down. Its part of my toolkit for running businesses in different parts of the world. Well done to the authors!

The book focuses on the 12 key benchmarks that lead on organization to world class performance and results. We are using this book within our facility in order to help drive results. Best practices and continuous improvement are the emphasis. I strongly recommend this book for all organizations. All managers have a copy of this book and we are beginning our world class audit.

This give us a clear and focused point of view of what is necessary for to adopt world class in our daily duties, and said us that in in our dinamically contantly changing world our unique option is improved everything every day.

The fierce competition beetwen companies impulse her to adopt a customer-centered strategy based on investment in people, loyalty among customers, holders, employees and technology in order to achieve a world class standard of performance.

Editors aid, that a world class organization, is a organization viewed from a standard that involves a comprise to improve and this will be related with details required to become a world class organization, this book is based in self assessment questionairres for help our management to identify performance deficiencies and prepare a performance profile that can be used to decide activities, devise action improvements and monitor and evaluate progress towards the achievement of world class standards, I think that tis book is useful for every employee in a corporation, making desition, now is a shared process, this is the brand of world class organization.

More importat comprise is without a complete insight don't try to learn more, is try to understand, how we can use our tools?, and understand what is the basis related with sucess, and what part of the other experience will be useful for us.

If you don't try to catch this method you will be lost in this changing world.

The First Days Of Class: A Practical Guide For The Beginning Teacher by Rebecca Lynn Wilke is a "reader friendly" guide written especially for those new to the chaotic yet rewarding art of educating young people, whether in a public or private school environment. From integrating oneself into the daily life of one's new teaching job; to tips, tricks, and techniques for staying organized; to long-term strategies and career goals, The First Days Of Class is a highly recommended supplementary book which is especially suited for the novice classroom instructor regardless of grade level or subject matter being taught.

This my third Faith Fairchild mystery and it certainly won't be the last! I really enjoyed reading this book. The similarity to the plot of the Agatha Christie book didn't bother me at all. Thank goodness the number of deaths was much smaller!

I liked the flashbacks which gave us the history of these women and their time at the same college. The college I attended had similar rules so I was tickled to read them. The flashbacks were necessary so we would know why these particular women were invited. It isn't until late in the book that we learn why it has taken so long to get them together.

I didn't try to figure out the killer. I just read along enjoying the description of that wonderful house, the island and the food---especially the chocolate cake. I'm going to try that recipe as soon as I can!

This book is our mystery book club's selection for September. Usually I read the selected book the weekend before our meeting but one of our group said this book was unusually good so I read it early. It is reminiscent of Ten Little Indians, but not slavishly so. I loved the references to Weejuns, Lanz clothes, etc. that reminded me of the late 1960's/early 1970's. I would recommend this to a ladies book club without reservation. I read it straight through as our area awaited Hurricane Gustav!

This homage to Christie's "And Then There Were None" ("Ten Little Indians," if you prefer) is a worthy entry in Katherine Hall Page's series about caterer Faith Fairchild. It centers around a group of women who had gone to college together and who are lured to an isolated island under various pretexts for what turns out to be the reunion from hell. Typically well-written and plotted, with tempting recipes at the end.

I dove into this book headfirst over the 4th of July weekend and didn't surface until I had finished it. What an irresistible set-up---a group of former college classmates (one of them a murderer) on an isolated island in a ludicrously gorgeous and opulent house. As many have noted, this book is a homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (or Ten Little Indians for the politically incorrect---and I believe the book had an even MORE politically incorrect title in its British edition).

The invitees to this house party/murder investigation all attended exclusive all-female Pelham College (a thinly disguised Wellesley, right down to the famous fudge cake) in the late 1960's-early 1970's--my own college era. On the night before graduation, beautiful, popular Helene "Prin" Prince fell to her death from the campus tower. The death was ruled a suicide at the time. Years later, Prin's twin sister, now a famous author a la Mary Higgins Clark, lures her former classmates to her remote island home to ferret out the truth. Along for the ride as caterer for the gathering is series progatonist Faith Fairchild. Through a series of flashbacks to the women's college years, we learn that Prin was not what she seemed and that each of the women had ample reason to want her dead. Corpses begin to accumulate as the storm howls outside and panic overtakes the group. Delicious!

For purely nostalgic reasons, I particularly relished the flashbacks to the women's college years, during the death throes of in loco parentis and the infamous "three feet on the floor" rule. Unbeknownst to the young women in the book, virtually all such rules would be out the window at many colleges within a few years.

I give this book only four stars for two reasons. First, I think some of the mores at Pelham are more characteristic of the 1950's than the late 1960's. Were Jewish girls really automatically given singles because "everyone would be more comfortable"? Not judging by my experience in a similar college in the same era. Second Wave feminism was well underway, yet the Pelham girls were avidly seeking the M.R.S. degree, and attending business school was considered bizarre. Not likely, especially at a school for high achievers like Pelham/Wellesley (after all, Hillary Rodham Clinton was a Wellesley student in these years).

The second reason for downgrading The Body in the Ivy by one star also applies to other books in this series---the author's habit of constantly inserting upscale brand names into her prose. While a little bit of this can help create an atmosphere or evoke an era (John Meyer! Villager! I hadn't heard those iconic brand names of 1960's female preppiedom in years), Page's overuse of the device becomes pretentious and annoying. At times, she seems a bit too enamored of the East Coast upper crust "I'm meeting Mumsy and Daddums at the club for tennis" culture, at the same time portraying the individuals in that culture as bigoted, hidebound, adulterous, and none too bright.

These reservations aside, I can't imagine a better book to take along on vacation or to curl up with on a rainy day.

he Body in the Ivy opens with a May 17, 1970 newspaper clipping of the death of a Pelham senior, Hélène Prince, just prior to graduation, by a fall from the college clock tower. Mystery readers know that this news clipping is going to be important to the story that follows. But just how it's going to involve our intrepid caterer is certainly food for thought as the story unfolds.

Faith Fairchild is impressed that Barbara Bailey Bishop, a famous author, would ask her to cater a reunion of some of her Pelham classmates on her private island. It seems that Barbara remembered a delicious fennel soup Faith had served at a function years ago. The invitation came at a good time when Faith would be able to spend a week away from home.

Shortly after her arrival on the island retreat, Faith learns that the boat will return in a week and there is no phone, no radio, and no way to return to the mainland until the boat returns. Thus we have the classic setup for a country house mystery -- our characters are cut off from communicating with the outside world. Once we learn that they've been lured to this retreat under false pretenses, and that a storm is brewing literally and figuratively, there's nothing to do but to keep reading and hope that there's someone to be rescued when the boat returns. Since this is a mystery rather than a horror novel, the reader may assume that at least one person will survive but who that will be, and whether there will be more than one, is still unknown until the final chapter.

Page introduces each character as they receive their invitation, along with a short flashback to their college experience at Pelham. Through the flashbacks you get an idea of the women they were, who they've become, and their relationship to the young girl who died in 1970. Having lived in those years, I found the flashback awakening my memories of the time, and feeling a connection to these women and their past. Younger readers may have a hard time believing that at one time colleges took on the role of parents to their students, feeling the need to instill manners and morals.

Once all the characters take the stage or living room, we find that the years have not dimmed the memories of their years at Pelham or their hatred of Hélène Prince. Could it be that one of these women killed her? Is that the real reason they have been called together? But then why has Faith been invited? If it's not for her culinary skills could it be because of her past involvement with crime detection?

Each of the characters has their moment front stage as we learn more of their past and their present. Carefully, Page sets the scene and leads us to suspect first one then another of the guests or perhaps it is the hostess. There's red herring enough for a banquet, and that's before death begins to whittle the list of suspects down. Who'll be left standing? You'll need to keep reading to find out. I think this is one of the best of the Faith Fairchild mysteries.

I enjoyed this one. Very nice character development, as in the past, and good story line. A nice mellow read. A series is difficult to sustain, but the author has done well by this one. I certainly recommend it. I do hope there are more coming.

While I enjoyed this installment of the series more than the last few, I did find it be somewhat confusing, with too much going on.

Faith has never been a likeable character to me, but she seems to get worse with every book. She's always come across as pompous and superior, but with Ms. Page throwing in tons of French words and phrases, the books on a whole are starting to come across as arrogant as well.

Still, not a bad way to spend a couple of evenings.

I have enjoyed all of the Faith Fairchild series, not least because their milieu is familiar to me. Caterer Faith Fairchild reluctantly follows her husband. The Reverend Tom is taking a sabbatical leave to spend teaching at Harvard. Faith doesn't like being uprooted, especially because Tom didn't discuss it with her in advance. The family relocates to a historic house in the Brattle Street area of Cambridge. Two major plot lines run through the book; Faith runs into an old flame at a soup kitchen and her children find a post-World War II diary in the attic. Sometimes series' heroes seem too perfect to be true, but here Faith and Tom have their occasional warts on view.
The Body in the Bonfire is still my favorite of the series, but this comes close.

Faith Fairchild uproots her family to join her husband on a short stay in Cambridge. She misses her home and familiar surroundings but is soon fascinated by the town, its people and the history hidden in the walls (and the attic!) of the house they are staying.

Not one of Page's best but certainly worth reading.

I became an avid reader of Katherine Hall Page's wonderful mysteries after reading an article about her in The Tufts Criterion, the alumni publication of Tufts University. In my estimation, The Body in the Attic is her best work yet. The protagonist, Faith Fairchild, is maturing as a mother and as a caterer. In some ways, perhaps she is an alter-ego of the author herself. While the two concurrent plots of the mystery provide a really good read, other themes such as balancing family with career, gourmet cuisine with urban homelessness and hunger, and ministry with personal fulfillment, are also of central concern. To be sure, there are feminine frills, presented with a delightful touch of humour, i.e. comments on accessories and designer clothes, but at its heart the novel delves in a lighthanded way into some rather serious issues of modern life.

Because Faith Fairchild's husband, Tom, is a minister, there is a spiritual overtone as well. But the religious theme does not usually enter through his character, not in previous works in which he is pastoring, nor in this one where he teaches at Harvard Divinity. Rather, it is Faith the minister's daughter and pastor's wife who usually interjects the element of living with meaning and integrity. In this volume, it is intriguing that the victim's diary is also the vehicle which speaks of God's love, as well as of the moral issues and dilemmas that spring from a commitment to live with some sort of integrity during the intolerably evil imprisonment within her home.

Then, too, the pleasures of food are presented throughout the book in a number of interesting ways. While this is true in all Katherine Hall Page's mysteries, the catalog of luscious-sounding restaurants that actually exist in Cambridge and Boston are worth researching on-line and exploring in person. Readers who live in the greater Boston area are doubly blessed.

Finally, it is worth obtaining a copy of this book for the narrative pages which follow as a sort-of postscript. Of special note in all Katherine Hall Page's works are the recipes, but as more a reader than a cook I really enjoyed this particular volume's notes on both comfort food and comfort reading. The author provides a lengthy list of authors one could curl up with for a long time to come.

In addition to our author's reading suggestions, I also look forward to curling up with a long list of future novels by this author. I wonder if she is as delightful a person as Faith Fairchild and her fictional friends. May Katherine Hall Page continue to bless us with years of new reading pleasure!

This book is an easy read that covers many topics that many other web design books fail to mention or emphasize. This book definitely targets both technical and non-technical readers. Therefore, the first couple of chapters may turn off developers; however, the rest of the book is full of tips and reminders that web developers should be doing to create professional web sites.

"Deliver First Class Websites: 101 Essential Checklists", by Shirley Kaiser, is a book that provides a complete overview of the many arguments to pass to your buildSuccessfulWebsite() method. Kaiser lists and explains the best practices in the three major components that must coalesce to produce web sites: management, content, and technology. Her management how-to's highlight project fundamentals -- research, logistics of budgeting, marketing, and testing -- and project leadership -- goal definition, scheduling, communication. Websites exist for their content and functionality, and Kaiser instructs on the elements of good website style: making sites usable through proper information architecture, concise writing style, and effective color and graphics. Technology makes websites happen, and Shirley details the requisite knowledge in this area. She covers the best types of code to use, and the best ways to use it. She explains content management systems, accessibility for the disabled, file optimization, and search engine optimization. If you're a webmaster, "Deliver First Class Web Sites" is a must-read.

Really-if you know nothing about web design, then maybe this is an okay book to get, but for the rest of us it is a waste of money. I am a web designer, and I was looking for something to help me streamline the process and even teach me some things I did not know-BOY was I disappointed! With in 5 minutes of reading this book I found my self saying-great, there's $40 down the tube. I own 5 other books published by site point, and I really do like them, but this one isn't worth the paper its printed on. Anyone who says they respect this author's work should really try raising their standards!

In a nutshell-pass on this waste of paper!!!

Deliver First Class Websites is one of hundreds of books on website design. Like the majority of these books (the good ones anyway), Deliver First Class Websites takes the reader step by step through web design from planning and preparing content through design and creating clean code to testing and launching the website. In each section, the author even includes handy checklists so that the web designer can assure that he or she has completed each step in the process.

Although I have read and reviewed countless books on web design, Deliver First Class Websites stood out. Most books of this type approach web design from a purely technological point of view and focus mainly on the code needed to create a good website. I found that this book took a slightly different approach. The goal of a good website as defined by this author was one with good accessibility and flow. Often website designers, and writers of website design books, completely forget that websites are made for people. If these people get frustrated when they can't access information, they will simply leave your site. Thus, good flow and accessibility is vital to a successful website.

I found Shirley's work to be inspiring, insightful and invigorating! I particularly like the way that she presents information. She has a way of connecting with you that very few authors do well in the non-fiction realm.

I'll be frank, there are like 900 (or perhaps 9000?) checkboxes of "things to do" included in this book. Some are clearly "common sense," like:

"Provide obvious, clear error messages that explain how the user can resolve the error."

...but in practice are so rarely implemented! A couple of weeks ago, I was on the web site of one of the banks that I use. When I tried to access one of my accounts, it presented an error message telling me that I had to log back in due to inactivity. Of course, I had simply clicked on the account and there was no inactivity, but the site had some kind of a problem. The error message was totally irrelevant AND it suggested that the problem was MY fault because I was "inactive."

These kinds of things make a "web experience" either pleasant or terribly annoying. There is nothing worse than a web site that tells you that you're doing something wrong and doesn't explain how or even if there is a way to correct it. Shirley's book should DEFINITELY be read by those in the banking industry! ...and probably anyone else who wants their web site(s) to be encountered without the pain and frustration that comes from poorly considered content.

Shirley provides numerous examples of how to better "align" your site with the needs of users. And, that's what it is really about, isn't it? We don't make web sites for ourselves, we make them for those who visit them. If you're expecting people to visit your web site, you need to read this book. More importantly, you NEED to do what this book recommends. If you're not, you're treating your web users poorly.

One thing that I can definitely say about Shirley's work and that is she recommends that web masters check their server logs for web browsers. I use Linux and Opera and I am very tired of web sites that cater only to IE and Windoze. Her recommendations are useful and relevant, in that one should check their logs to see what kinds of client browsers are visiting their sites. This implies developing content suited to the various browers and testing the web site for compatibility with those kinds of clients. With the ever-growing expansion of web-centric devices and different platforms, it is wholly unacceptable to have floating content sitting over the top of other content particularly in forms where the data fields are REQUIRED for submission.

I was recently on a web site for insurance where a required field (zipcode) was errorneously displayed due to a floating border. Granted, it is difficult to test for the 20% in the "80/20" rule, but I don't do business with those who refuse to consider me, too. If you can't afford to lose the 20%, this book is definitely for you. If you just want to address the 80%, this book is an absolute requirement. If you follow even 10% of the recommendations presented in this book, you'll be a world ahead of where you are now with your web site(s)!

What a delight to discover Dawn Powell! This collection offers a selection of novels and short stories that bristle with well-observed details and uncanny insights. She writes with ascerbic humor about the "wanna-bes" and the "haves" in flapper society with sometimes chilling clarity. Like so many of her contemporaries, she was brave enough to make heroes of very flawed creatures indeed--and do it very well. I wanted to know more about her and read more. Discovering her makes me wonder why Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber got all the breaks.

For masochists who can only learn from their own mistakes, this book provides the best way to teach them. Roger Schank's methods create temporary results that can help people react well in a situation but can limit a persons ability to think ahead avoid problems and communicate issues and solutions appropriately.

Schank's "Sink or Swim" approach of leading the learner to failure encourages educators to be clever and sneaky about the way they craft their training. He warns against telegraphing your punches to the learner. His methods manipulate peoples fears to get them to do what he wants them to do. The golden rule of education is to respect the pupil and Schank unfortunately treats learners with more contempt than he claims traditional methods produce.

The good news is there is plenty of useful insight and examples that aren't covered in other books that I know of. I have mixed feelings because I like so much of what he points out that is wrong with most training and education today. I am also in agreement on how he stresses the importance of good stories and examples and I'm in the car with him right up until he locks the doors, floors the gas and steers the car off a cliff.

Like many alchemists, Schank really believes in his methods to turn base metals into gold and is unyielding in his opinion that all other methods are worthless. He uses only the worst case examples of traditional training methods to reject the educational establishment while using the most idealistic examples to promote why he is the only one who can teach people anything. Thank god, he was there to help Enron communicate issues better to their employees. See the case study on page 44 "e-learning at Enron".

Schank's basic philosophy is that people can only learn from their own failures. He states, "Real thinking never starts until the learner fails." This is a serious flaw. Not many of us would survive if it were true. Learning from our own mistakes is how we keep from falling behind but learning from others mistakes is how we move ahead. And this is what traditional education methods can accomplish, if they are done correctly.

Schank states that "Small children are failure machines, failing hundreds of thousands of times before they learn." He seems to think this is okay and that's the way it should always work. But, most children don't need to be run over by a car to learn not to play in the street. Most children don't need to poke an eye out to learn not to run with scissors.

Schank continually refers to flight simulator training as the ultimate way to educate because pilots are immersed in a completely realistic three dimensional environment. But flight simulator training is just one part of a larger effort that pilots go through. If he would bother to follow up on this a little more, he would find that the FAA and the major airlines discovered a big problem, some time ago, with too much reliance on simulator training.

The problem is that people don't like being set up to fail. When this happens they begin to blame the computer training and don't take responsibility for the failure. The significant changes that have been made include providing more preparation of presentational information and guided practice before pilots enter the flight simulators.

Schank brags throughout the book about how people get through his training courses and graduate classes without learning anything new but that they know how to do something. Well, that just doesn't fly in most of the world. The reason you teach people a certain process and test for knowledge instead of just how to do something is because people tend to take short cuts that may seem productive in the short term but can get other people killed or in trouble. Schank's programs teach people to figure their own way to accomplish a goal. Who cares how they get there? Well sometimes, the Justice and Treasury Department care how you get there, often the news media care how you get there and usually your co-workers care. Ask the ex-employees of Enron whether they care.

Schank couldn't find any psychological research to support his theories, so he made up his own and refers to his own books for support. If you read a broader selection of books than what he recommends, you'll find that most research supports that people consider motivation to be a personal responsibility while they perceive de-motivation to be the responsibility of the system or person they work for or learn from. This means you can pump people up or scare them for a short period of time but ultimately people motivate themselves. However, they are quick to blame the system if you trip them up.

Schank's entire methodology is based on artificially imposing failure on people, to motivate them to learn. When you set someone up to fail, you may teach them not to repeat a mistake but they will become increasingly resistant to this form of training and will begin to blame the system for their failures.

Schank's psychology and methods are at odds with human nature but while Schank rejects all traditional methods of training and education, like multiple-choice tests and Instructional System Design (ISD), I can't reject all of his experience. Overall, he is too extreme and dangerous for me, but like all good agitators, he provides a unique perspective and makes some good points because he has so passionately pursued how to educate people.

Reading this book has been good for me if only to provide a backdrop and comparison to what I am currently doing. Writing this review has helped me deal with the snow storm that people like Schank stir up. There is actually a great deal of valuable information (knowledge) in this book on real corporate case studies, using stories, examples and gathering content that you won't find elsewhere. I just recommend being very careful how you apply it.

Designing World-Class e-Learning did not meet my expectations-so by Schank's definition, I must have learned something. As an instructional designer, I found it infuriating. Schank preaches, full-pulpit preaching, his perspective on effective training solution by bashing public education, university education, professional trainers, and professional instructional designers. What Schank does do is try and sell you his team providing eLearning solutions for your business. These solutions are excellent approaches for performance improvement, as seen in the case studies. They are ideal for uptraining. I am not yet convinced it is the right approach for new hire training. He also compares the "right" way of learning to that of a child, having expectations fail and changing one's mental models as a consequence. Since adults have some learning skills developed beyond that of a pre-schooler, I felt this was a limited basis of argument. Schank tailors the process, including evaluation, to his premise of what is "good" training. Unfortunately, he does not provide the tools or explanations so that the reader can also put into practice these ideas. Dr. Schank, my one question is, "If Learning by Doing is such an intrinsic necessity for effective learning, why does the reader never have any engaging opportunity to do something?"

E-learning expert Roger C. Schank describes the secrets of a good e-learning program. He emphasizes using e-learning to train in-house employees, although his methods could work in any setting. Schank clearly establishes the basic principle that makes e-learning work: learning by doing. He outlines methods using scenarios and simulations that permit the learner to put new ideas into practice immediately. He's a little too fond of failing and trying over as a learning method, when one might learn just as well by studying others' failures and successes. However, he supports his approach with education-based examples that demonstrate how children learn, along with an inside look at IBM and GE programs. Visuals in the book show the computer screen in a teaching mode as displayed to the user, so you see how your e-learning material should look, whether on a Web site or on a local intranet. We from getAbstract recommend this solid hands-on instruction manual for training and development managers, and for those who are building e-learning experiences.