Pennsylvania Books

This is a valuable book (resource) for budding entrepreneurs. It seems to try to cover all the bases for starting a small business, but it can't do them all well in the space available between its covers. The book is only 288 pages long. If you are in the planning stages of starting a small business, then I highly recommend you get a copy of this book. Read it, study it, and outline it. There are helpful checklists to help you grasp the subjects. You will come up with a plethora of keywords and terms that you will want to google to find Web pages giving more detailed (and maybe more current) information.

I am a SCORE counselor (Senior Corps of Retired Executives) who typically does face-to-face counseling sessions three nights a month. It would really be neat if my clients would read this book BEFORE they came to their session with me because they would pretty much be "educated customers" ready to ask educated questions. Our sessions would be so much more beneficial.

My favorite chapters were:

1. Initial business concerns
2. Your business' structure
3. Business start-up details
5. Sources of business assistance (SCORE is mentioned here)
7. Your smart business plan (and a good sample plan is included)
8. Obtaining the financing you need

The book is weak when it comes to how the Internet can be used in corresponding, hiring, and marketing. But this is just one example of how googling keywords and concepts found in the book will make the book more complete. Don't treat the book as authoritative on the law. It isn't. Nor was it ever intended to be. It is light on tax information as it relates to small business.

I was particularly impressed with the material presented in Chapter 2: Choice of Legal Entity. That subject is sorely ignored in most small business books, and it is critically important. It is a subject I regularly must spend a great deal of time discussing at my SCORE sessions. This book does a pretty good job on the topic.

Chapters 4 and 9 through 12 are easy to find fault with. The topic of each could fill a book. But having these topics covered definitely will help a budding entrepreneur know some of the issues they raise.

I would have liked the book more if Chapter 6 (marketing) had been less superficial. When I read it I got the impression that the author was more a public relations expert than a marketing expert. I generally categorize public relations as a subset of marketing. Marketing includes advertising, public relations, and a whole host of other promotion techniques. I did not get this message when I read the book. I also would have liked the book better if the Internet, email, and Web sites had been discussed more. But there are many books on those subjects. Therefore, I can't complain too much about the limited discussion of computers.

When you read this book it may feel a little like it was produced on an assembly line. Maybe it was? There are 50 versions of this book sold; the only state I haven't found a copy for is Montana. Content is king, and this book has it. 5 stars!

Human Rights In The Arab World: Independent Voices is an anthology of essays by learned authors about the unfortunate and longstanding marginalization of human rights in the Arab world, the obstacles that bar the way to implementing these rights, and pathways to improve human rights and welfare in the future. Individual essays also discuss the intersection of globalization and human rights, the especial plight of women's rights in the Arab world, case studies in Yemeni, Egypt, and Morocco, the difficulties faced by activists and NGOs pushing for human rights, and much more. A sober, serious-minded compilation of a vital current problem, especially recommended for library reference shelves.

A good compendium of readings for someoneinterested in the serious study of humanrights. It was used as a textbook in aclass at the University of Maryland.The appendix includes several importanthuman rights documents.

Mutua's book is a must-have for those seeking to understand why a hegemonic, westernized approach to human rights is so problematic. Speaking from the perspective of an "insider/outsider" (the author is a leading international human rights scholar and activist from Kenya), he examines both the positive aspirations and contributions of human rights as well as evidence of its limitations and even dangers in practice.

Rather than embrace a strong version of cultural relativism, Mutua clearly condemns violations of human rights in both North and South. Nevertheless, he demands that human rights leaders must spend time in self-examination with regard to the history, origins, and contemporary contexts in which violations occur if abuses are to be effectively combatted.

There is much here for debate and discussion both inside classrooms and among activists in the field. Along with works by Anghie, Gathii, Rajagopal, Woods & Lewis, Andrews, Knop, Wing, and others, Mutua's book is a foundational contribution to the loose network known as the "Third World Approaches to International Law" (TWAIL) movement.

The book contains 16 papers from the Proceedings of the International Seminar on Cultural Interconnections in the Ancient Near East, held at the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. Topics include textual sources (D. Redford), Hyksos Period (D. O'Connor), Egypt and Nubia during the Second Intermediate Period (P. Lacovara), Avaris (M. Bietak), The Kingdom of Sharuhen (E. D. Oren), The Hyksos (A. Kempinski), and Ebba and Syria in the Middle Bronze Age (P. Matthiae). This is an excellent book to have in one's library : it is a perfect introduction to the Hyksos and their time.

I purchased this book as part of a course in the Fort Worth Hypnoses Institute. However it is also a great addition to how to write poetry.
A paragraph of the preface by Edward D. Snyder explains the book purpose best:
The first four chapters of this volume proposes and support a certain idea about poetry, while the remaining chapters make practical applications of the idea to individual poems and to topics of a more general nature. I hope that people, who read poetry for the sheer love of it, as well as those who are teachers and professional critics, will welcome this study of the trance-inducing effect that a few poems seem to extract on the reader, and will share my interest in extending the study to poems that are less obviously hypnotic
Edward D. Snyder suggests that some Poetry does spell weaving like listening to a piece of music that stirs up an old emotion.
After reading this book you will not look at poetry the same way again.

1896 is the most eventful year of Silas Hershey's life. The Mennonite teenager works on the family's Pennsylvania farm, plays with his nearest cousins, and worships at whichever home hosts the meeting that week. He unquestioningly obeys his parents and the church elders and assumes life (with the addition of a girlfriend) will continue as it has.

Later he recognizes the early signs of change. One brother has moved to Montana to work, another wants to quit farming altogether. Sister Barbie is resisting her approaching marriage, raising fears she'll abandon the simple Mennonite lifestyle as her older sister did.

These small conflicts have a wide-reaching effect. As Silas explains, "Joining church was different in those days, something you did when you were grown-up and sure you'd decided for certain, usually after you'd been married a year or so.... That way young people had a chance to get the wildness out of their systems."

Now, though, one segment of the community wants hellfire sermons followed by public "born again" conversions and a stricter separation from the world, such as the Amish practice. This segment seizes on Barbie's tragic death to push their conviction that the unbaptized are damned.

Stambaugh is the granddaughter of Silas Hershey, which has given her access to private records and eyewitness accounts of that significant year. A native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, she uses the sights, smells, and sounds of her childhood to make the Hershey farm live in the reader's mind. So does young Silas and through him, the whole question of, "How do we know we're saved?" This book is a jewel. Kathleen T. Choi, HAWAII CATHOLIC HERALD

This book is so helpful when planning your vaca to hershey i would definety recomend it!

I had a chance to meet the author of this book before I read it. This is a great read. The ministry he writes about was active for a long time in York. Even the author was aided by this ministry. I recommend highly.

What a great story about growing up in the coal fields of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Characters were engaging in this well written autobiography.