Associations Books

Nahanni: River of Gold...River of Dreams is an exciting look at the mysterious Nahanni River in Canada's Northwest Territories. Although I have never been to the Nahanni, it holds a special place in my heart and Neil and his books have been invaluable to my research on the Nahanni for my most recent fiction novel -- The River. Thank you, Neil, for all of your help and for helping to paint the picture of a fearsome yet exciting river and a rugged, majestic land of native lore, headless corpses and one of Canada's most sensational landscapes that I one day plan to see for myself. I also recommend Neil Hartling & Peter Jowett's Nahanni River Guide and of course Neil's company 'Nahanni River Adventures' to anyone who plans to travel there.
~Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of The River

The Nahanni River, with its surrounding National Park, is one of Canada's truly great and unspoiled wilderness areas. This book takes us on a narrative journey through the varied and spectacular course of the Nahanni.

Perhaps no one knows the Nahanni better than author Neil Hartling. Living in the Yukon and operating adventure tours of the area, he is a wonderful story teller equally concerned with publicizing and protecting this pristine area.

This book touches on many disciplines. The geological formation of the area with its canyons and waterfalls is described in detail. The folklore and history as well as environmental concerns for the future are powerfully told.

For those interested in sport and adventure canoeing this is a grand story of one of the world's prime and elusive venues. The color photos of the majestic Nahanni landscapes will delight anyone who appreciates natural beauty.

Technology has made it easier for employers to monitor and investigate employees' behavior - in turn, affecting morale and productivity. The Naked Employee offers an analysis of how technology is compromising workplace privacy, with chapters covering the social, legal and moral implications of different types of employee monitoring systems. From issues of employee privacy to the nuts and bolts of current investigative surveillance systems, this is packed with both social analysis and business insights.

A few months ago, I applied for an adjunct position -- teaching one course, online from my home computer. To my amazement, the private "alternative" university demanded a background check. I said thanks but no thanks -- and only now do I understand what happened.

Lane, author of Naked Employee, explains that companies fear risks associated with loose cannon employees, although he doesn't use those words. They risk embarrassment, lawsuits and more. And now, when it's so easy to order background checks, why take those risks?

If you resist, says Lane, prospective employers won't think you're principled; they'll think you're hiding something. After all, background checks revealed that fifty percent of resumes submitted to a major search firm included falsified information, ranging from imaginary degrees to exaggerated responsibilities.

Once you're hired, you can be subjected to physical exams and ongoing surveillance. Lane reviews the relative invasiveness of hair, blood and urine tests. Uniforms can be equipped with devices to prevent theft and track your whereabouts. Personal phone calls can be monitored long enough to discover they're personal -- a good two to three minutes.

As I read this book, I grew more and more horrified. Lane stays focused on what's happening today, only briefly suggesting ways to frame the problem on a broader scale. For instance, at the very end of the book, he notes that providing health insurance gives employers a solid basis for questioning employee lifestyles, on and off the job.

In a much earlier book, JobShift, WIlliam Bridges called for individuals to become independent contractors rather than employees. He argued that separating health insurance from employment would protect our privacy as well as our physical health. A paradigm shift, requiring major changes in infrastructure, would be required to alter our relationship with our employers, careers and jobs.

Thus the employment relationship has become decidedly lopsided. In return for invasion of privacy, the employer offers no long-term guarantees of employment. And in at least one non-traditional "university," the background checks have become a substitute for hiring: the "dean" didn't know anything about what was being taught -- just checked off boxes. I wonder how prevalent this trend has become.

As a former Marine who didn't see combat, I experienced it reading your fantastic book. Many memories of "boot camp" were revisted. I have never laughed so hard and it was very hard to put down once I started reading it. Still can't believe you're related to "Sister" Mary!

Semper Fi
Fred

I'm Sgt Rick Townsend USMC/RET. I'm proud to own a signed copy of this book. I served with Jerry(Ski), and the heroic men of India Company Third Bn, Fifth Marine Regt. Among some of my kinder memories of those days are the misadventures of "Ski" , Pvt. Holt, and too many more to list.

Live the day by day life of a "Grunt Marine", share the lunacy of "The Corps", feel the raw courage, sheer terror, and and the laughter that can still be found in any place or clime.

Thanks "Ski", thanks for the mist in my eye, and the laugh in my heart.

Semper Fidelis- Rick

This is without a doubt one of the most completely compelling books about auto racing that I have ever read. The author manages to expertly blend the human side of families in the racing world,with the excitement of the sport. The book reads so smoothly, I keep thinking I saw a movie. If you're into the NASCAR scene, you must read this book.

Two years ago when I started following the motor sport NASCAR, I purchased this book to give me the history and background that i needed to be able to understand the roots and expansion of what we now see on modern racetracks.
It was reading about the France family that I learned the deep roots about the evolution from beach racing to the building of the Daytona track.
I highly recommend this book as one to own and to read to enlighten you about the sport of racing stock cars if you go to races. As a woman, I must tell you girls to read this to learn why it is so popular with men.

I have a standing order to have sent to me every book Tim Miller writes. But after reading this book I don't think this dude is the same man who wrote SHIRTS AND SKINS and other gay performance scripts. This book is a good one too, and I read it through from cover to cover, pausing to admire the many mint photographs. The book is lavishly illustrated with a lot of wire photos and close ups of important moments in stock car history. They have access to computer databases and can thus list the exact dollar amount won by their profiled drivers through all of recorded history (extra money is earned, of course, through private endorsements and these do not appear in the "career earnings")

Tim Miller and Steve Milton do a great job outlining the history of NASCAR and how it grew from a tiny, low class racing circuit to the largest business in the world today. The cover says it all, three top drivers covered from head to waist with advertising logos of all kinds of companies. Bud, Champion, Home Depot, it's a sport in which men dress up as billboards then climb into cars with even more ads on them. On every page is an ad, but that's just part of the colorful history of NASCAR. Milton and Miller go into the way NASCAR used to have competitors, but they have since squashed all competition by the power of branding. Thus such famous drivers of the past as Mario Andretti and AJ Foyt didn't really align themselves with NASCAR at all, though you can bet your bottom dollar they'd do so today. In the past, Richard Petty held up the NASCAR tradition and singlehandedly made Americans aware of NASCAR as a reputable outfit. One section of NASCAR NOW profiles the up and coming drivers of tomorrow--the Dale Earnhardts of the future. LOL, it will be greart sport to keep this book around a few years and see how accurate Milton and Miller are at predicting who will be on top in, say, the year 2005 or 2010. For all we know, the great driver of the next generation is someone whose name we have not yet heard.

Another cool section profiles the NASCAR masters of the past thirty years. Those were the days befor NEXTEL took over and instead the tobacco industry controlled the advertising, so the big prize was called the WINSTON CUP. Miller and Milton are sympathetic sportswriters and each has a flair for the winning phrase. Of Kyle Petty, they write, "Petty. the name resonates around stock car tracks like thunder through a canyon." Everyone loves a winner and this book has 'em on every page, and the photography is outstanding. Check out the fish eye lens that makes Sterling Marlin's 2003 Michigan entry look like a spaceship from way out in the Milky Way.

For NASCAR race fans, Timothy Miller and Steve Milton collaborate to provide the definitive inside scoop on NASCAR drivers, cars and crew including past and present legendary drivers, to their teams, their sponsors, and more. Packed with color photos throughout, NASCAR NOW provides interviews, case histories, team statistics and much, much more for the avid NASCAR fan.

Joseph Tartaro, President of the Second Amendement Foundation, reviewed Patrick's "National Rifle Association and the Media" in Gun Week. Says Tartaro:

"Having read many of the books which have delved into the long public debate over guns and gun regulation, I can say that Patrick's book plows really new ground, and deserves careful reading by any activist engaged in that debate. The National Rifle Association and the Media offers an original approach that is backed up by careful research and analysis....This is not just a book on the NRA: it is about the role of the media in an age of enhanced public reliance on communication media."

This is an amazingly good book. I learned of it from a review in "Women and Guns" magazine that also praised the book highly. I not only second this evaluation, but also have a few things to add:

1. This is by far the most intelligent and credible analysis of the NRA and gun culture that I have ever encountered. Professor Patrick sets out to explain NRA's seemingly miraculous political effectiveness in an environment of hostile elite and media opinion. He does this convincingly, by marshalling an impressive body of hard evidence. Unlike many quite-popular books on NRA, media and gun issues, Patrick's evidence transcends the merely anecdotal. He is a social scientist and his approach utilizes systematic media content analysis, interviews and other data that cover a ten-year period. I believe the reason that major media have not reviewed Professor Patrick's book is because they are ashamed-he presents a case to which they cannot reply except by hanging their heads in shame.
2. Although the book is erudite and employs sophisticated research methods as well, it neither talks down to readers, nor does it skate above the understanding of readers who have not received graduate training in social science. Research methods and findings are lucidly and interestingly explained. The book is both amusing and educational-and the reader learns a great deal about how social scientists quantify and measure propaganda and media coverage.
3. The main conclusion is pleasantly and surprisingly counterintuitive: NRA benefits from negative media coverage. Professor Patrick believes that if it were not for negative media coverage, which has acted as a goad to mobilization, NRA and gun culture would not be in the position of relative strength and solidarity it enjoys today. Professional women like myself would not be able to legally carry concealed weapons to protect themselves in most states.
4. The book also has much to say on the role of media in modern mass democracy. Patrick points out that mass media news professionals have become increasingly important in this mass society, an exaggerated social role that he compares to the power of the clergy in Pre-Reformation Europe. Media are the interpreters of reality, the priesthood of modern times. It is a great analogy. Then, of course, the Reformation solved the problem of the widespread abuse of this power. Patrick recommends a healthy pluralistic system of voluntary associations (interest groups) that act as alternative sources of information-and he recommends that universities start training rather than ordaining journalists, i.e. filling them (and us) with a self-serving mythos of the holy journalism and turning them loose on society.

This is a professor under whom I would like to study some day.

Five stars!

We use this at our weekly Scrabble Club night. It has all the official Scrabble words, including the swear words/"not for TV words"

This is most up to date, also. I love it!

Offering this book for about $50 is a ripoff! It is not available to the general public. Members of the National Scrabble Association can buy it for about $15!

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Provides an overview of the remarkable Point Reyes National Seashore Park with a thorough discussion of geologic processes, weather, oceanic cycles, birds and other flora and fauna. Maps, drawings, and bibliography complement the text. Complete species lists provided in Appendix.

This is possibly the most definitive college football statistical book ever written. It just gets better every year. Has more stuff than you can imagine and, if you are a football fan, it is nirvana. The research is top-rate and the gathering of material must be a full-time job for someone. I thought this might be a coffee-table picture book when my wife got it for me, but was I surprised with the detail presented. I am really happy with this book.

This is possibly the most definitive college football statistical book ever written. It just gets better every year. Has more stuff than you can imagine and, if you are a football fan, it is nirvana. The research is top-rate and the gathering of material must be a full-time job for someone. I thought this might be a coffee-table picture book when my wife got it for me, but was I surprised with the detail presented. I am really happy with this book.

If you hang around with fellow homeowners, there's a lot of water cooler conversation about various things, including the electrical code. This book just nails everything you ever wondered about, everything you haven't yet wondered about, and a few thousand things that you'll never need to know. Want to install a subpanel? Want to figure what gauge of cable to use to supply it? Want to know how to calculate the in^3 fill of a box? How deep to bury an underground cable? How to use raceways? That information totals about 1/4 of 1% of the contents of this book.

I am desk jockey who does electrical design work. I have little in-the-field electrical experience. I use the NEC codes frequently to make sure what I design is code-compliant. I have a copy of the standard 1999 NEC book and found many parts of it difficult to interpret. This new "handbook" version has answered all of the questions and uncertainties I had about the code. It has an illustration and explanation for just about every question I could think of. Even when I don't need a certain thing, I have found myself leafing through the book just to learn more.

I would recommend this to anyone, but especially engineer types or those who are inexperienced. I feel much more confident about my job and I don't have to ask electricans those questions that make you feel stupid anymore. Even master electricians will appreciate the explanations of code changes from the 1999 version. Overall, I can't recommend this book more, well worth the $50 or so more than the standard NEC book.