Bryan Books

This is a wonderful book for readers of all ages. Tears of a Dragon is the fourth book in the Dragons in Our Midst series. It's a great conclusion to the series. It is very well written and thought out, the plot is deliciously complex, and the characters are ones that you come to love. It's combination of fantasy, Arthurian legend, and the Bible make it a unique and fascinating tale! I recommend this book for all ages.

Those who enjoyed the other three books of the Dragons in our Midst series are going to love Tears of a Dragon!
With nonstop action, readers can not put this book down.

-Lindsay W.

After the release of hundreds of Watchers from Hades, the remaining nine dragons prepare for war against overwhelming odds. But when Billy and Bonnie enter Dragon's Rest in search of Billy's father, tragedy strikes. Even when the battle's over, dragons and anthrozils face the toughest choice of their lives. Remain dragons, or become fully human? This ending made me cry. I really enjoyed the whole series and was sad to see it draw to a close. But the adventures continue with Oracles of Fire.

Tears of a Dragon definetly deserves the motto of the company it's published by..."Writing worth Reading". It is amazing how Bryan Davis can mix Christianity, mythology and adventure to keep readers on their seats.
I feel like I'm really there, and the ending is brilliant. I don't see why this isn't a movie, but reading Tears of a Dragon is worth it!

Tears of a Dragon definetly deserves the motto of the company that
published it... "Writing worth Reading". It's amazing how Bryan Davis can
mix Christianity, mythology and adventure to keep readers on the edges of
their seats. I feel like I'm with the characters the whole time. It is a
wonder that this is not yet a movie, but reading Tears of a Dreagon is worth it!

For an action/drama focusing on a super team of heroes, look no further. If you haven't picked up The Ultimates yet, you don't want to start here. This is basically season 2 of the series and you'll be lost, but this is where it really takes off for me. Ultimates 1 was a very well done series and got this franchise off to a good start and Ultimates 2 still blew it away.

This is a testament to the skills of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch for giving us a mature look at super heroes that doesn't patronize the reader and pushes the realism as much as possible. Comics have certainly changed in the wake of popular serialized dramas like "Lost" for example and for the better. I couldn't be bothered to even watch NBC's "Heroes" anymore as it doesn't even come close to the action and suspense showcased in this book. Continued in this book is more focus on Hank Pym, Thor and Tony and Natasha's budding relationship. The whole team begins to fall apart due to a possible informant within S.H.I.E.L.D. but who's the traitor?

I enjoyed seeing cameos in here from Prof. X as well as Matt Murdock representing Dr. Banner in court. Helps to keep the Ultimate Universe feeling all encompassing with these crossovers. I enjoyed the dialogue between Steve and Jan as the Captain America of the 40's is still having a hard time adjusting to the 21st century. Those moments also help to ground it in reality. And that's what I'm enjoying so much about this take on The Avengers is how much more seriously I can take it than ever before. Comics are not just for kids anymore and The Ultimates is a prime example.

More of the entertaining destructive and self-destructive antics of the Ultimates. The general public now know that Banner is the Hulk, and his trial demands capital punishment.

Giant-Man is Ant-Man, Iron Man is married. There is the aftermath of the alien invasion to deal with, and now, Loki.

In a nutshell, "the Ultimates" AKA the Ultimate Avengers is far and away the best of Marvel's Ultimate titles, as evidenced by its top-rating among all of Millar's books. Interestingly, it rates higher than his other Ultimate titles...I think in general the tone is the most adult and most serious of the Ultimate books - closer to the new Battlestar Galactica or Season 5 of 24 than than to its comic peers.

While I liked Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-men, etc - this is the standard bearer of the line - even if you don't follow the avengers, this is an easy to grasp title. And Volume 2 is far better than volume 1!

Unlike the previous Batman collection I read (Batman: Officer Down), The Ultimates 2 collection was fantastic. Stories like these are what have started to bring people back to comics again following the disastrous market crash of the 1990's when people became fed up with generic art and horribly written titles.

This arc picks up 12 months following the last Ultimates book and much has happened in the Ultimates' universe. Bruce Banner is locked away and awaiting trial, Thor has broken away from the team, and Dr. Pym continues to try to find a way to rejoin the team. Captain America, Iron Man and the other Ultimates find themselves at the center of numerous debates concerning the problems with the American government and other nations pursuing super-powered groups and how they should be used, if at all. Although Bryan Hitch's art is quite strong, what separates this book from many other things on the shelf is the writing. I used to be highly critical of many of the comics being sold because the writing was often weak and depended so heavily on the art to carry the book. Now, in many ways, books like this and the work of Bendis and Miller keep producing, comics have reached the point where the writing is as strong if not stronger than the art, making the medium that much richer and more entertaining. Millar does a fantastic job of keeping an epic feel to everything and at no point do we lose sight of how all-encompassing a team that contains many of Marvel's most important icons should be. At the same time, we see the moments when everyone, including Captain America, seems all too human.

I think this is a fantastic collection and highly recommend it to seasoned and new comic readers alike.

i hated the ultimates 1 vol 1, the ultimates 1 vol 2 was a lot better but still not great.
the ultimates 2 vol 1 however is great. i still hate the idea of bruce banner being a scumbag, and there are a bunch of other ultimate universe things that carry into this that i don't like. but overall this is a great tpb and highly recommended.

BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT! If you have a child coming up on SAT's or even in middle or elementary school, this is the best book out there! It was recommended to us by a reading specialist. I love to read the book just to see if I can recall words. Love IT so BUY IT!

This is a fantastic book. I am in 6th grade and got this and loved it. I would reccommend this for grades 6th -- 11th. The way it works: first it shows the word, say "copious". Next, it shows the definition -- in this case, "abundant;plentiful". Underneath, it shows a link word. For "copious", the link word was "cup". An amusing cartoon strip follows, such as the one for "copious" which showed a grinning man proudly holding a massive cup of coffee. The caption read, "A COPIOUS CUP of coffee". Then, there are three good examples. At the end of every ten words, there's a review to make sure you understand. This book is wonderful, and I reccommend it to everyone! I loved it. In total, there are 290 words.

This book is a delight! Both this and it's sister version (Vocabulary Cartoons 2) are wonderful vocabulary builder starters before you drift off into harder works like "The Wizard of Oz Vocabulary Builder." That book sounds easy enough, but it's actually geared towards 12th graders and beyond.

These books are wonderful for visual learners, although, others might get something out of them. Building your vocabulary is a process, but the time spent will be well rewarded. A strong vocabulary helps everything, including foreign language and math skills. As you delve into harder works, you'll be learning Latin and Greek roots which build excellent decoding skills for standardized tests.

These books are perfect for summer education. You want your kids to enjoy themselves, however, it doesn't hurt to move ahead academically either. These materials -- and ones like them -- are fun summer pleasure readers. And they'll learn something along the way. Adults will likely enjoy them too!

No one cares about your education more than you do. Fortunately, we live in the day and age where materials just keep getting better and better. So supplement, supplement, supplement. Have no fear: it can actually be fun. A+

this book was a simple, fun way to review vocab for SAT

This book has been one of my most valuable resources in my classroom. Each of my students owns a copy, and through class activities that incorporate the vocabulary into various literature lessons, I have seen results. One student recently took the SATs for the second time and reported a 210-point increase in his verbal score--an increase that he ascribes to this book. I highly recommend this resource to any literature teacher and college-bound student.

While their cover of Only Sixteen was all over the radio, I wonder how many folks bought the LP after hearing that song, and discovered this stoner classic? This is music to listen to with a lot of friends, with plenty of various libations on hand. A true party album.

As usual, the album contains great Shel Silverstein penned classics. Shel was at the top his game, and Dr. Hook delivers the songs with skillful wit. Interestingly enough, Dr. Hook as a band was bankrupt, and this album very well could have been their last. The success of Only Sixteen saved them, but alas, instead of more songs like The Millionaire and I Got Stoned, they went.... DISCO!!!! Bankrupt turned out to be the last, great Dr. Hook album. And what a great one it is!

Good times and good music from a long time ago.
Light one up, kick back, and enjoy.

I love this album. I saw the 'Hook' in 1974 on The Old Grey Whistle Test doing it and was blown away - I went out and bought it the following day. The Millionairre is excellent, I got stoned...... just me at the time. I've just ordered on CD from this site - delivery in April - I can't wait. I've worn out 6 copies on 33 over the past 30 years. The only other album I've done that with is Neil Young Harvest

some very funny moments on this CD. i used to listen to the LP many years ago , wore it out completely. WUPS makes me smile everytime i hear it. this was the bands last chance to make it big. Only Sixteen was the hit that made them superstars. A very hard to find CD, get it while you still can.

This album holds so many memories of my teenage years as I used to listen to this when going to Speedway with my brother. I have been searching for this to add to my collection of CD's and this is the first place I have been able to find it. As for the songs there isn't a bad one amonst them "Levitate" truly does lift me high, "Only Sixteen" reminds me of when I was ONLY SIXTEEN and "Millionaire" well listening to it will make us all feel like MILLIONAIRE'S

There's nothing like browsing the shelves, looking for something new, something different, something well written, something funny--and coming across a 'Keep It Real'. The sarcasm is relentless, the one-liners numerous and hilarious, the writing as crisp and polished as anything I read last year. If you like Dorsey, Hiaason, Jenkins, Leonard try this book.

This was by far the best book I read in 2007 (excluding medical textbooks of course).... You will laugh out loud and will read it in one day. Abso-f'ing-lutely hilarious book!

My lead-off vacation reading when I got on the plane was a library book titled Keep It Real by Bill Bryan. With Dave Barry's quote on the front "If you like to laugh, and you hate reality TV, you will love this wonderfully, viciously hilarious book", how could I not pick it up? Good choice too, as it delivered plenty of laughs to keep me distracted during a very long flight...

Ted Collins has gone from the heights of journalistic fame to the bottom of the TV barrel... from a Pulitzer for investigative journalism to being a producer for a reality TV show called "The Mogul". And yes, you can assume it's a rip-off of The Apprentice, right down to the Donald Trump catch-phrase. The only reason Ted keeps going is that his ex-wife has custody of their daughter, and he desperately wants to get more than court-supervised visits with his child. But legal issues and mental breakdowns will do that to you. During a visit with his daughter (at his ex-wife's mansion), he overhears an argument between a rap star and his latest "date". When the "date" goes missing, it becomes front-page news, with Ted holding a few cards as to what may have happened to her. This chance to get back into real reporting coincides with his promotion to executive producer of The Mogul. He decides to blend the two situations by having the rap star appear in an episode of the show so that he can spend some time snooping around to find physical evidence of the suspected murder. Unfortunately, "control" is an illusion, and network egos keep changing the plans faster than Ted can devise them. And with each change in direction, the likely suspect(s) keep shifting in and out of focus...

This was truly a fun read. Ted has an incredibly active imagination, and his dialogue is acid-sharp. His job is made up of completely dysfunctional coworkers and executives, and the daily "eat or be eaten" mentality is sort of what you'd expect in the pressure-filled world of network ratings. But underneath all the laughs and sarcasm, there's a real caring person who will literally kill for his daughter, and who wants to save her from the uncaring materialistic world in which she's being raised. The twists towards the end of the book kept me guessing on how it would all turn out, and I had more fun reading this than many other recreational reads of late.

If you're a fan of Dave Barry or Carl Hiaasen, Bill Bryan's Keep It Real should make you feel right at home.

Ted's life has taken a strange turn. Once a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, he now finds himself heading up a reality television show called The Mogul. Normally Ted wouldn't even consider the job but he's got bills (alimony to his ex who is living in luxury spending more on her appearance in a day than Ted makes in a month). Then, there's Hallie. Ted's daughter is the absolute love of his life and he'll do whatever it takes to spend more time with her. Despite the new job and the sold out attitude, there still seems to be a bit of a journalist still in there. So when Ted stubbles upon a mystery he just can't seem to let it go.

Keep It Real is a witty read with fully developed characters and a number of good one liners. Normally, I like raw, sarcastic individuals but I felt that perhaps Ted and his buddies were just a bit too over the top. Unfortunately, I never really felt a kinship or bond with any of the characters so what could have been a really good book was reduced to an interesting read.

Ted Collins hit rock-bottom after his wife left him, taking with her the movie rights to his Pulitzer-prize-winning article. From the peaks of investigative journalism, he's now a low-level producer for a truly horrible reality TV show. He's also still filled with anger at his wife and her new husband. That anger has resulted in his being denied any unsupervised visitation with his daughter.

When he oversees a conflict between a hip-hop star and the star's beautiful girlfriend--a model who vanishes shortly afterwards, Ted sees a possible road back to investigative journalism. In a celebrity-obsessed society, this is the kind of article any newspaper would sell its soul for. The problem of how to investigate when he doesn't even know the hip-hop star is solved by using his reality TV show--and making the hip-hop artist an integral part of the show. With a host of cameras on the scene, Ted is certain he'll be able to get to the truth. Maybe he'll even get lucky with the pretty detective assigned to look for the missing model.

Author Bill Bryan is at his best as he skewers the American media, with its concentration of self-proclaimed geniuses, its anything for a buck mindset, and its concentration on humiliation as the ultimate in entertainment. Bryan also manages some pithy observations on relationships between men and women, and on racial relationships in America. I found myself laughing out loud a number of times as I read through this entertaining and well-written story. Bryan is definitely an author to watch.

I would have liked to see a bit more concentration on the mystery, at least some additional investigation to bring up evidence to point at hip-hop star, Boney. Without that, the twist at the end of the novel didn't have quite the impact it could have. Still, I'm happy to recommend KEEP IT REAL as a fast-moving and compelling mystery--as well as an insightful look into the world of glitz, Hollywood, and reality TV.

This was a particularly enjoyable read for me because I am a huge fan of both Rich Mullins and C.S. Lewis. I also have a disabled daughter, which helps me relate to the author. But I have passed this book on to several people who don't share those interests, and they all loved it! I look forward to reading it again as I think there is much to be learned here.

I have ordered this book for Christmas gifts for at least 15 friends and family members.

I'm an avid reader (at least 1-2 books a week) and I usually forget about the books shortly after I've read them. This book is hard to forget. Weeks later I can still recall whole chapters. It has touched my life so much and I want to share it with as many people as possible. I highly recommend this book.

I read (and lived) this book a couple of days after the death of a dear friend while on a personal retreat. In a retreat setting much like Tim's in the story, I discovered that God had much more for me than the grieving for my friend who I know is enjoying her own Room of Marvels. Through laughter, tears and gentle nudges in my spirit, I came to a new understanding of what it means to live in the Kingdom of God, of the transition from time into eternity and the conversation between the two that begins in this life. Hope, grace, forgiveness, joy and a new sense of what it means to be a follower of Jesus emerged as I followed Tim's journey of reconciliation and understanding to hope and joy. James Bryan Smith's writing is exquisite and inviting. This book is not to be missed.

This is a book of hope and encouragement to anyone who has experienced loss. I loved it!

"Room of Marvels"
Author: James Bryan Smith

I received this book after church today and read in one seating! Not only could I not put in down, I couldn't stop crying -- overwhelmed by the reminder of God's love, overwhelmed by self-reflection, and overwhelmed by the journey through Heaven. This is a novel based on the death of the author's 3 closest people in his life. After struggling with grief and anger, Tim attends a 5 day silent retreat at a monestary which starts his inward journey to understanding his relationship with God. Tim has a dream to deal with love, forgiveness, masks, and control. Wait until you find out the concept of the "room of marvels" in Heaven. It is so awesome!!

I have one copy that needs to go into circulation but we need to get more. We have now bought a total of 16 books as gifts! That is how good this little book is! We hear that there is going to be a new release in the Fall with a new cover. Not sure if that is true or not!

I read Bryan's first book, "Understanding Exposure" and thought it was one of the best photography books writtens. Therefore, when he came out with this one I didn't buy it because I didn't want to be disappointed with rehashes of photos I already saw or he just added a few points to concepts already covered in other books.

I was on a photo safari when someone told me how much they enjoyed the book. Therefore, I decided to buy it. I was pleasantly surprised to see how he took something as basic as "shutter speed" and successfully held my interest for the entire book.

Bryan categorizes the book based on the shutter speed. These range from the speeds that freeze action (1/1000, 1/500, 1/250), to the slower ones that emphasize motion.

The books value is in the use of the slower speeds. There is not much to learn about taking images at the faster speeds that freeze action.

I give credit because he didn't just provide a bunch of pictures of the cliche slow shutter images (i.e., waterfalls and people walking). Instead, he shows you how to allow the moving subjects to paint the picture. My favorites examples are the boats in the water and the fields of grass. In these examples, he shows the typical image taken a faster speeds. Next, he shows how slowing the shutter speed allows the objects to move slightly thus producing very interesting photos.

I've taken photos of flowers in the past. I used to get upset because I couldn't use a fast enough shutter speed when I increased my aperture for greater depth of focus without increasing my ISO. In retrospect, I could've used a slower shutter speed to emphasize the motion and create more colorful images. This only works if one dares to try something different.

In conclusion, Bryan does an excellent job of showing you how to creatively use what you already know.

Professional photographer and instructor Bryan Peterson presents Understanding Shutter Speed: Creative Action and Low-Light Photography Beyond 1/125 Second is a handbook for intermediate to advanced photographers, focusing specifically upon the challenge of photographing subjects in motion or at low light levels. Full-color photographic examples illustrate the tips, tricks, and techniques for capturing top-quality images, while the straightforward text imparts a lifetime of expert wisdom in clear and concise terms. "You will always attain the fastest possible shutter speed at any given ISO when you use the largest possible lens opening, and you will be able to attain the slowest possible shutter speed at any given ISO by using the smallest possible lens opening... That well-known cotton candy effect you can get with [waterfall shots] doesn't start until you use apertures of f/16 or f/22." Enthusiastically recommended for expert or professional photographers seeking to refine their camera work.

This book provides a lot of good ideas for shooting more artistic images. Covering a variety of shutter speeds and settings, it does a good job of inspiring you. It also features photos taken using the settings described in the text.

But here's why I gave it only four stars. It's not the author's fault, but you may need more camera to take advantage of some of the suggestions. I use a Sony H5 which falls in between point-and-shoot and full SLR. Even in full manual mode, I'm unable to adjust the aperture past f8. Consequently, longer shutter speeds result in serious overexposure. Again, not the author's fault, just a point to be aware of.

When I first looked at "Understanding Shutter Speed" by Bryan Peterson on Amazon I wondered how shutter speed, only one of the components of an exposure, made up a book. In fact, there are some organizational problems that are caused by choosing this particular slice as a wedge into the topic of photography. A good editor might well have wondered what the final chapter on "Composition" is doing at all in this particular book.

The great strength here is idea generation. It's hard not to look at the illustrations in this book and say, "Hey why don't I try that?" The caption information is explicit enough so that you can recreate the ideas shown for yourself, or use them as a jumping off point. As an idea book, "Understanding Shutter Speed" is well worth its price.

Personally, I find the text (as opposed to the photo captions) problematic. Peterson seems out of his depth when it comes to digital. He really seems to think that from a noise viewpoint you are better off underexposing by two stops and adjusting in RAW as opposed to boosting the ISO and exposing properly (he's wrong). His discussion of ISO using a metaphor of hundreds of carpenters struck me as simply silly and without much point.

But leaving the intellectual muddle out of it, this is a book you'll want to own as a glorious idea generator.

I first bought "Understanding Exposure" from this same author, and felt it was one of the best books I have ever read re: photography. A manual of sorts I still keep nearby. This edition focuses on the sub-point of shutter speed as it relates to exposure.

The Good:
Great color photography with good examples of how varying shutter speeds will affect an image. There are a number of tricks -- like you can shoot action coming directly at you at 1/250, but need 1/500 for lateral or vertical movement.

The Bad:
I felt the book had a lot more fluff than the author's other effort. Some of the images were re-used -- or at least came from the same shoot -- and it had a lot more creative examples which I personally didn't like. It was outside the box a bit in terms of how to use shutter speeds, my complaint is that the results, even if intended, were not desirable.

Overall:
I liked this book, and glad I have it as a supplement to my growing photo library; but, I would not buy this before having his other edition. Shop price on this. I wouldn't overpay. I would give this 3 1/2 stars if Amazon allowed it.

It seems to me that The Fifth Discipline (the previous publication of the series) is more attacting to me. The second book can be more precise and concise in content. Generally speaking I still like these two books as a foreign reader.

The Fieldbook attempts at making the esoteric concepts of the fifth discipline more down to earth and contains a treasure trove of strategies, tools, methods and explanations on how to make the learning organization into a reality.

Thus people who have read The fifth discipline will gain the most from this book. It's a must read for people who want to make their organizations transition into a 'learning organization'

This book is a collection of theoretical summaries, reports, analyses, and strategies all quite useful to anyone interested in generating some thinking and action around change. The team of five writers (Peter Senge, Richard Ross, Bryan Smith, Charlotte Roberts, and Art Kleiner) provide some original work, but also serve as editors to a vast quantity of material drawn from practitioners, theorists, and writers in the field of organizational improvement. According to Senge, "great teams are learning organizations - groups of people who, over time, enhance their capacity to create what they truly desire to create." (p.18) This book is really about creating and building great teams. The learning organization develops its ability to reflect on, discuss, question, and change its current and past practices. To do this, people and groups in the organization need to meaningfully pursue the study and practice of the five disciplines - personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.

The learning organization - Senge's vision for the productive, competitive, and efficient institutions of the future - is in a continuous state of change. Four fundamental questions continuously serve to check and guide a group's learning and improvement (see page 49): (1) Do you continuously test your experiences? ("Are you willing to examine and challenge your sacred cows - not just during crises, but in good times?") (2) Are you producing knowledge? ("Knowledge, in this case, means the capacity for effective action.") (3) Is knowledge shared? ("Is it accessible to all of the organization's members?") (4) Is the learning relevant? ("Is this learning aimed at the organization's core purpose?") If these questions represent the organization's compass, the five disciplines are its map.

Each of the five disciplines is explained, and elaborated in its own lengthy section of the book. In the section on "Systems Thinking" (a set of practices and perspectives, which views all aspects of life as inter-related and playing a role in some larger system), the authors build on the idea of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) and introduce five systems archetypes. They are: "fixes that backfire", "limits to growth", "shifting the burden", "tragedy of the commons", and "accidental adversaries". In the section on "Personal Mastery", the authors argue that learning starts with each person. For organizations to learn and improve, people within the organization (perhaps starting with its core leadership) must learn to reflect on and become aware of their own core beliefs and visions. In "Mental Models", the authors argue that learning organizations need to explore the assumptions and attitudes, which guide their institutional directions, practices, and strategies. Articles on scenario planning, the ladder of inference, the left-hand column, and balancing inquiry and advocacy offer practical strategies to investigate our personal mental models as well as those of others in the organization. In "Shared Vision", the authors make the case for the stakeholders of an organization to continually adapt their vision ("an image of a desired future"), values ("how we get to travel to where we want to go"), purpose ("what the organization is here to do"), and goals ("milestones we expect to reach before too long"). The section offers many strategies and perspectives on how to move an organization toward continuous reflection. In "Team Learning", the authors rely mostly on the work of William Isaacs and others, and make a case for educating organization members in the processes and skills of dialogue and skillful discussion.

This book is enlightening and informative. It has already found a place on my shelf for essential reference books.

Peter M Serge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook

To quote the first few paragraphs at beginning of book:

Among the tribes of northen Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, equivalent to "hello" in English, is the expression: Sawu bona. It literally means, "I see you." If you are a member of the tribe, you might reply by saying Sikhona, "I am here." The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It's as if, when you see me bring me into existence.

This meaning, implicit in the language, is part of the spirit of ubuntu, a frame of mind prevalent among native people in Africa below the Sahara. The word ubuntu stems from the folk saying Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu, which from Zulu, literally translates as: "A person is a person because of other people."


"I bow in honor and reverence that place within you where to the Universe resides, when you are in that place within you, and I am in that place within me, there is One." ~namaste


The five disciplines are at the CORE of a Learning Organization

1) Personal Mastery: expand your personal capacity and ability

2) Mental Models: see how our internal pictures of the world shape action and decision

3) Shared Vision: group commitment

4) Team Learning: group ability is greater than the sum of individual talents

5) System Thinking:


"When we try to bring about change in our societies, we are treated first with indifference, then with ridicule, then with abuse and then with oppression. And finally, the greatest challenge is thrown at us: We are treated with respect. This is the most dangerous stage." --A. T. Ariyaratne (Speech made at International Community Leadership Summit, Winrock, Arkansas, March 1983. This quote paraphrases and expands upon a well-known statement made by Mahatma Gandhi in his book Satyagraha in South Africa, 1982, 1979, Canon, Me.: Greenleaf books)


"An [organization] is not a machine but a living organism." --Ikujiro Nonaka /****
Fundamentals of epistemology: what is knowledge, the nature of knowledge, and what constitutes learning.
understanding is achieved after internalization.
Without experience, we cannot truly understand.
Internalization: transformation from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge, habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves.
Innovation is a process to capture, create, leverage, and retain knowledge.
What is your belief? A belief about images of the world - you may call it a mental model - is a very subjective thing

information is the flow of a message, while knowledge is created by accumulating information. Thus, information is a necessary medium or material for eliciting and constructing knowledge.

The second difference is that information is something passive. When we switch on a TV set, information comes regardless of my commitment. But knowledge comes from my belief, so it's more proactive.

And the organizational knowledge or intellectual infrastructure of an organization encourages its individual members to develop new knowledge through new experiences.

This dynamic process is the key to organizational knowledge creation - that is, socialization (from individual tacit knowledge to group tacit knowledge), externalization (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge), combination (from separate explicit knowledge to systemic explicit knowledge), and internalization (from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge) [...].

[...]

Three Guiding Ideas

1) The Whole. When you are pointing a finger at the problems, notice how many fingers are pointing back at you. If you fixed the symptoms and ignore the root causes, the problems have not gone away. Another way to look at this is treat the person, not the disease. Of course treat the disease if the patient is dying, but know that the patient will get sick again because the "root causes" are stil there.

2) Community. The self is "a point of view." "The essence of being a person is being in a relationship [with] other people." You will not believe this, but each person before you is there for a reason. The reason this person is there at this moment is for you to learn something about yourself. If you ignore the person, do not ignore or forget the lesson.

3) Language. The map is not the territory. We cannot contain every bit of information that comes to us in the world, so we have to create a "map of the territory" and then refer to the map for our information. By changing a person's map, we change their reality. Language is the map, not the reality.

Senge's second serving of the Learning Organization is filled with practical tips and real-life examples from companies and organizations that have embraced the teachings of the Learning Organization successfully.

The Book is a collaboration of several writers who do a superb job of unraveling the web that is the learning organization. At times, it may seem to the reader that the book is a labyrinth of disjointed concepts and ideas. However, if you have read `The Fifth Discipline' you will find no problems following the concepts introduced. In fact, you will even understand why the writers have chosen to introduce them in that fashion. If you have not read "The Fifth Discipline', do not despair, it will take a little longer to get `the whole picture'.
The Book is divided into 8 main sections:

1) Getting Started addresses the basic concepts and ideas of the Learning Organization.
2) Systems Thinking (the fifth discipline) - Many people have argued that Senge should have delegated the fifth discipline until the end, however, without Systems Thinking, your vision is disjointed and incomplete.
3) Personal Mastery covers the area of individual development and learning. The chapters here are among the most valuable in the area of self-growth and self-improvement.
4) Mental Models - These are the pictures that you have in your head which represent reality.
5) Shared Vision - You've seen the whole picture, you've developed and you understand how you see the world. Now you need to find a common cause with the rest of the people in your organization, something that you all work for.
6) Team Learning - As you work with other people in teams or groups, you need to pass the stuff that you have learnt and the wisdom you've acquired to others. At this stage, the learning is no longer that of the individual, but the group.
7) Arenas of Practice - (Self explanatory)
8) Frontiers - Where do we go from here.

If you are interested in development, learning, growth, leadership, gaining a competitive edge whether at an organizational or personal level, then this book is for you. In fact, I'd venture to say that this is book is for everyone.

This is a huge book packed with information and gorgeous photography. There is plenty of science contained in these glossy pages from how the planets in our solar system formed, to the breakup and movement of our land masses to their current day positions, ocean currents, weather, ecology, glacial periods, and so much more. Most of the first half of the book is devoted to these subjects. The second half of the book gets into ocean life, from the smallest to the largest, how they live, feed, defend themselves. The pictures are breathtaking. This is a great educational book for all family members. Trust me, this one won't just sit around on your coffee table.

I recently sent this book to my younger sister who has inspirations of becoming an oceanographer. The book is so colorful and educational I think I want to become an oceanographer now!

This book is not a typical "coffee table" book. Although full of beautiful photographs, there is equal emphasis on educational text. Instead of being a book containing only full-page photos of ocean life, each page is a collage of wonderful photos and short articles that you will want to read. The publisher of this book (DK), offers a variety of books in this format (travel, etc), and the layout of this book is similar. That is not to knock the photos at all - they are great and some are full-page, but this book isn't page after page of full-page photos as some others are.

That said, this is an excellent educational text with so much interesting information to offer. (It made me want to read the book cover-to-cover, which would probably keep me busy for at least a few days!)

The four main sections of the book include:

Introduction
Ocean Environments
Ocean Life
Atlas of the Oceans

The Introduction section takes a scientific look at the earth. A sampling of the topics of this section include "The Evolution of the Oceans", "Tectonics and the Ocean Floor", "Hurricanes", and "El Nino and La Nina". Mixed in with the photos are a number of color drawings and graphs to help the reader understand the concepts.

The section on Ocean Environments includes articles on specific places like San Francisco Bay and Hardanger Fjord as well as general information on habitats such as Salt Marshes, Mangrove Swamps and Rocky Sea Beds. The pages are full of photos of the areas as well as typical species found there.

The largest section is on Ocean Life and focuses on the variety of creatures found in the sea. Exhibited within these pages are a number of amazing photos of plants and animals that I had not seen before (though I'm not an expert on this subject) including creatures such as the Glass Squid, the Blue-Ringed Octopus and the Goblin Shark. I thoroughly enjoyed the short paragraph articles describing unique aspects of the species shown as well as the longer texts on topics like "Echinoderms" that includes anatomy, reproduction, feeding and defense sub-articles.

The last section is Atlas of the Oceans and includes maps of the different oceans and text describing them.

Again, the focus of this book is learning, not just amazing photography, and it does an excellent job of offering a smorgasbord of articles on different topics. If you really want to learn about the ocean and its inhabitants while paging through fantastic photographs, you will thoroughly enjoy this book!

NOT 500 pages and if I had paused to read the item description properly I wouldn't have bought this book! Way too good a price to be true, it is not another edition of the wonderful Cousteau-forwarded book, but a perfectly respectable DK full-color children's book with many very nice color photos. Probably very worth $7.99 and I was just far too greedy to read the fine print.

I had been looking for a comprehensive ocean book for a while, and more or less found it here. A complete overview of the ocean: physical features, marine life, fishing, exploration - this book covers it all. Great photography and short pieces of information on hundreds of the ocean's species will immerse even the most casual terrestrial browser.

The species featured in this book are well distributed - representing all classes of animals and plants, and all zones and ocean communities, from the coastal to deep sea ecosystem. Their mini synopsis of species is proceeded by a helpful overview of the general category that covers them (such as mollusks: their basic anatomy, movement mechanics, feeding and life cycles for the entire group) before telling you about, let's say, the octopus. The bulk of the book is on ocean biota, with a smaller sections on ocean environments and an atlas of the oceans.

Perhaps the biggest gap I see in the book is that it covers fisheries and other human impacts (trash, pollution, warming, acidification) only minimally and sporadically. The human impacts are highlighted for only a few key species, instead of treating it as an separate issue in its own right that affects, directly or indirectly, all forms of marine life. Indeed, the subtitle for the book, "the world's last wilderness revealed," is misleading and biased. It's akin a travel brochure selling an overrun tourist destination like Waikiki as exotic and pristine ("come and watch the natives surf!" I read once somewhere) - given our massive interference with most of the ocean, the term "wilderness" simply does not apply, except perhaps for the Antarctic region, for now.

But what the book does cover, it covers it well, being both engaging and informative. Over 500 pages serve as a good introduction to our waterworld.

In the opening lines of chapter 3 Bryan Magee, paraphrasing Schopenhauer, writes: "If there is to be any point in my looking for something, I need to have some idea of how I shall know if I find it". Whoever comes to philosophy would be well-advised to keep this in mind. Can we really read philosophy without any idea, or to use an expression from Saul Bellow, any `metaphysical hunch' about what we think (or hope) to find? It was while reading this wonderful book on Schopenhauer that I suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, found the answer to the question, "Why do I read philosophy?". And the answer was not, as the expected knee-jerk response would have it, to find `truth', but to break away, if only for a moment, from the deadening gravity of the obvious and the mundane into an awareness of a reality more awesome and profoundly mysterious. For me few philosophers manage this better than Schopenhauer, and Magee is absolutely brilliant at conveying this to his readers in his book The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Hardly surprising from a man, who, on another occasion wrote,

"At the heart of the mystery, it seems to me, must lie the relationship between the self and the empirical world in which it is not an object. In fact I am tempted to believe that the ultimate mystery `is' the relationship between the self and the empirical world. With his usual acumen Schopenhauer thought this, `the solution of the riddle of the world is only possible through the proper connexion of outer with inner experience, effected a the right point.' The first time I read those words I got gooseflesh all over my body, my scalp pricked and tingled, and I knew that I was going to read every word written by Schopenhauer". (Confessions of a Philosopher - Bryan Magee).

Perhaps this book explains Schopenhauer with amazing clarity and detail, but I couldn't make it past the first 50 pages. It's just one multi-page paragraph after another. The author needs to learn the concept of whitespace.

The introduction to "Essays and Aphorisms" provides a concise look at Schopenhauer for the casual reader.

I find it amusing that someone would give this excellent overview of Schopenhauer a two-star rating on the grounds that it is "difficult". Schopenhauer's philosophy is profound and requires much thought and reflection in order to grasp it. There may be "easier" introductions than this book but if you want to actually try and understand Schopenhauer then read this book. Remember, understanding Schopenhauer or any great philosopher will be difficult. If you can't do "difficult" then read Dr. Seuss.

Bryan Magee has done a superlative job in writing this work. It is both a review and explanation of Schopenhauer's philosophy as well as an exposition of his influence on artists such as Richard Wagner. There is also much biographical material on Schopenhauer. This is a 400 page book and will take a while to get thru. It is not an easy read, though well written. It's just that Schopenhauer's philosophy takes some time to get used to if you have not encountered him before. But you will be richly rewarded.

Perhaps the most unjustly neglected philosopher in the western world. I would hope this very readable introduction will encourage more people to take up the study of this great thinker. Bryan Magee, as usual does, what many professional philosphers are unable or unwilling to do: he makes philosophy accessible to almost everyone. While I haven't found Schopenahuer's writing all that difficult, reading this first has helped me grasp The World as Will and Representation better than I could have without it.

Philosophy needs more Schopenahuers and Magees and fewer obfuscators.