C Books

It's good to hear that employing a clear, open business policy can boost the bottom line and upgrade management. With all the recent corporate scandals, a management approach based on "what you see is what you get" is refreshing - and it works. Transparent management can increase employee morale, retention and productivity. Transparent leaders are better at their jobs and make a difference in people's lives. Using case studies and self-assessment surveys, authors Barbara and Elizabeth Pagano help potential leaders evaluate and hone their honesty and their leadership styles. The case studies in this easy to read, if slightly repetitive, volume help convey the authors' key points, which center on honesty, awareness and open communications. We recommend this value-enriched book to aspiring leaders, managers and executives who may be surprised to learn that transparent leadership is one of those intangibles that can produce concrete results.

I really enjoy the stories in The Transparency Edge. It is a great reminder that we can choose to be better leaders in everything we do, everyday. Leadership concepts are hard to grasp generally. And illustrating these with personal experiences make these issues come alive for readers. The Paganos' conversational style also makes reading easy. I recommend this to those who are starting/doing 360 feedback. Such a feedback process can be rather disconcerting, as my first-time coachees have confirmed, and it is helpful to have a resource like Transparency Edge to act as a guide for reflection and new actions.

This book does a great job of breaking up credibility into a few tangible categories and listing specific examples of how to apply the right touch to each of them -- being open without overdoing it, offering praise without coming across as insincere, etc. I was impressed front to back on the way that the authors dissected each dimension, provided insightful anecdotes, and supported them with metrics.

The biggest thing I didn't like is that it uses the "motherhood and apple pie" approach to convincing you of the value of most dimensions. There's sort of an implicit assumption that everything the book says sounds good, and therefore you must do it, resulting in... profit? If they'd not only pointed out studies that showed how many people were bad at certain things but were also more consistent in showing how each of their dimensions contribute to productivity of staff, profitability of the company, or some other company-specific metric, it would've been nice. I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with them; rather that I don't like seeing people espouse behavior changes just because they "feel right."

Additionally, it's pretty clear they run a high-level executive consulting business. At times, it seemed too CEO / senior-VP focused, with the assumption that not only do you have reports, but that your reports have tiers of reports. Finally, the number of times that they mention the specific services they provided and specific role they played made it feel less like a self-help book and more like an advertisement for them.

Still, a good book and to be recommended, but I'd take it with a grain of salt at times. It triggered a little bit of cynicism more than once, though I'm sure that they'd be willing to work with me on that :-)

This book has a magical combination of real life stories interwoven with principles and facts based on research. Not an easy mix to achieve. Hats off to these authors!
Evonne Weinhaus,
Co-author of Stop Struggling With Your Teen
& Stop Struggling With Your Child

As someone who has inhabited a pretty competitive corner of corporate America for over 20 years, I can honestly say this book was like a lifeline.

With the huge generation of baby boomers all entering the business scene at the same time, I think a lot of us have felt tremendous pressure to conform to what seemed some pretty harsh norms. Being professional and getting ahead was all about being efficient - not taking the time to explain what was going on; being strong, which means never appearing vulnerable; being tough - which means focusing solely on the more easily quantified sales and profit implications of a decision, and shutting out the human factors.

I work in the communications/consulting business and, at every company I've worked for, senior management would get up every year at the annual meeting and say something like - "What sets us apart and gives us our competitive advantage is how we care about our people," and "The most valuable asset in this company goes home every evening." And everyone would just look at each other and roll their eyes, because nobody believed them!

If they cared so much, why didn't they tell us candidly the reasons behind some of their apparently uninformed and careless decisions? Even bad news would be better than all the confusion and speculation in the ranks when no-one knew what was going on. Why did they do all this management training, yet still knowingly tolerate bosses who brutalized their subordinates? Why did they ask for our suggestions - and even ask us to put extra time in volunteering for various corporate task forces - only to break their implied promise of change by ignoring everything we came up, and proceeding with business as usual?

As I moved up into management myself, I understood better what some of the pressures are that push the people in charge into some of these behaviors, and there were times when I found it hard to reconcile my own choices. I saw it as having to make a trade-off between what I thought was the right thing to do (i.e., my responsibility to my personal values), and doing the right thing for the company (i.e, my responsibility as a professional).

What The Transparency Edge does is show beyond a doubt that standing true to your values makes good business sense. Yes, it's harder to do sometimes, and yes, sometimes the benefits are long-term rather than immediate. But leaders have a responsibility to the long-term welfare of the company, which includes maintaining their own and their company's reputation, as well as creating the motivation for people to follow their leadership. Both of those goals are impossible to achieve without personal credibility. And personal credibility is built through conscientiously respecting the nine principles in this book.

Pagano demonstrates that, without question, the reason to behave transparently is not only because it's right, but because it's smart. What a breath of fresh air - it's about time!

I absolutely adore this book. The pictures are so beautiful and layed out perfectly. The book also provides the history of Tutankhamun and other pharaohs of the golden age. I highly recommend this book for those that are not able to attend the exhibition.

Fantastic book; saved money by purchasing it through Amazon. Shows all the exibits. Very pleased with the book. A fine edition to anyones collection.

Beautiful book, great pictures. Great to have with you if you get to see exhibit.

Purchased in anticipation of the opening of the exhibition in London in November, the book is a mine of information. Not only does Zahi Hawass describe the objects on display, but he places them in context and gives a vivid picture of life in Egypt at the time of Tutankhamun and before his accession to the throne. Not only a great read, a reference for future use and up to Dr Hawass usual enthusiastic and vivid style. A must-have book for anyone interested in Egypt.

I bought the book before seeing the tour in Philly. The book is very well done, and very good representation of the tour. Beautiful photographs, plus good rich text around the history of the 18th dynasty.

Other reviews talk about the tour, which isn't really what the book is about. The tour was rather crowded, and I was somewhat disappointed that all the objects were small, and no Tut sarcophagus. Very little explanation of the layout, so my son was complaining about the lack of Tut objects; they included many from the 18th dynasty.

I recommend the official DVD, its great; bought it at the show.

Friendship comes in many forms, and that relationship between Bernie and Fritz, from different sides, Jewish and Christian, of the deep divide of WW2, is a marvelous testimony to "friendship". The only bitter-sweet moment was when I realized that Bernie had given up his religious beliefs in his "americanization". His children were not raised as Jews; another generation lost to the Holocaust, as much as the six million were.

I first saw this book when a seat mate on a flight was reading it. He praised it, so I ordered it. The book was well worth the praise.

The two authors of the book just visited my school today, and told me and the other students their stories. Bernat Rosner went to my school, Thomas Jefferson School, and he even mentions and has pictures of it in the book. I've yet to read it, but I'm eagerly anticipating it. Their stories are so touching, and I feel so honored to have met these two men. Also to have had a man as interesting as Bernie Rosner go to my school in 1950, it's just so amazing. They are very interesting people, and there's just so much more I could say, but this review would unfortunately become boring. I strongly suggest that everyone should read this book, the authors have two great stories to tell.

Each memoir is important in adding to the historical record of this terrible period, and this book adds a considerable dimension with the authors shared as well as separate memories and their astute and insightful analyses of every aspect of their experiences. By the time I finished reading this book, I felt I knew both authors well and also many of the people who surrounded them over the years. I hope the book is widely read and given a place of honor in Holocaust literature. It deserves deep attention by scholars and general readers and seems eerily prescient, too, in light of September 11th, and its concern for the horrors our species can inflict on its victims. If I were still writing book reviews, this book would be a prime choice for me. It deserves all the notice in print it can get.

In a world with a lot of open wounds in need of healing, "An Uncommon Friendship" helps bridge former sins and ongoing roots of bitterness to establish a world pregnant with new beginnings--every day. This book shows that other options are possible beyond the labels of cultural bigotry. When properly understood and appropriated, understanding and forgiveness are seldom far apart in life-giving relationships.

Recently we came in contact with a person who has such a high disregard for Germans. If only they knew and understood the rich heritage German culture has also given as a gift to the New World of new beginnings.

I was very impressed with this book; for such a difficult subject it was beautifully written. I have been to the Holocaust Museum in Israel, and though the documentation there is quite graphic and disturbing, the voice of the child in Bernie, and the voice of the child on the other side in Fritz, completes a picture that is enlightening, but reveals a picture that no one wants to believe. It seems to me that is often the way people have dealt with this very terrible time, and the authors are very brave to tell this story. I think this book should be required reading for all college students.

I think most of the information is pretty straightforward for those who have modeled objects and component packages. Anyone familiar with test driven design and other extreme programming practices probably have come to most of the same conclusions that this book shows examples of.

While it is very thorough, it is not very concise.

In the end i gave it 5 stars because it's the ONLY book that i've ever seen that gives this type of information in ANY format. I applaud the author for taking such a hard topic and putting it in writing. Sometimes I have to have examples like this to show to other developers when they 'cry' about not being able to unit test.

If your job is working with Legacy Code, then you need to pick up this book. If you follow his line of reasoning, you can pick up solid habits to systematically revitalize legacy code. The main emphasis of the book is applying unit testing to legacy code for in the authors opinion, legacy code is simply "code without unit tests." You may or may not agree with this statement, but the techniques he presents to find "seams" as he calls them in the code to allow you to break dependencies are vital to working with legacy code even if you choose not to apply unit testing to your projects. Some developers may attack the simplicity of the examples presented, saying they don't represent real-world examples, but if you "read" the text accompanying them you learn the techniques to tackle legacy code issues. Although I noted many publishing glitches - places where sentences to entire paragraphs are repeated from one page to another, the content is solid.

[...]

This is a must-read for software developers, I think. It's up there with Code Complete as a must-have, and I think does a better job than Refactoring by Fowler of explaining Refactoring. I started using some of the techniques in this book immediately and found that coding was higher quality and more enjoyable. It also helps to understand that the author's definition of "legacy code" is "code without tests".

If you're working on a project that lacks unit tests, but want to add them, you have to read this book. It has advice and strategies for refactoring untested code so it CAN be tested. Whatever language you're working this, this book has the help you need.

This book is decent but it doesn't break much new ground. The author has the Fowler-esque affectation of naming very simple things to create a shared and clear vocabulary (ie making a change and seeing what it breaks when you compile is now the LeaningOnTheCompiler pattern) which feels a little overdone in places.

There was some good material here, but generally the best parts were where he would tie an example into a well known design principal which would be explained in a sidebar (SRP, etc). Of course, that kind of stuff could be found elsewhere in a more concise format.

The book is nice in that it makes you think through the samples, I just wish there were more moments after doing that where I went "oh hey, cool" (there were a couple, don't get me wrong) instead of "yeah, thats pretty much how we do it now".

Anastasia's Album is definitely the best children's book on the Romanovs! The main personality is Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna - the youngest daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra, and a very lively girl who enjoyed activities and taking photographs. One very charming aspect of this book is seeing Anastasia's very own photo album, which she often hand-decorated herself - drawing and painting borders around her photographs and even adding a little colour to her pictures. Anastasia's Album also informs the reader of the Romanovs' family life up until their last days in Ekaterinburg.

Although the book's main targeted audience are children, Anastasia's Album will charm readers of absolutely all ages! Very cute book!

Since I'm writing a research paper, this was such a useful source for me to use. I loved the pictures and the information. It had so much of it! I was amazed; blown away. This is an amazing book for both kids and adults and I hope you get something out of it too!

This is an excellent book about Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Russia's last tsar. As many know, Anastasia was murdered with her entire family in 1918. This book tells Anastasia's story through her own words. Her letters reflect a happy, secure young girl who came from a loving family. It shows readers a world that is gone and will never return. Though it was written for young children, all ages with enjoy "Anastasia's Album!"

The first time I found this book at the public library I just barely seen Fox's movie Anastasia for the first time. Surprised to find out that Anastasia was a real person, I checked out the book expecting it to be similar to most biographies.

Boy was I wrong. This book absolutely blew me away. Anastasia's album is a wonderful look into the life of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last tsar of Imperial Russia. Imagine my surprise to find out that Fox's movie was nothing like Anastasia's real life, although many of the costumes and sets came from real items. Full of pictures, this book also included bits from Anastasia's real diary. A remarkable biography about a remarkable girl.

I remember this book from when I was a kid, after the 'Anastasia' movie came out my friend had this book, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It's full of beautiful photos and pictures the Grand Duchess drew herself. It seems really heartbreaking now that all she got to leave was her scrapbook.

Angel Cats is a wonderful reminder THAT the presence of a Divine Spirit, usually attributed only to the best humans, informs our feline companions as well.

The story "Throwaway Kids and Throwaway Animals Found Each Other" alone is well worth the cost of this amazing collection of stories. Linda Lansdell who shared her story helping inner city troubled teens grow into responsible and loving adults is a very good writer. And it all happened because of the animals that the inner city teens helped care for. All the stories in Angel Animals are good but this one story hits home on what animals can do to help change human lives for the better.

I bought this book and read it after reading Allen and Linda Anderson's other book titled GOD'S MESSENGERS: What Animals Teach Us about the Divine. ANGEL ANIMALS is a feel good and thought provoking book to read! All the well written stories offer a unique viewpoint on the special (some would say spiritual) bond we have with our pets and with animals in the wild. Dr. Marty Becker writes a wonderful foreword and endorses the spiritual theme of the book with enthusiasm. I highly recommend this book and the Anderson's other book, GOD'S MESSENGERS!!!

The connection between animals and people is quite profound. The lessons about fidelity, love, caring and relationships are all in this book. My husband and I took time each day to read one of the stories out loud. I can think of my experiences with various animals I have had and realize the spiritual connection.

Great book about humans and animals! Good reading material for young and old alike.

This book gives me hope that my marriage can survive my husbands affair. It's a very easy read but yet so insightful. I even wrote the Author thanking her for writing this book and she actually responded..

Here is what the acronym HEDGES stands for...

Hearing
Encouraging
Dating
Guarding
Educating
Satisfying

The author uses these topics as an outline for her tips on how to keep your marriage healthy so your spouse doesn't stray. Even for couples who are doing well, there are invaluable tips in this book. Some of them may seem obvious, but at the same time it's amazing how the absence of those things in marriage make Christian couples vulnerable to straying. I've known many people in this situation over the years and the practical advice the author gives would do wonders for most relationships if applied.

The vignettes the author uses are illustrations from her own life experience. She uses them to bring the point she is trying to make to the forefront. Each section ends with highlights from the chapter and practical things to apply, plus some questions to consider about your marital relationship. This book would make a great tool for a couples Bible study or self-help support group. I highly recommend this resource to every married couple. I found it incredibly interesting, well-written, and not complex or overly-wordy. In fact, I read it in just a few hours.

Honest and insightful, this book not only reveals how easy it was for the author to be deceived, but also shares practical steps we can take to affair-proof our own marriages. Her now-successful marriage offers hope for those who have experienced the heartache of adultery. A must-read for every couple who wants to protect their marriage.

This book is excellent reading for any couple who has had to deal with an affair. It is told by someone who has had to live the experience. I would recommend highly. My husband and I both thought it was useful. It is full of suggestions on how to avoid falling into old patterns.

very easy to read, and understand.

I read "Cache Lake Country" in 1968. I was delighted to find it in print again...like meeting an old friend.
Thank you.

I have read a lot of outdoor books over the last 40 years, and this is one of the best. I am going to research the author, John J. Rowlands, because he was obviously a fascinating man who lead a very interesting life. This book tells about 12 months living in a cabin on a lake in Northern Onatario. At the time Rowlands was working as a timber cruiser, evaluating forests for use as lumber. He happened upon his ideal lake and was lucky enough to get stationed there by his company. He was also very lucky to have two great friends living within miles (within signaling distance via the various drums, horns etc. they engineered), on other little lakes. Together the three lived every outdoor boy's dream life of independence and adventure. This book has stuff about canoes, wild animals, sled dogs, snowshoes, knives, axes, the history of the lumber camps, and many boy-scout like craft projects. I just wish it was a lot longer.

A good book but I didn't think it was as easy to read as friends lead me to believe. A tremendous amount of reference material, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I found the book enlightening and informative. Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy and learn from this book.

I'm going to be a little less enthusiastic, but only a little, than some of the other reviewers here. I really did like this book, but for some reason it just didn't quite pull me into the time, place, space the way it did some others- although it didn't miss by much.

This is a very unique book-probably reminding me of my old Boy Scout Fieldbook (a little more detailed and survival-oriented than the handbook) more than a typical non-fiction work. The illustrations are great as well as occasionally light-hearted, and if you are at all handy or have an engineering or for that matter, culinary bent, you will find plenty of recipes and blueprints for food, tools, gadgets- even crystal radio sets or birch bark canoes. While some of these you'd probably have to find some supplemental information to make, most come so well described and diagrammed that you could probably build them or bake them directly from the book.

For me the best part is the author's midwest and at times almost cowboy way of describing life. His time around rough loggers in the days when horses and two man saws were still the order of the day especially captured my imagination. Like many readers, I'm a lot hermit, and the thought of life in a cabin in the north woods with nothing but snow, bear, moose, and wind has a certain charm, and I'm grateful to Rowlands for giving enough of a story to enjoy a bit of that charm vicariously. An excellent and unique book, and for some it will probably become a treasured possession.

I am what is commonly referred to as a Civil War buff, what ever that means, and I feel compelled to write you about the work of Timothy B. Smith.

My biggest frustration about a lot of books on the civil is the lack of good quality maps that allows the reader to get a sense of who was where and what was happening on the battlefield. How one could write an account of a battle with out good maps is beyond me.

The maps in Champion Hill are fantastic. Not only for their clarity but the sheer number of them is truly amazing. Needless to say I loved them.

The style of his writing actually left me with the desire to pick it up again to see how things were going on the Middle Road and the Jackson Rd., just like a good mystery book.

I give it an A+.

Keep'em coming but don't forget the maps !!

The reviews tell the story. This is a great book. Champion Hill isn't one of my areas of interest, but every time I saw this book, it ended up in my hands until my wife yelled for us to go. If I were to write a book about my favorite lesser known battle, this is the way I would hope it would come out. Exhaustive research, flowing text, sufficient photographs, and some of the best maps that I've ever seen. There are plenty of them, very detailed, and thank you Mr. Smith for breaking them down to individual regiments! He wraps it up with an Order of Battle (thank you!) and a zillion photographs of the battlefield today (thank you again!). It would be hard to top this book. Even if you aren't into Champion Hill or Vicksburg, you'll love this book for the job the author did. Incidentally, check out his "This Great Battlefield of Shiloh.." as well. I look forward to more works by this author.

Timothy B. Smith's "Champion Hill Decisive Battle for Vicksburg" is a must read. A little known battle but one of great magnitude. Many historians have often over look the battles that led to the doom of Vicksburg. Leading up to to Champion Hill were the battles of Port Gibson, Raymond and Jackson. Timothy B. Smith keeps the story flowing and leads you breathless to the climax at Champion Hill. Such research is much needed and is so well written I could not put the book down. This book is a instant "Classic". The book has lot's of maps to help the reader understand the battle geologically. The timeline is easy to keep up with, which is often very hard to do in a Civil War battle. Also included is a very nice selection of photo's to illustrate the participants as Timothy weave's you though the thick Minnie's. One minute you are charging forward with victory and the next minute you are running for your life!

CHAMPION HILL is, unequivocally, the best non-fiction narrative of a Civil War engagement that I've ever read - and that includes works by Shelby Foote and James McPherson.It generally concerns U.S. Major General Ulysses Grant's capture of Vicksburg, but is more specifically about the crucial Battle of Champion Hill on May 16, 1863, which essentially sealed Vicksburg's fate by forcing its defenders back into the city, around which Grant ultimately established siege lines.

The volume's initial fifteen pages briefly summarize Grant's various abortive attempts to take Vicksburg from the north before he was able to cross his Army of the Tennessee to the Mississippi's east bank south of the city on April 30. The next ninety describe the preliminary battles at Port Gibson, Raymond, and Jackson. The bulk of the book, 280 pages, concerns itself with the Champion Hill collision between Grant's forces and Lieutenant General John Pemberton's Army of Vicksburg. There's a penultimate 12-page chapter on the battle's aftermath that includes Vicksburg's capitulation on July 4, and a concluding 11-page postscript chapter on the post-battle and post-Civil War careers of the numerous commanders that are named (and pictured) in the text. Finally, there's a 10-page Appendix with the Order of Battle for both armies, thirty pages of Notes, sixteen pages of contemporary battlefield photos keyed to a reference map, and a 12-page Bibliography. I suggest that author Timothy Smith has penned a battle narrative as satisfyingly complete as any you'll ever come across.

Champion Hill was a seesawing, day-long, complex affair, the account of which will likely spellbind the reader to the point of emotional exhaustion. What I found most impressive was the extreme lucidity of Smith's description of the various military units' maneuvers across the landscape mostly described at brigade and regimental levels. The evolution of the Champion Hill clash is traced by forty - count 'em, 40! - marvelously illustrative maps rendered in black, white and gray that coincide at all times with the textual narrative. Smith even goes so far as to depict the field positioning of units during and after disintegration and, in some cases, their subsequent reformation and re-entry into the fray. At no time was I in the least confused about the tide of battle and the organizational identity of the combatants. These battlefield maps demonstrate how such should be constructed, but which so often are not in otherwise faultless works.

For Grant, who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at Fort Donelson and Shiloh, Champion Hill was another close run thing - more so than it should have been. Generally speaking, each side suffered from committing its forces piecemeal - Grant because of overcautious orders to his chief subordinate on-site, commander of the XIII Corps Major General John McClernand, and Pemberton because of inadequate intelligence as to Federal troop dispositions combined with a rancorous relationship with division commander Major General William Loring. Particularly speaking, the Confederates perhaps lost Champion Hill because of a wayward ordnance train that handicapped beleaguered rebels in the face of fresh, but the last, Union reserves at a critical point of confrontation.

CHAMPION HILL is an obligatory read for any student, casual or serious, of the Civil War. I was sorry to come to the end of the story, a reaction usually reserved for fiction.

Being a novice to the study of the civil war, I found this book to be helpful in my pursuit of knowledge about the Battle of Champion Hill. It was well written and easy to read. Not being one who necessarily understands military tactics or maneuvers, Timothy Smith's book allowed me to follow the battle with a clear understanding of troop movements and placements and was enhanced by the excellent maps. Having read the book prior to a trip to the Vicksburg area, the battle came to life for me because of the knowledge gleaned. I especially enjoyed the personal accounts, pictures and bios of the officers and soldiers.

I think this battle is best summed up by a quote from the book about a young Iowan, Sam Byers, that said, "But, on May 16, 1863, he was just a frightened young man standing with hundreds of other frightened young men looking up the slopes of Champion Hill in an effort to stare down random death.." This is definitely a book that every serious student of the civil war will want in his or her library.

My daughters (ages 8 and 10) and I read this together and laughed aloud. The images are lively and the main character is endearing and quirky.

This book is about a girl named Clementine. Clementine cut off Margaret's hair at art time. In bathroom at Clementine's school Clementine cut off Margaret hair in the bathroom. Margaret had glue in her hair. I like this book because Clementine cuts off Margaret's hair because it had glue in it and she was sitting under the sink because she crying and she was half bald. I would recommend this to a person who likes to get in trouble. by Audrey

This book is about a girl named Clementine. Clementine cut off Margaret's hair at art time. In bathroom at Clementine's school Clementine cut off Margaret hair in the bathroom. Margaret had glue in her hair. I like this book because Clementine cuts off Margaret's hair because it had glue in it and she was sitting under the sink because she crying and she was half bald. I would recommend this to a person who likes to get in trouble.
by Audrey

This book is about a girl named Clementine. Clementine cut off Margaret's hair at art time. In bathroom at Clementine's school Clementine cut off Margaret hair in the bathroom. Margaret had glue in her hair. I like this book because Clementine cuts off Margaret's hair because it had glue in it and she was sitting under the sink because she crying and she was half bald. I would recommend this to a person who likes to get in trouble. by Audrey

Clementine is the sort of little girl that other eight year-old girls want for a friend. The book is easy to read but still challenges a second grader. The story is one that my own granddaughter found to be entertaining and she definitely wants to read more about this new friend....CLEMENTINE!