Curtis Books

The title Home for the Howl-idays definitely suits this book. When someone goes home for the holidays they think turkey, Christmas tree, presents, and a good time with family. However, this isn't the kind of setting Sam and Leesha Hollister return home, from boarding school, to. Things are a 'little' different at the Hollister Mansion and are definitely not what they seem. One: Why is everyone calling Mom "Mummy"? Two: Why is Dad wearing a black cape and is pale? Three: Why is little Webster howling like a wolf? Four: Why is the house decorated all in black? This is a really great book and I couldn't put it down. Once again Dian Curtis Regan snagged my attention for a good hour. It's worth the read!

This is a fun fantasy that offers many teaching opportunities ranging from discussing figures of speech to creating the board game to match the one in the book.

I was very impressed with "How you can profit". Arnold seems very well-versed in credit cards and provides a lot of the ins and outs of the multi-billion dollar industry. Arnold goes over everything from why cards target college kids to how granny can be defrauded.

The one criticism I have is that most of the book doesn't tell you how to profit from credit cards as, say Credit Arbitrage does (you can actually have the credit cards make money for you $30~$1000 a month). Mainly it's just a how-to on all aspects of credit card ownership and usage- but highly recommended!

I just had the chance to finish this book on my Kindle, and I am very impressed by the depth and richness of content that Mr. Arnold discusses in his book. I had a chance to briefly work with Mr. Arnold when I was at Advanta, and I kept thinking that if he wrote a book on all he knew about the industry, it would be a good one. Now that I have read it, I can tell you that it has exceeded my expectations.

Curtis is a top consumer advocate, so the fact that he actually cares about helping people get out of debt was not surprising. In the first chapter, Curtis talks about how your credit cards is more than just a piece of plastic, and by the fourth and fifth chapter, you get to master concepts such credit card rewards and rebates. There are so many good tips in this book that after you are done with it, you are going to wonder how you have gone without them till now.

My personal favorite section was "Master Advanced Card Techniques To Save and Make Money." I am not going to spoil the book for you here but as it's mentioned in the book, I highly recommend you look at CardRatings.com for more tips and credit card reviews.

I do recommend the Kindle edition if you have the Amazon Kindle device. Not that this book is expensive, but it's more convenient to receive this book in 30 seconds rather than waiting a few days to get it shipped from Amazon.

When I first started reading this book I was telling myself this is just common sense. Then I realized, it is, but why am I along with most small businesses NOT doing the things Curt suggests.

The ideas in this book are not earth shattering, but basically really sound intelligent items any business of any size should be doing. This book is also great for the small business owner who is afraid of marketing, or doesn't know what to do in regard to marketing. Very very easy to read with some great real life examples.

Highly recommend this to any small business owner who not only wants to grow their business, but just run a solid business.

This is a book that should be on every business person's shelf - preferably open on their desk because it is being read! Curt does a fantastic job of communicating real-life skills and applications for anyone who markets a product or service. His book is very easy to read and, more importantly, easy to apply to a business!! Curt's experience in business and as a consultant is obvious. He doesn't just talk about theory but helps each reader think about how these rules work in their business. The workbook he offers makes it an even more valuable tool!

A great catholic bible study series. Wonderful foot notes that provide insight and make reference to the catechsim and the church fathers. I can't wait for them to complete the series.

Scott Hahn and Curtiss Mitch's annotation of Ignatius Press's Catholic Edition of the RSV New Testament is a work in progress. I have been buying it up volume by volume as soon as they can publish them, and I think it is far superior to any other annotated version of the NT out there. It offers footnotes cross referenced to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and citing the Fathers of the Church. They use symbols to communicate whether a note is commenting on the unity of the OT and NT (a book), the unity of the doctrines of the faith (a dove), or the living tradition of the Church (crossed keys). I cannot wait until they've finished. I use it every Sunday to answer questions about the Mass readings.

This report by Elie Weisel on the Jews of Silence helped increase greatly Western interest in the Russian Jewish community. It helped rally the Jewish world in support of the emigration movement. And eventually it helped in the liberation of the Soviet Jews from their prison. Over one million were to come to Israel in the decades ahead.
It is rare that a book has so much influence. A courageous witness like Elie Weisel deserves great credit for this historical ' miracle'.

This book, is a classic testament to the brutal persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union during the dark days of Communist opression.
With both poetic and potent eloquency Wiesel describes the atmosphere of fear and silence, that reigned among Soviet Jewry during the 1960's when this book was written. The attempts to force Jews to abandon their faith and identity, and to cut ties with their brothers and sisters in Israel, by the malignant and brutal Communist tyrants. then there was the daily disparagement of the State of Israel and the maligning of Zionism by the State Media (something we see in may countries around the world today).
Indeed even though Communist tyranny in Russia has collapsed, the crusade of hate by the Left, formulated by Soviet propagandists has only got more vicious and irascible, in recent years.
In South Africa, for example, a hard-core Stalinist Cabinet Minister, (of Jewish descent) trained and educated in the old Soviet Union, daily comes up with venomous and ruthless attacks on the Jewish State and it's supporters, and is directing a campaign of ethnic hatred against Israel and it's Jews.
But the Jews of the Soviet Union refused to forget who they were, or to give up their faith or their love for the State of Israel.
Reffering to the violent anti-Israel propaganda formulated in the Soviet Union, the author explains : "The purpose of such propaganda is to make Israel seem hateful to the general populace but to the Jews as well, to undermine the esteem in which they hold the Jewish state, and to convince them finally to relinquish an idea which has failed, a vision of redemption which has somehow been made profane..."
But this form of psychological warfare, directed against the Jewish dream, and designed to divide Jews of the diaspora from their own people in Israel, failed in Russia.
Jews all over the world need to reject it, wherever it raises it's ugly head.
As Wiesel describes 'there are Jews who will under no circumstances let themselves be severed from their people'.

Frances Burney was in her day one of the most successful novelists in England and in later years Jane Austen was to be one of her fans. I haven't read her novels but on the basis of these letters and journals I have certainly become interested.

This book contains extracts from her letters and diaries stretching from 1768 to 1839, from childhood to old age. Her experiences in that time are very well summarised in the review above. I think that her experience as a novelist does show through in these letters which actually do read like scenes from a novel. Some are comic such as a humourous conversation between her friend George Cambridge and an Italian singer comparing the merits of their countries. Or the party attended by the Russian Prince Orlov who when showing off a valuable jewel which impresses the English ladies present, he asks them if they want anything else they "might strip him entirely". Other scenes are very dramatic such as her near drowning at Ilfracombe or her letters about the illness of King George III (in whose court she served at the time). There are also her various experiences in France and Belgium where she followed her husband who was a French aristocrat.

Another thing which makes these letters read like a novel is her ability at characterisation. This is especially clear in the cases of her friend Dr Samuel Johnson and her employer King George III. She records conversations she had with them so that we get a very good picture of what they were like as people. Though friends with Johnson she does not hide his tendency to sometimes be an argumentative bully or his strange mannerisms.

So overall these are a wonderful picture of what life was actually like in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Penguin edition has a comment on the back comparing this book to the diaries of Samuel Pepys and I fully agree.

I was drawn to read this book by falling in love with a portrait of the author. She had a serenely pleasant face that radiated calm and good sense, and suddenly I wanted to know more about her. When I discovered that her diaries and letters cut a broad swath from 1778 to 1838, I was hooked.

Here is a woman who was an intimate of Dr Johnson, James Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, the Thrales, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the Bluestockings, George III and Queen Charlotte -- to name just a few. She was the first woman novelist who did not die in penury (like Aphra Behn and Charlotte Lennox): Her EVELINA, CECILIA, CAMILLA, and THE WANDERER are still readily available after more than 200 years. For five years, Miss Burney served as wardrobe maid for Queen Charlotte until illness forced her to resign. Her descriptions of the court of George III show the monarch at the beginnings of the madness that later debilitated him and contain some of her best prose.

By then, the French Revolution was in full swing, and scores of French nobility made their way to safety in England. When she met General d'Arblay, adjutant to the exiled Marquis de Lafayette, it was love at first sight for this 40-year-old woman who had never been married. Despite the opposition of her father, Fanny married d'Arblay and lived happily with him until his death more than 20 years later. Sadly, she also outlived her son from this marriage.

Fanny followed her husband to France during the Consulate and met the rising young Napoleon, Talleyrand, Louis XVIII (during Napoleon's exile at Elba), and other notables. She succeeded in raising a family near Paris despite the fact that, for a good part of that time, France was at war with England. At Waterloo, she helped by helping to create bandages for the wounded.

This is a book to read slowly and savor the feeling of another time. Fanny outlived the 18th Century "Age of Reason" and saw the birth of Romanticism and the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria. I would like to have known her. Reading her diaries, I feel I do; and I feel even more drawn to her than before.

Anyone who reads Journeys will be asking themselves the question I did, 'could I handle major setbacks as well as the people profiled here?' One realizes how much good these individuals have accomplished through their splendid will power and they all send us a message, 'Don't ooh and ahh at them as we do Hollywood figures, some athletes and British Royalty rather salute them, and do good things yourself!'

Journeys takes us on an energizing expedition into the frontiers of human resiliency. The biographical vignettes allow us all to experience the fortitude and ingenuity underlying the human capacity to transform disability into productivity. The book enables all of us to nurture justifiable optimism in the presence of seeming handicap.

I was looking for a good basic book to recommend to some PM-phobic coworkers and found the Idiot's and Dummie's editions rather pale and useless.

I especially appreciate Cook's emphasis on using just the right amount of PM and not letting the PM process overwhelm the actual work!

This book was exactly what I was looking for. Not too PMBOK-heavy and not too dimwit-light.

This book is about right for a new project manager or a small project (hopefully these would both go together but so often it does not). It is also quite useful for an experienced project manager of a smaller project looking for that line that separates the least amount of control from sheer negligence. This book is a little heavier than that, but still pretty light.

It is not quite as useful as the Dummies series in terms of a full service solution but really, despite the titles, those are not for novices. This book has a reasonable enough approach and reasonable enough templates to implement it.

The drawback I found was that the author uses relatively trivial illustrative "projects" so that newbie can understand the principles without getting hung up on details. The problem is even as a trained project manager the examples of PM applied to such simple things as "weekend at the country cabin" projected precisely the image of absurd over-control that is the thing that frightens PM opponents in the first place. For a real newbie, it could even more scary because if that is what you have to do for something so obviously simple, how much overhead goes with a real project?

That is really a minor quibble, though. If you are introducing a novice to the idea of PM, or if you are introducing PM to a nervous organization, this book might be a good place to start as a base case. It is certainly about the closest thing I have found in the past months of looking for such a solution.

This book is by the author of the "Little Maid" books. It is about an 11 year old girl, Kathleen, who lives in Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania, in 1863. She witnesses many historic moments, including hearing Lincoln give his famous Gettsysburg Address.

This book is by the author of the "Little Maid" books. It is about an 11 year old girl, Kathleen, who lives in Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania, in 1863. She witnesses many historic moments, including hearing Lincoln give his famous Gettsysburg Address.

I wish that I would have had something like this when I was in the youth group. I think that I would have been able to "not be ashamed" more in school. The way that Eastman Curtis puts things on the level that most teenagers would understand is amazing. I think that he is one of the best youth writers in America!

So maybe theology is not the strong point of this book...even though I could find areas where this is weak in that regard, what this short book excels in is application. Eastman wants you to get out, live the Christian life, and kick the devil around because we have the power to do so through Christ. We, as Christians, need to let the power of Christ, God the Son, flow though us through the Holy Spirit that is abiding in us to do miraculous works. He makes this point though stories of God healing people through him and his family and parallels these stories in Scripture. I must commend Eastman on a job well done in this book.