Douglas Books

There have been a number of slams against stock options by people who think they are at the heart of corporate scandals. This readable and thorough book points out that sharing ownership broadly has been a tremendous benefit to many companies, although a few have abused it. Those of us who have seen companies grow dramatically through the efforts of incentived employees know that options are the best system devised for sharing ownership broadly, and that current attempts to restrict them will do more harm than good for the US economy. This book carefully documents both the benefits and abuses, and should be useful for entrepreneurs who want to build companies, and for regulators who want to really curb abuses while saving the benefits -- and chance for broad based wealth creation -- that employee ownership represents.

This is a very carefully crafted and persuasive book. The authors do a great job of laying out the argument for why sharing ownership broadly with employees is good for companies, shareholders, and employees, while concentrating ownership in just a few executives is a bad idea.The book is especially important now with all the debate going on about stock options, which they point out are just one of the ways companies can share ownership. The book provides the most comprehensive data on this subject to date, so its arguments are not just based on preconceived notions. It deserves a wide audience, especially among corporate decision makers.

I have read a lot of books about World War Two in Europe. This book is one of the most interesting I have read on the subject. I used to think that when WWII was over, well, it was over. Not for the Germans. This book describes what a non-event the end of the war was to the suffereng population of Germany. This is one of the few books that I could not put this book down until I was finished reading it.

Botting's book on post war Germany (a big thank you to the publishers who saw it befitting to re-publish this excellent book) is an astonishing revelation of the total war "debt" that this nation paid for following Hitler and his thousand year Reich dream. With their cities bombed to the extent that they were, its inhabitants virtually reverted back to the barter age to survive since money had no value. 15 million ethnic Germans were expelled from their homes in Eastern Europe resulting in the largest migration of people in human history; 2 million died in the process with absolutely no accompanying outcry. (what did Hitler say once? 10000 deaths is a tragedy, millions are just a statistic!) This riveting read on an untold history is essential reading for any serious student of WW2.

I love this book! It was recommended to me by a professor and I now find myself recommending it to everyone I know that works with the dually-diagnosed or just Mental Health, or just the AODA population. The chapters offer background information as well as the different theories that are and were used with this population and why the intergraded treatment is the best and most successful treatment modality. The appendix is the best part, it offers hand-outs (which are easy to understand and are loved by clients and family members) on various mental health and addiction issues and treatment plans. I have about 10 other books on dual diagnosis and feel that this book is the only one that I can apply to my practice!

This is THE source for practice strategies for the evidence based practice of integrated dual diagnosis treatment!

This book is excellent for any women that has even the slightest notion that they are in an abusive relationship. Regardless of the circumstance, Kay Douglas touches on all types of emotional abuse and helps the women on the road to self-healing.

In your darkest moments of misery and loneliness, when you don't know where and whom to turn to, Kay will guide you and give you all the support you need - above all practical, then emotional and psychological. When you are so depressed, confused and motionless what you need most is someone to tell you that you are neither worthless nor hopeless or insane. Kay will take you by the hand and lead you, gently and convincingly, and by the time you have read this book you will have travelled a long way. You will gain the courage and above all the knowledge how to leave the abusive relationship that has been undermining the very core of your being. Kay not only helped me to find the way out of my misery, but she unintentionally made my husband understand and listen to what I had been trying to tell him for such a long time. He secretly read all those parts I had underlined and he finally understood. It is too late for our relationship as husband and wife but we are making a new beginning as friends. We have an eight year old daughter and she loves us and needs us both.

Kay uses a simple and clear language. She had carefully selected a number of stories that women were willing to share with her enabling all those who feel abused in any way to identify with. Her own experience makes her words even more convincing.

Author Doug George-Kanentiio writes from within the struggle, to shed light on the on-going struggles of the People of the Longhouse to save their sacred traditions and land from the contemporary seduction of money and political clout.

Recommended reading for those seeking the inside story on a quintessentially American saga. Not to be missed. A 21st century journalist reporting on the travails of the First People, Doug George's voice is raised and demands a hearing.

Douglas M. George-Kanentiio's writing is raw, bare-knuckled exposition pounded out, it seems at times, in his own blood. This is his third book. He knows how to use the language, he knows the history of the Six Nations and he pulls no punches in describing the schisms among the Iroquois that still haunt the people of the longhouse today. This book is a shot across the bow of Iroquois leaders and a reminder that only in unity did the Six Nations flourish. With an intimate forward by Vine Deloria, his last.

I liked this book because it offers two things - motivation and direction. The author has done an excellent job of setting the stage for being able to implement much of what is in this book. A good find and a helpful read. I'm definitely glad that I bought it.

It's All About the Client: Consulting for Results
By Douglas B. Reeves

I'm always interested in learning more about my profession. Every day I find that I am both adding value at my clients and at the same time being humbled by how much I still have to learn about governance, ethics process, organizational development, and managing organizational change. On rare occasions I have learned something valuable and practical from books, but that is an exception. Such an exciting exception occurred when I was asked to review Dr. Douglas Reeves' book. What a delight and surprise!

It's All About the Client is written in a clear and professional voice with many first hand accounts of actual client engagements. Yet, while entertaining and interesting to read, this book is full of textbook quality practical ideas, procedures, charts, and forms. Reeves has perfectly balanced these often mutually exclusive styles, and the take-away applications for you consulting practice from this "how to" manual are many indeed.

From busting the "Myth of Balance" (let's face it, if you love what you do, you will spend as much time as possible doing it!) to the ever practical "It's not about you, it's all about the client," Reeves dispenses sound advice for both those hiring consultants and the consulting firm itself. His no nonsense approach to the issues confronting consultants is refreshing and obviously comes from years of experience. The reader learns what to consider when deciding between staying a sole practitioner and building an organization - with no holds barred. Reeves gives us practical advice for aligning our time with our mission, along with the practical forms used to track how we spend our time. And the appendix is chock-full of additional practical outlines for engagement, task prioritization, etc.

Dr. Reeves has successfully distilled years of experience in building his consulting practice into accessible and invaluable advice for consultants in particular and business people in general. I believe this to be the single most important and practical book of the many I have read on the consulting profession. Reading this book will give the committed consultant confidence that done well, his or her chosen work has meaning and purpose.

THE JANUS GATE is a very different type of story. Part of the ART ENCOUNTERS series published by Watson-Guptill, it is at times a biographical sketch, a historical treatise, and a Victorian gothic story of the supernatural. THE JANUS GATE is a fictionalized account based on artist John Singer Sargent and, most specifically, his painting entitled The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.

In 1882, Sargent painted the Boit daughters - Florence, Jane, Mary, and Julia - along with Julia's very large, very ugly doll, P-Paul, or Popau. Mr. Sargent met the Boit family during Varnishing Day at the Palais d'Industrie in Paris, where he found himself explaining the meaning of a painting entitled The Janus Gate to Edward Boit and his daughters. When the young girls beg to be painted by Mr. Sargent, he eagerly seals the deal; a deal that, later, he will come to regret.

If you've never seen a picture of The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, you'll be surprised to learn that it is not a happy painting. The two eldest Boit daughters hide in shadow, one looks angelic yet defiant, and the youngest, with the grotesque doll, beseeches the artist with her large eyes.

There has been, and probably always will be, controversy over this portrait done early in John Singer Sargent's career. How can this rightfully be called a portrait when two of the girls aren't even clearly pictured? Why is the doll in the painting at all? What did Mr. Sargent really see when he looked at the Boit girls?

There is truth in the saying that life imitates art. Florence and Jane, the two oldest sisters who hid in shadow in their portrait, later went crazy. Popau, Julia's doll, had a major role in leading Mr. Sargent to the brink of his own Janus Gate. Although we'll never know exactly what the artist was thinking while painting this portrait, we can know that it probably wasn't at all pleasant.

Douglas Rees has done a marvelous job of bringing art to life with THE JANUS GATE. At once a fictionalized account of a historical event and an eerie Gothic thriller, art history buffs and fans of historical fiction will all enjoy this look into the life of John Singer Sargent.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

This book certainly is for everyone! It's a brilliant combination of ghostly mystery and paean to the power of art. When I finished it, I didn't know whether to re-read it or start looking for John Singer Sargent prints.
In a scant 176 pages Rees has created pictures and voices as indelible as Sangent's paintings. Rather that the stereotyped, cardboard characters of too many mysteries (and young adult books), Rees' characters stand out and remain long after the book is fnished. Each of the Boit girls is a jewel; even the sinister doll Popau is as sharply etched as a Goya drawing. What a wonderful introduction to a too-often-ignored artist.

I have found this book most helpful. The articles written by the various contributors is worth the price alone. The illustrations are satisfactory as most of these works are about texture.This book will be a friend for a long time.

I hesitated before ordering this book. I already own 5 books about Jasper Johns and was thinking to myself that owning one more would not add much to my appreciation of this great artist. I was wrong. This book, the catalogue for an exhibition held at the Chicago Art Institute in 2007, is full of marvelous illustrations (of some recent works like the Catenary series) and brilliant essays on the importance of this most difficult of colors, gray, in the work of Johns. The quality of the illustrations is such that they enable the reader to see all the nuances of the artist's palette as if we were standing in front of the paintings (or drawings, or prints, as a matter of fact). In this respect, all the photographs were taken by the same photographer using one type of material only so as to show the works in the same light and shade. Johns's gray is like Hals's black: he has hundreds of different grays and the book reveals this perfectly.

Highly recommended.

With the current furor over the "Da Vinci Code" and its hints about Jesus' "secret past," this book is a great factual resource. Groothuis establishes a foundation of evidence showing why we can have confidence that the New Testament accounts are reliable and accurate in what they say about Jesus. Then chapter by chapter he discusses such modern and/or old warmed-over fads as the "Jesus Seminar," gnostic "gospels," and other new-age stories about Jesus traveling to India, being an Essene, becoming an Egyptian mystic, being married to Mary Magdalene, dying of old age, etc. as well as images of Jesus we receive from modern "channelers," near-death experiences, etc. In each case, Groothuis goes through a clear, concise examination of the evidence supporting each view (or lack thereof).

Some current academic scholarship portrays Jesus as a misunderstood social revolutionary preaching a message of social justice, whose life and message was co-opted after his death by his disciples (particularly Paul) seeking power over the masses by re-casting Jesus as divine. Groothuis shows why it is grossly inaccurate to "pick and choose" such a sanitized version of Jesus' acts and sayings, and why we had better take Jesus' real message seriously.

Regardless of your beliefs, anyone who wonders what we can actually know about Jesus should read this book for a well-written overall analysis of the subject.

I went into this book expecting a lash-out at the New Age exotica that plagues and devalues spirituality in the last few years. This intelligent young unknown named Douglas Groothuis delivers accurate and well-developed blow upon blow to the New Age movement. He deserves the recognition that usually goes to frontline clowns like Robert Funk, Marcus Borg, Calvin Roetzel and John Dominic Crossan. Not only does Groothuis detail the growth and spread of New Age, he includes chapters to increase Christian faith and expose those who attempt to play down Jesus' deity, therefore rendering Him "tame and manageable" to their own imaginations.

Overall, Groothuis shows complete control over every element of his book that needs exploration. While staying in an easy-to-understand writing style, and not without humor, Douglas Groothuis is a young author set in his ideals, and obviously shining with intelligence.

All we need now is recognition of his talent, as he should replace the members of the Jesus Seminar as "the next big thing".

Larkin, generally acknowledged as Britain's finest post-war poet, along with Betjeman, wrote only two novels, both in his fertile early period. 'Jill' is his first serious attempt at sustained prose writing, and the result is a fine, stimulating book.

'Jill' began life as a cross between a girls' school novel pastiche and mild pornography called 'Trouble at Willow Gables', an origin that manifests itself throughout the finished work, bubbling salaciously beneath the surface of John Kemp's escapist scribblings. John, of course, is a typically Larkin-esque protagonist - socially awkward, an outsider, and, like his creator, constantly struggling with the remains of a stammer. The portrait is, as only Larkin could draw it, at once affectionately tongue-in-cheek and unremittingly brutal (John's intrusion on the tea-party early on is to die for). What may alarm Larkin's readers (having recovered from the shock delivered by the life and letters) is the deep-rooted distrust of the imaginative faculties emerging in 'Jill'.

We watch with horror as John begins to invent a younger sister for himself with a paranoia approaching downright madness. His creation is born from malice and a sense of exclusion, exacerbated by humiliation upon humiliation heaped upon his shoulders and, having its inception in unhealthy emotion, his fantasy sends him spiralling deeper into a delusion culminating in his drunken violation of the girl on to whom he has transferred his invented sibling.

'Jill' is a novel of both tremendous wit and cruelty. The Larkin of the poems is clearly visible here, brooding on deception and deprivation, gently self-deprecating. 'Jill' is an essential read for admirers of Larkin, providing an important insight into his life and thought, as well as a glimpse of an angry, ambitious young man before the weariness set in.

Phillip Larkin is known as perhaps the greatest British pPoet of the second half of the twentieth century. This book, of a northern, working class boy's first term at Oxford in the grim fall of 1940, offers unparalelled reading pleasure.

Larkin wrote this book in his early twenties, when the war was still very much in progress, and its outcome uncertain. That is only one of the reason I'd recommend it over the many romanticized WW II stories written afterwards, especially in the last decade, when revisionist history takes over, and we sketch characters of the forties as if they had the insights of the nineties.

Here you get the real thing. The war is a presence in the gritty little details of life -- the privations, the routine of putting up the blackout in defense of bombing raids. Towards the end of the book, the hero returns to his northern town to find it devastated.

I found Jill, and Larkin's second and final novel, A Girl in Winter, also set during war-time, bracing, even comforting reading during the first months of the current war. We see that, despite being shadowed by larger events, the inner workings of personality -- love, identity, pride -- carry on, in spite of all.

I wish Larkin had written more novels, or more novelists could write like him.