Grant Books

Buy the book and read it. You will not be disappointed.

Most books on strategy take the same predicable process-oriented view and don't have much new to offer. This book is remarkably different. Based on hard research of the fortune 500 over the last 50 years, including interviews with management to find out what worked, what didn't, and what they should have don't differently, Stall Points offers insights and actionable recommendations for improving strategic management for mid- to large size companies. There are also many small recommendations for where to focus energy and effort to get the biggest return and the trade-offs among the most common approaches.

A must read for business leaders, MBA, and Business School teachers.

Stall Points tells us to test our strategic assumptions if we want to avoid stalling. That in itself is remarkable advice at a time when risks seem to lurk everywhere -- it's a reminder that most big problems are under our control precisely because they're strategic.

Those strategic problems might involve abandoning a core business too soon or focusing exclusively on one too long despite disruptive threats. The point is that these strategic choices about where and when to compete explain the majority of stalls -- not uncontrollable bolts from the blue. I suspect even the sub-prime mortgage crisis will eventually be added to the long column of controllable business disasters.

Even more refreshing in Matt Olson's and Derek van Bever's book are the integrity of the method, the contrarian thesis, and the sobriety of the solutions.
-- The great advantage of the method is its avoidance of survivor bias, which, as Michael Raynor points out, ignores the riskiness of highly successful gambits.
-- The thesis that strategy matters is a much-needed corrective to all the books that write dismissively about strategy as if it reduced to execution, much as if goals could somehow reduce to facts.
-- And there are no zero-sum solutions in this book, like, say, investing in what would turn out to be the same data analysis system every other reader bought.

The book deserves to be read closely. It may even deserve an after-life. After all, one of the key development questions today is why micro-enterprises stall. One hopes to see authors Olson and van Bever wearing safari hats soon in the jungles of Colombia and the steppes of Kazakhstan finding out why the micro-enterprises on which depend the welfare of so many of the world's working poor stay micro.

While there are many reasons to recommend this book, three in particular deserve mention.

First, the authors' approach to the problem of achieving sustained growth is inherently empirical and comprehensive. This differentiates their work from virtually every other tome on growth in the marketplace. Most such volumes, no matter how well written, are inherently versions of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" analysis. Alpha Company adopted strategy X. Alpha Company succeeded. If you adopt strategy X, you will also succeed. The problem with this line of analysis is obvious to any student of Aristotelian logic, and equally obvious to anyone who has run a business. High-level strategies do not necessarily transfer from one industry, market, or corporate culture to another. Further, even sound strategies often fail because of breakdowns in execution. It's less the specific strategy that creates success than it is exceptional implementation of any strategy. (The recent work of Bossidy and Charan is very instructive in this regard.)

In stark contrast, the authors have conducted a rigorous analysis of all companies represented in the Fortune 100 over the past 50 years (and a handful of equivalent companies from outside of the US and from private equity.) The cumulative weight of the evidence commands much more authority than another well-documented case study of Dell, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, or Starbucks.

Second, the book is relentlessly prescriptive. Having identified the most common root causes leading to growth stalls, the authors provide a substantial number of specific actions, tactics, and business practices that real companies have used to overcome them. (And per my first point above, as a manager one takes much more confidence in adopting those actions because the analysis behind them is thorough and comprehensive.) Further, many of those actions are not of the nature of expensive, cumbersome new initiatives. A number of the suggested activities could be easily integrated into most organizations' current strategic planning and review processes.

Finally, the book is exceptionally well-written. This attribute is near and dear to my heart. As a voracious reader of business literature, I am frequently dismayed by the quality of the prose embodied by this particular niche of our culture. Most authors in the trade fall into one of two equally sophomoric camps. The first is characterized by the worst sort of academic rhetoric and reads about as well as your average software manual. Assuming you can stay awake long enough to finish it, one finds it a tiresome, often fruitless exercise, to extract any real learning. The other camp, which may be more annoying, is the folksy style so in vogue with ex-CEO memoirs. "We shook things up, charged forward, made up a plan as we went along, and kicked a lot of butt on the way."

Olson and Van Bever are gifted students of business, but they are equally gifted writers. Their chapters, and indeed the entire book, have a readable cadence, with appropriate amounts of wit, and they never make the audience work an iota harder than necessary to understand their point. They also understand when to stop hammering that point home. Sometimes a simple sentence is sufficient; other times several paragraphs are necessary, and the authors seem to have an intuitive feel for the difference. I challenge you to read this volume and not find yourself enjoying the process as you learn something on the journey. Very few competitive volumes pass that test.

Why and how obsolete strategic assumptions can threaten sustainable growth

In this brilliant volume, Matthew Olson and Derek van Bever assert that "the assumptions a management team holds most dearly - has known so long or so well that they are no longer debated - pose the greatest danger to growth. In other words, it is not what you know that isn't so that will stop your growth run - more likely, it's what you know that's [begin italics] no longer so [end italics]." It is worth noting that assertions such as this one are based on the rigorous and extensive research Olson and van Bever conducted over a period of several years. For example, the material in Part I (The Growth Experience of Large Firms) is based on "a comprehensive quantitative analysis of more than five hundred companies that have numbered among the Fortune 100 across the pasty fifty years.

As for Part II (The Root Causes of Growth Stalls) they complement the quantitative analysis with "detailed case analysis of a subset of the Fortune 100 to determine why growth stalls occur." Then in Part III (Avoiding or Recovering from Growth Stalls), Olson and van Bever examine the controllability of stall points previously discussed that leads them to the implications of what they learned for executives: "you must continually articulate and stress-test the assumptions underlying your strategy because it is the assumptions that you believe most deeply or that you held true for the longest time that are likely to provide your undoing. You may think you are currently doing this, but the odds are that you are not, and it is an oversight that you suffer at your peril."

Olson and van Bever note several times throughout their narrative that it is common for an organization to stall, it is hard to see a stall coming, and it is extremely difficult to recover from a stall; also, that strategic myopia can occur at the highest executive levels even in organizations that are annually ranked among the most valuable, most highly admired, most profitable, etc. For example, 3M, American Express, Apple Computer, IBM, Rubbermaid, and Xerox. Of course, the degree of severity of consequences from a stall period varies from one organization to the next, as does the length of that period.

Many of those who are thinking about reading this book may well ask, "All well and good, indeed very interesting, but how specifically can this book help me and my own organization to avoid or recover from a stall period?" Hence the importance of the last of five appendices that provides a diagnostic test for senior managers to complete. Each respondent is asked to rate each of 50 "red flag warnings of an impending doom" in terms of having No Concern, Moderate Concern, or Substantial Concern about it. In my opinion, this diagnostic test (all by itself) is worth far more than the cost of the book. Olson and van Bever also offer five foundational recommendations (in the final chapter) for executive teams that find themselves struggling to recover top-line momentum, and briefly explain the importance of each:

1. Build consensus about the sources of weakness in your core business strategy between the top management team and "skip-level" management.

2. Confront the operational and/or business model challenges in your core business that you previously have avoided.

3. For even the closest of adjacency extensions, conduct a careful "gap analysis" to identify required changes to the core business model.

4. Examine opportunity for new business models early in the new product development process.

5. Exploit "privileged insight" into customers in building new growth platforms.

I appreciate the fact that after briefly identifying or suggesting a "what" (e.g. a challenge, question, problem, peril, or opportunity), Olson and van Bever devote the bulk of their attention to explaining the "how." For example,

How to recognize the limits of prudent growth
How to recognize a stall point
How to calculate the costs of a stall period
Why companies stall and how to avoid or recover from one
How to take into full account various strategic factors (e.g. "premium position captivity")
How to take into account various organization design factors (e.g. talent bench shortfall)

I also commend them on the provision of five appendices in which they identify the companies in their sample, explain their methodology, list case study companies for stall factor taxonomy (in business markets ranging from Asset-Intensive to Tech-Intensive), provide stall factor definitions, and then conclude with the aforementioned diagnostic test in Appendix 5.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill and David Robertson as well as Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success, Edward Lawler's Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage, Jeffrey Pfeffer's What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom About Management, and Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management co-authored by Pfeffer and Robert Sutton.

Bob Frey has again created a valuable source of information that should be on every Business Development professional's desk. It presents a clear and concise approach to properly managing the proposal business acquisition process, including creating a winning proposal. The use of Knowledge Management approach to leveraging intellectual property provides an excellent approach to crafting a winning strategy and incorporating it in the proposal. I highly recommend this book.

The previous editions of Robert Frey's invaluable book "Successful Proposal Strategies for Small Businesses" have already established this title as a virtual bible of proposal development for small business government contractors, particularly in the support services. Now, with this third edition, some 20% longer and with extensive new material, Frey expands the utility of this important book by integrating his approach with the emerging discipline of Knowledge Management.

In addition to his complete yet concise discussion of nuts-and-bolts proposal issues such as organization of the proposal volumes, establishing the role of the proposal manager, and so on, Frey demonstrates how an effective organization of corporate intellectual capital can be a critical resource in the marketing proposal process. Importantly, he provides step-by-step procedures for creating such an added-value environment.

As in the previous two editions, Frey's approach is very highly application-oriented. He lays out theory when necessary, but his principal goal -- which he achieves admirably -- is to equip the reader with an exhaustively complete set of marketing and proposal development procedures and tools (all the way down to a template for phone lists!).

If I have any complaints at all, it is that the sequence of chapters could use some rearranging; a chapter on internatiohnal proposals seems to be placed unexpectedly, and there is one very brief chapter on private-sector solicitations that could be easily merged with another chapter or deleted altogether. But these are quibbles. This book has garnered a well-deserved reputation as arguably the premier reference work in this field. It is inadequate to state that it deserves a place in every small government contractor's library; it would be more accurate to say that such firms cannot afford *not* to have this book and pay close attention to it!

The most comprehensive, single source, small business strategy guidebook I have read and applied.
The tactical processes Robert Frey recommends gets you focused early by crystallizing your business strategy, mentoring you step by step, establishing knowledge-based decision points and executing a successful proposal.
The CD is a great plus with schedules, proposal templates, and more to get you started for your next contract award!

In this blue-ribbon edition, Robert Frey provides enough valuable proposal management detail to establish your proposal department, to write your proposal manager's job description, to outline your proposal team's functions, to produce topflight and winning proposals, and to measure the proposal team's success. And if that were not enough, Frey offers his bravura insights into knowledge management and how this wonderful concept can be realistically and incrementally applied to the proposal development process.

Frey mentors you to success with regard to every aspect of proposal management. Frey's style is not staid and wooden. To the contrary, his love for his audience and his desire for their proposal management success shines forth. I would pay twice as much for the book. My company's proposal win rate this year alone proves the worth of the material in these pages. Invest in it, do what it says, and prepare for the reward.

This landscape guide is an excellent tool for your Texas landscape. One of the best items (other than full color renderings), is that the book show you what plants will look like from initial planting to full-grown plants. I would highly recommend it.

I'm a certified Master Gardener and I find this book so helpful and really good for Texas landscapes. It is clear and has great illustrations. This book should be in every Texas gardener's book collection!

Having recently purchased my first home I picked up five different gardening books. I don't even know where the other four have gone, but now I have two of this one. It's a great guide which covers everything from plants that should thrive in the area (including care, size, and how to select), to various designs for commonly-found areas around your home.

It even covers various landscape construction projects such as fences, walks, and patios, and is well-written and illustrated throughout.

[...]

New edition is a wealth of knowledge for each area of Texas. Sections on walkways and paths and sections on specific plants for your area are the best I've read.

If you are familiar with the campaigns of General Grant then you will find this book worthwile.Cadwallader has a front row seat at Vicksburg, Chattanoga,the Wilderness,and Appomattox. He is a reporter therefore a professional writer which helps. His book is filled with inside information on all the principle figureheads of the time. Also it is the only book I ever read that gives us the reader the inside true story on the rumours of General Grants drinking problem.

If you are familiar with the campaigns of General Grant then you will find this book worthwile.Cadwallader has a front row seat at Vicksburg, Chattanoga,the Wilderness,and Appomattox. He is a reporter therefore a professional writer which helps. His book is filled with inside information on all the principle figureheads of the time. Also it is the only book I ever read that gives us the reader the inside true story on the rumours of General Grants drinking problem.

If you are familiar with Grant`s campaigns then youll like this book . It gives us an insiders view of the battles of Vicksburg, Chattanoga,the Wilderness,and Appomattox.Because of his unique situation at Grant`s Headquarters where he was accepted as one of the staff,we get the inside take on Grant`s drunkedness on Warren`s removal from command and any number of things that happened during Grant`s campaigns.

This is a controversial book because of one reason: the author maintains he witnessed Grant getting drunk during the Vicksburg campaign in 1863. Why this is particularly contentious with Grant supporters is a trifle mystifying, but Grant fans still vociferously contend the author "embellished" or "lied" about the drinking binge. Never mind that two other people who were also with Grant corroborate the drinking story. Never mind that his chief of staff specifically wrote about the binging in a private letter.

Aside from this drinking anecdote, the book is a warm, rich portrayal of General Grant from a man with a discerning eye. Cadwallader relates many small incidents of Grant's everyday life as a man and as a general that are fascinating and not to be found in other first-person narratives.

Cadwallader truly loved Grant and his book shows his regard and his profound attachment to him. It's a pity that so many people denigrate such a fine book simply because they feel the author's memory was fallible or because they refuse to see Grant as a multi-facted man. A man with his share of human frailties and weaknesses, but still a towering individual: a great general and a man of uncommon moral fiber and decency. If you know little about Grant, this is a good place to begin a journey in seeking to know him as a man and as a great soldier who saved the union.

bets game in the worl

It will be cool

The kingdoms hintbook is, without a doubt the most brilliant, moving and ultimately breathtaking novel of its day. It will grab you from the beginning and never let go. Few authors come to mind in comparison to this masterwork. Among them Chaucer, Dickens, and Mary Higgens Clark. I highly recomend this chef d'ouvre to anyone who enjoys classicly pronounced literature.

I'd like to know how those two guys rated a book and a game that has not been released yet? Why would the web master allow these comments to be published. Lets all be a little more responsible please.

Growing up in one of the towns of the Sandia Mountains, I can ashamedly say that I really didn't do much digging into the history of the place. I don't know why really, I guess I figured it was just there and left it at that. Then comes along this little dandy of a history book wherein the unique history of the place I grew up in is laid before you through non-run of the mill descriptions, quirky photos, and some fantastic quotes from the people who have made up and make these towns.
This book is published through Arcadia, which has about, I don't know how many, of these history/photo style books. I have read a few books from Arcadia and maybe it's because this is one that specifically talks about the place I grew up in, but Towns of the Sandia Mountains seems to sit a few levels above the others Arcadia has out there.
This book reads like a dreamy ride through the past on an old desert road. Starting on Route 66 in Albuquerque and lazily winding it's way up into the mountain towns, past the towns, higher into the mountian, down a back pass, to the front of mountian and back into Albuquerque, picking up the towns of Carnuel, Tijeras, Hobbies, San Antonio, Cedar Crest, Canoncito, San Antonito, Sandia Park, and Placitas along the way, as well as a brief concluding chapter on Albuquerque touching on its growth into the mountain. Some of the pictures in this book are completely astounding to see. There are amazing photos of areas with just a few cattle grazing around that now have freeways and strip malls running through them. Pictures of places, if you know that area, you would never recognize. Pictures of Hippies and TB patients alike escaping into the mountains. People who made this town that you never knew who now you can know.
This book does away with the dull page after page of random portraits of people with boring captions style of history writing and brings new life to history.
If you live in the Sandia, used to, or are just interested in a unique area then I would say this is a good little read for you. Eight thumbs up!

This book has wonderful stories of the rich history of communities of the Sandia Mountains. The photos are wonderful, and really add to the stories. The geographic orientation, beginning with Carnuel, and working around the mountain to Placitas emphasizes the rich variety of the area. I highly recommend it.

Out of all the Images of America books by Arcadia I have looked at over the past few months this one is by far the best. The book was written with love and care by someone who obviously loves the area and knows it very well. It is also the most imaginatavely layed out Arcadia book out all of them that I own. The book has many great photos as well as vintage postcards, maps, and advertisements. Needless to say its a must have for anyone living in the Sandia Mountains but also a wonderful addition to any New Mexico library.

It's hard to stop reading, engrossing, hard to stop reading!

My wife and are enjoying this book immensely, well written and the details of the areas of the places around us here in Tijeras are fantastic. This book brings the rich history to light in an enjoyable read. The photographs are amazing, to see the places as they were and are now.

Mike Smith, the author is extremely accessible for any questions or comments about his book, the region and the history.

Definitely a five star book, run now to get yours!

I'm buying the book and I know it will be excellent because I lived this time period as a kid (6-9 years old). My mother was coach Moser's personal secretary and head of ticket sales at the gym ticket office from 1954 through 1960. I went to most of the pep rallies with her and to every game in town or out. Coach Moser even let me come out to some of the practices to watch and occassionally fetch water with the waterboys. Remember the movie "Rudy" when he goes into the Notra Dame locker room for the first time? That was the way I was the first time I went into the Eagle locker room. Even got to hold Freddie Martinez helmet, Wow!! Even before fans wore team jerseys I had my own "33" black and gold jersey that I wore all the time. Thank you for this book and a chance to go back to a magical time period in my life. Larry Dobbs

Even though I am not a football fan, this book has been a real pleasure for me. It brings back such a flood of memories of an earlier time when a lot was expected from young people. I sometimes think I have just imagined that teenagers were once expected to work hard, respect their elders, and show "good moral character." Thank you, Michael, for confirming that my memories are correct. Thank you for reminding me that I did grow up in a special time and place. Thank you for giving the Warbirds back to me. Terry O'Neal, Class of '61

enjoyed the book very much. some one should made a movie about the book, its just so good that it should be shared with every body. chuck

To say I am a fan of Michael Grant's way with words is an understatement. I came to his work by way of the column he wrote for many years for the newspaper here in San Diego. His writing has greatly influenced my own.

Written with a reporter's eye for the telling detail, a novelist's sense of narrative, and an essayist's grasp of the larger meaning, Warbirds is pure Michael Grant. On the last page, Grant reflects on the team's incredible winning streak and what it meant to those who made it happen: "They saw for almost four years - almost the length of an entire high school education - what can happen when you live by the rules, know all the plays, and run till the whistle blows."

Like the book itself, those words are more than a masterful summation of a memorable streak. They have the power to speak to our lives and these times, as well. Reading Warbirds today, you don't even have to be a football fan to appreciate how Coach Moser's Eagles played the game.

Donald Grant and his wife, NY journalists, retire and move to a cottage in Ireland. Their experiences and adjustments to their neighbors, to small scale farming, and to the culture of Ireland makes entertaining reading.
They learn goat keeping, rabbit raising, and the ways of bees and geese. The evenings chatting in the pub, the village interactions, the local customs and other trivia of daily life make you feel a part of their Irish experience.

If you loved Under the Tuscan Sun than you will find a great book here! Donald Grant's book will make you reexamine your life and reorganize your priorities all while providing good reading pleasure. A bit dated as it was written in the 70's, but it is more about finding yourself and the cultural life in rural Ireland.

I may be guilty of a little bit of nepetism (Mary Grant being an aunt, a bit removed and seldom seen), but this book has been a family treasure around the house for years. Anyone looking for an inspiring story about a simpler life should look into this one for sure.

Donald and Mary Grant, two well paid journalists living in New York City, decide to do a career change in their late 50's. They purchase a cottage sitting on three or four acres, later to become 11 acres, and live off the land. They visit the local Irish Pub on Saturday nights, chat about farm animals, and throughout the year entertain friends from their previous life who thought them totally "bunkers". Donald for added income writes a column for an American newspaper describing their new life. At a time when Americans have had to make career changes late in life, I would highly recommend this book. I think they added to the success of their endeavor by choosing Ireland, for it is definitely a country where nature has it's way. Untamed, perhaps, but also unspoiled. I believe in my heart that the troubles in Ireland should not be and Great Britian should give Northern Ireland it's freedom just as Donald Grant felt after living there. The Irish are unique, pleasantly unique, and should remain so

Unfortunately, the church isn't always a place of refuge for those of us who suffer with depression. In several circles, there is a stigma of spiritual weakness or lack of faith associated -- at a time when support is needed most.

Dr. Mullen examines all the issues in a very practical & spiritual manner, encouraging the reader to both lean on God and also to change the way he/she regards the illness. The author also covers the sometimes-controversial topic of taking medications to treat depression and other anxiety-related afflictions: take medication in order to feel well enough to be able to pray & take part in one's own recovery.

If you personally suffer from any of these problems, I hope you have the support you need from friends, family, and your church family. May Christ's blessings follow you daily.

This book has been a blessing to me. It describes my mood disorder and how to get the help I thought was not available. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has unhealed emotions from the past . Thank you Dr. Mullen for writing it.

Mullen, Grant. Why Do I Feel so Down When My Faith Should Lift Me Up?: How to Break the Three Links in the Chain of Emotional Bondage. Kent, Eng.: Sovereign World, 1999.

The intention of Dr. Mullen in this book is to provide both an understanding of, and a guide to achieving, emotional health. Emotional health involves healing from chemical imbalances, deliverance from evil forces and freedom from emotional woundedness (the three links in the chain of emotional bondage), and results in a wholeness of thought and feeling, of mind and heart, of faith and life. As a librarian I examine thousands of books every year, and most fall into the "put-down-can't-pick-up" category. Mullen's book, however, was one I couldn't put down once I picked it up. I found in its 286 pages a wonderfully lucid and engaging treatment of these very complex issues, and throughout I kept thinking how "right" this was. On many points I found direction, encouragement and hope.

Often individuals engaged in ministries dealing with psychological problems, I find, take a very unrealistic approach in diagnosis (demons are at the root of everything, your spiritual inadequacies are the cause, etc.) and propose solutions only the most saintly or determined could aspire to. Further, the results they expect are often very idealistic. Although there may be an element of truth in some of this, it comes across to me at best as being highly imbalanced. Thankfully, you won't find in Mullen's book a recommendation to flush pills down the toilet as a act of faith, to cast out the demon of fingernail biting, or to claim your healing while really wanting to jump off the nearest bridge. This book is a sane, reasoned, knowledgeable sensitive, practical, honest, perceptive, and spiritually nuanced treatment, and one that I am sure will resonate with you in its truthfulness and sensibleness.

In a very helpful fashion, the main text is inset with illustrative case studies, and the well-crafted cartoons throughout have purpose and punch. The writing is uncomplicated and narrative in style. The book was of great benefit to me and I highly recommend it to you.

Ivan Gaetz, Library Director, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

Dr. Mullen has written a book of hope for depression sufferers and families or caregivers of sufferers. This is not a clinical analysis of the problem, but a personal journey to which the reader can relate. The tone of this book is conversational, and not preachy or didactic, making it quite readable. Dr. Mullen gives the sufferer permission to feel the way he does and is not judgmental. Conversely he approaches this subject very seriously and does not give the reader the impression that there are easy answers. He does not propose a single formula for all sufferers, but rather he sees value in drug therapy, counselling and deliverance. The personal annecdotes included in this book are very encouraging and give hope to those who are suffering that others have indeed recovered. Dr. Mullen has done an excellent job of taking the guilt for feeling depressed out of the equation and given the sufferer the freedom to find help. This is a most readable book and highly recommended for Christians suffering from depression.

This is probably more classifiable as a fan letter or something rather than a review.

The book is good. The story is engaging, the forward and the introduction give a history of the subject, which I as a layman, do not know much about. You want to READ them from start to finish, unlike some other books where they are auxiliary. Then the photos...

This is what photojournalism is about. You are treated to an intimate look at scenes with these woman doctors. It is almost like it is movie set where the camera is right there, to show you the actions. Except that these are not rehearsed scenes or actresses, but real people in real hospitals. Make you wonder how they do it. They are like flies on the walls, with cameras on their necks. We know what Ted might say, "I just focus and shoot!" Sandy probably would say the same. I wish we all can focus and shoot like that.

And the lights. What mastery! I had a chat with a 4x5 landscape shooter over the weekend, and we were talking about tonal forms, the zone system, Weston and his peppers and all that. This is not like that. Ted just focuses and shoots - and the shadows on the faces are just right, and the bright lights don't distract or scream burnt-out highlights. They are just part of the images. Wow!

I have to say that the equipment fetish in me causes me to notice several shots with the creamy bokeh signature of the Noctilux. Of course I could be wrong in pegging them. No matter, lots to learn from books from this...

Thank you Ted and Sandy.

Ted Grant, one of Canada's best kept secret, and his protege Sandy Carter break no ground in Women In Medicine: A Celebration of Their Work. There is nothing new here. Instead, they present us with a work of classic documentary photography; two outstanding photographers venturing forth into a world new to most of us, returning with a collection of photographic moments that together show us what it is like to be a woman in the male dominated world of medicine.

I say Ted Grant is a Canada's best kept secret because he is little known outside his own country. But there he is a true star in the field of photojournalism. For more than 50 years Grant has been shooting for major Canadian newspapers; his work is in the permanent collection of the Canadian national archives, and a few years back, he and Karsh of Ottawa, perhaps the best known classic portrait photographer of the past 50 years, received the same life time achievement award.

Women In Medicine: A Celebration of Their Work, will remind you of nothing so much as the LIFE Magazine work of W. Eugene Smith, inventor of the magazine photo essay. Look at the photos of these women in scrubs at the end of an endless shift, and you can't help think of Smith's classic essay, "Country Doctor." What makes Grant and Carter's work all the more impressive, is that unlike Smith, they neither set up any shots, nor did they use any flash or other supplementary lighting. Grant makes no bones about distaining the use of what he calls "twinkie" lights - flash. When the light disappears he just pulls out the Noctilux for one of his Leica M7s, and pushes his Tri-X a stop further.

While this is a book that will appeal to any woman in medicine, be she a physician, a nurse, a nurse midwife, or a tech of any type, and while it is also a book that demands a place on the bookshelf of anyone who loves a woman in medicine, it is first of all a book for anyone who loves classic, black and white, available light documentary photography.

80 percent of modern health care providers are female, but there is little mention of this excess in discussions of health care provision. Ted Grant and Sandy Carter, a photojournalist and freelance photographer, decided to collaborate on this photographic tribute to all women medical professionals from doctors to med techs: their WOMEN IN MEDICINE is both a visual display of women on the job and a survey of how women have contributed to the medical profession.

Photograpy that stimulates the artistic eye, and uplifts the spirit of any women working in health care. Pictures mainly of physicians, technicians and nurses. While paging through this book, I had an overwhelming sense of appreciation for women working in health care, and an inspiration to be there for those in need.