Lawrence Books

I thought I understood the meaning of the words presented here, but Kushner's definitions really startled me, challenged me, and engaged me! His unconventional definitions brought new light to so many words I thought I understood, and all too often took for granted. He poignantly demonstrates how words, and the way we define and understand them, affect more than our vocabulary! This is a small book, but it is far from a 'quick read' because its words will enter your thoughts over and over, often when you least expect it, each time offering a new insight, each time helping you understand how the very words we use--and the way we define them--affect our lives and the lives of those around us. It is a book whose 'words' continue to influence long after you close its cover, a book for which I greatly thank the author.

About every week or so this book practically jumps off my shelf!Whenever I am looking for the best Hebrew word to use in a poem, review, or sermon, I check-out this good Rabbi's Hebrew words! For an occasional Columbia Seminary class in the Old Testament, in Walter Brueggemann's Psalms I found new interest in learning Hebrew aleph-beit.

From Rabbi Kushner's short two-page Introduction to his "Book of Words" he briefly describes in volunes of meaning: "According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words. God just spoke and the world became reality. (The Aramaic for "I create as I speak" is avara k'davara, or in magician's language, abracadabra.) Not only are words the instrument of creation, in Judaism they are primary reality itself." I Was Hooked by That!

The Hebrew words meaning most to me are, b'rahkah or blessing; hit-la-ha-voot or Ecstasy. Kushner stated: "There can be joy in silence or with tears...in their occasions joyous laughter turns out to be sacred." The word ecstasy also appears in Bernstein's
"Chichester Psalms," coming in the most dramatic moment!

The word for prayer has meant much: t'fee-lah as the Rabbi uses the phonetic spelling. In his last page for each word he writes a Kavanah or Living Spiritual Talk: "In prayer you need to know a 'script' so well that you can recite the words on 'auto-pilot' but not so well, that the words are habitual."

I soon passed onto his "Book of Letters," then, "God was in this Place and I, i did not know." Again, it was Awesome: A Mystery! What a forcefully creative writer! Retired Chap. Fred W Hood

This is a superb book. It is scholarly yet passionate, courageous yet level-headed. The book argues that the Solidarity labor movement in Poland in 1980-81 was created by workers of the Gdansk shipyards rather than by Warsaw and Krakow intellectuals. However, the intellectuals supplied self-serving interpretations of Solidarity, and these were accepted as fact. Goodwyn shows that ever since the failed bread strikes in 1956, 1970, and 1976, the workers of Poland continued to devise methods by which to oppose the communist regime. In 1980, they succeeded: the so-called "occupational strike" in the shipyards made it impossible for the police to disperse the workers, while a system of human couriers allowed workers from various enterprises (as many as 370 factories, at the end of August 1980) to communicate when telephones were cut off by the communists. Finally, in August 1980, the workers presented to the government the centerpiece of all their demands: the demand for free labor unions. This was a move which the government of Soviet-occupied Poland did not expect. Polish intellectuals in Warsaw advised against it. The workers stood firm--and the government yielded. For a year, there was jubilation in Poland. But at Moscow's bidding, the Soviet-controlled government in Warsaw arrested thousands of Solidarity leaders in December 1981. For seven years, Poles lived under martial law. Under martial law, hundreds of people were tortured or "merely" beaten, thousands lost their lives because elementary medical help was impossible to obtain.
In later chapters, Goodwyn points out that it was "citizens' committees" and not the Solidarity labor union that produced delegates to the Round Table talks. Among the delegates, the intelligentsia members were overrepresented (195 out of some 240 delegates), while the workers who created Solidarity had a few dozen delegates. Since that time, the Warsaw intelligentsia was disproportionately credited with creating and aiding Solidarity, whereas worker activists slid into oblivion. The situation further worsened when factories began to close down because of restructuring, and millions of working men and women lost their jobs. The intelligentsia kept theirs: white collar workers were not much affected by restructuring of steel mills, shipyards, and cotton mills.
A magnificently lucid tome that provides real insights into the workings of democracy. If you are concerned with the erosion of democratic institutions in the United States, read this book.

As a student in Larry Goodwyn's social movements class, I have been reading this book to study his philosophy and methodology. It's incredibly interesting and enlightening, and sure to infuriate anyone with a vested interest in the convential wisdom about movement building in general and Solidarity in particular. I'd recommend it to anyone who can get their hands on a copy (& let me know if you can!)...

Collaboration is the way to help students overcome a variety of issues they face in today's tough world. By learning to work together in a safe environment, they develop lifelong skills that will help them with all interpersonal relationships. Home and community and school need to work together to educate children. McCaleb offers reasons why and how to accomplish the important task of interweaving the culture of these 3 elements in the children's lives. Sharing stories and creating books together is a great way to come together and also to create lasting memories.

This book provides the reader with classroom ideas to incorporate the family, communities, students, and teacher in the school curriculum. The teachers in the book suggest many different tactics to approach very diverse students and their families. McCaleb wants the students to realize that they are important in society, by showing them how others have succeeded. Students bring many experiences into the classroom, and teachers should build from those experiences to make their education more meaningful for the student

"A great blend of Cosa Nostra and international intrigue. Lawrence Kelter is an exciting new novelist, who reminds me of an early Robert Ludlum." -- Nelson DeMille. Best selling author. The Lion's Game and Up Country.

"Murder most foul, enwrapped in international intrigue... Moves and terrifies! I felt the icy fingers of death around my throat. By Executive Order is one helluva book!" -Ann Loring, Board of Directors. Mystery Writers of America

"An absolutely exciting read... Lawrence Kelter weaves together the strands of intrigue expertly and with convincing authority-a no holds barred look at the international intelligence community and organized crime. A tale of deceit and retribution." -Eugene P. Foley, Former President. National Committee on American Foreign Policy

"The Sopranos meet James Bond. The next book you'll see everyone reading." -Robert N. Klemer, Author. The Executor

great for students and general surgery residents to lear pediatric surgery from a case based approach.

If you'd like a quick, easy reading book to review before taking pediatric surgery written or oral boards, Larry Moss has just the book for you. Concise, authoritative, well written, and at times dryly humorous... thanks to Baird's contributions! A must have.

Tom Inge
Pediatric Surgeon
Cincinnati Childrens Hospital

My oldest son loves to lay in his bed and read stories with Daddy just before lights out. I found this book for them when they'd just started their nighttime ritual and knew my husband would love it. He's always loved to play sports and is very excited about sharing that love with his sons. This version of Casey at the bat is so beautifully illustrated - it really takes you back in time. Turns out that I enjoy listening and looking at the pictures just as much as my two year old. It's the kind of book you know will be saved and handed down. My husband loves it so much that when we were recently invited to a birthday party he suggested it as our gift. You can't go wrong with this version, it's great.

When you can take a classic and apply it 100 years after it was written, then you know you've truly written a piece of art. This is by far one of the best illustrated books for this poem that I've ever seen. It's partially a cartoon, but partially real life so it really makes for a great story and not just a poem. I've read this over and over again and my little one wonders why on earth Casey let the first two balls get by without even trying. What an educational little poem for little ones and even adults. The illustrations alone are worth the cost of this book, especially when they show smoke coming from Casey's ears! Since it is a classic, I think this should be in every little one's library and what a great way to introduce some education without them even knowing it. I didn't study this poem until the 6th grade, but with publications such as this, little guys and gals can get ahold of it much earlier. If you have a little leaguer in your life, this book would be a fabulous gift. Even mighty Casey, talent and all can strike out! Highly recommend!

I had to read this re my masters course. It relates to actual situations and was very relevant to the field of educational leadership across the board. Great user friendly resource.

Centering Educational Administration is a veritable tour de force. Erudite, thought-provoking, and compelling, it effectively marshals the many strands of social, pedagogical, and organizational theory to weave its main message: in the noble service of the next generation, educational administration can uphold education's humanistic value by cultivating meaning, community, and responsibility. For Starratt, one of education's most encyclopedic and articulate public intellectuals, this entails moving beyond simply considering the "discrete functions of administration" and towards engaging "the essentials of administering." Much as the overtones of Starratt's argument may have W. B. Yeats turning in his grave (i.e., there is a center to educational administration... that can hold), it should be heeded for its critically normative orientation and purpose: to move educators and institutions from what is to what ought to be.

The book does so by centering educational leadership on the cultivating and monitoring of a learning agenda that begins with the self and students and extends to teachers and the community. Our ecological interdependence means that "School communities do not exist in isolation from their surrounding communities. What and how they learn needs to be in dialogue with their surroundings" (233). To this end, Starratt explores the separate and intersective synergy of theory and practice, teaching and learning, of individual and community, to organically develop a vision of school as "a humane and socially nurturing environment in which the pursuit of academic learning would go hand in hand with social learning" (96). He extends the conceptual foundations for ethical education first developed in Building an ethical school (1994) and engages substantive aspects of moral leadership, keeping students at the centre of the educational enterprise and offering perspectives to help educators through this late-modern era of high-stakes accountability, diversity, and uncertainty.

Starratt achieves this ambitious purpose through thoughtful organization of material, clear, vivid prose, and rich illustrative examples. The eight chapters of Part I, Elements of the Leader's Vision, take readers through the conceptual foundation of his argument about what school renewal looks like, why it's needed, and how it can be achieved. As the book's sub-title suggests, Starratt's vision for a new centre of educational administration comprises three main themes: cultivating meaning, community, and moral responsibility. For Starratt, school renewal is fundamentally about enriching and enhancing the learning of the schoolhouse's many selves - student and staff - in relation to their physical, social, and human worlds. It is about nurturing "moral excellence" in all learners, a sense of being responsible to, and for, what one learns. To this end, educational administration's core is therefore about cultivating personal, public, applied, and academic meaning-making by initiating "conversations among teachers about the basic meaning behind what and how they teach, and the meanings that are implied and assumed in the curriculum" (224).

Part II, Bringing the Vision to Reality, builds on the opening section's conceptual foreground to demonstrate how the active learning of all students, and the facilitating of this work by teachers, can take place in classroom, school, and district practices. Its six chapters apply Part I's lenses of moral philosophy, critical sociology, and cognitive science to refract and cohesively connect theory, policy, and practice. With carefully selected examples, each chapter helps illustrate the interdependency of Starratt's main themes in practical and workable situations. The site-based activities that conclude each of the book's fourteen chapters are especially useful in Part II. Clearly rooted in Starratt's vast experience as a scholar-practitioner-leader, they encourage readers to deepen their understanding of the many learnings through action research that is situated in the dynamics and structures of schools. Through this gestaltian marriage of theory and practice, readers are encouraged to reflect and operationalize the book's many rich concepts. The book's 57 site-based activities would make it a valuable addition to any graduate program in educational administration that seeks to integrate the scholarly with the practical.

As a former teacher and administrator turned doctoral student, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Centering Educational Administration. It challenged my thinking, forcing me to iteratively revisit eight years of professional experiences through Starratt's tripartite conceptualization of centered educational leadership; and it extended my scholarly experiences, developed over many graduate courses in educational administration. Most helpfully, it enabled me to connect meaningfully many scholar, practitioner, and leadership learnings of the last decade, honed as I moved in and out of schools as an educational administrator and the academy as a graduate student. Consequently, Starratt's latest will definitely find a place close at hand on my bookshelf of important educational administration texts and readily used, particularly given its clear, two-part structure, 21 explicatory diagrams and figures, and helpful author and subject indices.

Dr. Lawrence Frank's exploration of the social, ethical, psychological, and philosophical diminsions of Dicken's work is utterly delightful and highly readable -- a must for any Dickens affcianado or burgeoning scholar! You'll find a whole new level of meaning to all of Dicken's most endearing characters like Mr. Dick (from David Copperfield) and Master Bates (from Oliver Twist).

Egad! It's a pitiful reflection of the almost savage intellectual torpor that has settled upon academia and our nation as a whole that this fine work is out of print. I suggest you try Amazon's execellent out of print books search and order yourself a copy today!

As far as I am concerned, there was ne'er a book on Dickens penned prior to Mr. Frank's superb treatise. I have never been so proud of Mr. Chas. Dickens, a fellow Brit (and, I might add, a fellow writer)--or of Engerland, my home and native land. A true boon to mankind, Mr. Dickens was, and likewise this blessed text. I weep for joy.

This book is written by a brilliant psychologist and scholar of headache literature, as well as pain literature in general, whose ability to synthesize research and to translate this knowledge into useful information is first rate. His integration and application of biopsychosocial information to headache treatment is state of the art, and obviously influenced by his experience and sensitivity to the needs of both practitioners and patients.

As someone who works in the field of pain psychology, I can tell you that Dr. Borkum's book, Chronic Headaches, is a remarkable accomplishment. He has managed to put into one volume very nearly everything there is to know about headache--from the various types of headache and their associated symptomatologies to the full spectrum of medical and psychological approaches to managing headache pain. Even more astonishing is his thoughtful and comprehensive review of the outcome literature in behavioral medicine treatment research. This is a work that will prove essential to medical and psychological professionals who treat patients with chronic headaches, as well as to motivated patients suffering from chronic headaches who wish to acquaint themselves with the full range of treatment options.

Martin Scorsese has influenced so many directors in Hollywood that it's mind-blowing.and the casts that he has put together speak Volumes.he is as Important as anyone in the History of film.he takes the Streets and turns it into his own vision.he has directed some of the most important films ever.and he still has a classic or two that he hasn't even begun on yet.a great book.

This is a excellent book which covers Martin Scorcese's film's.I found it to be an excellent reference book. If you enjoy Scorcese's films get this book.