Owen Books

This was one of the first books that I read about Hinduism and feel that after reading it I understand more about the religion. It's organized, simple to understand, and key ideas are mentioned over and over again. There's sections devoted to Hindu rituals in the temple and at home, the religious texts, India's history, etc. The only problem I have with it is that in some chapters Indian culture seems to be confused with Hinduism itself. For example in one chapter it says that Hindus accept abortion, yet later on it says that traditionally abortion was one of the biggest sins in Hinduism. I understand that in many religions culture gets confused with what's actually in the religious texts. I think that the author could have done a better job clarifying that. Overall I found this book to be a very good introduction.

This book is simple and descriptive. I am a Hindu and I live in the United States. Several Americans have questioned me about my religion and sometimes I used to have a hard time explaining my answers. This book helped me to explain myself in a comprehensive way.

The book provides everday examples of rituals, traditions and ceremonies which are a day-to-day routine in an Hindu household.

In addition, the book describes the basic principles of Hinduism and the origin of these principles.

An added bonus is the role of society and the way relationships play an important role in a Hindu family.

An excellent read for Hindus and non-Hindus.

Simply enjoyable reading, David Owen puts into words what so many of us experience and feel on a golf course. An everyman, this book brings the game home to all of us who struggle to identify the "elusive unhittable club". I could not stop chuckling and sometimes laughing out loud at his colorful and vivid descriptions of his golf life, buddies and game. This guy would definitely be in my dream foursome! You couldn't have a bad day of golf with him no matter what you shot.

Subscribers to Golf Digest are well aware of David Owen. A monthly contributor to that magazine, as well as to the New Yorker, Owen is also the author of several golf books, including MY USUAL GAME, THE CHOSEN ONE and THE MAKING OF THE MASTERS. David Owen may well be the closest thing we have to an American version of P.G. Wodehouse, the English golf writer.

HIT AND HOPE: How the Rest of Us Play Golf, is a collection of Owen's essays. While many may find comfort in reading about golfing greats, Owen is not the writer to read if that is your interest. David Owen is the golf everyman, writing for those of us who go from despair to jubilation and back to despair in the span of one 385-yard hole. David Owen is a golfer who understands why a round of golf that often begins with unbounded optimism can conclude with total despair. He understands because, like us, he has been there and done that.

From an early essay explaining why Casablanca is the greatest golf movie ever made, to a discussion centering on golf superstitions, to a delightful tale of grown men sleeping over on the golf course, David Owen captures the true meaning and attraction of the game of golf. Golf is more than major championships, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and the legends of golf. Golf is camaraderie, fellowship, and the dreams of the average golfer who firmly believes deep down in his heart that one small adjustment in the swing will cause handicaps to plummet and scores to approach par. Like Owen, we can dream the dream while understanding that it remains an elusive, unattainable objective.

There is something in this collection to entertain every golfer. In "Perfecting Skins," Owen discusses the popularity of the made-for-television golf event, the Skins Game. In that event, four well-known professional golfers play for a large amount of money. There is little actual drama in the television contest, because the four golfers have nothing to lose except the possible humiliation of failing to win a single skin over the two-day event. It is fairly boring golf. Owen has several suggestions for livening up the event and then proceeds to discuss the local version of the skins game that you might wish to try out with your foursome. There are some interesting possibilities for those of you inclined to wager a few dollars on your weekend round of golf.

The longest essay in the collection is "The Greenkeeper's Tale," a short biography of the course superintendent at Owen's home course. Bob Witkoski is an iconoclast whose methods are subject to much discussion. A United States Golf Association agronomist who visited the course was horrified to learn that Witkoski refused to aerify the greens of his course. Upon examining a sample of the greens, he was forced to acknowledge that the soil was some of the healthiest ground he had ever seen. Bob Witkoski is a man who loves his work and his golf course, and Owen has chronicled him in an extraordinary fashion.

Read HIT AND HOPE and experience the joy of golf. Pass it amongst your foursome and share its joy. Owen would be mortified to learn that golfing pals might take the time to read and then discuss a book. Read his essay "Feelings" and you will understand why. This is a tome for golfers who know the frustration of the game. There are a lot more of us than there are golfers like Woods, Nicklaus and Palmer. Along with David Owen, we can share the joy, anguish and mirth of the game.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

Dr. Groth's work is unique in holocaust studies. It is by a survivor who interviewed survivors to gain statistically valid insights into their experiences, knowledge, and attitudes both before the holocaust and after. Dr. Groth's approach is sympathetic but scholarly and objective. Of particular interest is his own assessment of the scholarship of others in this field. Although he recognizes, of course, the brutality of many Germans, he rejects the Goldhagen conclusion that the German people as a whole were particularly conditioned and prepared to perpetrate the holocaust.

Alexander Groth's latest book is a provocative combination of survey research and personal voice. Groth's attitudinal survey of Holocaust survivors (including a sub-sample of those who managed to escape from Nazi control during the war) provides a wealth of information about the survivors' assessments of their ordeal and those responsible for it. The survey itself is well constructed with a sample of respondents closely representing the Jewish population in Europe in 1939. Especially interesting are the survey's findings regarding Jewish perception of potential danger before and during the Holocaust, assignment of blame for their experience, and empathy toward victims of similar activities in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Cambodia. The results serve as a springboard for Groth's critique of prominent examples of Holocaust scholarship, e.g., Arendt and Goldhagen, and a pointed reminder of broader responsibility for the events that transpired.

Comprehensive and clear. If you own a finacial advisory practice, this is must read.

A clear and concise volume. I used it to successfully substantiate my expert witness testimony.

I am amazed this little gem is not better known and widely applauded. When I first encountered it, I was struck by the author's mastery of expressing profound saddness, with the deftness of Japanese calligraphy and the balance and economy of a perfect haiku.
It is one of the very few books I have re-read (several times) and I recommend it widely to anyone interested in original writing.

In this short piece, an extramarital love between two married people is shown through the reflection of letters by the man's wife, the woman's daughter and the woman herself. With a succinctness of language rarely found elsewhere, with imagery whose starkness matches the sadness of the story's message, Inoue manages to convey an emotional intensity that can only be described as haunting. There is not a trace of sentimentality in this tale, yet it deals with passion, betrayal and death. The author wastes not a single word: This is poetic prose at its best.

We found this at the library and it is the only one of it's kind I have ever seen. There are many books about going to school and preschool written for children but so far this is the only one I've found just for homeschoolers.

As we read this book my son kept piping in with "Hey, I do that." Although we know many homeschooling families and many of his friends are homeschooled, for some reason reading this in a book really excited him.

A refreshing, insightful look at a day in the life of a homeschooler. The photography enhanced the lively style (and country life) of author, Julie Voetberg and her children. These are fortunate children, whose education includes the discovery of owl pellets (small blobs of bone and fur that the owl burps up after eating an animal) along a country path--the trail leading on to the library for books and science videos about owls. Fortunate children, indeed

I bought this book to explain my son's severe CP to mydaughter. She is only 3, so much younger than the recommendedage. However, the text is pretty simple to understand. But...the illustrations are excellent. The little girl in the book really looks like she has CP and they don't really sugar coat things. I like that because it's relates to my daughter's real world (as opposed to idealizing the CP child). Also, the book talks about good things and bad things so it has an evenhanded treatment.

All in all, I think this is a great book for explaining severe CP to siblings and others.

I bought this book to explain my son's severe CP to my daughter. She is only 3, so much younger than the recommended age. However, the text is pretty simple to understand. But...the illustrations are excellent. The little girl in the book really looks like she has CP and they don't really sugar coat things. I like that because it's relates to my daughter's real world (as opposed to idealizing the CP child). Also, the book talks about good things and bad things so it has an evenhanded treatment.

All in all, I think this is a great book for explaining severe CP to siblings and others.

I was given the original hard back by my father Richard W. Walton Sr. (Great Grandson of Col. J.B. Walton, Commander in Chief of the Washington Artillery). Once I started reading the book, I could not put it down, finished it in the same afternoon. I would have enjoyed reading it over and over through the years, but could not due to the age and condition of the original (copyright, 1885) I have read everything that I could get my hands on involving the American Civil War. After reading this book, I feel that I owe thanks to William Miller Owen for taking me back in time. I felt the experience as if I were there. As I came to know the men of the Battalion from day one upon their depature from New Orleans enroute to Richmond VA., I felt remorse in reading of the death of so many of them.

Very well written account of the Washington Artllery's engagements during the Civil War. Describes all major actions from the First Battle of Bull Run to the final surrender at Appomatox. You feel so close to the lives of the troops; makes you marvel at all the struggles and hardships that were endured. A must read for all Civil War buffs. First published in 1885 by Ticknor and Company of Boston. Reissued in a limited edition that is an exact reproduction of the original, with a few additions (an Introduction by Kenneth Urquhart, three additional illustrations, and the list of present-day officers) by The Pelican Publishing Company of New Orleans, June 1964.

At times both poignant and prescient, "In the Shadow of Islam" is the revelation of a brilliant mind. The book is, as one would expect from a trade paperback, well printed and bound.

This volume of Isabelle Eberhardt's original Dans L'ombre Chaude de Islam "In the Warm Shadow of Islam" was penned in 1904. As a big Eberhardt fan I still enjoyed reading this slim 1993 edition although it's lamely billed "In the Shadow of Islam". Translated by Sharon Bangert, the omission of this single word from the title, "Warm", quite neatly reverses its meaning. Thus the translator or publishers (Peter Owen Publishers) chose to slyly sabotage Eberhardt's empathic sympathetic message about her chosen faith Sufism/Islam with a beckoning yet ominous tang. I suppose her original title, 'In the Warm Shadow of Islam', (emphasis mine) was too long and Islam-friendly for today's market?

Thus, the publisher's choice perpetrates the ever popular anti-Islamic bent. That said, it's the brilliance of Eberhart's work that manages to shine through even a biased translation.
Without ado, let me provide some of my favorite quotes from In the Shadow of Islam:

"To the extent that I feel myself saturated by ancient, unshaken Islam, which here seems to be the very breathing of the earth...And I understand that one could end one's days in the peace and silence of some southern zawiya, end in ecstasy, free of yearnings, confronting only radiant horizons. " pg 114

"I have jotted these reflections in the margin of a letter...Having written them, I relapse into my feeling of exile, wishing to bury myself even deeper in this hostile south, without any desire for the Paris I have known, where the newspaper's lip-service to feminism was even more repugnant to me than the Parisian coquettes.

I have said nothing in my response worth reading. Why bother? One day paths separate, destinies crystallize. And this is so much more than having made a few friends. When they are good enough to invite us to share their foreign happiness, let's show them what's possible to a true fraternity of minds.

Let's regret nothing, since our happiness and theirs will consist in letting ourselves go one day, into mysterious currents which will carry our souls adrift towards impossible shores. Then we'll enjoy the intoxication of decadence and shipwreck; and wandering over the immense beaches of the night, we'll feel within us the seeds of suffering begin to germinate." pg 70

"...forgetting the principals of tolerance propounded by Islam at its purest..." pg 49

It strikes me that prayer, and dreams, too, should never end." pg 60-61


Please enjoy this timeless piece of writing...still relevant and convincing.

This book offers a curious combination of wide generalizations about managing projects overseas, and extremely detailed guidance in the shape of project-management forms and checklists. Owen Jay Murphy explains obvious information - people pursue international projects to make money and folks in other countries have different customs. Yet he also provides sophisticated information, like detailed, complex data on some Six Sigma techniques, and project evaluation and review templates such as Gantt, PERT and WBS charts. At its best, getAbstract finds that this book provides a reasonably easy-to-read summary of some crucial steps and useful tools for managing international projects.

I am a marketing consultant, and when I found it necessary to learn about international project management, I found the prospect intimidating. But Murphy's "International Project Management" is both comprehensive *and* accessible without wasting my time. Particularly helpful is the section on cultural issues with regards to women. The author devotes several pages to advising women project managers--with very specific pointers!

The book spends two chapters putting international project management into perspective before diving into the nuts and bolts of it. Perhaps the most helpful is chapter 3, "Difficulties and Risks of International Projects"...things any company needs to know *before* bidding a project.

Along the way, simple checklists, flowcharts, and sample worksheets enable a project manager to be fully prepared in each stage of the process. The author is obviously highly experienced in this field with extensive (intriguing?) experience.

I highly recommend this book for project managers and those who advise them!