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Peter
Diana: A Tribute to the People's Princess
Published in Hardcover by Courage Books (1997-09)
Author: Peter Donnelly
List price: $12.98
New price: $1.74
Used price: $0.01
Collectible price: $12.98

Average review score:

This is a very excellent tribute to Diana.
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-05-15
I have a few books about Diana, but this one, A Tribute to the People's Princess, I found to be very excellent. It shows Diana in many pictures in her different roles in life:Princess of Wales, mother, wife and humanitarian. I recommend everyone who wants to learn more about Princess Diana, to read this book, you'll be glad you did.

This book was excellent it had some different photos
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-04-02
I have many books on Diana and was pleased to see this one come out. It has nice colourful pictures of her and some different poses. Highly recommend it.

This is one great book!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1997-11-22
This is an awsome book on Lady Diana. It has TONS of pictures. I enjoyed it ALOT!!

This is an excellent book for everyone.
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 1999-03-11
This book has been in my collection since its publication and has been read many times. It's still difficult to believe that this beautiful, young princess is no longer on her earthly sojourn but has moved on to a much better place.

The forward is written by The Reverend Tony Lloyd who is The Executive Director of The Leprosy Mission. The following quote is taken from the foreward on page 11: "Leprosy may not be mentally and physically damaging, but it is often erroneously seen as a curse from the gods, and the 'victims' then become outcasts. Since Diana herself was the frequent victim of pain and anguish, she had a special empathy for those who suffered in the same way. It is not a coincidence that five of her six remaining charities are associated with stigma.

"She was charismatic, witty, and, above all, a womain of extraordinary compassion. This was demonstrated both in the limelight and, more often, when there were no cameras or reporters present." So many times, one tends not to read the preface or the forward of a book and, often, valuable information can be gleaned from these. I, for one, feel that the last sentence of the above quote is crucial since there are still may people who think that Diana did everything in full view of cameras.

If one collects books on Diana, this book is a must. There is not any new material, there are several pictures not seen before; however, as with all books, it is presented in a different format and style. One is taken through Diana's life as a toddler, as a small girl, as a teenager, as an adult, and lastly, through her funeral service and to her final resting place on the small oval island at Althrop - her ancestral home.

Following are three quotations of Diana's: "I shall get married when I am sure that I am in love, so that we will never be divorced," said by Diana as a small girl - page 15. On page 30, "I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world when I looked at Charles through my veil. I had tremendous hope in my heart." On page 72, "I think the biggest disease this world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved, and I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour; for a day, for a month, but I can give. I'm very happy to do that and I want to do that."

This is a great, but sad tribute to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. This book contains many beautiful pictures in color and a few in black and white. This book is a must for anyone who collect books on Diana, Princess of Wales.

A must-have for Diana book collectors!!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 1999-02-06
Just when you think that you've read all there is about the late POW, along comes this well-written volume. It wasn't just the same old text with a few changes of words to make you think it was all new. I really found this book refreshing in content. One of the best coverages of the funeral I've read to date! Also pictures that I had not seen previously--and I have an embarrassingly large collection of them! However, while you're waiting for this book at Amazon.com to be released, I purchased mine at Waldenbooks on the clearance table for $2.99. I was shocked to see such a great book at such a steal, it's definatly worth the asking price here!

Peter
A Different Kind of Honor
Published in Hardcover by Pineapple Pr (2007-09-15)
Author: Robert N. Macomber
List price: $21.95
New price: $13.63
Used price: $15.81
Collectible price: $59.95

Average review score:

A true thriller - I couldn't put it down!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-29
Robert Macomber's book A Different Kind of Honor is historically accurate and the kind of book you just don't want to put down. With every chapter, Macomber kept impressing me with the rich and accurate details of this historical novel and with an entertaining, plot-twisting narrative that kept me wondering what would happen next. Three cheers for Robert Macomber and his books!

The American Navy enters the world stage
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-09
The last half of the 19th century seemed to me to be a very weak period for a history of the US Navy. Leave out John Paul Jones, the Barbary pirates and the Confederate Navy advances and I thought the US Navy slumbered for most of the 19th century. HOWEVER, Macomber has managed very well to bring the US Navy to the world stage. The series has advanced quite spritely with "A Different Kind of Honor" being the best of the series so far. Remembering the fights between the diesel admirals and the nuclear admirals, I can well identify with the fight of the sail admirals and the Congressional penury versus the diesel admirals for a modern navy. I look forward to the next in the series.

A Different Kind Of Honor
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-12
This latest in the adventurer series by Robert Macomber conntinues the saga of a post civil war naval officer as he represents the USA in the naval wars of western South America in the 1870s. Enough adventure for any of us while set in a valid historical setting.

Adifferent kind of honor
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-11-12
Macomber has out done himself. This is the best of all the novels I could not put it down. The only problem with Robert Macomber novels are you have to wait for the next one to come out. Outstanding author holds your interest from beginning to end. Hurry up with the next adventure.

So far, this is the best of the series
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-02-10
It is hard to believe that Macomber's books keep getting better, but they do! In this, the sixth novel of the series, Our LtCmdr Peter Wake has experienced the political pitfalls of Washington, the dangerous jungles of Panama, and a protracted war in the eastern Pacific, where he is officialy a neutral observer. His neutrality becomes almost impossible to maintain as the war between Chili, Bolivia, and Peru, loses its last chance for peace. Back in Washington his home life has also taken a turn for the worse. This book is impossible to put down.

Peter
Doctor and the Soul
Published in Hardcover by Peter Smith Pub Inc (1988-08)
Author: Viktor E. Frankl
List price: $19.75

Average review score:

The brilliant Dr. Frankl
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-23
This is a wonderful book that describes the existentialist process and
thoughts of a brilliant man. It is a very different school of thought
than more recent schools of thought such as cognitive-behavioral psychology. Dr. Frankl discusses meaning of life, suffering, and how one
choose one's attitude toward suffering to alleviate it. Of course, who
could be a more experienced speaker of this message than Dr. Frankl who endured being in a concentration camp during World War II and was able to survive
it through his choices of attitude towards his suffering. Dr. Frankl is
clearly an existentialist who sees choice and personal responsibility as
the center of the soul.

A shining light in the darkness of the moral relativsm.
Helpful Votes: 110 out of 119 total.
Review Date: 1999-04-03
Adler thought all human motivation was based on the will to power, manifesting itself in men's desires to get rich and to exercise dominion and women's desire to marry such men. Freud thought all human motivation was based on the will to sex, that is to say the will to procreate the manifestations of which we see in our sex obsessed society. Frankl shows that the misplacement of these desires in the center of human life causes all of the psychological turmoil under which our society suffers. He shows that by putting (dare I say) God, and the purpose for which He created each individual at the center of human existence (the will to meaning), love (misunderstood as the will to sex) and creativity (misunderstood as the will to power)are put into a proper perspective. Frankl's treatise makes the insights of Adler and Freud useful to the religious individual who consider either of these great psychologists secular humanist riff-raff. More over it renders the endless the tangled web weaved by psychoanalysis unnecessary as it shows how understanding oneself as a purposeful being one can alleviate all the binding ties of compulsion, addiction, and irrational fear. INCREDIBLE.

deneurotization of humanity
Helpful Votes: 125 out of 131 total.
Review Date: 2001-05-11
Frankl's logotherapy enables people to once again discover the quality of life. Frankl believes that the first two schools of Viennese psychotherapy (Freud and Adler), which he calls the depth psychology, must be complimented the logotherapy - the height psychology. His therapy explores man's future instead of his past. Summarizing the Freudian concept as the will to pleasure and the Adlerian concept as the will to power, Frankl points out that man's basic motivation in life is neither pleasure nor power. Each person lives to discover the meaning of life and thereby to fulfill it - the will to meaning. Life is too meaningful for man to comprehend: it is essentially incomprehensible because it lies on a higher realm than that of man's. During the World War 2, Frankl survived four concentration camps including Auschwitz. In the camps, most of the inmates despaired that if they did not survive the camp, there was no meaning in suffering. Frankl, on the other hand, believed that if there was no meaning in suffering, there was no point in surviving the camp. In other words, the meaning of life was either unconditional regardless of the situation one was facing, or it was none at all. In the camps, Frankl would console his inmates telling them, "Someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours ?a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead ?and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly ?not miserably ?knowing how to die.? He would explain to them that it was not them asking the meaning of life. It was life asking them the meaning, and they had to answer to it. What Frankl witnessed in the camps contradicted Freud's theory that if people were left without food for few days, their wants would be reduced to the common desire for food. While some inmates behaved according to their instincts, as Freud predicted, there were also others who lived up to this challenge. Frankl witnessed people who gave away their last piece of bread and others who organized religious activities, which resulted in execution if they were caught. One of logotherapy's techniques to help people discover values is to have them imagine their lives from their deathbeds and look back on them. During such exercises people often find that their current definition of success differs significantly from that on their deathbeds. They realize that they do not wish they had made more money, had more sex. It is interesting to note that virtually everyone points to relationship as their most cherished value. They wish that they had spent more time with people they care about. Logotherapy bases its therapy on the fact that man is a self-transcendent being. Psychotherapy which views man as a self-contained being is bound to fail. Frankl's favourite analogy regarding this matter is the eye. The function of the eye is to transcend itself: healthy eye does not see itself. The more it self-transcends, the more it actualizes itself. Only when there is a problem, such as glaucoma, does it notice itself. Man actualizes himself in the same way. Self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendent. Man is most human when he is occupied with something other than himself - when he is serving others?needs. The best time to take a picture of man is when he is least conscious of himself. How unnatural the picture looks when he is told to say cheese, to notice himself. Man neither lives by himself nor for himself. Man who views himself as a self-contained being is bound to live in despair. If he were to weigh the suffering and joy in life, he will find that the suffering outweighs by far. Every approach to suicide prevention needs to be grounded on the irreducibility of the unique human phenomenons and the self-transcendent nature of man. Only then can he find the meaning in suffering and thereby meet the challenge. He then realizes that life expects something from him in every situation. This "mere?realization in itself may even put an end to suicidal thoughts. Painting green the leaves of a dying tree lasts only so long, while watering its roots naturally turns them green. Frankl warns us of the serious consequences of reductionism. And his logotherapy thoroughly deestablishes the reductionism in psychotherapy and reinstitutes the human realm in psychotherapy. Logotherapy has a significant contribution to make in our world where more and more people are seeking psychotherapy to address this human realm. Logotherapy, then, is a psychotherapy for the man in the street ?all of us.

Existential concerns
Helpful Votes: 20 out of 35 total.
Review Date: 2003-08-16
Existential frustration results in neurotic symptoms. Logotherapy is a specific therapy. Life is a task. Logotherapy is education toward responsibility. Psychoanalysis regards neurosis as limitation.

Individual psychology fits only a particular kind of human being. We postulate a psychotherapy to include the spiritual element. Logotherapy is intended to supplement psychotherapy. Responsibility implies a sense of obligation. An affirmative attitude toward life is crucial.

The pleasure principle is an artificual creation of psychology. Human volition has any of a number of human ends. Value is transcendent to the act that intends it. Existential analysis and logotherapy aim at bringing the patient to the highest point of concentration and dedication.

No man is justified in insisting on his own inadequacies. The meaning of individuality comes to fulfillment in the community. Man's reality is a potentiality. Freedom of the will is opposed to destiny.

Human existence underwent deformation in the concentration camps. First there is regression to primitiveness. Most people were tormented by a sense of inferiority. It was a provisional existence. Life was futureless and monotonous. Psychic degeneration might lead to total apathy. During the week between Christmas and New Year 1944 there was unprecedented mass mortality. The liberated prisoner was still in need of care.

Human life can be fulfilled in suffering. The patient as sufferer may be superior to the doctor. The chief symptom of unemployment neurosis is apathy. Where love is lacking, work becomes a substitute. Love is not only grace, it is enchantment. Human existence is fundamentally grounded in responsibility.

Logotherapy sets out to transform the neurotic's view of his neurosis. The obsessional neurotic has excessive consciousness and conscientiousness. The striving for security in anxiety neurosis and obsessional neurosis is deflected. The melancholic devalues himself and the whole world. The application of paradoxical intention has been useful in many cases of phobic neurosis.

Some of the most important principles in my life
Helpful Votes: 31 out of 32 total.
Review Date: 2005-05-10
Some of the most important principles in my life can be found in Dr. Viktor Frankl's The Doctor and the Soul. Without them, I along with my efforts to do good in the world would be lost in cynicism and depression. The book is an answer to Ecclesiastes' refrain, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The book is an answer of hope.

I have pitied certain people to the point of questioning how they could endure life. I think of the boy whose alcoholic father had poured gasoline over him while he was sleeping. His face and over 90% of his body had been burned and melted. He no longer has ears, lips, or a nose. This nine year old boy has 50 or 60 more years to live among us.

In this depressing context, Dr. Frankl's mission in life was to help others realize meaning in their lives no matter their condition. The fundamental premise behind Frankl's life work is that "whoever has a reason for living endures almost any mode of life - Nietzche" (p.54). One scene from Frankl's autobiography, Man's Search for Meaning, encapsulates this thought well.

One night when his fellow prisoners of a concentration camp had received word that they would all be gassed the next day, the people looked to the Viennese psychiatrist for solace. He in turn was able to help each person discover personal reasons to endure which carried them through that dark night with hope and dignity. For example, Frankl helped one person overcome despair by reaffirming the man's fleeting hope that his suffering and death would somehow mean that his wife and family would be saved from such a fate. Instead of perceiving his situation as mere waste and tragedy, this man was enabled to convert his inescapable plight into a noble, heroic deed.

To be human, says Frankl, is to be conscious of one's responsibility no matter the situation. What makes human existence always meaningful, even in a concentration camp or in a severely wrecked body from an accident, is at every moment in a person's life he or she is being asked to fulfill a task. "It is life itself that asks questions of man. It is not up to man to question; rather, he should recognize that he is questioned, questioned by life." (p. 62)

Frankl emphasizes two primary and related guides for hearing the questions that life puts to us: conscience and regret. Frankl offers the leading maxim, "Live as you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now" (p.64). Frankl goes on, "Once an individual really puts himself into this imagined situation, he will instantaneously become conscious of the full gravity of the responsibility that every man bears throughout every moment of his life: the responsibility for what he will make of the next hour, for how he will shape the next day." (p.64-5)

But isn't there some who simply cannot respond favorably to life's questions due to great catastrophe or suffering like the boy who was burned? This is where the implications of Frankl's thought reach their peak, and from such extreme heights we see that no one with far lesser struggles can have valid excuses. Even the inability to create something valuable or to experience beauty, the usual means of obtaining meaning in life, does not condemn a person to a tragically meaningless existence. One thing (the most important thing, according to Frankl) is always still left in tact, that is, the capacity to answer with attitudinal values. How one bears one's cross can give meaning to life. Frankl offers one particularly poignant example (the book is filled with dozens of real life cases to prove his points).

"A young man lay in the hospital, suffering from an inoperable spinal tumor. Paralysis had handicapped his ability to work. There was for him therefore no longer any chance to realize creative values. But even in this state the realm of experiential values remained open to him. He devoted himself to reading good books, and especially to listening to good music on the radio. One day, however, he could no longer bear the pressure of the earphones, and his hands had become so paralyzed that he could no longer hold a book. He was forced to make the further retreat to attitudinal values. He now set himself the role of adviser to his fellow sufferers, and in every way strove to be an exemplar to them. He bore his own suffering bravely. The day before his death - which he foresaw - he knew that the doctor on duty had been ordered to give him an injection of morphine at night. What did the sick man do? When the doctor came to see him on his afternoon round, the patient asked him to give him the injection in the evening - so that the doctor would not have to interrupt his night's rest just on his account." (p.46)
In the same vain, Dostoevsky said that he only feared one thing: that he might not be worthy of his torment (p.114). Goethe said, "There is no predicament that we cannot ennoble either by doing or enduring" (p. 112). Thus a person faced with great suffering must not ask in futility and despair, "Why me?" or "Why God?", but rather must understand that life itself, God Himself, has given him a task, has put the question to him, "Why you?". The sufferer is expected to discover the reason for his current plight. God cannot take the sufferer's test for him or her.

For one that may be to encourage other patients through one's own brave suffering. Frankl tells the case of an 18 year old girl who was shot in a robbery and can only accomplish tasks by use of a mouthstick. "She feels the purpose of her life is quite clear. She watches the newspapers and television for stories of people in trouble and writes to them (typing with her mouthstick) to give them words of comfort and encouragement" (p. 300). For another the task of dying naked on a tree may be to demonstrate God's love for sinners.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that looking into the mouth of the abyss of possibilities in how to answer life's questions can by itself be paralyzing. Thus Frankl rejects the general question "What is the meaning of life?" as a meaningless question. "It reminds us of the question a reporter asked a grand master in chess. 'And now tell me, maestro - what is the best move in chess?' Neither question can be answered in a general fashion, but only in regard to a particular situation and person" (p.61). Otherwise we "would be tormented by eternal doubts and endless self-criticism, and would at best overstep the time limit and forfeit the game."

Thus what one decides is not as significant as that one decides to respond to a given situation. Indecision - to sulk in a wheelchair in the face of "no good choices" - is to overstep one's time limit and forfeit the game. At the other extreme, to commit suicide is to simply sweep the pieces off the chess board; it is forsaking the value of moving a piece regardless of how it may or may not affect the outcome of the game. For meaning derives from the opportunity and decision to make a move, and not from society's conception of winning.

There are so many practical, applicable at this very minute insights in Frankl's book. His chapter on the meaning of love by itself is worth the price of the book. His chapter on the meaning of work, how "our task is not our calling" (p. 124), equips one with a healthy perspective for the twists and turns in the real world. For example, Frankl relates:

"Several years ago a garbage collector received the order of merit from the German government. This man did his job to everyone's satisfaction, but the special effort that gained him the award was this: He looks in the garbage cans for discarded toys, spends his evening hours repairing them, and gives them to poor children as presents. He adds magnificent meaning to his clean-up job." (p.298)
Frankl's other chapters on dealing with anxiety and obsessive behavior are priceless. For instance, if you are afraid of public speaking, you can apply Frankl's ingenius method of paradoxical intention. That is, wish your fear. The moment you feel nervous and anxious, and your fear of sounding like a fool begins to rise, at that moment, think to yourself, "I'm going to try and make my voice quiver. I want to appear as the most nervous, incomprehensible person these people have ever heard." And as you're thinking this to yourself, actually try and intend to make this true. Instead of trying to suppress or resist your fears, wish, intend, make it your ambition to realize your worst fears the moment they begin to arise. And then, paradoxically, you'll discover great relief from your fears.

Peter
Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition
Published in Hardcover by Harvard Business School Press (2007-06-12)
Authors: Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson
List price: $29.95
New price: $14.75
Used price: $13.28

Average review score:

China's real edge - cost innovation
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-11-28
Chinese firms have a cost advantage. That is not news. However, this may be the first book to point out that emerging Chinese competitors - companies as powerful as the "dragon" metaphor of the book's title - also have a managerial advantage: Cost innovation, which involves much more than simply manufacturing products cheaply. Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson show how some of China's leading manufacturers combine cheap labor, competitive domestic markets and technological innovation to forge a very powerful edge. The authors contend that Western firms may have to relocate high-value activities to China to counter its cost innovation advantage. We suggest that all companies can benefit from this suggestion to march forward instead of retreating in the face of Chinese cost-innovation competition.

Business owners and any interested in global politics and economics must have this analysis.
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2007-08-04
DRAGONS AT YOUR DOOR: HOW CHINESE COST INNOVATION IS DISRUPTING GLOBAL COMPETITION discusses China's rapid integration into the global economy and its wide-ranging ramifications for world competition and strategy. College-level business courses will find this an excellent survey of how the emergence of China as a business force will fundamentally change the global economy and its alliances over the next decade. Business owners and any interested in global politics and economics must have this analysis.

Could mean the difference between life and death of your company/industry...
Helpful Votes: 11 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 2007-06-22
It seems as if there have been a rash of books on China's increasing dominance in the global markets, and for good reason. Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition by Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson lays out how China uses their cost advantage to get their foot in the door of a market, and then dominate it. This is a book well worth reading to understand what you may be facing in a few years (if not already)...

Contents:
Introduction - Dragons at Your Door; Disrupting Global Competition - How Did They Get Here So Fast?; Cost Innovation - The Chinese Dragons' Secret Weapon; Loose Bricks - Rethinking Your Vulnerabilities; The Weak Link - Limitations of the Chinese Dragon; Your Response - Winning in the New Global Game; Conclusion - Charting the Future; Notes; Index; About the Authors

Zeng and Williamson show, through numerous examples, how Chinese companies have exploited their cost advantage to become leading global players in markets. Generally speaking, they get into a field and start with lower pricing due to their lower wage structure. They then look for a "loose brick" in their competition. This is a market segment that they can attack and force a competitor to retreat or abandon. Once that occurs, they are then able to start offering both low cost and high innovation/value solutions to the market. Often, the competition will give up these lower-margin segments to concentrate on the higher-margin businesses, thinking that the Chinese can't compete in that area. But more often than not, those high-margin niches will also succumb to the dragons, leaving a company struggling for survival. It's not a pretty picture... But rather than just paint a "gloom and despair" picture, the authors also outline where the weaknesses lie in China's capabilities. Using this information, companies can both protect their established turf as well as compete against Chinese companies in their own markets. It's not an inevitable conclusion that a company will have to fold under the cost advantages offered by a Chinese competitor.

I see this book being valuable on a couple of levels. First off, it raises awareness of an overall plan that is often overlooked when viewed through the daily competitive battles. Giving up a market segment might not seem like a bad idea, but that's usually not the end of the story. Second, it can help guide partnerships and access to the Chinese market. When faced with the potential market share of China, companies are often willing to give up more control than normal just to gain access. But that short-term view can lead to long-term loss as the Chinese learn from the more established partner, start innovating on cost, and then eventually become direct competition with major advantages.

The effect of China on your company's survival can not be underestimated. Time spent reading this book might make all the difference in the world...

Finally: A True Strategy Book on China
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-10-15
Having read countless books on the topics surrounding the Chinese economy and the rise of Chinese companies, I believe that this is certainly one of the best.

As suggested in the heading of my review, this is finally a book that deals with the business issues of China (and the greater issue of outsourcing) critically and comprehensively.

I too have spent some time in China speaking with a number of different businesses and managers, and this book comes closest to describing the way in which Chinese managers think. In fact, this book can be read in the context of Porter's "Competitive Advantage of Nations", in order to shed light on the ways in which market space and the business environments have and will continue to change.

Based on the difficulties associated with the Chinese business environment, Chinese companies have managed to develop strategies to overcome a number of basic disadvantages, and to turn these into inherent advantages.

My tip, be aware of your strategic position and your competitive scope and do not sacrifice the long term future of your company on the alter of short term gains.

A.J.
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-27
great book I ever read about the new wave from China , becomes a global leader with the powerful weapon that breaks our conventional rules in strategy. How can they afford high technology, variety & customization, and specialty products without increasing costs? This book can answer every your questions. forget the past that they are producers of cheap, low -quality products.

Everyone who believes the world is flat must read this book..

Peter
Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, and Places (RAND Studies in Policy Analysis)
Published in Hardcover by Cambridge University Press (2001-08-27)
Authors: Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter
List price: $75.00
Used price: $69.00

Average review score:

Filled with data-rich insights
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-30
I'll admit that any book with the work heresies in the title has an automatic advantage in peaking my interest, but this volume does so much more than merely entice. MacCoun and Reuter have done an amazing job of looking that drug prohibition from a new point of view. Frankly, despite the passage of a few years, I believe that this book is absolute essential if one hopes to really understand the controversy over the War on Drugs.

Rather than attempt a summary of the contents, let me simply point to three specifics as representative of the wealth of insight the reader will encounter. First, MacCoun and Reuter have expanded the typical dichotomous legalization v criminalization perspectives to include depenalization and commercialization. Counter the arguments of drug prohibitionists, depenalization does not seem to be inextricably intertwined with massive increases in the prevalence of drug use as is anticipated with legalization. Also, legalization may have less negative increases in prevalence without the accompaniment of commercialization. By adding these two considerations, MacCoun and Reuter enable expansion of the debate into potentially fertile areas for improving the consequences of prohibition.

Secondly, the careful analysis of the 48 negative consequences of prohibition and the related causal linkage to enforcement, illegal status, and use should be the focus of careful reflection by every reader. In many respects, the damage caused by the War on Drugs is a kind of collateral damage - unintentionally caused by the implementation of US prohibition efforts.

Thirdly, MacCoun & Reuter reconceptualize the total harmfulness of illicit drugs as the interaction of three factors: prevalence, intensity, and micro harm (i.e., user self-damage). Much of the criticism of drug prohibition deals with the extensive micro harm without equal weight being given to the total harmfulness to our society. The negative correlation between prevalence and micro harm is among the more interesting possibilities to consider.

In summary, it is quite difficult to imagine a more sensitive evaluation of drug prohibition that so carefully considers the US case in light of the European context and the historical experience with legal addictive substances (alcohol and tobacco). I cannot recommend this book more highly.

Drug War Heresies
Helpful Votes: 13 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2002-01-27
Drug War Heresies may be the best book ever written about modern U.S. drug policy. Written by a psychologist and an economist, the authors draw on attempts to control other substances (such as alcohol prohibition in the U.S.) and exhaustively examine the alternative and experimental European drug policies that most American readers will find particularly useful. The authors are careful to not impose their values and beliefs into their work, instead focusing on the consequences of alternative drug policies. The result is a persuasive case for policy reform in America that is not doctrinaire. Required reading for all who are interested in illicit drug policy in America.

Top quality analysis
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2004-09-12
The 'War on Drugs' in the United States grew from a million dollar acorn absentmindedly planted by President Nixon to a thriving 18 billion dollar oak three decades on.

The outcome of the 'war' is not satisfactory. The prevalence of illicit drug use is down but the substances are still readily available for people who really want to use them. The collateral damage is alarming, including one of the highest per capita rates for imprisonment in the world and regular reports of ghastly mistakes by law enforcement officers.

This book presents a massively researched and dispassionate cost/benefit analysis of the likely effects of various forms of legalisation for the major categories of illicit drugs. The subtitle of the book signals that the conceptual framework is enriched by a survey the international experience in the control of prostitution, gambling, alcohol and tobacco as well as the illicit drugs.

Drug War Heresies is a really excellent source for a wide range of literature and for the standard arguments that are likely to be bandied backwards and forwards for some time to come. It is clearly written and it provides a model of policy analysis in a deeply controversial field where the authors articulate a position of their own without apparently biasing the analysis.


The centrepiece of their analysis is the estimation of the Total Harm from a drug as the product of Prevalence (number of users) x Intensity (average number of doses) x Harmfulness (harm caused by each dose). This is a complex equation because the intensity is not uniform in the drug-using population and the harms arising from particular levels of drug use depend on the public health provisions and other policies (such as policing) that are in place.

The highly nuance stance that they adopt calls for modest law reforms that would result in increased prevalence (more users) in conjunction with other policies which would moderate both the intensity of use and the harms that result from drug use. The harms include the cost of crimes to support expensive habits, and other costs that result from policing zero-tolerance prohibition policies.

The analysis is far from complete, partly because the financial costs and benefits cannot be calculated accurately, also because the attractiveness and the political feasibility of the options depends on highly subjective (and widely divergent) appraisals that different people apply to drug use and its consequences.

The authors concluded that there is very little likelihood in the near future for reform, even for cannabis. All the problems in the analysis favour the status quo. So far only one major political figure, the Republican Governor of New Mexico, was prepared to put the ball of reform into play in the political arena and he was rebuffed by the Democratic majority in his legislature. This was a most unfortunate outcome from a scientific point of view because some of the imponderables that dog the cost/benefit analysis might have been illuminated in the light of experience in one state.

After the authors put down their pens both terrorism and Iraq became major issues, hence the prospects for change in drug policy are even more dismal, partly due to the diversion of attention to other areas and partly on account of the deterioration in the civility of public debate in general. This does not detract from the value of this excellent book, merely from the impact that it is likely to have in the short term.

An astonishing analysis of the dark side of public policy
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2003-07-03
This is one of the most comprehensive, objective or "bi-partisan," and current studies available to the general public. Although it is indeed an academic study and is written to influence policymakers, the educated public can easily follow most of the arguments posited by MacCoun and Reuter. Both thinkers have extensive experience in the area of drug policy, both are senior consultants with RAND (Drug Policy Research Center) and have published a considerable amount of literature on the nature of drugs and drug laws. This dynamic text attempts a comparative analysis of vices, such as gambling and prostitution, with that of recreational drug use, including alcohol and tobacco. The purpose of this study is to research whether or not there are any correlations between vices and, if so - can they assist in our understanding of how to regulate drugs and the desires of individuals for drugs. For example, of the kind of comparisons made, is that of prostitution and gambling. Both are legal in Las Vegas, NV - both are thought to be harmful vices, nevertheless, the law has provided a place for them in a legal context - can the same be done for drugs? The text also evaluates extensively, the European models of drug law enforcement and treatment and compares them to America's own models of law and treatment. The authors do not offer any solutions to the drug problem, but what they have done is contribute a comprehensive study with an extensive and diverse amount of data on the subject, something of which has not been achieved as thoroughly as it has been done in this study. The authors also analyze many of the drug reformer's arguments and parse them for consistencies and/or inconsistencies; in the conclusion, they offer a sympathetic gesture to the reformer's contentions because the authors admit to realizing the inanity and harm current drug laws are causing society, but they do so cautiously. They realize that something "must change," but what? and the future can only hold speculations. This book is highly recommended.

Another interesting companion study is the Consumer Reports study that was released in 1972. It is comprehensive and treats the many aspects of the "drug problem" in America. See:

Breacher, Edward M. et al., Licit and Illicit Drugs: the Consumers Union report on narcotics, stimulants, depressants, inhalants, hallucinogens, and marijuana - including caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. (Boston: Little Brown, 1972).

A Careful and Honest Look at Alternative Drug Policy
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2003-09-05
"In Drug War Heresies, Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter ask whether drug prohibition makes sense and whether legalization might achieve a better balancing of the costs and benefits associated with drugs and drug policy. They draw on a broad range of social science literature, and they emphasize the lessons provided both by drug prohibition in other places and by prohibitions of other goods, such as alcohol and prostitution. In discussing this evidence, they raise most of the key issues that should be considered in evaluating drug policy. Their book is an excellent starting point for anyone who wishes to understand the debates about prohibition versus legalization.

MacCoun and Reuter make a compelling case that many evils typically attributed to drugs result instead from drug prohibition and its enforcement. According to their analysis, prohibition causes increases in property crime because users face elevated prices; increases in violent crime because traffickers cannot resolve disputes using the courts; diminishments of civil liberties owing to the difficulty of detecting crimes without natural complainants; increases in corruption of police and politicians; disruption of countries that produce coca and opium; diminishments of users' health because of poor quality control; increases in the spread of HIV because of prohibition-induced restrictions on clean needles; excessive restrictions on medical uses of drugs; and reductions in respect for the law bred by widespread violation of prohibition-among other consequences.

And yet the authors do not endorse legalization. They find great fault with the heavy emphasis on criminal sanctions in current U.S. prohibition, and they believe substantial deescalation to, say, the level of enforcement in western Europe, Canada, or Australia would diminish many of the harms of prohibition while causing only small increases in drug use. Still, they do not endorse legalization. Why not?

Their position rests on four arguments: that moving from weak, European-style prohibition to legalization would produce a substantial increase in drug use; that this increase would be a bad thing; that most of the benefits from legalization are achieved simply by deescalating prohibition; and that the effects of legalization are uncertain."

"The authors' basic points move in the right direction. They have done a great service in carefully, honestly, and scientifically considering both theory and evidence on the effects of alternative drug policies. Room remains for reasonable persons to disagree about certain pieces of evidence, but if more persons were to analyze drug policy as dispassionately as MacCoun and Reuter, both drug policy and the country would be in far better shape."

Peter
The Economist's Tale: A Consultant Encounters Hunger and the World Bank
Published in Hardcover by Zed Books (2003-09-06)
Author: Peter Griffiths
List price: $99.00
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A real-world mystery story
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-02-12
The Economist's Tale is a slightly-fictionalized account of Griffiths' short-term consulting gig in Sierra Leone. The events in the story take place in 1986, so the information here isn't directly applicable to the present situation, but it will be of interest to (and accessible to) both economists and laymen all the same.

This is not a book about economic theory. Nor is it about the World Bank, per se. Rather, it's about the way people respond to incentives, and how the unintended consequences of their actions can combine to create a disaster.

The story reads almost like a mystery, told as it is through diary entries that reveal the puzzle as Griffiths himself pieced it together. It's a bit self-congratulatory and defensive, but in a way that I found easy to forgive as I got caught up in the adventure. I'd recommend it to anyone.

A must-read
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2005-12-29
The Economist's Tale is a clunkily-written but still gripping story of corruption, dogmatism and a barely-averted famine in Sierra Leone in 1986. The author, working on food policy for the World Bank and seconded to the Sierra Leonian government, discovers that:

- The country lives mainly on rice (the backup crop, cassava, has all been eaten over the last two years).
- Nobody knows whether or not enough rice is being grown to feed the country (there are two different scientific studies of production that differ by 80%). Some rice is imported, but anything from 20-100% of it is smuggled out of the country again, and nobody knows how much.
- The currency, the leone, was held at an overvalued rate to the dollar. Imported rice was half the price of home-grown rice and the monopoly exporter was so inefficient that cocoa and coffee growers saw about 20% of the price they might have seen on the open market. So no-one's growing anything.
- Now the leone's been floated at the World Bank's insistence, it's collapsed in value by a factor of 10. But production is too low for native producers to take advantage: imports will go up in price long before the exchange comes into the country to buy them.

Then he works out by interviews and legwork that, in fact, the country depends on the imported rice to avoid a famine. And then the government signs a deal with the World Bank, his employer, to get an emergency loan of $5 million, in return for which they will stop all rice subsidies and slash their rice imports by almost 90%. And the private importers who might import enough rice to make up the difference won't, because they can't afford to sell it below the market rate and, being all Lebanese, they'd rather not get involved than risk starting a race riot by being seen as price-gouging. As the only person who knows all the facts, he has to persuade the government to break its deal with the World Bank without starting a turf war, making the decision take so long that a famine happens anyway, or destroying his own future career.

It's an excellent book. The lessons:
- Economics is all about incentives. No matter how ideal a market solution might be in theory, if the incentives aren't lined up right the market won't work.
- A currency whose liquidity is so small that its value is changed by importing a single expensive car probably shouldn't be floating.
- Corruption is everywhere, and corruption kills. The state electricity company is unreliable, so everyone uses personal, much more inefficient generators, so there isn't enough oil.
- Dogmatism also kills. You can't un-distort a market overnight. There's a lovely moment when a British Conservative starts explaining to the Americans how privatisation isn't really that great an idea.

Recommended to anyone who's interested in development economics, africa, politics, food, globalization, the World Bank, racism, colonialism, and any of the other ways that people end up treating people the way they do. And it has a happy ending!

Changed my understanding of third world poverty
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2005-05-07
This is an absolutely riveting book. I heard of it through a brief mention at Brad DeLong's website, and ordered it because of the comments by the previous reviewers. I can only agree with their comments -- this book should be required reading for anyone interested in globalization, poverty, and the real world constraints that often prevent idealistic anti-poverty efforts from succeeding. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Insighful and sad account
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2005-01-28
A good book, known by few, written by an even less well known author, to which I am grateful. As (probably) most of the other readers, I learned about this book from a (very positive) book review published on the "Economist".

This book tells a first person account of how bad economics, corruption, or "simple" incompetence almost caused a famine of immane proportion in Sierra Leone, in the 80s, with the important "contribution" of the World Bank. The author (at the time a consultant for the World Bank) tells us how he managed to avert the crisis, a deed that many did not appreciate, and that caused him professional troubles later on.

It is a mistery how this book can be so little known. It is well written, and above all quite deep. Mr Griffith clearly shows to be a skilled and informed economist. I found particularly compelling the pages that discuss how economic "data" should be often taken with a grain of salt, or two. Especially in poor countries, "data" are sometimes nothing else that guesses (sometimes educated, sometimes not), and this may lead to enormous policy mistakes. Unfortunately, people's lives may put at stake by such mistakes. One point that Mr Griffith powerfully makes is that economic policy is not simply boring material to be debated by politicians and discussed in the ivory towers of academia, but it is something REAL that has sometimes the potential of deciding about the fate of millions of people. Unfortunately, policy is the hands of men, and this book amply shows once more how little trust we should have in men.

Overall, this is quite a compelling reading, much more than the insipid "Globalization and its discontent" by Stiglitz, a world-class economist that has produced a little polemic book that could have been memorable, and instead has disappointed everyone, except uncritical anti-globalization protesters. If you are looking for a deeper account of the potential evil of economic policy and the World Bank, this book is highly recommended.

P.S. By the way, contrary to what some extremist may believe, the World Bank is not only made by evil individuals who only care about their career. The World Bank is a very complex institution, and I can assure you that committed, serious, and conscientious individuals abound in there. Whether they have a major role in how the World Bank actually works in Developing Countries is something I still have to find out...

Andybody Who Cares Should Read This
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2004-06-28
An excellent, excellent book in several ways. Anybody who cares - about society - conservative, moderate, or liberal should read this. All economists, political scientists, politicians, and students of these fields should read this book carefully. The Economist's Tale is a true morality play. It looks at the way economics plays out in real-life using the framework of food policy in Sierra Leone. The author is not against market forces - but as economic theory has recognized in the last few decades - markets work (or don't work) with many attendant frictions and imperfections. Unfortunately, in the tale told within this book, people die because of these frictions.

The Economist's Tale is also quite interesting and riveting as a read. It is also a quick read. One learns much about Sierra Leone among other non-economic subjects. It appears nobody else has rated this book yet - which tends to indicate that few people have read it - a sad state of affairs.

Peter
Empowering Underachievers : How to Guide Failing Kids (8-18) to Personal Excellence
Published in Paperback by New Horizon Press (2000-09-01)
Authors: Peter A. Spevak Ph.D. and Maryann Karinch
List price: $15.95
New price: $11.95
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Average review score:

Right On The Money
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-08
I found this book to be right on the money. It's as if they have met my (13yo) son and analyzed him. (And myself). I think I finally understand and am myself empowered. One of the first things to have an almost immediate effect was the use of "withholds" and a close runner up was "the dispassionate approach". I'm reading it all the way through for the second time. Please, if you need help with underachieving behavior, read this book!

Help your underacheiver - read this book!
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2006-10-13
If your child is smart, but consistently fails to perform in school...
If your child is capable but consistently fails to complete tasks without you getting involved...
If your child is good at heart but consistently tries to shirk responsibility...
This book can help!
Dr Spevak details what is really going on (bad attitude due to emotional immaturity) and how to get your kid unstuck. The usual methods (rewards, punishment, getting involved etc) all dissapoint because they are external to the child and do not motivate him to change. So what will? Empowering him! When the child realizes he has choices, the capability to choose well, and the opportunity to succeed, he begins to make better choices instead of "disengaging" and relying on defense mechanisms.
I have found the techniques to be very helpful on a practical level - especially "processing comments" (making comments to get your child thinking about his true underlying emotions) and "with-holds" (instead of punishments, deliberately deny the child something he asks for, and link it to a specific act of misbehavior). But just as important is understanding the underacheiver's behavior on the emotional level, the theory behind the techniques - and Dr Spevak explains this very well.

It's hard to believe, but finally someone understands.
Helpful Votes: 38 out of 38 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-03
I read (and reread)"Empowering Underachievers.". My son is a great kid, smart, nice...but he just doesn't "do." Now I realize he's an underachiever. It was like the authors were living in my house (such accurate descriptions). The best thing about this book (and I've read many about motivating kids)is that it gives thought-provoking, do-able suggestions to get the kid to motivate him self. I've been frustrated, gotten tired and gotten angry at how nothing I seem to do motivates him. Now I understand that I need to get him to motivate himself. The neat thing is that it is working. There are several books on this subject and I think I've read them all. This one has been useful. Common sense combined with real experience in getting these kids to change themselves: empowering them. I really liked the idea of the "motivational circle" that explained how people motivate themselves. As an added bonus, the authors have a website with further, new information. What a find! Thanks to the authors. I'd recommend this book to parents who are worrried about their unmotivated kid.

Great read...Lots of practical suggestions
Helpful Votes: 41 out of 42 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-26
I read, reread and reread this book. The description was uncanny...did the authors know my teenage son? The book is a great read. There is lots of down-to-earth discussion without much of the usual psychological jargon found in psychology books. My son was driving us nuts! His attitude essentially was "So what." I feel that I now know why my son is underachieving and why HE has to be "empowered" to take charge of his life. Beyond the "why," the book (about half of it) gives practical suggestions that will assist the underachiever towards maturity and attitude change. One of the authors is a former US Marine who from personal experience has great empathy for underachievers...he used to be one! Read the excerpts...buy the book. Also, the authors have a web site that has additional articles and resources. This book presents a philosophy that teaches you a whole new way to help your underachiever change that attitude that is going to hurt their life and is adding worry to your life. Did you notice that I liked the book?

Empowering Underachievers Report
Helpful Votes: 58 out of 59 total.
Review Date: 2000-10-06
Great Book, Finally someone explained why all the other motivational approaches didn't work. I tried rewards, punishment, tutoring, homework sheets and organizing systems. I even gave my son a number of books to read. Nothing worked. Now I know why. I was focusing on the wrong concerns. Empowering Underachievers gave me new insights and tools. I strongly recommend this book.

Peter
The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition (Espn Baseball Encyclopedia)
Published in Paperback by Sterling (2008-02-25)
Author:
List price: $24.95
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Average review score:

Baseball Encyclopedia
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-07-22
We rely heavily on our ESPN's Baseball Encyclopedia when we have a question about baseball. We keep it readily available. This current edition is our second one. I recommend it to baseball fans.

Stats and more
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-15
As a frequent reader of previous Baseball Encyclopedias, this ESPN version does a great job providing historical statistics and higher level strategyies and implications.

THE " MUST HAVE" MLB BOOK!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-18
ESPN again delivers as their 2008 MLB Encyclopedia is a baseball statistics lover's dream come true! Chock full of player information and stats, I've been utilizing my copy for a few months already!

Baseball Encyclopedia
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-26
This is a wonderful and reasonably priced book for referencing the statistical record of the greatest game ever invented.

The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition (Espn Baseball Encyclopedia)
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-17
If you are a baseball fan and need an historical, reference book your library, The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition (Espn Baseball Encyclopedia) is the book. Every season, every player are at your fingertips. There are even sections on the Negro Leagues, Umpires, Coaches and Managers. The only area that is missing is the rosters for each team for each season. The volume does provide the regular players and most important reserves. The price is quite low for the most immense comprehensive single volume on the Nation's Pastime.

Peter
The Everyday Internet All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
Published in Paperback by For Dummies (2005-05-06)
Author: Peter Weverka
List price: $29.99
New price: $3.58
Used price: $1.73

Average review score:

Internet for Dummies
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-05
I have obtained a new Acer PC with CD & DVD capabilities and basically no little about computers and the intetrnet. Through Amazon I was able to obtainn Internet for Dummies book at a reasonable price and find the book quite helpful. I highly recommend "Dummies" and dealing with Amazon. Good service and prices.
Sy R

Can't ask for better book: "The Everyday Internet All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies)"
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-08-29
I've first checked this book out from the Chicago Public Library three times and once kept it two months after the book check out expired. The I purchased the book myself. I can not offer enough praise for this well researched and written book on the Internet. This is definitely the "Book" for pros and "dummies" alike.

I have been working in technology for eighteen years with the U.S. Navy and using the Internet for nine years now and admittedly I only possessed about less 10% of the available resources that was presented in this book. Just visiting and bookmarking all those interesting link to various useful Web sites was good enough for me (100+ useful bookmarks from this book alone).

My college textbooks and other "big computer books" weren't as valuable as this one. With this new gained knowledge, I've referred this book to my instructor for the "Basic Internet Class" that I took at the one of the City Colleges of Chicago (Truman College) and my fellow classmates agreed that this book "The Everyday Internet All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies" was more informative than our classroom resources and textbook. Buy this book if you want to REALLY learn something about this subject.

One final thought, read Mr. Peter Weverka's "The Internet Giga Book for Dummies". You won't be disappointed in my recommendation on this wonderful read. Peace out and take care.

Excellent!!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2007-02-12
You'll learn more practical information about "everything internet" within the pages of this book than 7 years of online meandering. Seriously, just buy this sucker cause it provides clear answers to questions you don't even know you have yet, or should have. Excellent book. Truly a horizon broadener.

Explore the best and brightest Web sites and services
Helpful Votes: 26 out of 27 total.
Review Date: 2005-05-03
Pardon me for being immodest and giving this book a 5-star rating, since I'm the author, but I believe this is the best book going about the latest incarnation of the Internet.

These are exciting times for the Internet. Peer-to-peer file sharing, news aggregators, and other advances in technology have inspired a new generation of Web sites and services. Never before has the Internet offered so many ways to conduct research, entertain yourself, or learn new things.

The motive behind this book is to present everything on the Internet that's worth doing because it's useful, it's a lot of fun, or it's innovative and therefore worth checking out. Close to a thousand different Web sites are described in this book, but this book isn't a directory of Web sites. The focus is on doing things -- researching, online banking, communicating, making new friends, playing games, talking over the Internet telephone, online shopping, online selling, and blogging.

In the course of describing these and other activities -- everyday activities that can be part of your Internet repertoire -- I introduce you to the best and brightest of the Internet.

For those who are interested, this book looks at the technical aspects of the Internet. It tells you how to select an ISP and gives you instructions for connecting your computer to the Internet. The book explains how to protect your privacy and security, and keep viruses and spyware at bay, as well as how to use the different plug-ins (Flash, Acrobat Reader, and others). You will find advice for making the Internet a safe and rewarding experience for children, many Web sites for children and parents, and instructions for using America Online.

Find out how to use a Web browser and how to be an Internet researcher, or better yet, an Internet detective from this book. It explains search techniques for reaching into all corners of the Internet to quickly find the information you need. You discover how to get the latest news and how to stay on top of late-breaking news with aggregators, as well as how to use different e-mail programs (some free and some not). You get definitive instructions in this book for preventing your inbox from being inundated with spam.

Look to this book to refine instant messenger programs, create a blog, and find mailing lists and message boards where you can exercise your obsessions. You find out how to conduct research in newsgroups and subscribe to newsgroups, as well as how to join or create your own Yahoo! group and chat on the IRC.

For budding Web site developers, this book demonstrates how to create a Web site on the cheap and how to submit a Web site to search engines so the site gets more hits. You also explore the social networking phenomenon and learn about Web sites and services where you can make new friends and reunite with old ones. The book has detailed instructions for setting up your computer so you can make free long-distance telephone calls over the Internet.

I devote part of the book to online finances -- how to research investments and get the latest financial news, maintain an online investment portfolio, and do your banking chores online.

You will find many shopping search engines and Web sites that specialize in comparison-shopping, as well as online catalogs, stores for bargain hunters, consumer-report Web sites, and an "online shopping bazaar" with hundreds of off-beat online shops worth visiting. I take you to a number of online auction houses, including eBay, and you discover how to search for, bid on, and buy items at bargain prices, as well as how to pay for items with the excellent PayPal service.

You find out how to be the first on your block to be an online seller and how you can make money by selling or conducting a business over the Internet.

Finally, the book looks into different Internet pastimes and pursuits. I'm warning you: Some of these activities are addictive. You discover the many excellent genealogical research Web sites and how to conduct genealogical research for free over the Internet. The book also looks at games sites, including novel games such as Geocaching. For travelers and armchair-adventurers, I direct you to Web sites where you can get travel advice, plan vacations, purchase tickets, and book hotel rooms and rental cars. You discover how to turn your lowly computer into an entertainment console by purchasing music online or sharing music files.

I am intrigued by the idea that a Web site is a creative endeavor in and of itself -- that a Web site is a clickable piece of artwork. For this book, I chose not only Web sites that are useful for finding information or buying things but also Web sites that I consider intriguing, wonderful, astonishing, bizarre, or entertaining.

Some people are calling this latest incarnation of the Internet "the Web 2.0." This book is your guide to the next incarnation of the Internet. It was written to show you how to make the Internet fun and useful again.

Great book by Prolific Technical Writer
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2005-06-24
I turn to this book all the time for information on how to build and maintain my blog (phatmike.motime.com). The best, most informative book that I've ever read on the subject.

Thanks, Mister Weverka!!!

JimBob Joe
Master Blogger

Peter
Exit Lines: A Dalziel-Pascoe Murder Mystery
Published in Hardcover by Macmillan Pub Co (1985-03)
Author: Reginald Hill
List price: $13.95
Used price: $1.01
Collectible price: $37.00

Average review score:

Has Fat Andy Become a Bent Bobby?
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-26
In this novel Reginald Hill tells a more concise and tighter story than the overblown behemoths he's been churning out in recent years. Shorter is better when it comes to crime fiction. It's funny, well-written, deftly-plotted, full of eccentric, crackling good characters, insightful stuff with a good understanding of human nature. Hill is darn near at the top of his form.
In the opening pages three men in their early seventies die under unfortunate circumstances. Fat Andy Dalziel is marginalized in the investigation because he is suspected of causing the death of one of these men who's been struck down in an auto accident. Was a heavily soused Andy the driver?
Dalziel's second in command, the better educated and more politic Peter Pascoe, is the star of this enterprise with a good assist from Detective-Constable Dennis Seymour who likes the ladies and his pints.
Old people do not fare well in this story. It's almost an anti-geriatric rant as in this quote: "People live a long time these days. Trouble is they don't stay young longer. They stay old longer."
Hill has created two brilliant characters in Dalziel and Pascoe, and we see how distinctive they are in this book. Pascoe trods the straight and narrow, and fat Andy incongruously teeters on the tightrope of what seems dodgy and felonious. Read it and have a good time whether you're young or old.
Nine Lives Too Many
The Daemon in Our Dreams
The Rice Queen Spy
Clawed Back from the Dead

Another Great Dalziel Pascoe Novel
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-06-29
I read it once, and just got it in the mail today after
purchasing it from a fine Amazon bookseller. I plan to
read it again. This time, with Large Print. Great book.
I LOVE Andy Dalziel :)

Hey out there! This is a great series!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-27
The Dalziel and Pascoe series is a great series, and Reginald Hill is a smart and intelligent writer. This is the eighth or ninth book in this series, and it's probably one of the better ones in my opinion. The book starts with the death of three elderly gentlemen, and two looked like accidents, while one was definitely a murder. While Pascoe is trying to solve his murder, he begins to wonder whether or not one or both of the other deaths is related somehow. Hill's characters are wonderful, and he outdoes himself with this one with Pascoe's heart-rending search for the truth. And the end of the book is a total shock! What a wonderful story. It kept me guessing, and I was wondering about Andy all the way throug too.

Review
Helpful Votes: 10 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2001-12-06
EXIT LINES (Reginald Hill, 1984) is a particularly good book, even by Reginald Hill's particularly high standards. It tackles the themes of death and ageing in both a humorous and a tragic way, showing the keen intelligence and humanity of the author.

The book opens with the deaths of three old men on a November night: as Detective Inspector Pascoe remarks, decidedly "not a good night for the old". One was murdered in his bathtub, his daughter arriving just in time to hear him gasp "Charley" and die; one died of exposure on playing fields, the discoverer of the body hearing him cry "Polly"; and the third murmured "Paradise! Driver... fat bastard...pissed!"-understandably so, for Superintendent Dalziel was in the car which hit him. The dying messages serve as clues as enigmatic as death itself, reinforced by the choice of dying words as chapter headings (great fun for those quotation spotters and spouters out there!). Police work uncovers connections between the supposedly separate cases-and police corruption hovering in the air, with Dalziel going on a shooting spree (of pheasants, that is)-"grand".

Reginald Hill shows himself as a keen observer of humanity, fascinated by the human race-but not becoming bogged down in Ruth Rendell's social conscience or P.D. James' bleak pessimism, but instead remembering that the writer's first duty is to the reader, to entertain. Take, for example, Ellie Pascoe's father's senility as an example of how to handle family background problems without intrusion: it is secondary to the plot, but is there as a play on the book's theme of ageing, and also serves to provide a vital clue. Characterisation is superlative, the reader really feeling sympathy for the characters, or despising those who view the old as a burden. Hill achieves this through a remarkable mixture of humour and genuine emotion, contrasting-but never clashing-humour with grief in succeeding paragraphs. Old age is really brought home to the reader by the senile dementia of Mrs. Escott, a genuinely pathetic and well-drawn character.

The whole-detective story, novel elements-culminates in a particularly neat and moving ending in which all the loose ends tied up, with both good clues and affecting murderers. This book shows Reginald Hill at the height of his powers-without any doubt the best of the modern writers of detective stories who are still writing.

Dalziel's motives may be suspect? ! **** A lighter mystery.
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2002-09-17
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Reginald Hill's Dalziel/Pascoe stories are unique, in that they vary from very light hearted (Pictures of Perfection) to grim and haunting, and even to the paranormal! This story is on the lighter side. The unusual twist is that Pascoe himself is forced to wonder whether, by driving under the influence, Dalziel has corrupted the investigation. The story ties together the threads of 3 different deaths on the same night. A newer character, Detective-Constable Seymour, assists Pascoe and Sgt Wield in the investigation. The completely clueless and luckless Constable Hector manages to hinder most of the help Seymour is providing. The story has some very funny moments despite the tragedy of the deaths of the three elderly victims. As always it is great when Mrs. Ellie Pascoe is a part of the story. And she is "present" in this one, although she's physically away, taking care of her own elderly father. The mystery is satisfying and the reader's natural suspicion of Dalziel's motives, and maybe even his integrity, actually enhances the plot. Well done.

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(For a sampling of the haunting, deeper side of Reginald Hill's Dalziel/Pascoe stories try "On Beulah Height: or "The Wood Beyond".)


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