Robertson Books

A must read for all faculty experiencing overload. Wonderful suggestions about how to consciously make time for what you want, not be more productive to do more.

This is an easy-to-read and put-into-practice kind of book, useful for any faculty member. As department chair, I provided copies to the faculty and staff in an effort to encourage a healthier and more productive work environment and saw results right away, especially in better management and use of time (Chapter 2). Most ideas are practical, however, readers may find limited administrative support for some of Dr. Robertson's suggestions discussed in Chapter 5. For other readers, this book will provide confirmation of practices already in place.

In our often complicated and frenetic age, this wonderful little book should be read, and internalized, by all faculty and administrators in higher education, who are under a lot of pressure from many sectors. The most commonly heard complaint is, "I don't have time for that...." With years of good and varied experience in higher education and sage insights, Douglas Reimondo Robinson offers advice and practical suggestions for addressing this complaint, for changing one's way of living, for improving teaching and learning and one's own satisfaction with work activities and results. The prose is well writtena and easily readable; and there is clear and evident good humor and a strong sense of concern expressed for people as individuals.

Don't miss this one if you're in higher education! (And even if you're not, it's well worth reading as the thoughts and suggestions can be transferred to any sector of activity.)

Kay Gillespie, Ph.D.

"Making Time, Making Change" is the latest publication from Dr. Douglas Robertson, Director of the Teaching & Learning Center at Eastern Kentucky University. A Fulbright Senior Specialist, Robertson has authored a number of successful works on the developmental process of teachers, and currently serves as Senior Editor for New Forum Press's "Practices for Better Teaching" Book Series. He also serves on a number of editorial boards, as well as maintaining an active schedule of consulting and presenting to educational, business, and govenrnmental organizations.

Geared primarily to the active college professor, "Making Time, Making Change" provides a very practical and objective rationale for the re-organization and prioritization of one's professional (and personal) time and effort.

The book is not difficult to read (or retain), and the practices suggested are not particularly difficult to implement. It is very easy to apply one's own needs to the information given.

In my experience, it is quite rare to find this combination of insight and practical application in a text geared toward higher education. I would not hesitate to reccommend this book to those outside the teaching field, as the concepts discussed are universal in nature to most all professions.

Joe Allison, DMA
Associate Professor of Conducting
Director of Bands and Foster Music Camps
Eastern Kentucky University

It is no exaggeration to say that the author of this book changed my life. I teach at UNLV, one of three universities at which Doug Robertson established a faculty development center. Before Doug's arrival, I considered myself a fairly good teacher and had won a few teaching awards. In fact, however, I was incredibly ignorant of the principles of effective teaching. During Doug's three years at UNLV, I attended nearly every workshop he offered to faculty on various aspects of teaching and learning. These workshops opened my eyes to the existence of whole universes of knowledge about teaching and learning, and started me on a path of studying and practicing the principles of effective college teaching.

One of the amazing things about attending Doug's workshops: at some point during the workshop, you realize that he is not only teaching you about some aspect of teaching, he is modeling it for you, on you, so that you experience this teaching technique from the students' viewpoint. Very cool!

Based on all this, I had high expectations for Doug's new book "Making Time, Making Change," and was especially interested because I have "time management issues." The book surpassed my expectations.

The book is organized into two major parts. The first, "Making Time," consists of six chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of managing your time. It is loaded with practical tips, many of which you can start using immediately to save time.

Implementing some of these ideas involves replacing bad habits with good ones, something that many of us fail to do despite our best intentions. This is the issue addressed in the two chapters that comprise the second part of the book, "Making Change." These chapters present a well-researched framework to help you understand what is causing you resistance to changing your habits. Basically, this framework involves "hunting" the deepest reaches of your thinking for the assumptions that motivate the behavior you are trying to change, and "testing" these assumptions. When you see that the assumptions don't hold up, then the resistance to changing the behavior disappears or at least diminishes.

The book is very well-researched. The author clearly has a strong grasp of the relevant literature (and has made important contributions to it). Also, the author wrote this book after leading dozens of workshops on this topic to hundreds of college faculty around the country.

This book about time management also respects your time - it is short and easy to read. I devoured my copy in just a few sittings.

Will "Making Time, Making Change" change your life? I am certain that, at the very least, it will in small but meaningful ways.

And possibly in big ways.

Heard this story as a child from my grandparents who were on German background. This story is just like they told it. Beautiful illustrations complete the story that swirled in my head so many years ago!!

Ok.I HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK.I hope that you don`t hurt my reviews for this,but in a way,I HAVE read this book.I am in this play,so I have read this script.And since the play is going to be on Saturday,(5th) and Sunday(6th) and also for the next weekend,I have to read this script over and over and over again.I think that this book is a very good book.In the play I am Miss Applebee but I think that this book is very good it must be.

When I was about seven-years-old a family member gave me a recording, (78s) of the Pied Piper of Hamelin narrated by Ingrid Bergman. As I listened, I could see the characters in my head and never tired of the story.

A month ago I bought the book for my eight-year-old granddaughter who lives about eight hundred miles away from me, because I was afraid with the passing of one more generation, the story might be forgotten.

It is a lovely book, written by Robert Browning more than a century ago. The drawings are perfect, given the dated language used in this book. And the story has a simple message, about honoring our promises.

Sadly, my granddaughter glanced at the book and was clearly not interested. I wanted to read it with her, intending to make clear the English used by Browning.

So, a tale almost twelve hundred years old bit the dust, at least in our family it did.

But if you are a lover of this fable, it is worth your time to try it out on the children in your family. They will be the richer for it.

This book would be a wonderful treasure for the pictures alone. Kate Greenaway, noted children's illustrator, has created a magical world of beautiful children, innocent faces, and romantic, nostalgic costumes. The colors on these pages are breathtaking, and the details (although Greenaway is always faulted for not drawing hands and feet well) are superb. This story is not for very young children, as it contains some troublesome themes. For the older child, perhaps 7+, the story might provoke some interesting post-read family discussions about honesty, trust, and the actual state of the children at the end of the tale. This is even a beautiful book to give to adults, as the messages about human nature can be appreciated on a deeper level.

"Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats."

Robert Browning (1812-1889) first published his poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin, A Child's Story" in 1842, based on an old German legend which may or may not have had some basis in historical fact. Browning was a serious poet; even in a poem filled with playful rhymes written specifically for children, he did not "dumb down" his language, but expected his readers to do a little work in understanding some of his "big words."

Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) was one of the most famous and popular illustrators of children's literature in the latter part of the 19th Century. She had grown up loving Browning's poem, and shortly before his death she requested and received his permission to republish it accompanied by her own illustrations. This edition was initially published in 1888 under the imprint of George Routledge & Sons, which was at that same time in the process of splitting between Routledge and Frederick Warne. Starting in 1889 all subsequent editions carried the Warne imprint. The book continued to be popular, and Frederick Warne has issued reprints from time to time, well into the late 20th Century. This Warne edition is not in print at present, but used copies with various reprint dates are available from Amazon Marketplace sellers.

However, two different reprint editions are currently available, each with the complete original text and illustrations, and each presented with loving care from an eminently respectable publisher, in well-made but modestly priced editions. The Dover reprint (ISBN 0486296199) is full-size, in a sturdy paperback; the Alfred A Knopf/Borzoi/Everyman's Library reprint (ISBN 0679428127) is part of their Children's Classics series, in a very sturdily constructed hardcover with sewn sections that will not crack with use, but the page size is somewhat smaller. Both are beautiful books, and either is an excellent value.

As noted in the Editorial Reviews above, there have been other editions of "The Pied Piper," with different illustrations, and at least one seems to have been issued with the poem itself "retold" to make the language simpler; neither of those reviews is discussing this original version. Some readers may prefer one or another of these different versions. But anyone wanting to stick with Browning's original full text and Greenaway's original charming, muted and subtle illustrations should choose between the Dover or the Everyman's, or visit Amazon's Marketplace sellers to look for a copy of the Frederick Warne.

Too often we lack the humility to let God be God. Our thinking about God becomes a projection of our own limited beliefs and prejudices. This short book puts the issue into perspective.

Anne Robertson, a United Methodist minister in New England, writes, 'There are few things more upsetting than a God who refuses to stay put...'

Anne Robertson gives a wonderful, personal development of the idea of God being bigger and broader than one can possibly imagine. I've often used the example in my preaching that God is more than any idea we could ever have of God; this is rather difficult for many people to grasp, but Robertson has a wonderful way of exploring this aspect of God. It can be challenging and disconcerting, because it is far from the norm in our everyday, quantifiable and measurable world. The modern world is uncomfortable with ambiguity, and often terrified of the unknown. Speaking of the women who went to the tomb on the first Easter morning, Robertson writes, 'The very thing that frightened the women - the unknown and the unexpected - is that same thing that frightens us today when we consider that God might be larger and more complex than our particular experience of God.'

Robertson does her writing in confessional style (this is a literary/theological designation, rather than a penitential or 'just-the-facts, maam' kind of admission of guilt); she goes through her experiences both conservative and liberal, both within and outside the church, and casts her ideas for God's reality and God's presence with us in terms that many readers will find very familiar and easy to relate to.

Her central cipher is that of the God-box. A box is a container (even when it is empty). Most of us (if not all of us) have a container of sorts, into which we pour our ideas of what and who God is. Even professional theologians (or perhaps most especially professional systematic theologians) do not escape the trap of trying to define God so precisely as to render God less than who God truly is, and can be. One crucial element Robertson identifies for the God-box is keeping it open in the context of community - what is in the box needs to be valuable and recognised as such by members of the community, and what other community members have in their God-boxes can be shared and used to enrich one's own. Careful not to make community a panacea for all ills, she nonetheless highlights the advantages, and shows the disadvantages of the 'go-it-alone' approach.

The book continues with a look at common and uncommon images of God, the way in which we think about God both in scripture and tradition, the use and misuse of institutional religion and community, and finishes with a chapter that develops her device of the God-box in context of creedal statements familiar to many Christians through the centuries.

This is a wonderful book to use for private and group study. Well-written and engaging both personally and spiritually, it is uplifting and thought-provoking in many ways.

United Methodist minister, Anne Robertson, has contributed a challenging work, inspiring Christians to examine their beliefs and prejudices. Using a humble approach, she describes her opinion that believers, young or old, new to the faith or "old timers," risk the danger of isolating God by reducing Him to
stereotypes and defining Him through holding to the expected, the norm, the safe. She points out the ways in which we limit God and ourselves by confining ourselves to traditional and habitual responses and practices, and suggests we examine our individual and collective "boxes" in which we place a God too large to be contained. Whether you fall into the category of liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, Baptist or Episcopalian, this book will stretch your mind and heart. An easy read, it is a profound work.

Theologians and writers like Leslie Weatherhead, J.B. Phillips, Marcus Borg, Jon Dominic Crossan, Elaine Pagels, and Barbara Brown Taylor have long been helping us to expand our experiencing of God to counteract what seems to be human nature to pin God down to be within our capacity to understand. Anne Robertson throws her hat in the ring with this wonderful little book and encourages us to not only be open to our experience of God but to the experience others have of God as well. She reminds us, through both her personal sharing as well as her teaching and preaching, that our challenge is to keep our minds open as we live, breathe, walk and talk our life in the spirit, allowing God to light our path. As the motto for our denomination has been this past year, "Don't put a period where God has put a comma," our faith journey can be much more vital and life-giving when we don't assume we know all there is to know about God. Thank you, Anne, for sharing your thinking with such clarity and grace.

In her beautifully flowing and extraordinarily insightful first publication, Anne Robertson brings her expansive and Jesus-centered Belief to her readers, challenging us not to allow Faith to become a mere reflection of our own, privatized and sometimes very convenient religious beliefs..or to cut it out if we already have. In beautiful, short chapters, she calls on each of us to allow God to be the One doing the defining. Calling on Scripture, as well as personal and professional experience, she is at once serious and light-hearted, many times using her wonderful gift of "getting to the point" in unique, thought-provoking and often humorous ways. She tackles difficult moral dilemmas and human frailties, and gives us a new, more open way to look at them. She throws the gauntlet down to those who co-op God for their own private advancement, for the "my way or the highway" type of sectioning that modern religions can break down into..leading to personal and sometimes national wars: if both sides fervently believe God is on their side, one side (or both) has placed God in a box. This book will help each person of Faith blow off the lid to see the bigger picture, and help prevent one from closing off to many of God's Creation's wondrous aspects. As she says in discussing the tensions caused by different types of services (organ music; drums and guitars; skits, etc.), "Recognize that your way of worship isn't the sum total of worship itself." The Prelude alone will make your realize you are dealing with a writer and thinker of the first order in Anne Roberston..a fresh, new and most welcome voice in Christian letters. You'll be wanting to continue on immediately! As you proceed, you'll think you can hear God saying, "Finally, someone gets it!" Blowing the Lid off the God-box is a delightful read, and Anne's fervent belief in Love as the basic building block of all existence wafts across the pages like the scents of blossoms in the spring winds. When you finish this book, you'll realize that by offering it, she is telling you she loves the reflection of God in you, too.

My son had this book when he was a child. He is now an adult, and he asked about the book one day when he and his wife were having dinner with us. His book had been ruined many years prior to this, but since he brought it up I got the idea to get another one for him. We gave it to him as one of his birthday gifts. He was soooo happy to get it! His wife has been collecting children's books anyway, so it will be added to their collection for when they have children. It is a timeless book for kids to read over and over again and to have fun with the pop ups of the animals in it--especially fun for little boys, and big boys, too!

There is an attractive quality to pop up books, and this one hits the mark. A succession of brightly colored animals leap off the pages, mouths flapping open and shut. Each animal declares "I'm going to eat you for my dinner!" to the animal featured on the previous page. And he does.

Frog Vulture Gorilla Tiger Crocodile Shark

The illustrations are large - each animal spans two pages, with similarly large fonts for the text. The hinged mouths pop out to invite little fingers to probe inside. The combination of a simple layout, bold colors and repeating text make this book ideal for young children.

A note of interest: this book is reasonably priced at $6.99, with several others available by the same author.

My grandsons (2-5 years)love this book and never tire of it. In fact, they always say, "Read again." My kids at school liked it so much that one of them helped themselves to it and I will have to get another!

This a such a fun book to read aloud to the kids... all her books are wonderful but I think my grandsons loved this one the most..

I love this book and my one year old baby sister does too. During our first reading the animals look of the scary animals shocked her a little bit. Now that's she's used to it, she loves the book. I like to change my voice for each animal. Be careful when reading it to children who like to still rip pages and put books in their mouths. This is a pop-up book and the pages are not sturdy like a board book.

There really was something compelling about Factory when they started. I still have many of the original UK records on vinyl (Joy Division, Section 25, New Order). CDs don't do the designs justice - too small ! They were concieved as RECORD sleeves and worked as art objects that way. I remember my delight at figuring out the color coding on Power, Corrruption and Lies after staring at it for a while.
Has any other label managed to build a design mystique like it (Blue Note perhaps ?). Their output got less interesting and less elaborate later on.
This book is a great nostalgia trip for any original factory fans, and hopefuly conveys the same sense to younger readers. Nice coffee-table book.

Complete catalog of the Factory cover art, posters, etc. Factory perfected the symbiosis between the music and art.

This book is an awesome look back at some of the best artwork and packaging of its time. The footnotes for each "Fac" are interesting and the reproductions of the artwork are showcased nicely. I only wish there were some photos of the packaging, for instance the famous Blue Monday single with the die-cut, it would have been nice to see how it looked. Still, I think this is a great book!

I've always been a huge fan of Factory Records and the designs of Peter Saville so this book was a dream come true. Pictures of all the artwork from Fac 1 onwards, all the New Order, Joy Division, Happy Mondays, Durutti Column - everything you could want.
A wonderful gorgeous book, the pictures are bright and clear, plus history and stories on major aspects of the artwork - highly recommended fro any Factory / New Order / Peter Saville fan.

This is an excellent book for fans of Factory Records. Factory was label that always had beautiful graphic design work. The album covers and poster art were a showcase for the design work of Peter Saville. I highly recommend this thorough book to fans of the label.

I believe that this book should be required reading for anyone who is concerned about the debilitating trends in our society: students shooting their classmates, breakdowns in family relationships, high divorce rates, and out-of-wedlock childbirths. The author presents significant evidence to show that these may all be symptomatic of adult America's obsession with work outside of the home, and subsequently leaving young America to try and invent its own culture and morality.

Recent studies have shown that today's youth suffer from a far higher rate of mental illness than those who grew up just a couple of generations ago. Social disconnectedness and a sense of impending doom have driven many of our youth toward immediate gratification and away from a long-term interest in education and work. At the same time, technological change and the knowledge explosion makes a successful vocation even harder to attain. This is especially true among young men, whose participation rates in postsecondary education, in the electoral process, and in civic activities are at an all-time low and declining rapidly.

Although Robertson's book is deep and well documented, it is very readable. He is at his best in the chapter where he discusses the contrast between the work of a full-time mother with that of a "career woman." Homemaking, which was considered the ideal by feminists as recently as the middle of the twentieth century, is now looked upon as demeaning and destructive of self-esteem, while a "career" outside of the home is viewed as something highly desirable and worthy of achievement. "The work of raising children requires constant hidden sacrifice, unacknowledged and unrewarded by society, often unacknowledged and unrewarded by one's own family-particularly the children themselves. ... A society that measures success exclusively in terms of material or professional attainment is unlikely to accord much status to the hidden work of the mother in the home."

Especially upsetting to those who believe that the traditional family is the foundation of civil society is the palette of economic incentives that government and business offer to the mother who chooses to select "professional" childcare. Childcare credits, tax-exempt childcare flexible spending accounts, and higher IRA savings limits abound for the two-earner family, while the mother who elects to raise her own children receives no benefits in exchange for sacrificing a dual income and striving to make ends meet on a single income.

Robertson offers criticism for Republicans and Democrats alike. Neither major political party has found a way to support the concept of the traditional family, despite their continual touting of "family values" and "family-friendly legislation" that further drives wedges between mothers and their children. Instead of discouraging divorce and/or out-of-wedlock childbearing, welfare policies have forced mothers to accept out-of-the-home childcare so that they can go to work full time.

"There's No Place Like Work" offers a well documented examination of current destructive trends in family and workplace dynamics. It is certain to stimulate provocative discussion, and I hope it will receive the wide readership it deserves.

I'm a 20 year-old highly motivated student at a prestigious university. My entire life I've worked diligently so I could have a successful career. However, after I began reading this book, my thinking has been turned on its head. Now I can see that I've been motivated by all the wrong things: ego, self-aggrandizement, money, and status. This book has helped me understand all that motherhood used to be and could be. It is not a banal existence; there are beautiful possibilites open to the imaginitive mind. Our country was founded on the Protestant ethic that the most noble thing one could do is to be selfless, to give everything you have to your children and your family. My words are like gravel in the mouth compared to Robertson's eloquence. I wish I could capture the beauty of his words here. Please, read this book. It changes everything.

The West is struggling with the related issues of women in the workforce, childcare, maternity leave, and family breakdown. The usual wisdom is to say that we just need to try harder to balance work commitments with family responsibilities. But Brian Robertson, a writer living in Washington DC, believes the answers lie elsewhere.

Indeed, from a historical perspective, the current crisis is really an anomaly. The modern feminist movement of the 60s taught that the only good woman is a career woman, and that homemaking and motherhood were to be despised and fled from. But interestingly, the women�s movement prior to that fought for the right of a mother to stay at home with her young children, and not be conscripted into the paid workplace.

Thus the struggle for those in the earlier years of the women�s movement was to protect women from the encroachment of market forces, and to prevent them from being forced into career at the expense of their families. Motherhood and homemaking, in other words, were seen as honorable and valuable ends in themselves.

But with the late 60s and onwards, the new wave of feminists took a totally different line: only in the paid workforce can a woman find meaning, freedom and dignity. Thus the vitriolic attack on mothers and the family. Betty Friedan therefore could call the home a "comfortable concentration camp" while Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown could label a mother and housewife as "a parasite, a dependent, a scrounger, a sponger � a bum".

A woman�s freedom, said these feminists, meant that a woman should and could be independent both in the economic and the reproductive realms. Women just do not need men, and are better off without them. Establishing a career and gaining financial independence is the first goal of the modern woman. And millions of Western women bought this line of thought.

Of course now the inherent contradictions are coming all too clear. Women who were told that they could have it all are now fining that they have very little. They may have a good job, but they have no husband or boyfriend, no children and no family. And many today are deeply regretful of this fact.

But it is not just women who have suffered at the hands of feminist orthodoxy. Children have been the big losers. Millions of children today are being raised by strangers. Yet all the social science research shows that children desperately need their mums and dads. No day care system can ever compete with the love and attention of a mother and a father.

Yet as Robertson documents, while the social research on all this is quite clear, very few are willing to promote the findings, for fear of incurring the wrath of feminists and of making working mums feel guilty. So although the research is clear, that attachment is important for infants and mother-child bonding is crucial, millions of mothers are ignoring the evidence, and their maternal instincts, and are abandoning their children in droves.

The harmful effects of extended periods of time for young children in day care are well documented in this book. Even child care workers admit that they would not dare to leave their own children in day care. Yet many mothers have been so indoctrinated into believing that their needs and desires must come first, that they are offering their children second best.

And seeking to alleviate the problems by better day care, more workplace flexibility, or seeking to obtain an unobtainable balance between work and family just is not sufficient. And it is not just short-sighted governments offering these inadequate solutions. The corporate world in effect has bought the feminist myth as well that women can have it all. But the truth is, they can�t have it all, at least not at the same time. Thus more corporate day care centres will not solve the bigger problems.

Indeed, the corporations are shooting themselves in the foot here. The really productive worker is the worker who has a happy and satisfying home life. But the corporate world, even with generous paid maternity leave policies, cannot stop the hemorrhaging of the family. Maternal deprivation is harmful to children, and unhappy children make for unhappy families, and unhappy families result in poor workers.

Governments also lose, as they seek to press women into the paid workplace, and do not deal with the root causes as to why so many families are forced to have two incomes. By bribing mums into the paid work place, whether by child care subsidies or other financial incentives, the growing problem of falling fertility rates, for example, will only increase. Less people mean less taxable income, and the inability to pay for expensive social welfare programs.

Thus both governments and businesses need to radically rethink what family-friendly workplaces actually mean. Robertson concludes by proposing some radical measures to put the interests of families first. These are predicated on the principle that human societies need the traditional family structure with a mother as the principal caregiver. Marriage and family are non-negotiable first principles. If that is accepted, then the following steps can be explored:

-Treat families as a unit in the tax code
-End "no-fault" divorce
-Replace the current welfare system with one that does not encourage illegitimacy and undermine intact families
-Pare back affirmative action legislation and programs
-Give all parents, not just those in the paid work place, child care credits or tax breaks.

These and other proposals, will help to ensure that real family-friendly policies are pursued. Yet Robertson knows that legal and economic change alone is not enough. The much harder cultural element needs to be addressed. But we have to start somewhere. And this volume is a good beginning point.

...This book is a wonderful distillation of Brian's views on the workplace, political and social movements and most interestingly his work here is a roadmap for the analytical process he undergoes to arrive at his conclusions.

Brian's book is an outstanding example of constructive critical thinking...one feels envigorated, enlightened, and most importantly tested and forced to confront deeply held truths and defend those ideas within that are found lacking.

It is a book to be proud of and I enjoyed it, unreservedly.

Agree with him or not, give him a chance to make his case in this book which addresses the foundation of a polite society, family.

Robertson shows how the best care is maternal care and why society is in denial of this fact. I found this book very informative and enlightening, and has forever changed the way I look at alternative child care and the media, whose refusal to tell the truth about parenting is causing the millions of children to be neglected.

this is the best book i've ever read. amazing primer on the movie business. BUY IT!

I just finished this book, and Cliff Robertson is actually a very minor character. In fact, the subject of him being "blackballed" is barely mentioned. (It receives one paragraph in the Epilogue.) Robertson was the first person to suspect something was amiss at Columbia, but the book is actually about the power struggle between the President of Columbia, Alan Hirschfield, and the controlling interests of the shareholders, led primarily by Herbert Allen Jr. This is a long book, but it was so riveting that I found it difficult to put down. It is really well written, even if it does not paint any of the characters in a terribly sympathetic light. I can't help but think that if Hirschfield had shown more backbone in the beginning and stuck by his decision to fire the check-forger Begelman instead of caving in to Allen's demands, none of this epic battle would have happened.

This is not really a tale of embezzlement and disgrace - it is the store of power struggles between the Board of Directors for Columbia Studios, who were clearly had personal loyalty in their underlings as their top priority, and the CEO, Alan Hirschfield, trying to do what he needed to do to save the studio.

I don't have access to people at this level, so I appreciate the peeping-Tom aspect of viewing the thought processes and actions of people who normally hide behind lawyers, secretaries, and call-screeners.

The author obviously interviewed many many people to put this book together, and I appreciate how he reported on the media coverage, as well. I never really thought of how people manipulate the news as part of the story, but course it is.

The book is like a newspaper story in that it is filled with information, but the narrative reads like a novel - very easy to read. The author does a good job of developing story-lines, so we have a sense of completeness, and a sense of an overview, while also sprinkling the famous names and the glamour that makes Hollywood so compelling to people.

I've never understood why Hollywood turns out bad movies month after month, year after year, when it is so easy to tell from the beginning that a movie is going to be awful. Why make awful movies?

This book doesn't directly address that issue, but it shows how irresponsible and irrational the leading powers that control Hollywood on both coasts are, and how corrupt the whole system is. It's obvious that normal things like making a good product become irrelevent to their attention span.

I guess it's not really corruption, if everyone knows it's happening, and it's just a way of getting things done.

My only complaint is that I wish I had more of a reality on the Board Directors. Their actions seem so irrational, but I'm sure it's because they were not forthcoming in their interviews, and did not take the opportunity to express their points of view. People at that level are notorious for avoiding the press, so it is not surprising.

I bought this book when it first came out and have reread it every year or so. Tends to be a bit long and sometimes slow, but it's great. Buy a used copy, or check at the library.

Being from the Washington D.C. area I kept constantly asking why someone didn't leak this to the press and blow the whole compiristy.

The only comparable book is "The Great Salad Oil Swindle"

David Begelman, powerful head of a studio thinks he is above the law, until an actor by the name of Cliff Robertson exposes him. This book is a well written tale of immorality in a town known for it's lack of scruples. Hollywood insiders should not be surprised at this tale, but I was. The check Begelman forged was for a small amount. The man made more than that in a month. The book exposes the reasons why a man who had it all, would choose to commit such a crime and fall from grace. I was quite disappointed by Robertson's treatment by Hollywood's hierarchy when he was the victim, not Begelman. But it proves just how far studios will go to protect the bottom line. I read this book when it was first published years ago and I'm reading it again. The list of books I will read more than once is a short one. I highly recommend it.

Like his companion book, Life of Johnny Reb, this book looks at how soldiers were recruited and kept by the Army. The Union had the advantage of an army already in being but its expansion to meet its wartime needs changed the very nature of the Federal Army. This is a fine book and one that any real Civil War buff should have.

Just as informative about the life of the Common Soldierwho served in the Northern ranks as his book The Life of Johnny Reb is of the soldier who apposed him thoughcleary better developed by the author's experience.

Very informative. Very well written.

A must have for anyone interested in the Civil War.

The late Bell Wiley had an advantage that many researchers of the Civil War did not have: FIRST HAND ACCOUNTS FROM THE VETERANS THEMSELVES. Starting his research in the 1940's, Wiley was able to interview the aging veterans of the War. You can imagine what was going through these warriors minds as they recalled their past. Wiley also spent countless hours combing through letters, diaries, official documents and other papers to get his facts. Billy Yank tells the story of the Union soldiers as few have been able to capture. It covers more than just what the soldier wore, ate, used, etc. From his reasons for fighting, opinions of Lincoln, emancipation (pro AND con) officers, the Southern people, the topics are well covered. Reenactors of the conflict would benefit from this book. This is a gold mine of information for the "first person" impression. Even Southerners will gain insight into their former foes.

Bell Irvin Wiley seems to have been the first historian/writer to realize that the Civil War was not just about Lee, Pickett, Grant or Stuart or any of the other guys with stars on their shoulders. The real truth about what happened on those battlefields had to do with the guys in the tattered uniforms and the rotted shoes, trying to fight with defective rifles.
As in his companion book, "The Life of Johnny Reb", "The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union" is an unflinching look at the constant struggles of a Union soldier. This is a very sobering account, and some of the letters the soldiers wrote home are nothing short of heartbreaking. This is a truly admirable account of men who were more than common soldiers. I believe they were really common heroes.

Bell Irvin Wiley (1906-1980) enjoyed a distinguished career as a professor at the University of Mississippi and Emory University and as the author or editor of over 20 books on the Civil War. His "The Life of Billy Yank: the Common Soldier of the Union" (1952) is, together with its companion volume "The Life of Johnny Reb, the Common Soldier of the Confederacy (1943), Wiley's best-known work. It presents an outstanding history of the day-to-day life of the soldier in the Union Army.

As Wiley stated in the preface to the book, his focus was "social rather than military". The book offers little of the military history of the various Civil War campaigns and little of the political aspects of the War. Rather, Wiley discusses soldering in the Union Army in all its detail and drudgery. It is an indispensable source for those wishing to understand the Civil War. The book would be of interest as well to reenactors wishing to get inside and recapture life in a Civil War Army.

The book is well-researched and documented. It draws upon the letters and diaries of innumerable Union soldiers, both published and unpublished and on other first-hand accounts. Much of the discussion is anecdotal, but Wiley makes good use of census and statistical data as well. The book is clearly written with an obvious empathy for the life of the Civil War soldier. The book leads the reader beyond its specific subject and encourages reflection of the Civil War, its terrible human cost, and its continuing importance to our country.

Wiley begins with a discussion of the recruitment process into the Union Army following the attack on Fort Sumter. The book gives a good picture of the complex relationship between state militia units, the regular army, the volunteers and the draftees -- the various units that uneasily combined to form the Union army. Bell discusses -- in a subject that continues to fascinate historians -- the motivations of the soldiers who served in the conflict. In particular, he discusses the Emancipation Proclamation and considers the extent to which Emancipation was or became a goal for a large number of Union troops. Wiley sees the many sides of this question, and the issue remains one that is vigorously discussed.

The book describes well the rigors of training and camp life, the diseases and unhealthy living conditions which plagued the army, the boredom and enforced routines, the bad food, temptations to vice, and experience of combat. There is excellent material in the book on the organization of the Union Army. Much of the material in Wiley's study is either presupposed or otherwise not covered in other well-known studies of the military of political history of the War. The book considers the morale and fighting spirit of the men and how it varied with the fortunes of war and with the support of people at home. Again, anticipating more recent studies, Wiley discusses the ambiguous, complicated relationships that developed during the War between the Union troops and their enemies in gray. This relationship, and the instances of fraternization during the midst of a total conflict, presaged the way for reconciliation, at long last, at the conclusion of the conflict. There is a brief discussion in the book of women soldiers who enlisted in the Union army and sometimes managed to avoid detection. This subject too has received much recent attention and it is interesting to see Wiley deal with it in his early account. The book ends with reflections on the way in which the Civil War helped forged the United States into a nation.

This is a study that wears its age well. It will bring the reader face-to-face with the life of the Union soldier during our nation's greatest combat.

This is the first book of a six book series about a 10 year old girl, Rosemary Rita. She somehow travels back in time by flipping a magical hourglass, a gift from her grandmother, and supposedly meets her great-great-great grandmother Rosemary Ruth Berger (Rosemarie) in Berlin in 1870. It is truly an excellent story. The details are so amazingly descriptive, I could picture where Rosemary Rita and Rosemarie were and who they met. This book takes you places, literally. Just one thing I didn't like about this story is that it jumps into things too quickly. My favorite character is Rosemary Rita, just a curious 10 year old who is very interested in her family tree. She has a little brother, Ryan, who gets on her nerves at times, but Rosemary Rita is always loving and caring to him. She remembers how Ryan says her name, "Row-may-we-wheat-a", and when she is away in Berlin, that voice just makes her want to cry. One question I had after reading this book was if she really went back in time or if it was all a dream. It just makes me think about how she really got there, and the magic that the hourglass had. Overall, this book is awesome. I mainly recommend reading this book because of the elaborate details and accurate information. I can't wait to read the next one!

This book was awesome! The book has accurate information and good detail that paints a picture in your head about what it was like in Germany a long time ago. In some other books, I read it and say, "I know this isn't what happened" but this book was so accurate. I kept reading this book on and on. It was not boring at all. I love this book because this idea is original. One of a kind. And I couldn't put it down. It kept me interested right from the beginning. It might look like a short book but trust me, there's a lot of good stuff in it. Some history(don't worry, it's not boring), fiction, mystery, and good pictures. I love this book and I think you will too. No matter what your age. It's not too hard to read and I think that all ages will enjoy it.

What a delightful book! This book should appeal to any girl with a sense of fun and adventure. Well-written and a real "page-turner", the book blends whimsy, adventure and historically accurate facts in a most engaging way. The lead character is a person that any young girl could easily relate to, and her adventures leave you wishing that you, too, had a magical hourglass! I was particularly impressed by the use of links to the accompanying website- what a great way to use kids' interest in "playing on the computer" to encourage an interest in reading the printed word! I highly recommend this book!

I read this book in one sitting, literally! I bought it today and just couldn't put it down. I've always wondered what it would be like if I could go back and meet my great grandparents. This new bookseries, The Hourglass Adventures, answers that question. Rosemary comes from a long line of grandparents that share her first name, but most of them have nicknames. In the first book, Rosemary Rita goes back in time to 1870 by means of a magic hourglass. When she looks at a postcard that was sent to her great-great-great grandmother, Rosemary Ruth "Rosemarie", who is referred to as Rosemarie in the book, and tips over the hour glass, she is sent back in time and helps her great-great-great grandmother solve a mystery. Of course Rosemary can't tell Rosemarie that she is her great-great-great grandmother... so Rosemary tells Rosemarie that her name is Rita. This is a wonderful book, and I can't wait to get number 2. This is a book series that you will keep for always and will read over again. It's so imagnative and wonderfully written... a must for anyone who always wondered what it would be like to go back in time and meet your ancestors!

Just finished the first; can't wait to read the others. I have 2 young daughters and can't wait til they are old enough to enjoy these creative, interactive, intelligent books.

Very good book for kids who love dragons. We read this book many times, and my son still asks for more. The pictures are marvelous.

I was immediately drawn to the beautiful artwork of this book. The cover page was so very descriptive. The illustrations throughout the book are wonderful and very little text is needed to complement the art of the pictures. On the discovery of the egg in the henhouse, George takes the egg to his bedroom to keep it warm and safe until it hatches, reading to the egg all the while. George seems to believe that the egg can hear his words and continues to read to the egg. On hatching George continues to read to the dragon before bed each night after training the dragon during the day in dragonly characteristics. Reading plays an important part in the book, and is a good example to be setting for young people enjoying this book. The storyline and most especially the beautiful illustrations make this a really fantastic book for the young adventurer. All that is needed is an imagination and a sense of adventure to enjoy this book.

The Egg has some of the most beautiful drawings I have seen in a modern children's book. Even I found myself caught up in them.

The story is very pleasing as well. My son enjoyed learning about dragons and their "dragony ways." Although he was somewhat saddened at the end as he could not understand the need for the separation.

In all the books I have read, there has only been a few that have captured my attention and actually held it. But I have found what I have come to call a books soul or in simpler terms a books meaning. Yes this book was probably written for a young person, to put them to sleep or to just keep them occupied. But to a dragon lover this book is much more. It is in a way a ticket to another world. A world in which the imagination can be free to explore the deepest and darkest corners of the universe without being restrained by reality.
In this remarkable book there is a young boy, whose name is George, who discovers a large egg. After the egg hatches he and the dragon become great friends and they teach each other the importance of having a friend. While George teaches his new found friend all he could about being a dragon he couldn't give his friend one thing, another dragon to play with. If you want to find out what happens to this special young boy and his mystical flying friend than you want to read the book The Egg, by: M. P. Robertson.

Robertson, M.P. The Egg. New York: Phyllis Fogelman, 2001.

In The Egg, a little boy named George finds an enormous golden egg in his mother's chicken coop. He takes care of the egg until much to his surprise, it hatches into a dragon! George takes good care of the dragon until one day it leaves to find its own dragon kind. The little boy is sad and misses his good friend but receives a great surprise in the end that helps him deal with the fact that the dragon has to leave.
The Egg conveys a breakthrough in modern stereotypes. The big issue in this story that breaks through is the fact that a male character is doing the stereotypical "mothering." Starting at the very beginning of this story, the narrator stresses maternity and nurturing. Most of this is done through text but some through illustration. Most of the action pictures in this story take place on the right side of the page, setting up the anticipation of action on the next page. George finds an egg that a hen has laid, sits on top of, and keeps warm and protected in the hen house. In the full-page spread when George takes the egg inside, he immediately sits on top of it to keep it warm in his bed. In addition, the integral parts of the story, in which the dramatic action takes place between George and the dragon, and is very important for the flow of the story, appears as a full page of color with no white showing. When the author is trying to get a reader to focus on one thought or sentence, which is not as important or outstanding, he puts a small, colorful picture in the middle of a white page in order to draw your attention. George mimics the hen and takes care of the egg like he thinks a good mother would do with her young. The series of four pictures on the next page shows the egg hatching and George being pleasantly surprised that it is a dragon!
The first main time in the book when George obviously breaks through a modern stereotype is when the egg hatches, and the dragon says his first word to George: "mommy." This is taken to mean that the dragon wants the boy to be his mother, and George proceeds to take care of him like he thinks mothers do. George has obviously only ever been exposed to the traditional type of female mother figure; therefore these experiences shapes his behavior with the dragon. This is a prime example of how George breaks down traditional stereotypes because he is exhibiting a behavior that he has only learned, but does the job of "mother" so well that the dragon thinks that he is a mother. The narrator comments, "George had never been a mother before, but he knew that it was his motherly duty to teach the dragon dragony ways." Another series of pictures shows and describes how George teaches the dragon to fly, breath fire, help a damsel in distress, and defeat a knight. These lessons are synonymous with the integral and important things for dragons to know, and each one is taught to him by his "mommy." Again, George is "mothering" the dragon the only way he knows how; a way he learned from a woman, the central caregiver he has observed, and it makes no difference that he is male because he is only coping a behavior pattern. If George is the example, gender has nothing to do with good parenting.
The point in the story when George makes the largest noticeable break in stereotypical behavior, is a line that comes toward the end of the story. On a full color page, which makes it seem important, appears a night scene of the dragon and the little boy in a tree. It reads, "Every evening, as all good mothers should, George read the dragon a bedtime story." This is a great example of the proof that the behaviors he is exhibiting are stereotypical to female mothers. This indicates what a "good mother" does, but George, a male, does the "natural" things that mothers do, only he is a male. The great thing about this book is that a non-traditional character plays a traditional role. A male can be just as good a mother as a female simply because he has learned to reproduce mothering behavior. This book does a good job of showing that you do not need to be a female in order to be the picture of motherhood, you only need kindness, care and unconditional love associated with good mothering and learned rather than innate behaviors. All in all, this was simply a good, easy picture book for children, but it has a certain deeper context that we may not even notice until a child thinks it odd that a boy is doing the "motherly" jobs.