Turner Books

DiYanni gives excellent explanation and great examples of poems, plays, and short stories in his book. I actually bought this book for a Lit. class and I knew I would hate the class and the book when I saw how 'big' the boook was. Turns out I loved them both; and DiYanni in my opinion is an excellent author. This book is a great read for pleasure as well as study.

The book arrived in great condition and in a very timely manner. I would purchase from this seller in the future.

This book not only contains a lot of excellent literature, but it also gives instruction on how to read and analyze literature more effectively. This is a book I come back to again and again.

I bought this book instead of buying the 2nd edition. I figured it would be exactly the same. It isn't. It has a lot of the same stories but some are missing, like "The Lottery." Luckily it's a book of short stories, so the stories that are missing you can get online. The price is worth the work. It's half the price of the new book. A paper back book is not worth 58 dollars. Buy this look up the other stories.

Plus it's easy to navigate.

Eastern European military expert Richard Brzezinski has written an original, well-researched account of the Battle of Lutzen in 1632. Given the rarity of English-language sources on the Thirty Years War, this book represents a valuable contribution to an understanding of this climactic battle. It is quickly apparent that the author has gone to great lengths to get details on the orders of battle, battlefield dispositions and tactical movements as correct as possible. This work is heavily based on German and Swedish sources.

Overall, this volume is one of the better books in the Osprey Campaign Series. The artwork, illustrations, maps and diagrams are all excellent. However, there are two troubling minor criticisms with the maps. First, the campaign maps that lead up to the battle are too complex and the events are not listed in the proper sequential order. Second, the 3-D "bird's-eye" view maps of the battle are oriented toward the northeast, which makes them seem skewed from the 2-D maps that are oriented toward the north.

This account of Lutzen hinges on two questions: why did Wallenstein [the Catholic commander] disperse his forces just prior to the battle and why, having inflicted crippling damage on the Protestant forces, did Wallenstein elect to retreat? On the first question, Brzezinski suggests that rather than dispersing his forces for winter quartering (the conventional explanation), Wallenstein was actually laying a trap to lure Gustavus Adolphus' Protestant army out of its fortified camp. This is a very weak theory. Dispersing one's army only ten miles away from the army of a formidable opponent like Gustavus Adolphus appears more foolhardy than cunning. Lack of a proper covering force to inform Wallenstein of any advance by the Swedes and the hasty nature of the defenses at Lutzen demolish any notions of operational cunning. At the very least, by retiring into Leipzig, Wallenstein was surrendering the strategic initiative. Any proper military analysis of Wallenstein's generalship in the period leading up to Lutzen would reveal indecisiveness and reluctance to fight pitched battles. I believe Wallenstein was a general in the mold of our own McClellan; expert at organizing and training armies but uncertain how to use their armies on campaign. Brzezinski states that one of his intentions is to "debunk" the glorification of Gustavus Adolphus, but the Swedish general kept the initiative and the Battle of Lutzen was fought on his terms.

As for Wallenstein's retreat, this again points to weak generalship. Brzezinski tries to offer the extenuating circumstances of Wallenstein's minor battlefield injuries, but this is very weak justification for abandoning one's entire artillery and logistic trains, as well as hundreds of Catholic wounded who were butchered. It was a hard fight, but Wallenstein's army had held most of their ground and substantial reinforcements were arriving at nightfall. The best Swedish brigades had been smashed and Gustavus Adolphus was dead. Wallenstein's decision to cut and run was somewhere between a poorly considered mistake and a craven abdication of command responsibility. Brzezinski concludes that, "Wallenstein got the better of the fighting, but he blotted his copy book by abandoning the field, his artillery and ammunition, turning a tactical victory into a strategic defeat." However, the author adds, "In a broader sense though, both sides lost the Battle of Lutzen." In reality, Lutzen was a defeat for the Imperialists [Catholics] because their commander perceived himself to be defeated and thereby, denied his victorious troops the fruits of their hard-won stand.

Very good job of explaining the political climate before, and after the battle. Excellent detail concerning the actions of specific units.

So, who won this battle? The book does not answer this question either, but it describes the action so vividly, the strategies and commander involved so clearly, that everyone who reads this book can draw their own conclusion. I think that Wallenstein won, but your view may differ completely - read the book and make up your own mind.

The Thirty Years War has not been much studied by British or American historians, and the reason is not hard to find: British involvement was minimal. Beyond this, the vast scope of the subject is a formidable obstace to research (a reading knowledge of Czech, German, French and Swedish would seem to be minimum requirements). Geoffrey Parker, Thomas M. Barker and David Parrott, among professionally-trained historians, have contributed to our understanding of the military background of the war, but none are 'Decisive Battlers' in the traditional sense. This leaves the field wide open to enthusiasts like Richard Brzezinski.

In two previous books for Osprey on the army of Gustavus Adolphus, Brzezinski tackled the many myths that have attached themselves to the 'Lion of the North'. If most of these myths seem in retrospect almost laughably wide of the mark, all credit is due to him for having been the first to systematically demolish them. Here Brzezinski sets himself the task of describing Gustavus's last battle, in which the Swedish king confronted Wallenstein's Imperialists for a final showdown outside Leipzig (Saxony) in 1632. The author identifies closely with his subject, feelingly referring in his preface to the 'protracted gestation period' of what is clearly a labour of love. And if the Osprey 'Campaign' format is something of a straightjacket for the presentation of original research (the series is, after all, aimed at the general reader), in a battle as little studied by non-Germans or Swedes as this one, almost everything in the book will be new to English readers. Brzezinski's reconstruction is painstaking, judicious and far more convincing than that of Josef Seidler, who in the 1950s claimed to have finally solved 'the Lutzen problem'. The conclusion - that Lutzen was a strategic victory for the Swedes but a tactical one for Wallenstein - is inescapable.

According to the publisher's blurb, Brzezinski is 'the leading English language expert on the 30 years war'. But this glosses over a starker truth: to all intents and purposes, he is the ONLY writer in English on the purely military aspects of the conflict. It is to be hoped that this book will stimulate others to join him as he ploughs his lonely furrow.

Highly recommended for anyone teaching cross cultural communication and English in the business environment. The authors have included excellent examples of the principles they have presented. The writing is enjoyable and informative and is appropriate for a professsional in the field or amateur/student.

Managers of diverse workforces in today's globalizing context will find great value and new ideas in this work. Trompenaars provides models that help one understand cultural differences and their likely implications on how people can be managed effectively. Of particular use to those responsible for managing people in organizations with employees having different national/ethnic origins this book talks about the impact of values and beliefs on what is viewed as fair and appropriate relative to processes like selection, development, performance management and rewards management.

While human resource management (HRM) departments are a critical part of the modern corporation, they are often considered detached from the daily workings of their own employees. In a multinational modern corporation, these problems are exacerbated when other issues distract HRM professionals. Authors Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner inadvertently explain why many corporate employees consider HRM departments irrelevant. Meandering and without focus, their book rarely signals just where it is going. While it is part of a cross-cultural series, this book's stated intent is to make HRM a stronger part of corporate management through the ways it recruits, trains and rewards staff members. The authors cite interesting facts and studies as they discuss various facets of human resource management, including change, motivation, recruitment, assessment tools, managing teams, organizational learning, leadership development and diversity, all with some attention to cross-cultural issues. Although this book falls short of hitting its stated goal of placing HRM at the center of the modern corporation, we appreciate its ambition and the scope of its coverage.

Trompenaars, Fons and Charles Hampden-Turner Managing People Across Cultures (Culture for Business) Capstone Publishing Ltd. London: 2004. 208pp (paperback)

For years the value of human resource management has been discussed, debated, and often denied. All too often those espousing the cause of hr management have proffered self defeating positions focusing on the inherent goodness of their activities whilst those in opposition were all too ready to agree with them. The emphasis far too often was on panacean fads that never stood the test of time and less on those issues that motivate, measure human resource development in a meaningful way.

Now Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner have taken on the challenge and provide the reader with an informed and enlightened approach to the very real value of hr management. And in doing so they convince us that human resource management is a genuine profession that pervades the entire corporation and that it is an essential discipline for leaders and leadership.

In this work they characterize hr management as in part a philosophy of protest against dehumanizing technology and bureaucracy. Recognizing that the logic of values and of culture is inherently paradoxical, the authors apply their dilemma approach to reconcile the differences between the opposing view points. If we posit that the values associated with technology and organization are not the only values that drive an enterprise, then we can see that the values of hr management may be needed to qualify the usually dominant technological values. It is the authors' contention that we need not to defeat the technical values from which major innovations are continually derived, but rather to integrate them with the hr values. They suggest that the need is to be more differentiated, more integrated, more non-directive in order to discover a clearer direction, and to be more individualistic to encourage strong groups to support each member, and to be more task-oriented to abet people development around these tasks.

Their vision for the 21st Century includes returning to the values of entrepreneurship in order to compete with the non-stop innovation, where success seems to go to the agile and inventive and where the huge behemoths are vulnerable as never before.

They see the future of hr management as confronting the dilemmas of creativity and destruction, of human resources and physical resources, and of change and continuity. They see human resource departments as the leaders in organizations who can embed human concerns as the technological ideas are first generated and mobilized into action. It is hr management that can explain and reconcile human values and resources with the technological values and resources to created the organization's values, modus operandi, and reason for being.

In ten thought provoking chapters, the authors examine all aspects of human resource management. In chapter one, they look at corporate cultures and the need for leaders and change agents to lead and change cultures so that they best do the work of the organization through motivation, inspiration, reward, and information. Chapter two addresses recruitment, selection, and assessment. It provide some keen observations about extant instruments and how they can be qualified by complimentary measures to create broader syntheses to enhance these processes. The succeeding two chapters look at the power of teams and how to build an effective learning organization.

Chapter six focuses on leadership development across cultures. They state that leaders must increasingly reconcile an ever-widening spectrum of diversities that include: different stages of economic cycles, different national cultures, different corporate cultures, different team roles, different functions, status levels, learning styles, disciplines, and personalities.

The following chapters take aim at how to diagnose the presence of dilemmas (even when they are being denied), provides some powerful insights as to the way people habitually think, and looks at the four cultures models that impact the effectiveness of assessment centers.

The final chapter deals with varieties of culture shock and looks at the visceral and emotional costs of crossing cultures and meeting strangers. The authors offer a simulation designed to aid participants in enhancing their emotional capabilities to deal with new dilemmas.

This is a ground-breaking work which offers new insights and provides new thinking about the field of human resource management. While it certainly should be read by human resource managers, it should also be at the top of the reading lists of corporate leaders.

(...)

It has rarely been my experience that a picture is worth a thousand words -- the best pictures often elicit no words at all. Maps, however, are different -- these, when well done, I would gladly substitute for the best prose. And those in Mapping Boston are absolutely superb, giving greater clarity to a wide range of topics than words ever could.

Boston, of all cities, must give historical cartographers fits -- the city's boundaries have changed so greatly over time as to render historical comparison a great challenge. But Mapping Boston succeeds wonderfully in helping the reader to understand the city's gradual evolution from peninsula to metropolis. The growth of the city, the changes in population and land utilization, Boston's shifting ethnic and economic face are all elucidated colorfully and clearly. The bottom line is that the lover of Boston history will revel in this volume; indeed, I expect most every resident of the area will derive considerable pleasure from it.

For those who do, I would also recommend Diana Muir's Reflections in Bullough's Pond, which does for the region around Boston what Mapping Boston does for the city itself: places it in context, gives it color, brings it to life.

This book is simply gorgeous in design and exceptional in content. I can recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in the history of Boston or in the evolution of maps of North America.

Collects in one place excellent plates of all the great historical maps of Boston, as well as some rarities. Ranks up there as one of the necessities for anyone with a passion for Boston's topographical history.

This book beautifully portray's Boston's physical past, present and future through maps and photographs. The book does an excellent job showing how streets and shorelines through the years match to the present topography (a huge interest of mine when exploring the city). This book is for you if you love history and maps of Boston and New England. VERY WELL DONE!

This book is highly recommended and some day I promise u I will put it to good use and so will Ariana...

And Kay I have realised something very important from reading throw this book as well as living the life that I have lived its all about a 'powerful name' and I thank you very, very much for writing this book and I will treasure it indefinitely.

I like baby name books, I have been interested since I was a little girl with names and their meanings, orgins, etc and I collected baby name books and this book by Barbara Kay Turner is pretty good and I like how she not only has the names in alphabetical order but has all different catagories too and I really enjoyed reading this book and I highly recommend it to people wanting to find a nice name for a baby , writers looking for names for their characters etc.

Unfortunately for me this book disappeared from my collection but I will definitely try and get a new copy.

The dedication is right on. This book contains memories as well as info about names. If I knew Mary's complete e-mail address, I'd share a lot more about favorite names. For the top girl's name, I'd pick Ariana. For the boy's top name, I'd pick Damian.

There is a great story behind this book, and if the readers were privi to this information they would enjoy it a zillion time more. I would like to share the information how about you? Contact me !

Love Mary Randolph

Muri@yahoo.com

As usual Ms. Turner has captured the mind of the reader. For a beginning author her work is exceptional. A fast paced mystery that is hard to put down. Looking forward to more work from her.
Her other work, The Desk, is in the same caliber, set in her home town of Memphis, Tenn.

"New Pictures of an Old Murder: A Highlands Ranch Mystery" was rivoting. Ms. Turner did a wonderful job of keeping me guessing on "Who Done It" and "Why", allowing me to draw my own conclusions (several times - some right, some wrong). The story line kept me interested - not wanting to put the book down - and never lagged. Because I am familiar with the area she wrote about, it was especially fun to visualize where the main character lived, where her kids went to school, and the streets she drove on. She really makes the story "come alive", even if you don't know the area. It was fun to read and I can't wait for her to publish her next book. Congratulations Ms. Turner!

This is a "must read" for murder mystery fans. You will not be able to put this book down. I can hardly wait for the next book in the Highlands Ranch series from Ms. Turner.

This is a fast-paced mystery that I didn't want to put down. When I finished reading the prologue, I realized I was holding my breath! I hope the author writes another mystery soon.
Barbara Carter

Great book to get me started turning pens. A lot of good info and pictures. Covers all the basics well.

64 pages, full color, 9 gallery pages. Step by step pictures with detailed text on how to make pens/pencils on the lathe. This book was a must for making my first pen, and a great reference as I have progressed. Pens include: Standard twist (and pencil), Dome-top, Rollerball and Fountain, Cigar pen, Flat-top click pen, Flat-top twist pen, and desk pen.

A very clear and concise presentation of what is required for making excellent writing instuments. Great color photos of all materials and instructions of each step in the selection of woods, and hardware, how to drill, match and assemble the components. The number of ways to varie the appearance of the instruments. He does not go into the discusion of lathes. He concentrates making pens and pencils and the variations that can be created. I have his other book, "UNIQUE & UNUSUAL PENS from the wood lathe" and I refer to them quite ofen for new ideas. I also refer to "TURNING PENS AND DESK ACCESSORIES" by Mike Cripps which I also use

I picked this book up on the recommendation of a friend. I've advanced to the stage where I'm getting pretty good at making dowels on an expensive lathe, and was feeling like I needed to find something that made me feel more productive. If I've got it figured right, my first pen will cost me about $4,000. After that, hopefully, economy of scale should set in (I hope). If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm pretty good in a wood shop, but an absolute newbie at turning.

I think my friend was being kind. Dick Sing assumes you have some familiarity with small gouges, skews and scrapers, which I do, and does little or no explanation of the turning part of pen making. He focuses on the intricacies of the equipment that is peculiar to pen making (mandrels, drilling jigs, etc.). Truth is, basic pen making is not a challenging occupation, and Dick Sing offers lots of pictures and straightforward text. This could have been called Pen Making for Dummies. In other words, anyone who can make a dowel on a lathe should be able to follow this book. Even me.

What is missing, though, is and real focus on creative pen making. But this I mean grooves, beads, and chatter work sort of things that can turn a pen into something other than a useful dowel. He does play around a bit with materials and an interesting desk pen, but for the most part this book is about kit making and not about custom pen making. Even so, it is a terse, but very useful, introduction.

I am happy to have ordered this book from this book seller. It came in time and good copy. I had ordered a new book and I got a new book.

pellucid, even. clear and concise. a return to marx, away from marxism. this would be the perfect text to use at the end of a course on marx(ism)-- subsumes all other critiques whilst returning to the original texts themselves. if that does convince you: it's a cheap and easy read! buy it now! (plus, cool cover art).

Verso's decision to republish this book should be lauded. For the better part of a decade in the late '90s and '00s they allowed it to languish in out-of-print obscurity; it deserved a better fate, as this is a very useful classroom text.

This is simply the best introduction available to the issues and texts of Marxism for the contemporary student of continental philosophy or "theory." Balibar is astonishing in his brevity and his lucidity when summarizing a hundred and fifty years of Marxist thought on issues such as ideology and false consciousness, time and history, class struggle and dialectics. The main text is organized in about five brief chapters on themes such as these. Page-length boxes set into the text expand on key issues, texts, and sources -- from the "three sources of Marx's thought" to the Theses on Feuerbach -- and provide capsule biographies of important Marxist writers from Gramsci to Lukács to Lenin. It's also a terrific reference -- if Balibar's text is sometimes too dense for an introductory-level student to read quickly, its density helps it retain interest and utility for the more sophisticated reader. There is no other book like this one, and it should be embraced.

Balibar's little book is suited for newcomers, to Marx and philosophy, and for those who are familiar with both and are just looking to have a little life blown into those dead bones. Balibar's intent is to argue for current relevance of Marx's thought, while at the same time destroying all of the dogmatic ideas of "Marxist philosophy." Balibar reanimates Marx's thought by outlining the series of problems that it poses.

Absolutely fascinating book about the pioneers who went west, either for gold or a better life. Read most of it while camping in the Boundary Waters. Took author ten years of research. Was his doctoral dissertation. Pioneers were not as alone, nor Indians as bad, as history has made them. 1840 trip was much harder than 1860. Things really changed fast. One man drove 1500 turkeys west!

This is an excellent book for learning the intricate details of the Oregon Trail crossings. Mr. Unruh has obviously done his research.

The Plains Across is a remarkable book, a nearly unrevised dissertation that is nevertheless a thoroughly readable synthesis of the overland migration to the American West, 1840-1860. It's a pity that Unruh never had the chance to further rework this manuscript after so diligently honing his craft during the eight years of research and writing it took to complete his dissertation.

The least interesting chapters come first: long, pedestrian surveys of public opinion about the Trans-Mississippi West. More compelling is the chapter on emigrant-Indian interaction, which Unruh proves was considerably less violent and more mutually beneficial than the later myth of unremitting conflict suggests. Unruh's discussion of emigrant-Mormon relations is too apologetic for Mormon behavior, but the chapter nevertheless explains well why overlanders and Saints often came into conflict.

To my mind, the best chapters are the final ones that chronicle the significant assistance that overlanders received from the West Coast. Not only did earlier emigrants extend aid for its public relations value in the struggle to increase local populations, there was also a remarkable amount of pure humanitarian assistance, sometimes granted at considerable personal sacrifice. The last chapter, "The Overlanders in Historical Perspective," is a fine summary of the emigrant experience.

The Plains Across is now more than twenty-five years old, but it is still the standard history of the Trans-Mississippi migration. As one of Unruh's friends wrote, "It is sorrowful beyond expression that this book must stand as a posthumous memorial to [the author], rather than as the beginning of an outstanding professional career."

An exceptional in-depth study of the Oregon/California Emigrant Trail. Each chapter is thoroughly researched and written very well, with excerpts from the overlanders' journals and diaries, along with references from various newspapers throughout the country. The reader is first introduced to the political and social ramifications from the news media of the pros and cons of overland travel to Oregon and California. Next, Unruh unravels the "whys" as to the emigrants' desire to pursue such an endeavor, risking loss of everything, including possibly life itself. We also get a feel for how the overlanders got along with each other; their relations with Indians; the battles of overcoming hunger, thirst, cold, etc. There is also mention of private entrepreneurs along the trail who were trading and selling goods at exorbitant prices; the "white Indians" who were white men masqueraded as Indians taking advantage of the emigrants; the Mormon influence throughout the Salt Lake area, along with the "Winter Mormons" who were average non-Mormon emigrants wishing to overwinter in Salt Lake but subjected to cruel and unjust treatments. Then the federal goverment comes into the picture by improving roads, establishing forts along the way and implementing troops to guide and protect the overlanders to safety. We read detailed descriptions of how west coast assistance was a major factor in helping settlers make that final push into either Oregon or California. The book is totally amazing! A definite page turner. Even if one is not into Western U.S. history, this book will make one look at the hardships, perils and sacrifices these people overcame to establish a new life for themselves, families, friends and relatives.

This volume continues the saga of Ray Metzker as one of the 20th century's premier photographers. His change of subject from urbanscape to landscape will startle those familiar with his opus. However, Metzker's focus on shape and design, and his darkroom mastery, bring us home. This volume leaves us wondering what will be next.

One of the best photography monographs I've seen in years. Metzker continues to be a visual innovator in the vein of Harry Callahan or Aaron Siskind, exploring prosaic landscape subjects as a rich fodder for abstracting. His approach to a dense, 'all-over' composition has been seen in numerous other contemporary landscape photographers work (such as John Gossage or Robert Adams), but rarely with such an other-worldly romance and glow. I've been a fan for years of Metzker's more familiar series of abstracted street scenes, but these landscapes were a complete surprise. Beautifully printed volume. I'll be sure to make it to Philadelphia to take in the museum show.

Metzker is a modern experimental photographer well known for his city photos. Landscapes departs from his tested realm into landscapes, collecting rarely seen works - most of which have never been published - and packing in black and white full-page images made around the world. Landscapes accompanies a traveling exhibition but also stands well alone.

Ray Metzker is an experimental photographer whose work in the 1960s transform black and white landscape photography into a fine art. Ray K. Metzker: Landscapes showcases twelve series of his photographs. Evan Turner's informative essay on Metzker's life and work places this master photographer with an art-historical tradition spanning the contributions of such innovators as Boucher, Monet, Klimt, and others. An enthusiastically recommended addition to any personal, academic, or community library photography collection, Ray K. Metzker: Landscapes was flawlessly designed and based upon a major traveling exhibition of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (November 18, 2000 through February 11, 2001. Thereafter the exhibition will travel the length and breath of the country.