Wang Books

Easy to read and understand! Even my 8-year-old can follow steps in the book. Good price for the book and tools (brushes, paints and papers...)

This kit includes all of the items you need to get started. This kit, along with the book, The Chinese Brush Painting Bible: Over 200 Motifs with Step-by-Step Illustrated Instructions will make you proficient at Chinese Brush Painting.

The book is very good, but the brushes are of poor quality. Most of the other supplies are good. I will have to replace one or two of the brushes to use this kit.

This kit is great. I bought it and the Brush Painting for Animals so that my kids (7 and 11) and I could do some art together. The inkstone, ink, paints and brushes are really cool, in the words of the 11 year old. The instructions are good, and all you really need to add is a pad of newsprint paper ($1.59 at Hobby Lobby). As an introductory kit, this is great.

I was thrilled when I received my kit. It has everything you need to get started and specific details to help you along the way. In painting a flower, it even details how the brush stroke should look, which direction, how much pressure. All you need to complete a beautiful piece of art is yourself and some fun! Definitly recommend for beginners looking for help and ideas.

This is an absolutely oustanding book - Richmond managed to recreate a world which ceased to exist at the onset of the Second World War, the world of Jews from the central Polish town of Konin. The book is touching both in descriptions of Richmond's quest for the missing shtetl which can be found only in the fading memories of Jews who somehow survived the Holocaust and in his recreation of the Jewish town that does not exist any more. An absolute must for all those who think that Holocaust was just another tragedy in the past on some distant continent. A perfect gift to people who have roots in Poland - some of my friends found their relatives described in the book. Maybe you or your friends will share this luck?

I found this book absolutely fascinating. My Grandmother came from Konin so for me it was a look into the world my Grandmother left behind.

There is little I can add to the existing reviews save yet another resounding confirmation of this book's brilliance. Konin is a superbly written, award-winning thing translated into Polish, Hebrew, German and Italian.

The book is impeccable stylistically and intellectually, and the thorny issue of Polish-Jewish relations is penetrated with honesty and insight. The people interviewed and depicted in the book are -- well, simply, REAL.

Yes, this is another Holocaust archival work and yes, it is brilliantly researched and written. But Richmond's crowning achievement, I propose, is his ability to create a lengthy work as this, about people many readers could never know, without ever letting it lapse into sentimentality or a wearisome litany of names, faces and facts. And yes, I have tearfully walked the streets of Konin with those Shoah survivors who now live in England, the US, and Israel. Richmond has ensured that the Nazi attempt to relegate Jewish Konin to oblivion has been thwarted. And we are much the better for it. "For the dead and the living we must bear witness." Thank you Mr Richmond. You have witnessed for the murdered of Kazimierz forest and all the other killing fields of Nazi Europe.

My wife Urszula and I had decided to take a day out in London, some sight seeing and shopping. We passed the many book shops on Charing Cross rd, but a book in one shop window caught my eye, 'Konin, a quest'. My wife is Polish, from the town of Konin. But what could this book be about, we wonder? There is nothing in Konin. How wrong we were! The book amazed us. I have read many publications on the holocaust, but nothing moved me quite like this book. The research and the feeling, the hardwork put into this account of a community so thoroughly wiped out that my wife hadn't even been aware that a Jewish community had ever existed and yet she grew up on its streets. In fact, the school she went to, the Gymnasium was built by the jewish people prior to the war. But nothing was or is taught about the jewish people within its walls, no reminders, nothing. Until now. Theo Richmond's work is a priceless reminder of want was lost and what should never be forgotten. We look forward greatly to the day the book is published in polish, when everyone there has a chance to understand just what was lost. We met Theo recently, his powerful charater came across so well in his book, as it is such an honest account, that it felt as though we had known him for years. Buy It! It is the best book you will ever read on the Jewish people.

For perspective - I am part of a team investigating China and made my first trip to China 6 months ago. This book is well written and gives a good quick overview - it is weak on details, however my limited experience in China shows a very dynamic situation with each company different. Flexibility is key - this book will give an excellent foundation to be better prepared as business situations are approached. Each team member has purchased a copy of this book and it is frequently referenced as we work to clarify and grow our understanding in China

I bought a copy of The China Executive over Christmas holidays in 2006 to develop my understanding of China business. Since then, I have recommended other professors on China business this wonderful book, which contains almost everything we need to teach our students.

But the republication of Prof Michael Porter's "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy" in the January 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review has compelled me to write this review.

Porter's five-force model has dominated courses on strategy in business schools since the article and his book Competitive Strategy were published in 1979 and 1980 respectively.

But a re-reading of Porter's article and a more careful reading of the last chapter of The China Executive has made me think that it is time to replace Porter's five-force model with Wang's five-force model.

Porter's five-force model is about competition to the extreme. According to Porter, strategy is about coping with competition; managers only regard their direct competitors as competition; as such, they should consider customers, suppliers, potential entrants and substitute products as four other competitive forces.

But such hyper-competitive thinking surely leads to corporate greed. As a company takes everybody as a competitor (or even enemy) and tries to do everything possible to maximize its own profits by minimizing others' (or even beating them down), its profitability may improve in the short term, but surely at some point in time it will crash because there will be nobody left who is happy to do business with it. Isn't Enron an example?

Furthermore, thinking around the five-force model does not lead to effective actions because all five forces are beyond a company's control. Competitors will always do what they like to do. Customers and suppliers are much better to be treated as partners, but still the world is so big that they can always choose somebody else. Whatever barriers to entry (from hundreds of millions of dollars for a car plant to thousands of dollars for a book publisher), new competitors will always come up. And who can stop substitute products from occurring?

By absorbing the strategic wisdom of Sun Tzu, whose 2,500-year-old book has proven to be the most insightful ever in the field of strategy, Wang has come up with his five-force model, which is presented in the last chapter of The China Executive.

The five strategic forces are: business purpose (the moral force of a business), business climate (the temporal force of a business), business location (the spatial force of a business), business organization (the organizational force of a business), and business leader (the command force of a business).

Consider business purpose. Isn't this or answer to the question of "to what extent, are we still creating real value for society?" what the new CEOs of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup should be contemplating? (By the way, Goldman Sachs has not exposed to the sub-prime crisis because it did not abandon itself to the lure of easy money - proof of the power of the moral force of a business.) Indeed, if they can somehow organize their thinking around what is important to creating that value despite all the incoming distractions, crisis and complexity crashing down all around them, then they will have a sustainable model for their business.

Overall, as the subtitle of Porter's article suggests, his model is about helping a company "stake out a position" within a precisely-defined local industry. It might well have been helpful to the largely predictable American industries in the early 1980s. But entering the 21 century and in a world that is now "flat", what American businesses face are the strategic challenges of how to cross national borders, how to understand local aspirations, how to have good partnerships...

In a word, strategic thinking in this new world is about how to prosper together rather than how to maximize one's own profits at the expense of others, and this is why I think Wang's model is more valuable and deserves to be published by Harvard Business Review.

I highly recommend this book.

As a US business exec who has been traveling to China for over 5 years, I can honestly say this is one of the best books I've read for helpful and practical insight for executives traveling to China for business.

There are many books available that address cultural comparisons between East and West including both social, and business situations. However The China Executive focuses exclusively from a business perspective and more specifically; how to understand cultural perspectives and work with strengths in each to be the most communicative and effective in business dealings.

It is well written with an easy to read writing style. The cover text under the title "Marrying Western and Chinese Strengths to Generate Profitability from Your Investment In China" sums the book up quite well.

I met Wei Wang at the Sixth Annual China Conference, held at the Port of Los Angeles on September 12-13. The conference (thechinaconference dot com), presented by Seattle-based, eighty-five-year-old Cargo Business News, not only provided each attendee with an autographed copy of Wang's book The China Executive but also had him give the closing keynote speech to several hundreds of executives from the global logistics industry. His speech, entitled China and the Human Side of Business and supported by a series of compelling slides, was the highlight of the entire conference.

In particular, I found his presentation of ancient Chinese wisdom (e.g. "Virtue is the root; wealth is the consequence", "Without self-interest, your interest succeed" and "Without expectations, you will be strong; with tolerance, you will be big.") extremely eye-opening. And if you don't know how to deal with your Chinese partner, this one will surely inspire you: "Before marriage know your partner's weaknesses; in marriage use your partner's strengths."

Of course, you will better understand the above with the help of his book, which I managed to read after the conference. And I must say that it is a pioneering book of real value and wide appeal!

Indeed, China's rise is transforming global politics, the global economy, and societies worldwide. So, everybody will arguably need to develop responses to meet the China challenge.

But first and foremost, business people worldwide - in particular Western business people due to our long-held superiority in the areas of technology and management - have to understand China if we want to achieve sustained business success in the age of globalisation, in which China is in the driving seat.

Wang's book contains everything you will need to know about China - above all what it means for business in a practical sense. Of course, the book's most original contribution is to connect Chinese civilisation with Western civilisation, thereby demonstrating the vital importance of combining intuition with analysis, leadership with management, relationships with results, and ultimately Chinese human-centered, integrated worldview with Western things-oriented, divided worldview.

I strongly recommend The China Executive because it has the potential to change how we see the world. And once we can see the world from a truly global perspective, every difficulty we experience in our endeavour to do business with China becomes an opportunity.

Business with China takes many forms. Whether you are considering import/export, technology transfer, licensing, joint venture or wholly-foreign owned investment, this book will guide you to success.

Of course, this book is not just about these business arrangements; it is about the essence of them. As this book shows, any business arrangement not only is an abstract idea about the future but also has people at its heart.

All too often, Western business people (and professors) only see the idea side of business, with the people side largely ignored.

In our homeland, this may not cause too big a problem (although bringing the best out of every individual is becoming more and more important). But in a non-Western environment where people have different ways of thinking and want different things from life, mastering the hearts of people is really the key to business success.

This is, in my view, where most books on China business have got muddled up, and why I say The China Executive is "A wonderful book on China business!"

I searched and searched for this book. My search was almost more difficult than finding a real mystery animal; but at last I found a decent copy and spent too much on it.
It was worth it, though. This book is a classic for a reason. The author presents the material in a thorough and engaging way. And he is skeptical at the right moments.
I have no regrets about buying this rare book. If you're into cryptozoology, yet also have a brain (a rare combo), this is a book that needs to be in your collection.

Heuvelmans has written an absorbing work that falls just short of masterpiece stature. The scope of the coverage is breathtaking, revealing the author's encyclopedic command of the field and unmistakably belying his tremendous enthusiasm for the material. From the outset, I would argue that the opus is more "archaeozoological" than "cryptozoological," as the author tends to devote nearly all of his attention to the details and history of collection of evidence for this cryptid or that, and upon the associated sociological phenomena (e.g., folktales, taboos, sculptures), than he does to ecological analysis of the theorized creatures' ontogenies within their respective biomes. The work reads almost like a compendium of forensic dossiers: for each cryptid he treats, Heuvelmans carefully narrates the historical accretion of man's evidentiary knowledge base-even to the details of each relevant archaeological expedition, whether splendidly fructiferous or gut-wrenchingly frustrating. Of particular note, Heuvelmans turns unsuccessful hunts into positive experiences, arguing how even failure to find this or achieve that adds monotonically to scientists' knowledge bases. Other aspects that are equally indicative of the author's love for his material include the proliferation of hand-drawn illustrations: while clearly no artist, he has striven to provide visual aids-even as minor as a small piece of skin or a vague scrimshaw on narwhal tusk-wherever they might prove edifying.

On the critical side, I may level two accusations that do not go very far toward pejorating the work. Firstly, taken from a continent-by-continent perspective, the coverage is not balanced. Although cryptozoological mysteries-and the oral and/or literary traditions that are often associated therewith-besprinkle the entire globe, the author devotes precious little attention to the boreal zones and none whatsoever to North America! Secondly-and, indeed, this is intertwined with the sparsity of North American coverage-Heuvelmans says next to nothing about sasquatch or some of his cryptohominid cousins, e.g., the central Asian almas and the Australian yay-ho and lo-an (although he most thoroughly dissects the evidence for and against the yeti). But, just perhaps, this second omission can be blamed upon prevailing undertones in the academic community: specifically, it was not until the 1958 incidents in logging camps in rural northern California that the "bigfoot" phenomenon began to attract serious attention.

My 5th grade son asked for a book about cryptozoology for Christmas, so I recently bought this book after being pointed to it by various reviewers (of other books) on Amazon. It seemed bizarrly expensive--and I felt obnoxiously indulgent buying it--but I can now report it is worth every penny. My son has been glued to the book for a week now and is on his way to memorizing the whole thing. The reading level is adult but a smart kid, fasinated with the subject, will rise to the challenge and chew through all 4 inches in no time.

When it comes to Cryptozoology, there still is no better source than Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, the man who penned the phrase, literally. I never considered the existence of the Yeti as anything more than a mythological cartoon character, until my discovery of this book in my High School library, some 36 years ago. And there still is no other work that approaches anywhere near it, for pure captivating reading, over-and-over again. I'd recommend this book to anyone, even the staunchest skeptics. From the Yeti to Orang Pendeks, Marsupial Tigers to Nandi Bears, the volumes of research will astound. Better than reading any novel about Lost Worlds and experiments with DNA. These represent real worlds, and possibly tens-of-thousands of creatures just waiting for serious scientific attention. Will make a believer of many for certain. One drawback though, no mention of Bigfoot, or any other American cryptids for that matter. Not even in the more recent revisions. But still worthy of the highest rating.

For those of you who do not know Mr. Brenard Heuvelmans (1916-2001) was one of the true pioneers in Cryptozoology (study of hidden animals) "On the Track of Unknown Animals" is certainly a must for those who find this topic interesting.
In 2003 Jerry D. Coleman released his book continuing on the work of Heuvelmans in "Strange Highways", also found here at Amazon.com. It was "Strange Highways" open, logical, fresh story's that peeked my interest in this subject.
You couldn't go wrong reading them both.

A textbook approach to globalization, however, much of what is found in the book is based largely on organizational theory. Probably a good all around book for the person without a background in that discipline or area of study.

Loved the book, and it arrived on schedule. I work for a large multinational and this really hit home.

If there are 10 management books you must read, this has to be part of the list. Once in 5 years come books like 'Competing for the Future' and 'The Innovators Dilema' that completely change strategic thought and lay open fresh paths to explore. The Quest for Global Dominance is one such book.

Globalisation is clearly going to be the most important item on the agenda for every corporate for the next decade. Every manager is going to face serious challenges in this front. This book prepares you to prepare for these challenges and win the globalisation game. Too good to be missed.

As Jeffrey Garten explains in the Foreword, this recently published Second Edition offers "not only updates, not only new examples, and not only a more confident analysis. There are three entirely new chapters." Given all that has happened since the first edition (2001), these are indeed welcome additions. Anil Gupta, Vijay Govindarajan, and Haiyan Wang focus on four tasks essential for any company to emerge and stay as the globally dominant player within its industry:

1. "One, people must ensure that their company leads the industry in identifying new marketing opportunities worldwide and in pursuing these opportunities by establishing the necessary presence in all key markets."

2. "Two, people must work relentlessly to convert global presence into global competitive advantage."

3. "Three, people must cultivate a global mindset."

4. "Four, in developing global strategies, people must take full account of the rapid growth of emerging markets, in particular the rise of China and India."

As the co-authors would be the first to acknowledge, it is quite easy to offer prescriptions such as these. Presumably they agree with Thomas Edison: "Vision without execution is hallucination." After briefly but precisely identifying the "what" of "transforming global presence into global competitive advantage," the authors devote the bulk of their attention to explaining the "how." They intended that their book be broad in its coverage of issues relating to the creating and exploiting of global presence, and, that each chapter would focus on a specific action-oriented issue such as building global presence, cultivating a global mindset, or the dynamics of global business teams.

While citing real-world initiatives by several dozen exemplary companies (e.g. Cisco Systems, FedEx, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Ikea, Marriott, Microsoft, Nucor, Procter & Gamble, and Wal-Mart), the authors address key questions, issues, and challenges such as these:

Which five imperatives drive the pursuit of global expansion?
Under which conditions are alliance-based entry modes more appropriate?
Under which conditions is accelerated global expansion more appropriate?
When location decisions are made, which criteria should be considered?
Which four factors drive the speed with which to cultivate a global mindset?
What are the most common barriers to effective and efficient knowledge transmission?
How to maximize knowledge accumulation and mobilization?
What are the primary reasons for the failure of a global business team (GBT)?
How to overcome communication barriers within a global organization?
What are the major benefits to be gained by early globalization?
What is a "two-track strategy" and why should it be executed in both China and India?

Gupta, Govindarajan, and Wang are to be commended on the wealth of information they provide and, especially, on the rigor of their analysis of that information. All three are pragmatists. What has worked for other global companies that have transformed their global presence into global competitive advantage? What lessons can be learned from those initiatives? In this context, I am reminded of what Peter Drucker once observed: "We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop." All of the observations and suggestions that Gupta, Govindarajan, and Wang include throughout their narrative share a single purpose: To guide and inform the process by which correct decisions can be made, decisions that will address what not to do as well as what to do. Although their book is a "must read" for C-level executives in companies that seek to transform their global presence into competitive advantage, I think it should also be read by C-level executives in other (non-global) organizations that are within the supply/value chain of those companies.

I also highly recommend Friedman's aforementioned The World Is Flat 3.0, Victor Fung, William Fung, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind's Competing in a Flat World, C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Kenichi Ohmae's The Next Global Stage, and Operation China co-authored by Jimmy Hexter and Jonathan Woetzel.

If you're looking for a detailed book on globalization that has the qualities, depth, and approach of a college textbook, here it is. The book was written by two professors who met, and discovered a synergy for writing, while they were students at Harvard. They've developed a style that presents their points in a well-organized fashion, with sufficient illustration and documentation to validate the authors' points. The examples they use are well-known companies that have achieved global dominance; now we know how they did it-with plenty of information and understanding between two covers of a modern book.

The book is organized into nine chapters, each strong enough to be a stand-alone publication on its own. We start with Rising Up to the Global Challenge and then move into Building Global Presence. Appetites whetted, we now get a comprehensive case study: Lessons from Wal-Mart's Globalization. Exploiting Global Presence comes next, followed by a chapter on Cultivating a Global Mindset. This is primary theme of the book; it's a mindset that enables dominance.

Chapter 6 gets into some how-to: Building a Global Knowledge Machine, sharing vital information and understanding across national boundaries and cultural divides. The authors then concentrate on the Dynamics of Global Business Teams and Changing the Rules of the Global Game. The final chapter is Globalization in the Digital Age, keeping us right up-to-date and reminding the reader that this topic is real and "present" in today's organizations. A bibliography and two indices follow the footnotes section.

The ordinary lay reader will have trouble with this book. It is an academic work. However, for senior executives, marketing professionals, and students of globalization, this book will be a treasure. Those involved with graduate education in business should not miss this book. It will be valuable reading for self-growing executives engaged in executive MBA programs, giving them solid knowledge and insight to apply in their real world of global growth and dominance.

This is a very neat book that gets you started with broad knowledge
about what you can do with the overwhelming World Wide Web.
If you are curious about what are behind those search engines and
how can these "things" get you stuck in front of
your computer around the clock, this is the book for you.
It not only tells you how these "things" work,
but also calms you a little bit by telling you that
those guys who developed these "things" REALLY tried hard to
get you what you want and in the meantime save you some time :)
The best part is that you don't need to know many theories and
you still get some sense about the devils who drive these engines.
If you are a professional who wants to know where to read about the
"know how", this book could be a good starting point.
It not only gives you a good survey of what is going on,
but also provides you with 286 references that guide you
to what you need to know next.
If you are a graduate student who wants to start a project
on the subject, this book could save you some time.
It takes you only couples of hours to scan through it.
By the end, you would probably know where to dig deeper or
you might get burnt and choose a different subject.
One thing I was wondering was that the authors didn't go further
in many aspects. Some subsections have only four to five sentences.
These could be spaces to extend.

The fields of Data Mining and Information Retrieval are incredibly complex and deep subject areas even when they are divorced from the structure of the world wide web. If the world wide web is viewed as a giant data base, it is without a doubt the most complex data base which has ever existed.

A major problem is getting a grasp on the synthesis of these three fields, DM, IR, and WWW technology. Even current research in DM is distributed among gropus of people with such diverse backgrounds effective communication of research results across groups is extremely difficult.

This book has taken the major concepts from these three fields and organized them in outline form. The outline cuts just deep enough to be meaningful and never too deeply to "lose" the reader. For the serious student, this book provides a Christmas tree on which other books can hang like ornaments.

Obviously, I think very highly of this book. It is not the "be all and the end all", but it fills an important niche. ... Almost limits it to library and other institutional purchases. Which is a shmae because I'm sure every worker in WWWIR&DM would like to have a copy on their shelves.

BTW, the bibliography isn't bad either, and, includes many www URLs, a must for any truly useful bibliography in todays environment. The search engines just aren't good enough yet to give you all the URLs you need. But, then, improving them is part of why there is so much active research in WWWDM&IR.

Feel free to write the author of this review (Dr. John Aiken, PhD)...

This is a very neat book that gets you started with broad knowledge
about what you can do with the overwhelming World Wide Web.
If you are curious about what are behind those search engines and
how can these "things" get you stuck in front of
your computer around the clock, this is the book for you.
It not only tells you how these "things" work,
but also calms you a little bit by telling you that
those guys who developed these "things" REALLY tried hard to
get you what you want and in the meantime save you some time :)
The best part is that you don't need to know many theories and
you still get some sense about the devils who drive these engines.
If you are a professional who wants to know where to read about the
"know how", this book could be a good starting point.
It not only gives you a good survey of what is going on,
but also provides you with 286 references that guide you
to what you need to know next.
If you are a graduate student who wants to start a project
on the subject, this book could save you some time.
It takes you only couples of hours to scan through it.
By the end, you would probably know where to dig deeper or
you might get burnt and choose a different subject.
One thing I was wondering was that the authors didn't go further
in many aspects. Some subsections have only four to five sentences.
These could be spaces to extend.

This is a very neat book that gets you started with broad knowledge
about what you can do with the overwhelming World Wide Web.
If you are curious about what are behind those search engines and
how can these "things" get you stuck in front of
your computer around the clock, this is the book for you.
It not only tells you how these "things" work,
but also calms you a little bit by telling you that
those guys who developed these "things" REALLY tried hard to
get you what you want and in the meantime save you some time :)
The best part is that you don't need to know many theories and
you still get some sense about the devils who drive these engines.
If you are a professional who wants to know where to read about the
"know how", this book could be a good starting point.
It not only gives you a good survey of what is going on,
but also provides you with 286 references that guide you
to what you need to know next.
If you are a graduate student who wants to start a project
on the subject, this book could save you some time.
It takes you only couples of hours to scan through it.
By the end, you would probably know where to dig deeper or
you might get burnt and choose a different subject.
One thing I was wondering was that the authors didn't go further
in many aspects. Some subsections have only four to five sentences.
These could be spaces to extend.

This is a nice introductory book, short and well written. Don't expect any details, it is only an outline. It does a good job of covering terminology, and suggesting additional reading, but it isn't a primary resource itself.

The book is divided into 3 sections. The first is on 'information retrieval' (IR), the second on data mining, and the third describes a 'case study.'

According to the authors, IR is engaged in storage, retrieval, organization and display of unstructured or ambiguous file structures. Research is currently engaged in classifying, filtering, modeling, query design and user interface issues. The key question for IR is 'relevance' assessment. Each topic gets at least a few paragraphs, some a few pages.

The authors differentiate data mining from IR in terms of focus. A data mining project is designed specifically for finding hidden structure (whatever that means), while IR might be characterized as the 'quick and dirty query.' This is a bit confusing, but the emphasis on terminology makes it unimportant. Most of the data mining section is a review of various measures used to determine the existence of associations. This includes some simple formulas. Also, there is a section on webcrawlers and text mining.

Though the book is titled 'mining the www', the largest section is IR, what most would call 'search engines.' Mining itself gets only about 1/4 of the book.

The case study is fairly brief, but outlines a way to structure a simple project.

The book contains a nice bibliography.

I found this book accessible and helpful, though it is "heavy" reading (understandably, given the topic).

To totally understand the Qabalistic significance of the Tarot and their correspondences, this is the book. It compares Thoth, Rider-Wait, Golden Dawn and Marseilles decks. Going through each path on the Qabalah and describing its characteristics makes understanding the cards much easier. I have had this book since it first came out and I still refer to it to this day. If wanting to understand the Thoth deck, this book along with "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot" by Lon Milo Duquette is a must, since they both very accurately explain the Qabalistic significance of the Tarot in very easy to understand terms. Its divinatory explanations are limited however and Wang uses excerpts from the "Golden Dawn" edited by Israel Regardie to cover this. From this part of the book it is a great jumping off point into other books that may supply more info in this area, but for the study of how the Tarot relates to the Qabalah, this book is unsurpassed.

I call this review "Constant Companion Qabalah" because I keep this book always near my desk. As a professional astrologer, VisionCoach and expert Tarot symbolist, I find this book the single most profound reference of its kind. It has been my constant companion since I first read it back in 1989. I have since read it at least three times from cover to cover and I refer to it constantly in the classes I teach. Robert Wang has thoroughly mastered the material. He has access to the secret doctrines of the mystery schools such as The Order of the Golden Dawn. His approach is intellectually and practically balanced with a profound understanding of the spirituality and mystic wisdom of the Qabalah. This is a book that will stay with you at whatever level you meet it and meet you at whatever level you wish to take it to later. Perhaps it goes without saying, but a good working knowledge of astrology and Tarot is a real plus before cracking the spine of this one!

Without a doubt, this is the best book on the Qabalah, bar none. Notice how I spelled Qabalah: this book is from a Western Occult perspective, make no mistake.

Wang explains the Qabalah better than anyone else I've ever read. His language is sometimes a little stiff, but remember this is a very difficult subject. Sometimes words fail the author who attempts to describe such sublime ideas. Wang is able to gently lead one into understanding, like the adept he is.

Now, his Tarot deck leaves a LOT to be desired. I don't recommend that at all. But this book will become your favorite, of that I'm sure. And, it will become the only book you need to understand both the Qabalah, and the Tarot.

Buy this book !!! If this subject interests you, you definitely NEED it.

This book is a masterpiece - it's very informative & researched (which make it contrast sharply with the many - too many - shallow formulative books published nowadays), and gives a wide and deep view of the tarot.

Wang explains the tarot using the Qabala (especially the tree of life) and some astrology, based on the Golden Dawn tradition, giving it a context and underpinning - the tarot is presented not as a collection of pictures, but as the structured tool that has a structure and ordered basis in western occult tradition. To illustrate his explanation, he compares the Tarot of Marseilles, his own Golden Dawn deck, Waite's Rider deck, and Crowley's Thoth deck. The book can be used as a guide for all of those decks, or as the best companion guide to the books that accompany them (e.g. the Pictorial Key to the Tarot or Book of Thoth).

Though the book is not the easiest to read (and needs to be read more than once to be fully digested), the language is concise, the structure of material logical and clear, and is worth every cent of its price and every moment spent reading.

The only complaint I have about this book is the poor binding - the pages are poorly glued at the back which made the pages break into four groups quickly. I wish a plastic binding back was used instead.

The book contains over 40 short stories and 4 early works by Langston Hughes. As a high school student, I have enjoyed each and every work of Hughes and am fond of his writings.

I'm not usually a big fan of short stories but I love these. They are insightful, attention grabbing and always interesting. I got this book as a gift when I was 15 still come back to it frequently years later.

THIS BOOK IS TRULY A MASTERPIECE!I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED LANGSTON HUGHES WHETHER IT WAS HIS POETRY OR HIS SHORT STORIES. HE WAS A VERY INTELLIGIENT MIND(WHAT A BRILLIANT MAN). R.I.P. MY DEAR LANGSTON!

If you want to read some really deep and powerful insights into the human condition, check out "Mary Winowsky" (written when LH was in HIGH SCHOOL!), "The Gun," Fine Accomodations," "One Friday Morning," "The Little Virgin," "The Young Glory of Him." These stories will make you weep and think about the everyday people you pass in the street and wonder about the stories they may have inside of them. This book should be in EVERY literature class!

This book tells more than just what it is to be Black, it says a lot about being human.

Langston Hughes entire body of work is a testament to his love and pride of being a black American. Though he never excluded his common bond of brotherhood with other people of non-African decent, black Americans occupied first place in his affections and concerns. He never turned his back to them to win the approbation of a larger audience by catering to stereotypes. He had a profound dislike for blacks ashamed of being black,ashamed or who denied their African heritage, ashamed of their skin, and who catered to the worst prejudices of the larger audience in any medium for profit and fame or just to be liked and accepted--like a worrisome number today.

Like his poetry, Hughes short stories reflected much of his philosophy about being proudly black and the shared commonality of all people. Here in LANGSTON HUGHES: SHORT STORIES, edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper with and introduction by Arnold Rampersad, is the proof. Many of the stories presented here are those that have been out of print for some time ,or, are being printed for the first time since they were created. Much like the COLLECTED POEMS by Rampersad, an effort has been made to put the stories in chronological order by the date they were written or published. In all the stories represent a brief overview of specific short stories, not "all" Hughes short stories, and are different in tone and universal in some topics while still embracing black identity. My favorites are "Blessed Assurance" (protesting homophobia in the black community and black church in Hughes's own understandably gay closeted way) and those inspired by his early sea travels. The appendix of this book contains those stories written when Hughes was still in high school.

Like much of Hughes body of work, what he produced is still relevant today in one way or another as in the day he first put pen to paper or struck the keys of a typewriter to entertain and make a statement.

There are no words adequate to convey the effect THE STONES CRY OUT had on me when I read it in 1986. It haunted me for years. I wanted everyone I knew to read it.

Just several years ago I met a woman whose entire family - her husband and all her children - died under the Khmer Rouge monsters.

Amazingly, after the stories Miss Szymusiak recounts: of the young girl who was killed for being too pretty, of those murdered for daring to exhibit signs of affection for one another, and of unspeakable tortures inflicted upon absolutely helpless and innocent people of all ages, the chapter which really drained my blood was the one detailing her witnessing the beginning of the purge. The author notes the young Communist cadres being themselves called in for interrogation and torture and disappearing one by one.

This is a chilling account of the darkest period in 20th Century history.

One of the earliest (1986) accounts from the survivors of the Pol Pot regime, "The Stones Cry Out" seems to have set the style and standard for another more recent child's-eye perspective on the same era, "When Broken Glass Floats". The minute details of everyday life, not abstract poltical assessments, form the basis for our childhood memories. The author's account carries an unvarnished realism which draws the reader into her film-like image of daily life under threat of starvation and execution. This is probably as close as a reader can come to the truth of events in Cambodia during 1975-79. Oral histories such as "The Stones Cry Out" are perhaps the best way for survivors of human rights abuses to indict the perpetrators. Sadly, tribunals driven by international politics are unlikely to have the same impact as the simple testimony of a victimized child. Highly recommended reading for all those with an interest in human rights, Cambodia, and Southeast Asian culture.

You need a strong stomach to read the grueling ordeal of a 12 year old girl in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime.
The latter and his cronies turned a whole country into a concentration camp guided by the iron fist of a centrally planned economy which was based on rice production quotas.
Starvation and killing of whole families including babies were part of normal daily life. The author herself lost nearly all her family.
The slogan was 'be deaf and dump if you want to survive'.

Exceptionally, this book also relates the disturbing facts which happened in a Red Khmer camp in Thailand until one year after Pol Pot's defeat by the Vietnamese.

Molyda Szymusiak tells only the facts. She doesn't explain the overall picture of Pol Pot's regime, politically, socially, economically or internationally.
Therefore I highly recommend the eminent works of David Chandler as well as Philip Short's magisterial biography of Pol Pot (Saloth Sar).

This book shows painfully the disastrous consequences of a power grasp by ideological fanatics who created a one party state bureaucracy which wielded total uncontrolled power over the population.
This regime was a terrible shame for the left.

A very disturbing read.

My heart sank lower and lower with each successive chapter. This is certainly not a book one can read while couching comfortably on a sofa. If you are familiar with Cambodian history of the Khmer Rouge regime, this book is indeed a chilling read. But at the same time, one can't help feeling admiration for the author's fortitide in the face of unimaginable hardship and horror.

Actualy I would rate this 4 and 1/2 stars.

Having read "First they killed my father" by Loung Ung It would be difficult for me to review this book with out comparing it to Loung Ung's memoir.

Both are essentially the same story, a young upper middle class girl living in Phnom Phen in april of 1975 when thier life, family and happiness are torn from them by the khmer rouge.

Many of thier experinces are similar as you might expect (long hours in forced labor, family deaths, witnessing murder ect..) but each has a unique story of thier own.

The writing styles also vary greatly and this is where Loung's "First they killed my Father is the better" book. Molyda tells her story in a very straight foward manner. Her discriptions of murder, torture and rotting corpses are alomost clinical in tone as if she is afaid to visit or express her real feelings at the time (and who could realy blame her) we are giving only hints about her family and life before April 17th 1975 (to be fair this may be in part to spare distant family members still in Cambodia from retalation)

In Loung's book however we are treated to two light hearted chapters discribing her life in Phnom Pehn before April 17th 1975 this gives the reader a chance to feel they realy know her, her brother's, sisters and parents thier strengths and weakness'.

Loung's memoir is far more emotional in tone and feeling leaving the reader almost gasping for air at points.

For those overly squimish that makes "The Stones Cry Out" the better of the two books. It is also the better of the two books if your sole interest is the surrounding history of the killing fields.

But for those just wishing to read a great emotional book "first They killed My father" is the better choice but I would highly recomend both to all.

I have only just caught up with this book 14 years after it was published. Kisor is very good on how he managed a life as a deaf person who operates orally in a hearing world, and manages to be quite tactful in dealing with the subject of the Deaf -- people who use sign language. He is perhaps more tactful than he really should be in discussing the ignorance of a lot of educators of the severely hearing-impaired and the rather patronizing "poor-you" attitude they often take.

I can say this because I have only a little more hearing than Kisor -- and for the same reason, meningitis at the age of 3. I am ten years older than he but remember well some of the stages he describes so accurately and honestly. Like him, I was lucky in my early teachers and in being kept away from schools for the deaf.

It does need to be said that cognitive psychologists and students of child language have learned a great deal about child language development since Kisor and I were children and even since his book was published in 1991. Their progress dates from Noam Chomsky's destruction of behaviorist notions of language almost 50 years ago. I hope very much that things have changed significantly in the education of the deaf and severely hearing-impaired.

With luck, students will recognize that Kisor is describing a bygone era. But it is an era that was and is still well worth describing.

I read this book for an ASL class in college and wow. This book is great. An amazing autobiography written by a deaf man, Henry Kisor who has managed to exist in a hearing world as a deaf man strictly by lip reading. He has been a journalist and this is amazing to me. A wonderful story written in the point of view of a deaf man and his lifelong journey to success and living in the hearing world. Reading this book has made me take a look at my life and made me feel as if I could do anything.

I read this book back in 93 when I had just lost my hearing. I was 14 and dealing with suddenly becoming deaf. Most books about Deafness are written by physicians, or parents of the deaf, or children of the deaf, and not by the deaf themselves. Kisor's stories about lipreading and growing up and just being Deaf were wonderful for me to read. It gave me hope... if he is totally Deaf and can accomplish that much, then I, with a little bit of hearing left, certainly should be able to. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone deaf who is oral, anyone late deaffened, or anyone just interested in reading about the trials and joys of a hearing loss.

What should our attitude be towards the deaf? Kisor gives us good insight with his memoir which is beautifully, sensitively and humorouly written. Some would term him an outcast to both the deaf culture and the hearing culture, since he lipreads and doesn't sign. Can't possibly be happy because he can't fully participate in hearing world, he's missing so much. But Kisor disagrees.

He achieved more than most hearing, having accumulated great English language skills. He demonstrates with the rare book written about deafness from a deaf author. His title is fascinating, since it is from story regarding his five-year old son and the nuances lipreading has trouble discerning.

Yes, improvements have happened and will continue with behavioral psychology and deafness, but here the spirit of the human inside is spoken of, something that no program can really guarantee success, but determination, help and support will aid.

This marvelous memoir contributes much to this cause. It is a most wonderful read for all interested in what a deaf person in a hearing world might be going through, especially the emotional strains deafness brings with it. Much to be gleaned here.

I read this book back in 93 when I had just lost my hearing. I was 14 and dealing with suddenly becoming deaf. Most books about Deafness are written by physicians, or parents of the deaf, or children of the deaf, and not by the deaf themselves. Kisor's stories about lipreading and growing up and just being Deaf were wonderful for me to read. It gave me hope... if he is totally Deaf and can accomplish that much, then I, with a little bit of hearing left, certainly should be able to. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone deaf who is oral, anyone late deaffened, or anyone just interested in reading about the trials and joys of a hearing loss.