Billings Books

I had a different take on this than previous reviewers. I am currently reading older Carla Kelly novels as I came to this author late. This novel is the happiest Kelly novel I've read so far, with nice people and no real villains. I liked the hero, and felt he was giving Kate Billings a chance to gain self confidence, to learn that she was a capable and competent woman who didn't need him to rescue her, just as her experience with the Bladesworth troupe of actors allowed her to shed some of her own prejudices about class. Miss Billings Treads the Boards is a fun read, well worth tracking down.

I have mixed feelings about any Carla Kelly book that I do not quite like. While the heroine Miss Katherine Billings and her predicament are delightfully and sympathetically portrayed, and the acting troupe and family that Miss Billings falls in with are believable and all-too-human secondary characters, the hero a Marquess is a real disappointment.

Warning - spoilers ahead.

The problem I have with this book is that the hero acts selfishly throughout the book, and justifies his actions late into the story by claiming that he wants to test her mettle before marrying her. At that point, I could have slapped him cheerfully, and wished that Katherine Billings had up-ended him (again) for another suitor. Alas, unlike in LIBBY'S LONDON MERCHANT there was no other suitor in the offing, not for Miss Billings anyway.

The book starts out with a bored and overweight Marquess escaping town to avoid criticism by his sister and others (including his valet who irritates him, and me as the reader). Ah yes, the Marquess also has his sister's son as the heir [note to author: Dear Miss Kelly, this rather spoils your plot, even worse than in MISS MILTON SPEAKS HER MIND]. Since his journey up North and the exact route he takes is supposedly a secret, it is a shock to him (and to me) when he is attacked by pretend-highwaymen who are in reality his disinherited sister's son (aforesaid nephew who is heir to the Marquessate and the fortune) and his dismissed valet. Now you would think that the reasons for this attack are quite reasonable, wouldn't you? But no, the nephew and the valet want the Marquess to be grateful to them and by staging a mock-attack, they hope to win back his favor. Duh! And they leave said Marquess bleeding to death (or nearly so) in a country lane, while they get hopelessly lost looking for a doctor.

The Marquess then staggers into a barn, where it turns out that the lady he is looking for, Miss Katherine Billings has been pressed into service with an acting troupe. [To cut a long story short, she got off at the wrong stop and mistook the waiting carriage for that of her lecherous would-be employer; the actor waiting at that stop mistook her for an actress. She prefers to remain with the troupe temporarily rather than go to her employers, since she has been warned on the stagecoach trip that the husband is a notorious lecher. Miss Billings, you see, is penniless and homeless]. I won't tell you why the Marquess would be looking for Miss Billings, but that is clear from the first chapter.

Ah well. The Marquess's identity is revealed to the troupe, although he will go by the name of Hal Hampton. He pretends to be in fear of his life, from his villainous nephew and ex-valet; they undertake to care for him and to restore him to health, and carry him off up North. In the meantime, a hue-and-cry has been raised for the missing Marquess. The Marquess, now Hal Hampton, is pretending to be the husband of Miss Billings (now temporarily Miss Hampton) and having a fine time getting into shape with the troupe. Enter a Bow Street Runner, who is not deceived by the act, and whose purposes are uncertain to the troupe. Has he been employed by the Marquess's solicitors and the estate trustees? Or has he been employed by the Marquess's would-be killers? They take no chances and protect Hal Hampton from discovery, even when offered a magnificent reward.

The theatrical scenes are well-done, showing the progress of a small-time troupe with genuine talent through the North and their disastrous ending in town. Until they are saved by their own hard work, coupled with Miss Billings's own decision to help out. [How? Read the book]. Everything, or almost everything, ends happily for the actors, with the arrival of two great Regency names - Kemble and Kean.

But I digress from the love story, such as it is, between Hal Hampton (aka Henry Tewkesbury-Hampton, Marquess of Everdon) and his mock-wife Miss Katherine Billings. Is it really love when the hero acts selfishly almost through the entire novel? It is true that he helps out nobly with the troupe in staging their brilliant production, but he does so because it will be "fun" (and incidentally, help him get into shape). Not because he really wants to help out. His argument at the end of the book is that he wanted to see the troupe and Miss Billings win their way out of disaster through their own efforts. Not bad - except that his own example has hardly been one to inspire anyone.

My summary at the end of the book was that this story had a great heroine, a memorable set of secondary characters (with two romances among troup members thrown in) - and an unlikeable hero with some appalling friends and relatives. Even the valet comes across as rather more decent. The plot lines involving the Marquess's disappearance from society and his attackers make little or no sense. It might make more sense to someone less critical than me.

Rating = 3.7 [upgraded to a 4]
P.S. This is so far the lowest rating I have assigned to any Kelly book.

The review below from bookjunkies encapsulates the very mixed feelings I have about this book. It's very readable, and I enjoyed it while I was reading; I liked Kate Billings and the troupe of actors very much. Hal Hampton, aka the Marquess of Graydon (not Everdon) was in some respects amusing, and even solicitous. But I am in complete agreement with the other reviewer: his reason for not helping Kate and the troupe out of their mess was not at all convincing. It seemed like a very convenient plot device for dragging out the story, and no more than that. I'm not at all surprised that Kate gave Hal a black eye when she discovered that he'd lied about the threat to his life!

Other aspects of the plot, such as the marriage certificate, were extremely predictable; it was simply a matter of counting the pages until they happened.

All in all, if you want to read a *really* good Carla Kelly, find Reforming Lord Ragsdale or Mrs Drew Plays Her Hand!

Michie is one of the few educators out there that consistently crafts his writing with such care, compassion, and insight. I really enjoyed reading this book. I think that as teachers we need to read our narratives and see them in a practical public forum, like Michie provides, instead of just an academic policy chart. Michie's writing is consistently reflectively and engaging. I highly recommend this book to anyone in the teaching profession, or the academic world.

I have been blessed with the privilege of taking a class/workshop with Michie and am just as invigorated by this book as his class. This book profiles the experiences, both good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate of teachers in urban schools. From the beginning, Michie acknowledges and addresses criticisms of his previous writings as well as discusses his intellectual struggle with the fact the he is/was a middle-class white man teaching poor, urban children of color. He also recognizes that this book is written from his perspective and therefore is filtered through his eyes rather than the teachers (though he tried to free it from his personal reflection as much as possible and just "show" these teachers in real world situations). His goal is not to profile five "good" or "star" teachers, just five real teachers struggling to teach for change, struggling to help their students change their lives and worlds.
This book showed me that even "good" teachers (I think they're all good teachers in this book, but that's just me) screw up. Even good teachers have bad days. All urban teachers, particularly new teachers, especially ones who teach against the status-quo and push their students to think critically about everything they read about and learn about, sometimes fall. But they have moments of triumph as well. They have moments where students go above and beyond expectations, and moments where they see just how much these "ghetto" or "low-achieving" students know about their world.
This book gave me hope and ignited a new fire in me. I hope it inspires you just as much.

This is the dumbest book I have ever had rammed down my throat. This book claimes to be advocating change to public, high-needs schools but all it really shows is the class envy of a bunch of mindless liberals. The problem with people like Michie is they have been away from the real classroom for too long. They get too involved in there higher education indoctrination that they forget what it is like to be a real public school teacher. Michie, like others who indoc higher ed., live in a dream world and they think their "progressive ideas" are going to improve public education when in fact all it does is put our children in deeper trouble. My warning to you is if you have to read this book keep in mind that there is a bias against anything with common sense. Just as important, "progressive ideas" will only make our children "feel good" and will never improve the quality of their education. Maybe Michie's next book will be "We lied to you. How liberal teacher education programs are out of touch and a waste of time."

This is an excellent resource for expert witnesses and those that use their services. If you are not in one of those two groups, it may not be useful to you. If you are in those groups, the detailed information is well worth the cost. In fact, if you put just a few of the ideas into action, it may save you many, many times the cost of the book. It is no wonder that so many copies of this niche book have been sold.

This book was not exactly what I expected. I expected more narrative and less statistical reporting. I wanted detailed written input as to procedures already in practice by experts , and also how to identify pricing schedules and contracting policies that will work for you. I did not gleen very much from this book.

I think this is a wonderful book, and I'm very happy with my purchase. It's nice to have something that is just plain and simple. This is what happens. This is what you do. A much more simple approach than the textbooks given in nursing school.

i think in there attemps to make difficult concept simple they blew it. Go for a nursing secret book instead if you want a book to simply things

Received quickley, in excellent condition. The book is an excellent read, even for Democrats.

This was a gift for my father. I've never read it, and even though I'm a conservative myself, Hannity is just a little too "humble" and "cream puffish" for my taste.

However, my father loved the book, and would recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about liberalism/socialism and how its affecting this great nation.

Sean takes his talking points a bit further in this compelling book. Great read! I can recommend!

I like this book because it was a channel to meet Hannity, one of my favority conservative representatives.

It is very touching how he describes 9/11 and the effects on him.

Very easy to read and full of beautiful surprises.

Hannity is a disgrace to the true conservative movement and stands as a monument to everything that has gone wrong in this country during the past 15 years. His book is filled with as many distortions as his TV show. If it was up to Hannity, Rush and Ann, we would have a one-party system with a judiciary and congress set up to act as nothing but shills for our elected king.

I am an avid reader and I just loved this book - it was hard to put it down in order to work all day. I found myself daydreaming about the characters during the day- they seemed so real to me. It bothers me that so many are describing the characters as unlikable - Yes maybe Omar is but the rest seemed so real to life and I felt empathy toward all of them and their struggles. Growing up as the daughter of an alcoholic father and single mother myself the book just resonated so deeply. I appreciated the authors showing these characters flaws and all, as opposed to these glamorized portraits we get in todays politically correct world. I am sure I will be thinking of these characters for a long time to come.

Songs in Ordinary TimeI read this book several year ago, and I loved every page. Even the first 200 pages, which set everything up. I was very shocked by the people I know who said they did not like the book, and found it disturbing and depressing. Get a grip, its just a book. An excellent, well written, and very life-like story. The book is unique in that it communicates the complexities of social life in a small town. I'd give it 10 stars if I could. Don't miss out on this book.

I enjoyed the way this book was written. It was very descriptive, especially of the characters; they all just "came alive" to me. It was easy for me to get caught up in their intertwined stories, and I kept wanting to know what was going to happen next. I found it to be a difficult book to put down. I think the underlying message was that people will do what they have to, to keep going, to keep surviving, in spite of their circumstances and even if what they are doing is hurting themselves and others. I'm looking forward to reading more of this author's books.

Life isn't alway easy and there are probably lots more people struggling through it than there are those who are sailing smoothly from day to day. Mary McGarry Morris's books are about struggling through life. Some of her stories are about struggles more difficult than one could imagine, but Songs in Ordinary Time had such a ring of truth for the time and place that I could not put it down. Her prose is easy to read; smooth and well written. The story has a good plot, is believable and, holds your attention. I've always found Morris's books a good read. Songs in Ordinary Time was my first read of Morris's books and I keep looking for more.

"Songs in Ordinary Time" is a book that I got that was one of those titles that sounds familiar, and yet I had no idea what the story was about. I am happy to report that this wonderful novel is not merely good storytelling, but an exploration of the deeper subjects, namely, the lies we tell: to each other, within our family, and saddest of all, to ourselves.

This moving story chronicles the lives of the Fermoyle family, down on their luck, and trying to gain some happiness in the world. The story's setting is a Catholic community in Vermont in the 1960s. All of the characters in the town, from popcorn seller to priest, have flawed lives to lead, and anyone reading the book will be astonished at the brutally frank light that is cast on one and all. I have never encountered a book like this, in which no character is exempt from the frailty of human mistakes, which are chronicled at every turn.

The main action centers around a drifter/con man (Omar Duvall) who comes into Marie Fermoyle's life. Marie so desperately wants to find happiness (and someone to help ease some of the many burdens placed on this single mother's shoulders) that she begins to open the door for him to take advantage of not only her family, but the community as a whole. Although the family knows Duvall is not all that he purports, they want their mother to enjoy life, even if only for a brief moment. The youngest son is the most heavily burdened for he knows a dark secret, yet is torn by the love for his mother and desire to make her happy.

The themes that run throughout this book--loneliness, financial struggle, and the lies that we tell to ease our burdens--are at the core of daily life for many, and Morris has done a beautifully heartbreaking job of using them to tell one family's story. This is an astonishing book that will keep you turning the pages to see if everything can be set aright again.

Just a waste of time, Telecommunications Billing Systems by

Jane M. Hunter and Maud Thiebaud is much better and organized. My review is as poor as the content of this book.

This is a book that can be dedicated for 1st year students to explain briefly telecommunications history and how the idea of tariffs developed.
As for I expected - the meat, some new knowledge (I am a little bit in telco billing) I am completly disappointed. Info outdated, very limited amount. For very,very beginners but even for them I would recommend something different.
The book also uses poor tricks to appear thicker: each text row is separated with another empty row from next. So the pages appear like poetry rather than technical book.
Anyway: AVOID! Waste of money

I find it difficult to recommend this book to anyone, except maybe someone who's looking for a broad, though fairly shallow, overview of telecom (and even then I don't think I'd recommend it). If you've been involved with telecom for any length of time (even just a few months) in an area involving billing, it's unlikely you'll obtain any new information of use. Although the title indicates a focus on billing, the billing aspects are only about half (guesstimate) of the discussion...and there's not much detail. The grammatical errors (spelling, punctuation, phrasing, etc) that other reviewers have mentioned are problematic. It doesn't even appear that a simple check in a word processing program was used prior to publishing. It's more like a term paper (and not an 'A' paper at that) than a well-researched, well-organized, well-written book. I haven't found a fully satisfying source for telecom billing (particularly covering wireless and converged services in detail) yet, but this book is no where close. I would suggest Telecommunications Billing Systems as a better source if you're really looking for background on billing...but even that one could have been better.

You are buying 95% bound paper and 5% content. The otherwise brief material was printed double spaced (to make it appear that the material is long and thick enough to justify its price)with the title of the book appearing on each page of the book, again solely to take up more space, and to top it all, it lacks substance and is a poorly, if not a totally unedited material. TOTALLY DISAPPOINTING

The book was not as detailed as I thought it would be from the description. It covers very basic billing information. As well some of the information is not up to date. For someone just getting into telecomm billing, not bad..I was also surprised at the lack of editing, many typos, misspelling of words, etc.

This is an excellent book for all the executive search consultants to read. The times have changed and technology is far better now but the fundamentals remain the same.

Billing Power is easy to understand and states facts which occur in any kind of Recruitng Industry. The author does not give any unique solutions to the problems faced by the Recruiters but simple solutions which we are all aware of.

It is a must read book by all the people in Recruiting Business.

This book is merely a collection of antecdotes throughout his recruiting career. In true Bill Radin style it's like a stream of consciousness about recruiting, with no central theme or direction to the writing. ...

This is a good resource if you want to do recruiting for the Medical Device R&D fields for example in recruiting Biomedical Scientists, Medical Device Engineers, Clinical Nurses and Marketing VPs for companies that do cutting edge product development and testing. The techniques may be useful in many other fields as well but this is my experience. If you are new to recruiting this is essential reading. Easy to read, it will help you launch your career or decide if recruiting really is the right field for you. Worth the money.

i can save you the time and effort of reading this book. the main theme is to never discount your fees. that's about it. quick to read and kind of helpful but not the best book out there on recruiting.

I have worked with collections for 15 years.
After reading this book I have a complete understanding of the billing proccess from start to finsh. Also very good information on how the doctor's office's work. In clear english. Thank you for the resorce.

This book was disappointing for a college level reference. Perhaps better as a basic introduction, but not demystifying as promised.

I'll admit I was turned off in the first few pages of the book with a section that characterized medical insurance as a "game" and all-but accused medical insurers of deliberately delaying claims payment in order to make money, using an example that doesn't make any fiscal sense anyway.

Clearly, the authors have the "insurance is big business screwing the little people" agenda. Thus this book is not useful to anyone actually looking for a balanced or in-depth view of the medical reimbursement industry.

But for someone who's looking for a general introduction to medical office practice as seen from the eyes of the "little man" doctor, this is not a bad first choice. The roles of the various players in the office are correctly explained except for the frequent incorrect use of "medical insurance specialist." Clearly, the book is intended to build up those who feel that billing clerks are at the bottom of the office pecking order -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing either.

Anyone who thinks, however, that the book's little coding exam is actually all there is to coding is badly mistaken. The book also has a considerable paucity of information for those wanting to take the next steps.

I can't recommend it.

I have to agree with other reviewers who said this book was poorly edited. How this work could get past the proofreaders is beyond me! Perhaps they were in a hurry to get it published....That said, I did find this book very useful as I am considering a career in this area and really knew very little about what I'd be getting myself into. If you know a lot about the field already but want some detailed instruction on how to do coding, this book is NOT for you. After reading it, I have only a general idea of how it's done but couldn't code the common cold to save my life! However, if you're wondering what a medical biller and coder does, why this type of work is essential, and how the biller/coder fits into the big picture with insurance companies, healthcare providers, and patients, then I'd recommend this book. Even with my frustrations with all the errors, I still do not regret purchasing this book.

"Medical Billing and Coding Demystified" provides a very high-level introduction to the namesake industry. I was disappointed that the first 80 pages of the book provide no information about billing nor coding, opting rather to provide a background of the entire healthcare industry that, as a whole, is only useful to the reader if he/she has never been to a doctor in the United States. Given that the book has fewer than 200 pages of informative text, I argue that the book is fundamentally mis-titled.

The book is also poorly edited, missing various commas and hyphens that would enhance readability, not to mention the authors' collective credibility. In one instance, the word "loose" is used where the word "lose" is the intention. These types of errors may seem trivial, but I prefer that my professional refrences be more polished than this one appears to be.

Heresay, legend, rumor, unsubstantiated facts and technical inaccuracies are sloppily interwoven around the story of an expedition to find a Japanese submarine with two tons of gold aboard that was sunk in the Atlantic during World War Two.

Was part of the submarine's mission to exchange the gold for nuclear material that could be used to produce 'dirty' bomb? Was the surrender and capture - at the war's end - of the U-234 another attempt to do just that?

It's hard to say and the author provides absolutely no documentation to support a word of his theory. It makes books like 'The Brotherhood of the Bell,' 'The Hunt for Zero Point' and 'Japan's Secret War: Japan's Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb' read like scholarly tomes.

The narrative of this book is all over the place. Marine salvage, breaking codes, Japanese military attaches in Nazi Germany, submarines carrying vital strategic cargo, but the book has a very disjointed feel. The author can't put all of these topics together in a coherent story. The book is supposed to be how sinking 1 particular Japanese submarine kept the Japanese from building a dirty bomb, but in the first 125 pages, I couldn't even find that phrase mentioned.
I think the editor is more to blame here than the author.

This is a story of many facets: there's sunken treasure (two tons of gold), there's broken secret codes, there's radioactive uranium, there's politicians and it's World War II.

Specifically this is the story of the Japanese submarine I-52 carrying gold and other commodities to Germany and expecting to return with three tons of uranium. Because of the breaking of the Germand and the Japanese codes the Allies were fully informed of what was happening. The I-52 was sunk.

Beyond this there are other stories involved in this book.

1. There is a pretty good summary of what was happening in the German and Japanese Atomic programs.

2. There is some discussion about the development of a radiological 'dirty' bomb that Japan might use on the United States.

3. There is some speculation about Japan trying to surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped.

4. And there is the story of trying to get the two tons of gold from the I-52.

All in all, a lot of material for one book, but it is well handled and lively reading.

The premise of this book is total nonsense. You can't make a "dirty bomb" out of uranium oxide without first making a nuclear reactor -- and the Japanese never came close to succeeding at that. Even the Germans, who were far ahead of the Japanese in nuclear research during World War II, never managed to build a working reactor. In fact it is pretty clear that the uranium oxide that the Germans were shipping to Japan late in the war wasn't for nuclear purposes at all, but was for use as a catalyst in the production of synthetic fuels. People see the word "uranium" and they immediately think "atomic bombs," but this uranium was meant to be used for its chemical, not its nuclear, properties. Billings and his publisher should be ashamed of themselves not just for putting out such a shoddy book, but for promoting it with such baseless claims. The story of the I-52 is of some interest in itself, as is that of the U-234, but neither really had anything to do with "dirty bombs" or nuclear weapons of any kind.

"How the sinking of a single Japanese submarine assured the outcome of World War II" is the subtitle. Ok, let's assume I-52 was on its way to France to exchange gold for German-made ingredients for a dirty bomb to be used against America's West Coast. It was sunk before ever making the exchange. Had it not been sunk, it would have had to make it all the way back to Japan, the dirty bomb would have had to be constructed, and then another series of subs would have had to take the bomb across the Pacific. To my mind, I-52's sinking was way too early in the process to have been a critical event in the war. Now, if the dirty bomb had been built, and was almost to the U.S. on a Japanese sub that was then sunk, THAT would have been critical.

This book is pretty thin in terms of evidence. There are a lot of diplomatic messages quoted, and there is little doubt that gold was to be traded for radiological materials. But there is no evidence presented that gives one any confidence that there really was a Japanese plan to build and deploy a dirty bomb.

Overall, interesting in that it presented an event I had never heard of, but it delivers far less than it promises