York College Books

I am a special educator, and I frequently give this book to parents who want their children enrolled in schools for special needs children. It is a very valuable resource to, both, parents and educators.

As a parent of a child with special needs I found this book invaluable for the information about the schools and the chidren that they serve. Also important were the tips on managing the very complicated application process and the dos and don'ts for the tours. the authors have made a difficult and stressful process a little easier for the parents (and children) who have to go through it. Bravo!!
I hope this can be expanded and revised at least every other year to include new programs (and ones previously not included) as they arise.

If you're navigating the maze of special education in New York, you need this book as a guide. It's a superb resource & we found an appropriate school for our child, thanks to this book.

As a psychologist in NYC, I've been involved in the special education world of NYC for many years. It is important for accurate information to be readily available to parents and professionals. However, sadly, this book does not deliver. The descriptions in the book of the private special ed. schools in NYC are full of inaccurate information (including what ages the schools take and what diagnoses), which may put parents off some programs and have them pursuing others that are not apprpriate for their children. Additionally, there are recommendations the authors make to parents, such as suggesting that parents withhold certain information about their children from schools they are applying to, which could be potentially damaging to the child ultimately. It is important for parents to be open and forthcoming about who their children are, in order for schools and therapists to determine if they are a good match to work effectively with the child. I've seen many cases in which parents withheld information about their child which may have allowed their child to be accepted to a program initially, only to have that program ultimately ask the child to leave. It is damaging for children to be put into programs they are not ready for and then to be switched from one program to another.

Lastly, a little comment about a parent's review who said he/she now finally understood the difference between psycho-educational and neuropsychological evaluations because of this book - the description in the book about the difference between a psycho-educational and a neuropsychological evaluation is not accurate either. Many professionals and schools actually use these terms inter-changeably, so I would recommend asking the individual professional what exactly their evaluation entails.

Parents are a vulnerable group who understandably will seek out as much information as possible in order to help their children. When inaccurate and incomplete information is published as fact, this is horribly mis-leading and ultimately not helpful to a group of parents and children with real needs. It is really a shame that the editors/publishers of this book were not more careful in examining the accuracy of the material in it.

As a professional in the field of early childhood special education in NYC I can vouch for the need for what this book promises. Unfortunately for those of us that know the field and NYC it does not deliver. It is full of inaccurate and misleading information from beginning to end. The fact that some parents are raving about it says more to me about the confusing red tape parents have to go through rather than the helpfulness and clarity of this book.
To parents who want some help- Resources for Children with Special Needs and each boroughs Early Childhood Direction Center offer *excellent* free guidance. (And I am not affiliated w/ either though I am grateful for the real wisdom their employees tirelessly offer to parents *and* professionals.)

Before becoming apart of an organization one must have a real view of themselves in order to accept the POSITIVE (there is negative) change that some of these organizations have to offer. I appreciate this book because it gave me the basis to converse about change and being better role models. We come from different backgrounds and to be able to mesh personalities for the greater good of the community is a wonderful thing. Although I disagree with physical hazing to the extent of pain one should be educated on the benefits of physical wellness (one could do push ups and be a leader of a group which in turn may give him/her the tools necessary to being a leader in their community. Nevertheless, it was a nice book.

My son loaned the book to several friends and they all commented on how well the information about Black Fraternities was presented... timeless. Makes me proud of the jouney that we are on and the accomplishments made.

This book is more than just stories about violence through fraternity hazing, it's also an insightful look at the history of Black America and how these organizations played an important role. I recommend this book to all those that are interested in the history of Black culture and its progression from post disenfranchisement to today.

This book is a blunt account of how black fraternities and the evoloution of the pledge process snce they were founded in the early 20th century. I reccomend this book to all greek aspirants as well as current black frat members. It will open your eyes to the process and insight on how to solve the problem.

I am such a big fan of the movie "Stomp the Yard," but when asking Greeks about the movie, there was an immediate lash at how the movie was not accurate as to how Greek life really is. I was told that people who were Greeks or who knew anything about Greek life would understand how "stupid" the movie was, so I got curious. In undergrad, I thought about pledging into one particular sorority, but after seeing only ONE Kappa member cross at my school (when there were initially at least 30) and a neophyte having his crutches snatched away from him and Omega members demanding that he hop before he crossed, I quickly changed my mind. I firmly believe in the logo "Slap me and I'll slap you back" and there was absolutely no way I was just going to let someone beat the hell out of me to join their organization. But after speaking with a very dear relative of mine about joining a sorority, I tried to understand the good parts about Greek life. Sadly, the more she told me, the more I concluded that it was not for me. And then I found this book while searching online for material to change my mind about pledging in the graduate chapter.

There is not a doubt in my mind that I absolutely will never pledge now. The horror stories in the Appendix were so utterly evil to the point where I was begging this book to fiction. But as I know from watching the few experiences at my own alma mater and seeing Greeks go offline so many times, I'm sure they aren't. I'd spoken with Greeks BEFORE I read this book, so much of what the author left out, I knew and REALLY wanted him to reveal, but being a Greek, I knew he wouldn't.

Pros: The author was brave to even write this book, considering he is a Kappa. I thought he should be commended for that, specifically the anecdote about the pledge whose butt was split. Jones takes on an analytical look at the process of pledging; tries to come to some conclusion as to why pledging has increased and become more brutal; why black men feel like they have to have a right of passage through gangs, violence, Greeks, the military, African tradition, etc; and discuss some of the history of hierarchy within these organizations. The author gave readers a more detailed view of why pledging and hazing have become intertwined and why it is so difficult to get other Greeks to stop. I was satisfied that he did point out that a lot of these crazy traditions come from those of the military, and from the family member I spoke with who also agreed on that, it was good to know that he did understand the history of how it is being passed down. Overall, it was very well-written and definitely interesting throughout.

Cons: Jones has a habit of repeating the same points over and over again. He repeatedly made comments about the rights of passage and how Greeks didn't feel "paper" members were real. I went through a couple chapters like "Didn't I read this already?" I wanted him to bring up new points but he seemed to rely on those few that he felt strongly about. If I were a high authority member of the Greeks, after reading this book, I still wouldn't really know how to make hazing stop but keep the pledging tightknit so it wouldn't be just hit-happy folks having the time of their lives during the pledging process. He does make a statement about "paper" members becoming high ranking members, but obviously from the gist of this book, the Greeks do not respect them, so it seems all but impossible for a "paper" member to reach the top. Blaming the lack of punishment on predominantly white universities still does not excuse the black authority members who KNOW things are going on. To say that the white universities need to come down harder says nothing to the BLACK people who are letting it go on. I was looking for a way for the author to explain how potential pledge members could respect an organization without any physical contact, but it seems that the author is a little confused about that as well.

Final thoughts: I'm SO glad I never pledged. This book along with my own unofficial interviews tells me it's just not worth it. I have a blood brother, and he never had to beat me up to make me feel like I love him dearly and would protect him from any harm. Comraderie and trust are much more powerful than a paddle or a skillet to the face.

In his earliest works, Roth shows many of the same qualities and themes that made him a successful writer. In "The Professor of Desire", David Kepesh is a gifted young man who hits all the bumps in the road of life. While much of the focus is on Kepesh's love life, his professional and family life are entangled with his love life. At his choice, his romantic relationship become the focus.

Finding love is never easy. As is the case David's first love Helen, early instincts of love are often misguided. Fragmented by the failure of his first marriage, David then finds Claire. With his emotions no longer distracting from his professional life, David is able to be honest with himself. He tracks the life of Kafka in Eastern Europe, meeting the former [mistress] of Kafka which helps to place his own love life in perspective, only to have it confused by a returning Helen. There would seem no better way than to put one's personal crisis aside than to compare it to the great human tragedy of the Holocaust. It is not until the final pages that Roth's literary device makes sense.

In the scope of Roth's work, "The Professor of Desire" is a very raw work that shows the promise of his later career. Like many of Roth's characters, David Kepish's life is spiraling out of control. The overall storytelling and humor make this a great read. The weak ties between the conflicts leave a certain degree of doubt about the author's intent and leave a dissatisfactory payoff.

David Kepesh, the aforementioned professor, towards the end of "Professor of Desire," contemplates the introductory lecture he is to deliver to his class on comparative literature:

"Indiscreet, unprofessional, unsavory as portions of these disclosures will surely strike some of you, I nonetheless would like, with your permission, to go ahead now and give an open account to you of the life I formerly led as a human being. I am devoted to fiction, and I assure you that in time I will tell you whatever I may know about it, but in truth nothing lives in me like my life."

This passage may as well be an introduction to this book, one of Roth's most potent and stirring novels from his earlier days. Through the chronicles of David Kepesh's early life, Roth examines the paradoxes of love and desire, the bridges between literature and life, and our nearly-lunatic search for identity.

In this book, we follow Roth's familiar character David Kepesh from his childhood in the Catskills hotel owned by his parents, to a post-college year of sexual freedom in Scandinavia, to a tempestuous/disastrous marriage to Helen Baird, followed by a winter of despair, and concluding with his relationship with Claire Ovington, marked by a love that is blemished by waning desire.

In the end, although more questions are posed than can ever be answered, Roth's novel can resonate with anyone who has ever grappled with the mysteries of love and self-discovery - namely, everyone. And along the way, the reader can revel in the wit, wry humor, and intellect adored by every Roth fan.

Reading `The Professor of Desire' is like trying to track down trails of rambling thoughts as one should have expected from reading Philip Roth, the pleasure one normally derives from the `effect' rather than the `cause', where the plots are generally almost non-existence in this work, instead all efforts are made to explore one individual's inner world through a series of trivial events and fragments, expand from his childhood into his adult life.

I can't say I have been successful in my attempt to fully understand the book, and neither I can claim thoroughly enjoy a good story -for there is none to begin with but if one should read carefully into the pagers, one may find Roth at his best for exploring the depths of human mind -I suppose that's where and why one is attracted to Roth in general, his strength in penetrating the deepest human side and relating such to his readers. David Kepesh, our professor of desire, has taken an odyssey of self-discovery and in pursuit for LOVE where he must overcome his own strong inner conflicts of constant longing of DESIRE, and at the end unable to find a balance between LOVE and DESIRE in term of breaching the gap. The relationship between LOVE and DESIRE may also let us draw a distinction between `WANT' and `NEED'. Life poses a series of struggles for the co existence of `WANT' and `NEED', where the `NEED' is more of a psycho-physical being predefined within us while `WANT' is what we expect ourselves to attain in life; and the quest for happiness in life lies in whether we can resort within ourselves a peaceful coexistence for the two.

I suspect in reality we must all more or less being predestined to let a bit of such human tragedy lives within us, to face choices for and between `WANT' and `NEED'. Not exactly always a personal choice to be made, like in David Kepesh's case, a person destined to fail in relationship, where fate offers no choice but the impossibility in breaching a gap between LOVE and DESIRE; any choice, one over the other, must surrender him insurmountable sacrifice while no single choice can render him any happiness. Some of us, I for one, should not find it a surprise to cope with this paradox in real life.

Philip Roth, I presume a master at his own game as his reputation warrants more credits than I can truly appreciate his talent. Either the philosophical means in this novel is too much beyond my comprehension or I am thinking way too much in term of substance this book never means to offer. To retract my earlier mentioned `cause' and `effect' about reading Roth, for I may not be the best person to pass this judgment base on having read only three of his books, first the `The Dying Animal', then `The Ghost Writer' and now this `The Professor of Desire'; given none of the three is said to best represent Roth except him being praised on achieving high quality in ALL his work.

Frankly speaking I can't find such impressiveness in any of the three books I read, and meanwhile, an inner voice keeps reminding me for reading more of him or a second-read on 'The Professor of Desire', in order to find new meaning and greatness I might have missed - can it be another case of `WANT' and `NEED' recurring into real life that I must get myself ready to do battle with Roth?

David Kepesh, the aforementioned professor, towards the end of "Professor of Desire," contemplates the introductory lecture he is to deliver to his class on comparative literature:

"Indiscreet, unprofessional, unsavory as portions of these disclosures will surely strike some of you, I nonetheless would like, with your permission, to go ahead now and give an open account to you of the life I formerly led as a human being. I am devoted to fiction, and I assure you that in time I will tell you whatever I may know about it, but in truth nothing lives in me like my life."

This passage may as well be an introduction to this book, one of Roth's most potent and stirring novels from his earlier days. Through the chronicles of David Kepesh's early life, Roth examines the paradoxes of love and desire, the bridges between literature and life, and our nearly-lunatic search for identity.

In this book, we follow Roth's familiar character David Kepesh from his childhood in the Catskills hotel owned by his parents, to a post-college year of sexual freedom in Scandinavia, to a tempestuous/disastrous marriage to Helen Baird, followed by a winter of despair, and concluding with his relationship with Claire Ovington, marked by a love that is blemished by waning desire.

In the end, although more questions are posed than can ever be answered, Roth's novel can resonate with anyone who has ever grappled with the mysteries of love and self-discovery - namely, everyone. And along the way, the reader can revel in the wit, wry humor, and intellect adored by every Roth fan.

This is the first novel by Philip Roth that I actually like. Portnoy's Complaint was a good hundred-page novella, spread out over a three-hundred page book; the other pages were filled with the dross of his political opinions, and his kvetching about his parents. Operation Shylock was also too pre-occupied with pushing a political agenda (but just what agenda, we are never sure). This is Roth's primary fault as an author - he is too didactic. I find that I really don't care much about what Roth's political opinions are. Ironically, this is probably one of the attributes that make him a critical darling - it shows that he thinks "deep thoughts."

The Professor of Desire is blessedly free of politics. In it, Roth sticks with the subjects he knows best: sex and relationships. Young David Kepesh is a sexually frustrated young student. That changes while studying abroad in Swinging London, where he finds that what they say about Swedish girls is true. Things take a turn for the worse after the end of his disastrous marriage finds him crushed by loneliness in New York. With the help of a psychiatrist, Kepesh tries to discover if he will ever be able to commit to anyone or experience happiness.

The Professor of Desire finds Roth at a more mature place in his career. Gone is the odious kvetching about his parents that polluted so much of Portnoy's Complaint; the parents in this book are treated with sympathy. At one point, a character points out to Kepesh that there is no point in mining the workings of a Jewish family for his fiction anymore. He is also less homophobic in this novel - but not much so. There are still things about Roth's style that take getting used to; I don't think there's anything profound in his refusal to offset dialogue into separate paragraphs - it just makes it harder to keep track of who is speaking. However, The Professor of Desire is a short, lyrical novel that is the best of anything I've read of his so far.

I first became aware of Jim Twitchell when I saw him speak at a conference in 2003. When he began his speech with a description of Florentine churches as one of the earliest examples of competitive branding, I was hooked, and have since read a number of his books. Branded Nation examines religion, academia, and art, and explains how these areas are just as permeated by the commercialism of our society as any other, despite the special status they've been accorded. His message resonated with me and served to explain changes I've seen in religion, education, and museums in my own lifetime. I would agree with another reviewer who mentioned that this title seems drag a bit in the museum section. Nonetheless, Twitchell's style is intellectually engaging, and takes the edge off what might be considered a cynical view.

I don't disagree with the central ideas of this book, and the writing was simple and easy to understand. I just felt it was stretched out waaaaaay too long - the last chapter on museums, especially, just dragged. It felt like I was reading a college textbook that just trudged on and on. That's not necessarily bad, but this is a book for the masses, not a marketing class, and I just felt like it could have been edited down a lot more and still not have left anything out.

James Twitchell has written extensively on advertising and consumerism, and knows that consumers are not logical. If we were, he says, we would know that we needed, say, a laundry detergent, and would research to see what detergent was best, perhaps checking to see what the boffins at _Consumer Reports_ might recommend. Then we would take the recommendation to the grocery store, where we would see a very restricted number of possible logical choices. It doesn't work that way for detergent, nor, these days, does it work that way for churches, museums, or universities. In _Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld_ (Simon & Schuster) Twitchell has written a funny and scary evaluation of the pervasiveness of marketing in American life beyond the grocery shelves.

The problem with laundry detergents is that there are plenty of them, offered by many suppliers, and most of them are interchangeable. There is very little difference between them, so it is necessary for the manufacturers to create a story about the brand, how it is "clothesline-fresh", perhaps, or how the power-granules go to work on stains. Twitchell's thesis is that schools, museums, and churches are all supplying pretty much the same thing, and to up their market share, they are telling stories about themselves (branding) and as good consumers, we are going along with them. We think that museums have a higher calling than competing for a market share, that they don't really pay attention to the turnstiles, and that they are "... only the custodians of, shhh, please be quiet, don't touch, the deep truth." However true this may have been in the past, it is no longer. There has been a huge growth in the numbers of museums, the theme of a surplus of goods, though we don't usually view museums that way. The "modern, formal, self-conscious museum" is not what people go to as much as they go to theme exhibits, like "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the theme is the brand and holds the emotion. For decades there have been more college students than seats in the classroom, so the marketing had to begin. Harvard wouldn't admit as much, but it has a great brand. Twitchell (who is a professor of English at the University of Florida, an institution that does not avoid some withering remarks here) sniffs at the Harvard record, which he says lacks real substance. What's good about Harvard is not what comes out, but what goes in: "the best students, the most money, and the deepest faith in the brand." In churches, the product, epiphany or salvation, is undifferentiated, producing cut-throat competition for the stable forty percent of people who go to church regularly; this number does not go up, so churches are taking customers (sometimes known as parishioners) from one another. Twitchell examines the brand shifts in Protestantism that are the same as when Sam's Club comes to town: warehouse churches, of no particular denomination, on the outside of town with huge parking lots.

It is disconcerting and amusing to hear of these important spheres of life described in marketing terms, but Twitchell knows the lingo. All of them, for instance, are LBEs, or Location Based Entertainments. While his evaluations may be controversial, this is no polemic; Twitchell does not find branding bad; other marketing systems are simply antiquated. Brands have become motivators, "the basis not just of interactions but of interior actions." He thinks that identification with brands may be the way we will continue to spread common knowledge and beliefs, and that it thus may be the foundation of community. States are practicing branding (for instance, in advertising as vacation destinations), and countries are, too. Twitchell quotes a CEO who is looking at the big picture: "What makes us good at selling soap can help us sell America." Perhaps so, but even Twitchell speculates that the story of America, which could be best summarized as "complexity" may at this time be overwhelmed by the perceived story of "an arrogant rogue."

Twitchell takes a very ironic look at the way churches, museums, and higher education have used branding to survive. It's ironic in that while the effects of this might seem undesirable or even embarrassing, we the public are merely getting what we ask for...we're just consumers. Then Twitchell explains why, in some cases, the effects of this branding are not undesirable after all.

The most insightful section of the book covers the branded-ness of higher education (appropriately so, since Twitchell is himself a professor). Twitchell describes American higher eduction choices as a barbell, with elite colleges such as Harvard on one end and "convenience" colleges (think Wal-Mart) on the other end, with the institutions in the middle feeling the real squeeze to differentiate themselves. Also included is an interesting look at the US News & World Report college list phenomenon as well as a look at why convenience colleges might not be as bad as you think. Twitchell even includes some practical insight on where college dollars might be best spent.

I found the megachurch section to be only so-so. Perhaps because I am very familiar with megachurches I found many of his points to be pretty boring. (Guess what - megachurches have modern sounding music!?) The section on Willow Creek finding its marketing niche (men) was interesting, however. If you are reading this book primarily to learn about megachurches I might recommend The Transformation of American Religion by Alan Wolfe instead. It is a bit more scientific and objective in its study.

Twtichell's writing style is a bit odd...not bad, but just a little different. At times he does ramble a bit but then suddenly includes a dense and insightful sentence. This style kept my interest but made the book a careful, not quick, read. Also important is the reader's willingness to buy into the definition of "brand" as STORY. This may be a mental jump for some.

In short, this is an enjoyable book. You won't look at college, church, or museums in the same way.

In this lively book, James Twitchell helps illuminate some of the interesting consequences when non-profits -- embodied in this book as Megachurch, College Inc, and Museumworld -- borrow branding techniques to market themselves.

I found the introduction a little long and academic (e.g., he talks about how the romanticism of Wordsorth and Keats influences modern branding). But the book gets progressively better. In my opinion, his best chapter is on the college (appropriate, since the author is a professor at the University of Florida).

Here's an illuminating analogy from the chapter (which he cites from another source): "If Consumer Reports functioned like U.S. News [in ranking colleges], it would rank cars on the amount of steel and plastic used in their construction, the opinions of competing car dealers, the driving skills of customers, the percentage of managers and sales people with MBAs, and the sticker price on the vehicle (the higher, the better)."

This book is not a polemic: it isn't trying to convince you that churches, colleges and musuems _shouldn't_ market themselves. It's just trying to explain what happens when nonprofits _do_ market themselves. I'll never look at the college admissions process or a musuem gift shop the same way again.

The writing is lively, and the book has a few well-chosen images to underscore its points. Bottom line: it's well worth a read. It's one of those books which help you understand why things are the way they are -- e.g., why modern musuems have restaurants, why universities have development offices, and why parking is crucial to the growth of mega-churches.

In this book, Rousmaniere argues that education reform during the early twentieth century was challenging and inadequate. According to claims made by the boards of education in the 1920's, education was expected "to open up the occupation to a diverse group of talented young people," yet young teachers entering the profession were not given the support needed. The shifting educational reform placed high demands on teachers without sufficient support and "control over their resources and time." Teachers were expected to execute the roles of guidance counselor and teacher. "A broad and unwieldy curriculum demanded that teachers do more than simply teach class." Also, Rousmaniere states that teaching is an isolated working environment and teachers are "alienated from one another." The working conditions place teachers in overcrowded school rooms with little communication with individuals other than students. A continuous discrepancy between teachers and administrators left little room for improvement. Finally, teachers must learn to acclimatize to working conditions "by alternately accommodating to, adapting to, and resisting certain aspects of their work, surreptitiously claiming some control over their job."

The reflections of Rousmaniere show us that a number of methods have changed since the 1920's, yet a number have stayed the same.

_City Teachers_ offers the reader unique insight into a much neglected story-the story of teachers in urban schools (most notably New York City) in the 1920s, a period of great reform in public education. The exigence of a study of urban schools of the 1920s in the 21st century is made most obvious by its Summer 1999 review in the _Harvard Educational Review_. Here, Dr. Kathleen Murphey of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, states that "readers will be led to reflect on the enduring dimensions of teachers' work...in the reform-minded present" (p. 205, 69:2). Like Dr. Murphey, I reflected on the ways the call for reform affects administrators, teachers, students, and the community even today. The prevalent themes of the emergence of intensification of work, isolation, stress, and unfavorable physical conditions due to 1920s reforms are still readily apparent in many schools in urban, suburban, and rural settings.
Rousmaniere's balanced use of primary and secondary added not only credibility but also a personal touch to her work. While Dr. Murphey criticizes that Rousmaniere's work "remains unconnected to the story of collective organizing that followed in the 1930s and later" (p. 210), I feel this book, offers an accurate (and complete) representation of urban school teaching at this time and encourages the reader to draw the connections between this era and others. As a pre-service teacher, I found this book extremely thought-provoking about the ways in which reform will shape my workplace and work experiences throughout my career.

I read this book for a graduate level college education course. This book was very easy to read and had my attention to the very end. I found this book to be very insightful and an affirming presentation of the process of educational reform. Rousmaniere described the lives and work of teachers during the third decade of the twentieth century in clear detail. As an aspiring teacher, I was able to understand some of the ways the call for reform affected administrators, teachers, students, and the community in the 1920's, most of which are still prevalent in education today. In addition, Rousmanieres' prevalent themes such as work conditions, isolation, stress, and unfavorable physical conditions due to 1920s reforms are still readily apparent in many schools in urban, suburban, and rural settings today. In light of these reoccurring themes that seem to haunt educational progress, I found this book relevant to what I can expect to see and face as a future educator.

City Teachers offers the reader unique insight into a much neglected story-the story of teachers in urban schools (most notably New York City) in the 1920s, a period of great reform in public education. The exigence of a study of urban schools of the 1920s in the 21st century is made most obvious by its Summer 1999 review in the Harvard Educational Review. Here, Dr. Kathleen Murphey of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, states that "readers will be led to reflect on the enduring dimensions of teachers' work...in the reform-minded present" (p. 205, 69:2). Like Dr. Murphey, I reflected on the ways the call for reform affects administrators, teachers, students, and the community even today. The prevalent themes of the emergence of intensification of work, isolation, stress, and unfavorable physical conditions due to 1920s reforms are still readily apparent in many schools in urban, suburban, and rural settings.
Rousmaniere's balanced use of primary and secondary added not only credibility but also a personal touch to her work. While Dr. Murphey criticizes that Rousmaniere's work "remains unconnected to the story of collective organizing that followed in the 1930s and later" (p. 210), I feel this book, offers an accurate (and complete) representation of urban school teaching at this time and encourages the reader to draw the connections between this era and others. As a pre-service teacher, I found this book extremely thought-provoking about the ways in which reform will shape my workplace and work experiences throughout my career.

Pamela Wolfberg is an expert on playgroups for Autism. She offers a deeper window into the world of Autism as well as practical ideas and strategies for playgroups. Her research is well respected in the industry and her work certainly has earned my respect as well. This is a 'must have' guide for practitioners and professionals in the sphere of social skills and Autism.

An interesting book about the author's experience with integrated play groups, but I was hoping for more of a how-to about setting up such playdates/groups myself with my mildly autistic son and typically developing kids around the neighborhood, etc...

There are only three case studies too, making this book more valuable to teachers than parents, because if your child isn't similar to one of the three cases, then the book won't be as relevant.

...It is very thorough and gives insights to help betterunderstand how and why children with autism play the way they tend to, and, how to break them out of unproductive/unhealthy play habits. A very good book!

This book is interesting and has useful information about one teacher's experience with integrated playgroups in an academic setting, but it is written like an academic thesis or research paper rather than a layman's book. It will not teach you how to set up playdates in your home or how to structure a playdate so your child will play with other children.

For those hoping for a how-to book with guidelines for setting up playdates and teaching playskills to autistic children, I recommend you look at Melinda Smith's website and/or book, "Teaching Playskills to Children with ASD" which has lots of advice and ideas for teaching basic playskills.

For another book which emphasizes the importance of play and how to use play to improve a child's cognitive and emotional skills, I recommend you peruse "The Child With Special Needs" by Stanley Greenspan. This book gives parents lots of practical ideas for trying to engage an unresponsive child, establishing 2-way communication, helping a child understanding feelings and ideas, and helping a child to think logically.

This novel has its charms. It's certainly distinctive in its literary references combined with a so-called murder mystery. The account of the narrator's work life as a professor is satisfingly grounded in detail (although I was astonished that the narrator reports that in one afternoon, also filled with other tasks, he finished off eleven letters of recommendation. It made me wonder how fast the author wrote this book. Maybe a little more time would have helped.) I was initially intrigued by the unusual nature of the book, but gradually got worn down by the incoherent plot and the proliferation of minor characters who were hard to keep straight.

But here's my biggest problem with this novel: It is never explained what Julie sees in the narrator. He's a middle-aged professor, overweight, with a sexual problem, and is set in his ways. She is young, delightful, playful, confident, beautiful, and wise. She literally appears on his doorstep, moves in with him, and cures him of his problems. Sexual dysfunction over! Smoking almost extinguished. The portly narrator even gets himself to marathon sessions in the gym. He finds he can commit after all. And meanwhile, what of Julie? Well, her highest ambition seems to be to cook dinner for his professor friends. Sure. She loves hanging out with these aging academics. And she couldn't be more touched and delighted when her beau buys matching jackets and sweaters for her and him. Right, the average young woman yearns for a mail-order parka matching that of her oversized and less-than-fashion conscious partner. What is Julie getting out of this relationship? We never enter into her mind enough to know. This is fantasy, guys. We don't meet Julie's friends, except in passing. Evidently she has little need of people her own age when she can be rejuvenating her boyfriend. It's like every man's dream: no matter how out of shape, how sexually dysfunctional, how obsessed with his own routines and his own academic arcana he might be, a young woman is waiting to bring him back to life--and even to cook for him!

This isn't a murder mystery, in any coherent sense. It's a male fantasy. As such, it has a certain appeal. But boy, does it need some pruning. This author needs an editor. And on his next outing, he might consider how he could create not only one appealingly imperfect character (his narrator), but also believable people with whom his central figure could interact. A love story requires nothing less.

Fans of academic novels are more or less like Trekkies, doting on a genre that demands inside knowledge of all sorts of trivial matters to which most of the public is, for good reason, indifferent. The jokes--almost all examples are comical--often seem strained and a bit limp to those outside the charmed circle and the characters invite the disdain owed to folks whose lives are in some sense perpetually adolescent, since they have never really left school. The best such books--Kingsley Amis's classic "Lucky Jim," for instance--are usually tales of escape into the real world, where deans, tenure committees, and the singular banality of academic shop-talk fade into triviality.

George Stade's new novel "Sex and Violence" is an exception in that it affirms, in its own quirky way, the value and signicance of the academic life honestly lived, without losing its caustic and sometimes savage satiric bite. It is, in basic outline, a whodunit--three professors get whacked in the course of the action--though, more importantly, it is a tale of redemption and renewal.

As in Bellow's "Herzog," the story is told through the eyes and mind of its protagonist, Wynn O'Leary, in a series of letters that will be read only by their writer (they are nominally written to his long-dead brother, a jazz musician destroyed by drugs). O'Leary is a Professor of English in an alternate-universe version of Columbia (the author's home turf). An expert on Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Yeats and the like, the fortyish O'Leary has pretty much gone to seed, joining the undead legions who never publish but, being tenured, never perish either. O'Leary's intellectual stagnation is echoed by his physical decline--a one-time linebacker good enough to have spent some time in the NFL, he is, as the story begins, long-divorced, overweight and, worse, sexually impotent. His life is a stale routine built around cooking, eating and exchanging quips with his cronies in the campus cafeteria.

The first of the murders--the victim is the department's medievalist--stirs things up a bit, but not too vehemently. The chief result is to vault O'Leary, if that's the word, into the unwanted job of vice-chairman. More important, however, is the arrival of his anima and redemptress, in the form of a distant relative, Julie, who shows up out of nowhere and moves in with him. The core of the novel is the interaction between these two, which in time cures Wynn of his sloth, his overeating, and his sexual difficulties. In the interim, there are a couple of additional murders--not particularly regrettable--a pathetic suicide, and a kind of cat-and-mouse game with the character whom the reader, if not O'Leary, soon realizes must be the killer. Simultaneously, we see various strivers and poseurs jockeying for power and prestige within the department, a contest as silly and meaningless as it is intense.

But this bare outline little hints at the real charm of the book, which lies in its linguistic fizz and its playful invocation of all sorts of cultural references, the culture oscillating wildly between high and low. O'Leary's letters constitute an inadvertant X-ray of his soul, revealing to the reader what he hides from himself. He tells us repeatedly that he lacks "killer instinct" (which deficiency cut short his football career) but we see several episodes of ungovernable rage expressed physically. O'Leary's closest friend is openly gay, yet O'Leary can't contain his fury when someone implies that he himself is gay. No sooner does he regain his sexual self-confidence than he goes tom-catting after a departmental colleague without pausing to reflect on the damage he might be inflicting on his relations with his beautiful savior, Julile. All this, of course, is interlarded with the buffoonery of clashing academic egos, academic fads, and the absurd and sometimes cruel arbitrariness of the academic reward system. As a bonus, we have a continuing commentary, sometimes quite extended, on the glories of Bird and Diz and the heroics of the Bebop era.

Perhaps the novel can be faulted for allowing grace to descend too easily upon its once-fallen hero. Julie sometimes seems too perfect for credibility, a diva ex machina one might like to be able to buy on-line. O'Leary's luck is just a little too good to ring true. And one would like to spend a little more time with the murderer, quite a likeable guy and, in his own way, an ethical paragon. But all in all, it's a great read, even if those who pick it up hoping for a roman a clef about the actually-existing Columbia English Department will be disappointed.

Mcgrath and Spear do a decent job of summarizing what they feel are the problems of the community college. Although they argue their point in a concise manner and do an excellent jo at it, they sometimes seem to expect you to take them at their word. The problems they cite are very real. People who study community colleges will have little trouble seeing their points, it would still be refreshing to place the problems in community colleges in some sort of historical context. I would advise, however, that anyone who studies community colleges or works in one have this volume in their personal library.

As a New York City educational consultant who specializes in private school admission, I keep up with books and articles about schools. You'd think I'd have a lot to read, but actually, there's not that much information. Private schools are indeed private, many, particularly the schools that are most sought after, like to keep their facts to themselves. For obvious reasons prospective families want to know, which is why I congratulate Princeton Review for pulling off this guide. The writers offer some useful information about admission and a nice listing of high schools, which helpfully includes private as well as selective public. The book would be even better if some well-known schools had provided facts the writers sought, such as more information about admissions, curriculum, student body, and environment.

A great treatise on the relationship between America's love of sports and America's conflicted attitudes about race. But I can't imagine how the knowledgable authors could have written a book that is harder to read. They never use a simple word when a complex one will do; never go for short when long will do.

Don't read this book when you're sleepy, you'll never finish it. But if you are in a scholarly mode, you will learn a lot. I did.