Society Books


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Society Books sorted by Average customer review: high to low .

Society
Once Upon a Hopeful Night
Published in Paperback by Oncology Nursing Society (1998-11-01)
Authors: Risa Sacks Vaffe and Risa S Yaffe
List price: $7.00
New price: $5.40
Used price: $0.04

Average review score:

heartwarming,terrific representation, much needed
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 1999-02-10
goo

This book reminds us of the importance of love and family.
Helpful Votes: 12 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 1999-04-01
This heart felt book reads like a beautiful Robert Lewis Stephenson verse for children but with a message so powerful and important that it should be required reading for any parent or child living with illness in their family. Not only can it help people to cope with how to deal with their children in these times of stress, but it also reminds us all of what is truly important in life: the love and support of family. Thank you Risa S. Yaffe for not only living through what you lived through but for having the courage to write this very special book.

A Simple and caring explantion for such a complex concept
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 1999-01-30
"Once Upon a Hopeful Night" accomplishes the difficult and often painful task of reaveling to your kids that you have cancer in a rather caring and simple way. In my best estimation it will be a tool greatly used once word gets around that it exsits.

Loving, Caring,Couldn't get enough of her wonderful words.
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 1998-12-11
In a crisis such as this, and we all have crisis, you could not have found a more sensitive, caring book to read to your children or anyone else in this case. This book should be around forever, and read by all.

Thoughtful, insightful, caring and heartfelt. A must.
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 1999-02-03
If you or anyone you love has lived through the tragedy of cancer -- whether youth or senior -- this book is a must. I suggest that you consider it medicine to get one on the right path.

Society
Orchestrating Collaboration at Work: Using Music, Improv, Storytelling and Other Arts to Improve Teamwork
Published in Ring-bound by Pfeiffer (2003-03-21)
Authors: Arthur B. VanGundy and Linda Naiman
List price: $90.00

Average review score:

Change You Can Believe In
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-29
This fantastic workbook is a labor of love and full of great solutions to complex business problems using the arts to facilitate collaboration at work. I bought this book to learn how to begin to facilitate corporate workshops using the arts for The Bite-Size Arts Ensemble, an organization I have created devoted to entrepreneurial growth for artists. Not only will it provide a platform to build on, but it will serve as the model for using arts based learning as a change agent in organizational development. Don't let the price of this book stop you! Buy it.

Great Resource
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-21
This is a great resource. It's a great collection of exercises that draw upon a wide variety of arts modalities. Each exercise is described in enough detail to be able to easily implement them.

Great insight and fascinating exercises
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-21
This book was one of the first and best to explore using arts-based techniques and processes to address organizational issues. The introduction is a superb distillation of some of the reasons why the arts work in the business context and the exercises themselves are generally well thought-out and easy to use - they should be, as they come from some of the leading practitioners in this ever-growing field. The book may be expensive, but it is worth every cent for any trainer or facilitator who wants to take a more creative approach to their work.

A wealth of enablers in the form of training excercises
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2004-12-17
I have discovered the power and the simplicity in finding/applying a wide variety of experiencial excercises that spark creativity and imagination in groups. The beauty of this valuable workbook is that it unleashes our hidden potentialities. I have successfully used these activities in private business and in non profit organizations and in every ocassion the results have been the creation of high energy and relevant discoveries among participants.
Thank you Arthur and Linda for your valuable contribution.

Will VanGundy Ever Run Out of Creativity?
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2004-11-20
Arthur VanGundy has already given us just about every conceivable aid to creative work--from "Brain Boosters" to "101 Games" and "101 Activities." Now with Linda Naiman he delivers the most comprehensive and accessible creativity and innovation resource for groups I've ever seen.

And it's about time someone got business people to start thinking like artists. Anyone in business creativity, ideation, and new-product development will find the VanGundy-Naiman approach not only inspiring and fun but incredibly effective.

This binderful of brilliance would be a bargain at $900.

Society
The Ordeal of Change
Published in Paperback by Harper & Row (1952)
Author: Eric Hoffer
List price:
Used price: $2.75

Average review score:

Good, not as great as his earlier works
Helpful Votes: 11 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 2005-06-14
Eric Hoffers book, The True Believer is probolly the best book I have ever read. It gives insight into human nature that helped me understand the behavior of other people and even myself. It changed my view of the world I live in. Obviously it made a huge impact on me.

Because I was so impressed I quickly bought Hoffers other book The Ordeal of Change. I felt somewhat disapointd with this. I found it to lack the insight into human nature that his earlier work did. The Ordeal of Change seems to discuss how change occurs among a group of people rather than individuals. The True Believer discussed why individuals join groups, there was more emphasis on the individual than the group.

The book is still good. Perhaps I feel dispointed only because I cannot help but compare it to The True Believer which was a masterpiece. I still recomend this book but suggest that you read The True Believer as well.

Controversy (from the beginning) and relevance
Helpful Votes: 18 out of 61 total.
Review Date: 2003-04-03
I read this book (and most of his others) when originally published. No question but THIS IS HIS GREAT WORK. As his work went on, his lack of understanding of institutions (public and private) began to show his failure to fully grasp the implications. When he left what he knew so well, the relations of the workers, he moved so far that his later writing suffers from asute commentary based on incorrect facts and understanding, which require careful reading. But THIS BOOK should be REQUIRED READING -- PERHAPS MOST FOR DUBYA AND HIS CREW, WHO TOTALLY LACK UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT.

Brilliant essays
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-02-19
Hoffer's essays are the best I have ever read on sociology. They are short, well organized and provide the deepest understanding of human nature. I hardly remember a thinker which could compete with Hoffer in this field.

Amazing
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2004-11-28
Every line in this book has the capacity to change your life. It doesn't even have to be an ordeal.

He walked to the sound of his own drummer
Helpful Votes: 8 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2006-01-22
This work contains a mixture of autobiography and philosophical and social reflection. Hoffer wrote ," My writing grows out of my life, just like a branch out of a tree" And his lifelong journey in learning was really integral to his own life. He began reading Montaigne and spent a lifetime reading more and learning all the time. He makes it clear here that he like most human beings fears change, but understands that to truly thrive from change one must learn, understood that those who rely on what they have learned long ago will have the world pass them. In other words he recommended that Societies like individuals be engaged in a continual process of learning and developing.
Hoffer was a one- of - a kind original. A truly decent person, who walked to the sound of his own drummer. Admirable in his anti- totalitarian stance and his refusal to be cowed by intellectual trend or fashion. He was a believer in American freedom , and an example of what a free - society can produce- at its best.

Society
The origin of the family, private property and the state (Standard socialist series1415)
Published in Unknown Binding by C.H. Kerr & Co (1910)
Author: Friedrich Engels
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Average review score:

Tearing Down Social Icons
Helpful Votes: 10 out of 14 total.
Review Date: 2002-03-17
Are the father-centered family, private property, and the state necessary and inevitable part of all human societies?
Frederick Engels, coworker of Karl Marx, says no. Engels demonstrates that these three institutions arose in the fairly recent history of the human race, as a way to establish the rule of the many over the few. And, conversley, when these institutions are an obstacle to human progress, they can be dismantled.
Although this book was written about 125 years ago, the subject matter and his point of view sound surprisingly modern. Evelyn Reed, a Marxist anthropologist, writes a 1972 introduction that updates the original work from the point of view of 20th century anthropology debates abd the rise of modern women's movement. An additional short article by Engels, "The part played by labor in the transition from ape to man" is a lively piece that could be part of today's debates on human origin with almost no hint of its vintage (except maybe for his use of the term "man", instead of gender-neutral "humanity").

they were wrong but you have to know why
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 24 total.
Review Date: 2004-01-08
Marx and Engels made a fundamentally wrong guess about the nature of human beings. But it is very important to understand their line of reasoning, because they developed quite a few critical insights along the way. Due to political charge associated with their teachings it is practically impossible to find suitable third party narrative of their works. So, the only way to enlighten yourself is to dig right down into originals.

To change society we have to understand it
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2002-03-11
This is a serious, scientific and materialist analysis of development and change in human society and its institutions. Frederick Engels, who along with Karl Marx was one of the central founders of the modern communist movement, wrote this book in the late 1800s based on the latest developments in the then-new science of anthropology. Studying it can help us understand society and be better prepared to organize and work to change it.

Engels takes up the rise of the state and of the family and the oppression of women as early societies became more productive, making possible the division of groups of human beings into those who produce and those who live off them, and the need of the exploiters to perpetuate this state of affairs.

The Pathfinder Press edition also has a valuable introduction by Evelyn Reed, long-time socialist activist and author of works including "Woman's Evolution," "Sexism and Science," "Cosmetics, Fashion and the Exploitation of Women," and "Problems of Women's Liberation."

Why doesn't the war of the sexes ever end?
Helpful Votes: 8 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 2003-08-09
Why is society so cruel? It seems to be self-defeating. Why doesn't the war of the sexes ever end? In no other species do the two sexes battle against each other.

In this book we learn that things weren't always this way. In fact, oppression and exploitation are recent inventions, if we count that human history dates back EIGHTY thousand years since the rise of homo sapiens sapiens. At one point most cultures suddenly became sedentary and agriculturalist - and private property in the land emerged. Private property of land resulted in an overthrow of the matriarchal family by its male members and in the establishment of a separate group of men who violently protect unequal relationships (the state as we know it today). All happened together in a revolution that occurred in the course of just a few generations some SIX thousand years ago.

Nonetheless, the moral of this story is one of hope. If we were capable of remaking ourselves once, and based on that have advanced dramatically in a limited sense of creating material culture, then humankind can remake itself again and found a culture that enriches all aspects of everyone's lives. But this time the redesign will have to be conscious and conscientious, the beginning of a humane human history in which all participate on an equal basis. Such is the future that socialism and communism promise for us.

As a companion to this volume, be sure to read Women's Evolution, by Reed. Written a century later, it shows that anthropology's evidence overwhelmingly coincides with the theory Engels put forward in this book.

Relevant Today
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2002-04-22
Was human society always overseen by a military and police force?
Was wealth and the means of producing more wealth always the private possession of individuals or a small section of society?
Were women always at the bottom of society, treated primarily as sex objects and machines for child-bearing and child-raising?

And is this humanity's destiny?
In this book published in 1884, Fredrich Engels answers the above questions in the negative. His book is based on anthropological data available in his day from societies around the globe. New discoveries since have confirmed his conclusions and the book is remarkably relevant today.

Society
The Origins and Technology of the Advanced Extra-Vehicular Space Suit (Aas History Series)
Published in Hardcover by Amer Astronautical Society (2001-10)
Author: Gary L. Harris
List price: $85.00
Used price: $180.00

Average review score:

THE Space Suit Book
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-06-23
This book covers a lot of territory and is essential to learning the fundamentals of space suit engineering. Not only does Mr. Harris trace the history of the space suit, he also discusses practical engineering matters. This book contains rare photographs in addition to drawings by the author that illustrate the space suit components, assemblies, and concepts. I have read most other popular books on space suits, but this one packs the most information by far. This book is logically segmented and can be used as an excellent reference. For a true appreciation for the challenges of space suit engineering, this is the book to get.

Read and learn a LOT
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-03-24
If you want to REALLY learn a lot about the development of suits, the technical tradeoffs and see how the bidding process and internal conflicts helped and hindered the US suit evolution, BUY THIS BOOK.

Hardcover is the choice, as you'll read this over and over. There's a lot here, you'll want to read it in installments. Rockets are flashy, but spacesuits protect the men that went into space.

I work for Caterpillar and we deal with these: the advantage (and trade-offs) of choosing a set technical path / solution and how this impacts the later generations of any product. It applies to everything we use and buy, but it's REALLY intersting to see for a spacesuit.

An Excellent Book on EVA Suits
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-01-18
Mr. Harris has written an excellent book on the history of the EVA suit. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the design of EVA suits and how they got to where they are today. Mr. Harris goes into enough detail to allow you to understand how the various suits work (both pros and cons) but not so much as to bore the reader. For those who want more detail, there is an extensive list of resources in the book. In short, if you want to learn about EVA suits, buy this book and read it.

The Origins and Technology of the Advanced Extra-Vehicular S
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2003-04-16
The author also outlines the intricate procedure followed by NASA in contracting a space suit. NASA doesn't select a space suit; it selects a conractor. It involves a whole range of considerations such as cost, integration of the PLSS and suit, who were the contractor's key personnel, design and test philosophy of the contractor, certfication method, prior experience, who the subcontractors were, scheduling and delivery, and how compatible the suit system is with the spacecraft. In addition, blatant national political factors more than likely affected contractor selection; how much money was NASA already spending in the respective states of the suit competitors, who were the states' representatives and did NASA owe the representative any potical favors?

This volume is Bible of the space suits, covered in over 500 pages in fine print. It addresses almost all issues relating to the EVA suit in one volume. It is perhaps the only source book of space suits. It is rare occassion that an entire volume of the AAS History Series is devoted to a single topiuc, which indeed is an honor to the author. In Indian context, may be the ISRO has no plans to design a space suit, since there are no plans of any manned space mission as of today, but eventually it will have. This book will serve as a reference in design specification and technical details of the various types of EVA suits and their suitability for a particular mission.

Bound in blue hard cover as usual, the book has a illustration of the Litton RX-5A hard suit being demonstrated on a simulated lunar surface.

The Bible of Space Suits
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2002-06-22
Gary Harris wrote the most precise and complete space suits book ever. I thought I knew some about space suits design, but after reading "The Origins and Technology of the Advanced Extra-Vehicular Space Suit" I learned a lot more. This book is so interesting and passionate about the history and development of advanced EVA suits. Full of good photos and explanatory drawings it is a MUST for any serious reader interested in space suits. The book also cover technical issues, so it is useful for the engineer, scientist and student.
I predict this book will become a classic for life support systems and EVA engineers in the years to come.

Society
Packinghouse Daughter: A Memoir
Published in Hardcover by Minnesota Historical Society Press (2000-09)
Author: Cheri Register
List price: $24.95
New price: $7.49
Used price: $1.69

Average review score:

I grew up three blocks from Wilson's meatpacking plant
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-28
Wilson's was a remarkable presence in a town that that has never gotten over the loss of the high-pay meatpacking firm. Ms. Register wrote a fine and noteworthy account of a company town in rural America. My grandfather worked there for many years chasing cattle up a four-story ramp to the 'kill.' My father worked in the freezers after WWII and my uncle spent many years as a meatcutter. I worked there one summer as did many of my friends and it defined the baseline economics of the union town and it defined what drugery and workplace injuries were all about before we even knew the term carpal tunnel. Beyond working there I witnessed the impact of the strike in 1959. As a nine-year old I used to walk down the railroad tracks to the plant entrance and watch the rocks being thrown, cars being vandalized and anger controlled only by the National Guard. One of my friend's fathers crossed the picket line to work. He like other 'scabs' were labelled and treated as such for decades to come.

Ms. Register digs deeper into Albert Lea's labor past and unbeknownst to me identified an aunt as a striker at the local Woolworth's. The effort of the local union to interject itself into other businesses defined the patrons that businesses would have (another relative who refused to unionize his small retail business found himself boycotted) and the success or failure to follow.

I'm surprised this has not been picked up as a movie. Worth the read.

Tribute to the Greatest Generation's working-class
Helpful Votes: 16 out of 18 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-01
I don't much like memoirs. But Packinghouse Daughter, by Cheri Register, is not a typical memoir. It is enchanting, disturbing, and provocative. It should be read by a wide range of readers, including academics and other middle-class professionals who pride themselves on "siding with the working class." It shatters some of our illusions and our tendency to romanticize our identification with working-class people even as it encourages us to hold fast to our principles. The book should also be read by the countless working-class parents who worked hard to give their children the life they knew they could never have. Speaking for those children, this book says eloquently: we honor you, our parents, for your commitments and principles and will try to carry those into our very different worlds. As a bonus, the book's author tells her story so well, with a disarming openness about her conflicted emotions and with such humor and earthy but deep insight, that it will be accessible even to those who don't read much.

Register tells a story of growing up in the 1950s as the daughter of a longtime employee of the Wilson meatpacking plant in Albert Lea, Minnesota, not far from the more famous (and, in her account, more favored) Hormel plant in Austin. Coming-of-age memoirs now flood the market with stories that cater to our need for a revised Horatio Alger myth. In countless stories--many of them moving, important stories for our time--children grow up suffering from unspeakable poverty, abusive or otherwise dysfunctional families, or racism, but somehow survive and overcome those conditions to become not wealthy business moguls but their equivalent in our politically correct age: writers or academics who speak out against poverty, violence, and racism. Despite some similarities, this memoir is different. Register acknowledges gratefully that her parents provided an emotionally and economically secure environment for her, while educating her about her place in a world with more complicated class divisions than we see in most popular memoirs. It is, in part, her more subtle account of those divisions that makes her story so compelling.

Make no mistake about it: this is a one-sided story. Register's father is a loyal union man, and she is loyal to the union line, too, especially in telling the story of a particularly divisive labor dispute in 1959. But even when she makes it clear where she believes justice and unfairness lie, she complicates the story in ways that enrich our understanding rather than feed our prejudices.

I grew up in rural Ohio only slightly later than Register, the son of a small-town midwestern merchant in a solidly middle-class family with undoubtedly less disposable income than Register's. My father, like many of Albert Lea's merchants, resented the unions that secured better wages for the workers in the nearby General Motors plant than he thought he could afford to pay his loyal, hard-working employees--some of whom earned more than he did. That experience has always made me suspicious of class-based analyses of rural and small-town life. But Register's subtle class analysis of life in mid-century Albert Lea rings true even to my suspicious ears.

It also rings true because Register does not rely on memory alone. She consulted contemporary sources and interviewed a wide range of informants-balancing her interview with the union president by her interview and sympathetic portrayal of the plant manager, for example. Register knows what memories--hers and her informants--are good for. They convey the sentiment of the times. In that sense her account is sentimental in the best sense of that word. Her language is so vivid and her memories so fine-tuned that we feel we are walking the streets of Albert Lea with her, encountering mid-century sights and sounds that conjure up our own memories. But she knows enough not to trust memories when they become nostalgic, and she walks that fine line with a fine sense of balance.

Register also manages to succeed where many memoirists try but fail: though cast as a memoir, this book feels like it is more about the times than it is about her. Packinghouse Daughter is an eloquent and fitting tribute to the working-class lives of The Greatest Generation.

recommended reading
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2001-05-08
Even if you are not from the midwest or know nothing about the meat packing business this book will give you much to think about. Cheri has a way of bringing you into her experiences.

A Perfect Memoir
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2001-10-09
I first found out about this book in an article in the Rochester newspaper about the Minnesota Historical Society Press. Since then, I have purchased several of their books. *Packinghouse Daughter* won the American Book Award and the Minnesota Book Award for autobiography, and it deserved both prizes heartily! This book is full of interesting people, class struggle, a young woman coming of age, and old-fashioned Midwestern life. If you hate those whiney memoirs about bad childhoods then this is the perfect antidote.

I would also recommend Steven R. Hoffbeck's *The Haymakers,* which won the Minnesota Book Award for history, and Peter Razor's *While the Locust Slept,* which deserves to win every award out there--both from the Historical Society. These books, like Register's, are good stories concerned with how ordinary people get by and sometimes make an important impact on our culture. These heartfelt books should be read by Americans everywhere and should be the standard for all publishers to meet.

A gift to working-class families
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2000-10-26
This book -- personal and warm -- is an extraordinary gift to kids of working-class parents. Cheri Register says things that I felt about my own dad and about my own home town, but that I was never able to say to him. She shows how what we do for a "living" is really central to shaping who we are in the bigger world. Thank you for this book!

Society
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians (New Testament Guides for Everyone)
Published in Paperback by Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (2002-02)
Author: Tom Wright
List price: $14.00
New price: $12.00
Used price: $14.39

Average review score:

Tom Wright: all the book reviews were correct
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-07-18
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians by Tom Wright. Bishop Wright, Anglican Bishop of Durham, has given us an outstanding review of the theology of St. Paul. He includes his own translation of the text as he writes. He is very insistent on always translating the Greek word CHRISTOS with the meaning that the word had for all of the Jewish Christians of the first century and, as they began to enter the Church, the meaning that the Gentile Christians also accepted--MESSIAH. JESUS CHRIST WAS NOT THE SON OF MARY CHRIST AND JOSEPH CHRIST. CHRISTOS MEANT "THE ANNOINTED" AND TRANSLATES THE HEBREW "MESSIAH" WHICH ALSO MEANS "THE ANNOINTED". A SIGNIFICANT INSIGHT.

Makes scripture come alive for the layman
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-26
Paul for Everyone series has been such a blessing for the average layman who wants practical information/ideas rather than scholarly work.

Simplicity, Brilliance and Balance
Helpful Votes: 11 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-09
It is hard for me to remember when I have used the above words to describe a book. Reading in this area for me is an exercise in the historical investigation of the early Church and Roman antiquity. I have "no dog" in the theological fights that propel much of the discussion of the early Church history and Biblical commentary. Therefore, Tom Wright would not normally be on my list of scholars to read. He is the Bishop of Durham in the High Episcopal Church of England. He is after all a believer in the divinity of Jesus as a matter of faith and grace. I picked this book up as I was under time pressure to prepare for a discussion on Galatians. I already had books by Esler and Nanos on Galatians and a commentary by J. Louis Martyn, as well as, "The Galatians Debate" which is edited by Mark Nanos. That amounts to in excess of fifteen hundred pages of tough scholarly reading on the book of Galatians.

However, this short one hundred seventy eight page book would have to do. And what a surprise it was. First of all I concluded that Wright is a scholar of the first rank. Second, I very much like his rejection of the "Lutheran" Paul which has infected so much writing over the last few centuries. Third, I was amazed at the relatively simple translations done by Wright that seemed to convey the message of the epistles under consideration with extreme clarity. And lastly, the book conveys a well established understanding of these epistles as internal documents of early Church history. It is this reader's opinion that the epistles of Paul have far more to say about the history of the early Church and the person of the historical Jesus than is normally granted.

Wright's "new perspective" stance on Paul allows for a reconciliation of Paul and the Jerusalem Church headed by James the relative of Jesus. It becomes clear that Paul's message about Jesus was known and accepted by James. If one fails to engage New Testament writings as a strong source of information about the early church and the historical person of Jesus, then one's understanding of that history will remain skewed. One star was deducted for a lack of ultimate depth. Many of the more complex and troubling issues about these epistles have been avoided by Wright. However, that in no way denigrates the value of this book. It is accessible to the general reader, and any open minded person will find much of value here. N. T. Wright may just be the best conservative scholar working in this area at this time. I shall be reading more of his work and recommend this book highly to all but the most advanced students of the epistles of Paul.


From one of the very best
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2006-08-14
N.T. Wright is among the very best Biblical scholars in the world. His genius is evident in how clearly he brings Paul's letters alive for us today. Rememnber, this stuff isn't rockewt science and the enduring truth of Paul's theology and counsel has always been meant for EVERYONE.

Top biblical scholarhip for the lay audience
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2006-08-28
Revd. Wright is one of the best of the advocates of the New Perspective on St. Paul and his insights on these letters area happy corretive to several centuries of erroneous interpretation. This book is accessible to the educated layman and pastorally helpful. Highly recommended.

Society
A Place to Go, A Place to Grow: Simple Things That Make a Difference for At-Risk Kids
Published in Hardcover by Rodale Books (2006-05-02)
Authors: Lou Dantzler and Kathleen Felesina
List price: $24.95
New price: $3.97
Used price: $0.50

Average review score:

Inspiration for anyone who reads
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-06-22
This book is wonderful!! It tells the story of Mr. Lou and his jorney from South Carolina sharecropper to owner of the Challengers Club in South Central Los Angeles. I am a teacher in Baton Rouge and this books makes me want to do more in my job. I think anyone who wants to know how to help kids should invest 5 hours of their life and read this book.
It shows that alll you need is dedication, love and patience, and you can make a difference in any childs life. I signed up to volunteer to be a mentor because of this book.

Papa Lou: Honoring South Central's Hero & The Challenger's Boys & Girls Club
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-10-21
It was my privilege to recently read the autobiography of Lou Dantzler, founder of the Boys & Girls Challengers club in South Central. This book is called "A Place to Go, A Place to Grow."

This is seriously one of the most motivational, inspiring and important stories I have read in several years. This is a story you need to read, and a man you need to know about.

Lou was born and raised a sharecropper's son, in the time before the Civil Rights Movement and the Sexual Revolution. When his father passed away he was expected to run the family business and help provide and care for a large family. His mentor at this time was a soldier who escaped the cyclical poverty of the sharecropper life, only to gain respect for his achievements in the military where work was rewarded according to merit. This guidance was just the beginning of Lou realizing that what a child needs is discipline and inspiration; that there is more to life when you respect yourself and all you have to offer the world.

When Lou moved to LA he worked several odd jobs as he helped support and raise his own family, and was saddened by how many children in his neighborhood would spend their time out in the streets with nothing productive to do. He decided to truck a group of boys to the park to play, many of whom were afraid to do so unchaperoned, because of the dangers of gangs and drugs. Lou and the boys had so much fun that this small gathering eventually lead to converting an abandoned VONS shopping center into what is now an amazing facility that provides job training, dental care and a full basketball court!

What I love about this true story is that is shows the love and dedication of just one man can truly change the world. Lou never lost hope and just kept on trucking, literally, and it payed off big time! He helped inspire several generations of youth growing up in South Central to aspire to greatness in self respect, education and family.

Recently Lou passed away, but his legacy truly does still live on! I think you will love this book. It is not only a time capsule about the turbulent 20th century, but it is also very vital to our contemporary issues with poverty and street violence here in LA and what we can do as a community to turn the tide.

[...]

Remember a portion of the profit made on the sale of this book goes back to Challengers!

*I hear they are always looking for donations and volunteers! :)

A Marvelous Journey, a Must Read for Parents and Kids
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-13
I have heard about this book for four years, because Kathleen Felesina, the co-author, and her sister Laura Peterson, who plays a prominent role in Lou Dantzler's story, are longtime family friends, daughters of longtime family friends. The Peterson/Felesina families should be very proud, as, I'm sure, Lou Dantzler's beloved mom Narvis would be of him.

Lou Dantzler is "a marvelous man," a true American hero who doesn't grandstand and for much of the book thinks of himself as just a sharecropper's son, which is like saying that George Washington Carver was just a gardener. In a time when Bill and Melinda Gates are crusading to overhaul the school system and Bill Cosby is raising a furor over African-American children's futures, this book needs to be promoted and shouted from the rooftops, as does Lou Dantzler's work--which thankfully President Bush Senior did in the wake of the 1992 riots when, like Laura Peterson's USC, Lou Dantzler's Challengers Club wasn't touched by gang violence. The story of this club and its remarkable, brave founder is a must-read for every educator, parent, youth leader, pastor/rabbi--in short, everyone who cares about at-risk kids. Adults can share this book with kids too! Kudos to Lou Dantzler, and to Kathleen Felesina for this uplifting, motivating book.

Must Read for Youth Development Professionals
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-11
This book shares the essential characteristics that a youth development professional must possess in order to make an impact on the lives of today's youth. The dedication, commitment, yet the simplicity of the concepts behind empowering and motivating today's youth to reach beyond the physical surrounding is embraced in this journey from the cotton fields of South Carolina to the urban inner city of Los Angeles. The determination to achieve by holding a community up to a standard of commitment to its youth is demonstrated in this epic story that shares how hard work with compassion along with sheer determination can change a community initially through its youth, then it parents, and bring forth the common good from mankind from all walks of life to help in changing a community. Anyone working in the youth development field would be inspired by this book as well as educated on simply methods to achieve change through parent engagement, establishing clear enforceable standards, and holding everyone accountable.

An Inspiring Story of Hope and Determination
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-10
Anyone who has devoted their life to one cause or another will find inspiration from Lou's first hand account of how he started Challengers Boys and Girls Club. Each page is filled with pieces of wisdom and advice he gained from people who understood his mission and wanted to help. You get a total understanding to how the club grew from a few dozen kids and trips to the park into a beautiful, sprawling oasis in the middle of South Los Angeles. Lou's gentle nature and natural curiosity are also evident throughout the book, as he describes in great detail how strangers latched onto his desire to help children and chipped in with advice, money, and perhaps most importantly, support. Now, 38 years later, the reader will become so entranced by what they read, they to will want to lend a hand. As the expression goes, Only Time Will Tell and Lou's time at Challengers has told at least 30,000 kids that his committment and conistency to their well being is paying off in dividends.

Society
Practical Principles of Cytopathology
Published in Hardcover by American Society Clinical Pathology (1999-05-01)
Author: Richard M. Demay
List price: $150.00
Used price: $135.00

Average review score:

Short and concise
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-29
The book gives a short and concise overview in cytology with a lot of pictures. You can learn the most basic skills in cytopathology, and even an experienced cytopathologisk can use the book to refresh some basics. Cervix is described in 23 pages. The respiratory tract is described in 11 pages.

excellent book
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-03-28
I am a practicing cytopathologist and use this as handy reference book. I is very useful for my day-to-day practice. The text is very concise and the pictures are very good. I wishe the second edition will come soon.

The iformative at a glance Cytology book
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2005-10-01
It was my dream when I read about this book, having an idea about the major Cytopathology book 'The Art & Science of Cytopathology' I thought that the book is informative but I can't imagine whether all Cytology information could be included in such mini text. It was difficult to me to buy this book because it is not available at home country book stores at the same time no master card facilities. I made a request to my colleague in America and I received the book after three days mail. When I went throuh the pages I found information enough and I used it as an excellent review for the paper I introduced in Uk at the IBMS congress on 'Giant Cell Carcinoma of the Lung. It is my pleasure to comment on a book written by an expert scientist Richard DeMay a pioneer of Cytopathology and really it is a great honor for me to tell this story from Sudan, and it is a real baby for the baby 'DeMay R.M of the Father of Cytopathology George Nicolas Papanicolaou.
Mutaz Ali

Concise, Readable, yet Advanced
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2005-10-02
Although concise, this so-called "baby DeMay" is far from incomplete or immature, and can serve as an excellent cytopathology resource for a pathology resident. (A staff pathologist with occasional responsibilities in signing out cytologic specimens may also find it useful.) But for the cytopathology component of general pathology boards, this book is arguably the only resource one requires, and is certainly a valuable component of a residency library.

A Must Have.
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2003-01-05
I like to call this book "baby DeMay". It's very well organized, great pictures, and a whole lot easier to haul off the shelf than the Big Daddy DeMays. Excellent as a quick reference and/or a study tool.

Society
Revelations of the Secret Storyteller Society
Published in Hardcover by Topeka Bindery (2001-10)
Author: Michael G. Richards
List price: $19.90

Average review score:

Illustrations are fabulous!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2003-07-14
The stories are great to read aloud to children and all of the children in my reading group were especially intrigued by the illustrations. Hope to see more books by this talented duo!

Revelations
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2002-03-08
We made this book are favorit book of the year. The book teaches us new words. It is scary and humorous. In Straw we talked how can things be true if they are not believed and God. In the House of Untold stories we talked on whats fair and being writers and write are own stories. You shold read it to.
Third Grade All Saints Elementary
- The children were drawn in by the thrilling and suspensful stories, and the richness of the language. The book is an excellent primer for moral discussion, and has wonderful applications for Creative Writing and Language Arts.

Very nice
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-12-27
I liked this book. Five good stories for kids. I liked the first and third the best.

Great Stories for Children
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-23
These five stories are wonderful for children ages 6-12. They're truly intriguing and told in a casual, convincing voice. Adults will enjoy reading them to smaller children.

Even better than Scary Stories to tell in the Dark!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-23
The stories in this book are creative and fascinating. My kids (ages 7, 10 and 13) listened spellbound and repeatedly begged for "just one more" story. The stories are scary without being gory or terrifying. The characters are interesting and just believable enough to keep your interest. Highly recommended!


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