error Books

This book does an excellent job of starting from the basics and then building on them at a comfortable pace until the reader has been taken to the more advanced and useful points of error analysis. This book is clearly written, with appropriate and helpful examples throughout. The practice problems at the end of the chapters are relevant and straightforward, further aiding the learning process. The author not only understands the subject of error analysis inside and out, he also knows the right way to teach it. Though the book approaches error analysis from a physics point of view, I found it very applicable to all of my scientific coursework, including biochemistry and (especially) analytical chemistry.

This book is perfect for somebody who was never properly introduced to formal probability and statistics. The language is easy to understand and each chapter not only explains the "what," but makes sure you understand the "why" as well. Also introduces you to more complicated aspects of the subject--binomial & poisson distributions, chi-squared analysis, etc.

This book is boring and basically is just another statistics book. if you have some sick twwisted interest in estimating error, buy this book otherwise find something more interesting. if you have to use this for a class, Im sorry, i feel your pain.

This book is written for the introductory physics student, but it helped me get a good understanding of experimental error in my chemistry lab. The author presents error analysis using simple scenerios and without going too deep into calculus and statistics.

Even if you have achieved a high level of mathematical sophistication, this book is a great read. I find myself gaining great new insights to basic principles due to Taylor's logical developments. This is simply the best available introductory text on error analysis.

The authors meticulously tie down and skewer a particular type of Latin American Idiot, a "progressive leftist" who thinks that the "free market" is "inhuman," etc. etc.

But it's easy to see lots and lots of North American Idiots in this portrait, as well as handfuls of European Idiots. Noam Chomsky and Medea Benjamin fit right in, both wallowing in economic illiteracy.

This book can be very profitably read by anyone in the world! The main point the authors come back to over and over again is the silly idea that wealth is "stolen," and not created. That is, if a foreman in Detroit makes 50 times as much as an Indian peasant in the Andes, well, that lousy American stole it from the peasant. Or he "exploited" him.

We've all heard this nonsense many times before, mostly from people who are very comfortably off (Chomsky, for example, is a millionaire). But the simple fact is that the foreman in Detroit PRODUCES fifty times as much as that peasant in the Andes. Of course, the foreman is surrounded by competent workers and managers, and huge capital investment in machinery etc. BUT at the end of the day, you have to produce wealth in order to have it.

Think about that. The United States is, according to the Idiots, the supreme exploiter in the world today. Yet the booming American economy, some $12 trillion strong, is two-thirds based on services! How can services possibly exploit starving peasants in the Andes?

The new democratic government in Mexico is a pretty surprising example of the Idiots finally in retreat. With NAFTA in place, and foreign investment encouraged, the Mexican economy has managed to teach the threshold of a trillion dollars, with a per capita GDP of $10,000. That's doing marginally better than Thailand, and of course infinitely better than Cuba.

A book that refers, in the title, to people whose point of view is different from the authors as ¨idiots¨........ that is vulgar, obnoxious, and offensive. I wouldn't bother reading or purchasing it.

In order to stop the idiocy from spreading, that's why. Great book; make sure to read it's sequel, EL REGRESO DEL IDIOTA (The Idiot Returns). It's a gem!

This book is what it is; it's not offering solutions but critizing those who are offering, as the authors believe, the completely wrong solutions. I think the book is well written and argued. I would have liked to see the authors address the Washington Consensus more, maybe address the fact that the inward autarky policies sometimes failed bc they were designed and implemented poorly. I was lost in the religion-socialism chapter, I acutally skipped it after a couple pages. Overall I think it's a solid read for those interested in Latin American politics and economics. It's nice to read the other point of view since the "idiots'" and their opinions are well known and easily accessible. It helps to understand this book if you have a background latin american economic history bc the authors refer to periods and people that some people might not recognize.

This book is a corporatist manipulation.
Neoliberal economic policies are enriching the top fifth of the world's population, while the majority of the world suffers from the cuts in social investment, the privatization of various industries, the destruction of unions and so forth. In many Latin American countries, union organizers are regularly murdered, as in Colombia. Moreover, extractive industries like timber, mining and hydroelectric are carrying out a holocaust of indigenous cultures. Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Globalization

Those dreaded leftists like Noam Chomsky bother to remind us of the history of colonialism, and the economic neocolonialism that is destroying local economies throughout the region. His books like Turning the Tide: The US & Latin America are simply compilations of horrors documented by various human rights groups, church groups, labor organizations and so forth. If caring about human rights and imposed deprivation makes one an "idiot," so be it.

For an honest look at how the world's political economy works, I'd recommend the best-selling Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and the award-winning DVD The Corporation which includes a segment on the struggle for water in Bolivia - a struggle that killed over 40 Bolivians, but resulted in the ouster of Bechtel, Inc.

"The capitalist, the soldier, and the governor have lived tranquily, without bother to either their privileges or properties, at the cost of an illiterate and enslaved people, a people with neither a patrimony nor a future, a people condemned to work without rest and to die of hunger because they spend all their energies producing incalculable wealth while they cannot count on satisfying even the most indispensable of their immediate needs. That economic organization, that administrative system which has come to be a mass murderer of the people, a collective suicide for the nation, a shame to honorable and conscious people, cannot endure any longer; and the revolution has come, as do all collective movements, through necessity." -Emiliano Zapata

"The public functionaries are not, as is commonly believed, the guardians of order. Order, which is harmony, doesn't need guardians, precisely because it is order. That which needs guardians is disorder and a disorder which is scandalous, shameful and humiliating to those of us who weren't born to be slaves, a disorder which reigns over the political and social life of humanity. To maintain disorder, that is, to maintain political and social inequality, to maintain privileges of the ruling class and the submission of the ruled, that is why governments, laws, policemen, soldiers, jailers, judges, hangmen, and the whole mob of high and petty functionaries who suck the energies of the humble people are needed. These functionaries don't exist to protect humanity, but to maintain its submission, to keep it enslaved for the benefit of those who have contrived to retain the land and the factories for themselves up to this moment." - Ricardo Flores Magon

The Take
Our Brand Is Crisis
The Power Of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

The novel ,despite evoking New York in its title ,largely takes place in small town Florida ,with flashbacks to the childhood of its protagonist in the streets of the Big Apple .
Events are set in train when a woman named Lucy Ochosa ,a female free with sexual favours ,is killed by a transient named Geronimo .The racist and slobbish Sheriff ,Wesley Brume and the ambitious local prosecutor Clay Evans see the case as their ticket to better things and railroad a mildly retarded Hispanic youth ,the good natured Rudy for the crime despite widespread knowledge among the local community of his innocence .His firast lawyer drops out through lack of funds to pay for the defence and the Public Defender is a drunken waste of space.Rudy is found guilty and sentenced to death.Appeals drag on over the yearsv until Jack Tobin enters the fray.

He knew the boy's father and feels a sense of guilt over his fate -namely a criminal conviction for an offence that Tobin was equally complicit in .Tobin is now a hotshot lawyer and takes up Rudy's case ,assembling a hard working and committed team .This development is unwelcome to certain people and a team member is killed and attempts made on Tobin's life before the final powerful if bitter sweet climax .

This is a long book at nearly 600 paperback pages and would have benefitted from judicious trimming but this is a relatively minor caveat as the pace is crisp and the narrative incidentful.It has the courage not to be wholly upbeat and optimistic and good people suffer and die before the case draws to its conclusion

This is a way above average exanple of its genre with fine characterization and a jaundiced cynicism about state politics that prevents it from being one dimensional and pat

Recommended to all who like provocative legal tales

If you have any question about the death penalty you need to read this book. As a civilized society how the U.S. can continue to practice this barbaric punishment is really questioned. The number of people who have recently been vindicated by DNA should in itself speak volumes about its need to be discontinued. The evidence that it is not a deterrent to murder or whatever it is applied to must give one a real pause for thought. This book is so well written with probably the best ending I have ever read.

The Mayor Of Lexington Avenue, the debut novel by James Sheehan, involves trial lawyer Jack Tobin who is determined to repay a debt to his childhood friend -- the man who dubbed him "The Mayor of Lexington Avenue" -- when a young Florida man is convicted of murder. The first half of this book is quite strong and well-developed. However, its second half steadily deteriorates when Tobin and his cohorts become the central figures in the plot to correct the wrongs that were done. During this phase of the book, Sheehan demonstrates his inexperience as a novelist. Most of his characters are thinly developed, their exploits are often unrealistic and contrived, his technique at foreshadowing serves to make many of the intended surprise elements too predictable, and the dialogue he has his characters speak is often cliche-ridden and corny. Hopefully, Sheehan has improved his writing skills and corrected these flaws in his second book, The Law Of Second Chances.

THE MAYOR OF LEXINGTON AVENUE is a very decent book, and a promising start for author James Sheehan. Apparently this book started as a small press publication, and its popularity led the big New York publishers to take notice of Sheehan's talents. I can understand why, since this book reveals Sheehan to be a good writer and gifted storyteller.

THE MAYOR OF LEXINGTON AVENUE is essentially a story of a miscarriage of justice, and a brave attorney's attempt to make things right. The first half of this novel is actually quite superb, as Sheehan details how the miscarriage of justice occurs. I thought this part of the book had great characterization and was very realistic.

But Sheehan stumbles in the second half of the novel, which fully introduces the protagonist Jack Tobin, and his quest to make things right. Tobin is a bit too good to be true, and I found his heroics rather unrealistic and kind of corny in spots. His "romance" happens rather instantaneously and is not well developed at all. I did enjoy the courtroom scenes at the end, however.

But overall, THE MAYOR OF LEXINGTON AVENUE is quite enjoyable to read, and reminded me of John Grisham's A TIME TO KILL. If you like Grisham's early writing style, you may want to give this novel a try, since it strongly reminds me of Grisham's work. I look forward to reading his future work.

A corrupt small-town Florida police department arrests Rudy Kelly, a "slow" 19-year-old, for a murder he didn't commit, and, after an ineffectual public defender fumbles the case, Rudy receives a death sentence. Flashbacks to the 1960s New York childhoods of Mikey Kelly and Johnny Tobin. Ten years after Rudy's conviction, Tobin, now a hotshot Miami lawyer bored with his life, leaves his firm and finds a new direction after reading about Mikey's death and starts looking into his son Rudy's conviction. Written by an attorney that has been compared to Grisham. The story is kinda twisty, first time author and it seems like he just tried to put too much into it. Quite a roller coaster ride.

My freshman English class in college was required to read another of Divakaruni's books, Arranged Marriage. I enjoyed it, so my professor loaned me this one. Wow. It's an amazing book, and Divakaruni is an amazing writer. The way she delves into the human psyche is stunning. This is a must-read.

Brilliant book! such moving stories with an artistry of language that makes me feel Ms Banerjee is a poet trapped in a novelist's body. Comparison's to Jhumpa Lahiri are inevitable and that should serve as a good judge of the depth of this book. In my humble opinion, her writing is BETTER than Ms. Lahiri... the same deftness and poetic nuances without the pretentiousness.
Bravo!

If you do have a hunger to learn about other cultures this book presents some aspects of the Indian culture. I am not Indian, but I am curious.
In an egoistical fashion I declare I find myself in these short stories. In a more general fashion I believe many women will find themselves in these stories. Newcomers to the US, mothers in law, daughters in law, some especially the ooh so much in a rush mothers, and perhaps even a few young women in love. For all the others I would like to suggest to read these stories so as to better understand your relatives, your neighbors and why not yourselves.
I think this is a book that speaks to women, about women. I am glad such a book has been printed, finally.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an excellent author and her works captivate and cause one to reflect. In particular, this body of work illuminates painful consequences to sometimes innocent choices...or lack of any choice. This should appeal to any reflective person.

While I like Divakaruni's accessible style and simple narration, this book's content leaves a lot to be desired. Divakaruni is good at exposing the, all-too-easy to talk about, conflicts of Indo-American values and does so with a mostly honest voice; however she fails to illuminate, evoke empathy or redeem...

The pulls of Indian tradition are familiar, at least to an Indian audience, so there is nothing new there but if one hopes that the heroines (mostly) will find SOME settlement or form of redemption or even ATTEMPT to find new directions then you're sure to be sorely disappointed. There is no new ground here.

In fact far from finding their own unique answers or even making an attempt at them or, much less so, making peace or even some kind of a compromise with their lives her characters are left as they began, quite bereft of inspiration, hope or imagination - and unforgivably boring!

Many of the stories are shockingly inane in that some of the conflicts are just plain banal and you can't help but wonder why you should care about these people at all esp. if they cannot even face basic irrationalisms of their lives (one example - the young woman who reaches out to but ultimately fails the older woman being accused of being a bearer of bad luck).

The other big problem is that there is not sufficient depth in the stories nor enough complexity in the characters (development) to help one understand the forces behind the protagonists' paralysis.

Overall, most of the stories in this book are unfortunately such that they leave the readers with more ennui than empathy and much less understanding.

Most citizens trust the justice system to do the right thing in enforcing the law. Actual Innocence provides an inside look at a criminal justice system that does whatever it takes to convict those who appear guilty, regardless of the truth. Overbearing prosecutors hide evidence of innocence; police ignore exculpatory evidence and alternative avenues of investigation to focus on someone they "like" for the crime; forensic scientists are incompetent or downright fraudlent; defense lawyers sleep through death penalty trials. Each chapter focuses on a part of the system that is vulnerable to wrongfully convicting capital defendants and uses actual cases to illustrate associated issues.

In the end, the authors take on the question of how the system can be improved and provide a laundry list of suggestions for reforms that would minimize chances of wrongful conviction. Every state and federal legislator should at least read this section. However, after reading the book, it is worth asking how many cases of wrongful conviction cannot be righted because of the lack of DNA evidence. This has serious implications for use of the death penalty.

This is an engaging and accessible book written in a compelling style. In the years I have assigned it for a college level course, countless students have reported that it changed their ideas about the criminal justice system.

This is a compelling study and points out how easy it is to circumvent the law. The cases cited and other cases won probably represent the tip of the iceberg of the real number of wrongful convictions, most of which will not have the possibility of exonerating DNA evidence. America has become a country with the "rule of man" rather than the "rule of law", a sad reflection on the justice system.

Easy read, if you don't know how the criminal justice system "really" works, this is an excellent introduction. I'm in law school so already pretty familiar with the injustice that happens in our system. The book clearly demonstrates some of the many things that can go wrong through actual stories.

I was not sure about this book after I watched the trial of OJ but really Barry and the others are doing a great job proving that innocent people do go to prison and I really didin't realize how bad it was as my husband worked in the judicial system in California for over 30 years. I think it is a must for anyone that may ever be called upon to serve on a jury. I have a new outlook on positive identificiations. I have always been for the death penalty but now I am not so sure. I sure don't like to think about how many innocent people have died due to mistakes and cold hearted lawyers.
Well done Barry but I still believe OJ did it but there was not enough proof especially after all of the games people played, but then this book was not about OJ or people that may have been guilty it is about people that have been proven innocent without a doubt. I would rather have an OJ acquited than to see an innocent man or woman on death row.

If you are at all involved in the criminal justice system or simply like watching Law & Order, this book is a MUST read. The authors are the founders of the Innocence Project, which strives to exonerate the wrongly convicted. Each chapter examines aspects of "what went wrong" in the convictions of people who are completely innocent. The authors also give detailed accounts of people they have helped to exonerate. As a soon-to-be law school graduate, this book is truly an eye-opener, and will certainly guide me in my future career. It's shocking at how easily the innocent can be (and have been) convicted of heinous crimes, and at how difficult it is for them to gain even a chance to prove their innocence.

Again, this book is a must read. It's a quick read, but will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression.

If you want to learn to write, start with 'The Elements of Style' - concise, clear, good advice, short and cheap. But if you want to learn about using English, from a wise opinionated teacher at once wry and passionate, start here.

Other reviewers have said what needs to be said, but I'll summarise: it's out of date; it's written in an old-fashioned curmudgeonly prescriptive style; you can learn more about using English from this than from five other books of similar intent.

Don't - please don't - even think of adhering dogmatically to Fowler's dictums. I think he'd turn over in his grave if you did. What you say and write is your responsibility; agree with him or disagree, but know why and everyone subject to your words will be better off.

Oh, and the third edition is worth getting too, but is not readily comparable to this. It's a different style, and not as easy to use, I find. However, it's obviously far more current. In any event, since you can buy this edition for little more than postage, I'm aware of no better value deal on Amazon.

This work is witty and nearly unassailable, but I can't say that the uninitiated will find it accessible or as wine drinkers may say approachable. If you take pride in careful usage and want to make your writing precise, you can't go wrong here. If you've ever wondered how the words residence and residency both made their way into the language, the answer awaits you within these pages.

This isn't the place to get started with learning to write though. For those whose primary endeavor is not writing Strunk and White's Elements of Style or The Practical Stylist by Sheridan Baker will offer much to you on the practice of writing. These titles will also offer you many tips on constructing a piece of writing that you won't find in Fowler.

For those interested in a thorough treatment of usage and language you can't go wrong with Fowler though.

Before we presume to be artists or journalists or even readable purveyors of newsletters (or Internet blogs, for that matter) we must of necessity, if we are to be effective, be craftsmen.

Such a sentiment would, I imagine, sit well with Henry Watson Fowler who, some eighty years ago in collaboration with his younger brother Frank, wrote this famous book of English language guidance and prescription (and proscription!). Central to his purpose was the belief that the right word at the right time in its proper place and context constituted the backbone and much of the muscle and sinew of forthright and effective writing. That belief along with Fowler's celebrated passion for good writing and his intolerance of ignorance and humbug, coupled with his sometimes incomparable expression, long ago won him the undying respect and admiration of careful writers of the English language the world over.

And this has been something of a problem. Since Fowler last set pen to page some seventy-one years ago (he died in 1933), the English language has changed and grown enormously. What was correct and effective in 1926 (the year the 1st Ed. of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage was published), as well as what was ineffective, offensively brash or downright ugly has in some cases become acceptable and even felicitous. So, like it or not, Fowler had to be updated, and of course there was no shortage of lexicographers, linguists, grammarians, journalists and others looking to do the job. Furthermore, the "Great Divide" between American English and British English needed to be explained, recorded, and codified. Some of the people who have joined in this enterprise over the years have been H. L. Mencken, Jens Jespersen, Margaret Nicholson, Dwight MacDonald, Bergen and Cornelia Evans, and more recently, Bryan A. Garner and R.W. Burchfield (who edits the Third Edition of this book), and many others. I think all of them, if they looked over their shoulder would see upon the wall an especially sober portrait of Fowler passing silent judgment upon their protracted labors. Certainly on their desks would be this book.

And of course there is Sir Ernest Gowers who revised and edited this celebrated Second Edition. He writes in the Preface that the most important changes he had to make were those of vocabulary itself. "Words unknown in Fowler's day--teenager for instance--are now among our hardest worked." He adds that "Vogue words get worn out and others take their place." He admits to having omitted "one or two" of Fowler's famous little essays as being "no longer relevant to our literary fashions." (Would that he had preserved such specimens in an appendix.) He also allows that "many" of Fowler's "articles" called "for some modernization," and therefore, "a few have been rewritten in whole or part, and several new ones added."

So this is not your pristine Fowler's, yet so carefully did Gowers preserve and build upon that earlier edifice that most people have been quite pleased. In fact so nearly universal has been the admiration for this particular book that the so-called Third Edition of 1996, edited by the aforementioned Burchfield, has yet to receive universal acceptance and is indeed disparaged in some circles as not being true to the letter and spirit of Fowler.

For me two things stand out in this much admired Second Edition: (1) the absolute delight one finds in the many pronouncements on language; and (2) the odd but satisfying mix of the old-fashioned prescriptive grammarian commingled with someone who disdains pedantry for its own sake, and condemns what is seen as unnecessarily purist. Perhaps more than anything what one loves about this book is Fowler's incisive dry wit. Here is Fowler/Gowers on two words easily confused (those are my quotation marks since Amazon does not support the italics used in the original):

prescribe, proscribe. These words are often confused, especially by the use of "pro-" for "pre-." "Pro-" means to put outside the protection of the law, to denounce as dangerous; "pre-" means to lay down as a rule or direction to be followed. "If I look at the list of proscribed authors in our various universities, I notice with pleasure that since 1940 no year has passed without Jane Austen appearing in the syllabus of at least one." The speaker clearly did not mean, as one might infer from the word he used (or perhaps the printer substituted), that Jane Austen's works were on the Index.

Also of interest here is Gowers' Preface which amounts to an understanding and appreciation of Fowler and his work.

The content of this book is quite interesting, including all kinds of history of the usage of various words. However, it's very difficult to read, because the print is very blurry. It looks like it was photocopied from an older photocopy. They really need to redo the original.

It is somewhat amazing that this book, first published in 1926, is still in print. The language has changed quite a bit since then; thousands of words have been added, hundreds have gone obsolete, and hundreds more have had their meanings shaded; and of course many of Fowler's pronouncements are now merely echoes of battles long lost or won. Not only that, but two newer editions of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage have been published, the excellent second edition edited by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965 (now ironically out of print while the original finds yet another printing), and the not so entirely well-received (but underrated in my opinion) third edition, edited and revised by R.W. Burchfield in 1996.

How to account for this phenomenon? Part of it is because Fowler's reputation only grew after his death as several generations of writers sang his praises and adhered to, or sometimes fussed about, his many dicta on usage questions both great and small. And as the years went by, and as the pages of his masterpiece gave way to wine stains and silverfish or the few remaining copies disappeared from libraries, he himself became a legend. Not everything he wrote is considered correct today, nor was it then. And sometimes the succinct yet magisterial little essays he wrote were followed by other little essays that were all but impenetrable, obtuse and somewhat overbearing. No matter. The good greatly outweighed the occasional misjudgment, and the education he afforded us remains.

Another part of the story is that there is something very properly English and wonderfully nostalgic about the man himself. He was a bit of a character who lied about his age and joined the army when he was 56-years-old to fight the Germans in the Great War (only to faint on the parade grounds), a man who earlier gave up a teaching career because he did not feel it was his responsibility to prepare a student for the seminary. More than anything, though, the fact that this book is still in demand is a testament to the high regard and affection felt by the literate public toward Fowler himself.

What Fowler knew and preached was that before we could presume to be literary artists or journalists or even authors of readable letters we must of necessity, if we are to be effective, be craftsmen. Central to his purpose was the belief that the right word in its proper place and context constituted the backbone and much of the muscle and sinew of forthright and effective writing. That belief along with Fowler's celebrated passion for the concise and the correct, and his intolerance of ignorance and humbug, coupled with his sometimes incomparable expression, long ago won him the undying respect and admiration of careful writers of the English language the world over.

But this is something of a problem. Since Fowler last set pen to page some seventy-one years ago (he died in 1933), the English language has changed and grown enormously. What was correct and effective then, as well as what was ineffective, offensively brash or downright ugly has in some cases become acceptable and even felicitous. So, like it or not, Fowler had to be updated, and of course there was no shortage of lexicographers, linguists, grammarians, journalists and others looking to do the job. Furthermore, the "Great Divide" between American English and British English needed to be explained, recorded, and codified. Some of the people who have joined in this enterprise over the years have been H. L. Mencken, Jens Jespersen, Margaret Nicholson, Dwight MacDonald, Bergen and Cornelia Evans, and more recently, Bryan A. Garner and R.W. Burchfield, and many others. I think all of them, if they looked over their shoulder would see upon the wall an especially sober portrait of Fowler passing silent judgment upon their protracted labors. Certainly on their desks would be this book.

So I recommend that you buy that very impressive book by Garner (Garner's Modern American Usage), especially if you are an American, or splurge for a copy of that underrated third edition edited by Burchfield, and that you consult them as well as this venerable authority. As you use the books you may compare and contrast and get a nice feel for where the language has been and where it is headed.

This is the book that I would have liked to write. It gets to the heart of what makes the difference between success and failure. From just my little corner of the world, I have come to believe that the lack of attention and sometimes sense of entitlement or invincibility are what kills or cripples businesses. The author does a wonderful job of exploring this and all the habits, mindsets, assumptions and oversights which were the causes of great failures. He's a wonderful storyteller. And, the power of using examples both in and outside of the business arena drives home the point that these problems are ubiquitous -- they're common to being human (and perhaps uninformed and/or lazy). He summarizes with 38 insights which beautifully stand on the messages of the stories while at the same time providing a framework for actually doing something to exact positive change in your own life and organization. Great work.

It may be one of the most overlooked but great business book. A likely explanation is that Wharton School Publishing is far less famous than HBR. Who knows! No matter what, I am obliged to express my heartfelt appreciation to the author for his concise but superb accounts for the tragedies/incidents of/re Titanic, Three Mile Island, Columbia/Challenger/NASA, Enron, Coke, crashes of airliners and nuclear submarines, Tylenol, Ford/Firestone, Xerox, Kodak, IBM, DELL and so on. Forgive me to say that it's easy to write a business book, but not a good one like this which you can remember well its teachings after you close it for a day or two. Despite some typos, it is well written and organised. The 38 key points named as "Insights" distributed in ten chapters are genuinely insightful. Though this book seems to target at CEOs and enterpreneurs, I am sure people from all walks of life can benefit much from it coz you never know which one small mistake will trigger a chain of them (plus the hidden damages made beforehand) and get you killed. In a word, dont miss it!

p.s. This book reminds me of "Who moved my Cheese?" in that good memorable stories, if used wisely, can help deliver even the most neglected message loud and clear.

Win or lose is a stark concept. At one time, many acted as if there was enough to go around. Yet, in today's worldwide competitive marketplace that is no longer the case. Businesses deliver value or they are ignored. They grow or they die.

Robert E. Mittelstaedt, Jr., Dean of the Arizona State University School of Business, argues that most failures, blunders and mistakes, be they corporate, physical or political are the result of compounding errors that land the crisis on the world's front pages.

The difference between organizations that we hear about and those we do not is a process he terms "M3", Managing Multiple Mistakes. He offers 38 insights to help managers and leader to recognize and break the chain.

Among his insights:

* Being successful often blinds you to opportunity.

* Mental preparation is critical.

* Avoid any ethical lapses.

* Execution errors are often generated by a lack of resources or knowledge.

* Establish and enforce standard operating procedures.

* Make responsibilities clear.

* Seek advice

* Understand assumptions.

* If something does not make sense is confusing. Stop. Figure out and decipher it.

* People are usually at the root of the problem.

* Execution-related mistakes occur because progress and performance metrics have not been identified and/or communicated.

* Failure to analyze data points.

* Ignoring data is dangerous; ignoring or misinterpreting consumer data may be fatal.

* Ineffective communications accelerate mistake chains.

* Building a culture that takes mistakes seriously may have the highest ROI of anything a manager can do.

* Seek an event to become the rallying cry for change.

* Your competitors are not who you think they are.

* Sometimes a mistake is not a mistake.

* Change happens without your permission.

* Test and retest assumptions.

* Believe the data.

* Train for the "can't happen" scenario.

* If you do not make mistakes, you probably are not taking enough risk.

Mittelstaedt has written a valuable book. Reading it may help you keep your organization or project off the front pages of the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times.

Another valuable source book for organizational (and personal) success from the Wharton School

Every disaster is the result of a mistake or a series of mistakes that people in an organization (from the top down) failed to recognize or overlooked. The author introduces the concept of M3-managing multiple mistakes. By using fascinating case studies of companies that either failed or flourished (by doing everything right or successfully recovering from mistakes), he proves that M3 is cost effective. Mr. Mittellstaedt clearly analyzes the failures or successes of companies such as Ford, Firestone, Enron, Dell, Apple, Toyota, and Southwest to name a few. He also includes valuable advice for small enterprises as 90 percent of all U.S. businesses have fewer than 20 employees.

In each chapter, the author has a section called Insights; they number one through 38 throughout the book. An example, culled from a lifetime of observation, research, and experience as a consultant, is Insight #10: A significant portion of execution-related mistakes occur because criteria for measuring progress and performance have not been identified and/or communicated explicitly.

In a competitive capitalistic system, never taking a risk is the enemy of success; learning to manage risk to minimize failure is the goal. In Chapter 10, the author gives you a precise and clearly delineated blueprint for success. He closes with an exceedingly useful Summary of Insights from this highly researched and invaluable book.

I read this just after reading the 9/11 Commission report on the World Trade Center disaster. Just after yet another news story on Hurricane Katrina. Many of the same rules seem to apply. Perhaps Dr. Mittelstaedt could think of his next book in terms of the world outside of business.

If you think "fatal" is hyperbolic, consider these statistics which Michael Gerber shares in E-Myth Mastery: "Of the 1 million U.S. small businesses started this year [2005], more than 80% of them will be out of business within 5 years and 96% will have closed their doors before their 10th birthday." These are indeed chilling statistics. There are others which indicate that many once large and successful companies have either disappeared or were acquired. Reasons for business failures vary from one company to the next, of course, but in many instances there seems to have been one serious, eventually fatal mistake which set in motion what proved to be a path to failure.

As Mittelstaedt explains in the Introduction, "This book is about the avoidable traps that we set for ourselves as business people which lead to disasters. It is about what we can learn from the patterns of action or inaction that preceded disasters (sometimes called `accidents') in a variety of business and nonbusiness settings in order to avoid similar traps and patterns of mistakes. This goes beyond kaizen and six sigma on the factory floor to M3 [i.e. managing multiple mistakes] in the executive suite and at all operational levels of companies." Mittelstaedt identifies a very common pattern. First, problem which goes undetected, a subsequent problem then exacerbates it, disbelief or denial as the situation becomes worse, concealing the nature and extent of the situation as it becomes even worse, then shock in response to a situation out-of-control, and finally a significant (avoidable) loss of life, financial resources, or both. Later, of course, accusations, recreations, assignment of blame, punishments, etc. Neglect or denial of "early warning signs" is a common problem in and of itself.

Mittelstaedt wrote this book to help decision-makers understand how and why business is like an engine, requiring energy to get a flywheel rotating at the correct speed and in the proper direction to produce whatever the desirable results may be. His correctly emphasizes the importance of:

1. Identifying which potential disasters would result in the greatest damage.

2. Identifying where and when they are most likely to occur.

3. Identifying what are generally referred to as "early warning signs."

4. Making certain that everyone involved knows what they are, how to recognize them, and what to do in response to them. It is quite impossible to exaggerate the importance of the word "everyone."

5. Recognizing and generously rewarding vigilance.

While examining a number and variety of operational and strategic mistakes in his book, Mittelstaedt focuses on what specifically is involved in managing multiple mistakes. His observations and suggestions are presented within a framework which seems relevant to any organization, regardless of its size or nature. His objective is to help his reader "learn to recognize the patterns of mistakes that precede most business disasters and take actions to eliminate the threat [i.e. preventive maintenance] or to reduce the incident to something that does not require full-scale crisis management." The M3 concept is based on Mittelstaedt's belief that nearly all serious accidents, whether physical or business, are the result of more than one mistake. Hence the importance of "breaking the chain" of mistakes ASAP or the damage that has already been done and its cost will increase -- and probably accelerate -- exponentially.

Early on in his book, Mittelstaedt cites the "Five Deadly Sins" which Peter Drucker once described in an article published by The Wall Street Journal (October 21, 1993).

1. "Worship of high profit margins and premium pricing"

2. "Mispricing a new product by charging what the market will bear"

3. "Cost-driven pricing"

4. "Slaughtering tomorrow's opportunity on the alter of yesterday"

5. "feeding problems and starving opportunities"

Mittelstaedt views them as examples of longer-term "cultural mistakes" that many companies make with regularity. "Damage does not occur overnight; it occurs slowly and consistently until someone or something breaks the chain and fixes the problem." That "someone" may be the CEO but perhaps Mittelstaedt's more important point is that literally everyone involved in the given enterprise must be well-prepared to recognize seemingly insignificant but potentially quite serious "warning signs" as early in the process as possible, then respond effectively or enlist others to do so. I know from my own experience that a minor cut if untreated immediately can become a major infection. The same is true of organizations.

Mittelstaedt cites and then discusses a number of "mistake chains" which include the Eastern Airlines flight 401 crash, schoolchildren becoming sick after drinking Coke in western Belgium, the financial losses resulting from American Express' Optima card, the crash of Eastern Airlines 90, the failure of Webvan, Intel's flawed chip, Xerox's failure to commercialize PARC's technologies, and various problems resulting from the confluence of Motorola's strategic and execution mistakes.

The details of such disasters reveal both a "classic pattern" (page 26) and a series of 38 "Insights" which Mittelstaedt conveniently summarizes in an appendix (pages 289-298). Throughout the book's narrative, each is presented within a real-world context. I especially appreciate the aforementioned Appendix as well as the provision of various quotations, check-lists, caveats, and reiterations of key points within a reader-friendly format. Ultimately, this book must be judged on the quality of thinking and writing, organization and presentation of material, substance of content, and potential value to its readers. As my rating correctly indicates, I think this book makes an outstanding contribution to our understanding of a subject which really has not -- until now -- received the attention it deserves.

Those who share my high regard for Mittelstaedt's exceptionally informative book are urged to check out Robert Sobel's When Giants Stumble: Classic Business Blunders and How to Avoid Them, Robert F. Hartley's Management Mistakes and Successes, Michael Levine's Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards, Sydney Finkelstein's Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes, Forbes Great Success Stories: Twelve Tales of Victory Wrested from Defeat, and Forbes Greatest Business Stories of All Time ( Forbes Magazine Staff).

This book is extremely interesting and fills in the day to day lives of these Cathares with specific names and events. Very useful for my research.

This is one of THE most important books for anyone interested in the varieties of the human mind. Thanks to the compulsive thoroughness of an early 14th century inquisitor (a bishop who became pope), lengthy quotes from the people that he was interrogating came to be preserved in the Vatican library. The accused are heretics, stubborn country folk supporting "the resistance", as it were, that handful of Cathar holy men hiding in the woods following the Church's campaign savage against the flourishing southern French civilization around the town of Albi in the first quarter of the 13th century. In spite of the slashing and burning that had laid waste to the land of the Cathars in the previous century, the folks of Montaillou were stubborn in holding to their beliefs, and here it gets interesting.

What on earth were these people like, what issues could possibly matter enough to medieval farmers for them to put their lives on the line over subtle theological distinctions, like whether the Trinity was indivisible? LeRoy Ladurie thankfully quotes extensively from the sources, and a picture emerges of a Christian religion influenced by contact with the Eastern Gnostics, leaning towards a belief in reincarnation and the virtues of vegetarian asceticism. The Catholic Church was seen as a nasty political beast at odds with a true faith, and the villagers turn out to have been surprisingly sophisticated, reading books, for instance, at a time when only hand-copied manuscripts existed. It is apparent that many popular religious movements preceded the protestant schism.

In their literal testimony we glimpse the villagers' daily lives, their sense of time and reality, their relations with neighbors (like the Moors of northern Spain), as well as a social organization that was more communal (and less class-divided) than our unconsciously marxist-influenced history books would have it. The lady of the manor is seen regularly spending time gossiping in the kitchens of the farmers, the shepherds tend each others' flocks on cash contract, and when it's safe, religion is vigorously debated by the fire. It's not a dark oppressed feudal world. The romantic entanglements of the village priest alone are enough to liven the place up. If we had such documents for other times and places, in which people's thinking was as thoroughly documented, we might better appreciate our origins. This book is a gold mine.

This book is for those who enjoy reading serious historical and anthropological studies; for those who delight in asking how did our predecessors live? Sometimes we wonder when travelling in Europe how was life in those medieval villages? We can spot them everywhere, with a bunch of little houses below, slowly climbing up a hill, and a large feudal mansion on top. If this has happened to you, this book is not only essential but it will be a very pleasant adventure. The details we learn about daily life in Montaillou, the people's beliefs, their gestures, their sexual life, their culture and commerce, all can only be so precise thanks to an obsessive preoccupation of Inquisition's guardian Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers and later on Pope at Avignon, known as Benedict XII. We owe our pleasure also to the masterly data intrepretation and selection of Fournier's archaic texts to Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, a fine scholar. Fournier, a dedicated religious man was interested in documenting the practice of Catharism -- a heretic sect -- in Languedoc, France. This way he left for future generations rich material about the habits and ways of living of the time. Ladurie guides us through this data and give us a dynamic view of life in the first two decades of the 14th c. It is seductive. It is worth the effort to lose ourselves among these villagers, from lice-picking to the priest's amorous adventures, from a shepherd's life to the punishments for heresies. Do not miss this book. It is time-travelling. Although this is not a novel, I recommend after this book the reading of Iian Pears, The Dream of Scipio.

Every once in a while, some terrible act results in good. For example, the same Spanish bishop -- Diego de Landa -- who burned the irreplaceable writings of the Mayans wrote a book which was critical in subsequent scholars' understanding of Mayan culture. So also the inquisition established in southwest France in the early years of the 14th century to root out the last vestiges of the Cathar heresy resulted, ultimately, in this little treasure of a book.

The Albigensian Crusade had dealt a death-blow to Catharism, but rural pockets of the heresy persisted. The ambitious bishop of Pamiers, Jacques Fournier, brought in all the residents of one village for questioning. Consisting mostly of shepherds and peasants, Montaillou was a hotbed of Catharism, including the parish priest! Everyone was questioned in detail about their religious practices, households, relationships, work, and travel. Their testimony was taken down verbatim by a clerk; and, after the trial, the records lay untouched in the library of the Vatican until Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie wrote this book.

This is not the usual study of wealthy, educated, and influential Medieval people. Here we have the voice of Everyman. In addition to a great deal of detail about the practices of the Cathar "goodmen," with their sacraments of heretication, the "consolamentum," and the awful "endura," we see how average people formed households, managed to eke out a living, what they talked about, how they got along with their neighbors, how faithful they were to their wives -- in effect, everything.

Because Le Roy Ladurie is a scholarly historian, there are hundreds of footnotes pointing to records of this particular inquisatorial proceeding. They do not manage, however, to cover up the voices of the people of Montaillou, as they tried to explain to their inquisitors the details of their everyday lives.

It took me a little while to realize the uniqueness of this book as I read it. Then it came clear to me that these were the voices of the little people who are almost never heard in history.

In my historiography classes this book has been lauded and used as an example of a new form of history-writing: a complete discription of a village and all it's aspects: religion, sex, food, families, houses etc.
It is definitely not a boring book about one particular subject but covers wide aspects of the Pyrennee Village of Montaillou. Besides being interesting to read it also might open your eyes about certain ideas we might have had about religion and society in the 14th century. We read now that everyone slept with everyone, including the priest, the greatest fornicator of them all. Homosexuality is normal and people cried a lot sooner than now.

Read it and be amazed about 14th century France, it's different than you always though

The book is outstanding on several levels. As a chronicle of the evolution of the Air Force Combat Controller component of special forces it is an outstanding history of the creation and evolution of the Air Force special tactics units. As the story of a personal journey from wandering officer to a man with a mission it is a great story of achievement and sacrifice.

Action around the globe. If the US military was involved Carney was probably there. Reads like an travel plan from PJ O'Rouke's Holidays in Hell. Desert One in Iran, Grenada, Achille Lauro, Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, Haiti, Balkans, Afghanistan and back to Iraq.

The book provides valuable historical insights along with an understanding of how the US special forces units operate. It also provides multiple examples of leadership, mostly good, in our military.

It is not an accident that praise for the book comes from deputy commander of Delta , former chief of staff of the US Army, former commander US Special Forces Command, Seymour Hersh and Army Times. This is the real deal.

The only blemish is that of production. The maps in the softcover are blurred and useless. Without that problem it is 7 Stars

Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this book immensely. "No Room for Error" is an open, straight forward look into the history and present day missions of U.S. Air Force Forward Air Controllers, Pararescuemen and Special Operations Pilots. Unlike many of the books written about Special Operations Teams, "No Room for Error" is short on ego but chalked full of mission specific tactical information and mission strength/weakness recaps. Mr. Carney gives the reader an amazing glimpse into life at the tip of the spear.

This book has an unusual pedigree and an even more unusual main author. John T. Carney is a retired Air Force Colonel who served for more than two and a half decades "traveling mostly by parachute" before his retirement in 1991. He's written this book partially as an explanation of the Air Force's Special Operations component, or at least the part of which he was the commander, the Special Tactics units. In this, he largely succeeds, but the book isn't what I expected, and from reading the other reviews on this page, I get the impression a lot of people were surprised.

Carney's an interesting character. Most special ops guys start out in the military as gung-ho types who want to get right into combat. They wind up spending their whole careers fighting military bureaucracy, and of course wind up not having much luck except when they let their actions speak for themselves. In Carney's case, he started out wanting to be a professional football player, and when an injury cut short his career as a player in college, decided to go into coaching. He went into the ROTC program for the money, and chose the Air Force because the money was the same as the other services, but you had to drill less. From ROTC, he went into the Air Force directly, and since he had experience in college football, he spent some years as a uniformed recruiter for the Air Force Academy. Doesn't sound like a special ops type, does he?

Then things took an unusual turn, and he wound up commanding the first Air Force unit built around the special operations ideal. He was actually on the ground at Desert One in the Iranian desert in 1979, watched from offshore during Urgent Fury (Grenada) and commanded most of the Air Force assets involved during the Panama invasion. He retired just after Desert Storm, though he gives you a synopsis of what happened in Mogadishu, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Those last concluding chapters are rather short, but they do include the author's decision to help set up and administer a program to provide college funding to the children of special operators who die in combat. I'm not sure what I think of this last: it's certainly a worthy cause, but in Iraq, for instance, the majority of our casualties have been regular grunts, even auto mechanics and the like, and Carney's foundation does nothing for them. It's an odd dilemma: I suspect he would say they can't afford to support everyone's kids, so they're concentrating on their own.

Regardless, this is an interesting book. As others have noted, it's not long on action, because of course that's not what it's about. The author does provide valuable insight into the Desert One fiasco, recounting how he reconnoitered the field they landed on two weeks before the actual raid, and how things were different the day of the operation, with dust covering everything, and visibility reduced to a few feet. This part of the book is probably the most enlightening, along with the section on Grenada.

I generally found the book valuable, because among other things there's so little written on the airborne para-rescue types, and their ground controller counterparts. It's also, as you might expect, a good primer in inter-service rivalries and warfare, with the Army (especially) insisting that ground control of aircraft should be their mission, and various Air Force agencies being unwilling to give up the troops to Carney's units so that they're at full strength.

This was an interesting book, and I enjoyed it. Just don't expect a shoot-em-up.

I listened to the abridged version of this book over the course of a few days and found it to be quite entertaining and informative. Those who are intrigued by the special mission units of the US military should look no further than here for an insider's account behind the scenes as many of the heavy hitters were just getting started in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Carney is at his best telling the tale of small unit leadership in action as he fought tooth-and-nail to gain respect and a mission for his "Brand-X" airmen.

Another strength of the book is in showing how hard it was for US special operations forces (SOF) to really get their act together. His account of Desert One in Iran, which has been written about elsewhere, is still not easy to stomach. Grenada was not much better. It was not until Panama in 1989 that things were truly clicking on all cylinders. Special Mission Units didn't have much of a role in Desert Storm/Shield, at least, not at first, but later in Somalia and of course in Afghanistan they were much more than bit players. Carney calls Afghanistan the first "special operations war." But will it be the last? The book was published before Iraq kicked off, but I wonder what he would think about attempting to extrapolate the successes of SOF to that war?

The narrative loses a bit of its strength towards the end after the author retires from active duty and can only watch from the sidelines. In all, No Room For Error is a fast read/listen and quite interesting.

No Room For Error fills a gap in military history. Such gaps have existed since the beginning of time whenever a 'special' operation was conducted. What Col Carney and the late Ben Schemmer have done is describe people, places, and events that bring to light the fact that the special ops 'community' before the 80s was a close knit family whose members and even kids often knew each other by name whether army, navy, or air force.

Col Carney brings faces and humanity to the facts. He shows what it was like to conduct special operations at a time when the majority of SOF was being disbanded after Vietnam and prior to Desert One.

Many Americans will never know the true sacrifice of some of the Quiet Professionals. Many Americans will never know how many fires were put out before they consumed nations. Read this book to discover heroes who don't see themselves as such. Unknown national heroes...of whom their families may never know of their accomplishments.

Col Carney has given credit to an honorable profession made so by honorable men...and today, honorable women.

Jim "Banzai" McClain
USAF Ret.
Desert One Iran

Error and variety collecting is a relatively new form of collecting. Since the discovery of the 1955 Lincoln Cent Double Die Obverse, collectors have been looking at coins differently. From double dies, repunched mint marks, and off-center strikes to difference in die varieties for the same series--even within the same year--the hobby of error collecting can be as satisfying and profitable.

While other books can discuss the profitability, the Cherrypickers' Guide teaches what to look for. With fantastic illustrations and a solid, usable binding, experts Bill Fivaz and J.T. Stanton show collectors what to look for while looking for errors and varieties. The book covers nearly every series of coins including dollars, commemorative, gold.

One caveat I will give is that those who are interested in varieties of Morgan and Peace Dollars, you may want to also buy Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace Dollars. This book is out of print, but some Amazon Marketplace sellers do have copies.

Happy Hunting!

I have had this about a month, and have used it extensively for 20th century silver issues. Just learning the angles of identifying doubles, recut dies, repunched mint marks, etc. makes this book worth it. I found some sections of no use - such as the extremely rare coins (gold, seated dollars) but the 20th century silver (Dimes, Quarters and Halves) very interesting and enlightening as well as the section on Morgan dollars. If you have a few rolls of Washington Quarters or Mercury Dimes (even circulated) you can probably pay for this book by just going through them for varieties.

I gave this book to my Dad and he loved it. Great info and pictures.

Excellent and thorough research of rare coins. A "must have" for the serious collectors!

It's a nice book for prices and such (I'm no expert on coin books) does have some great photos (in color) and some information that's helpfull. But i find myself all ways turing to "Strike it Rich With Pocket Change".

"TR"