Politics & Islam Books: 2008

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Princess Sultanas Circle or How to Rig an Election

Princess Sultana's Circle, Vol. 3

Author: Jean P Sasson

With Princess Sultana's Circle, Jean Sasson completes the compelling trilogy of the women of Saudi Arabia.

In her earlier nonfiction bestsellers, Princess & Princess Sultana's Daughters, Jean Sasson helped create a new genre that has stirred widespread interest in the plight of oppressed women of Saudi Arabia. Telling the true story of "Sultana," a pseudonymous member of the Saudi royal family, Sasson described a society in which women are second class citizens with few rights, without control over their own lives, and who are subject to harsh punishment, for the slightest transgressions. Exposing what Sasson calls "one of the most backward and cruelest social systems in the world for women," the books remain best sellers with women of every age and nationality. These books have caught the attention of educators who used them as part of their reading curriculum. These books are also some of the most popular for women's reading clubs.

Now, in Princess Sultana's Circle, Jean Sasson and Princess Sultana continue to expose the primitive cultural traditions that relegate the women of Saudi Arabia to near-slave status. Portraying Sultana's great courage in risking all that she has in the quest to effect change, the final book in the Princess trilogy centers on her crisis of confidence and ultimate triumph as she stands up to the seemingly unassailable power of Saudi Arabian men. With Princess Sultana's Circle, Jean Sasson brings Sultana's story to a satisfying close, leaving readers with a sense of hope about the future of Saudi women.

Princess Sultana's Circle opens with Sultana questioning her ability to improve the lives of women in her homeland. As her wealth and possessions have increased, Sultana's happiness and contentment have decreased, undermining her aspirations to assist helpless women. When her niece is forced into an arranged marriage with a cruel, depraved older man, Sultana's attempts to intervene fail, intensifying her sense of powerlessness. Feeling frustrated and depressed, she secretly begins to drink. Imbibing alcohol is dangerous in Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal and also a sin for which she could be divorced by her husband and shunned by her family.

Soon after, while visiting the lavish home of a royal cousin, Sultana and her two daughters make a horrifying discovery—their relative is keeping a harem of sex slaves in one of the pavilions on his vast estate. Mostly Asian and quite young, the imprisoned girls tell horror stories of having been bought by their current master from their families or at public auction. Unable to rescue them because, in Saudi Arabia, there are no legal means available to free these women, Sultana blames herself for not being able to do more. A trip to New York, meant to revive her spirits, only serves to glaringly highlight the simple freedoms that Saudi women lack, from driving a car to wearing regular clothes in public.

Sultana's rebellious daughters are also providing her with daily challenges. Amani, her younger child, still caught up in Islamic zeal, may be a member of a banned political group of Middle Eastern dissidents who oppose the Saudi royal family. Her older daughter, Maha, continues to chafe against Saudi cultural restrictions and the roving "morals police." Their contrasting views on Muslim womanhood provide a fascinating glimpse into the larger internal conflicts currently confronting their country.

Ultimately, with her husband's help, Sultana is able to confront her drinking problem. This, along with several other events, gives Sultana a fresh perspective. Breaking free of her apathy, she returns to her life-long goal of raising the status of women in Saudi Arabia. However, Sultana's renewed sense of purpose is quickly tested when her nephews are caught committing an unspeakable act against a 14-year-old girl, who had been expressly purchased for sex. Galvanized into action, Sultana risks her personal status and wealth to take a stand against the complacency of her male relatives over the child's fate. Ultimately, Sultana and her sisters vow to form a circle of support that will surround and shelter abused women and girls.

Honest and deeply personal, Princess Sultana's Circle depicts one woman's heroic struggle to make a difference in a culture where change in regard to women's rights is painstakingly slow. All who read this story are certain to be moved to action by its heartfelt message: to join Princess Sultana's symbolic circle of protection and work together to secure justice and equality for women everywhere.

Interesting textbook: Air Words or Inventing the Internet

How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative

Author: Allen Raymond

Fresh out of grad school, Allen Raymond joined the GOP for one reason: rumor had it that there was big money to be made on the Republican side of the aisle.

From the earliest days of the Republican Revolution through its culmination in the second Bush White House, Raymond played a key role in helping GOP candidates twist the truth beyond recognition during a decade of crucial and bitterly fought campaigns. His career took him from the nastiest of local elections in New Jersey backwaters through runs for Congress and the Senate and right up to a top management position in a bid for the presidency itself.

It also took him to prison.

Full of wit and candor, Raymond's account offers an astonishingly frank look at the black art of campaigning and the vagaries of the Republican establishment. Unlike many "architects" of the political scene, the author takes full responsibility for his actions -- even as he never misses a trick.

A completely original tale of the disillusioning of a man who enters politics with no illusions, How to Rig an Election is a brilliant and hilarious exposй of how the contemporary political game is really played.

Kirkus Reviews

One of the Northeast GOP's top campaigners tells how he became an agent of corruption for the Republican revolution. Raymond's great-grandfather, John Thomas Underwood, founded the famous typewriter company, and while the author's share of that fortune ensured that he'd never go hungry, "family pride-hell, my own pride-ensured that I'd never be some yacht-hopping scion." After graduating from college in 1989 and spending a few desultory years in PR, he wandered into the Graduate School of Political Management. Based at the time in New York City, GSPM pushed a militaristic, Machiavellian approach to the business that was seductive to a drifter like Raymond: "I wanted to pick a fight, have a fight, and win a fight." For little apparent ideological reason, he went to work for the Republicans in New Jersey; later he ran a doomed campaign for a pro-choice GOP Philadelphia socialite with more friends than smarts. Raymond climbed the party ladder during the heady post-Gingrich days, when the very thought of compromise could infuriate the new South-centric Republican leadership, whose campaign rhetoric he derides as "pro-life, snake-handling babble." It's surprising at first to hear such criticisms from a highly placed operative in the Republican National Committee, but it becomes markedly less so once Raymond gets to the crux of the matter: how he was hung out to dry and went to jail for following orders to jam Democratic volunteers' phone lines. As he states early on, "In GOP circles in 2002 it seemed preposterous that anything you did to win an election could be considered a crime." He saw the light in prison and decided to tell the American voters about the dirty tricks he practiced, which hesees growing ever more common. "Now what are you going to do about it?" he asks. Refreshingly candid about his vindictive motives, Raymond offers a damning chronicle of political hubris.

Kill Bin Laden or The Trouble with Africa

Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man

Author: Dalton Fury

This work offers a firsthand account of the Battle of Tora Bora and an insider's look at the extraordinary nature of America's supersecret counterterrorist unit---an elite and mysterious group known as Delta Force.

New interesting textbook: El Jardin Culinario or Cocina divertida para ninos

The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working

Author: Robert Calderisi

After years of frustration at the stifling atmosphere of political correctness surrounding discussions of Africa, long time World Bank official Robert Calderisi speaks out. He boldly reveals how most of Africa’s misfortunes are self-imposed, and why the world must now deal differently with the continent.
Here we learn that Africa has steadily lost markets by its own mismanagement, that even capitalist countries are anti-business, that African family values and fatalism are more destructive than tribalism, and that African leaders prey intentionally on Western guilt. Calderisi exposes the shortcomings of foreign aid and debt relief, and proposes his own radical solutions.
Drawing on thirty years of first hand experience, The Trouble with Africa highlights issues which have been ignored by Africa’s leaders but have worried ordinary Africans, diplomats, academics, business leaders, aid workers, volunteers, and missionaries for a long time. It ripples with stories which only someone who has talked directly to African farmers--and heads of state--could recount.
Calderisi’s aim is to move beyond the hand-wringing and finger-pointing which dominates most discussions of Africa. Instead, he suggests concrete steps which Africans and the world can take to liberate talent and enterprise on the continent.

Publishers Weekly

It isn't the legacy of the slave trade or colonialism, or the supposed inequities of globalization and world trade, that are to blame for Africa's travails, argues this stimulating contrarian essay. The author insists that Africa's problems are largely of its own making, the product of dictatorial, kleptocratic governments; rampant corruption; economic policies that hobble agriculture, discourage private investment and strangle new businesses with red tape; and a cultural fatalism that inures Africans to misery. Calderisi draws on his experience as a World Bank official in Africa, peppering his analysis with personal anecdotes about Africa's callous, venal officialdom and misguided economic policies. He offers a muted defense of World Bank policies, but also decries Western "political correctness" in indulging Africa's dysfunctions and calls for a new tough-love approach to foreign aid. Assistance to most countries, he contends, should be cut in half and conditioned on thorough democratic reforms and strict oversight by Western donors; responsible governments-he lists Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Mali-should get a large increase in aid with few strings attached. Calderisi's focus on Africa's internal faults and his somewhat essentialist musings on the "African character" will stir controversy, but his cogent argument is an important addition to the conversation over Africa's future. (Mar. 9) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

It's the disease, the climate, the corruption, the brutal dictators, the tribal factions, the European colonization, the slavery-you name it, everyone has a reason for Africa's continuing collapse. Here, an adroit former World Bank official suggests that the misfortunes are more self-imposed. Calderisi places the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the Africans themselves, also blaming the continent's various leaders. With few exceptions, he writes, the economies have all declined since independence in the 1970s. Botswana, one of the exceptions, has a strong economy and a higher standard of living than nearly all other African countries, and yet 37 percent of its adult population carries the HIV virus, and the life expectancy has plummeted to 34 years. Many hopeful stories from the 1970s and 1980s have disappeared with the loss, through mismanagement, of markets to Asia and Latin America. Wealth for the continent's people has declined since 1970, and the immediate future looks grim. Calderisi proposes ten workable solutions to the problems, such as that funding for Africa be contingent upon democratic rule, making this book one that should be in every academic library in this country-and every library in Africa.-Jim Thorsen, Madison Cty. Schs., Weaverville, NC Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Pt. I	What sets Africa apart
1	Looking for excuses	13
2	Africa from different angles	35
3	Thugs in power	57
4	Culture, corruption, and correctness	77
Pt. II	Stories from the front line
5	Tanzania : African socialism	103
6	Ivory coast : the end of a miracle	115
7	Discord in Central Africa	131
Pt. III	Facing the facts
8	Defying economics	141
9	The trouble with foreign aid	153
10	The Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline	177
11	A clash of values	195
Pt. IV	Facing the future
12	Ten ways of changing Africa	207
13	A new day	223

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Amazing Grace or Debunking 9 11 Myths

Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation

Author: Jonathan Kozol

The children in this book defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented by the media. Tender, generous and often religiously devout, they speak with eloquence and honesty about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them.

The book does not romanticize or soften the effects of violence and sickness. One fourth of the child-bearing women in the neighborhoods where these children live test positive for HIV. Pediatric AIDs, life-consuming fires and gang rivalries take a high toll. Several children die during the year in which this narrative takes place.

A gently written work, Amazing Grace asks questions that are at once political and theological. What is the value of a child's life? What exactly do we plan to do with those whom we appear to have defined as economically and humanly superfluous? How cold -- how cruel, how tough -- do we dare be?

Publishers Weekly

Kozol (Savage Inequalities) began visiting New York's South Bronx in 1993, focusing on Mott Haven, a poor neighborhood that is two thirds Hispanic, one third black. This disquieting report graphically portrays a world where babies are born to drug-using mothers with AIDS, where children are frequently murdered, jobs are scarce and a large proportion of the men are either in prison or on crack cocaine or heroin. Kozol interviewed ministers, teachers, drug pushers, children who have not yet given up hope. His powerfully understated report takes us inside rat-infested homes that are freezing in winter, overcrowded schools, dysfunctional clinics, soup kitchens. Rejecting what he calls the punitive, blame-the-poor ideology that has swept the nation, Kozol points to systemic discrimination, hopelessness, limited economic opportunities and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's cutbacks in social services as causes of this crisis. While his narrative offers no specific solutions, it forcefully drives home his conviction: a civilized nation cannot allow this situation to continue. Author tour. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Alicea and Kozol paint a vivid portrait of life in one of America's most impoverished neighborhoods, New York City's South Bronx. While telling similar stories, each narrative has its own unique flavor and characteristics that reveal the crushing nature of poverty in America and recount the lives of those who rise above it. Kozol (Savage Inequalities, LJ 9/15/91) describes a neighborhood ravaged by drugs, violence, hunger, AIDS, and antipathy but also one where children defy all the stereotypes. In the South Bronx, where the median income is $7600 a year and everything breaks down, Kozol reveals that the one thing that has remained resilient is the children. One of the resident children is 15-year-old Alicea, who saw his mother and sister succumb to AIDS, a father incarcerated in prison, and friends entrapped by drugs or violence. Like that of many children, his story is a life of options or despair. The path they pursue is dependent on government leadership. Both books should be required reading for policymakers and those concerned with the plight of the American poor.-Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind.

Book review: Hired The Job Hunting Career Planning Guide with Portfolio Disk or Entrepreneurship in Action

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts

Author: David Dunbar

A Groundbreaking, meticulous, and scientific analysis of the 9/11 conspiracy theories

The first conspiracy theories about September 11 began to emerge while the wreckage was still smoldering. Today, nearly five years later, hundreds of books and thousands of Web pages are devoted to the idea that the U.S. government encouraged, permitted, or actually carried out the attacks. These theories claim to be based on hard evidence. But an in-depth investigation by POPULAR MECHANICS--first published in the magazine's March 2005 issue, and now greatly expanded into book form--definitively proves that the evidence most often cited by conspiracy theorists is inaccurate, misinterpreted, or false.

The original article in POPULAR MECHANICS caused a huge groundswell of interest, setting off online debates that continue to this day. Debunking 9/11 Myths expands that investigation to include the 20 most prominent and persistent claims underlying the conspiracy theories, focusing on concrete, physical facts rather than political hypothesizing. Among the issues examined: claims that air traffic control violated standard operating procedures by not immediately intercepting the stricken jets; that the fire caused by the crashes wasn't actually hot enough to melt steel and cause structural damage in the World Trade Center; that the holes in the Pentagon were too small to have been made by a Boeing 757; and that Flight 93 was actually shot down by an Air Force plane.

The fascinating and in-depth findings come from leading experts in all the relevant fields, including aviation, air defense, air traffic control, civil engineering, firefighting, metallurgy, and geology.

What People Are Saying

Richard Clarke
"9/11 Myths is a reliable and rational answer to the many fanciful conspiracy theories about 9-11. Despite the fact that the myths are fictitious, many have caught on with those who do not trust their government to tell the truth anymore. Fortunately, the government is not sufficiently competent to pull off such conspiracies and too leaky to keep them secret. What happened on 9-11 has been well established by the 9-11 Commission. What did not happen has now been clearly explained by Popular Mechanics."
—former White House anti-terror advisor

I Rigoberta Menchu or In the Shadow of No Towers

I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

Author: Rigoberta Menchu

Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu powerfully describes the social and political struggles of her Guatemalan Indian community.

Go to: Crystal Reports 10 for Dummies or How eBay Really Works

In the Shadow of No Towers

Author: Art Spiegelman

For Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were both highly personal and intensely political. In the Shadow of No Towers, his first new book of comics since the groundbreaking Maus, is a masterful and moving account of the events and aftermath of that tragic day.

Spiegelman and his family bore witness to the attacks in their lower Manhattan neighborhood: his teenage daughter had started school directly below the towers days earlier, and they had lived in the area for years. But the horrors they survived that morning were only the beginning for Spiegelman, as his anguish was quickly displaced by fury at the U.S. government, which shamelessly co-opted the events for its own preconceived agenda.

He responded in the way he knows best. In an oversized, two-page-spread format that echoes the scale of the earliest newspaper comics (which Spiegelman says brought him solace after the attacks), he relates his experience of the national tragedy in drawings and text that convey—with his singular artistry and his characteristic provocation, outrage, and wit—the unfathomable enormity of the event itself, the obvious and insidious effects it had on his life, and the extraordinary, often hidden changes that have been enacted in the name of post-9/11 national security and that have begun to undermine the very foundation of American democracy.

The New York Times Sunday Book Review - David Hajdu

In the Shadow of No Towers looks like a repudiation of the undergrounds and their progeny, a rejection of their now generic graphic crudity in favor of an approach that is simultaneously contemporary and antique. Spiegelman employs an unexpected variety of drawing styles and graphic techniques -- his familiar scrawls; painterly images in soft, pastelish shades; computer scans, sometimes digitized for interpretive effect; and appropriations of long-forgotten newspaper comic-strip characters. Five or six story segments or graphic elements in different styles -- one running vertically, one in a large circle, one broken up into images laid out like snapshots on the floor -- all play off one another in an effect that suggests the scattershot multiformity of the Web.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

It is a testament to Art Spiegelman's uncompromising vision that In the Shadow of No Towers - his account of 9/11 and its aftermath - makes no effort to contain or domesticate the surreal awfulness of that day.

USA Today - Christopher Theokas

No Towers is provocative and partisan. But it's also very personal. Spiegelman offers his fears, his horror and his anger for everyone to see.

Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Spiegelman's new work is an inventive and vividly graphic work of nonfiction. It's an artful rant focused on the events of 9/11 and afterward by a world-class pessimist ("after all, disaster is my muse"). The artist, who lives in downtown Manhattan, believes the world really ended on Sept. 11, 2001 it's merely a technicality that some people continue to go about their daily lives. He provides a hair-raising and wry account of his family's frantic efforts to locate one another on September 11 as well as a morbidly funny survey of his trademark sense of existential doom. "I'm not even sure I'll live long enough," says a chain-smoking, post-9/11 cartoon-mouse Spiegelman, "for cigarettes to kill me." The book is a visceral tirade against the Bush administration ("brigands suffering from war fever") and, when least expected, an erudite meditation on the history of the American newspaper comic strip, born during the fierce circulation wars of the 1890s right near the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. This beautifully designed, oversized book (each page is heavy board stock) opens vertically to offer large, colorful pages with Spiegelman's contemporary lamentations along with wonderful reproductions of 19th-century broadsheet comic strips like Richard Outcault's Hogan's Alley and Rudolf Dirk's Katzenjammer Kids. Old comics, Spiegelman (Maus) writes, saved his sanity. "Unpretentious ephemera from the optimistic dawn of the 20th century... they were just right for an end-of-the world moment." This is a powerful and quirky work of visual storytelling by a master comics artist. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Francisca Goldsmith - VOYA

In a manner that is both accessible and cogent, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Spiegelman presents his very personal observation of and response to the obliteration of the World Trade Center. Living as he does in lower Manhattan and having children who went to school on the morning of September 11, his experiences of the day's events are relatively at ground zero. By distilling what he saw, felt, thought, and did both in the immediacy of the event and in the weeks following as the event became a political football, he gives readers the opportunity to meet both the physical situation and the cultural ramifications in a kind of aesthetic nakedness that is clarifying and revealing. The physicality of this book is itself studied: A folio printed entirely on board, its narrative is told in full-page spreads that borrow from old comics pages as well as include reportorial panels depicting the WTC's evaporation. The narrative portrays Spiegelman's role as parent, his teenaged daughter's response to the patriotic fervor at her newly assigned school, and his wife's efforts to get a New Yorker cover wrested from him in her role as that magazine's art editor. Despite the text's brevity and the enormity of each spread, it is easy to read this book repeatedly and find new story strands, new realizations of what the event continues to mean, and how history changes even while it is being lived. Processing and shelving this book in libraries should be done respectfully; it is sure to be a lasting icon in American studies. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P J S A/YA G (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10to 12; Adult-marketed book recommended for Young Adults; Graphic Novel Format). 2004, Pantheon, 42p., Ages 12 to Adult.

Library Journal

In his first new graphic novel since Maus, Spiegelman uses his unique artistry to capture the tragedy of 9/11 and what he considers its shameful misappropriation by the U.S. government. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Monday, December 29, 2008

The Casebook of Forensic Detection or A Great Improvisation

The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World's Most Baffling Crimes

Author: Colin Evans

Updated with new material, this collection vividly depicts the horrendous crimes, colorful detectives, and grueling investigations that shaped the science of forensics. In concise, fascinating detail, Colin Evans shows how far forensic science has come from Sherlock Holmes's magnifying glass. No crime in this book is ordinary, and many of the perpetrators are notorious: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, John List, Bruno Hauptmann, Jeffrey Macdonald, and Wayne Williams among others. Along with the cases solved, fifteen forensic techniques are covered- including fingerprinting, ballistics, toxicology, DNA analysis, and psychological profiling, methods that have increased the odds that today's technosleuths will get the bad guys, clear the innocent-and bring justice to the victims and their families.

Publishers Weekly

This well-organized compendium by Evans (Killer Doctors in Britain) covers cases from 1751 to 1991, arranged according to the methodology by which they were solved. Fifteen areas are listed alphabetically, ranging from ballistics through DNA typing, fingerprinting, odontology, serology and toxicology to the still-disputed voiceprint analysis. Only a few twice-told tales like the murder of Gay Gibson and Willie Guldensuppe have been included. Otherwise, even the most dedicated devotee of the genre will find much that is new in these brief but exciting accounts of the brilliant and persistent scientific work that brought murderers like John List (through forensic anthropology), Ted Bundy (through odontology) and Jeffrey MacDonald (through trace evidence) to justice. Those still convinced of the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti or Bruno Richard Hauptmann are in for some surprises. Fifty photos include many of the pathologists and detectives whose exploits are related in the text. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Arranged by topiccause of death, DNA, fingerprinting, toxicology, trace evidence, and so onthese are short summaries (two to three pages) of cases Evans (A Calendar of Crime: An Almanac of Sinister & Criminal Behavior, Longmeadow, 1993) considers landmarks of forensic science. While highly selective, they are representative of the evolution of the discipline and its increasingly prominent role in crime solving. Not all of them were baffling, and some conclusionsthe guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti or of Hauptmann in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping caseare debatable. Emphasis is placed on the certainties of forensics rather than on such complexities as the variant expert testimony at the O.J. Simpson trial (not mentioned here). Written in a popular style as clear as it is brief, this book is suitable for general true-crime collections, although readers wanting to know more about specific cases will regret the absence of a bibliography.Gregor A. Preston, formerly with Univ. of California Lib., Davis, Calif.

Booknews

A mystery novelist's essential resource guide recounting 100 criminal cases solved by forensic investigation, perseverance, and technology. Evans, a crime writer (of course), describes pivotal cases in the areas of ballistics, disputed documents, DNA typing, explosives and fire, fingerprinting, odontology, psychological profiling, remains identification, serology, time of death, toxicology, and voiceprints. Each section introduces the forensic area and its pioneers, supplying background for examples such as how Ted Bundy was identified (teethmarks). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Interesting textbook: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave or The Sustainability Revolution

A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America

Author: Stacy Schiff

and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

	Cast of Characters	xi
	Introduction	1
I	The First Mistake in Public Business Is the Going into It 1776	7
II	Half the Truth Is Often a Great Lie 1776-1777	36
III	Three Can Keep a Secret, If Two of Them Are Dead 1777	65
IV	The Cat in Gloves Catches No Mice 1777-1778	94
V	There Is No Such Thing as a Little Enemy 1778	126
VI	Admiration Is the Daughter of Ignorance 1778	165
VII	Success Has Ruined Many a Man 1779	196
VIII	Everyone Has Wisdom Enough to Manage the Affairs of His Neighbors 1780	229
IX	The Sting of a Reproach Is the Truth of It 1780-1781	260
X	Those Who in Quarrels Interpose May Get Bloody Nose 1782	291
XI	The Absent Are Never Without Fault 1783	325
XII	Creditors Have Better Memories Than Debtors 1784-1785	359
	Epilogue	398
	Chronology	413
	Notes	419
	Selected Bibliography	459
	Acknowledgments	463
	Index	467

First in Last out or The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature

First In, Last Out: Leadership Lessons from the New York Fire Department

Author: John Salka

What does it take to lead people into a burning building? How do the leaders of the New York City Fire Department develop so much loyalty, trust, and grace under pressure that their subordinates will risk their very lives for them?
As a high-ranking officer of the FDNY, John Salka is an expert at both practicing and teaching high-stakes leadership. In First In, Last Out, he explains the department's unique strategies and how they can be adopted by leaders in any field-as he has taught them to organizations around the country. In a tough-talking, no-nonsense style, Salka uses real-world stories to convey leadership imperatives such as:
• first in, last out-your people need to see you taking the biggest risk, as the first one to enter the danger zone and the last to leave
• manage change-the fire you fought yesterday is not the one you'll be fighting tomorrow
• communicate aggressively-a working radio is worth more than 20,000 gallons of water
• create an execution culture-focus your people on the flames, not the smoke
• commit to reality-never allow the way you would like things to be to color how things are
• develop your people-let them feel a little heat today or they'll get burned tomorrow Illustrated by harrowing real-life situations, the principles in First In, Last Out will help managers become more confident, coherent, and commanding.

Publishers Weekly

Salka, an FDNY battalion chief in the Bronx, has spent 25 years with the department, rising from firefighter to his current rank. He shares his insights on managing people, coping with crises, mentoring, decision making, adjusting to change and more. While Salka uses his experiences fighting fires, he clearly shows how his work has applications in almost any corporation: "[O]ur mission is to protect the people and property of New York City.... Since your customers define this value, your customers define your business. Organizations today need to ask themselves, Who is our customer? Only by figuring out exactly who their customer is and what they want can organizations fully grasp their mission." Salka discusses how he works with his firefighters and how managers can use his tactics. For example, he says, "[T]he most effective way to show your people that you trust them is to delegate to them. This is standard operating procedure in the FDNY. By letting them tackle problems on their own, you demonstrate your belief in them." The book covers key aspects to leadership-establishing trust, connecting with employees, decision making, engaging employees, dealing with crises and nurturing new leaders-in a logical fashion. The writing is solid though not inspiring. Readers who expected thrilling tales of firefighting will be disappointed because Salka's real-life anecdotes are toned down. Overall, this is a solid, but not unique, look at leadership. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy, the New York Fire Department has achieved near legendary status. So it seems that we might have something valuable to learn from this dynamic organization. Salka, battalion chief and 24-year veteran of the NYFD, offers readers the chance to learn about leadership literally from the hot seat. Follow Salka into burning buildings, watch him make decisions, execute them calmly under pressure, and, in the process, inspire confidence in his firefighters. His straight-shooting style and hair-singeing illustrations are effective in communicating the "first in, last out" risk-taking philosophy of NYFD leadership. Salka deals with communication, relationship building, trust, decision making, and leadership development throughout the organization. His firefighting analogies work well. For instance, "follow the smoke" (it's the symptom that leads you to the problem) is how you get the real scoop on yourself, your organization, and your industry. If an overdose of dry-as-dust leadership books has left your patrons drowsy, this one is sure to kindle their interest. Recommended for public library collections.-Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin, Whitewater Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

	Introduction	xiii
1	You're the Chief	1
2	The Leadership Triangle: What is the foundation of great leadership?	13
3	Fueling the Leadership Fire: How do you take your leadership to the next level?	31
4	Don't Waste Your Water on Smoke: How do you get your people to focus on the things that matter?	43
5	Every Chief Needs a Radio, a White Helmet, and His People's Trust: How does trust help you get the most out of your people?	57
6	Know Their Names Before You Send Them into the Flames: How do you create strong connections with your people?	77
7	Making the Right Call When the Heat Is On: How do you make the right decisions?	103
8	No One Goes Home Until the Fire's Out: How do you lead for execution?	123
9	Fire Up Your People's Performance: How do you get your people to be fully engaged in their work?	143
10	The Fire You Beat Today Is Not the One You'll Face Tomorrow: How do you make uncertainty and flux work to your advantage?	169
11	Finding Your Top Whip: How can you develop leaders throughout your organization? And how will this help you be a more effective leader?	195
	Conclusion	209
	Notes	211
	Bibliography	215
	Index	217

Go to: Introduction to the Theory and Application of Data Envelopment Analysis or Industrial Policy in an Era of Globalization

The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature

Author: Elizabeth Kantor

and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

Sunday, December 28, 2008

GUILTY or The Left Hand of God

GUILTY: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America

Author: Ann Coulter

In her most controversial and fiercely argued book yet, Ann Coulter calls out liberals for always playing the victim - when in fact, as she sees it, they are the victimizers. In GUILTY, Coulter explodes this myth to reveal that when it comes to bullying, no one outdoes the Left. GUILTY is a mordantly witty and shockingly specific catalog of offenses which Coulter presents from A to Z. And as with each of her past books, all of which were NYT bestsellers, Coulter is fearless in her penchant for saying what needs saying about politics and culture today.

Books about: Summer Gatherings or Tucson Cooks

The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right

Author: Michael Lerner

and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

Assassination Vacation or Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Assassination Vacation

Author: Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other--a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue--it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and--the author's favorite--historical tourism.

Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are lighter diversions into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

Conan O'Brien Robert Todd Lincoln
Eric Bogosian John Wilkes Booth
Stephen King President Abraham Lincoln
Dave Eggers Mike Ryan
Catherine Keener Gretchen Worden
Jon Stewart President James A. Garfield
Tony Kushner John Humphrey Noyes
Brad Bird Charles Guiteau & Emma Goldman
Daniel Handler President William McKinley
Greg Giraldo President Theodore Roosevelt
David Rakoff Leon Czolgosz

The New York Times - Bruce Handy

Having made the commercially courageous decision to avoid the catnip that is the Kennedy name, Vowell restricts her gaze to America's first three presidential murders: those of Abraham Lincoln, Garfield and William McKinley. Mixing travelogue, history, personal essay and social criticism, she follows the loose formula perfected in two previous collections of magazine pieces and adapted versions of her appearances on public radio's ''This American Life,'' where she is a regular.

Library Journal

Vowell visits assassination sites throughout the country to consider how political violence gets manipulated. With a 13-city tour including some of the stops along her way? Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Vowell has a perspective on American history that is definitely funny. She visits museums, historic sites, statues, libraries, anything remotely relevant to successful presidential assassins, and a few of those not so successful. This is an amusing way to learn history, but it is also an unusual look at the interconnectedness of things. Robert Todd Lincoln, "a.k.a. Jinxy McDeath," was present, or nearly so, at three assassinations-his father's, Garfield's, and McKinley's. To understand Garfield's assassin, the author spends time at the Oneida Colony in upstate New York, a religious commune that preached a combination of free love and the second coming, and connects it with Jonathan Edwards. She tracks the Lincoln conspirators through the process of plot and escape to hanging and imprisonment, even describing Dr. Mudd's enormous contribution when the plague hit the prison island of Dry Tortuga. Garfield's assassin was deeply involved in the redirection of the Republican Party after the Civil War, and McKinley's was an anarchist following, he thought, the tenets of Emma Goldman. There are family anecdotes and real scholarship in this quirky road trip. Teens will get an interesting view of one aspect of American history while picking up odd bits of information about a whole lot more. There is much to enjoy in this discursive yet somehow cohesive book.-Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran

The Green Zone, Baghdad, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical supplies.

In this acclaimed firsthand account, the former Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post gives us an intimate portrait of life inside this Oz-like bubble, which continued unaffected by the growing mayhem outside. This is a quietly devastating tale of imperial folly, and the definitive history of those early days when things went irrevocably wrong in Iraq.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

Mr. Chandrasekaran, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and the paper's former Baghdad bureau chief, spent nearly two years reporting from Iraq, and in Imperial Life in the Emerald City he draws a vividly detailed portrait of the Green Zone and the Coalition Provisional Authority…that becomes a metaphor for the administration's larger failings in Iraq…By focusing closely on the goals, initiatives and missteps of individuals involved in the Coalition Provisional Authority, Mr. Chandrasekaran is able to re-examine the mix of motives involved in the American invasion and the roles that hubris, idealism and denial played in shaping the occupation. His book gives the reader a visceral—sometimes sickening—picture of how the administration and its handpicked crew bungled the first year in postwar Iraq, showing how decisions made in that period contributed to a burgeoning insurgency and growing ethnic and religious strife.

The New York Times Book Review - Michael Goldfarb

It would have been worthwhile if Chandrasekaran had given us a greater sense of what he thought about overthrowing Hussein and, more to the point, what he felt upon returning to Washington after having seen the bloody result of its policies. But that is a philosophical difference I have with the author. This is a clearly written, blessedly undidactic book. It should be read by anyone who wants to understand how things went so badly wrong in Iraq.

Publishers Weekly

As the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post, Chandrasekaran has probably spent more time in U.S.-occupied Iraq than any other American journalist, and his intimate perspective permeates this history of the Coalition Provisional Authority headquartered in the Green Zone around Saddam Hussein's former palace. He presents the tenure of presidential viceroy L. Paul Bremer between May 2003 and June 2004 as an all-too-avoidable disaster, in which an occupational administration selected primarily for its loyalty to the Bush administration routinely ignored the reality of local conditions until, as one ex-staffer puts it, "everything blew up in our faces." Chandrasekaran unstintingly depicts the stubborn cluelessness of many Americans in the Green Zone-like the army general who says children terrified by nighttime helicopters should appreciate "the sound of freedom." But he sympathetically portrays others trying their best to cut through the red tape and institute genuine reforms. He also has a sharp eye for details, from casual sex in abandoned offices to stray cats adopted by staffers, which enable both advocates and critics of the occupation to understand the emotional toll of its circuslike atmosphere. Thanks to these personal touches, the account of the CPA's failures never feels heavy-handed. (Sept. 22) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

"Rajiv Chandrasekaran has not given us "another Iraq book." He has given us a riveting tale of American misadventure. . . . He shows us American idealism and voyeurism, as well as the deadly results of American hubris. And by giving us the first full picture from inside the Green Zone, he depicts a mission doomed to failure before it had even been launched."
---Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

"This is a dazzling, important, and entertaining work of reportage about the American civilians who tried to remake Iraq, and about the strange, isolated city-state in Baghdad where they failed. Every American who wants to understand how and why things went so badly wrong in Iraq should read this book."
---Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars

"This amazing book pulls back the curtains of deception and reveals in stunning fashion what really went on inside the Emerald City in the crucial year after the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran's reporting is vivid and relentless as he documents the mix of idealism, confidence, energy, hubris, political miscalculation, cultural blindness, and fantastical thinking of those who came to save Iraq yet made a difficult situation worse."
---David Maraniss, author of They Marched Into Sunlight

"An extraordinarily vivid and compelling anatomy of a fiasco. Imperial Life in the Emerald City is an indispensable saga of how the American liberation of Iraq turned to chaos, calamity, and civil war. Chandrasekaran takes us inside Baghdad's Green Zone as no one else has."
---Rick Atkinson, author of The Long Gray Line

Map of the Green Zone
Prologue
PART ONE-BUILDING THE BUBBLE
1 Versailles on the Tigris
2 A Deer in the Headlights
The Green Zone, Scene
3 You're in Charge!
The Green Zone, Scene II
4 Control Freak
The Green Zone, Scene III
5 Who Are These People?
The Green Zone, Scene IV
6 We Need to Rethink This
The Green Zone, Scene V
7 Bring a Duffel Bag
The Green Zone, Scene VI
8 A Yearning for Old Times
PART TWO-SHATTERED DREAMS
9 Let This Be Over
The Green Zone, Scene VII
10 The Plan Unravels
The Green Zone, Scene VIII
11 A Fool's Errand
The Green Zone, Scene IX
12 We Cannot Continue Like This
The Green Zone, Scene X
13 Missed Opportunities
The Green Zone, Scene XI
14 Breaking the Rules
The Green Zone, Scene XII
15 Crazy, If Not Suicidal
The Green Zone, Scene XIII
16 Lot Left to Be Done
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Trigger Men or Worried Sick

Trigger Men: Shadow Team, Spiderman, The Magnificent Bastards, and the American Combat Sniper

Author: Hans Halberstadt

Combat veteran and author Hans Halberstadt takes readers deeper inside the elusive world of snipers than ever before, from recruitment and training to the brutality of the killing fields.

Shadow Team is probably the most productive sniper team in American military history, accounting for 276 confirmed kills in a six months span with no casualties of their own. Their leader made what was, and may still be, the longest range kill with a 7.62mm rifle. For the first time ever they explain what it's like to kill a man and what it takes to become one of the elite.

The tragic tale of Headhunter Two is altogether different. This four man sniper team from a regiment known within the Corps as the Magnificent Bastards was killed in 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq. Their deaths not only caused a reevaluation of sniper tactics and techniques, but created a desire for vengeance that was exacted nearly two years later in dramatic fashion.

Based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews, Halberstadt gets inside the sniper mind and shows how they think and interact with each other, how missions are planned and executed, how the weapons work, and even what happens when a bullet finally strikes its target. There are only a few hundred snipers from all the services put together in combat at any one time, making this true inside story a rare and important event.

Both a uniquely intimate look at what makes a sniper tick and a harrowing read filled with dramatic war tales, Trigger Men is a book about killers and killing, without apology and without remorse.

Kirkus Reviews

Another testosterone-laced account of another elite combat specialty. Prolific military writer Halberstadt (Army: The U.S. Army Today, 2006, etc.) maintains that individual snipers rack up more kills than entire brigades. While sharpshooters figured prominently in conflicts from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam, they did not become trained, high-tech professionals until the 1980s, when military thinkers began focusing on antiterrorism and small-unit actions. Snipers parachuted into Panama during the 1989 invasion and, according to one Halberstadt source, shot everyone in sight. They had few opportunities during the 1991 Gulf War, lots more during the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, which dominate the book. Snipers never work alone, notes the author. Typically, groups of two to six include "shooters" and security. They move into enemy territory, hide and observe, remaining in radio contact with their base and with patrols in the area to provide invaluable intelligence. This may be all they provide, because under strict rules of engagement months may pass before they shoot. While "one shot, one kill" remains the ideal, it does not represent reality, especially at long distances, and today's snipers hit targets beyond a mile. The author illustrates his subjects' activities with a dozen oral histories, the book's best portions. Military buffs will enjoy colorful accounts of the brutal training regimen plus nuts-and-bolts descriptions of weapons and high-tech observation gear. Ordinary infantry M4 carbines make many kills, Halberstadt notes, but the heavy, wildly expensive, precision-designed, slow-firing, bolt-action M24 is accurate over 2,000 meters. Many chapters describe unrulyIraqi neighborhoods suddenly peaceful because insurgents struck down by hidden snipers now fear showing themselves. Readers who wonder why this hasn't won the war have picked the wrong book. Those who can turn off their critical faculties will enjoy the author's admiring portrait of brave, superbly skilled Americans wreaking havoc among our enemies. Not for everyone, but its target audience, however narrow, will love it. Agent: Scott Miller/Trident Media Group

Go to: A Requirements Pattern or Options Futures and Exotic Derivatives

Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America

Author: Nortin M Hadler

At a time when access to health care in the United States is being widely debated, Nortin Hadler argues that an even more important issue is being overlooked. Although necessary health care should be available to all who need it, he says, the current health-care debate assumes that everyone requires massive amounts of expensive care to stay healthy. Hadler urges that before we commit to paying for whatever pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishment tell us we need, American consumers need to adopt an attitude of skepticism and arm themselves with enough information to make some of their own decisions about what care is truly necessary.
Each chapter of Worried Sick is an object lesson regarding the uses and abuses of a particular type of treatment, such as mammography, colorectal screening, statin drugs, or coronary stents. For consumers and medical professionals interested in understanding the scientific basis for Hadler's arguments, each topical chapter has an accompanying source chapter in which Hadler discusses the medical literature and studies that inform his critique.
According to Hadler, a major stumbling block to rational health-care policy in the United States is contention over the very concept of what constitutes good health. By learning to distinguish good medical advice from persuasive medical marketing, consumers can make better decisions about their personal health and use that wisdom to inform their perspectives on health-policy issues.

Kathy Arsenault - Library Journal

Hadler (medicine & microbiology/immunology, Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) amplifies and updates his 2004 book, The Last Well Person: How To Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System, here writing another clear message on his prescription pad: "Rx: less is more." Challenging conventional medical wisdom, he advises a healthy skepticism about the benefits of drugs, routine tests, and many common medical procedures-dubbing what he describes as impeccably performed but medically unnecessary treatments "Type II Medical Malpractice"-and he makes the unfashionable assertion that aches and pains are a normal part of the aging process. Topical chapters provide information on heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other common conditions as well as discussions of how mental states and socioeconomic factors affect health; "shadow chapters" offer additional, specialized information on each topic. Though the book may not convince readers to forgo their annual prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests or mammograms, it will educate them on being far better health-care consumers. This often densely written but provocative look at the U.S. medical system is worth the effort; recommended for larger public and academic libraries.

Stealing Lincolns Body or My Grandfathers Son

Stealing Lincoln's Body

Author: Thomas J Craughwell

On the night of the presidential election in 1876, a gang of counterfeiters out of Chicago attempted to steal the entombed embalmed body of Abraham Lincoln and hold it for ransom. The custodian of the tomb was so shaken by the incident that he willingly dedicated the rest of his life to protecting the president's corpse.

In a lively and dramatic narrative, Thomas J. Craughwell returns to this bizarre, and largely forgotten, event with the first book to place the grave robbery in historical context. He takes us through the planning and execution of the crime and the outcome of the investigation. He describes the reactions of Mary Todd Lincoln and Robert Todd Lincoln to the theft—and the peculiar silence of a nation. He follows the unlikely tale of what happened to Lincoln's remains after the attempted robbery, and details the plan devised by the Lincoln Guard of Honor to prevent a similar abominable recurrence.

Along the way, Craughwell offers entertaining sidelights on the rise of counterfeiting in America and the establishment of the Secret Service to combat it; the prevalence of grave robberies; the art of nineteenth-century embalming; and the emergence among Irish immigrants of an ambitious middle class—and a criminal underclass.

This rousing story of hapless con men, intrepid federal agents, and ordinary Springfield citizens who honored their native son by keeping a valuable, burdensome secret for decades offers a riveting glimpse into late-nineteenth-century America, and underscores that truth really is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Michael Kammen - Chicago Tribune

There is no end of fascinating context and detail in this engrossing, often zany, yet poignant tale.

Philip Hoare - Sunday Telegraph

Stealing Lincoln's Body is worth reading for its account of the president's funeral cortege alone...[A] quirky, diverting book.

John McBratney - Irish Times

Stealing Lincoln's Body tracks an unlikely series of events, reminiscent of a silent, black-and-white, cops-and-robbers movie, with passion and erudition.

James Srodes - Washington Times

A fascinating [tale] that is well told.

Eric Fettmann - New York Post

Thomas J. Craughwell has rescued this bizarre episode from the dustbin of history...It does more than simply retell a forgotten story; it sheds new light on the incident, thanks to the long-neglected original handwritten reports of Patrick Tyrrell, the Secret Service agent who handled the case...Thomas Craughwell tells the story in a work that is sometimes morbid and creepy, but never less than fascinating.

Harold Holzer - Washington Post Book World

[A] spirited narrative...Craughwell brings off the entire enterprise by making readers feel, hear and smell the atmosphere of the fetid Chicago taverns where the crooks hatched their demonic plot--not to mention the creepy interior of the shoddy Lincoln tomb, crumbling all around the family corpses as an aging guard of honor struggles both to conceal Lincoln's body in the dank cellar and to rescue the cheaply made temple for posterity...Summoning the raw spirit of crime novels and horror stories, as well as the forensic detail of a coroner's inquest, Thomas J. Craughwell has turned the eerie final chapter of the Lincoln story into a guilty pleasure.

John Corry - American Spectator

Thomas J. Craughwell has given us a richly detailed, highly entertaining, and broad slice of our history.

Thomas Lynch - The Times

The plot that gives Stealing Lincoln's Body its title, hatched by a crew of hapless Irish publicans and counterfeiters in Cicago, unfolds with equal doses of Martin Scorsese and the Three Stooges, the fecklessness of the robbers nearly trumped by that of the cops, on election night 1876, more than a decade after the President's assassination...It is a marvelous look into Gilded Age America and the wellsprings of many of our modern vexations. Immigrant and urban culture, robber barons and financial hoodlums, the bread-and-circuses numbing of the electorate, political scandal and presidential intrigues, the war between the ridiculous and the sublime that seems to infect our nations are all subtexts to this readable book.

A. W. Purdue - Times Higher Education Supplement

Stealing Lincoln's Body is a fascinating thriller, and it provides a macabre footnote to American history, but the real strength lies in the way the context--the dynamic but turbulent society of America in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War--is so skillfully described.

Frontpage Online

Thomas Craughwell's Stealing Lincoln's Body abounds with information about the amazingly goof-ball plot and about such things as the transformation of the Secret Service into being the presidential body guard.

Kathy Ward - Juneauempire.com

Craughwell brings together counterfeiters, lawyers, corpse-stealers, Lincoln’s Guard of Honor, and Abraham Lincoln himself in this intriguing novel that brings to light a little-known historical incident.

My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir

Author: Clarence Thomas

Provocative, inspiring, and unflinchingly honest, My Grandfather's Son is the story of one of America's most remarkable and controversial leaders, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, told in his own words.

Thomas was born in rural Georgia on June 23, 1948, into a life marked by poverty and hunger. His parents divorced when Thomas was still a baby, and his father moved north to Philadelphia, leaving his young mother to raise him and his brother and sister on the ten dollars a week she earned as a maid. At age seven, Thomas and his six-year-old brother were sent to live with his mother's father, Myers Anderson, and her stepmother in their Savannah home. It was a move that would forever change Thomas's life.

His grandfather, whom he called "Daddy," was a black man with a strict work ethic, trying to raise a family in the years of Jim Crow. Thomas witnessed his grandparents' steadfastness despite injustices, their hopefulness despite bigotry, and their deep love for their country. His own quiet ambition would propel him to Holy Cross and Yale Law School, and eventually "despite a bitter, highly contested public confirmation" to the highest court in the land. In this candid and deeply moving memoir, a quintessential American tale of hardship and grit, Clarence Thomas recounts his astonishing journey for the first time, and pays homage to the man who made it possible.

Intimately and eloquently, Thomas speaks out, revealing the pieces of his life he holds dear, detailing the suffering and injustices he has overcome, including the acrimonious and polarizing Senate hearing involving a former aide, Anita Hill, and the depression and despair it created in his own life and the lives of those closest to him. My Grandfather's Son is the story of a determined man whose faith, courage, and perseverance inspired him to rise up against all odds and achieve his dreams.

The New York Times - William Grimes

His critics might not be moved by his political arguments, but his memoir gives them a man, not a caricature, to attack…Justice Thomas describes his intellectual journey, and his struggle to keep body and soul together on meager government pay, in some of the book's most absorbing and self-critical chapters.

The Washington Post - Jabari Asim

My Grandfather's Son ends triumphantly as Thomas prepares for his first conference as a member of the Supreme Court. This memoir will not sway those who oppose his fierce, unapologetic conservatism, but it does provide a fascinating glimpse into a tortured, complex and often perplexing personality. Near the end of the book he discusses a desire to allow his life "to be seen as the story of an ordinary person who, like most people, had worked out his problems step by unsure step." In that he has succeeded.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Pathologies of Power or Personal Memoirs of U S Grant

Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor

Author: Paul Farmer

Pathologies of Power uses harrowing stories of life--and death--in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times. With passionate eyewitness accounts from the prisons of Russia and the beleaguered villages of Haiti and Chiapas, this book links the lived experiences of individual victims to a broader analysis of structural violence. Farmer challenges conventional thinking within human rights circles and exposes the relationships between political and economic injustice, on one hand, and the suffering and illness of the powerless, on the other.
Farmer shows that the same social forces that give rise to epidemic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis also sculpt risk for human rights violations. He illustrates the ways that racism and gender inequality in the United States are embodied as disease and death. Yet this book is far from a hopeless inventory of abuse. Farmer's disturbing examples are linked to a guarded optimism that new medical and social technologies will develop in tandem with a more informed sense of social justice. Otherwise, he concludes, we will be guilty of managing social inequality rather than addressing structural violence. Farmer's urgent plea to think about human rights in the context of global public health and to consider critical issues of quality and access for the world's poor should be of fundamental concern to a world characterized by the bizarre proximity of surfeit and suffering.

Book about: Brown Sugar or Decoding Ferran Adria

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant

Author: Ulysses S Grant

After three deadly years of fighting, President Abraham Lincoln had seen a little progress in the West against the Confederacy, but in the main theater of operations, Virginia, the lines were almost exactly where they had been when the American Civil War started. The war was at a stalemate with northern public support rapidly fading. Then, Lincoln summoned General Ulysses S. Grant, victor of the Vicksburg campaign, to come East. In little over a year, America's most catastrophic armed conflict ended, the Union was preserved, and slavery was abolished. This book details how these triumphs were achieved and in the telling earned international acclaim as a superb example of an English-language personal chronicle.

About the Author
Ulysses S. Grant remains one of the giants in American history, revered and respected by his contemporaries, but viewed ever after as one of the country's most controversial figures. He graduated from West Point in 1843 and went on to have a successful military career before becoming the 18th President of the United States for two terms. These grand accomplishments stand in stark contrast with his failures. He became an alcoholic, a failed businessman, and the administration during his presidency is regarded as one of the most corrupt in U.S. history. While other prominent Americans look to publishing their recollections as a crowning event undertaken in the leisure of retirement, Grant had to write his 1885 memoir as a means to pay his debts and support his family.

Booknews

**** Reprint of the 1885-86 edition (cited in BCL3) with a selection of Matthew Brady photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Bait and Switch or From Beirut to Jerusalem

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

Author: Barbara Ehrenreich

and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

Book about:

From Beirut to Jerusalem

Author: Thomas L Friedman

This revised edition of the number-one bestseller and winner of the 1989 National Book Award includes the Pulitzer Prize Winning author's new, updated epilogue.

Wall Street Journal

A sparkling intellectual guidebook...an engrossing journey not to be missed.

New York Times Book Review

From Beirut To Jerusalem is the most intelligent and comprehensive account one is likely to read.

NY Times Book Review

From Beirut To Jerusalem is the most intelligent and comprehensive account one is likely to read.

Publishers Weekly

First published in 1989, Friedman's National Book Award-winning study of the Middle East is brought up-to-date with a new chapter examining critical events in 1995. (Aug.)

Library Journal

There have been any number of books that have worked hard at interpreting the melange called the Middle East. This one, however, makes a difference because it's so well written and captures the psychological mannerisms of the people of Lebanon and Israel--the first step to understanding some of the mysterious ``why'' that seems to elude the American public and government. Friedman's credentials are impressive: he spent six years of journalistic service for The New York Times in Beirut and Jerusalem, has won two Pulitzer prizes, and is now the Times' chief diplomatic correspondent.

His writing is vastly descriptive, incredibly illuminating, very educational, and marvelously persuasive. His advice to U.S. diplomats is that since ``Middle East diplomacy is a contact sport,'' they must bargain as grocers, or, in other words, realize that everything has a price and the sale can always be made with enough hard work. -- David P. Snider, Casa Grande Public Library, Arizona

Library Journal

What People Are Saying

Seymour Hersh
If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

The Republic or April 1865

The Republic

Author: Plato

Without doubt the greatest and most provocative work of political philosophy ever produced in the West, The Republic is here presented in the stately and melodious Jowett translation-a perfect mirror of the beauty of Plato's style.

Beginning as an inquiry into justice as it operates in individuals, The Republic soon becomes an inquiry into the problems of constructing the perfect state. Are the masses really qualified to choose virtuous leaders? Should the rulers of a state receive a special education to prepare them to exercise power virtuously? What should such an education consist of? Should artists who do not use their gifts in a morally responsible way still be allowed a place in society? The Republic's answers to these and related questions make up a utopian (or, perhaps, dystopian) program that challenges many of the modern world's most dearly held assumptions-and leads us to reexamine and better understand those assumptions.

Author Biography:
Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.) was born into a wealthy and prominent family, and grew up during the conflict between Athens and the Peloponnesian states. The execution of his mentor, Socrates, in 399 B.C. on charges of irreligion and corrupting the young, necessitated Plato's leaving Athens. He traveled to Egypt as well as to southern Italy, where he became conversant with Pythagorean philosophy. Plato returned to Athens c. 387 B.C. and founded the Academy, an early forerunner of the modern university. Aristotle was among his students.

What People Are Saying

John Cooper
"Its increased accessibility promises to make it the number-one choice for undergraduate courses."
—Princeton University

Lloyd P. Gerson
"Loving attention to detail and deep familiarity with Plato's thought are evident on every page."
—University of Toronto

April 1865: The Month That Saved America

Author: Jay Winik

It was a month that could have unraveled the nation. Instead, it saved it. In April 1865, Jay Winik masterfully breathes new life into the end of a war and the events we only thought we knew. This gripping, panoramic narrative takes readers on a breathless ride through these tumultuous 30 days, showing that the nation's future rested on a few crucial decisions and twists of fate.

Here is Richmond's dramatic fall, Lee's harrowing retreat, and the intense debate in Confederate circles over unleashing guerilla warfare. Here, too, is the rebel surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln's assassination five days later, and the ensuing fears of chaos and a coup, the shaky transfer of presidential power, and, finally, the start of national reconciliation. Outsized characters stalk through sweeping events in Winik's brilliant narrative, transforming a seeming epilogue to a great war into a central—and saving—moment in American history, firmly placing April 1865 in the same pantheon as 1492 and 176.

About the Author:
Jay Winik has had a distinguished government career and is now a senior scholar at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs. His first boo, On the Brink: The Dramatic, Behind-the-Scenes Saga of the Regan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War, won wide critical acclaim. He lives in Chevy Chase, MD.

Weekly Standard - Terry Eastland

Winik's command of the war makes the book compelling: an engrossing narrative history, a valuable refresher on how the war ended.

San Francisco Chronicle

[A] comprehensive, essential volume ..[the] interviews are like keys to the many rooms of [Ginsberg's] expansive consciousness.

Baltimore Sun

Winik more than meets the tests of vigorous narrative and fresh analysis ... It is easy today to assume that the outcome of the Civil War was inevitable. But as Winik makes clear, no such certitude existed at the beginning of the fateful month of April 1865.

Publishers Weekly

Though the primary focus of this book is the last month of the Civil War, it opens in the 18th century with a view of Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Winik (whose previous book, On the Brink, was an account of the Reagan administration and the end of the Cold War) offers not just a study of four weeks of war, but a panoramic assessment of America and its contradictions. The opening Jeffersonian question is: does the good of the country take precedence over that of the individual states? The question of civil union or civil war is the central question of this new work. Winik goes on to describe how a series of events that occurred during a matter of weeks in April 1865 (the fall of Richmond; Lee's graceful surrender to Grant at Appomattox, and Grant's equally distinguished handling of his foe; Lincoln's assassination), none of them inevitable, would solve Jefferson's riddle: while a loose federation of states entered the war, what emerged from war and Reconstruction was a much stronger nation; the Union had decisively triumphed over the wishes of individual states. Winik's sense of the dramatic and his vivid writing bring a fitting flourish to his thesis that April 1865 marked a turning point in American history: "So, after April 1865, when the blood had clotted and dried, when the cadavers had been removed and the graves filled in, what America was asking for, at war's end, was in fact something quite unique: a special exemption from the cruel edicts of history." Winik's ability to see the big picture in the close-up (and vice versa), and to compose riveting narrative, is masterful. This book is a triumph. (Apr. 4) Forecast: Popular history at its best, this book should appeal widely to readers beyond the usual Civil War crowd. Strong endorsements from a group of noted historians, including James M. McPherson and Douglas Brinkley, along with a 10-city author tour, should also help both review coverage and sales. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

April 1865 saw the evacuation of the Confederate capital at Richmond, the surrender of the Confederacy's two major remaining field armies, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. These events (and more) are brought to life in Winik's (public affairs, Univ. of Maryland; On the Brink) provocative narrative of the end of the Civil War. All of the major characters, from Lincoln and Ulysses Grant to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, are here, as are numerous other figures. Sometimes the prose is a little too breezy and breathless, and there are the occasional (minor) factual slips that will cause the veteran reader of Civil War narratives to wince. Nevertheless, it is Winik's willingness to embrace contingency, to ponder alternatives, and to raise thoughtful questions about what did (and did not) happen that raise this account above the typical and increasingly tiresome renditions of the conflict's climax. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State Univ., Tempe Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Originally published in 2001, Winik's history of the last days of the Civil War emphasizes the implications of one month's events for America's development<-->then and now. He discusses Lee's retreat, Southern plans for guerrilla war, Appomattox, Lincoln's assassination, Northern fears of a coup, and the beginning of national reconciliation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

What People Are Saying

James M. McPherson
Jay Winik's April 1865 captures all the drama and significance in a fast-paced narrative full of larger-than-life characters: Lincoln and Davis, Grant and Lee, Sherman and Johnston—and John Wilkes Booth. Here is a book that fully measures up to the importance of its subject.
—(James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom)

	List of Maps	IX
	Introduction	XI
	Prelude: "A Nation Delayed"	3
Part 1	March 1865
1.	The Dilemma	29
Part 2	April 1, 1865
2.	The Fall	73
3.	The Chase--and the Decision	123
4.	The Meeting	173
Part 3	April 15, 1865
5.	The Unraveling	203
6.	Will It All Come Undone?	259
7.	Surrender	301
Part 4	Late Spring, 1865
8.	Reconciliation	351
	Epilogue: To Make a Nation	365
	Notes	389
	Acknowledgments	449
	Index	453

Great American Hypocrites or Primal Leadership

Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics

Author: Glenn Greenwald

SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING:
Falling for the Marlboro Man marketing and sleazy takedown tactics of the Republican Party can be hazardous to the health of this nation!

Ever since the cowboy image of Ronald Reagan was sold to Americans, the Republican Party has used the same John Wayne imagery to support its candidates and take elections. We all know how they govern, but the right-wing propaganda machine is very adept at hijacking debate and marketing their candidates as effectively as the Marlboro Man.

For example:

Myth: The Republican nominee is an upstanding, regular guy who shares the values of the common man.
Reality: He divorced his first wife in order to marry a young multimillionaire heiress whose family then funded his political career.

Myth: Republicans are strong on defense and will keep us safe.
Reality: They prey on fears, and their endless wars make America far less secure.

Myth: Republicans are the party of fiscal restraint and small, limited government.
Reality: Soaring deficits, unchecked presidential power, and an increasingly invasive surveillance state are par for their course.

“Intelligent, insightful.” —Daily Kos

“Glenn Greenwald has done it again.” —Alan Colmes

“Glenn Greenwald is a treasure.” —BuzzFlash

Publishers Weekly

With this provocative book, Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and author of A Tragic Legacyand How Would a Patriot Act, purports to expose the "rank myth-making and exploitation of cultural, gender and psychological themes" by the Republican Party. The author begins his attack by targeting John Wayne, whom he sees as a template for right-wing notions of "American courage and conservative manliness." Wayne's avoidance of military service and his string of divorces, both at odds with his public image, are emblematic in this account of a fundamental hypocrisy implicit in conservative mythologies. Greenwald goes on to argue that prominent Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney display the same hypocrisy in their public ideologies and personal lives. Shouldering much of the blame are the press and the media, including Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, Chris Matthews and even Maureen Dowd, all of whom propagate popular attitudes about virile Republicans and effeminate Democrats. Despite the antipathy the author feels for Coulter, his writing is much like hers. More a partisan screed than a reasoned argument meant to persuade undecided readers, this repetitive text frequently devolves into personal attacks and vast generalizations. (Apr.)

Donna L. Davey, Margaret Heilbrun - Library Journal

Attorney-turned-blogger Greenwald's hypocrites-e.g., John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, and the Bush administration-have been thus labeled before. Greenwald's examination of them as marketers who successfully created images of themselves and their causes through use of favorite American themes (e.g., the rugged cowboy, the thirst for freedom) isn't all that new either. He's caustic but supports his points with sound research. The results may well have appeal in public libraries.

Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

Author: Daniel Goleman

Daniel Goleman's international bestseller Emotional Intelligence forever changed our concept of "being smart," showing how emotional intelligence (EI)-how we handle ourselves and our relationships-can determine life success more than IQ. Then, Working with Emotional Intelligence revealed how stellar career performance also depends on EI.

Now, Goleman teams with renowned EI researchers Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee to explore the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Unveiling neuroscientific links between organizational success or failure and "primal leadership," the authors argue that a leader's emotions are contagious. If a leader resonates energy and enthusiasm, an organization thrives; if a leader spreads negativity and dissonance, it flounders. This breakthrough concept charges leaders with driving emotions in the right direction to have a positive impact on earnings or strategy.

Drawing from decades of analysis within world-class organizations, the authors show that resonant leaders-whether CEOs or managers, coaches or politicians-excel not just through skill and smarts, but by connecting with others using EI competencies like empathy and self-awareness. And they employ up to six leadership styles-from visionary to coaching to pacesetting-fluidly interchanging them as the situation demands.

The authors identify a proven process through which leaders can learn to:

· Assess, develop, and sustain personal EI competencies over time

· Inspire and motivate people

· Cultivate resonant leadership throughout teams and organizations

· Leverage resonance to increase bottom-line performance

The book no leader in any walk of life can afford to miss, this unforgettable work transforms the art of leadership into the science of results.

USA Today

Now, here is a concept that every new (and old) boss should take to heart: The duty of a leader is to prime positive feelings in workers..... clear, concise writing style is helpful in explaining complex processes in easy-to-understand language....Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee have turned a difficult trick: attacking a tired subject in an invigorating way.

Publishers Weekly

"The fundamental task of leaders... is to prime good feeling in those they lead. That occurs when a leader creates resonance a reservoir of positivity that unleashes the best in people. At its root, then, the primal job of leadership is emotional." So argue Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and EI (emotional intelligence) experts Boyatzis and McKee. They use the word "primal" not only in its original sense, but also to stress that making employees feel good (i.e., inspired and empowered) is the job a leader should do first. To prove that the need to lead and to respond to leadership is innate, the authors cite numerous biological studies of how people learn and react to situations (e.g., an executive's use of innate self-awareness helps her to be open to criticism). And to demonstrate the importance of emotion to leadership, they note countless examples of different types of leaders in similar situations, and point out that the ones who get their employees emotionally engaged accomplish far more. Perhaps most intriguing is the brief appendix, where the authors compare the importance of IQ and EI in determining a leader's effectiveness. Their conclusion that EI is more important isn't surprising, but their reasoning is. Since one has to be fairly smart to be a senior manager, IQ among top managers doesn't vary widely. However, EI does. Thus, the authors argue, those managers with higher EI will be more successful. (Mar. 11) Forecast: Goleman already has a legion of fans from his early books on EI. His publisher is banking on his fame; the house has planned a $250,000 campaign and a 100,000 first printing. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) teams with Richard E. Boyatzis (Weatherhead Sch. of Management, Case Western Reserve) and Annie McKee (Management Development Services, North America, Hay Group) to focus on the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and successful leadership. The authors define EI as handling one's emotions well when dealing with others and go on to describe how EI makes good leaders. Throughout, the authors talk about leaders exhibiting "resonance," defined as bringing out the best in people by being positive about their emotions, and "dissonance," defined as bringing out the worst in people by undermining their emotions. The book is arranged in three sections, with the first section describing the characteristics of resonant and dissonant leadership as well as the four dimensions of EI, which are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. This section also describes the different types of leadership styles, such as visionary, coaching, and commanding. The second section outlines the steps one needs to take to become a more positive leader, and the third section discusses how to use these newfound skills to build a better organization. Real-life leadership stories are provided throughout. Recommended for public, corporate, and academic libraries. Stacey Marien, American Univ., Washington, DC Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Goleman (emotional intelligence in organizations, Rutgers U.) Richard Joyatzis (organizational behavior, Case Western Reserve U.) and Annie McKee (education, U. of Pennsylvania) explain how successful leaders use a reservoir of positivity to stimulate good feeling in those they lead. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Great leaders move us. They ignite our passion and inspire the best in us. When we try to explain why they are so effective, we speak of strategy, vision, or powerful ideas. But the reality is much more primal: Great leadership works through the emotions.

The authors of Primal Leadership write that humankind's original leaders earned their place because their leadership was emotionally compelling. In the modern organization, this primordial emotional task remains. Leaders must drive the collective emotions in a positive direction and clear the smog created by toxic emotions, whether it is on the shop floor or in the boardroom.

When leaders drive emotions positively, they bring out everyone's best. When they drive emotions negatively, they spawn dissonance, undermining the emotional foundations that let people shine. The authors of Primal Leadership explain that the key to making primal leadership work to everyone's advantage lies in the leadership competencies of emotional intelligence; how leaders handle themselves and their relationships. Leaders who exercise primal leadership drive the emotions of those they lead in the right direction.

Matters of the Heart and Mind
Gifted leadership occurs where heart and head - feeling and thought - meet. These are the two things that allow a leader to soar. The authors write that all leaders need enough intellect to handle the tasks and challenges at hand. However, intellect alone won't make a leader. Leaders execute a vision by motivating, guiding, inspiring, listening, persuading, and creating resonance. As a result, the manner in which leaders act - not just what they do, but how they do it - is a fundamental key to effective leadership. The reason lies in the design of the human brain.

The brain is an open loop. The authors explore how we rely on connections with other people for our emotional stability. Scientists describe the open-loop system as "interpersonal limbic regulation," whereby one person transmits signals that can alter hormone levels, cardiovascular function, sleep rhythms, and even immune function inside the body of another. Other people can change our very physiology and our emotions.

The authors describe how the continual interplay of limbic open loops among members of a group creates a kind of emotional soup, with everyone adding his or her flavor to the mix. Negative emotions - especially chronic anger, anxiety or a sense of futility - powerfully disrupt work, hijacking attentions from the tasks at hand.

On the other hand, when people feel good, they work at their best. The authors write that feeling good lubricates mental efficiency, making people better at understanding information and making complex judgments. For example, insurance agents with a glass-is-half-full attitude make more sales, in part because they are able to withstand rejection better than their more pessimistic peers.

Cooperative Teams
A study on 62 CEOs and their top management shows just how important mood is. The CEOs and their management team members were assessed on how upbeat - energetic, enthusiastic and determined - they were. They were also asked how much conflict the top team experienced. The study found that the more positive the overall moods of people in the top management team, the more cooperative they worked together and the better the company's business results. The study concluded that the longer a company was run by a management team that did not get along, the poorer the company's market return.

The authors write that every large organization has pockets of resonance and dissonance. The overall ratio determines the organization's emotional climate and performance. To shift the ratio toward resonance, cultivate a dispersed cadre of emotionally intelligent leaders. To do that, the authors write, leadership training must be the strategic priority and be managed at the highest level. Commitment must come from the top. That's because new leadership means a new mindset and new behaviors, and in order for these to stick, the organization's culture, systems and processes all need to change.

Let's say that as a leader, you get it. You've set the stage by assessing the culture, examining the reality and the ideal. You've created resonance around the idea of change, and you've identified the people who will take top leadership roles. The next step is to design a process that lets those leaders uncover their own dreams and personal ideals, examine their strengths and their gaps, and use their daily work as a learning laboratory. The authors explain that this process must also be self-directed and include the following elements:

A tie-in to the organization's culture.
Seminars emphasizing individual change.
Learning about emotional competencies.
Creative learning experiences.
Relationships that support learning, such as executive coaching.

Why Soundview Likes This Book
Using many in-depth examples of how the concepts of primal leadership work and how the power of emotional intelligent can be used to effect organizations, Primal Leadership delivers many poignant messages about a topic that deserves more attention. The book's focus on real-life scenarios and modern business problems keeps its intellectual ideas grounded in reality, and helps it develop and demonstrate its pertinent ideas. The numerous examples it uses to illustrate these ideas turn this book into an exciting examination of fresh concepts and valuable learning. Copyright (c) 2002 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

What People Are Saying

Sound and practical advice on leading effectively, based on science and business experience, from the leader in the field of emotional intelligence."

-Martin Seligman, Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Princess Sultana's Circle, Vol. 3

How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative

Kirkus Reviews

Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man

The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Table of Contents:

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts

What People Are Saying

I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

In the Shadow of No Towers

The New York Times Sunday Book Review - David Hajdu

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

USA Today - Christopher Theokas

Publishers Weekly

Francisca Goldsmith - VOYA

Library Journal

Monday, December 29, 2008

The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World's Most Baffling Crimes

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Booknews

A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America

Table of Contents:

First In, Last Out: Leadership Lessons from the New York Fire Department

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Table of Contents:

The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature

Sunday, December 28, 2008

GUILTY: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America

The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right

Assassination Vacation

The New York Times - Bruce Handy

Library Journal

School Library Journal

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

The New York Times Book Review - Michael Goldfarb

Publishers Weekly

What People Are Saying

Table of Contents:

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Trigger Men: Shadow Team, Spiderman, The Magnificent Bastards, and the American Combat Sniper

Kirkus Reviews

Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America

Kathy Arsenault - Library Journal

Table of Contents:

Stealing Lincoln's Body

Michael Kammen - Chicago Tribune

Philip Hoare - Sunday Telegraph

John McBratney - Irish Times

James Srodes - Washington Times

Eric Fettmann - New York Post

Harold Holzer - Washington Post Book World

John Corry - American Spectator

Thomas Lynch - The Times

A. W. Purdue - Times Higher Education Supplement

Frontpage Online

Kathy Ward - Juneauempire.com

Table of Contents:

My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir

The New York Times - William Grimes

The Washington Post - Jabari Asim

Friday, December 26, 2008

Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant

Booknews

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

From Beirut to Jerusalem

Wall Street Journal

New York Times Book Review

NY Times Book Review

Publishers Weekly