This simple but effective book is written for a general audience with interest in managerial, supervisory and leadership concepts. The book is structured as a dictionary of terms relating to leadership. While some readers may like the A-B-C division of information, others may find the book somewhat disjointed, as the format forces you to skip around from idea to idea. But then, as author James O'Toole points out, readers are invited to seek the nuggets that appeal to them, letter by letter. The connective tissue that O'Toole lays between the entries is ambition, which he says is the single pre-requisite to leadership and the one common characteristic that all great leaders share. We [...] recommend this accessible summary of basic leadership principles, although hardcore readers of leadership literature might be better off elsewhere.

How to describe a book with this title? It is not a dictionary. It is not a sequential narrative. It is not an anthology of aphorisms or portions of previous publications. It is not a manual. (However, its title does make much more sense than would those of other books such as Chicken Soup for Dummies or Stan Laurel on Management.) What Leadership A to Z provides is "a guide for the appropriately ambitious." O'Toole believes that more can be learned from what effective leaders do (and how they do it) than from their personality and character. What do all effective leaders seem to have in common? What O'Toole characterizes as "appropriate ambition." Note the modifier. All of us have ambitions. (The most effective leaders assuredly do.) Within effective organizations, most of those involved seem to have both personal and organizational ambitions which nourish and sustain each other. At least these ambitions are not mutually-exclusive or even incompatible. Within the most effective organizations, these ambitions are almost (not quite) identical. Moreover, most of the time -- day to day -- most of those involved are leaders of leaders. That is, sharing ambitions which are appropriate to them as well as to their organization, together functioning as what Noel Tichy has described as a well-designed, carefully-maintained "leadership engine."

How should this book be read? One option is to read it sequentially from A to Z. That will work. However, my personal preference (and suggestion) is to re-visit the Contents (pages ix-xi) whenever there is a question to be answered, a problem to be solved, or a new perspective needed. You may find that the answer will reveal itself after you read (let's say) some/all of B, H, J, and T; perhaps reading some/all of A, M, R, and W will suggest a solution; as for gaining a new perspective, I often hop around, in and out, back and forth. Sometimes I locate or formulate one...sometimes I don't.

The book's content is rock-solid. The writing style (vintage O'Toole) has snap, crackle, and pop. The selection of individual items was, of course, arbitrary but the material seems cohesive...perhaps because, directly or indirectly, all of the items help to demonstrate "appropriate ambition" in action. Another way to approach the book is to pretend that you have just entered O'Toole's General Store. Perhaps you have a specific item in mind. Or perhaps you are just "looking around." Fine. Take your time. Check out the merchandise. No obligation to buy anything today. Come back again another time. You are always welcome. Next visit, perhaps, you'll need what you saw last time in Aisle 5. It's nice to know it's there. It's nice to know that some much else is also there, waiting to be of help to you.

As written by J.O'Toole, "the purpose of this book is to identify clearly what leaders need to do in order to create high-performing, self-renewing organizations. While most leadership books focus on who leaders are (their character, personality, style, and charisma), the accent here is on what leaders do. The shift in emphasis has a practical intent : although it is possible for you to learn from what others do, it is highly unlikely that you can become someone you aren't."

In this context, O'Toole discusses and explores some concepts (like behavior, commitment, communication, controlling, delegation, ego, globalism, hierarchy, performance, repetition, team, trust, vision) with specific stories of some great leaders such as Percy Barnevik (ABB), Jack Welch (GE), Richard Teerlink (Harley-Davidson), Andrew Grove (Intel), Jan Carlzon (Scandinavian Airlines), Michael Boxberger (Korn/Ferry), Robert Galvin (Motorola), Lou Gerstner (IBM).

I higly recommend this alphabetically arranged practical leadership guide.

(Reviewed by FreeImage HR Consulting, a division of T.B. FreeImage HR Group, Istanbul, Turkey)

This book is, in many ways, a good companion volume to the other standard text in sugar cane engineering (Hugot, Handbook of Cane Sugar Engineering). Chen and Chou's book is oriented to the sugar processing aspect of sugar manufacture. The book is more about how to make sugar than how to make machines that make sugar.

The Cane Sugar Handbook covers raw sugar manufacture, refining, process controls, and analytical procedures.

The text is illustrated well with many line drawings, charts and graphs, and a few black and white photographs.

There are many useful data tables in the appendix. The text is fully referenced to papers and articles .

All in all a useful reference work to keep in your desk's top drawer (right next to Hugot).

Not exactly light reading, but great reference book, just look at the contents:

Part One Raw Sugar Manufacture

1. Sugarcane, James E. Irvine

2. Sugars and Non-sugars in Sugarcane, Margaret A. Clarke

3. Methods of Cane Purchase, James C. P. Chen

4. Outline of Raw Sugar Process and Extraction of Juice, James C. P. Chen

5. Purification of the Juice, James C. P. Chen

6. Heating and Evaporation, James C. P. Chen

7. The Crystallization of Sugar, James C. P. Chen

8. Purging, packing and Warehousing of Raw Sugar, Len K. Kirby

9. Raw Sugar Quality Criteria, James C. P. Chen

10. By-Products of Cane Sugar Processing, James C. P. Chen

Part Two Cane Sugar Refining

11. Raw Sugar Purchase, Marketing and Receiving, Fred R. Hill

12. Affination and Clarification, Richard Riffer

13. Decolorization, Richard Riffer

14. Evaporation and Pan Boiling, Thomas N. Pearson

15. Centrifugation, C. Frank Stowe

16. Sugar Drying and Conditioning, Chung Chi Chou

17. Packaging, Warehousing and Shipping of Refined Products, Jeffery C. Robinson

18. Refined Sugar Products, Chung Chi Chou

19. Specialty Sugars, Andy C. Chen and Amhed Awad

20. Plant Maintenance Program, George Fawcett

Part Three Production and Process Controls 21. Definitions and Terms in Sugar Factory and Refinery Controls, James C. P. Chen and Chung Chi Chou

22. Chemicals Used as Sugar Processing Aids, James C. P. Chen and Chung Chi Chou

23. Sugar House and Refinery Calculations, James C. P. Chen and Chung Chi Chou

24. Chemical and Process Control (Raw House), James C. P. Chen

25. Technical and Sucrose Loss Control (Refinery), Joseph F. Dowling

26. Microbiological Control in Sugar Manufacturing and Refining, James C. P. Chen and Chung Chi Chou

27. Energy Conservation, Keith Sinclair

28. Total Quality Management System, Leon A. Anhasier

29. Computerized Sugar Manufacturing,

Part (A) Conceptualized Computer Control, Michael R. T. Low

Part (B) Process Control and Integration, Shyam Ambardar

30. Automation of a Sugar Refinery, Naotsugu Mera

31. Environmental Quality Assurance, James C. P. Chen and John Green

Part Four Analytical Procedures

32. Sampling and Averaging, James C. P. Chen

33. Special Laboratory Reagents, James C. P. Chen

34. Polarimetry in Sugar Analysis, James C. P. Chen and Chung Chi Chou

35. Instrumental Analysis for the Sugar Industry, Chung Chi Chou

36. Determination of Density and Total Solids, James C. P. Chen

37. Determination of Ash, James C. P. Chen

38. Determination of pH, James C. P. Chen

39. Determination of Color and Turbidity in Sugar Products, Chung Chi Chou

40. Determination of Dextran and Starch, Walter Altenburg

41. Analysis of Sugarcane, James C. P. Chen

42. Analysis of Juice, James C. P. Chen

43. Analysis of the Syrup, Massecuites and Molasses, James C. P. Chen

44. Analysis of Raw Sugars, James C. P. Chen

45. Analysis of Refined Sugar Products, Thomas Wilson and Stanley Bichsel

46. Analysis of Bagasses and Filtercake, James C. P. Chen

The Illustrated Golden Bough; A study in magic and religon, was a well written book that I would reccomend to those with a bit of time on their hands. It was thorough in it's information, but lacked a spicy sense of humor that would keep the reader glued to the pages. For those of you that are interested in history, this is a must read. It includes stuff from before Christianity and way into the witch doctors. I loved how it wrote about magic, without judging it. Over all, it was a little dry, but very informative.

Given the limited time I had to read the book, I skipped passages that looked to me as rubbing in the major team. I am not sure that the author's aim was to rub anything in; in fact, I am sure it was not. It only looked so from my personal perspective. As far as I can judge, the purpose of the author was to unearth as many instances of pre-religion rituals as he could find out about. He achieved his goal most brilliantly and honestly. Evidence to his honesty is the fact that originally these were 12 tomes, mostly due to references to sources. Removal of the references allowed for compression to one tome.

So, what did I learn from the book?

From the very start, people desired to control nature in order to gain better control over their lives - for prosperity and happiness.

However, knowledge about nature was too skimpy for that goal to be achieved. People observed the sequences of natural events, and assumed that in every sequential pair of events the former is the cause of the latter. We know now that that does not have to be true, and the sequence itself heavily depends on what the observer sees as sequential events.

Based on this more often than not erroneous causal relationship, people established a wide variety of rituals to influence natural events. When after the ritual the desired event did happen people repeated the ritual every time they desired the event. When after the ritual the desired event failed to happen people dropped the ritual or blamed the failure on less than perfect performance of the ritual.

These futile attempts to control nature lasted for many centuries. In order to dramatize the ritual people included in it sacrifices of other people, often the most beloved members of their families or the most valuable people of the community. Those rituals look to us as senseless murder. Even when there was no murder, people assumed that Nature, in order to comply, demands sacrifices in shape of self-denial of pleasure and infliction of pain and injury. People ended up being more than enslaved in a web of rituals. I say "more", because the slave master was the Man himself.

One could see as logical, if people were gradually gaining more factual knowledge about nature, by developing scientific methods and logic, and would replace the futile rituals with activities more similar to the ones we use now to utilize natural phenomena in our favour. Were that the course of Man's mental development, the whole phenomenon of religion could have been skipped.

However, that was not the course.

Frustrated by the inconsistency of the rituals' outcomes, people gave up and started delegating decisions to different gods. Instead of trying to control Nature by rituals, they started to worship gods to get favors from them. Eventually people united those many gods into one God. Then God's sons came along, each worshipped by different populations.

For many centuries religion diverted Man from collecting and systematizing factual knowledge about Nature, and by doing so mightily slowed down human progress toward a more rewarding life.

I can only guess what initiated Man's return to study of Nature. My guess is - the written word. The written word allowed for wider exchange of observations and thought between people removed from each other in space and time, and thereby allowed for the creation of a critical mass of thought that is strong enough to move the knowledge of Nature forward.

This book describes the beginnings of the torturous path of Man in quest to control Nature.

This may not be the all-time greatest collection of poems from the fabulous Mr. Cummings, but it still contains a lot of gems, and is (quite simply) quite wonderful.

(I know, how predictable, right?)
Anyway, this is a wonderfully fun little book of poems. E.E. Cummings' style will not and can never really be duplicated. But it's not just a gimmick, this guy was one of the best.

It was one of the best true crime books that I have ever read.

I could not put this book down; an unbelievable true crime tale that boggles the mind. to imagine a person would kill another person (by poison), because of something as petty as the music being too loud-it is absolutely frightening. It is to the detectives' credit who investigated this case that they were open enough in their investigation to go beyond the family members and look at other suspects, ultimately discovering the neighbor next door as the probable culprit. Susan Goreck was extremely courageous going undercover and she also reveals her humanity as she had feelings on various levels while trying to get this man to give his secrets to her; if they had not found the thallium in his old house, they would never have been able to prosecute him successfully.

To those who either study Greek, or simply are curious about the meanings of the Scriptures, this is an excellently informative tool of insight. At this low price, every Christian can afford his own Greek Bible! I would encourage all to take advantage of the opportunity.

The hard cover edition printing is deficient as variations in text darkness are readily noted on many pages. Some pages (e.g. pp. 652-653) bore large ink blotches which are undesirable. The content is from the best Greek source text and the interlinear structure (literal translation) with footnoted textual references is excellent. A superb Greek-English interlinear New Testament based on the oldest unadulterated Greek text - Textus Receptus (1550). A must for the serious student/exegetor of the Word of God. Used with a companion Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger, 66,68, 1975, United Bible Society, it is very helpful. A FIVE STAR book except for the printing deficiency noted.

Why?

There are several interlinear NTs (AKA, "ponies") available, some with words "Strong-coded," and/or more "up-to-date" translations, while others, like Berry, stick with the KJV and the Textus Receptus Greek. At least one includes a rather extensive concordance.

The advantage of this book is, as you can see at the bottom of the sample pages, they have included all the variations in the Greek texts that have been used as the bases for most of our newer translations. Therefore, when you see words added, omitted or changed in an English version, you can see from whence it came, assuming that it is not just a paraphrase, and determine whether the modification was justified, perhaps by the number of Greek texts that support the change, or by looking into the reliability of the texts involved.

I find this help invaluable, especially since the marginal notes are usually vague about alternative renderings of a passage, if they are given at all.

You many find that you may want to use other references too, such as a Strong's Concordance, and a Vine's Dictionary, although the included lexicon is not too shabby, but the extra effort is worth it.

A detailed history of one the best cars made in america and my personal all-time favorite The pictures are almost too good to be true

The book is mainly photographs, many published in other books and magazines. However, that does not mean that this is a bad book. It is, in fact, the only reasonable way to get photographs of rare and unique models like Hearses, Buses, and custom bodied cars. Each model year has a 1-2 page description of changes and highlights of the model year. For the most part, these are weak. Buy the book for the photographs!

As with all of the Crestline series, this book has a solid summary of the history of the car. But, those photos, buy it for the photos. In fact, buy all of the crestline care series books for they are all great!

I just read the book called "James and the Giant Peach ".It is about a boy named James. Jameses parents died when James was little, so James had to move in with his aunts that he hates very much. Their names are Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge. James longs to go to the beach and have friends. James and his new friends Grasshopper, Ladybug, Centipede, Earthworm, Silkworm and Miss Spider will go on an adventure they will neaver forget. On their adventure they have to go through alot of terrible frights that they will have to face, like "Centipde falling off the giant Peach" What will they do and how? This book is written by Roald Dahl I have read other books by him and I think he could have added some funnier things to this book but it is still a very good book.If you want to find out what happens read this book.

Not the best but certainly one of Roald Dahl's better books it is an interesting and an addicting to read kind of book.it's certainly not and every day kind of book but is very enjoyable. I give it a 4 because of it's strange content.

This is the first novel I ever read. I still remember way back in second grade when I started reading this book. Oh boy, what a rush! All these images in my head. It's like getting high! This book is extremely interesting and fun to read. This is the perfect book to give to your child as his/her first book.

As this posthumous collection of essays suggests, Weaver felt most at home writing about the old South, which was his birthplace, the topic of his dissertation, and the subject for which he reserved his highest praise.

To Weaver the evils of the world were rooted in modernism, industrialism, materialism, and nationalism, all of which he blamed on Union victory. At one point Weaver even asserted that total war -- war unrestrained by chivalry or other ethical restraints -- was a northern custom which had led to the rise of National Socialism in Germany.

The stark line Weaver drew between South and North, with divergent and logical worldviews ascribed to each, was for him the line between good and evil. In reducing every issue to either-or, Weaver oversimplified his subjects, so that his essays resemble legal arguments: Haynes v. Webster, Thoreau v. Randolph, Lee v. Sherman, Emerson v. Warren. In each case, Weaver's preference is obvious.

I found the strongest essays to be in section one, about southern literature and the Agrarian writers. Here are many useful and profound insights that time has not diminished. When Weaver leaves his specialty, however, his comments are less persuasive, amounting to sweeping sociological observations and cheerleading for the old South.

The converse of Weaver's feeling at home in an imagined South is feeling alienated in an imagined North. Although he spent most of his career teaching literature at the University of Chicago, he isolated himself from the city both physically and intellectually. Perhaps if Weaver had made more effort to adapt, he would have left us a richer legacy, one less marked by decline and defeat.

I admire Weaver's work a great deal. He should be praised for showing, from a conservative perspective, the limitations of capitalism, industrialism, and modernism, limitations which are more often the outcry of the radical left and dismissed as anti American. He would have been wise to consider also the limitations of the old South. I am less willing to blame today's discontents on Union victory. In Weaver's rigid arguments, moreover, there is little to be learned about the vital American principles of acceptance, pluralism, and compromise.

Sometimes it is difficult to sort out the contradictions in Weaver's work, but I prefer to keep in mind his comments from Ideas Have Consequences: Piety accepts the right of others to exist, and it affirms an objective order, not created by man, that is independent of the human ego.

In short, if you are a friend of the South, or would like to read the words of a man who can explain the conservative axiology, this book is for you. The contents are essential for anyone seeking a neoclassical education. For me, reading Richard Weaver's Southern Essays brings together the final sentences of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."

"Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair."

The book is a monument to Lee and Jackson. Anyone who wants to understand Picket's charge needs to read this excellent book.

This is a marvelous book, and a marvelous collection of essays, written by a clear and conscientious southern conservative. Richard Weaver was heir to the Southern Agrarian tradition of protest and opposition to the directions modern American society and politics was taking, particularly in the New Deal and post WW II eras. Writers like John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Allan Tate, Caroline Gordon and Robert Penn Warren, were caustic critics of modernity, of the decline in community, and a sense of the common good. Weaver, an english professor who might better be described as an intellectual, lived, learned, and worked in this tradition. Of all the essays in this collection, all of which are well written and thoughtful, two stand out in my mind. His essay on 'Lee the Philosopher' captures the pragmatic and common-sense spirit of southern political and social thought. Southerners felt little need for abstract theorizing, or great theoretical and philosophical models. Simple, everyday ideas, the ideals of common sense and everyday life, were more than enough for the down-to-earth farmers and planters of the American South. Weaver does a brilliant job of portraying Genl Lee as the epitome of the southern ideal of both gentlemanly duty and social thought. The second wonderful piece is 'The Two Types of American Individualism'. Weaver contrasts the individualism of a character like John Randolph of Roanoke, a fixture on the Virginia political scene in the early 1800's, with the individualism of Thoreau (and by implication the North). Randolph was a supreme example of an eccentric indivdual. He had bouts of insanity throughout his like, fought duels, appeared on the floor of Congress with his hunting dogs, jug of hard cider and his slave attendant, and refused to toe the party line. Yet, when the needs of his community demanded, or the society in which he lived was threatened, he was willing- even eager- to rally to the cause and defend it, despite his personal believes and misgivings. Weaver felt that Thoreau, on the other hand, with is notions of civil disobedience and voluntary taxation, put the individual ahead of the community, and would refuse to defend anything that was not justified according to his principles and beliefs. This was recipe for chaos and disorder, and disintegration. Weaver leaves no doubt as to which he preferes. The division between community and tradition, and individual liberty is a fault line that continues to run through American political and social ideas. Weaver, in powerfully defending tradition and community, has been one of the men shaping current political discourse, particularly among the social conservatives and in the religious right. He deserves to be read.

In a matter of hours the war was over for the bombardier. The B-24 bomber caught flak over Klagenfurt, Germany; the crew bailed into enemy territory. Within 24-hours the plane's bombardier, Second Lieutenant George Crawford, unable to evade capture, wound up in the back of a German car, a giant SS officer leering at him, telling him, "For you, der var is ofver."

So begins the bombardier's When Surrender Was Not an Option, a memoir recounting Crawford's experience as a prisoner of war in the prison camp Stalag Luft III. Told as if Crawford were recalling his imprisonment and giving an oral account, and while not graphic or gory, the book displays a vivid portrait of life in a POW camp during the waning months of World War II.

Concrete details and repeated images supply readers with a sense of the miseries the POWs endured. Space was almost non-existent; the POWs were packed in barracks in which the "bunks were layered so close that one had to be approximately horizontal to sinuously slither into the bunk." Food, or its lack, became almost an obsession. Hunger was rarely lifted. Rations usually consisted of dry black bread or Red Cross chocolate bars, and maybe cabbage in the summer. When liberated by General Patton, Crawford weighed 65-pounds.

One of the most vivid scenes is a long march in freezing weather when the Stalag is vacated and the POWs moved further into Germany as the Allies close in.

While the details and images make the war and the POW experience vivid, the book's strength lays in its depiction of the POWs' courage and character not only to endure and survive their imprisonment, but also their willingness to keep their capture from becoming surrender. Crawford details his and his fellow "Kriegie's" attempts, sometimes funny, to harass the German soldiers guarding them. The POWs dug tunnels and made escape attempts, but their most effective means of harassment was psychological.

After constructing a makeshift radio receiver, the POWs could monitor war news and had better information than the Germans. Such information shook the Germans; war maps showed that an Allied victory was at hand. For the Germans, more than the POWs, the war would soon be over.

Though sketchy in parts, Crawford's memoir is a realistic portrait of war. It lends perhaps just enough detail to allow imagination to fill in any gaps. It portrays courage and fear, tears and laughter, and perhaps a better understanding of what war is like.

It would be hard to describe this story without using words like 'gritty,' 'horrifying,' and 'engrossing.' George Crawford of the 456th Bomb group (Heavy), along with James Lee, tells his first-person story of flying the giant American bombers over enemy targets, surviving being shot down, and more importantly, surviving being a prisoner of war in the most dismal conditions one can imagine. Told in a no-nonsense, straight-forward approach to the facts, you will find yourself turning the pages rapidly, not able to put this fascinating account of one man's challenges in wartime down until every word soaks in. Should be required reading for every high school student in the US, along with the classics of the genre like "Those Who Fall" by John Muirhead.
Roy J. Firestone ...

With each passing year, the heroes and reality of WWII fade. When Surrender Was Not An Option presents one man's experiences as a POW in Nazi Germany: the brutality, the bravery, the heroism of surviving. Everyone, young and old, should read Second Lieutenant George Crawford's story. If you've ever served in the military, you'll identify with this honest tale. If you haven't, you'll appreciate and be astounded by the sacrifices Crawford and all soldiers make in the name of freedom and survival. Helen Ginger, Editor, Doing It Write!