A good book that allows to understand pedagogy and andragogy. But beeing of Knowles, I expected more.

This is a truly interesting book. It is very exciting to read a book written in 1991 and see where the United states stood economically, and where we thought we would be by the year 2001.(Almost two years ago). Malcolm Abrams & Harriet Bernstein keep it interesting to read throughout; never using boring cliches, and often talking about inventions with a little story to go along. I would recommend anyone to read this book. It is great to see some of the weird inventions that seem too far-fetched even for todays society, not even remembering this book was written in 1991. If you want a great book that will keep you reading to the end, More Future Stuff is the way to go.

Simla 1934 Reading through the memoirs of Malcolm Muggeridge, the most striking image one is left with, surprisingly enough, is one of tenderness and poignancy. Not in any measure due to the gadfly-esque nature of Muggeridge's long involvement in public life as a man of (often controversial) ideas, but to a single, almost incidental, reference to a liaison in faraway India. For a man who has lived for so long in the public eye as Mr. Muggeridge, a refreshing lack of pomposity is reflected in his assertion that "No one but a few power maniacs and fools, allows public affairs to take precedence over private ones." Looking back at his memories of Simla, which visit coincided with George V's Jubilee, Muggeridge notes rather gleefully that he accords but one passing nod to the grand occasion. His preoccupation lay elsewhere - "pages and pages" were devoted to his blossoming acquaintance with Amrita Shergil. He does not however, go into such length in this narrative. A single sentence, however, is enough to capture the wealth of detail that he leaves out. "She's dead and I'm old, and our brief but intense intimacy mattered to no one". The elegiac quality of this single sentence haunts you long after you put down the book. Personally, I found it impossible to bring my sights back to Muggeridge, the man of letters, Muggeridge the man of faith or Muggeridge the television host. The mind's eye keeps coming back to a young man - he should have been just on the wrong side of thirty - meeting a vivacious, intelligent and extremely young woman. He makes a reference to their "rather affected[ly]" habit of speaking French to each other, leaving a sense not so much of two dandies united in their affectation, but of two lovers speaking in code to each other. There is a photograph, of a Jinnahesque figure in a double-breasted suit - morning dress, perhaps? - at one end of a cane sofa, left arm around the back of the chair leaning back with one leg over the other. There is a young woman at the other end of the sofa, in a sari, with an obviously contented cat in her lap. She has an air of quiet amusement about her, while the man has gone so far as to keep his fedora on for the photograph. The caption, again would border on the banal, if it were not for what it does not reveal; the nature and depth of the passion that seems to have obviously sparked between the two. "She was gay, alive, beautiful - a combination of qualities not unduly plentiful in Simla, or for that matter anywhere." In an age when we have ersatz passion oozing towards us in every form and shape, it is like a rare breath of air to encounter an understated yet extremely touching account of what must have been a passionate romance in spit of its obvious brevity. The wistful quality of the entire affair is heightened by the fact that Shergil would die shortly, having heard no great praise of her talents as a painter. After their farewell at Simla station, Muggeridge would never meet her again, and in subsequent years, would see her being hailed as "the outstanding modern Indian painter". One is left with a palpable sense of longing, to know a little more of these two very unlikely companions. When, for instance did they sit for the photograph. Was he sitting for her? Was she already the master she would be belatedly hailed as? [My ignorance of the details of her career are also quite palpable!] But, we do not have more to go on with - only surmise and regret perhaps? That a further meeting between these two very extraordinary people cannot but have had interesting consequences, for them and many around them. The next time you are in New Delhi, do go down to the National Gallery of Modern Art, to the "room dedicated to her work" and see if you can spot Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge.

I picked this book up on a whim and read it cover to cover in one sitting. It includes CVR transcriptions interlaced with passengers' and flight crews' recollections, and occasionally eyewitness accounts. There's heroism, bad judgement, fear, and bravery; there's humanity. In the introduction MacPherson makes the statement that "'The most likely outcome for the serious surviveable accidents is that most occupants survive,' according to the NTSB's March 2001 report." There is absolutely no editorializing, and no author comment; the transcripts are directly from the CVR and tower transmissions, and the survivors' accounts are from the NTSB interviews after the accidents. The editor stays away from the stories almost to the point where I wished he would step in and tell what happened, but the reports say a lot in between the lines. It's a compendium of how ordinary air travelers live through an extraordinary event.

Today, in America, we take it for granted if you do something wrong and get caught your going to the big house. So much so that no matter where you live or what you make you probably know someone stinking up a prison cell. Most of us have very little notion of what life is really like inside of a real prison where a few people try to live normal lives behind glass. These are usually the crimes of passion people not the career criminal. This book spends alot of time paring the crimes of passion people against the perpetual criminal. Of course no one wins in the end.

The prison depicted in this book is somewhat dated, reminding me somewhat of the prison in Brute Force, the Dassin/Lancaster film. The author has a disjointed perspective jumping from person to person, backward and forward, much like a film. He probably watched alot of films during his 15 year stint alot of westerns i'd guess...

If you can imagine what it's like to to shed 40 years of skin around some of the craziest loons never to read a book then you can imagine why we need more novels about prison life. I consider this the confederacy of the dunces of prison novels.
Read it and bolster boy, enjoy them and be good.

Petteway's Osguards: Revelations continues the dramatic web of ingrigue --this time in present day Earth and other galaxies. The second book in the Osguards series also includes a poignant flashback to American post-Civil War reconstrution and its aftermath in the South --through the eyes of the princes of the planet Kulusk.

It's impossible to read the Osguards and remain unchanged. While there is much enlightenment through the characters' social and cultural mindsets, this book continues Petteway's penchant for thrilling action. His picturesque scenes of battle (whether hand to hand comat on Earth or on the planet Kulusk, or air-land-water military force coordination and battle) are matched only by his ability to delve into the psyches of myriad characters who have different mindsets, perspectives, and paradigms.

Can't wait for Osguards: Armageddon!!

A well written, nicely illustrated, quite comprehensive book on the female genital tract pathology.

The main plus are the clear illustrations all of which are in colour so it serves as an atlas as well as a textbook (versus the black and white photos of the Blaustein, which in my opinion is a better text).

This is quite recent and so up to date (this ed. was published late 2001/2002).

This is the only book I've read by Gerald Durrell and it is great! The stories are so wonderfully told with a combination of keen human insight and the ability to laugh at it. He had a wonderful talent for descriptive writing. You can almost taste the dinner he writes about. Most of the stories are short and relatively light in nature, but be prepared for the last story in the book. It's the longest, so set aside a long evening and arrange for no interruptions because you will not be able to stop until you finish.

This is fun book to read, but the information conveyed seems skewed at times. The author writes in the laudatory fashion popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefor every piper is heroic and praiseworthy. The national pride the author takes in his subject is touching, but limits the objectivity of his writing. Most of the information concerns the Great War of 1914-18 where surely the greatest loss of pipers during any conflcit took place. Information on pipers in earlier conflicts is a bit more fragmentary.

The author breaks his subject down by individual Scottish Regiments and runs through each's history. Sometimes the information is useful, other times not. There is a useful glossary of famous pipers in the back of the book which is great for quick reference. This book could use being seriously updated as the piping scene and the number of Scottish regiments has changed a lot in recent years. A major addenda for piping in the Second World War and Korea, as well as other post war sundry conflcits could probably fill another book which someone should consider doing. Still, for its subject matter there are not many books out there. For more hard core info. on piping in the British army consult David Murray's "Music in the Scottish Regiments". The book may not be available in the States, but try Amazon in UK instead.

Author Malcolm Sparrow suggests something so simple about the role of government that it's revolutionary -- agencies should be in the business of finding important problems and fixing them.

Simple -- but difficult.

Anyone who works in government would tell you they solve problems all the time. But most objective looks at government show that government's primary job is to "implement programs." Those programs often deftly solve problems. Yet they leave much undone. It is the undone problems that Sparrow's book deals with.

Sparrow is an old cop, turned top-level educator. He's got a doctorate and teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is a recognized expert in results-based reform of government. Personally, he is glib and practical.

His experience with policing seems to drive his philosophy. At the crux is this quote from his mentor, Herman Goldstein:

"...policing becomes more effective if police, rather than processing 911 calls one after another and in isolation, could learn to identify underlying patterns and then fashion tailor-made solutions that prevent recurrences." (page 72)

Sparrow shows how identifying patterns and fashioning tailor-made solutions is the crux for most government -- not just police. He ampley cites examples from environmental agencies, customs, OSHA and others to show this. He tells the real-life obstacles to achieving this, too (page 112). Overall, he tells how government could do better and who's doing it.

The book implies a unique slant on deterrence. While getting tough may achieve a deterrence effect, too often it happens after the evil deed. Sparrow suggests that government deter before the deed. How? Analyze patterns of unsolved problems, then tailor interventions to deter BEFORE the problem happens. This is not to rule out enforcement punch -- just to focus it on those against whom it's most effective. He shows that it can be done using case studies.

Sparrow's thinking should appeal to the pragmatist. This book is not pie-in-the-sky theory. It blends top-level thinking and on the ground experience. If you think government could be doing better, you could do worse than picking up a copy of "The Regulatory Craft."