I came to this collection of thirteen short stories after devouring O'Connor's brilliant novel of revenge, The Salesman. Three of the stories here ("Last of the Mohicans", "Mothers Are All the Same", and" Ailsa") will ring familiar to those who read his first novel, Cowboys and Indians (a coming of age tale with a bit less depth, but still worth a read). In general, the stories range from 10 to 25 pages and as a whole, provide a brief glimpses of everyday modern Irish people- the one exception being "Glass Houses," a story about a taxi driver which appears to be set in America. A prevalent theme running throughout is the forming and/or aftermath of relationships, both marital and extramarital, straight and gay. And the final two stories ("The Greatest of These is Love" and "True Believers") effectively combine themes of spiritual faith and loss. My favorite, however, is "The Long Way Home," which stands out as a creepy, surreal, and ultimately poignant tale of a man leaving his wife, who then picks up a hitchhiker who may or may not be dangerous.

This diverse collection of stories brings together a myriad of characters, ideas, and issues, which in essence bring alive contemporary Ireland despite wide spread stereotypes of this beautiful culture. The stories that stand out include: "Mothers are All the Same," a tale of a travellers uncertain future; "Volunteers," looks at the troubles through the eyes of a romantic relationship between a Brtitish soldier and an IRA volunteer, and finally "True Believers," a story that presents striking metaphors concerning Ireland's relationship with the Roman Catholic church. As an American living in Ireland at the time I read this book, "True Believers" was a part of my cultural education. O'Connor is an international and universal voice!

I volunteer in public education for a large fire department. This is truly the best book I have found on the fire department geared towards younger children. This book thoroughly and accurately covers the fire department and the equipment used. The story is easy for children to follow, and is well illustrated. There is even a public safety message at the end, encouraging kids to be fire safe.

I am a professional firefighter. This book does a good job of explaining what firefighters do. It doesn't address fire safety. A good book for children. I read this one to groups of children.

Jury is still out on whether or not you will hit "paydirt" on backrounding your subject. Almost all data you'll uncover will be historical, not current. If your subject has moved recently, these ideas will be of limited value to locating. This book will introduce you to many printed sources, documents and departments that you wouldn't think of checking into. The key to success is in finding one public record that gives data about another needed item of information (ex. A voter registration record giving the address or social security number). Most gathering is demonstrated as being conducted by smail mail, but I have found some can be done over the telephone, especially at the county levels. I have been able to access DMV licence and driving record info. thanks to his suggestions. Book is updated annually, which helps assure contact addresses are current.

A very useful book for two kinds of people. The first group, which is the book's intended audience, is people looking to check up on the past history of boyfriends or girfriends. Not having had to check up on some psychotic, I cannot rate the book on this level, except to say that it looks worthwhile.

The second group (me) is people who are looking to find people for family genealogy. Granted, this may seem like a stretch, but this book has helped me find more documents on ancestors than you could imagine. Extremely useful and critical for any genealogist to have on their shelves.

This book is a good supplemental guide for those already training in the martial arts. It focuses mostly on physical training, especially weight training and streching. I felt it lacked slightly for technique insight.

This book was a great insight on mostly how to train for karate. It also had other great stuff like even environmental self defense! It was a great all around book with many little helpful things that you can't find in other books.

I have mixed feelings about this book.

I ordered it because I was considering a work based learning business degree. And, I have to say, the information in the book was very useful. (I carefully read the first half of the book and then skimmed the second half.) If I graded this book on content alone, I'd give it five stars.

Nevertheless, the writing isn't great. I write professionally myself and publish books that cover similarly complex subjects. And the writing in this book is just barely acceptable. Too many buzzwords. Complicated sentence structures. Too many paragraphs with no topic sentences. For the less than friendly writing, I give it one or two stars... Hence the three-star average

My bottomline suggestion? If you really want the information, you'll probably be quite satisfied with this book. But because of the stilted, academic style, you'll work much harder in your reading than you should have to work.

I enjoyed the book immensely for a variety of reasons. Among the reasons: it filled in my own understanding of Work Based Learning; it combines a nice balance between theory and practice; and, the organization of the book was excellent.

The book is comprehensive; solid; impressive in its breadth and depth; and, written confidently by an expert in the field.

Kudos to Joe Raelin for helping us business types so readily understand all sides of Work Based Learning.

Whether you have a movie and want to get ideas on how to exploit it or you are working on a specific topic and want to reinforce it through a film, THIS is the book you need!
Lots of films for different ages and interests. It's great!

The implementation manual is informative and easy to read. I find useful and noted that it assists me in easily identifying ETIF's that may apply to my clients. It does lack the FASB's so if you are looking for an all inclusive book, this is not it.

i have a research on all about soya beans.. can u help me solve my problem... i want to know all about soya beans and please include the layout of plantation or mill

I thought this book was very interesting and well researched. I was not able to put the book down at several points because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. The author did a good job bringing the main characters to life and keeping you involved in his plight.

It is a good book for beginner as well as people who have some accounting background. The book provides simple real life example that is easy to understand.