I disagree with the reviewer below. I found the interchangeable protagonists in most of these stories self-impressed, disconnected. In the main, the stories are overwritten and undersubstanced. In a few, like "The Guardian," the author shows what she can do when she steps back from the material. The result is a story that does achieve a Carver-like universality.

Writing that makes you stop every so often to sigh or to marvel -- stories that are always surprising. You know what the characters ought to do, you know what they want to do, but you don't know what they're going to do. You may think these are only stories about particular women trying to find their place in life, but as in the stories of Raymond Carver, you immediately care about these people, even when they're not "your kind" of people. Easy reading, fun reading, but most of all good reading.

I like boys as much as the next woman, and I found nothing bilious or bitter about this story collection. In fact, I was impressed by the author's ability to write wittily without veering into meanness. Although Ms. Frank writes coolly about her characters' predicaments, she clearly feels rueful affection for them. This is a good book.

Who doesn't like IKEA? Too bad this book isn't as good as the store is. What's wrong? Certainly not the subject of the book, but rather, the writing is repetitive, monotonous, circular, and repetitive...egad...it's contagious!

Pass on THIS book and learn about IKEA and its very interesting challenges, history, strategy, and product line (and its founder) from better authors around the Internet.

If you read many of my reviews, you already know that I seldom rate a book this low. I would normally not finish such a book, and not write a review. However, I felt that this book would attract a lot of readers who, like me, wanted to learn more about the lessons of IKEA's success. What I found instead is one of the most poorly constructed case histories of an interesting company that I can imagine.

The book claims to tell the IKEA story, but really focuses on writing a biography of Ingvar Kamprad, the company's founder. As a biography, the strength of the book is in describing the family and physical environment that were early influences on Kamprad. Past about the first 30 pages, the book doesn't add much. The most interesting parts of the biography come late in the book when Kamprad's early associations with a fascist group are detailed in the context of press reports exposed in the late 1990s. These should have been fully developed early in the book, rather than treated as a later discussion of how to handle bad publicity. Most good biographies teach you something that you need to know. When I was done with this one, I didn't feel like I had learned anything. There probably were lessons there to be drawn out, but the author did not succeed in helping me find them. That meant that I knocked the book down one star.

IKEA has been an interesting international success with an unusual formula. The book assumes a great personal knowledge of that formula. Yet there are very few of the IKEA stores in most countries, so many people who will read this book will lack the experience of knowing about what is being described. Originally written for the Swedish market, that lack of handling the perspective of what the store experience is like limits the book's ability to translate its lessons. I rated the book down one more star for insufficient background early in the book on the reasons why the business works and how it works today. These are dropped in occasionally, so many of them are there by the end. You would then have to read the book a second time to really understand the relevance of the points.

Next, the book attempts to describe the company's success. A lot of time is spent on this, but the author seems to lack the perspective to pick out what is important and what is not. Kamprod is a classic experimenter. If something works well, he does a lot more of it. After a while that pattern becomes something he will not vary from. Since he was not a systemmatic experimenter, it meant that many developments were delayed. On the other hand, he always made it a place where people liked to work so he had someplace to stand on for continuity as the experiments continued. Without the necessary perspective, this is a little like reading 30 annual reports. Unless you have lots of management background, you will have trouble seeing what the important management lessons are in this book.

Basically, Kamprod is an advocate of low-priced distribution of low-cost, mass-produced goods based on high quality designs. His personal values are those of family and treating people with hospitality (like an honored guest). Having started his business from the family farm in Sweden with family and neighbors having been the first customers and employees, you can see the influences quite easily. What is unusual is that his business model developed earlier than that of other furniture merchants. It was reasonably complete by 1960. Only in the last ten years have we seen a reasonably similar store experience in the Boston area.

The best part of the book is that it contains lots of first-person stories from Kamprad. As such, this book will be a valuable source for the first person to write a good book about IKEA as a management case history. I hope that book will soon be written. There must be important insights to be gained about how IKEA developed its business model so many years ahead of others, but I could not figure out what those insights were.

In the meantime, unless you have a compulsive interest in learning more about IKEA today, skip this book.

Really, this book describes the IKEA way really good. But after reading others people reviews of this book I can understand how hard it is for non-swedes to grasp the real lessons learned in this book. It doesnt make it better that the guy that wrote this book is a quite "boring dude".
The book is well written and researched, all the facts are true and THE MAN HIMSELF Ingvar KAmprad has had a finger with in this book.
AND INGVAR KAMRAD IS IKEA. You cant separate the founder of IKEA from the company itself. Yes, Ingvar has put his soul in to this company and it is this mans thoughts and actions that has made this company to what it is.

At first glanze this book is really boring. But if you give it time, let it melt in and try to see how it was in Sweden for 50 years ago: IF you can put the book in to context you really get a complete and a invaluable picture of THE IKEA WAY.

Without sounding to cooky I just wanna say that this book is right up there with the books about Nordstroms, Jack Welch and etc.

Really, buy this book if you wanna learn lean and mean business the IKEA way. The customers rule....this is the IKEA way...

So you think Jack Welch is better? Just wanna tell you that Ingvar Kamprad made the 50 riches people in the world list!!! THATS SOMETHING!!!

As a member of the 50 something crowd I am entering unchartedwaters in dealing with aging parents. I was expecting a helpful guideand instead got someone who is lost herself! Everyone has a story and Mary's aren't unique or enlightening. It's still on the shelf, unfinished. What was the point?

I had to read this book for a senior-level college gerentology class. I was not impressed. The author rambles on with anecdotes and quotes from other authors that I had already studied in earlier classes. Her writing style is too ecclectic for my tastes.

When I had my first baby I turned to Dr. Spock to learn about the things I might expect to experience. I didn't know I would need a book to help me be the best caregiver I could be for my grandparents.Another Country was so pertinent to my life I felt it was my diary written for me to read. I'm living so much of what is covered in the book, with my grandmother living with us. Ms Pipher writes about I am experiencing. It explains some things, answers questions, but also makes me ask some too. I'm so glad to have found this friend! Definitely a book for my shelves, to be revisited again I'm sure, just as Spock was.

This book is excellent if you mostly want a coffee table book about show dogs and the "elite" owners and breeders. The history is interesting and many of the pictures delightful.

For the average owner who wants advice and information for raising and caring for the average bulldog, the book is minimally helpful, in my opinion. No more than a third of the book contains any practical advice at all, and most of that has to do with show dogs. At most, parts of four or five of the eighteen chapters contain advice useful for ordinary owners--and some of that, like the advice on nutrition, seems woefully dated, while a fair bit has nothing to do with bulldogs in particular and amounts to common pet-owner sense. (Like anybody of normal intelligence doesn't know to take a snake-bitten dog to the vet, for instance.) I can't say that I found answers to more than one or two of my many questions about owning a bulldog.

I'd never have bought this book in a bookstore, where I would have seen quickly that it didn't contain what I was looking for. Still, if I'd paid ten or twelve dollars for the book, I'd have been disappointed not to find what I had expected, but content with the enjoyable parts. At ... dollars, I consider the book a seriously bad value for me, an average owner.

I thought the book had some interesting things about the bulldog but I thought it was just to outdated. The pictures were nice but mostly in black in white. To be honest when I received the book I was disappointed.

This is a good book if you are looking for the history of the bulldog. It also has alot of information on different lines and breedings of champion show dogs. There are chapters dealing with bulldogs in different countries as well as their champions form Mexico to Russia.
I was looking for a pet owners book and this book left me wanting for more especially with health issues. The book was written in 1985 so it is slightly outdated. However one bulldog website said it was a must for any serious bulldog owner. I have mine and hope to use it someday.

You can take the girl out of Maggody but you can't put quality into the writing. Unfortunately, this is just another example of the poor character development that Ms. Hess is known for. She has come up with such wonderful characters and does absolutely nothing with them, leaving you with a boring book and a waste of several reading hours. There are alot of "cozy" writers out there. I would give this one a pass.

Joan Hess is a very funny writer. Her Maggody series is a hoot. She creates situations and dialogue that make you laugh out loud. But she can't plot a mystery much better than her designated idiot, Kevin Buchanon, probably could. The plot in this one is a muddled mess.

I FELT CONFUSED OF SOME OF THE CONTESTANT AND WHY THEY CALL IT CO-CO NUT

I thought that this book would be more interactive. Better (and more creative) to draw your own family tree.

This kids book does an adequate job of introducing the relationships in a traditional nuclear family. It includes grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins but stops there. It doesn't extend beyond one generation of ancestors nor does it deal with non-traditional families.

It does provide an example of a nice family tree project that a child can create.

"Who's Who In My Family?" by Loreen Leedy gives a child a more well-rounded introduction to the relationships in a family tree.

My child and I love Joan Sweeney's books because through the obvious project they encourage (in this case -- creating a basic family tree) they open the doors for more discussion and thus a greater understanding of the topic. This book is very basic, but we've used it as a model for a fun family activity rather than a lesson about our ancestors. My 4 year old son likes its simplicity, and is learning how our family is connected.

Also, for more really fun hands-on learning inspired by literature, check out Sweeney's Me on the Map. It is excellent and will stimulate activities for weeks. Joan Sweeney's purpose in her books is to point out each child's unique place in the world, in the family, etc. Since they are written so simply, even the youngest kids get the point and are empowered by their message.

In all seriousness, I doubt that Joan Aiken wrote "Dangerous Games." It reads as if a committee were hired to create a passable story against the backdrop of her alternative history. The publishers would have been better off finding some decent internet fanfic writers to do the job, because nothing about "Dangerous Games" is anything but an embarrassing failure to measure up to the period detail, extravagant plotting, wrenching moral dilemmas (a necessary ingredient for good childrens's literature), and dark humor that made the previous books in the series so satisfying.

Come to think of it, "Cold Shoulder Road" read as if it were written half by Aiken and half by committee. Perhaps she is simply tired of the series. If so, she should let the thing die.

Please, I beg you, purchase one of her other books! I have read nearly all of Aiken's works and they are FANTASTIC. However, this book was very cut-and-dried, dull, and prejudiced. The characters of the island people were so caricatured that it was borderline offensive. No child deserves to have to read this book!

Joan Aiken is one of my all time favorite authors but I did not think this was one of her best. The characters are exaggerated caricatures and the plot is pretty farfetched.

Usually love Joan Rivers, but this book is so superficial, actually boring and shallow. Even the graphics are below par. I suspect someone else put this together or Joan was very, very tired when she did this. Save your money.

I use this book to level my coffee table. Its worth doesn't go far beyond that. Stay away from this stinker.

Joan Rivers reveals her soft side. This is a wonderfully simple and unassuming book that reflects a mother's love and concern for her only daughter. It's obvious that she wants a better life for her daughter, and you can feel the pain that Joan experienced in her own life. A lovely gift for anyone.

We are using this book, believe it or not, as a required text in an intermediate level French course. I would not recommend it. Almost everything in this book is simply common sense. The information is too general to be useful - it would be much more helpful simply to learn about the language you are studying. The writing is rather simplistic. The only people who might find it useful are those who have never studied a foreign language. If you are already learning one, you know everything in this book that applies to you.

The book is designed to cover the "psychological, linguistic, and practical matters surrounding the successful acquisition of a new language." It covers the first two quite well, but the presentation of "practical matters" often falls short in providing nuts-and-bolts ideas with sufficient examples to help you implement them.

A much better book for most aspiring language learners looking for a how-to guide is Graham Fuller's "How to Learn a Foreign Language". It is less academic and more practical in tone, providing many suggestions with plenty of examples. The only practical things I saw in Rubin and Thompson's book which Fuller's did not have are (a) a self-test to help you identify your weak spots in language-learning skills, and (b) a section to help you clarify your objectives in learning a new language.

If you like the academic approach, this may be a good book for you. If you prefer a more familiar tone with a "hands-on" emphasis, get Fuller's book instead.

I wish I had this book 20 some years ago when I began learning Chinese. Although I have many years of language study behind me (including a degree in Chinese language and literature), I still found helpful, new ideas in this book when I bought it two years ago.

Many language teachers do not teach well HOW to be a student of the foreign language that they teach. That is because many of them are native speakers and never themselves had to think about how they learned language. Also, many of the teachers (particularly native Chinese teachers) are the product of a very archaic and dsyfunctional (my opinion of course) education system. Students of such teachers would benefit greatly from reading this book.

Also inspiring is the latest research and theory about language learning presented here. When I began foreign language learning, it was an accepted "fact" that adults (like me) could not learn languages as well as children. It is a suprise and relief to read in this book that research now debunks this myth.

I was suprised to see the other reviews of this book here on Amazon and to see that they were negative. I have found it to be a very helpful, well researched and well written book and an important reference in my continuing language studies.

This is a complete whitewashing of Richard Nixon's political career written by an obviously pro-Nixon source. There is no attempt from the author to distance herself from Nixon or create an illusion of impartiality. Hoff is in Nixon's corner all the way and makes some incredible interpretive analyses. For example, Nixon's domestic agenda was actually "extremely liberal." Hoff makes this claim based upon Nixon's environmental agenda, but ignores his viscerally right-wing Supreme Court appointments and his Neanderthal approach to civil rights. Doesn't sound too "liberal" to me.

Hoff also makes a series of implausible and ultimately ludicrous excuses for Nixon's involvement in Watergate. Predictably, she absolves the President from much involvement and any guilt. She points the finger of guilt at a dizzying array of Nixon suborindates (all of whom went to prison). Nixon is the epitome of grace, honesty and courage in Huff's eyes, a view which will delight those who revere the 37th President. But for those who have a less charitable view of him, this will be regarded as hagiography at its apex.

This book would probably be a very interesting account if it wasn't bogged down with so many minute details that take away from the overall argument. Ms. Hoff has some great ideas but the book could realistically have been much more concise.

I've recently become a bit of a Nixon buff, reading a dozen biographies of the man, all of which portray him in very different ways, from a paranoid, racist sociopath to a misunderstood visionary. I honestly don't know where I'd place Ms. Hoff's portrayal of Nixon within those two extremes. Her book makes some excellent points, particularly in citing the frequently ignored strides that Nixon took in domestic policy. Overall, however, her odd writing style and seeming preoccupation with revisionism make the flow of the book pretty choppy, as well as all out boring in places...

In my opinion, any book on Nixon is worth it if you are trying to figure out what he was all about. The fact is the guy was so complex, introverted, and troubled that all of them will be right and wrong at the same time...