Whether you're a human resources professional or an executive or manager in a company without a human resources department, you are confronted by all sorts of difficult personnel questions. Hiring and firing can be highly complicated subjects. Scary. Unless you have someone you can turn to for reliable advice.

Never fear. Paul Falcone is here! The author of "96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire" and "101 Sample Write-Ups for Documenting Employee Performance Problems" has authored a book that will relieve the stress in your people-management life. Falcone is Director of Employment and Development Paramount Pictures in Hollywood and teaches for UCLA. Here's a resource who knows what he's talking about.

This book is organized into two main sections: Hiring and Firing. Under the Hiring Section, you'll find chapters on the hiring process, recruitment tools, online recruiting, interviewing, and making the final selection. The Firing Section begins with a chapter answering common questions about the performance management and termination process. Next, the reader will learn about progressive discipline, terminations for cause and summary offenses, and reductions-in-force and layoffs.

Through these chapters, Falcone presents 112 vital questions . . . and answers. Each question is addressed with a basic answer, followed by a section titled "Tell Me More." What a wealth of information!

And, as if this weren't enough, the book also includes an appendix with sample policies, agreements, and letters. The comprehensiveness of this section is amazing. A glossary, resource list, and index provide even more value.

Highly recommended!

Paul Falcone's Hiring And Firing Question And Answer Book tells how best to attract, interview and select candidates for critical jobs. HR professionals in particular will find this is packed with issues of management responsibilities which carefully identifies potential problems and their solutions.

First, September 11. Then recession. Next -- and inevitable -- MORE layoffs. There's an easy way and a hard way...a right way and a wrong way...to do what many business managers now have no choice but to do. I'm a management consultant, and this book is a useful guide.

"History in Three Keys" is an excellent history of the Boxer Rebellion in northern China in the late nineteenth century. Even more than that, however, it is a look at the historian's craft, how history is experienced and related, and how history is used in the present. The book is divided into three parts, which discuss the Boxer Rebellion as Event, Experience and Myth. The first consists of standard historical writing, a brief survey of the Boxer movement. It relates important names, dates, ideas and events in a narrative history constructed by the author.

The second section, The Boxers as Experience, is more interesting. Cohen attempts to analyze the experiences of the Boxers, to form a picture of the past. He looks at various themes, discussing how they shaped the Boxer movement and the attitudes and beliefs of those involved. Making extensive use of primary documents, he tries to determine their thoughts and feelings regarding foreigners, magic, gender and death. Of course, Cohen realizes that he cannot fully recount or recreate the experience of the Boxer rebellion, and spends many pages discussing ways historians and writers can approach history to try to understand and explain it.

These themes become more fully developed in the book's final section, The Boxers as Myth. Here Cohen explores the various ways the Boxers have been used as myths in twentieth century China, serving "the political, ideological, rhetorical and/or emotional needs" of the moment. While foreigners and the New Culture movement mythologized the Boxers as symbols of Chinese superstition and backwardness, anti-Imperialists cheered their anti-foreignism and nationalism, and cultural revolutionaries idolized their rebelliousness and the mythical role of women in the rebellion.

Cohen explores the difference between historians, who attempt to understand and explain the past, and mythologizers, who try to use history to advance an agenda in the present. He discusses the process of myth-making, in which contexts and inconvenient facts are ignored and a one-dimensional 'history' in created through distortion and oversimplification. Still, Cohen has some respect for mythologizing the past, and notes that experience itself is "processed" in terms of culture and myth. "Mythic constructions are ubiquitous in the world of experience and form an inseparable part of it."

I was assigned part of this book in a history course on nineteenth century globalization, but ended up reading the whole thing - and I'm glad I did. In addition to giving an excellent history of the Boxer Rebellion, "History in Three Keys" contains valuable insights into more recent Chinese history and development. Even more valuable are the discussions about the nature of history, myth, historical writing and the historian's craft. It is well written, clear and engaging, with extensive notes, index and bibliography. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it to all interested in Chinese history or historical writing in general.

I enjoyed this book immensely. The book is split into three parts, each covering the same events from different perspective.

The first part is covered just like most any other historical book. Mostly facts and dates, and reasons as to why certain things turned out the way they did.

The second part of the book, by far the most interesting to me, was the history of the events as seen through the eyes of those who lived through it: the missionaries, the rebels, and the townsfolk. Mostly derived from writings of people that were living in China at the time, it shows their feelings and thier thoughts.

The third part involves the use of the boxers in the agendas of political and social parties in subsequent years. It is very possibly one of the best history books that I have read.

Not only does it cover this particular historical event, it also is a study of historians and their craft. It looks into how historians decide what is to be recorded and what is not and shows you how this affects the way people in the future perceive the event.

Cohen's book analyzes a particularly notorious (for Chinese and Western commentators) historical event--the Boxer Rebellion in North China (1899-1900) from an extremely fresh perspective. It is hardly poststructuralist to assert that people live history one day at a time, rather than according to some grand plan, and that is how Cohen treats the Boxer Rebellion. Most Western scholars merely see the Boxers as a manifestation of an irrational, bloodthirsty xenophobiba, while Chinese scholars seem to fall into two categories: (1) those like the early twentieth century modernizers who saw the Boxers as an embarrassment to the cause of national unity and freedom, and (2) those like Communist Chinese historians who see the Boxers as a precursor of their own victorious struggle in 1949. Cohen masterfully demythologizes the Boxers and puts them into the context of (gasp!) their own lives. Working from a combination of secondary and primary sources, Cohen reconstructs the domestic situation in China during the late nineteenth century and argues that domestic issues (particularly famine and floods) more than anything else prompted the Boxer uprising. This thesis, of course, turns on its head the idea that the Boxers were an instrument of the evil Dowager Empress Cixi in order to prevent Westerners from disturbing China's ancient and corrupt culture. Cohen is especially interesting in examining the mechanics and experience of mythmaking, applied in this case to the Boxers but which could be applied to just about any event or experience that has emotional or subjective importance for a group of people. This book is extremely useful for anyone, history students or otherwise, who are interested in Chinese history, or perhaps more fundamentally, how we reconstruct the past in order for it to make sense.

From pre-history to Independence in 1991, this book surveys the history of Ukraine and its people. It is unique in not only portraying the history of the Ukrainian people but also includes the other peoples who live or have lived in the land now known as Ukraine.

The organization of the book is chronological with 49 chapters divided into ten parts. Each part covers a significant period in Ukrainian history: Pre-Kievan Times; the Kievan Period; the Lithuanian-Polish Period; the Cossack State; the Hetmanate; Ukraine in the Russian Empire; Ukraine in the Austrian Empire; World War I; the Interwar Years; and, World War II & the Postwar Years. Forty-two black-and-white maps help illustrate the concepts described in the text. Also included are thirty-six textual inserts which provide lengthy quotes of important documents. Sometimes these feel redundant because the author has described so well the events highlighted by the inserted texts.

For readers to whom 700 pages of Ukrainian history is not enough and who want to learn more about specific events or periods described in this book, Magocsi provides a forty page bibliographic essay called: For Further Reading. One of the great stumbling blocks for English-speaking readers who want to learn Ukrainian history is the fact that so many Ukrainian sources have not been translated. A great feature of this bibliography is that the vast majority of the works listed are in English.

Ukrainian history is complex. This book, although daunting to read because of its size and depth of coverage, can help the student of Ukrainian history untangle the puzzles of Ukraine and its people. It is a great reference work that belongs in the library of anyone interested in the subject.

A beautifully written history of outstanding excellence. I have found it most helpful. Professor Magocsi is to be commended on a another success.

Mr. Magocsi's "History of Ukraine" often takes a second billing to Mr. Subtelny's "Ukraine: A History" - and I think, unfairly. Both have a lot to offer, and frankly, no passionate student of Ukrainain history should choose one over the other. He or she should get both. A wealth of information, and first rate scholarship are impressive. Mr. Magocsi has done a first rate job. Mychajlo Hrushevsky would approve of both, and we should too.

The best part of this book is the first twenty two pages. Paul explains customizing and planning a design to fit your need and then goes into working with different materials. He even explains and has a drawing to show the proper way to install a screw. His information on joinery is easy to understand with the shop drawings to help explain them. Most people think you need a large selection of tools to build a project, not so as is demonstrated with the list Paul gives you. Layout and stock preperation along with the triangular marking system is information every woodworker should know to make a project easier to build, and finally someone gives us a simple finish to put on a project instead of worrying about using expensive spray equipment. Throughout the book there are many tips that can be applied to any project. The photos are great, the book is well written with some fantastic projects anyone would be proud to show off in their home. Thanks Paul for a great addition to my library and my shop.

Taunton Press realizes that a how-to book must not only deliver in content, but must be able to stand the abuse that taking it to the shop can cause. They use a slick cover and page material that looks like it could be damp-mopped many times without wilting. The content will also pass the test of time without wilting also. Anthony has brought six great woodworkers, including himself, to take on thirteen different storage projects.

There is probably not a project in this book that anyone would have a problem with. The attention to detail is amazing; from the complete and accurate cut-lists, to the step by step written procedure for each operation with outstanding photographs to illustrate what tool or machine to use. We have all been advised to do "dry clamp-ups" to make sure of glueing sequence and optimum clamp placement. This is covered in detail on almost every project.

For those of you who are Turners, you get your chance on the legs of the Storage Bench, and Allen Spooner shows how to book-match veneer for the Man's Jewelry Box.

I have found Anthony's book to be more than worthwhile addition to my library, and I am sure you will also. Where else can you get working drawings, great instructions and photographs for thirteen projects for this price?

Paul Anthony's new 'Home Storage Projects' from Taunton Press is not a run-of-the-mill 'store-it' campaign. He teaches fine woodworking along the way, with items as simple as a CD cabinet or pantry door storage. For those who want more complicated pieces, he offers a bench with curved, sleigh-bed end handles and a built-in of under-bed storage with a pedestal and drawers that roll out on both sides. He shows how to construct a printer stand that looks elegant enough to be a display case in a living room.

A long kitchen work station, a file cabinet, and a desktop organizer designed for real storage of work at hand, are some of the projects included. A mobile closet for guests, a man's jewelry box, and a medicine cabinet with a locking partition for drugs, are all presented with design options for fitting to required spaces or use.

The author offers up shop jigs for mitered clamping cauls, spline miter mortises and tapering. Hints show how to set router depth for leaf hinges in an instant, how to spring a batten for a fair curve, and how to install a full mortise lock. Producing these projects off the fully illustrated instructions would be a basic course in woodworking, with guidance in resawing, joinery and simple finishes.

The nice thing about this book is that the author never forgets to inform the reader why he is doing something, so it all makes sense as you go along. Illustrations and photos are clear and move the work along step by step. Selecting a space in the home, then designing a project to fill that space, is one of the best ways to learn design and construction techniques, and that is where this book succeeds so well. From small projects to large, there are useful pieces here for nearly everyone.