Speaking Globally: Effective Presentations Across International And Cultural Boundaries by speech specialist and communication consultant is a straightforward and effectively presented instructional guide to improving one's speeches and presentations, especially when communicating to an audience from a dramatically different culture. From guidelines expressly useful for helping female speakers get taken seriously, to avoiding common and embarrassing communication pitfalls, to designing a truly "go-getter" motivational speech, Speaking Globally is first-rate and very highly recommended reading for business travelers and international speakers.

Elizabeth Urech's Speaking Globally is both informative and entertaining. Vivid examples and clear explanations enable you to easily understand and remember concepts. Best of all this book inspires you to seek opportunities to test your speaking skills. As a former MBA student and someone who occasionally introduces guest speakers, leads meetings and presents material, I only wish I would have read it sooner.

-- Linda Beadling

If you ever have a need to conduct business with people from other countries, this book could help you. It is full of helpful facts and tips for speakers who must cross the cultural barriers to good communication. Not only is it loaded with good practical information (such as how to make a toast at dinner in Finland), it is easily read because of the clear writing style and humor. I keep a copy by my phone as a quick reference before calling my contacts around the world. I highly recommend it as essential reading for anyone who must deal with business people around the world.

Elizabeth Urech obviously knows what she is writing about and it shows in her prose. Reading this book is like having the best advice, support (and encouragement) from a coach before approaching what is for most people one of the most nerve-wracking, unsettling, scary things in the world..public speaking. Read it and you will be better prepared, more confident, and no doubt more successful.

BEVIS HILLIER - The Spectator: "In the LYRICS something close to genius flares out;it is his songs that make Coward immortal...This collection is illustrated with a pleasing choice of photographs of Coward and his friends,song-sheet covers and programmes. The effect is of a personal scrapbook...The second merit is the formidably good editing by BARRY DAY. His notes to often rather-light songs are so learned...it is useful to get sorted out,once and for all,the extent of Coward's collaboration with Kern and to hear from different artists about auditioning for Coward or the premieres of his songs."

Albee, the playwright who invented one of the more complicated and vivid relationships ever in a play in ZOO STORY, has again demonstrated his intimate knowledge of the deeper motives behind human interaction. Every interaction between characters in this play -- from long monologues to short snippets of conversation -- has behind it some manner of conflict.

Everybody in this play needs change, and can only reach it through the destruction of others; Tobias and Agnes who simply want to be left alone, but whose house has been invaded; Julia, the daughter who is betrayed by the fact that her parents gave away her room; Claire, who wants only to excercise her right to a good time; Edna and Harry who aren't quite sure what they need, and subsequently frustrate everyone else.

This is a very heavy play, but written in a such a way that is has the guise of being a comedy. A must-read for anybody that loves drama.

This is so much like Beckett's Human Wishes (throughout, especially II, ii) that either Albee read it in manuscript somehow, or else he felt the necessity of inventing it. The change from Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is from a precision of language in an easy, American manner to one that is self-conscious and, well, "thought-tormented," and lasting.

The general sense is of a trilogy, Woolf-Balance-Seascape, or rather Pictures at an Exhibition: Town-Country-Seaside.

To date, Edward Albee has won three Pulitzer prizes, has written one of the most famous plays ever--WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (surprisingly not among the three)--and also has written the most famous one-act ever, THE ZOO STORY. A DELICATE BALANCE is one of the Pulitzer winners; anyone who cares about theatre will love this. In performance an electrifying evening, it is also a darn good read--again and again. A tragedy at times hilarious, the stylized piece is an examination of friendship contrasted with family, in which the playwright creates six delicous characters--roles actors especially love and often perform brilliantly. Katherine Hepburn's filmed version comes to mind--a near perfect expression of the matriarch Agnes, who has several problems: her alcoholic sister is drinking in the living room, her daughter is coming home after a failed 4th marriage, and her friends Edna and Harry have decided to move in because they are "afraid" of something. Agnes's husband Tobias is polite, detached, and reasonable. Against bristling tension, the author uses drunken Claire as comic counterpoint to brilliant effect, giving her an accordion (of all things) as prop with which to accent and poke fun. (There's a wonderful sight gag near the end where this character, who isn't supposed to have one drink, is discovered holding two.) We also smile when mousy Edna tries to re-decorate Agnes's home and speaks to the divorcing Julia as if she were her own daughter. (How easily shyness moves to assertiveness, then imperceptibly to cruelty.) So we laugh to keep from crying--but laugh we do! And although Agnes is unforgettable, nevertheless it is Tobias who gets the climactic "aria," an attempt to put his house in order. The dramatist calls our bluff on what we mean by "friends," fusing big ideas in three elegant acts, crystallizing mysterious beauty from carefully chosen words. The result is a theatrical touchstone, one of Edward Albee's many masterpieces, a magnificent gem of a play.

This is a pretty basic and simplistic introduction to small business finance. Many of the "tricks" revealed in it for raising money simply will not work in the real world.

The other Guerrilla books give hundreds of immediately useful tips. Things you can go out and do tomorrow. Ways to sneak in the back door, or fly under the radar.

Guerrilla Financing maybe should have chosen a different title, because it's more about traditional methods.

I bought this book about ten years ago and it helped spawn ideas to help purchase a business. When I bought the book, I was able to find some immediate ideas. However, the key takeaway from the book is that you must be creative sometimes in order to overcome financing obstacles. Today, most of the techniques may seem simplistic, but the core idea of being creative remains the same. If you are looking for ideas to follow, hire a consultant or accountant. If you are looking for ideas to jumpstart your thinking about financing problems, read this book, jot down techniques that draw your interest and think about how they can be used today.

It was difficult to wade through her tasteless anecdotes (mostly about her age) to find much substance. She seems more interested in trying to build a personal fan club than trying to give out great information on the truly wonderful shopping in Paris! Her "great deals" on hotel rooms are between US$200 - $300 a night, so beware that she's writing for those with beaucoup d'argent to burn.

I like books that I can carry with me for reference when I shop in Paris. It's nearly impossible to do that with this book because there is so much "chit-chat" included in the reviews of stores. It's very difficult to look up a specific area or kind of specialty store that you seek. You pretty much have to read the entire book to sift through her laborious writing to find what little helpful information actually exists. She includes one map of Paris which may be good for an overview of where shops are located, but a more detailed map is truly warranted.

This book is adequate if it's the only one to which you have access,... I'm sure Suzy has adequate experience of shopping in Paris, but her book needs some serious reorganization and brevity to make it more widely appealing to those who aren't as experienced as she is.

Bottom line: Not worth the effort to read it when there are far more informative books available. Sorry, Suzy.

I love this guide. If you love to shop, and you aren't planning a trip to Paris, you will be by the time you are 1/2 an hour into this! Some of the other reviews are so surprisingly hostile! My sisters, daughters and I make an annual pilgrimage to shop in Paris. We use her books as one resource for what looks interesting, then once we are in the area we find even more. She clearly has her black belt in shopping, and if the reader is also serious about shopping they will appreciate this content. We love to shop anything from Monoprix to Herves to Hermes. We find her guides to be so humorous and helpful. This is definately a Frommer's, not a "Let's Go" guidebook. One of the reviews says that Suzy is out of touch with the real Paris, but I think that she is correct in advising readers that Paris has a big problem with petty crime. It really pays to be alert to it and pay close attention to your belongings. Wallets and cell phones are frequently taken from backpacks, pockets and purses in the metro stations and on the streets! She does tease about the cultural differences (as does my family), but she obviously loves France (as do we!). I highly recommend this guide! I took one star off only because it is not possible to keep a guide like this completely current with the retail business changing so quickly.

Long live Suzy Gershman! This was the best, most helpful travel book I have ever bought and made this trip to Paris my most productive, happy and fun EVER. Every suggestion was right on target. Her taste is fabulous and her walking/shopping tours unbeatable. I will follow this woman anywhere.

I am all in favor of more Americans who don't happen to have lives in the Theatre, familiarizing themselves with the works of Noel Coward. And if this charming, funny, little sampler (chock full of rhymes and quotes and line drawings) will help, then I'm all for it.

But, most of Coward's quotes in Day's book are taken out of context from plays and films. And what usually makes most of them laugh-out-loud funny or just smilingly clever is that very context: what and how and why Coward's characters say what they say.

Also alot of his references are very, very British and relatively antique like this short speech from "Private Lives," one of his best and most frequently revived plays: (Amanda): "And India, the burning Ghars, or Ghats, or whatever they are, and the Taj Mahal. How was the Taj Mahal?...And it didn't look like a biscuit box, did it? I've always felt that it might." That passage (quoted in its entirety from this volume) is simply not really funny, unless the reader knows the play and the character of 'Amanda' or is watching the play and hears the actress playing 'Amanda' speak the lines.

But then there are always his wonderful, romantic lyrics, usually tinged with sadness when they are not downright playful: "I'll see you again,/Whenever spring breaks through again;/Time may lie heavy between,/But what has been/Is past forgetting."

And wonderful, pithy lines that have to do as much with today (think: American politics) as they do with the period in which they were written: "It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."

If this book is a jumping-off place for people to really dig in and investigate Coward more thoroughly, then I recommend it. Better yet, read his plays like the above mentioned "Private Lives" and "Hay Fever" and "Blithe Spirit" to begin with, and then some of his short stories and his vastly under-rated Diaries.