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Book reviews for "Dennis,_John" sorted by average review score:

Universe X (Volume 2)
Published in Paperback by Marvel Books (2002)
Authors: Alex Ross, Brent Anderson, and Thomas Yeates
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One Great story
One of the greatest story's I have read in a long time. I laughed with him, and cried with him. By the end of the book I felt like I knew him personally, and if I saw him on the street I would say "Hi" as if we were old fiends and talk a while. side note: whoever gave the one star rating there... I think you may want to check the black wall for Tyrone Hysey, its there.

Super read that exemplifies the spirit of a warrior!
A great accout of the personal experiences of a tough SOB! This book is not intended to be a literary masterpiece - too bad some focused on the writing style instead of appreciating the triumph of the human spirit. Joe Panza, Colonel, USAF (Ret)

A fine example of the genre
This book was recommended to me by a friend who served with Marvicsin. I read every book (fact and fiction) I can get my hands on concerning VietNam. This now rates as the finest I've read so far. The jargon is a reflection of the time, the war and the age of Maverick during his experience. The expressions he uses in a pinch are hilarious. He moves us through his military experience from young and dumb to the jaded thinking many vets developed in a war that nearly destroyed this country and did destroy many a good soldier in its wake. Also read-"We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" "Easy Target" and for novels on the subject, Colonel Leonard Scott wrote some fine ones.


CEO Succession: A Window on How Boards Can Get It Right When Choosing a New Chief Executive
Published in Hardcover by Oxford University Press (15 May, 2000)
Authors: Dennis C. Carey, Dayton Ogden, Judith A. Roland, and John A. Byrne
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Leaders should follow the guidance in this book.
An invaluable guide to this very difficult problem. Ogden, perhaps the world's leading expert in this field, makes a compelling case for deliberate long term planning, tailored to an enterprise's specific needs. His laserlike focus and penetrating analysis seem like a hidden national treasure.

Corporate titans and politicians who would like to be statesmen ought to read this book and heed the lessons offered.

Long Live the King! The King Is Dead! Long Live the King!
Shareholders naturally assume that boards have succession for the CEO and other top executives all figured out. WRONG! A well kept secret is that many CEOs try to stall in this area, as a way to make themselves more secure.

Even the companies that work in this area can be unprepared. A young CEO may suddenly jump to another company (as Ray Gilmartin did from Becton Dickinson to Merck), die unexpectedly of a heart attack (as Jerry Junkins did at Texas Instruments), or fail to perform to the board's expectations (as has happened to many companies). Couple that with the fact that irresistible forces may mean that the style that worked well in the past won't wash any more, and apparent succession preparation can equal being totally clueless.

The authors are headhunters with Spencer Stuart and share what they learned in interviews during 1996 and 1997 at Met Life, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, Mobil, Continental Grain, SmithKline Beecham, Delta, Mellon Bank, Bestfoods, Foster Wheeler, Hercules, and GTE. They also interspace other examples. One of the difficulties with a book like this is that things don't always turn out as they seem. A lot of praise in the book goes into Coca-Cola's preparation for the unexpected death of Roberto Goizueta. Douglas Ivester is quickly invested, which is where the book ends. But we know that he also was almost as quickly divested as he turned out to be a poor replacement. This replacing CEOs is a tough business. As irresistible forces become stronger and more volatile, replacements will probably occur even more frequently.

The book concludes that 10 key practices are required: Have a strong, involved board; continually expose the top management team to the board; encourage the next generation of CEO prospects to get early experience with outside boards, the media, and the financial community; create an active executive or operating committee so more executives get exposure to an overview of the company, its strategy and issues; do succession planning on an on-going, real-time basis; take as much human drama out of the process as possible (it's especially hard on number twos); tie some of the CEO's compensation to succession planning and progress; have the directors be paid in stock and make additional investments in the company's shares; calibrate the internal candidates with external ones; and develop a culture that encourages succession (a la Built to Last).

So much for the summary. Here are the problems. Although this book purports to be a best practice book, it does not investigate enough companies to succeed. This is actually a limited survey of practices, with picking out some that seem to work better. To be accurate, such a survey would have had to consider in equivalent detail at least 400 companies. A handful won't cut it.

Second, they have to measure of success in succession. They obviously like some better than others. Without some success measure, you cannot pick out best practices.

Third, the book plugs a service that appears to be from Spencer Stuart in callibrating internal and external candidates. To me, that made the book read like a virtual ad rather than a book about management practices.

Fourth, the audience spoken to was mostly boards and CEOs. There are a lot of other stakeholders out there, like customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, and the communities the companies serve. Shouldn't their reaction be considered in deciding which successions work well and which do not?

I could go on, but you get the idea. The authors needed someone to help them design a methodology before they started. Without one, they have produced a book, and some of what it says seems to make sense. With an appropriate methodology, I am sure they could have produced a much better book.

If you want more information on the subject, your best source in my opinion is to read the case studies in Directors & Boards, a magazine devoted to corporate governance. The material I have read in that magazine is consistently superior to what is in this book.

Good luck in overcoming your disbelief stall that people who recruit CEOs should know how to determine best practices in the area of CEO succession.

Packed With Knowledge!
Authors Dennis C. Carey and Dayton Ogden present a thorough, insightful guide to choosing a new Chief Executive Officer in this nicely written, concise book. Offering plenty of inside information and real-life corporate examples, the authors explore their ideas without resorting to fluff or to the dry, dull prose that often fills such books. Given their experience helping corporations choose CEOs and other executives, the authors know what they're talking about and understand the tricky issues involved in putting any advice into practice. Their book delivers what it promises, and given that it can be repetitive, it delivers on some of those promises two or three times (but we're quibbling, some of those lessons do bear repeating). We [...] recommend this book to anyone involved in executive succession and recruitment, especially board members (read it now, before you ditch your CEO, not after).


Managed Care
Published in Hardcover by 1stBooks Library (2002)
Author: John Dennis Sullivan
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Great for the beach or a trip
I really never thought of health care as a business and this book opened my eyes to how corporate America works. Given what's been going on with large corporations and the demise of health care, I think the timing was really right for this novel.

I really liked this book
I've worked in health care for ten years and couldn't believe how realistic this novel was. It reminded me of Robin Cook's earlier books like Coma. The interesting twist is how the book integrates corporate greed into the health care setting.

I can't wait for the movie!!

I loved this book !
This book was a fast paced thriller that I just couldn't put down ! John Sullivan's writing reminded me of Robin Cook - especially "Coma."

The book makes you wonder what goes on behind the walls of Corporate America.

I can't wait to read his next book and hope to see it in bookstores soon !


Breaking the Code of Change
Published in Hardcover by Harvard Business School Press (2000)
Authors: Michael Beer, Nitin Nohria, Nohria Beer, O of Change <I>By Michael Beer, Resolving the Tension between Theory E, and Nitin Nohria</I>
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Average
If you want to see Batman fight Judge Dredd, you'll find this book disappointing (unless you think a three- or four-panel scuffle constitutes as "fight"). You'll also find this book disappointing if you're hoping to see Batman and Judge Dredd team up, because they don't. Instead, Batman teams up with Anderson to go after Judge Death, who has teamed up, rather randomly I think, with the Scarecrow (surely the Scarecrow and Judge Fear would have been a more logical combination?) It's not an activally bad comic, but it's certainly not a great one.

Judge Dredd & Batman
It's crime fighting time when Judge Dredd and Batman take on each other!It's even better than Batman Forever!Highly recommended!


Daredevil: Love's Labors Lost
Published in Paperback by Marvel Books (2002)
Authors: Dennis O'Neil, Denny O'Neil, Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, John Buscema, and David Mazzuchelli
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Pretty good...
This book picks up around the time that Frank Miller wrapped up his first run on the series and around the time right before Frank Miller started his second run on the series. It's caught between greatness, thus overshadowed by the better-known arcs, but it does a good job of holding the inbetween.

Please, don't pass this book up just because it's not Frank Miller. It does have good stories in it (all except for one...surprisingly, it's the Frank Miller issue [Frank only wrote one issue and co-wrote another out of all the issues collected in here, by the way]), and the art is very good. While none of what you read in Love's Labor's Lost will be forever remembered as some of Daredevil's most defining and infamous moments (save, perhaps, Heather Glenn's suicide), all this book does is give more strength to the character of Matt Murdock/Daredevil, thus showing that he doesn't need Frank Miller to be good.

This book shows that he's great just by himself.


Delta Green: Dark Theatres
Published in Paperback by Armitage House (15 November, 2001)
Authors: Benjamin Adams, Martin Cirulis, Arinn Dembo, Dennis Detwiller, Robert E. Furey, A. Scott Glancy, Greg Stolze, John Tynes, and Bob Kruger
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Some true brilliance in a few tales
This anthology of Delta Green short stories presents a good introduction to the conspiracy/horror concepts of the DG world. Some stories are better than others, and each tale has it's own merits, but the story by Arinn Dembo stands head and shoulders above the rest. The story, a DG-flavored explanation of the life and times of a rockstar who closely resembles Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, is truly fantastic in my opinion. I'm probably a bigger fan of the story because of the unsolved mystery of Cobain's death, but it's well-written and sucks you in with a mixture of present-time and flashback sequences. I recommend the book as both an introduction to DG, and as a source of fresh new historical fiction authors.


The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox: A Year in the Life of a Supreme Court Clerk in Fdr's Washington
Published in Hardcover by University of Chicago Press (Trd) (2002)
Authors: John Knox, Dennis J. Hutchinson, and David J. Garrow
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Great on content, just a little dry
If you're the ultimate policy wonk on 2nd Amendment law, you'll want to read this book just for John Knox's insights into the character of Justice McReynolds who wrote the decision in U.S. v. Miller, 1939. Unfortunately, Knox was no longer clerking for McReynolds in 1939, so we miss the inside story on that landmark decision, but after you've read this book you'll better understand why Miller makes so little sense.


RIDERS
Published in Paperback by Scribner Paperback Fiction (23 June, 1996)
Author: Tim Winton
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Yesterday, Tomorrow or Today... Superman is the Man!
As a fan and Superman "wanna-be" most of my life, the thought of his Tansformation was a touch troubling to me. You just can not change Superman. It was ludicrous. Then I picked up the book. After reading it, I read it again. He was still the same hero, just a new suit. Reading it was like being a kid again. Remembering the daydreams wishing I could fly, deflect bullets or run "super" fast. If you love the old Superman you will love the new one.

One of the best comics I have ever read in a long time.
This book talks about the change in Superman and the problems that he has with all the changes. It is fun to read if you want something to do.

Really great book!
I stopped collecting Superman comics for a few years and when a friend brought me up to date, I realized that I'd missed quite a lot. I was most curious about Superman's transformation. So, he recommended that I buy this book. I really liked the entire story. It was great. The new Superman actually had more offensive power instead of defensive. I was very pleased with this book. However, there were three drawbacks. 1) It was a little confusing, so I had to read it twice. 2) It skips 3 months in between the two parts of the book, so there are a few references in the second half of the book, which I didn't understood and 3) after buying some of the original comics which made up this TPB, I realized that they skipped some pages which didn't contribute to the Transformation storyline. But, it was a really great read, overall and I highly recommend it to any Superman fan, active or once was active.


1,000 Points of Light: The Public Remains in the Dark (Oswald's Closest Friend: The George De Mohrenschildt Story, Volume 1)
Published in Paperback by Bruce Campbell Adamson Books (1996)
Authors: Bruce Campbell Adamson, Steve Perez, Knight. D, and Dennis McDonough
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NEWSPAPER WRITER STEVE PEREZ COAUTHORED BOOK
In response to negative review, Steve Perez worked at the Santa Cruz Sentinel for about 10 years. Perez wrote on the homicides in Santa Cruz County. The Sentinel is owned by a division of Dow Jones Inc, and one of the largest stockholder is Mary Bancroft's daughter under the Jane Bancroft trust. Mary Bancroft was a CIA agent and she was the lover of CIA Director, Warren Commissioner Allen Dulles and CIA assest Henry Luce. If you had read first half of the book and gave up you would have read Perez's work. There may be a couple of type'os possibly because when using Quark Express I had to take manuscript to Kinko's and another high grade printer. When I load program it reformatted the text for the entire volume. I went through to clean them up. Have had few complaints since 1996. Many in the JFK assassination community have praised the volume for it's damning evidence against on George de Mohrenschildt's ties to Prescott and George Bush Sr. Bruce Campbell Adamson

A for effort, and five stars for research!
Although this book could be a bit of a headache for anyone who's grown accustomed to an easy pulp-fiction read, it is nevertheless impeccably researched. The material presented, everything from court documents to official correspondence to casual correspondence, presents a startling factual picture of "the ties that bind", and manages to avoid the Usenet-style conspiratorial bent that shows up in most other books documenting the strange Dulles-Kennedy-Bush triangle. American history at its strangest!
Five stars for tracking down and formatting the immense volume of material in this book, and five stars for having the couage to print it. A bargain at any price- in fact I'll trade my copy for a nice Texas gusher, if anyone's interested...

Why Are So Many People Happy on EBAY?
I find this volume well researched and extremly incriminating. Why are so many people happy with this volume on Ebay. Adamson has many positive reviews on Ebay. Everyone who has purchased the volume has left a positive review, it seems on EBAY at user I.D. at ciajfk.com. If it is so hard to follow, why are they happpy? C.W.


Family Law Bill [Lords] (Except Clauses 5 and 7): 3rd Sitting, Tuesday 30 April 1996 (Afternoon) (Parliamentary Debates: [1995-96)
Published in Paperback by The Stationery Office Books (1996)
Author: Edward O'Hara
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The Quest of the Historical Jesus
I found this to be excruciatingly boring. The material is at best obsolete and of little value. A waste of time and money and not appropriate to one searching for a history of Jesus.

Very well laid out, but somewhat outdated...
I hold this book high and dear, despite a few disagreements. Anyone doing Jesus research should have this tome in their library. While I do feel this book is outdated (being it was written at the end of the First Quest and we are now in the Third) I do feel that better scholarship has been done out there that is more reliable and less blasphemous (such as John Meier, N.T Wright, Ben Witherington) and basically, while Schweitzer really did have a VERY good overview of the entire spectrum of historical Jesus studies, this book can be considered somewhat "outdated". The Jesus Seminar, as well as such scholars as Robert Funk, J.D. Crossan and Marcus Borg in both collaborated and singular efforts have claimed to not only carry on the legacy of David Freidrich Strauss, the supposed pioneer of what came to be the First Quest for Jesus, but they claim to take it further. While I heavily disagree with the Jesus Seminar and many of these "scholars" out there, I agree that they do take it further than any work in this book.

Scweitzer, however, outlines the book MASSIVELY well. He does not skimp on details and progress of the studies for each scholar he mentions and being a Theology professor himself, I do tip my hat to his studies. He does them well. He states more the studies of other scholars and does not go so much into what he has discovered. But I do feel that since this was written, there is much evidence against claims made in the book and, if you agree with the progress of the Historical Jesus studies, much better work out there, even by the Jesus Seminar.

This book is a great read, I recommend that if what I wrote interests you, buy it. However, you will definitely need much supplementary materials from both liberal and conservative scholars to revise your frame of thought.

A sweeping indictment on an era of pretentious scholarship
Albert Schweitzer wrote this great classical study in 1906, back when historical criticism was predominantly a German enterprise. "The Quest of the Historical Jesus" eulogizes the quest of 1778-1901, indicting every scholar of this period for making Jesus over in his liberal self-image, for replacing the original Jewish apocalyptic prophet with a moral and ethical teacher suited to the Protestant temperament. As the reviewers below have observed, Schweitzer demonstrated that everyone had been peering into the well of the Gospels only to see themselves at the bottom. It's now become a cliche in historical-Jesus studies to speak of the painting telling you more about the painter than the subject being painted.

So who was the historical Jesus? For Schweitzer, he was an heroic, albeit deluded, messianic prophet dominated by the conviction that he was God's chosen instrument to announce the imminent end of history -- burning with apocalyptic zeal, marching to Jerusalem, confident that he could compel the Kingdom's arrival on earth through a voluntary death. But the anticipated divine intervention failed to occur, and Jesus was crushed by the system he defied, the entire drama ending on the cross. No resurrection.

Even if Schweitzer's portrait of Jesus is a bit extreme, he at least got the basics right -- that is, Jesus as an eschatological prophet -- and he rightly sounded the death knell for the liberal quest of the historical Jesus. And Schweitzer was a true prophet, for there has been a resurgence of the liberal quest, particularly in the work of the notorious Jesus Seminar. Just as the quest of 1778-1901 made Jesus into a liberal German Protestant, so now the Jesus Seminar has made him into a liberal North American humanist, fitting this mold in the guise of a non-eshatological cynic-sage divorced from Judaism. This Jesus is, as Schweitzer could have easily predicted, made over in the image of the Jesus Seminarians.

For more up-to-date works which follow Schweitzer in depicting Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, see E.P. Sanders' "The Historical Figure of Jesus", Paula Fredriksen's "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews", and Dale Allison's "Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet". Allison's book, in particular, is worth its weight in gold.


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