Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2
Book reviews for "Donaldson,_Scott" sorted by average review score:

Life Lessons from a Ranch Horse
Published in Paperback by Johnson Books (2003)
Authors: Mark Rashid and Harry Whitney
Amazon base price: $11.20
List price: $16.00 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $11.12
Buy one from zShops for: $10.52
Average review score:

Wonderful Biography of a Forgotten Master
What a joy to discover that Scott Donaldson's masterful biography of Winfield Townley Scott, POET IN AMERICA, is available again! Scott was never considered more than a second-rank poet in his lifetime, and today is entirely forgotten; and yet, ever since discovering his poems "O Lyric Love" and "Five for the Grace of Man" in the landmark anthology THE VOICE THAT IS GREAT WITHIN US back in my Peace Corps days, he has been one of my favorites. (Readers new to Scott's work should begin, I think, with CHANGE OF WEATHER or NEW AND SELECTED POEMS.) The real delight is that Donaldson has provided us with a biography fully worthy of Scott, sympathetic but unflinching. The opening pages--set on the last day of Scott's life--are among the most powerful and moving I have ever read in a biography. Indeed, POET IN AMERICA should be required reading for anyone venturing into the field of literary biography--it is a beautifully balanced and memorable piece of work.

Now, if only Scott's own poetry could be brought back into print!


Successful Software Development (2nd Edition)
Published in Hardcover by Prentice Hall PTR (27 December, 2000)
Authors: Scott E. Donaldson and Stanley G. Siegel
Amazon base price: $63.00
Used price: $35.00
Collectible price: $51.88
Buy one from zShops for: $45.00
Average review score:

Distills a complex subject into modular parts
This book cuts through the fog of competing standards and methodologies in the software engineering domain. It gives a clear picture of a process and associated procedures that can be effectively applied to any capability model (CMM, SPICE), process and procedures approach (TickIT, ISO 9000-3), and does so without drifting into any particular methodology. This is a key strength.

What I found especially valuable is the way the authors clearly illustrate processes as well as artifacts. For example, the Quantified Product Integrity Attributes illustration in chapter 6 distills on a single page a highly complex concept into an easy-to-understand storyboard. Another example, on the facing page is the Requirements Specification Evolution, which portrays a complex sequence in a single illustration. Since the book has around 200 illustrations, most of which are page size, in the book's 745 pages, getting a clear picture of the software development domain and its associated processes is easy. The text is clearly written and hits all of the key areas of software development, starting with business cases and project planning.

In this one book I have found processes, procedures and techniques that I can apply to both application delivery and service delivery for clients. Also, for the first time I was able to clearly see the "big picture" and how carefully thought-out development processes can be used to deliver value to end users instead of mere applications.

I highly recommend this book and give it a solid five stars.

Blends theory and real-world - thorough and easy to read
Rare is a technical text that can serve as a real world reference for practicing professionals as well as a college-level text, but this outstanding book manages to completely satisfy these two audiences.

The authors have structured the book's contents along the lines of a sequential life cycle; however, they are not promoting the classic waterfall development approach - just presenting processes and procedures in a logical order. The chapters can be read in sequence or you can skip around without getting lost. The book starts with a chapter on business case development, followed by chapters on project planning, software systems development, change control, product and process reviews, measurement, cultural change, and ending with a chapter on process improvement planning.

What I like most is the book starts with a strong emphasis on making a business case, followed by an in-depth look at project planning. These PM practices are essential to organizations seeking CMM Level 2 and above. I also like the way the book is illustrated because the processes and concepts depicted in the 200 illustrations distill the complexities of software engineering into easy-to-understand process areas.

This book will align nicely to SPICE, CMM, Bootstrap and ISO 9000-3, making it an excellent reference for mature organizations. I strongly recommend it to serious practitioners who are committed to mature practices. I also think it would be an excellent college-level text because it shows how the theoretical aspects of software engineering can be used in the "real world".

Simply the best
The 2nd edition (the first was titled Cultivating Successful Software Development) is a major improvement over the first edition. This edition covers all of the KPAs from the CMM and aligns nicely to the RUP as well. No serious software engineer should be without a copy near her desk.


The Damnation of Theron Ware (Penguin Classics)
Published in Paperback by Viking Press (1986)
Authors: Harold Frederic and Scott Donaldson
Amazon base price: $11.16
List price: $13.95 (that's 20% off!)
Used price: $0.70
Collectible price: $4.24
Buy one from zShops for: $2.99
Average review score:

One Of Those Classics That You Never Heard Of
This was a very popular novel of 1896, and is considered by many to be a literary classic. Theron Ware enters the scene as a small town Methodist Minister. He and his wife seem to be humble folk and settle into a small house near his church. Soon he meets a Catholic priest, an atheist physician, and a beautiful Irish lass. They make quite an impression on him. They are sophisticated, well educated, and quite worldly. Alas, they are such a strong influence on him that he starts playing the worldly role, and begins to look down on his job and his religion. He also finds himself strongly attracted to the lovely Celia Madden. I should mention that in those days the Irish were assigned to the caste of untouchables.

Theron acts as if he is now a man of the world, although he knows nothing of the literature, music, and philosophy discussed by others. He becomes a boring, mean minded buffoon. The book continues with his steady degradation, a preacher who has become a victim of that secular humanism that our current day fundamentalists complain so much about.

The novel provides an interesting view of religion and culture of the late 1800s. It was somewhat difficult for me to understand how such a seemingly pious man could turn into such a churlish fellow. Perhaps his upbringing was quite religiously strict, and he developed a strong reaction formation to it all.

Wonderful Surprise!
I found this book on my father's bookshelf and brought it home to read. I'm not sure why I picked it--nothing about the title or description excited me too much, so it sat on my own bookshelf forgotten for several months. Finally, hurriedly getting ready for a vacation I needed a book to read and found Theron Ware. I loved it so much that I went right out and bought my own copy. I recommended it to my 21 year old son and he loved it too. One caution though, do NOT read the introduction first--it gives the entire plot away. Save it for after when you can savor the analysis.

A wonderful and shamefully neglected American novel
IMHO, this novel can and should be included with the other American novels that we cram down the throats of high-schoolers: Moby Dick, Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, etc. This is the almost painfully realistic story of a preacher who discovers that there is another world outside his previously sheltered existence. For many of us, this sort of discovery is a happy and broadening experience. But in Ware's case, his new discoveries cause him to reject all the good things about his old life, and to build fantasy castles in the air of his imagination. In his increasingly desperate attempt to escape into a fantasy life, he leaves behind many of his values and ethical standards - not least his responsibilities to those he loves.

This book will hit a nerve for many readers - it did for me. It is easy for the reader to identify with Ware and realize only too late, as Ware did, that he is embarking on an illusory and self-destructive quest. Frederick constructed both the plot and the character of Ware perfectly, and this novel is worth everyone's time to read. You will keep thinking about it long after you have closed the book for the last time.


Conversations With John Cheever (Literary Conversations Series (Cloth))
Published in Hardcover by Univ Pr of Mississippi (1997)
Authors: John Cheever and Scott Donaldson
Amazon base price: $39.50
Used price: $11.65
Collectible price: $15.88
Buy one from zShops for: $50.00
Average review score:

intimate thoughts from the master of the american short stor
this collection of interviews is great for any fan of Cheever's work. it does get a bit repetitious, but there is so much about the man (and the author) in these interviews

The Writer in His Own Words
Review of CONVERSATIONS WITH CHEEVER

For those admirers of Cheever who would have been elated at the chance to converse with him about his art this book is gratifying. Surely, in these twenty eight interviews, questions are asked to which an admirer yearns for an answer. Granted some questions are echoed throughout various interviews - how much of Cheever's fiction is autobiography, for instance - a tendency the book's compiler mentions, still a lot of information about the writer's life, opinions, and working habits is presented. (A similar book and a suitable companion piece to this one is CONVERSATIONS WITH UPDIKE, particularly since the two were friends. Amazon carries it.)

What follows is merely a smattering of information from this treasure trove. Cheever liked to select a different room in his house in which to write each story. Many of his short stories were drafted in three days. Usually, at the publication of one of his books, he fled to Europe to avoid interviews, a habit he discarded later in his career. He was fond of Labrador Retrievers and owned several of the breed. Anyone wishing to discover the intimate details about the renowned American's life would do well to own this source.

John Cheever kept a journal throughout much of his career. An admirer might hope to find in them (they have been published) a glimpse into the artist's methods as can be found in the notebooks of Henry James. He is apt to be disappointed. Much of Cheever's journals concentrates on his amorous peccadilloes. CONVERSATIONS WITH CHEEVER compensates for what the journals lack. A reader will find on every page a nugget either factual or insightful on this esteemed writer.


Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby (Critical Essays on American Literature)
Published in Hardcover by G K Hall (1984)
Author: Scott Donaldson
Amazon base price: $50.00
Used price: $19.99
Average review score:

It was a great book, however the ending was disappointing.
I read the Great Gatsby for a school paper. I am writing a paper containing my opinion, and other critical reviews on the book. I am having great trouble. I thought the book was good. I found several instances of imagery, and the plot was good. I sometimes found it confusing, however when I read it over again, I understood it more. Also, the movie helps. After reading the book however, I found several questions unanswered. Maybe I just can't pick up on them, but I felt the book was unanswered. I recommend this book to read, just for pleasure. I wouldn't recommend reading it for school. However, I would greatly recommend A Prayer For Owen Meany.

The Great Gatsby
I thought The Great Gatsby was a very interesting book, aside from the ending, which I thought was drab, the book was good.

AWESOME BOOK!
Anyone who feels lost or unwanted i would definately recomend this book it is wonderful! you will learn everything you ever wanted to learn.


On the Road (The Viking Critical Library)
Published in Paperback by Viking Press (1979)
Authors: Jack Kerouac, John, Kerouac, and Scott Donaldson
Amazon base price: $6.95
Average review score:

my review oh boy
I decided to read Jack Kerouac's On the Road because a lot of my friends had read, it as well as some of his other books, and told me that I might enjoy it. The very beginning of the novel didn't grab my attention right away, but soon the pace picked up. The narrator, Sal Paradise (who Kerouac characterized after himself), seems like a simple kind of guy who likes to be with friends, have a good time, and be adventurous. It seems like he and his buddies are drinking at least every few pages, whether it be on the road with hitchhikers or while listening to jazz at a club. During the first half of the book, when Sal first begins his travels across the U.S. to meet up with his friend Dean, the novel has a free-spirited, optimistic tone. He hitchhikes with little money to get from place to place, and as he does so he meets many interesting people and makes some friends. Sal seems excited and open to anything that may come his way. During the second part of the book, after Sal has finally met up with Dean and has a love affair with a Mexican woman in the meantime, the pace of the book slows way down. It becomes difficult to know in which direction the story is leading because not much is taking place for a while. Sal goes back home for a little while, but is soon on the road again with Dean and other friends when they unexpectedly show up at his door to pick him up. He travels to San Francisco a second time, this time not alone, and spends his time drinking and looking for work. He doesn't seem as optimistic and excited as the first time he went travelling, but rather depressed. The story becomes more interesting again when Sal and Dean leave the U.S. and go to Mexico. Here they party more than usual and have as good a time as possible. I liked this part of the novel as well as the beginning because it almost made me feel like I was there, partying with them. Reading On the Road gave me a good sense of what it would be like to escape for a little while and just have an adventure, without feeling like I would have to worry about all the little things. Because I am the kind of person that thinks and worries way too much, it's nice to experience what it would be like to be more laid back and adventurous through reading this book. After reading this I have a sense of what it's like to be left with only yourself to depend on.

A book review by adam patel
The novel by Jack Kerouac On the Road is the story of Sal Paradise, and his directionless travels around the country. The book revolves around personal interpretation of situations, and relationships formed with others. The seemingly purposeless life, and travels that Sal and his sidekick Dean Moriarty experience, was portrayed as the almost utopian lifestyle.
The book brings to mind a new sense and better understanding of the word freedom. Spontaneous sense of living based upon not the destination it self, but the journey and experience it takes to get there, is a concept we aren't always the most familiar with. The situational narrative seemed to be a bit heavy, and character dialogue a bit light. The story was very free flowing and in some parts carelessly put together as far as logical background knowledge and setting, which corresponds nicely with the theme of the book.

A 20th Century Classic
In a time reverse way, I felt dated, reading this very modern piece of writing with my postmodern consciousness. At first I felt like I was in the ejector seat of a convertible without seatbelts doing 110 MPG with a drugged or drunk driver commandeering the steering wheel. Well, we the readers, not to mention the characters, are. But all the boozing, drugs, women, and breaking of various Commandments don't have the consequences we'd expect in a more recent novel. Instead, we learn about the holy pursuit of getting high on life, especially as it is lived on the edge. A gang of characters is wrapped like a hurricane's winds around Dean Moriarty whose bipolar (postmodern judgment there) energy flows inspire antic cross country road trips across several years. In a book that's fueled by organic movement, there comes the day when the characters have to move on and away after they have achieved the highest (literally) point in their travels, and that's the ultimate consequence, that the momentum dissipates.

I had put off reading this book, thinking I couldn't handle one long abstract rant, which it isn't, though I'd picked up that impression somewhere. Kerouac sings like Whitman in a voice that is at once poetic and yet concretely journalistic. It is urgent, thus propelling its content, peeling away the past and future. There is artistic skill and knowledge at work in every sentence.

I read the critical introduction last, so it would not color my experience. It is an excellent introduction, one addressing more autobiographical detail than text, but all the same, read it as an afterward; I think Kerouac would want you to live the book unfettered by context.


Cultivating Successful Software Development
Published in Hardcover by Prentice Hall (15 January, 1997)
Authors: Scott E. Donaldson and Stanley G. Siegel
Amazon base price: $53.00
Used price: $5.00
Buy one from zShops for: $19.00
Average review score:

State of the Art in Software Engineering...
.

...for 1994.

The book is a typical example of the literature available when SEI CMM was the next silver bullet to save our industry from the dreaded "software lottery" that everyone loses (a favorite phrase of the authors).

The authors come from a DoD background and it shows with their selection of methodologies and recommendations. There is a lot of good information in here, but they don't cover many alternative concepts to how DoD builds software. Can you develop good software following this book?

Sure.

On the other hand, the same sort of methodology was used on the FAA AAS project...one of the industry's classic software disaster stories.

Take for example, the authors assertion that the basis for customer input and understanding customer needs (and the resulting project artifacts) is the Statement of Work. Which is technically true for government contracts from a contractural point of view. From an engineering point of view, a better basis of understanding customer desires is a careful analysis of current and desired workflow...on site, watching real users perform the activities that makes their businesses run.

We have a moderately large body of more recent literature that suggests that this is a (much) better method to capture user requirements and expectations than traditional DoD methodology.

There are more examples of this kind of bias but what is most damning about this book are the examples they use. Their discussion on product assurance (pg 39) has an example where product assurance testers find problems with software on the Friday before a delivery and the management "can focus its attention and resources on those areas that must be redone for Monday's release".

Excuse me?

This example is so bad on so many levels that one wonders if this is actually how SAIC does business. Certainly, I would expect that for practitioners in a "mature organization" this sort of example wouldn't even come to mind.

Likewise, the example solution on page 94 on how a CCB might respond to the problem of staff turnover is cross training. Of course this doesn't solve any of the root causes for staff turnover or even the fact that you now have N-1 programmers to do the work of N programmers.

Obviously for authors that blithely accepts that testing occurs the last minute and that programmers should work on weekends this is more than acceptable "solution".

The reason why these kinds of examples are damning is because examples are often better insight into what is actually practiced and internalized by the authors rather than the ideals presented in the book.

Too Much in Too Samll a Package.
I think this resource is better for reference purposes than it is for comprehension. The charts, forms, tables, graphics and flowcharts are great, but the reading itself and its presentation, e.g. the font size, need correction or refinement. This book helped me to understand important process, project management, and software engineering concepts, and when combined with other SW Eng resources, such as Pfleeger's SW Engineering (PH, 1998) makes a great resource.

My Favorite Reference
I've just ordered my second copy of this book (to replace one that vanished from my desk - I simply did not want to be without it). As a software development manager with fifteen years experience I find this book very valuable - it is logically laid out and has excellent visuals. I refer to it on a regular basis to help me put my thoughts in order and to jog my memory when I'm planning, documenting, and training.


Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship
Published in Hardcover by Overlook Connection Press (02 November, 1999)
Author: Scott Donaldson
Amazon base price: $29.95
Used price: $18.95
Average review score:

A glimpse into a fragile friendship...

Fitzgerald appealed to me in high school, when I was pretty much a romantic teen-ager who fancied the tragic story of Daisy and the Great Gatsby.

Hemingway was my favorite author when I was in grad school. His writing is clean, precise and open to interpretation, unlike that of other writers of his time who told you every single thing about a character's motivation.

While I've read a lot about Hemingway's life, I never realized the two men were so close during Hemingway's rise and Fitzgerald's fall in the literary world. By following their relationship through their many letters, Scott Donaldson sheds light on two distinctly different literary careers. Fitzgerald was pretty much the voice of the jazz age, while Hemingway took up the torch for the lost generation. Each had his foibles, to be sure, but it seems Hemingway was the more disciplined of the two and, as such, enjoyed a longer career.

I enjoyed the book and am happy to add it to my collection of Hemingway resources.

Enjoy!

Great Beginning, Dissapointing Ending
I feel as if I should write two reviews: one for the first 2/3 of this book, one for the final 1/3. The first part is an interesting account of the Hemingway-Fitzgerald friendship. From being expatriot friends to bitter enemies, the story is a facinating one, especially if you've read multiple works from the two Greats. Direct quotations from their letters to each other, Maxwell Perkins and other literary giants of the time make the book even more interesting.

Then they both die... and the book continues for another 100+ pages. It's as if the author realized his book was only 250 pages long and had to fill out the binding with unnecessary rehash. Obviously drinking played an important part in both writers' lives, and it was chronicled in their relationship. There's no need to devote 40 more pages to discussing their drinking further (actually, repeating the discussion would be more appropriate here)!

Ultimately, the first part is good if not amazing. It certainly isn't good enough to make up for the terribly dull ending. To be honest, I wish I'd have read a biography of each instead. Perhaps you should do the same. Even better, read their actual works!

P.S. I'm not exactly dissuading you from this book. It is well written and interesting. Just be prepared for some boring parts and an empty stomach at the end.

Still engrossing after all these years
Throughout "Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald - The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship," Scott Donaldson has both contributed to and distinguished himself from "the outpouring of biographical material that has kept them both in the public eye." This is a well-researched and fully documented discourse on the eventual reversal of mentor/novice roles and the concluding "exercise in sadomasochism" between these two giants of twentieth century American literature. Although my own studies (and the many, many research papers I've graded) on these men and their works made me hesitate to revisit it all again, I was pleasantly surprised by this fresh and very readable treatise.


The Cambridge Companion to Hemingway
Published in Paperback by Cambridge Univ Pr (Pap Txt) (1996)
Author: Scott Donaldson
Amazon base price: $24.00
Used price: $8.00
Buy one from zShops for: $22.47
Average review score:

Hemingway scholarship
The essays in this book will show you everything wrong with modern Hemingway scholarship. Critics today seem to be in a love-hate relationship with Hemingway; they pay lip-service to his greatest works, yet disparage him at every opportunity. This in a volume of essays ostensibly dedicated to a great writer. I would prefer insightful essays that try to help the reader understand Hemingway, not the didactic ones that say "This aspect of Hemingway is bad." Scott Donaldson's introductory essay "Hemingway and Fame," is good, yet blemished by his snobbery toward "popular" writers. If writers like Hemingway or Mark Twain are still popular and widely read by general readers, Donaldson says that they "have been admitted to the canon despite the off-putting aroma of publicity that surrounds them." A more charitable observer would say that the popularity that still surrounds them is a testimony to the universal chords they both strike, and if those writers still succeed in reaching out to readers decades after their deaths, then it signifies their power.

Perhaps the best essay is Robert Fleming's "Hemingway's Late Fiction: Breaking New Ground." Fleming discusses Hemingway's much maligned post-war fiction and convincingly argues that even in his old age Hemingway still had vitality and was exploring new territory, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but to call that period a literary failure is superficial and unjust. "Hemingway never stopped attempting to grow," Fleming concludes.

Kenneth Kinnamon's essay "Hemingway and Politics" attempts to prove that "Hemingway was always on the left," contrary to the general belief that Hemingway, if anything, was right-wing. Kinnamon fails. He makes a big deal of the fact that the only man Hemingway ever voted for for President was Socialist Eugene Debs in 1920. Yet the only explanation Hemingway ever gave for his vote was that Debs "was an honest man and in jail," which suggests to the undogmatic reader that the individualist Hemingway saw Debs not as a leftist but as a man of integrity. He voted for Debs's willingness to suffer for his beliefs, not his beliefs, in other words. Kinnamon plays up Hemingway's participation in the Spanish Civil War on the Republic's side, although by Hemingway's own account this was motivated by his antifascist and pro-republican sympathies, not communist. "This was not a Stalinist experience," Hemingway wrote. "These were episodes in defence of the Spanish Republic." To Kinnamon's credit, he quotes Hemingway's frequent nose-thumbing, disparagement, and dismissals of the left, but he doesn't brush them off very well. In fact, a reading of his essay leads the reader to a different conclusion than the one Kinnamon makes.

There are several "gender-orientated" essays in here. All are pretty uninsightful. Hopefully when these critics grow up and mature Hemingway will get some insightful treatment that he is usually lacking in this day and age.


American Literature: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Comparative Literature Series)
Published in Textbook Binding by Barnes & Noble (1978)
Author: Scott Donaldson
Amazon base price: $15.00
Used price: $12.00
Collectible price: $10.59
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2

Reviews are from readers at Amazon.com. To add a review, follow the Amazon buy link above.