This book is wonderful. There is so much information packed into this book, I find my self reading it over and over again. I had his first weather book in the late 1970's and this has more information. Being from Cleveland I can remember many of the weather events that happened and those that I heard about. Highly recommended.

For those of us who must endure the hodge-podge of weather here in NE OH and have come to depend upon and trust the weather guru, Dick Goddard, you'll love his book. Chock full of valuable month-by-month info and stats, as well as loads of interesting weather stories from our area and from around the world. Also contains lots of amusing cartoons by Goddard himself. If you are interested in the weather, you'll be sure and find something of interest in Dick's book. Enjoyable and informative reading.

Let's face it! Northeast Ohio weather sucks! Earthquakes? Yeah, we've had them! Floods? Them, too! Hurricanes? Yep, really! And tornados and sunless months that rival Seattle's and of course, lake-effect anythings... BUT...! NOW we have Dick Goddard's Almanac! So while it may be in the 100s or in the minus 20s out there, we can seek comfort that Dick Goddard has said once, not too long ago, it really was a lot worse! What a marvelous work Goddard's given us! It's a true gem in the crown of NE Ohio's premier weatherman! The rest of the world? Suffer your pestilences without clues! We've got The Word from Goddard to guide us through them!

This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. I laughed until I cried. I worked in a bookstore and recommended this to anyone who asked about birdfeeding. I had to buy extra copies to give to my friends and parents.

This is a terrific, and funny, little book. Visiting a friend, we found a copy in her bathroom. It's great bathroom reading -- one line, cartoon, or many. I love the cartoon showing a man in a hospital bed with his arms and legs in casts, with a squirrel looking in the window. The squirrel says, "it's only a game. Don't take it seriously."

I'm buying a copy for me, and two copies for friends.

If you are beggining fishing, or someone that wants information about freshwater gamefish of north america, this book is for you.

This book has great information about some of North America's most popular fish, and even some unpopular fish. The information is good, and the pictures are excellent.

I got goose bumps as I read Dick Collins' book. Collins' is right on target as to how to build the heart and soul of a High School track program. If you're a track coach; BUY THIS BOOK - get to work and start changing lives. Winning will be a by-product.

Feed the Birds is a delightful little book that contains all kinds of recipes for bird feeding and directions for making feeders of different types. It also dispels some of the common myths about bird feeding. A wonderful buy for anyone that loves feeding the birds.

This book is very intelligently organized. Ms. Levine chose to order the identification keys in a manner that would be most helpful, rather than strictly by botanical taxonomy. This makes sense given that the winter remains of plants do not track their taxonomy. The illustrations are also a joy just to look at.

Leave it to Dick Lee to observe that the only result of down'n'dirty Customer Relationship Management implementations is to get down and dirty. His trademark common-sense approach which made the first version so indispensable is sharper than ever in 2.0.

Lee's distilled his earlier work here. The book completely updates his four-step method -- Developing Customer-Centric Strategies, Redesigning Workflow, Re-engineering Work Processes and Supporting With Technology -- and presents it between two covers for ease of use.

Lee's the ideal guide for companies already convinced of the need for CRM, but who need highly practical step-by-step guidance. He dispenses with high-flying jargon and theoretical musings in favor of showing what CRM looks like on the ground. How should you structure team leadership, identify the market cycle for each customer group or map current data flows? What size conference room should you book for a certain team meeting, how much time should it take and how many flip charts and markers will you need? Lee gives you the benefit of his vast experience in answering such questions which you probably didn't even think to ask. His painstaking visual representations of old vs. new sales proposal cycles, proposal resolutions, customer service flows, etc. are definitive, to make them any simpler he'd have had to do them in crayon.

Battle scars are all over the book. On "Change Management" he says "There are two aspects of change management critical to the success of CRM implementations: Leadership and firefighting. The more you have of #1, the less you'll need of #2." Here's a man who's seen more unnecessary firefighting than he cares to remember. He's learned that the best way to impart the information that needs to be imparted is to use the old threefold approach: Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, tell 'em, then tell 'em what you just told 'em. From setting a baseline to beta and launch he walks you step-by-step through what needs to happen when; a seeing-eye dog doesn't provide better guidance than this.

This is an implementation manual in the most literal sense of the term, a book to have open on the desk while you implement CRM.

David Sims, owner of business freelance and copywriting house David Sims Writing writes regularly for CRMGuru.com and CRM magazine among other publications.

Dick Lee has done it again - distilled years of consulting experience into a practical guidebook that will assure the success of virtually any CRM project. Don't expect the usual consultant's mindless assortment of silver-bullet checklists though. These projects still take work. I will say that if you diligently follow the steps clearly outlined in Strategic CRM, Dick Lee's complete CRM implementation manual, your customers will be better off for it!

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Dick Lee has done it again - distilled years of consulting experience into a practical guidebook that will assure the success of virtually any CRM project. Don't expect the usual consultant's mindless assortment of silver-bullet checklists though. These projects still take work. I will say that if you diligently follow the steps clearly outlined in Strategic CRM, Dick Lee's complete CRM implementation manual, your customers will be better off for it!

Staring into THE EYE OF THE WHALE certainly seems to be a mystical experience. Unfortunately on the whale watching trips I've been on you get no closer to the whales than the deck of the ship. Not close up and personal (sometimes even rubbing and patting the "friendly whales")as is the case in Baja, California, with watching the Gray whales from small Zodiac boats. Perhaps you are like me then and (unlike the author) know nothing about the metaphysical powers of whales and their ability to bring about meditative and contemplative states in mankind while imparting transcendental wisdom. This book is therefore equal parts a journey of self discovery by the author and a natural history and scientific discourse on the Pacific Gray whale. For my liking there are just a few too many experiences here such as this one by a marine biologist: "It was a calf and I could see its eye looking into my eyes...I knew we were talking..." Mr Spock mind-melds with Gracie the Humpback a la STAR TREK: THE VOYAGE HOME.

Although the author and others see "whales smile by my fingertips" and get all "misty eyed" and believe that the whales are "trying to save us from our human side" these sentimental and lyrical asides are simply a matter of writing style. Overall they do not spoil the book. There is sufficient science and history here to satisfy those looking for something other than a "save the whales / save the world" soft-sell. The defeat of Mitsubishi's proposed salt-works at one of the whale breeding lagoons and the story of Charles Melville Scammon are themes that run throughout the book. Mitsubishi represents the modern day commercial threat to the whales while Scammon was an old-time whale-butchering sea captain. Scammons' conversion from hunter to benefactor (he ended up writing the definitive book on gray whales) is a tale well told. Perhaps, like the author, he too looked into the EYE OF THE WHALE.

"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

A keen and passionate anthropological-natural history of the gray whale, twinned with a portrait of the whale's great nemesis-turned-admirer, from environmental journalist Russell (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1992, etc.). Known to whalers as the devil-fish for its fiercely protective behavior when with its young, the gray whale has been brought back from endangered numbers by a ban on its hunting. But habitat destruction can do as easily what over-hunting once nearly accomplished, and much of Russell's account is concerned with the fight over protecting Mexico's San Ignacio Lagoon (the whale's critical calving area) from development into a saltworks. Russell also tells the story of whaling captain Charles Melville Scammon, who hunted the gray with remarkable zest and success (he could fill his oil barrels in 8 months when other captains took 4 years), but who also took great interest in studying his quarry-to the point where he abandoned whaling and wrote an important book on marine mammals. That work is still referred to in gray-whale research, which says something about how little of the whale's behavior is understood, notes Russell. The author tries for a reporter's balanced approach in his far-flung reports on the gray, dispatched from everywhere along the wide arc starting in Baja California and moving up the US and Canadian coastlines, then sweeping across the Bering and Chukchi Seas to the Russian Far East. He covers controversial Native American whale hunts, and he writes about the hunting of the tiny western gray population along Sakhalin Island by indigenous people in a way that makes the take acceptable. It's a big story and there is much more: on the whale's history and choral repertoire and anecdotes aplenty from countless days afield talking with folks for whom the whale is an ever-recurring event. Anyone who's been held rapt in a whale's presence will find this a delight-and those who haven't will find it an inspiration.

Dick Russell has produced an amazing chronicle of the life of the California Gray whale. This is a book that is not only important today but will hold a place of value and respect hundreds of years into the future. Sadly this book may most likely survive the species itself.
I have spent over two decades studying and working to protect the Gray whale and I've lead four major conservation expeditons to protect the species. The first was in 1981 to Siberia, the 2nd and 3rd to Neah Bay in 98 and 99 to oppose the Makah whale hunt and the 4th to San Ignacio in 2000 to oppose the development of an industrial salt processing scheme that would have damaged the breeding and calving homes of the Grays.
Dick Russell got all the facts right in the areas that I have intimate involvement with so I can safely assume that his facts in all other areas are equally investigated and thus correct.
This is a wonderful story and it is a great work of historical documentation both natural,social and cultural.
My life was changed by looking into the eye of a whale in 1975. I believe that Dick also caught a glimpse of the mystery, the majesty, the magic and the marvel of the mind of the whale reflected from the eye of one of these great and gentle giants.
For only a person who has seen into the eye of a whale could have written such an insightful book.
I intend to buy a dozen of Dick Russell's books for Christmas presents this year.

Although Bob Mathias: Across the Fields of Gold will not be a big threat to win any Pulitzer Prize, I thoroughly enjoyed it's charm and always felt good every time I picked it up. This story is a sleeper, not in a boring way, but in the fact that Bob Mathias is really one of the great "stories" of the 20th Century. It just may be a sleeping giant!

This book is a "must read" for anyone that enjoys reading about a truly great american athelete. This is a one of a kind book, put together with a great deal of thought and preparation. I applaud this book. It simply can not be put down, once you start reading. Where photographs and text truly meet! Bravo!

Just want to say that I enjoyed reading Across the Fields of Gold. I am inspired by this great athlete from a wonderful time in the USA when family and community pitched in for the good of all.

I started running ~ 2 yrs ago. My wife got me the book, but I hadn't heard of Dick so the book sat. One evening I picked it up to see what it was all about and I was instantly and uncontrollably sucked in. Dick's story starts in HS where he went out for the football team, which lasted a few minutes. Then a friend suggested XC, and Dick fell in love with what turned out to be his calling -- running.

The story refers to 5/10K events, and explains how Dick got into Marathons (a whim). It then follows the course of the multitude of Marathons he ran in.

Dick had his battles in life too, as we all do, a theme that repeated itself. Dick had some very tough times, but in the end he prevailed. Big time!

My friend Mat just got back from Boston Marathon '03; Mat brought back an autograph from Dick for me. Having read his book, and knowing what a great guy Dick is, this will be treasured for years to come.

Net, net, it's a must read.

Rex

This book is an entertaining fast read. However, certain details in Beardsley's life are strangely glossed over: Alcoholic parents/meeting his wife. The first hand account of the (famous) 82'Boston Marathon is so stunning and awsome, it leaves the rest of the book dangling.

This is a book for any running aficionado (especially the veterans), who has gone out there and run distance. It's also a great story and inspiration for anybody who has run a marathon and in particular Boston. The mass start in Hopkinton, the crowds, the cheers at Wellesley, Heartbreak Hill in Newtown, coming through the Fenway, and on to the finish at the Boston Public Library. The 1982 race was perhaps the best one ever run and Beardley took us back there in the first person. Beardley takes any runner to the soul of this sometimes underappreciated sport. Spectacular!