This book brings back the many forgotten works of William Wurster. It balances the architect's story and illustrations well. I recommend this book to architecture enthusiasts who want to reach beyond mainstream architecture.

It is said that one doesn't so much pick a Tarot deck as it picks you. To add to that, often getting one is like getting a car without the manual. This is one of those times. This is the companion book for the Xultun Tarot deck. Although Peter Balin deals with two distinctly alien cosmologies, the Western Esosteric Tradition and the Mayan Tradition, he uses the structure of the Tarot to weave them together without it becoming an eclectoplasmic pastiche. This was my first real introduction to the mythology of the native peoples of the Meso-American region and it is a great primer also on the basics of their numerology, totems, mystic terms, and icons. He has done good research although he often lapses into romanticizing the Maya, he nonetheless acquits himself of the kind of cultural pillaging and dubious credentials of such as Carlos Castaneda and Lynn V. Andrews. He also adds his opinions on organized religion, sexuality, and the enigmatic legacy the Maya left. A very good read!

This is a very good book for either learning algebra for the first time or revisiting topics that one needs to brush up on. The book starts with the most basic algebra elements-different types of numbers such as real, whole, etc. and ends by going into quadratic equations and graphing techniques.

The only draw back to this book was that there were, I feel, to many exercises at the end of the chapters. Most math books don't have enough exercises, but this one definitely had too many. I felt the end of chapter exercises should have been shorter because throughout the reading and the review before the chapter exercise there were ample practice exercises. Other than this, I would that the book was one of the best algebra books that I've come across.

In 1988, Dr. Peter Drucker wrote an influential article, "The Coming of the New Organization," in which he argued that companies would in the future become flatter organizationally to capture the potential of knowledge workers. One model, he opined, was the symphony orchestra where the conductor adds vision, but must evoke the best performance from her or his independent players.

Leadership Ensemble looks beyond Dr. Drucker's vision, to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's practices in operating without a conductor! The result is a "dynamic equilibrium" where everyone takes turns playing leadership roles and is encouraged to provide the kinds of ideas that only conductors normally propose. Interestingly, the Orpheus group is inspired to make great music . . . along the lines of what the collaboration of chamber groups has always done. If they thought that having a conductor would help, they would get a conductor. Instead, they seem to have harnessed many dimensions of the talents of all 27 musicians in the group. Their intent is to evolve further in this direction, so the book represents the group at a point in time, rather than at a destination.

The usual orchestra is run like a dukedom, with the conductor in charge. Few opinions are asked for and even fewer are brooked. In fact, independent surveys show that musicians in orchestras generally have very poor job satisfaction. The authors joke that "every dictator aspires to be a conductor" because a conductor's power is so absolute.

The best part of this book involves describing the way the orchestra operates to select a repertoire, decide how to perform a piece, determine who will play what parts, and handle differences of opinion. There are many other interesting sections about how the musicians have expanded their roles to get into more areas of management and recently (1998) were added to the board of trustees. The processes involved reminded me a lot of what jazz musicians do more informally, and improvisational actors do on the spur of the moment. The remarkable thing is that great planning is captured by the orchestra, without getting bogged down in spending too much time preparing. Their processes are very complex and effective, and depend on thoughtful and timely action by everyone involved. I would love to see a DVD version of this book that involved showing them at work in preparing pieces and handling other important tasks.

The key principles of their success are boiled down into 8 principles. These concepts are elaborated with a few examples from other organizations (mostly profit-making companies), five steps for implementation, and problems to look out for in implementation. Although this material is good, I would have preferred to have read more about Orpheus itself instead.

A key caution that I have about the advice here is that the organizations using these principles were either founded upon them, or have been using them extensively for a long time. I'm not sure that the transition from a more hierarchical organization will go rapidly and smoothly. If the purpose was to advise companies and nonprofits on how to make these changes, the authors would have done better to focus on organizations that were recently hierarchical and rapidly changed to something close to what Orpheus does.

If you are like me, you will be tempted to dismiss the example because it involves highly talented and motivated musicians who earn a good living. But the authors have brought into the book enough examples of nonprofessionals responding just as well that I was persuaded that this model probably can be taken much further than most companies are trying to do. Will CEOs be comfortable in this new role of encouraging the culture, and staying out of the way? I hope so!

Where can you let go and do less as a leader and allow others to lead more? Where do you need to do more as a leader for your organization to accomplish more?

This is a book that will be a usefull tool for the clinician that has to deal with a pregnant patient. Remembering the changes that take place in pregnancy, and particular relations between pregnancy and medical complications can be a very stressfull situation. The obstetrician will also take advantage of this textbook, as many presenting diseases and their management are exposed in detail.

This is a guidebook unlike any other---which is sad, because London, Paris, Zurich and Prague cry out for a book like this. What makes "Rome Up Close" unique is its district to district, street by street architectural maps which provide an aerial, isometric view of the city that includes every byway, building and (it seems) window in a particular area. The commentary accompanying the maps is succinct and to the point, but commentary isn't the point. The maps are.
If you're thinking of going to Rome, this is a terrific book to pack---it's a great walking around guide, but it shouldn't be your principal one. There are no hotel or restaurant recommendations, as such, nor many of the other things you'd expect from Fodor, Frommer or Lonely Planet. But the maps...the maps are really somethin'!

The approach discussed in Social Mechanisms is quite interesting and fruitful. Jon Elster has been calling for more considerations of mechanisms, basically micro explanations for macro level regularities, as an antidote for theoretical anemia for many years now. This book is the result of a conference held to discuss this issue. Several of the articles are really top notch: Hedstrom & Swedborg's intro essay, Schelling, Hernes, and Sorensen. (Elster's contribution is rather disappointing, actually.) We've used this in a methodology class for graduate students and the readings are very useful and accessible. The main failing of the material is that it stays at the abstract level too much and often fails to provide really useful concrete examples.

The opening essay, "Foundations For A Theatre," is the clearest and most linear statement to date of Richard Foreman's work, which re-considers the entire process of making theatre (from the formulation of a script to rehearsal to performance) and what kind of experience an evening of theatre may convey.

No one is creating theatre like Richard Foreman, whose associative (and sometimes dissociative) writing process contrives to capture a truthful portrait of his own perception at work. In rehearsal, Foreman creates an environment rebelling against any mimetic presentation of everyday reality, which is a kind of shared dream. He uses every theatrical element at his disposal to surprise and dazzle the spectator, and bring awareness to our radical impulses before our intellects "understand" them (and change them into something else).

Although his project sounds very cerebral, his theatre is very much about the senses, and his art grabs you on a gut level.

The book includes several plays, though it might have been helpful to include a script without the production stage directions to help understand the way he generates a script. (A later book, MY HEAD WAS A SLEDGEHAMMER, does include this and it helps a great deal.) Also, more photographs and illustrations would support his essay on visual design and use of space.

This artist is way ahead of his time, using theatre to address the process of perception itself rather than narrative thinking. The importance of this book, addressing this work to a general reader, may not be appreciated for quite some time.

This book provides an excellent one-volume treatment of most of the major aspects of Wagner's work, and the influence he had and continues to have. The essays are by recognized authorities, and provide a generally balanced view. Particularly good is the essay on his complicated attitude towards Judaism, and the several essays which deal with his influence outside of the strictly musical sphere. The only thing missing is a biographical overview. For one who is interested in having more information about Wagner than what is available in Grove or Grout, this book, along with Gutman's biography, will provide a very fine introduction to Wagner.

Mark Twain's satiric fantasy "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" sets up the premise of a 19th Century American being transported (via the application of a crowbar to his skull) to the legendary Camelot, where he initially suffers culture shock in the extreme. The novel's immediately obvious flaw (and I assume Mark Twain was aware of it but simply ignored it) is the 19th Century hero's ability to communicate with Britons of the 6th Century. They, of course, would have been speaking an English similar to that in "Beowulf"; the book has them talking like characters in "Hamlet". The opening chapters are comic in mood, complete with limp jokes. (When one character introduces himself as a page, the Yankee replies: "Go 'long, you ain't more than a paragraph." Oh, Lord.) However, the story quickly becomes dark and then increasingly darker. The degraded condition of the masses (which the modern hero compares to 18th Century France) culminates in a tour (with King Arthur disguised as a peasant) of a oountryside corrupted by monarchy and the Church, both of which were loathed by Mark Twain. Feminists should be warned that the author's misogyny is given free rein here: all the ladies of the court are thoughtless twits, and Morgan Le Fay is a shrew who habitually and casually kills her servants. The heroine Alisande (who, of course, becomes Sandy) is a tiresome chatterbox, whom the hero abruptly marries as a sort of social condescension. But his attitude towards women is merely a part of his general misanthropy, leading him to write at one point: "Well, there are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce." Once the protagonist has established himself as Arthur's right-hand man (he's called "The Boss"), he exercises his Yankee ingenuity to industrialize the realm. With the genius of Gutenberg, Morse and Bell at his disposal, he sets up a newspaper and introduces the telegraph and the telephone to the Middle Ages. (Just how he devises the technology to accomplish this is not made too clear.) At any rate, The Boss is considered a great wizard, and Merlin (or Brer Merlin, as the Yankee calls him) is treated like a fraudulent fool. Motivating all this is a somewhat smug sense of 19th Century superiority. Actually, the Yankee goes beyond his own century and into the 1900's. When Guenever's treason causes the civil war which divides Britain, The Boss drills a group of cadets (his West Pointers, he calls them) that he leads off to battle against the anti-Arthurian knighthood. The result is a blood bath presciently and repulsively similar to the trench warfare of 1914-1918. (The novel was published in 1889.) If this is meant to be an indication of future efficiency, it's an extremely pessimistic vision. But then, the whole story is Mark Twain's gloomy statement on Mankind's uneasy place in a dysfunctional world, be it the Dark Ages or the somber present.

When Hank Morgan, the head superintendent of the great arms factory, receives a smack on the head given by a friend nicknamed Hercules, he wakes up under an oak tree. A young man tells Morgan is he is in Camelot in the year 528. Not believing the boy, Morgan insists it is the year 1879 in Hartford, Connecticut. Morgan's adventures are written in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain. Sir Kay throws Morgan in prison after he finds the Yankee and scares him up a tree. Sentenced to death the next day, Morgan performs a "miracle" before he is hung and King Arthur, believing him to be a wizard, set him free. Slowly, Morgan works his way up to "The Boss" of King Arthur's court and brings all of his 19th century knowledge to the people of Camelot, such as the telephone and electric lights.
Although I would recommend this book to advanced readers, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is over 400 pages and it was difficult for me to get into the story at first. Also, the language was hard to understand. For example, "Fair sir, will ye just?" and "Prithee do not let me." Despite the length and the language, I enjoyed the way Twain used characters and stories from the Arthur legends and formed them into the plot. The book made me think, what would the world be like if some one actually did go back in time?

'Connecticut Yankee' is an excellent political satire still relevant to today's world. Everyone's heard of it, and it's been spoofed many times in film. However, few people have read it and they're missing a treat. Mark Twain is one author whose works consistently remain applicable to modern society. 'Yankee' is funny, interesting and highly worth your time.