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Although the information was limited, we found it helpful in general terms. It also whetted my appetite for going to the other countries in the book!
Generally speaking, the LP team did an excellent job researching Beograd, but information on the rest of the country is poor. They don't mention a thing about Serbian institutions like Studenica monastery; they omit everything about the Fruska Gora and there's not even a word on the charming town of Sremski Karlovci.
I wonder whether the information on the other countries is equally poor. If that is the case, I'd rather tour the region on my own without any book at all.
However, one improvement with respect to the previous edition is they are now including Kotor (But Ulcinj is not so much recommended as before, which I don't know why since the beaches are much better than in Budva).
With regards to Novi Sad, their suggestions are very poor, even in what concerns to lodging. My recommendations are: add the Fruska Gora, Srem Karlovci, Raska and probably Nis.
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Nowhere were clues during the read that could lead even a careful, experienced Mystery reader to try and even speculate on who did it. For me, half the fun is trying to deduce the murderer(s) before the author reveals it.
There are clues dropped as to why it happened, but you'll just flat be told who it is at the end. You just sort of plod along, hoping to find something to bite on and BAM the author spills his guts in the last chapters. The author did a great job running a second plot along; although it suffered the same clueless, fast wrap up.
The characters that did do it were really underdeveloped. If they were better developed, and some clues dropped along the way, this would be an amazing Mystery book.
It is, however, a damn good book for specifically [weak] content. A good book, not a good Mystery.
The gist of the book is Chicago homicide detectives Paul Turner (who is gay) and Buck Fenwick (who is straight), in their investigation into murder of Internet tycoon Craig Lenzati, stabbed over hundreds of times in his security-laden apartment. When Lenzati's partner Brooks Werberg is killed and parts of his place smashed into smithereens, the pressure is put on from the Mayor's office.
But these dot-com boys' nack for putting aggressive little startup companies into trouble, and possibly even bankruptcy by stealing their ideas had won them a great deal of enemies.
What could possibly make this story even better? How about a secret storehouse of theirs filled with names, addresses, and tapes of the boys' sexual misconduct? In fact as it turns out, Lenzati and Werberg had enjoyed an ongoing sexual-conquest game, their preferred prey heterosexual couples, including a pair who'd been suing them and another pair who'd been working for them. A freelance "cracker" (a computer whiz who breaks into and paralyzes systems) employed by the boys will die, and Paul will receive boxes of chocolates and scary e-mail from a serial killer targeting police detectives all along Interstate 90.
Before Chicago finally settles down and Paul can reassure his son Brian of his safety and fall into the arms of his lover Ben. Brittle but funny dialogue between Paul and Buck; tender moments between Paul and Brian; sentimental relationship shows between Paul and Ben.
I personally would have liked a bit more drama at the point of the different confessions, but it did not distract from this book in any way.
You need to read this book... !!!
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This is just a warning--I shall probably continue to read Zubro's books. But I only WISH he wrote a bit better!
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The poems are dense and full of Civil War references, so it would behoove the reader to brush up on his history. Likewise, the reader will quickly realize why Melville's poetry didn't receive the critics' acclaim. They are melodramatic, with an overemphasis on composing within the traditional (some would say archaic) rules of poetry: rhythm, rhyme scheme, etc., which does not translate well into our time and makes it not the most entertaining style to read...
These are interesting poems, but seem to have more historic value (U.S. history and the history/development American poetry) than poetic.
My personal favorites include: "The Stone Fleet," where Melville experiences romance for the whaling ships sailing out of harbor and which, consequently, he never sailed on; and, "The House Top," from where he overlooks the New York enlistment riots, where he implies that those who don't fight for our country aren't for God.
--ross saciuk
First, _Battle-Pieces_ should be credited as artistic, sometimes beautiful, poetry. Some of the poems are somewhat doggeral, and would be much improved by a few less forced rhymes. Others, however, are truly moving.
In these latter poems, Melville conveys the horrors of the war--and occasionally the humanity that shone through, uniting the brothers across the battlefield. Few men or women of the time had the experience (he participated in a chase of a Southern soldier) and writing ability to show us this time so effectively. As a result, he produced what, in my opinion, is a book at least as good as his most well-known novel.
At the end of the book he includes an essay on Reconstruction, in which he pleads for an easy reconciliation with the conquered South, more along the lines with Lincoln and Johnson's plans than the Radicals'. While somewhat disappointing (we'd like the man who created QueeQueg to support Southern blacks' rights a little more), the essay is well-written, and allows us to read the nonfictional beliefs of a man we usually associate with fiction--just as the poems let us read the verse of a writer of prose.
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It is sad indeed to report that the book is a total disappointment- at least so far as the images themselves are concerned:
One: The source material and printing of the picutres are truly second-rate - without richness, luster, or dimension. Many look like photocopies from magazines or other books. They are oddly glossy but flat. Compare these to the incredible matte reproductions in PARIS BY NIGHT and the contrast between what can be done with with what is here is nearly heartbreaking.
Second: What is with the recent tendency to print photographs in an oversized, right-to-the-edges format with no sense of border or space to let the composition breathe and no sense of frame lines. The bleed-over simply kills the impact of many of these photogrpahs. It's a ruinous way to present great imagery. (It afflicts Abrams' new Bill Brandt book as well but to a lesser extent because the printing of that book is so much better.)
Third: There is very little that is new here. For such a major undertaking it comes across as a routine collection of well-known images, a greatest hits, that ends up delivering little emotional punch or insight into this great artist. Compare this to Abrams' own exhaustive works like Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye and you'll see what I mean.
With so many great photographers receiving deluxe treatment in the past few years from Abrams' W. Eugene Smith book last year to Bulfinch's Lartigue mongraph, it is a real shame that someone as seminal but poorly represented in print as Brassai should receive such a well-intentioned but unsatisfactory tribute. PLEASE BRING BACK PARIS BY NIGHT!
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I should mention my misgivings about the phrase 'critical thinking.' It has critical mass as a buzz-phrase, and is susceptible to all of the risks that go with that--chiefly the risk that an assortment of people advocating widely different intellectual practices all find it advantageous to paste that popular name on their disparate wares. Even worse, I have encountered people to whom 'critical thinking' turns on the sense of 'critical' that means captious or disputatious, and who think of it as something nice people don't do; another entire camp seems to maintain that 'critical thinking' is achieved by nothing more than disparagement of reason and an inclination to question and deconstruct everything in sight. Taken far enough, these divergent uses of any 'in' buzzword can threaten to strip it completely of meaning; one cannot be grateful enough that the Center for Critical Thinking is still around and pushing the real deal: rigorous intellectual standards, commitment to clarity and reason and fairmindedness, with all that commitment demands.
But this book makes a disappointing vehicle. Contributing not least to the disappointment are lapses of editing and proofreading that should never be seen in a finished book. Perhaps embarrassments of grammar, spelling, and punctuation do not count directly against the book's intellectual content--but they could lead many readers to underestimate what the book has to offer. That's too bad.
A more serious weakness is the want of exercises that genuinely test the reader's thinking. If learning to think critically is replacing comfortable modes of thought with modes that can be evaluated to standards, an important motivator may be to bump against those standards regularly. But many of the exercises are of the "write down something you think about X" variety notable for not having wrong answers. The questions are often good ones and the exercises are not all busy work, but neither are they as demanding as they could be, and some readers may find them condescending.
An extreme example is found in Chapter 7--The Standards for Thinking--with respect to the standard of 'logicalness,' which gets a treatment of barely one page. A space not much larger could present some rudiments of logic, but this treatment offers only a vague, intuitive appeal and an exercise to identify decisions "based on illogical thinking--thinking that didn't make sense to you." A reader's familiar, and possibly unexamined, judgments about what is "logical" will not necessarily be refined by this approach.
The whole of Chapter 14--The Power and Limits of Professional Knowledge--is likewise disappointing. It seems to promise a disciplined approach to the decision of how much deference is due the pronouncements of professionals on different occasions and topics but, beyond outlining general reasons for skepticism, it doesn't deliver. It offers little insight into how that skepticism should be sensibly qualified, and is a little incautious with some of its own claims: I was surprised to read (p. 260) in a 2002 book that "the medical field is highly resistant" to the role of viruses and bacteria in heart disease and cancer.
I am especially troubled by the Chapter 14 discussion of mathematics (and ought to reveal here that it was my undergraduate major). Here the authors seem to lose sight of their objective and, instead of addressing how mathematical 'expert opinion' should be received, treat instead the value of math education. They suggest that because (a) many are traumatized by doing poorly in math and (b) many who do well still do not cultivate the habit of applying mathematical insight in everyday life, perhaps curricula beyond basic arithmetic should not be mandatory. This despite the number of pressing issues that demand critical thought and require a mathematical understanding. In this one section the authors seem to verge on one of the debased senses of 'critical thinking.' I would go to the mat with them on this one, but there are more comments to make.
A near-disastrous feature of the book is the use made of charged, controversial issues. This is tricky business: of course the very point of critical thinking is to apply it to important issues, and without them the teaching would not be engaging or effective. The authors do well when they present a hot issue as the explicit focus of an exercise, asking the reader to think fairmindedly through all sides; "Thinking Broadly" on p. 105 is a good example. The "Reading Backwards" list is conscientiously selected and balanced. But controversial positions also appear in passing as examples of good or poor thinking, where the focus is elsewhere and a point of view is implicit. My point is not that I disagree with these positions: the authors' politics and mine might be largely compatible. But by failing to decide whether they are writing a book on critical thinking or a book of issue advocacy, the authors undermine their credibility and furnish a ready excuse for half the people who should read this book to dismiss it out of hand.
I would have loved to see Edward Tufte's books on clear and appropriate visual presentation included in the reading list. Regrettably, this book demonstrates many of the pitfalls Tufte identifies in "business graphics": elaborate, busy designs that exaggerate the depth of what is presented. This may be a house style of the publisher, Financial Times.
There is a genuine core of critical thinking instruction contained (sometimes concealed) in this book--perhaps enough to reward the effort of digging it out. Better books of this sort are urgently needed, and Paul and Elder should be able to write them. I hope they will.
It's a crisp, clear, useful book. The authors consistently address the heart of each essential aspect of critical thinking in multiple domains. They explain each aspect clearly, trace out its implications, offer effective advice on how to deal with it both as an individual and as a professional. They even supply activities and questions-in inserts labeled "Test the Idea"-for applying that aspect of critical thinking to the reader's own unique circumstances.
The book combines strategic thinking, self-knowledge, fairness toward others, and a down-to-earth, usable ideal of justice. It shows not only how to advance in each, but how those qualities fit together with and further one another. So there is a sense in which the book is essentially about human fulfillment (though that isn't explicitly addressed as a main topic)-fulfillment for myself through understanding, honest self-assessment, and taking control of my life; fulfillment for others in ideals of fairmindedness and justice; fulfillment for the planet as a whole in how the qualities combine.
One of the most invigorating features of Critical Thinking is the way the book covers a whole range of topics clearly and explicitly. The coverage is brief and to the point, but it allows for a wealth of further application for those readers who are willing to incorporate the authors' guidelines into their day-to-day life.
For example, Paul and Elder devote only two pages to a clear, succinct discussion of understanding implications (one of the key elements of reasoning). Then there is a quick "Test the Idea" box. It asks the reader to describe a problem he or she is facing, to formulate alternative decisions to address that problem, and finally to think out the logical implications of each alternative decision. Notice two features of this that seem to go in almost opposite directions: first, how simple the activity is, how do-able, and second how life-transforming it would be if I consistently thought through my potential decisions in terms of a range of alternatives and a conscious awareness of the implications of each. The book consistently offers the same clarity coupled with profundity for each topic covered.
The actual topics covered in the book are just the ones people need to address to take charge of their lives:
-How to think realistically in a world full of change and danger.
-How to evaluate my own thinking across a range of dimensions:
* my skills and abilities
* my self-understanding
* my overall stage as a thinker
-How to improve my thinking-again in a range of dimensions, including:
* the parts of thinking
* the standards of good thinking
* making intelligent decisions
* thinking within corporate life
* increasing the level of my strategic thinking.
-How to deal with egocentrism and sociocentrism.
-How to think reasonably about and within the ethical dimension of our lives.
The book goes deep into the way our unconscious or barely conscious processes rule so much of our conscious thinking. It provides practical strategies for unveiling and confronting our irrational tendencies. Surprisingly in an age of extended therapies, the strategies are often simple and direct-and eminently useful. For example a "Test the Idea" section on "Unearthing Dysfunctional Egocentric Thinking" directs you to "think of a time when your desire to selfishly get what you wanted failed because of your egocentric behavior." It then asks you to describe the situation, to describe your resulting thoughts, wants and behavior, and then to describe a more rational way to think and behave in that situation.
This approach is related to Cognitive Therapy, except that the approach Paul and Elder take is more thorough-going and founded in a deeper and more robust conception of what healthy, reasonable thinking is. It is also a simple "visualization" technique, of the kind that is so effective in altering people's behavior. Only, instead of merely visualizing a healthier way to behave in a situation, I am directed now to use my whole mind (not just my visual imagination).
Another bright feature of the book is that the ethical dimension is covered so well. This is usually neglected in business-oriented books and even in personal-health books. The authors discuss and give "Test the Idea" activities in key aspects of ethical thought and action. The conception they teach is a profound one: being ethical is far different from simply accepting rules imposed on us from outside; it is also different from merely adhering to "codes of ethics" adopted by many professions. The authors' approach also shows what is wrong with simply looking inward to "find my values": "looking inward" is also guided by egocentric tendencies. It is very easy to consult my conscience and find there a justification for the actions that suit my self-interest: why it's all right to take out my anger at others; why my wants are ultimately more important than yours; why I seem so justified in feeling myself a victim of your actions. Paul and Elder consistently dispel such facile reasoning; they supply activities and thought experiments to guide the reader along, and they also provide numerous insights all along the way.
In sum, this is just the kind of book readers have come to expect from Paul and Elder, both of whom have worked for so long and in so many aspects of Critical Thinking. It contains the clear, distilled essence of the critical thinking concepts and tools for taking charge of one's life, professional and personal. The tools and concepts are presented always with an overview to keep the parts in context, full of lucid examples, references to more extended sources, and an abundance of applications.
As a nurse leader working in a chaotic health care system subject to constant change and revision: critical thinking is the answer to implementing an improvement in health care delivery. The authors have unlocked the mystery of improving my thinking for quality decision-making in my nursing practice. The more I work with these ideas for improving the quality of my critical thinking and decision-making in nursing practice the more empowered I am as a person and professional nurse.
Penelope Heaslip RN
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Chapter 1 is on 'Patriotism'. Our national flag was rarely in use until after the War for the Union. Troops used regimental colors or state flags. The Pledge of Allegiance was created in 1892. Shenkman seems to not understand the phrase "our flag was still there" (p.8). The meaning to me is whether Fort McHenry was captured. Using lyrics from a song about drinking and loving would not be objectionable to 19th century military (p.9). Chapter 2 is on 'Religion'. Shenkman corrects the misinformation spread by corporate advertising. The fact that church membership (and the right to vote - p.25) was limited suggests churches operated as a ruling class and limited its membership by choice (p.23). Page 29 tells how Madison and Jefferson refused public prayers. Lincoln was the first president to affirm the usefulness of religion in politics. Lincoln was never baptized and never a member of any church; he used religion as per Machiavelli's advice. Chapter 3 is on 'Work and Play'. Shenkman doesn't note that as workers became wage-earners instead of self-employed in the 19th century, there was a new need for leisure time activities. Almost all entertainment or sports were invented in the Victorian era (p.35). Show business is the true opiate of the people. The work ethic was replaced by the consumer ethic in the 1920s (p.45). Could scrimping and saving ruin the American economy (p.46)?
Chapter 4 is on 'Business'. Business has a long history of getting help from the government: special franchises, bounties, grants, immunities, protective tariffs, and land grants. Originally, corporations could not be created unless it performed a public service: canals, railroads, water supplies (p.53). Page 58 gives an example of censored history which made this book necessary. Shenkman identifies Marriner Eccles as the prophet of deficit spending (p.61). Page 63 notes how military spending supports business. The statistic about cotton production "not until fifteen years after" is misleading; 1860 produced a huge crop. The statistic about railroad trackage is also suspect (p.65). "War is the continuation of [business rivalry] through non-diplomatic means" said Clausewitz. The post war period of "laissez faire" resulted in more economic depressions than any time in history. The output of commodities increased at a slower rate than before the Civil War (p.69)!
The book concludes with Chapter 12 'So Many Myths'. Page 193 tells of praise for Mayes' book; does this result from advertising and pay-offs to sell books? Could it explain the other myths and legends? As long as they can be sold, stories will be created. Look at TV. Just as America devised its own spelling ("jail" for "gaol"), so too they created new national myths (p.197). Are we that different from other peoples? Myths serve as symbols of cultural unity since the days of Remus and Romulus.
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This title presents an overview of the philosophy of the founders of one of the largest privately owned companies in the US and the world. They are successful people who explain how one might be a success as well.
I've also noticed that most of the negative reviews for this title do not address the content of this title. Whereas, those who enjoyed it comment on the content. Interesting, wouldn't you say?
The book is written clearly while maintaining the focus on encouragement and reaching one's goals.
Good read even if you aren't saving money with Amway. They have a sister company called Quixtar. Very similar philosophy and quality products. Quixtar was founded in 1999 and is also privately owned. This philosophy works!
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