I read this book at a house to children I was babysitting for. The children and I both found the book to be quite funny and requested multiple readings. I was more than happy to read this book again for them. It is a great book and I am going to order it for my neice for her birthday!

Ginnie Mae's got a tough life. Her ma's picky about things like saying please and wearing shoes. Her little brother, Jack, is so perfect "he ha[s] a little halo over his head." Her dog, Ol' Red, seems to have things a lot easier. "My dog never says 'please,'" muses Ginnie Mae, "and no one thinks a thing about it." Finally, after a night of being told to mind her manners, eat like a lady, clean her room, and put on her shoes, Ginnie Mae declares she'd rather be a dog. Humored by her parents, she moves in with Ol' Red, to a life of treeing cats, digging holes, sleeping in the doghouse, and begging for scraps. "Ol' Red's real good about sharing. . . I think he's even given me some of his fleas."

Kibbles can't compare to her ma's cooking, however, and when it starts to rain, Ginnie Mae starts to reconsider her care-free lifestyle. "Pa says I can go back to being myself anytime I've a mind to. So maybe I'll just saunter on in and wash up for supper," she decides.

This story has some great comic moments that make my four-year-old laugh out loud, and even bring a smile to his oh-so-sophisticated six-year-old sister's face. I like the fact that even though the story is told through Ginnie Mae's voice, Ma and Pa are presented as perfectly reasonable parents. More importantly, the author, Suzanne Williams, lets the story play to it's logical outcome without moralizing. She allows her readers to draw for themselves the conclusion that good manners are a fair trade-off for the blessings of civilization. Tedd Arnold's illustrations are priceless, adding wry humor to an already amusing story. He gives us Ginnie Mae at the dinner table, the food flying everywhere, and Ginnie Mae and Ol' Red sitting side by side on their haunches, scratching at fleas. Funniest of all is the teeth-baring grin Ginnie Mae gives her annoying little brother at the end of the book, and his startled reaction to it.

Efe pygmies: Archers of the African Rain Forest is a sumptuously illustrated tome that will long grace my coffee table. The main part of the book - a subtle photographic study depicting the Efe subsisting precariously but harmoniously in the depths of the Ituri forest - is preceded by a brief but fascinating scene-setting section of white-on-black text.

The author presents vivid visual and verbal images of his subjects making baskets, carrying hunting nets, filing their teeth, smoking tobacco, playing music, dispatching a net-caught antelope, touchingly expressing grief at the death of a newborn, and fleeing from their leaf huts into the night beneath a cracking and crashing, lightning-weakened tree.

Skillful, intimate photography makes us yearn for the easy laughter and simplicity of these gentle, peaceful people, yet we are simultaneously made aware of the dangers and discomforts they must constantly face.

It is a fitting tribute to a people as "primitive" and untouched by global culture as any on earth, and the precariousness of their independence. Moreover, it is a compelling and persuasive insight into our own hunting and gathering origins, and the thoughts, feelings, and reactions we all share as part of the human family.

While William Wheeler's book may not lead us to put on treebark loin cloths and chase wildlife through the forest, it is an evocative portrayal of another culture, one that can teach us something about how to live surrounded by danger and dark forces and yet keep on reverentially singing, laughing, and living for the moment.

Although the Efe are clearly too humble and happy a people to bother sending missionaries to us for our edification, this beautiful and moving book affords a glimpse of what such a mission might convey.

This is an excellent resource book on holiday ornaments. It is one of the best covering every American holiday (Thanksgiving, July fourth, New Year's, etc in addition to the usual) There is an excellent variety of items displayed. Each section includes a good narration of items and traditions.It is highly recommended for collectors or for inspiration to artists interested in recreating the whimsey of the past.

What a great little book! It was refreshing to read a book about child training that used a simple strightforward approach to raising children...the same methods from the Bible used by our grandparents and their parents. Liberal parenting methods that came about in the 50's and 60's have resulted in bedlam in America's homes, which has moved out into the schools and the streets. This book will be quite a shock to folks like me who were raised by Dr. Spock, and may seem harsh to some, but the methods described in the book seem loving and intended only for the welfare of the child's body and soul! Easy to read and understand, it includes thought-provoking questions meant to lead to honest introspection (in the 'warning signs' section) about one's own child rearing results. It even includes ways to deal with fussy eaters, teaching courtesy and respect, and good manners (all but forgotten). It's a tough little book, and will stand up to the huge volumes filled with sappy advice like time-outs, and the dance-on-eggshells-around-your-kids approach to parenting today. I recommend this little book to any parent who wants to be challenged to raise better children in a sinful world.

Shannon's book sparkles with precise and concise readings of a variety of Renaissance texts that deal with the institutions of kingship and friendship and the surprising intersections of the two. It poses serious questions about sexuality, governance, and interpersonal relationships in Renaissance England, provides serious and compelling answers, yet does so without alienating the reader with technical, literary jargon. All readers will become friends with Shannon's book quickly.

To the Manner Born; The Life of General William H. T. Walker was a pleasure and joy to read. Especially after discovering that William H. T. Walker is a forgotten American hero. Before the civil war Walker's heroics were known thoughout the United States. Zacary Taylor, President of the United States in the mid 1800's, named Walker "the man", after serving with Walker in the Florida Indian War, and later in the Mexican American War. Walker beleived in honor and duty to his country, right or wrong, and served his country to the best of his ability. The civil war took more than Walkers life, it took his legacy. Many may call Walker a bigot, who was involved in wars that we would rather forget. The book shows that the drama of his life and the way he lived it may still come calling, if only as a whisper. Walker was shot three times in the indian war and thought dead. Then a few years later he was shot three more times in the Mexican American War and left for dead on the battle field. He was gut shot and thirsty, and through a hail of gunfire Walker calmly drank his fill. When the civil war came along Walker chose to side with his home state of Georgia. He was passed over by Jefferson Davis, and not offered a major command. It was clear Davis feared the popularity of Walker, and did all he could to keep Walker from gainning new fame. The book is fresh, wise, and well written, about a forgotten American hero that you may never forget.

Do you know how to make customers always happily surprised? If not, you need to read this book. A better world could be created by making your customers happy and happily surprise. The Brand Manner Approach could give you the directions on how to maintain customers¡¦ satisfaction and create surprise to customers.
The second part of the book provides you with guidelines on how to be confident in making customer surprised. It¡¦s good for the author to provide guidelines for different role of people like, CEO, marketing director, management, employees and customers. But this part is a bit complicated and not so easy to understand.
This book is full of real world examples which are interesting and can help to illustrate the concepts the author wanted to raise. You will find you know more about the companies on the world more after reading and will be more confident in making customer surprised.

There is simply no other book on this subject that comes even close to providing the new thinking, insights and perspective that Pringle and Gordon do. BRAND MANNERS should be required reading for every executive in every organization, especially those who aspire to be leaders over the next decade. At a time when brands and branding play an increasingly more critical role to the fundamental success of every business, readers will find this a truly invaluable (and actionable) guide.

My impression is that this book is the most original addition to our literature since Kapferer's first edition of Strategic Brand Management in the 1990s. This does not necessarily mean that it will find a large audience though I hope it does.

Organisational brand linkages are embedded in the Brand Manners 4-dimensional framework by presenting two sides to every dimension : the customers and the company's. The four dimensions of the brand promise are named: Rational (What?) Emotional (How?) Political (Why?) Spiritual (Whither)

The customer according to this model uses each of these dimensions to evaluate how integratedly a brand's promise is 'created', 'conveyed' and 'kept'. On the corporate side, the mirror image to integrate is labeled as 'Encounters' with customers, 'Behaviours' involved and 'Rewards' that result. This provides 24 (ie 2 times 4 times 3) entries interlinked through The Brand Manners Book of Life....

Methodology represents about half the book. This is complemented by a rich variety of case studies, and a collection of practitioner briefs. These are called "brand manners how to guides" and are provided for each of : Chief Executive, Marketing Director, Employee, Management and Customer!

This is the first book specifically focused on Oriental culture and symbolism that I have picked up in my entire life (for me, an aspiring writer, not to know something so enticing? - preposterous!). Quite instantly presented me with an insatiable interest of the subject. Precise, academical, and completely accessible for literally anyone (it was accessible for me!), Outlines is the perfect reference work for an aspiring beginner. It is illustrated in black-and-white where illustrations might be expected, all specific terms are followed by the Chinese hieroglyphs, and, overall, this seems to be a very solid and well-written work. The only reason I am giving this book a mere four stars is that of caution: how can I, a total beginner, know if this book isn't lying?

As with the previous reviewer, this was also one of the first in my collection. An excellent dictionary-style reference work which examines the historical, legendary and every day significance of about two hundred objects and concepts which play key roles in Chinese culture. Footnoted with sources, it is an excellent spring board and encourages the reader to do more in depth study on the wide variety of topics touched on in this volume.

Walter will bring tears of laughter to your eyes the first time you read it. It is very funny and the illustrations are fantastic,very clever, my kids never get tired of this book. I have a 6,4 and a 2 year old and they are all fans of Walter.We wish there were more kids books as funny as Walter.I also highly recommend "Dirty Bertie" and "Frank Was A Monster Who Wanted To Dance".

Walter is a dog. A dog who farts constantly. His new human family tries everything possible to cure Walter. At one point they even try giving him low fart dog biscuits. Walter is so afraid to fart that he holds his gas in. You'll have to read the book in order to find out just what happens when two burglars break into the house at the exact moment Walter can't hold back anymore. Great fun for all.

Preston McClear, author The Boy Under the Bed

Walter is a dog with a problem, and a rather noticable one at that. Put it frankly, he farts

A lot.

It seems nothing will keep Walter smelling sweet, or at least keep him from smelling bad, but Water manages to do things his own way and come through smelling like a proverbial rose, though not, unfortunately, an actual rose. ;)

i was almost put off on this book by the title and storyline, though once I openend it and started reading, not a single perosn in hte bookstore I work at could avoid hearing my loud cackles. This book is as funny as it is subtle, and neon sledgehammers would be more likely to sneak up on someone), but that's it's charm. It is sweet, and funny, and more than entertaining. The styles of both the writing and the artwork in this book complement each other wonderfully and you'll find yourself laughing untill your sides ache and you've got tears running down your face.

At least I did. :)

I read this collection of eleven short stories (all previously published in various periodicals) in preparation for an interview I was to do with the author, who is also a screenwriter, for Creative Screenwriting,magazine otherwise, I would not have picked it up. As it was, I found little to hold my attention, and I skipped past many a story after reading half. Not my cuppa tea... Boyd's novels, on the other hand, are extremely good, especially The Blue Afternoon.

These dense, finely etched stories are my introduction to William Boyd. Such an ordinary name for such a fancy writer! The title story is set in a place I know well near LAX; indeed I can almost see the exact setting of most of the scenes, where a French director, a black auteur, as it were, is composing his film. The setting is purposely banal in the extreme: a cheap pizzeria next to a nondescript motel within litter distance of the airport, chosen instinctively to comment on the low culture of America, I suppose, when all of Hollywood and Bel Air, West L.A. and Brentwood, avec filmdom execs, etc., beckons just beyond. This is explained by understanding that "He's an artist, he don't look back," to re-gender a Bob Dylan lyric, as Boyd does on page 11.

The second story, "Transfigured Night," set in Austria and Poland during the first world war, is somewhat Kafkaesque and not typical of this collection. The third story, "Hôtel des Voyageurs," begins in Paris and is rendered in a self-revelatory first person narrative that is the book's signature technique (although this is just a warm up to the near-perfection of "Alpes-Maritimes" and "The Persistence of Vision" in which Boyd's narrators give themselves away completely, much to the reader's amusement). One might call "Hôtel des Voyageurs," a one-night stand (actually afternoon) for sophisticates in which a euro trash girl plays a Comtesse that the narrator coyly, in the British manner, brags about bedding. This inadvertent self-revelation by the first person narrator is a technique that Boyd has worked to perfection.

The next story, "Never Saw Brazil" continues the cosmopolitan, polyglot exposition. Boyd seems to know several European languages and is not shy about sparkling his text with italicized dialogue in a number of tongues including Portuguese. He is also very big on food and presents a variable cookbook of dishes throughout. The story, "Lunch," is almost a toast to gastronomy.

"The Dream Lover" and the aforementioned "Alpes-Maritimes" are set in the south of France and concentrate on love and self-discovery among twenty-something expats expressed with irony, delicacy and a kind of ultra sophistication much envied, I understand, by assistant editors at Elle and The New Yorker. (Probably also at Granta, where four of these stories first appeared.)

In "Cork" Boyd presents a female narrator who has a love affair with a strange but touching man who was once in her employ in Portugal harvesting and selling cork. Here the narrator seems reliable and self-aware.

The final story, "Loose Continuity" begins in 1945 at the corner of Westwood and Wilshire near UCLA were I went to school while flashing back to Germany in the twenties as the female narrator, Gudrun, recalls a lost love as she watches the workmen finish her café design.

Boyd use of language is innovative and, at times, startling. Some examples:

The narrator in "The Dream Lover," as he ascends to the roof of an apartment building: "To my vague alarm there is a small swimming pool up here and a large glassed-in cabana....."

In "Alpes-Maritimes" Boyd's narrator (who wants the twin sisters for himself alone) reflects on the intrusion of Steve, now with them, "The trio becomes a banal foursome, or--even worse--two couples."

The dilettante artist in "The Persistence of Vision" reveals himself with this statement about his infant son: "I found it hard to paint in the house now that its routines revolved around Dominic's noisy needs rather than my own."

On the next page, after noticing somebody out of the corner of his eye, the narrator remarks, "...[Y]our instinctive apprehension is often more sure and certain than something studied and sought for: the glance is often more accurate than the stare."

In a bit of unconscious self-projection (and foreshadowed irony) on page 134, the narrator remarks on the man who will later, unbeknownst to him, abscond with his wife, "I felt sad for him, with his pointless wealth and the cheerless luxury of his life...."

Sometimes one is forced to turn to the dictionary to understand exactly what Boyd has in mind. In "Cork" Lily's lover has sent her an invitation for a rendezvous including these instructions: "...[P]lease do not depilate yourself--anywhere."

Boyd's style is precise, measured, polished, erudite, a trifle showy, and very sensitive. He has a sharp eye for fashionable detail and any sort of pretension. He stays off to the side himself, but maintains the sort of iron control over his characters, especially his leading narrators, that Nabokov insisted on. He delves into the human condition with tiny needles like an acupuncturist or a miniaturist with a magnifying glass. He is an extraordinary writer, original in technique, subtle in resolution with witty and ironic overtones. His control of voice and tone bespeaks a man who has mastered several languages and many of the nuances of human psychology. He is also a writer that other writers can learn from.

Can't say enough good about Wm. Boyd: he is hilarious, erudite, humane, urbane, witty, twisted, clever, poetic, "relatable"--everything you want in a novelist and storyteller. On a par with the great Kingsley Amis and V.S. Naipaul. Read him.