Corporate Image is a well-written book that explores the importance of corporate image. Nowadays, this is an especially relevant image. Steidl and his fellow authors go on to explore various strategies that a corporation can use to burnish its image in an effort to create a strong future, where the image is well-supported by the organization and is well known. Very useful and a fascinating read that readily states and proves its case on the importance of perception of a corporation. It's as good as Guerilla PR: Wired, which also is all too aware of the importance of perception and goes on to explain several strategies on how to attain that image.

This textbook is a testament to the fact that Richard Bonnie is truly one of the giants in the field of criminal law. Everything this man writes is valuable; the chapters on mental health and insanity alone make purchasing this book worthwhile (Bonnie is an expert on the insanity defense). This book definitely leant itself to rich and provocative classroom discussions. I enjoyed the book almost as much as I enjoyed his class. I would recommend this text to any professor who is interested in spicing up his or her criminal law classes.

Part fantasy (literarily speaking) and part historic fiction, this is a neat little story, charmingly illustrated. A boy named Jim goes on a self-appointed mission to retrieve pirate booty from a haunted island along the New Hampshire/Maine coast. The print job is a little unwieldy, and if anything the story is too short. But I give 5 stars for the content: the boy Jim has a good heart, and Paul Peter Jesep succeeds in infusing a little of the local history and lore into the tale.

Add it to the canon of New England-based children's literature.

The companion book to this, "Lady-Ghost of the Isles of Shoals," unfortunately seems to be unavailable now.

This book is an excellent intermediate-level text on decision analysis that deals with both uncertainty and risk. It uses realistic examples that working professionals will appreciate and to which they can relate.

It's written as a tutorial that uses two tools, Sensitivity, which is used with the chapters dealing with decisions under uncertainty, and Supertree for developing decision trees related to risk analysis. Instructions on obtaining the student versions of these programs are included in the book. Note that the student version of Supertree accommodates trees with up to 250 endpoints, and the student version of Sensitivity performs sensitivity for up to 12 variables.

My most used text on decision analysis is Making Hard Decisions by Robert T. Clemen. Where that book is more comprehensive, it's also less suitable for the working professional who needs a refresher and a desk reference. Therein lies the main value of this book - it's more aligned to real world problems that you'll find in the workplace and is written to be both a tutorial and a reference.

My dad spent hundreds of hours slaving on this book, (which by the way is VERY interesting!) so I'm sure he did an excellent job (~even though I can't even pronounce 99% of the words and not to mention the title!!) Good job, Dad!!

David Clennon and Stephanie Zimbalist head a first-rate cast in this excellent, thought-provoking play produced by L.A. Theatre Works. It's a story, and performance, I won't soon forget!

This book is a window into 16th century English life and a biography of someone a little different than the people we can normally read about from this period. Although scholarly, the Devon Gentleman is very readable. This book is definitely worth your time!

Although Dog Breeds of the World is not as widely publicized (or as expensive!) as some other breed books, it is one of the best that I have seen. It has accurate information about history, health and temperament, as well as several good pictures of each breed. Best of all, it has a display box for each breed that summarizes exercise, temperament, grooming and feeding needs, with descriptions like "delightfully docile" temperament (for the Newfoundland). The book comes in several sizes, each with the same pictures and text. Dog Breeds of the World is the smallest version, fine unless you need larger print. The Complete Encyclopedia of Pedigree Dogs is a coffee-table-size version. The Complete Dog Book includes not only the breed information and pictures found in the other two, but also some very helpful general information about nutrition, health care, training, grooming, choosing a dog, and breeding. (I would have liked a somewhat stronger statement recommending against breeding, but I admit that sometimes a low-key approach works best.) Although the book is British, and therefore uses British measurements, Stockman is good to us non-Brits and translates dog heights and weights into U.S. terminology as well. He doesn't try to include every breed around, but I found all the common U.S. breeds, as well as many that are not so familiar. All in all, this is likely to remain one of my favorite dog breed books.

"Infection" by John Gregory Betancourt

The Enterprise is called to Archaria III, a planet jointly colonized by humans and Peladians. A new disease has cropped up and is only treatable (the double helix), in a temporary fashion. The Enterprise supposed to deliver the drug, quarantine the planet and see what help they might render. What follows is an excellent story, primarily using Dr. Crusher in her quest to find the cure. The author set everything up very well and wrapped up his portion beautifully.

"Vectors" by Dean Wesley Smith & Kristin Kathryn Rusch

Finally we have a story using Dr. Pulaski, who was unceremoniously dumped from the show. Not that she was anywhere near a replacement for Dr. Crusher. It is particularly interesting to see "Terok Nor" during the occupation and have the interaction with Gul Dukat. I felt the character development was very good and the Ferengi portions were written very well. The only true complaint is that the author's seemed to have done a poor job of closing out Kira's story.

"Red Sector" by Diane Carey

Red Sector is a fantastic story. It's very refreshing having a book that concentrates almost primarily on a non main character in John Eric Stiles. The character is extremely well thought out and written. The author nailed Spock and a hundred and thirty something Dr. McCoy perfectly. I'm dying to find out who the voice is at this point. Hopefully the next three in the Double Helix series will be as good as this one and the other two were.

"Quarantine" by John Vornholt

John Vornholt kicks out another fantastic story. Quarantine gives us a good idea of how "Tom Riker" ends up joining the Maquis. As is par for the course with John Vornholt, he goes into great detail describing a beautiful planet and all of its surroundings. Not a lot of Trek authors do that. I thought Torres seemed a little soft, considering her personality, but that can be explained away.

"Double or Nothing" By Peter David

This is another great installment to the New Frontier and the Double Helix series. Not having read the last of the Double Helix books yet, it seems that this one pretty much finishes the Double Helix storyline???? A favorite quote from the book, Riker - "I've got to get off this ship." Peter David did an excellent job of integrating Picard and Riker into the New Frontier. It's really interesting and well done how he brought Riker and Shelby together again. That portion was done very well and even better than I'd expected in another meeting of those two.

"The First Virtue" by Michael Jan Friedman & Christie Golden

The First Virtue is an excellent conclusion. It pretty much wraps up the reasoning to everything we learned in "Double or Nothing." In the First Virtue, we learn why Gerrid Thul wanted to create the Double Helix virus and why he wanted so much revenge for the loss of his only child. Both authors did a great job with their portions. The plot is well thought out, especially the portions of the book with Commander Jack Crusher and Lieutenant Tuvok. I felt that they captured Tuvok's personality quite well and gave a precursor to some of the decisions and general personality we saw on screen in Voyager.

Overall, I would recommend this Omnibus to any fan of good Star Trek fiction.

THE ELEMENTS OF CRITICAL READING are often thought of as judging or praising, but it is really applying personal values. Bringing different personal interests and views into criticism starts with reading to understand what is going on: recognizing the main points, and remembering the essential content. It goes on to taking any one or more of five perspectives for making clear what the reading means: emotional, ethical, logical, rhetorical or social. John Peters writes well, with good examples and helpful explanations. His book is a reader-friendly, straightforward way of putting into practice Christopher M. Anson's THE LONGMAN HANDBOOK FOR WRITERS AND READERS, Steve Lynn's TEXTS AND CONTEXTS, and Stephen Minot's THREE GENRES.