As an MBA candidate who spends far too much time reading textbooks, I found Seven Keys a welcome change in my business reading. It's readable, well-organized, full of real-world examples, and it lets me quickly know how I can ready an organization for effective strategic account management. These authors clearly have busy people in mind. I read the chapters that were of particular interest and then I read the remainder. Time well-spent.

Jay Readey

MBA Candidate, Yale University School of Management

We just launched what we thought was a
strategic account program for our largest
customers last year, but I just learned
from this book that it's actually a key
account program in disguise.

Now we can use the authors' common-sense
guidance to focus on the customers who
truly have strategic potential, align our
entire company behind the initiative instead
of just the sales force, and set up an
account manager development program that
really works. Great job!

David S. Feldmann

Product Manager, Legal & Business Products
The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.

I have had the pleasure of reading "Shades" a novel of undercover police work at its finest. The novel has many twists and turns that keep you involved. The author is clearly writing on a topic of which he is thouroughly aware. As a retired police officer I found the book completely compeling and factually accurate as to police proceedure and intellectually stimulating.

I found myself in the story and hated to put it down for any reason. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes action, adventure, and excitement. It's a great read. I suspect this author is a new Joseph Wambaugh his style and compeling story line is sure to be a best seller.

I found 'Shades" to be a harrowing tale of deep undercover work where deceit and betrayal lurked around every corner. The characters were real, the delivery sharp, and it was hard to put the book down. I felt as if I was part of the action and the characters were right there with me. It was suspenseful, exciting, yet touching. A Great Read!

If you love Shakespeare, buy this book--you won't be disappointed. Schoenbaum doesn't discuss the plays, but instead the man who wrote them--or, more specifically, the differing ways that his life has been interpreted. That's right, it's a biography of Shakespeare's biographers, leading us step by step through several centuries of interpreters of the Bard, and the various wacky ways they have interpreted his life. It might not sound compelling, but boy it is. The early portions of the book are good enough, but it really takes off when the author starts to discuss the "Baconian" heretics--authors who have argued that Francis Bacon (or some other aristocratic, and therefore supposedly more intelligent, fop) actually wrote the world's greatest plays. He wonderfully illustrates the bizarreness of the men and women who originated this fanciful claim, and explains how it has unfortunately caught on in the popular imagination. (One of the first "Baconians," the not-coincidentally named Delia Bacon, is a tragically grotesque character worthy of Shakespeare himself.) This is a hefty book that you won't finish in a single sitting, but I still highly recommend it.

This book is the most thorough book on the life of the Bard

I purchased this book a few weeks back because it was written by one of my favorite college professors and advisor, Dr. Silverman at Winthrop, hoping the book would be as good as his lectures. I was not disapointed.

For someone unitiated to the life of General Evans, like myself, the narrative portions of the book gave a real feel for his times and motivations. The battle descriptions are certainly more than who moved his forces where and such. A real sense of the character of Gen. Evans and how his leadership style meshed with the flow of the Confederate Army opened up to me the depth of the military action and struggle of battles, like Manassess, that I am already familiar with.

Letting the participants speak for themselves through their own personal letters is well done, especially since the narrative flows well with the letters.

Again, the only complaint would be the lack of maps, other than that this is a fine read for the general reader and for those concerned with the details of the Civil War and Confederate leadership.

Winthrop University historians Jason Silverman and Samuel Thomas have teamed up with the late Beverly Evans to produce a thoroughly enjoyable biography of Confederate Brigadier General Nathan "Shanks" Evans of Marion, South Carolina.

The strength of the book lies in the authors' skillful use of the private papers of General Evans that his descendent, Beverly Evans, had carefully conserved and made available to his two co-authors. Rather than foisting their own interpretations of Evans on the reader, the authors allow the general to speak for himself, mostly through his previously unpublished family letters as well as his military correspondence. The picture of Evans that emerges from the book is at odds with the common perception of him as an impetuous, brawling brigadier with a fondness for alcohol.

A West Point graduate and an accomplished Indian fighter before the war, Evans' resigned his commission in the U.S. Army shortly after his native state seceded from the Union. Despite his spectacular early successes at First Manassas, Ball's Bluff and Secessionville, and solid performances at Second Manassas and Antietam, Evans' promotions stalled out at the rank of brigadier general. His failure to obtain the coveted rank of major general traced to a series of running disputes with both his subordinate and his superior officers that resulted in two courts martial of Evans during 1863. Though acquitted in both proceedings, Evans' public reputation never recovered, and he spent the balance of the war in obscurity. He died in 1868, aged only 44, still struggling to rebuild his life from the war.

Superbly written and grounded in sound research, SHANKS contains some previously unpublished photographs of Evans and his family. Maps would have augmented the battle descriptions. But despite their absence SHANKS is a fine book that sheds positive, new light on an obscure but important military figure. Readers with an interest in South Carolina, or in the early Civil War in the East, will especially enjoy the book.

Review by C. Michael Harrington

Mr. Harrington is a member of the Houston Civil War Roundtable and Civil War Aficionados. He has written articles on two officers in Evans' Brigade. A practicing lawyer, he has degrees in economics from Yale and Cambridge and a law degree from Harvard.

This diary in this abridged version, has given me more sheer pleasure than any other book I have ever read. Writing for himself alone, Pepys selected things for inclusion in the diary purely on the basis of how they struck him. This grand subjectivity would be fatal in a dull or passive or insensitive writer, but in Pepys it makes the work fresh and vibrant, constantly surprising, unlike anything else in literature. Even when describing an "important" scene, he is still his natural self and gives touches of his own behaviour, like this at the King's coronation: "But so great a noise, that I could make but little of the Musique; and endeed, it was lost to everybody. But I had so great a list to pissse, that I went out a little while before the King had done all his ceremonies...." Not just his behavior, but also his reactions: "As it grew darker, [the fire] appeared more and more, and in Corners and upon steeples and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire." That is from Pepys's stunning account of the first day of the great fire of London. It has no conscious artifice: Pepys's descriptions owe their power to his uncanny knack for expressing how the events struck him. So he gives details which a more "responsible" writer would have overlooked: "Among other things, the poor pigeons I perceive were loath to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till they were some of them burned, their wings, and fell down." The diary gives us the texture of Pepys's daily life - what he wore, what he ate, what skirts he lifted, and what he paid in hard cash for all this; the plays he saw, how the audiences behaved, the doorman who swindled him out of a shilling; his book collection, his musical instruments, the improvements to his apartment; his growing wealth, from sources bright and shady; his bowels and his testicles; the list is endless. Along with stories that are variously amusing, touching, shocking, there are episodes like this: "Before going to bed, I stood writing of this day its passages - while a drum came by, beating of a strange manner of beat, now and then a single stroke; which my wife and I wondered at, what the meaning of it should be." And this: "I sat up till the bell-man came by with his bell, just under my window as I was writing of this very line, and cried 'Past one of the clock, and a cold, frosty, windy morning.' One of the topics is Pepys himself - his thoughts, feelings and actions, and his thoughts and feelings about these. He had a lively inner life, was intimately in touch with it, and had the ability to know at any given moment how he felt and to write about it clearly and purely. We get Pepys warts and all. He does not pose for his self-portrait. When a stranger importunes his wife, he records, "I did give him a good cuff or two on the chops; and seeing him not oppose me, I did give him another". This is not the writing of someone who wants to be a hero to his diary! He freely criticizes himself, particularly for his capacity - amazing in one so able and successful - for neglecting work and career in the pursuit of pleasure. After a bout with one of his mistresses, he went to see another but found that she was away: "So I back again to my office, where I did with great content faire a vow to mind my business and laisser aller les femmes for a month; and am with all my heart glad to find myself able to come to so good a resolution, that thereby I may follow my business, which, and my honour thereby, lies a-bleeding." (Where sex is the topic, Pepys usually scatters French and Spanish words through his text.) Sometimes he scolds himself for his feelings. After appearing before a tribunal of inquiry, and concluding that he is not in much trouble, he writes: "And yet though this be all, yet I do find so poor a spirit within me, that it makes me almost out of my wits, and puts me to so much pain that I...vex and fret and imagine myself undone - so that I am ashamed of myself to myself, and do fear what would become of me if any real affliction should come upon me." He later remarks that the tribunal had treated him "as a Criminall", kept him waiting and made him stand; but he seems not to have reflected that that is why he was so depressed. He is always interested in his inner life and willing to respond to it, judge it, lament it, rejoice in it; but as a child of his times he is not challenged to try to understand it. The Navy Board, and therefore Pepys himself, were potentially in much greater trouble only a month later. He did not collapse. His three-hour speech to Parliament was a triumph, though he describes it in less than a sentence: "I begin our defence most acceptably and smoothly, and continued at it without any hesitation or losse but with full scope and all my reason free about me, as if it had been at my own table...". Pepys was able to enjoy HIMSELF, to take his triumphs without vainglory and his reverses without self-deception. He had, as Robert Latham puts it, "a gift for happiness that amounts to genius".

Pepys's complete diaries are probably the closest thing to time travel that I will ever experience. This condensed edition takes the meat off the bones and serves it up with most of the flavor of the full Latham-edited version.

The passion for women and for books, the details noticed at the Whitehall court of Charles II -- like the king's mistress's freshly-washed underwear hanging on a hedge in the privy garden to dry in the sun! -- and the layered record of the daily routine of a London man living in a time of immense change are fascinating.

Note that this is a fine book for those who enjoy the Patrick O'Brian Aubry and Maturin series too. Pepys was instrumental in taking the British Navy from a ragged mix of merchant ships mixed in with war ships, haphazardly provisioned and manned by politically appointed (i.e. unexamined) officers to the fleet that brought Nelson to victory.

This book is an excellent introduction to Pepys; I recommend it

i havent touched this book let alone read it but i think that guy needs to shut up. i mean am i right people. get off it. if you agree rate this as helpful and send one dollar to a person of your choosing (please no astronauts). thanks, now speak up, it is the time.

Combining fascinating information on Hawai'ian culture together with comprehensive grammatical explanations, Spoken Hawaiian goes above and beyond most other foreign language texts, allowing the reader to slowly become fully immersed. For anyone learning Hawai'ian from the very start, or interested in Hawai'ian culture, this book is a must

I found this book to be very helpful, especially in the area of writing an Operating Agreement. The authors compare LLCs with other types of business structures and give the advantages/disadvantages of each. They have also added notes and tips throughout the book that will help you resolve issues in setting up your company. I used the tips to compile a checklist for setting up my business. Finally, there are plenty of sample documents that you can adapt for your own use. Although I have gotten an attorney to help with the fine details related to my state, I would highly recommend this book to help you understand and plan an LLC.

This book saved my company quite a bit of money. We were considering incorporation, but this book tuned us into a better alternative! It contains all the info needed to form a LLC on your own.

Tamura Ryuichi's poetry is insightful and haunting. In masterfully crafted free-form Tamura not only shares his personal experiences with war and life but critiques modern society and applies existential concepts to everyday experience. His unique style has a way of making words and images echo in your mind. I would recommend this book to anyone at any age who enjoys reading remarkably substantive poetry.

I have long loved Japanese Haiku, but encountering the modern poetry of Ryuichi Tamura was a delight. Tamura's works give a far deeper insight into Japanese culture and thought than one can expect from some of the culture's ancient poetry. His powerful images stay with the reader, and the biographical information about the writer himself illustrates not only the source of his feelings, but what must be the feelings of many Japanese people of his generation. Overall, the man's work enables an American reader to look at World War II, for one thing, from an entirely different perspective. Further, his images of nature and the depth of his appreciation for it are not to be missed. I strongly recommend this book.

This book is excellent in every regard. It is well-written and superbly organized. It breaks the teaching of the Holocaust into various components (personal accounts, primary sources, music, art, etc.). Anyone who teaches the Holocaust or is considering doing so should start his/her work on the subject with this book.

Divided into thirteen chapters, Teaching And Studying The Holocaust presents some of the most noted and informed Holocaust studies educators teaching and writing in the United States. Included are primary documents, first-person accounts, film, literature, art, drama, music, and technology relevant to the study of the Holocaust. Also included is a major chapter on Holocaust historiography and an extensive annotated bibliography specifically designed for researchers and classroom educators. Teaching And Studying The Holocaust should be found in every academic and community library Holocaust Studies reference collection for the benefit of teachers, students, and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in preserving the memory of the Holocaust so that it can never be permitted to happen again.

The 3rd and LAST edition (100 printed) was published in October, 1947. This book has been used by people around the world, who are studying and researching Natural Healing products. This work was written by the brilliant efforts of the Yale School of Forestry. Up to this day it is unsurpassed by those people extremely interested in Natural Healing Products. The book was recently reviewed by Alan Kurz, who is considered by many to be one of the foremost leading authorities on Natural Products due to all the research he does on Natural Products for better health.

There is no need to say much about this classic on the timbers of America. Published in the forties this work is the crowning effort of the Yale School of Forestry, led by prof S.J.Record. This book contains a wealth of information on the trees & shrubs of America (N-,C- & S-America) and the woods they yield. Reprinted several times in the forties and at least once later (in the eighties?: probably this edition), it remains unsurpassed, although obviously many of the botanical names in it are obsolete. An update would be very welcome, but just about impossible to put together.