Once again the authors of this book have proven themselves worthy of emulation. They have created another one of the greatest CAD manuals I have ever used.

This is a great book. I recommend it to anyone who has upgraded to Autocad 2000 and is interested in learning the new features. It simply shows where the new commands are and how to use them.

Getting an idea or ideas out of your head is often not a difficult task. Most people can do it easily and fast too, even if they are put under time pressure. Sometimes, under time pressures, surprisingly many people can even come up with whacky and yet brilliant ideas.

However, idea generation or creativity for that matter, is only a small part of the whole equation. There is no dispute ideas come from individual minds, but innovation will only take place when you are able to promote or sell your idea or ideas to your or other people. It takes teams or a group of interested people to make your ideas to work i.e to make innovation to happen.

There are a lot of idea generation and/or creativity books out in the markeptplace, but very hard to find books touching on the promotion and selling of ideas. From my personal pursuit over the years, I have found only a small handful of good books in this genre.

I am very glad to have found this one book. The four authors are well qualified, as all of them are business communication professionals.

As the authors contend: "There are three phases in getting an idea off the ground:

1. Get an idea...and sell it!
2. Develop the idea..and sell it!
3. Move the idea to market...and really sell it!"

This book describes, in a step-by-step process, the strategic and tactical elements of the promotion and selling proposition, as follows:

- research your ideas from all standpoints;
- develop a compehensive plan;
- build a support network;
- develop a winning presentation;
- prepare to present;
- deliver your winning case;
- celebrate;

I am very impressed by this book partly because the authors took a comprehensive, broad-based approach to the subject at hand. They wrote it in the context of both organisational and personal perspectives. In the process, the authors covered every conceivable angle of promoting and selling your idea or ideas - from understanding your organisation, educating yourself right through building your case, gaining allies, assessing your audience, and all the way to designing and preparing your case and presenting your information/ideas.

The chapter pertaining to 'Building a Business Case' is a gem to read and follow. This is a very important area to note in promoting and selling your idea. Oftentimes, people get carried away by their whacky ideas and they forget that the numbers or bottom-line are also important considerations, especially when you want to get support. This chapter will help you to refine your presentation of numbers.

I also enjoy the authors' writing style - concise, crisp and succinct. All key learning points are also captured at the end of each chapter. These make reading and review much easier for the reader.

So, if you want to learn how to promote and sell your idea or ideas, this is a 'must-read' book!

This is a rare book. A writer sensitive to the vulnerable feelings of children, Ms. Shreve also shows respect and compassion of a kind too little displayed in this time of confusion of values in this modern capitalist society.In other words, there's no agenda here but appreciation of the intrinsic value of a human being learning to live with honor and empathy.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter could make anyone look pretty. Even Queen Victoria and her kin, if you see his portraits of them.

His paintings are flattering, make the subject look radiant and angelic, cherub-faced. His painting of Victoria's daughter Vicky is particularly beautiful, as are his portraits of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

For anyone who's enjoyed Winterhalter's paintings, this is a great book to have.

Don't let the title fool you - this is less a ghost story and more an examination of how a family can change as the children grow, as seen through the eyes of the eldest boy, 11 year old Peter. The cats (both alive and ghosts) are used as symbols of the change in the family.

Peter, the narrator, lives in a family where his father's job makes the family move to different countries almost every year. Peter enjoys the constant change and thrives on being the eldest child - often in charge. But when the family finally stops globe-hopping by settling down in Boston, the changes that occur to the family are not changes that set well with Peter and suddenly, change becomes his enemy.

Reader, beware - this is not a happy book (although the end can be viewed as a ray of hope). However, Susan Shreve paints a wondrous picture of Peter's life and the conflicts that are roiling about inside of him. This book is a fantastic departure from the standard conflict of "here's your good guy...here's your bad guy" that children are so often force-fed. Most advanced young readers will likely find this book perfectly to their liking. I suspect adults (especially ones with kids) will also enjoy this book and view it on a completely separate level from younger readers as they imagine routes that their family may take as their children grow.

Overall, this is a truly excellent book. Highly recommended.

-Likely to make you cry: yes -Likely to make you laugh: possibly - especially if you remember your childhood. -Reading Level: Advanced youth to adult -Reviewer's Favorite Authors (so you can compare to your favorite for possible interest connections): John Irving, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Charles Dickens, Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger

I find this book to be an invaluable source of reference. Each area (animal, insect or vegtable) is covered in a short, easy, humerous style. It even covers the basics of beekeeping! The gardening section and the poultry sections are especially good. I would recommend this book for use as a quick reference or as a source for those starting out a small farm to decide which type garden or creatures are the best for their farm.

Susan Neville has long been a chronicler of secret lives, shadow selves, possibilities and fears and yearnings. She is one of the most lyrical prose stylists I know, and her characters are often illuminated by the light from lives they almost lived, choices they nearly took. IN THE HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS, Neville's newest collection, presents stories that are dazzlingly alive with what-might-have-been, possibilities so alive they feel like what-still-might-be. One of Neville's great gifts is her ability to present characters in the grip of double lives: visible, outward caily existences, alongside darker, hidden lives of desire. Characters are shaped and distorted by their longings--for stability, for a discernible God, for a glimpse of color in the middle of a tedious, gray midwestern winter--and IN THE HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS achieves a strange and beautiful expansiveness because characters generally do receive what they long for. In the luminous "Blue," the old husband of a young woman goes to lunatic lengths to bing color into her drab days--to bring her pleasure, that simple thing. In "Your Own Most Quiet Voice" a girl watches her mother slip into insanity. The girl years for the return of her normal life, and normality ultimately reasserts itself, but with a new, ghastly face. And in "August" a young wife, terrified by the bonds of marriage, is offered a chance to flee from those bonds, only to glimpse the more terrifying constriction beyond them. Like descriptions of God, the lives Susan Neville describes are gorgeous and terrifying, and this book is subtle, moving, and brilliant.
--Erin McGraw, Cincinnati

This Multimedia Training CD-ROM (which was featured in Cadence Mag.)is the best on the market. I was able to teach my self AutoCAD in 3 days with the tool. AutoDesk has its own multimedia training CD but after comparing the two the Cadd Desktop Tutor contains a hundred times more content. If you want to be an Engineer, Designer or Architect this training tool should be a requirement.

The most complete, and user-friendly abdominal MR book currently in print. Excellent images and well-written text. Covers nearly everything from the diaphragm to the pelvis. Highly recommended, both for residents/fellows and practicing radiologists. Includes protocols and a chapter on specific imaging stratagies for MR imaging of the abdomen and pelvis.