I first started reading this book via a Jewish study class and I found it quite comprehensive, while not insulting one's intelligence. The practice exercises help quite a bit, and they draw upon previous lessons so as to bring together everything learned up to a certain point. Please keep in mind that this book does not teach you how to translate modern Hebrew. It is good if you want to begin learning Hebrew, but don't expect to be able to order a falafel on the streets of Haifa after finishing this book. Essentially, this book provides the base for the house, but you'll need further reading to build on that house in terms of modern language translation. That having been said, I still highly recommend that one has this book if you're either beginning the study of Hebrew or are reacquainting yourself with it.

I taught myself to read Hebrew in several weeks using this little book. The material is exceptionally well paced; each chapter introduces just the right amount of new material and reinforces previously learned letters. This is the best book I've found for adults who want to learn Hebrew.

You can either get this book by itself or with several cassette tapes. Someone loaned it to me to begin my Hebrew studies, and I have to have my own copy now. Small doses of the aleph bet, with special attention paid to look-alikes and sound-alikes.

This is a truly lovely book: beautifully produced in paper-back with quality materials (so a joy to handle), interesting and insightful commentaries written in styles that aren't bound up by artistic jargon, and a wonderful, comprehensive collection of images in colour, put in meaningful order. I highly recommend it.

I realy liked the book as for the first time I have the chance to have a book with more illustrations and pictures and less words . The approach is very practical and there is also a chapter dealing with the equipment for surgery and great chapter for the post op and follow up. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

Eyal Nachmias DVM BSC Pet Clinic ISRAEL

I bought both the book and the accompanying tapes.

The book introduces no more than 10 vocabulary words, a grammatical concept, and reading from a prayer. By the time you're finished, you understand basic constructs of Hebrew thought, and several important prayers, including the Sh'ma, the Aleinu, and V'ahavtah.

It presupposes only that you know basic Hebrew pronunciation of the alefbet and vowels.

I really like the book, but I'm disappointed with the tapes, which I would have preferred to have been read by an Israeli speaker. Still, I may be too picky on this aspect, since it's designed to help you with prayer, and not with getting along in Israel. One thing that might help is if the tapes separated the grammar lessons from the prayers. I would be willing to listen to a tape of prayers in the car, just so I could get an idea how they sound, especially if the prayers were chanted.

As a child, I tried to learn and it didn't stay with me. What did stay was a fear that understanding prayerbook Hebrew was something I couldn't do. Well, judging by the excellent reviews, I bought this book. And lesson one made me sigh with relief. I *can* learn this!

Please note that you need to know the Hebrew alphabet but then you can move right along.

This book does not require any complicated grammatical prerequisites. You don't have to have headache to cram up the declension and the conjugation of the nouns and verbs. If you just follow the lessons, you will soon be accustomed to the practical Hebrew liturgy. This is a well designed excellent manual for learning Hebrew for the beginners.

Axel Heyst, the protagonist in Conrad's novel, Victory, makes a final statement to Davidson, a fellow seaman, just before he dies: "...woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love--and to put its trust in life!" This statement coming from a man whose whole life has been lived in isolation is remarkable. His father taught him that life was a Great Joke, that it was an illusion; that the best way to survive was to drift oneself into oblivion. But he found love in the person of Lena and it changed his perspective on living and was responsible for his change of heart as represented in the above-quoted statement. It's too bad that the novel could not have had a happy ending, but Conrad's view of the world probably would not permit it. I found the novel engrossing, somewhat melodramatic, yet vintage Conrad in its depiction of good and evil battling each other on the island of Samburan.

Victory is in many ways more fluid and readable than Conrad's more dense works (for comparison sake I'd previously read Heart of Darkness and Conrad's collection of short stories Tales of Unrest.) In Victory we have Conrad's standard fare of tragedy and man's isolation, but in this case wrapped in a tale of adventure and swept along by an uncharacteristically eventful plot.

Conrad's works have, of course, been reviewed to exhaustion; the only thing that I could hope to add would be my emotional response to the novel as a reader.

Personally through the majority of the novel I found Heyst to be the only truly well defined character. Much of what we learn of him is revealed indirectly through the observations of others, but somehow Conrad manages to use this method to flesh out a complex and intriguing figure in Heyst. The remanding characters, while interesting, serve mostly as scenery. The villains Jones and Ricardo, while interesting, struck me not so much as human characters but as forces of impending doom; they could have as easily been an approaching storm or a plague or any other brand of natural disaster. The girl Lena in the end is the one exception; perhaps the one thing that I found most gratifying is the way in which her character developed as the novel neared its climax.

The Penguin Classics version is well footnoted for those of you (like me) that would have missed some of the more obscure Biblical references and allusions to Paradise Lost. The notes also comment on the narrator's shifting viewpoint, and on revisions Conrad made to subsequent editions. For those readers interested in an insight into Conrad's thinking I'd recommend this version.

Victory is the best of the handful of Conrad novels I have read (for reference sake, the others are Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo). For one thing, the other novels were much heavier in their narrative and descriptive content. As a result, I often suffered from mental imagery overload when plodding through a page-long paragraph. Victory has more dialogue, making it an easier read. Conrad's characters are always great, and the ones in this book are no exception. I also really liked the correlation between these characters and their environment. Heyst living in a serene yet isolated island matched his aloofness perfectly. As the book reaches its climax and tensions reach a boiling point, Conrad adds to this tension in godlike fashion, as the storm evinces the internal and external struggles occurring in Heyst. Of course, Conrad don't write no happy tales (sic), but in the end, I think that the title Victory was still very appropriate. This was an excellent read and one of the best novels I have read in a long time.

If you have read The Essential Drucker, Balanced scorecard etc. , the book essentially has the same information repeated under a different title. Recommend Essential Drucker, Balanced Score card which is more comprehensive than this title.

This collection of eight articles from the HBR is a must IF AND ONLY IF you want the only highlights of some of the new management tools and theories out there. If you've ever wondered what Activity-Based Costing (ABC) is or what Kaplan's "Balanced Scorecard" is all about, this may be just the introductory text for you. I mention these two tools first since 2 out of 8 articles deal with ABC, either in whole or in part, while another 3 deal specifically with the balanced scorecard. So, if you've got ABC and the balanced scorecard already firmly laid out in your head, this may be a bit redundant.

The remaining three articles are still worth a quick read though. I found in one article, "How the Right Measures Help Teams Excel," ideas that I hadn't seen anywhere else (for example, the team "dashboard"). And, the "How High is Your Return on Management?" article might give managers a moment of reflection on whether or not they have a good ROM and what they can do to improve it.

As I stated before, much of this is merely highlights though. Do not expect to be able to use this book as a primary source to implement any of the measures. It's a tease that gets you excited (at least it did me), but doesn't provide much of a game plan for bringing it all about.

Still, if what you want is a quick overview and a few case studies where these principles and tools have been applied, by all means, read this. It's worth at least that much.

Looking for some informative, original and clear thinking about measuring performance? This book is a great choice! This is a collection of eight outstanding articles selected from past editions of the HBR. The articles cover such subjects as activity-based costing, the use of nonfinancial criteria, and tools executives require to generate the information needed. Each article begins with an executive summary which, for the fast-forward crowd, is a big plus.

So many books are merely ONE GOOD ARTICLE embedded in a thicket of verbiage. Chopping away through such a jungle of verbosity for the gist-of-it-all often proves tedious and disappointing. (Blessed are the laconic!) This book, on the other hand, just serves up a bunch of 'gists' -the pure meat and potatoes of ideas. Happily, the HBSP has published several other collections of this sort on such topics as knowledge management, change, and strategies for growth. Each of these is collection of first-rate 'gists'. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Public Relations Worktext: Writing and Techniques provides students of public relations and corporate communications with well-organized lessons in many of the major tasks expected of a communications professional -- from speechwriting and preparing news releases to writing effective newsletters and pitch letters to journalists.

The authors, who are recognized leaders in public relations education, provide readers with real-life examples of many of the techniques and tactics they highlight. For example, the reader will find examples of news releases, newsletters, pitch letters, etc. from corporations and non-profit organizations along the side of many chapters in the book. In this way, you see some of the best examples of what you're learning.

Used by students of public relations in colleges and universities across the nation, Public Relations Worktext: Writing & Techniques is a valuable resource that will provide straightforward lessons for the future public relations professional.

Franck Germain, an 11 year old boy, lives in Paris. It is 1942 and the war is strangling the city. Franck never knew his father. His mother, Mireille, lives together with a certain Simon Falkenstein. The little Franck really hates this guy because he steals all the love from his mother. But what is even worse is that he's Jewish and the Germans are looking for him. Their relationship gets a completely new dimension when the war starts to mess with their worriless lives.

Joseph Joffo became famous with his book Un sac de billes (A bag of marbles), in which he recounts the story of his youth: how he grew up as a Jewish boy during the big war in France. In Simon et l'enfant (Simon and the Boy) the author returns to the same setting, but applies a fictitious story-line.

The story opens with an almost standard conflict between a boy and some sort of stepfather, but quickly turns out to work itself up to a higher level. Depictions of bitterness and misery are fluently interwoven with funny episodes that show that despite all people still value the small joys of life. The eternal opposition between good and evil is constantly present and Joseph Joffo is a master in bringing these all together in a book that reads like an adventure story, but still gives you enough subjects to think about.

Note: I read the original French version.

This is the central question explored by Conrad in Lord Jim. Jim is ultimately a character who inspires our sympathy due to his inability to find reconcilliation for his one tragic moment of weakness. In him we find a person of tremendous potential that remains unrealized as the tragic circumstances of his abandoning his post aboard the Patna continually haunt him and the associated guilt drives him to isolation.
Conrad successfully explores the concepts of bravery, cowardice,guilt and the alternative destinies that an individual may be driven to by these qualities.
The narrative can be a bit confusing at times as Marlowe relates the tale by recalling his encounters with Jim. The book reminded very much of Somerset Maugham's THE RAZOR"S EDGE" in style. However I believe that Maugham did a much better job of incorporating the narrator into the flow of the story. Overall LORD JIM is a wonderful classic novel that I highly recommend.

This is the fifth book I have read by Conrad, and through these readings I have come to deeply appreciate his literary power and the perfection of his stories. Conrad has the skill to border about several similar subjects, without repeating himself. "Lord Jim" is truly a Shakespearean tragedy, mainly because of the Shakespearean nature of the main character. Jim is a young naval officer with high hopes of heroism and moral superiority, but when he faces his first test of courage, he miserably fails. While 800 Muslim pilgrims are asleep aboard the ship "Patna", Jim discovers that the boat is about to sink. There are not sufficient lifeboats for everybody. Should he wake them up or not? He gets paralyzed with fear and then sudenly jumps into a boat being set up by the rest of the officers. He is taken to trial and disposessed of his working licence.

Ashamed and humiliated, Jim dedicates the rest of his life to two things: escape the memory of that fateful night, and redeem himself. This agonizing quest to recover his dignity in front of his own eyes leads him to hide in a very remote point in the Malayan peninsula, where he will become the hero, the strong man, the wise protector of underdeveloped, humble and ignorant people. Jim finds not only the love of his people, but also the love of a woman who admires him and fears the day when he might leave for good. The narrator, Captain Marlow (the same of "Heart of Darkness") talks to Jim for the last time in his remote refuge, and then Jim tells him that he has redeemed himself by becoming the people's protector. Oh, but these things are never easy and Jim will face again the specter of failure.

Conrad has achieved a great thing by transforming the "novel of adventures" into the setting for profound and interesting reflections on the moral stature of Man, on courage, guilt, responsibility, and redemption.

Just as in "Heart of Darkness" the question is what kinds of beings we are stripped of cultural, moral and religious conventions; just as in "Nostromo" the trustworthiness of a supposedly honest man is tested by temptation, in "Lord Jim" the central subject is dignity and redemption after failure.

A great book by one of the best writers.

After reading this book (along with several other of Conrad's books) I am under the impression that Joseph Conrad may very well be my favorite author. Here is another masterpiece, a deeply incisive study of character of the motivation and the ultimate failure of all high-minded ideals. Granted my own personal world view falls directly in line with this realization and therefore prejudices me towards anything the man might write, but, when considering such a lofty title as 'favorite author' one must regard other aspects of the novelist's creation. As with the others, Conrad wins by the power of his stories.

Lord Jim is my least favorite of the the four books I have read by Conrad. The story is rather scattered: a righteous young man does something wrong that he holds himself far too accountable for and the public shame the action brought him exaggerates the reality of his failure and makes him believe the rumors swirling around about his so-called cowardice. He spends the remainder of his life trying to reclaim his self-regard, mostly exaggerating his own importance in matters he hardly understands. His goal is to liberate the primitive people of the jungle paradise he inadvertantly finds himself in (due to an effort to escape every particle of the world he once inhabited) and his once high-minded ideals and regard for himself lead him to allow those people to consider him almost a God.

Jim likes being a God and considers himself a just and fair one. He treats everyone equally and gives to his people the knowledge of modern science and medicine as well as the everyday archetecture and understanding of trade that those primitive folks would otherwise be years from comprehending.

Of course everything ends in failure and misery and of course Jim's restored name will be returned to its demonic status, but the whole point of the novel seems to me that one can not escape their past. Jim, for all his courage in the line of fire has tried to avoid all memory of the once shameful act of his former life and by doing so becomes destined to repeat his mistakes.

Lord Jim is far more expansive than the story it sets out to tell, ultimately giving a warning on the nature of history and general humanity that only a writer of Conrad's statue could hope to help us understand.

If there is a flaw it is not one to be taken literally. Conrad was a master of structural experimentation and with Lord Jim he starts with a standard third person narrative to relate the background and personalities of his characters and then somehow merges this into a second person narrative of a man, years from the events he is relating, telling of the legend of Jim. It is a brilliant innovation that starts off a little awkward and might lead to confusion in spots as the story verges into its most important parts under the uncertain guidence of a narrator who, for all his insight into others, seems unwilling to relate his personal relevence to the story he is relating.

Nevertheless (with a heartfelt refrain), one of the best books I have ever read.

A harrowing and often poignant recount of the trials and trivulations of the Simon and Garfunkel team. Chronicling everything from their days in Queens as the teenaged duo Tom and Jerry, to their triumphant reunion concert at Central park, this book is truly a dedicated fan's guidebook. Although the stories were cleaned up quite a bit and it is a little out of date, (it leaves off at Paul Simon's 1986 album 'Graceland') the book's stories are relatively honest accounts of Simon and Garfunkel's careers. Although, I'm not a huge fan of the group's work, I found this book to be an informative and interesting read.

As a devoted fan, it's been difficult for me to accept the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel after all these years. Sure, you can go see their solo concerts every now and then, but it's never the same. Thanks to Joe Morella's detailed explanations on what was actually happening between the two singers, I can now understand and accept what eventually had to happen, no matter how painful. It was particularly heartbreaking to learn that their relationship was such that Simon destroyed the sound track of Garfunkel's voice when they were initially producing "Hearts and Bones" as duo album. That's important to me as I still expect to live several more decades. Talking in the same vain, The Beatles Anthology (the book) served a similar purpose, as far as I'm concerned. I can now live with less frustrations.