Over my 37 year career in business I have read many books on leadership and how to manage a company for success. PLAIN TALK ABOUT LEADERSHIP is more than your typical leadership/management book and it is written by someone that has REALLY run a large company and turned it into one of the most successful in its industry.

Just the fact that the author has "been there and done that" speaks volumes (no pun intended) in my opinion. PLAIN TALK is very well written but more importantly it contains down to earth advice. Advice that has actually worked for the author in real life, and advice that will be of benefit for anyone that wants to imporve their leadership/management skills. Not only does it cover important topics for all managers it contains Silver Bullets at the end of each chapter that serve as easy reminders for those who want to sharpen their leadership/management skills.

PLAIN TALK shoud be required reading for all those who want to be good leaders and managers.

Loved Bob Bailey's book, Plain Talk About Leadership. Thought it had info for all endeavors of life. Quick and easy to Read. Loved the Silver Bullets. This book is not only for the business world, but High School students would get value from the book as well. I highly recommend it. Marilyn Bumpus Washington Court House, Ohio

Bob Bailey provides many illustrations from his successful career to "hammer home" his points on Foundation of Leadership Being Great Communications. Mr. Bailey reinforces the importance of open, face to face, frequent and repetitive communications in creating an effective organization. I provided copies of this book to all my managers.

POWER GOLF FOR WOMEN is a perfect follow-up to GOLF IS A WOMAN'S GAME. If you liked GOLF IS A WOMAN'S GAME you will love this book!!

I love the idea of the power assembly. On my practice swings, at the top of my backswing I do what I call assembly checks and it's really helped my game. Definitely one of the best instruction books out there. The stigma of being a woman's instruction book may be a deterrent, however this book stacks up and surpasses any book written by Leadbetter, Hogan and the rest. Give this book a try and focus on your power assembly and I bet you'll see a big improvement in your distance..I did!

I stumbled across this book by accident. As a male golfer I was looking for a traditional book on power. Someone had recommended this book in another review and I thought what the heck I'll give it a try.

This is perhaps the finest instruction book I have read. The author uses terminology I have not heard before such as "plane shifters" "The power assembly" etc. yet makes the book both easy and enjoyable. Understanding what the author calls the "power assembly" and implementing it my swing has made all the difference. For all these years I have had the wrong concept of the power source in the golf swing.

If you are trying to add distance to your game or even for a general understanding of the golf swing this is your book....believe me its worth every penny.

I'm very glad to see this one back in print. From their name, I'm guessing the new publisher is one of those that caters to students of military and naval history. Certainly the other reviewers seem to focus on McKenna's depiction of the lives of men serving on a U.S. Navy river gunboat in the 1920s.

And indeed this aspect of The Sand Pebbles is very well done. The whole book is worth reading just for one finely-crafted scene where the other sailors bet a foul-mouthed messmate he can't tell a story without cursing. He wins the bet, but on his own terms.

But there's more to this book then the lives a few seamen. It's about their interaction with the strange, wonderful Chinese civilization around them. And with China itself, which is, in a sense, the most important character in the book.

McKenna motivates this action by centering the book around an intelligent but half-educated hero, a rebellious man who joined the Navy to stay out of jail, and who transferred to the river patrol to escape from the hierarchy and rituals of ocean-going ships. Lacking his shipmates' contempt for the Chinese, he becomes fascinated with their lives and culture. This fascinatation become the source of many complicated interactions between him, his shipmates, and the Chinese, leading to friendship, love, conflict, and tragedy.

Another fascinating character is the boat's skipper, an aging Lieutenant Junior Grade. On one level, he is off-balance martinet, overly fond of military ritual, striving to achieve a strange personal state of grace -- with disasterous results. But he's also a keen observer of the events and people around him, and his inner conversations about them make for compelling reading.

Most people know this story from the Steve McQueen movie, which reduced all the complexity of McKenna's story to Vietnam-era historical guilt tripping. A pity, because this book contains much insight about the interaction between China and the west, an interaction to often reduced to simple political cliches.

The Sand Pebbles is the story of a small ship, on a small river deep in the heart of China. Unknown by most of the rest of the world but home to the crew of the ship. McKenna, a former Asiatic Fleet Sailor, describes life in the river gunboats of the 1920s with an accuracy and authenticity that is amazing. I could almost feel the heat of the engines and the aromas from the galley.

The book is a study of men in the Navy. They are far from the public eye, doing a job deemed essential by someone in Washington. They are essentially feared by the Chinese and despised by the American missionaries they come into contact with. It must have been a brutal emotional duty to carry out. Yet many men loved it. They spent their careers on the rivers and retired there when their time was up in the Navy.

Jake Holman, the central figure, is not better or worse than most other Sailors of that time. His motivation for joining the Navy were "...Army, Navy or reform school..." and so into the Navy he went. He is a competent machinest mate but has few real people skills. He is a loner on the outskirts of the Navy world. He has bounced from ship to ship and has now reached the end of the line. But even Holman makes friends in the ship as he tries to adapt to his surroundings.

It is an interesting look at the gunboat navy. The crew did military duties and drills but the day to day ship's husbandry were done by Chinese men. Is it any wonder the crew loved China duty once they got there.

One might say that the conclusion of the book is confusing and leaves you feeling troubled. Well it fits with the mission of the gunboat sailors and I think is perfect. Antiimperialists may condem the book and the subject but it was a real part of the American Navy and deserves to be remembered and respected.

The Sand Pebbles is an immensely rich and readbable book. Set in the early early 20th century on the inland rivers and lakes of China, the book shows gunboat diplomacy on the eve of revolution in China. The lives of sailors, officers, missionaries, coolies, and revolutionaries intertwine in a complex drama filled with action towards what some may see as a tragic ending. But in the tragedy, a country is born. This is excellent reading material.

Some of the appeal for me comes in identifying with Jake Holman. Where Jake begins with a love of machinery and an empowering mastery of it, I suppose to some part I originally felt the same way about computers and software. Jake transcends this, albeit tragically, in the book. Will you?

This is the first book in the series that I have read. I was looking for a good book to read at the library and decided to get this one. It was a good choice! Great book. I think Miguel and Leah are PERFECT for each other! I am now hooked on these books. Ms. Roberts you did an excellent job! read it!

This series has me hooked on it!It gets better with eveery book.So,if you havent read any of the clearwater crossing books,I suggest you read them before reading this,or else you will have no idea what is going on!In this book,Secrets come out.And trust me y=they are interesting.IM interested myself in starting a fan club for this series so feel free to e mail me!(at the top)Ok,so lets talk about the book.Leah has just become a model(no suprise to me:),Peter and Melanie become closer than usual,and Jenna is bummed,over her life basically.leah and Miguel do not want to keep their realtionship a secret anymore.

I really like this series! It's great! I can't believe it's ending at book 20! Book 19 just came out. Anyways. This is a great series. A thing I like most about it is how everyone in this book likes someone. Nicole likes Jesse. Jesse likes Melanie. Melanie likes Peter. Peter likes Jenna. Jenna likes Miguel. Miguel likes Leah. Leah likes Miguel. And, well, Ben, he's just out there, but that's ok. Ok, now about this book:

It's really good! Leah and Miguel want to tell Eight Prime about them but Miguel wimps out and refuses and they get into a big fight about it. Melanie and Peter start hanging out a lot, and Jenna gets majorly jealous. Ben's trying to fit in, and Nicoles just jealous of everything: Melanie, Leah...etc. Overall a very good book. Recommend you reading the whole series.

Jack Aubrey falls upon hard times, beginning with the apparent failure of his luck when a long, long chase across the Atlantic from the West Indies after a privateer ends with the quarry slipping into port just ahead of him. The old SURPRISE is for the knackers -- she's been living on borrowed time for the past two volumes -- and Jack seems headed that way, too, after falling into a cunning trap that ends with him being roasted in a political show-trial for trying to manipulate the stock market. Stephen Maturin's fortunes, on the other hand, seem to be rising. He has found himself unexpectedly wealthy and he comes into information that answers the disturbing questions arising in his recent intelligence operations. As always, O'Brian shows himself a master of the details of early 19th century British society, language, and general style, . . . but his plotting is unfortunately becoming almost pro forma. A pretty good story, but far from his best.

The eleventh installment in Patrick O'Brian's excellent series of naval adventures finds Aubrey and Maturin back in Britain as their journey to the Pacific, begun in the previous book, comes to a conclusion. Aubrey, always a minnow among land sharks when he has money in his pocket, finds himself innocently ensnared in a complicated stock exchange scam that may have been set up by Maturin's enemies in the intelligence game. The complex case and courtroom scene, O'Brian assures us in a note, are based on a real case. The pillory scene is powerful, as Bonden gruffly clears the square of all but sailors, and officers and seamen of all stripes come to show Jack their love and respect.

After several books at sea, "The Reverse of the Medal" brings readers back to the Admiralty in London with its complicated and layered intrigues, back to Ashgrove and Sophie, and back to Maturin's espionage machinations. As always, O'Brian's wonderfully intelligent prose and satisfying grasp of historical nuance captures the reader in little pockets of 18th-century Britain. The entire Aubrey/Maturin series is great, and this installment is no exception.

I find Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series a challenge to read, albeit an excellent, well-connected long novel. I could not put down the eleventh in the series, The Reverse of the Medal, once I began it. Although most of this book occurs on land, where Captain Jack Aubrey is naive and awkward, O'Brian exploits this: the force of the plot is as strong as the earliest, more typically naval stories in the saga. The climax brought tears to my eyes, and the last chapter's denouement evoked a cheer for Maturin and his dear friend. I went right to the Web to order the next two novels.

As the parent of two sons, 8 and 12, I have tried everything! This book is very clear and readable with lots of practical examples. Best of all, it puts the responsibility on the child--right where it belongs. Dr. MacKenzie communicates in a lighthearted and logical fashion. This book will begin making EVERYONE'S life easier within a week of starting to read it--it should be issued to parents at their childs birth! Easy to follow and use--I can't recommend it highly enough!

Of the many books I have read, I have found this book to be very enlighting, entertaining and informative. Not only are you reading the chapters, but at the same time, you are visualizing how to put the recommendations into practice. The many uses of examples and the Parent Study Group Questions help drive the nail home.

While our grandparents and parents did the best they could, I find that, after reading this book several times, we can do much better.

This book should be issued to all new parents! Setting limits is an easy to read book and it really teaches you how to become a great parent. I'm a father of two kids ages 4 and 8 and I just can't get over how quickly they responded to the methods I learned in this book.

Like a needle in a hay stack; that is how I always felt among people in the world; yes, I have been a victim of rankism and I have been very aware of it, but the social consensus is so strong that it is very hard to find somebody that will admit this is going on. Everyone seems to believe that rankism is a normal part of life. I see friends suffering because of it, and yet, they swallow the angst and sadness and go on about their lives making themselves believe that it is somehow their fault whatever is happening. Maybe someday they will get to be an authority and make someone else suffer right? PLEASE EVERYONE, READ THIS BOOK!!
Fuller did a great job in bringing an awareness of rankism, though I felt he did not let himself go completely in his writing. Though he argues that rank itself is not the problem, and that the abuse of rank is the culprit; I believe rank itself causes people to automatically abuse it--rankism. Yes, I agree that rank is important in a society but most people in our society have an ingrained belief that to have high rank automatically equals to have authority over someone, in that authority means that whoever is under you is obligated to do whatever you want. Buy this book,read it, and have your whole family, friends, and rankists in your life read it too.

I bought Somebodies and Nobodies in addition to Collins' Good to Great and am deeply grateful that i found both these books at the same time. Collins showed how "great" companies eliminate rankism from the work environment, but Fuller's book gives even more context and breadth to this issue.

This book clearly and powerfully puts into words an underlying issue that takes great courage to expose--that discrimination based on rank is no more justified than descrimination based on race or gender.

Throughout this book Fuller shows that he aims to protect others' dignity as he would his own.

Many thanks to both these authors for their contributions to my personal and professional life!

As I read Fuller's Somebodies and Nobodies, I realized that I have myself pulled rank and been the victim of rank-pulling. But more importantly, many problems on the world stage today could be address, maybe even solved, by taking a 'rankist' perspective: North Korea's illogical stance against the world, Osama Bin Laden's attack on the US and Bush's response in attacking Iraq - each of these are generated by issues of 'dignity' and 'indignation' as Fuller describes them. Read this book!

This book is an absolutely fascinating read for anyone who came into contact with Equinox International, the Multi-Level Marketing company that flared across America in the early 1990s and lured thousands of Americans into handing over their money, time, and, most often, their self-respect in pursuit of quick fortunes. Equinox, led by charismatic leader Bill Gouldd, used slick promotional materials and pop psychology-based training techniques to induce thousands of people to purchase environmentally friendly products(water filters, vitamins, hair and skin care products) to resell to friends and family for profit. Eventually the US Government shut down Equinox for legal and ethical improprieties and fined Gouldd millions, but not before many people who had bought into the Equinox dream were left with empty pocketbooks and caseloads of unsold Equinox products collecting dust in their garages.
Rob Styler, a former Equinox Executive Director who was part of Gouldd's inner circle, sheds light on the machinations of this defunct company. Through a first person narrative Styler illustrates the way Gouldd helped prey on the naivete and blind desire of people; at its peak, Equinox was convincing lawyers, nurses, insurance agents, and other professionals to leave their stable careers to join the Equinox dream. Inevitably, the inherent flaws of Multi-Level Marketing led to the vast majority of Equinox participants making little to no money while Gouldd and a select few walked away with bundles. Styler interweaves his personal experience with the larger Equinox story to shed light on the workings of this simultaneously fascinating and horrifying company.
Styler's style is accessible and quick; I read the book in one sitting without strain, finding it difficult to put it down. The only minor quibble is Styler's devoting the last section of the book to describing a New-Age spiritual transformation on top of a South American mountain; this is the least interesting part of an otherwise fascinating book. Nevertheless, the majority of the book is devoted to recounting the Equinox story, which is a telling story of the perversion of the American Dream. If you didn't experience Equinox in the 90s this book will still be interesting, but for those who came into contact with the company, it is absolutely stunning. Kudos to Styler bringing the truth to light.

I was involved with Equinox for several years. Since I lived on the West coast at the time, I met and/or knew many of the people in Rob's book. He gives an honest account of his experience with NSA, Equinox and Bill Gouldd in particular.

Most mlm books are either pro-mlm or anti-mlm. Very few things are all good or all bad. This book shows both sides and exposes the reason for the eventual downfall of what once was the fastest growing company in America. It is a real eye opener for those folks who think that network marketing doesn't require any real work. It also shows you the warning signs of bad leadership.

Read, learn and enjoy! It's a real rollercoaster ride!

I did a short stint with Equinox and quickly got out after realizing the company is all about getting someone to cough up $5,000, and having them ask their friends and family to do the same. Robert Morgan Styler shares his Equinox story with honesty. It doesn't read like victim fiction; he tells honestly of his own shortcomings, his desire to make money, and where that road led to with Bill Gouldd "guiding" him. The anecdotes about Bill Gouldd would be shockingly unbelievable if you had never listened to the man in person. I saw him at a conference and he's exactly as Styler describes him: arrogant, cruel, power hungry. He may have money, but he has no class, and I'd be surprised if he has any real friends, with the way he abuses people. If you've ever been in Equinox (or still are), you must read this honest account of what one man went through to get to the top, and what he found once he got there. I admire Robert Morgan Styler for being willing to be so transparent in his book.

The Byron & Fuller provides a serious introduction in mathematics of classical and quantum physics. This book is designed to complement graduate-level physics texts and one of its goal is to introduce the physicist to the language and style of mathematics. Consequently, this book may be really useful to people with strong skills in physics and maths. No doubt that they will have fun reading the theory of vector spaces.
For the others, just like me, not really specialized in physics and maths, but maybe just curious, this book can bring you a lot of fun too. It reminds you of what you may have studied a few years ago... And more than that, you cover with this book other fields of mathematics that are not taught to non specialized students like Hilbert space, quantum physics, theory of analytic functions, Green's functions and integral equations.

To conclude, if you're curious about mathematics and physics, you should buy this book. If you're good at maths and physics, you should already own this book.
And now, with this special price, do the maths!

This book is not, and I repeat, IS NOT for the inexperienced. This book is a GRADUATE LEVEL TEXT on mathematical physics. If you are an undergraduate student taking a physics class, this book will be of no use to you. I recommend that anyone interested in purchasing this book have a somewhat decent amount of mathematical background. I personally recommend Calculus I-IV, Advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra.
If, though, you have this background, then this book is may just be for you. It is concise, to the point and presents a clear and well written discussion of mathematical physics.
I just felt that before you dive, head first, into the world of mathematical physics, somebody needed to warn you about what you were getting yourself into.

This book introduces the reader to the basic mathematical structures of theoretical physics: mainly Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetic Theory, And Classical Mechanics. I used this at UC San Diego for a year long graduate course on Mathematical methods in physics and engineering. If one has the time, there is really a lot to be gained by carefully studying this book. A big part of the book is geared toward developing in detail the mathematics of the Quantum Theory. This is a good thing because in my experience most QM books are too eager to "get to the physics". It is true that you can get by with a superficial understanding of functional analysis and still do QM, but this book will give you an immensely deeper understanding of the underlying structure of the theory. In particular, the treatment of Green's functions and integral equations is good. There is chapter on Group Theory and it's uses in QM. Also is a chapter on Complex analysis, although it is a wise idea to read a book entirely devoted to this subject. Overall, I like this book very much.

I hesitated to begin this book, since I know nothing of golf and suspected it would be full of golf jargon I would have a difficult time deciphering. I was right, but the author so splendidly weaves a touching tale around the golf, that I fell in love with the story almost right away. Bobby Jobe is a professional golf player, playing the PGA tournament one day and being a pompous jerk to his caddie as usual, when suddenly a tragedy turns Bobby completely around. It doesn't help his caddie however, whom he calls "Greyhound" and whom he initially blames for the tragedy. "Greyhound" is actually our hero in this book and he is a figure to be reckoned with. He is as real and as life-like as an author can make a character, and he is also lovable and a great golf caddie. His real name is Henry Mote, he initially caddies for the arrogant and abrasive Bobby Jobe, until that one moment in time when a tragedy changes them both forever. The tides get reversed, and Henry finds himself in an awkward situation when he is asked to once again caddie for Bobby Jobe, but in a very different capacity. This book has everything you need for a great escape, buy it today!

I'll be honest, I don't like fiction books. But I've got to tell you, A Mulligan for Bobby Jobe has changed my mind. Mr. Cullen adds so much detail that the reader comes away with a sense of actually being in touch with the cast of limited characters and the events taking place. The twists and unpredictable turns make the book a truly unforgettable experience. You don't need to be a golfer or a fan of golf to enjoy this novel. Can lightning strike twice? Absolutely!

If you love golf or even if you don't, this book is for you. It is probably the best book I have read EVER. It is that good. It has every thing. It is funny,touching, and makes any other novel pale in comparision. You know when a book is so good it keeps calling your name? Well, this screams your name until you drop everything and go read it. I have read good books, but nothing ever this good. Go buy this NOW!