This is classic, and very very good. But it is way too short, and the "The Art of Wealth" translated by Thomas Cleary also, is alot better. Much good wisdom in this book.

This book is more philosophical than some others of similar titles and natures are. It views leadership and strategy through the lens of Taoist thinking, and as such is more concerned with the spiritual and ethical development of a leader. The book is broken into four sections: State and Society; Warfare; Peace; and Wisdom. Each is linked to the other, and follows the previous topic. There is a lot of discussion on the health of a given society, and how both the heads of a society as well as the people within it reflect and affect its overall health. There is a lot of focus on the causes and effects of warfare, as well as the ethics of waging war properly.

This is a small book, one that you can keep in your pocket or briefcase, perfect in size for reading on the train into work or while sitting in a doctor's office. It's full of essays that will make you think, and perhaps re-evaluate how you deal with certain situations in your life. It is worth buying, no question about that.

i read on the subject of eastern philosophy and the book of leadership and strategy is one that encompasses a typical taoist thought. very informative, and makes more sense than most holy books. thomas cleary is on my list of authors

I am a student at Florida State University, My major is Management Information Systems. This book covers many approaches to solving business problems. This book is easy to read and understand. It gives many real world examples and solutions using MS Excel.

He usado el libro en cursos de maestria en administracion. Mis estudiantes lo recomiendan por ser muy didactico, sin sacrificar profundidad en la presentacion de los temas.

This goes great with the hardcover textbook. It is full of problems and solutions to practice with.

I only have the fifth edition of this book, but it is probably similar to this edition. I used this book, when I was teaching statistics many years ago. The book is very clear and it explains each statistical concept very thoroughly.

As an online statistics tutor, I find myself referring to it all the time. It has all of the topics that are normally covered in a first course in statistics. It also has some very good chapters on elective topics such as nonparametrics, sample surveys, and quality control. I took many courses in these subjects in undergraduate and graduate school, and I find that this book is a good review for some of the things I've forgotten.

I have many statistics books both elementary and advanced. This is one of only two elementary books that I would purchase again (my teacher's edition is losing the binding!).

It is probably the most complete book on statistics that I have ever read at this level. I would certainly recommend this book to anybody who is taking statistics for the first time. I would also recommend this book to statistics majors who plan to go into teaching and need a good review text.

This is a definately worthwhile learning tool which can aid anyone who is attempting to tackle statistics for the first time. The methods and theories are concise, direct, and most of all, clearly stated. The authors bring you step by step through each procedure and then offer exercises to demonstrate the process while giving you the confidence to go on.

This book was puchased midway through the semester. At that time I was struggling to maintain a C average. With the help of this book I was able to close the semester with an 89% average.

After taking this course for the second time, I found that this book really explained concepts well. I had trouble learning statistics the first time, but this book adds real-life applications making it easy to learn why it works the way it does. If you are hesitant or jittery about this class...relax. This book will make your life easier.

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.

I think this story was very powerful in the sense that this 13 year old girl lived in the poverty of Pittsburgh, and she had the strength to go on. I try to understand what she was going through, and hopefully her life improved.

I thought that this book was very good. I actually felt her feelings when I was reading this book! But I can,t imagine a 13 year old girl living in the ghetto. I think she is very brave for surviving the ages of 16 mths.-13 years old in the ghetto. I was really inspired by this book it tells you that life isn't always easy, and that is very true. Especially in her case.

I shared this book with my class of emotionally disturbed students, half of whom once lived in "ghetto" neighborhoods in cities such as Los Angeles and New Orleans. They felt that Anika's story reflected much of their personal experiences regarding drugs, drunks, prostitution and violence. They hope she finally got out of the ghetto. I looked her up and her last known address was in Palmetto, Florida on 72nd Street. I hope that's a much nicer neighborhood than the Philly ghetto where she was imprisoned at the tender age of 13, over ten years ago. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that Anika has published another book. My class would be interested in the sequel.

I've read about a dozen or so soldier memoirs/diary accounts, and this one ranks as one of the poorest. I find most of these have a generic nature to them - seems like if you've read one, you've read them all! Mr. Holt wrote this in his latter years, so Goodness knows how the years have treated his memory of things, although a fine editing job by Cockrell and Ballard keep things on the straight and narrow. Much of the memoirs involve Holt's escapades that have little to do with the war effort. Lot of it reads like a Mark Twain tale, with Holt often relating some of the hijinks and sit-com like situations he experienced as a soldier.

Holt really conveys the attitudes, feelings, deep convictions, and courage displayed by those who fought in the war. (Not only on the Rebel side, but also on the Yankee side.) He also goes into some of the other reasons besides slavery, that caused the South to secede. Very well written and extremely interesting. It makes you feel as if you're right beside Holt following him as they go down in history. Also shows how life for the Confederate soldier was awfully harsh in the latter part of the war. Holt doesn't have shoes and is walking through snow along with men who are dying of starvation. Holt entertains readers by detailing what he and his group would do for fun, ie., sneaking away from camp to meet girls, etc.

I knew Holt was in the 16th Miss. Co. K. I was hoping it would mention Co. H where my relative fought, but it didn't.

Holt leaves for the war as a boy, but returns a man.

Great book. I highly recommend it.

Holt's memoirs are entertaining as well as informative. This book becomes hard to put down as you read. Very good details of life in the Army of Northern Virginia. He gives the "personal" side of the war so often left out by other memoirs. Reading this book was like having Holt tell you the story himself. Excellent.

We use this as the main text in my US History AP course. It's a good, fairly comprehensive, yet easy to read text.

I used this textbook as a junior in high school and recently purchased a later edition. Although the wonderful charts plotting the states and electoral numbers of the Presidential elections are long gone it is still a great reference book on our nations history.

My students really enjoyed this textbook because it was so inclusive of all American heritages. It is up-to-date with current trends in American history and has a little bit of everything your students might be interested in.

On sunny afternoon towards the end of June 96 I met a famous Austrian-American psychoanalyst in a bookstore near St Stephan's Dome in Vieanna. I am almost a fan of this analyst/author,after introducing myself (a psychiatrist attending an international conference where he was lecturing),he asked me what I was reading from Austrian authors and I mentioned the only name I knew -Arthur Schnitzler, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud. He said it was OK but had I heard about Thomas Bernhard ? That was the beginning of my relationship with T.B.. The only English title from T.B.'s works was "On the Mountain"; I bought a copy and as soon as I started reading I was in touch with a conglomerate of emotions- anger,"boredom", pain, sorrow, "emptiness" and a very skillfull reflection of probing the realm of self and others in terms of various levels of self representations. As for W.'s Nephew, I should admit it is rather an easy reading title amongst T.B.'s works. Here we have the extremes; body and psyche, mental "disorder" vs medical disease, living upto all or none... W.'s Nephew tries to undo wrongs by helping paupers to the extent of becoming peniless himself (which leads to another episode of "institutionalization" with his relatives' more than willing consent) or is able to mark an opera work with his applause (or silence) as fabulous (or kill it) at the end of a premier. While W.'s Nephew might be perceived as pure emotionality the protagonist represents the "rational mind". Their relationship is based on a very true friendship and conveyed on a stage of Vieennese cafes (Sacher, Havelka..), suburbs and hospitals. I recommenf this book for those who are interested in reading about human relations in a cotext of self and others during post modernity.

Upon doing some background research on William Gaddis, while reading his Recognitions, I came across a number of sources describing Willy's appreciation for the work of Thomas Bernhard. Thus I decided to reacquaint myself with this Austrian writer after more than a decade.

Just like Borges and Natsume, Thomas Bernhard was a taste that I acquired due to Glenn Gould mania. Still in Holland Cornelis Hofman, then head of the Glenn Gould Society, offered Bernhard's Untergeher, the Loser, to the fans of the "oracle of Toronto". Hooked on Bernhard from page one, I next read alte Meister and Holzfallen, old masters and woodcutters, resp.

Thomas Bernhard was a person who often came close to the level of misanthropy. Yet, this writer followed in a line of the likes of Shopenhauer, Strindberg and Celine, who led the readers into the darkest recesses of the tunnel never to forget the pay off by the light at their metaphorical ends. Bernhard will always be defined for me by one short moment in a rare television interview. Bored by the interviewer he walked over to his record player and started a recording of Bach's 2nd Brandenburg Concerto. After the music had played for a while he asked his interviewing victim "Do you know what is happening here?" The victim remained mute, invoking a look from Bernhard that was a mixture of disbelief and disgust to the nth degree. After some more music, while shaking his head answered himself with "everything".

Wittgenstein's Nephew is an archetypical Bernhard novella, both in content and style. The book contains a detailed analysis of the relationship between the writer and his best (and only true friend) Paul Wittgenstein, nephew of the famed philosopher. The first part of the book focuses on Paul and the friendship, while Bernhard uses these ingredients in the final part of the book as a "mirror" for self reflection/analysis. The book begins when both Bernhard and Paul are treated, for cancer and depression resp., at separate but close institutions. At the climax of this part, the writer who was so much looking forward to meeting Paul, finally meets what is left of his friend, and is devastated. Next, Bernhard looks back at the history of their friendship and pays special attention to the support Paul gave him on the occasion of receiving two literary prices and the premiere of one of his plays. In the end, Thomas, gives a brutally honest description of him avoiding Paul around the end of the latter's life and not attending the funeral of the very person who was so important for Bernhard to overcome a longtime suicidal depression. In the act, Bernhard leaves a wide array of casualties: the charlatans of the medical profession, the Austrian press/government/writers/actors and last but not least himself.

The prose is of the vintage Bernhard style that is easily identifiable after the very first sentence. Especially at the start, there is the favorite technique of providing a statement that is cut to the "philosophical bone" to later become the vehicle of a spiral thought of "evolution". Later on the style becomes more linear, without losing any of its poignancy.
While I read the original version, get it at the German Amazon site, I did compare it with this translated version. I would give the translator a 7 on a scale of 10. David McLintock has chosen textual accuracy over a translation that puts more emphasis on delivering the same type of "punch" as the original. You could say he prefers the letter to the spirit of the law. While the resulting translation is precise and careful, it is definitely "Bernhard Lite". Thinking in musical terms, you get Weber instead of the original Wagner.

As a novice to Bernhard reading this review, you may wonder whether the late Thomas would really be your cup of tea. All his anger, gloom, doom and hatred. Yet, Bernhard's dark vitriolic virtuosity gives the short intermittent moments of happiness a striking serene beauty, not unlike like the little flower in Picasso's Guernica.

It has been said that Gaddis' Recognitions is a more mature version of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Extending this metaphor, this as many of Bernhard's books represents a version of Holden, who while severely doubting the sense of the act, still hasn't given up on catching all together.

I am once again reading _Wittgenstein's Nephew,_ after having read it ten or so years ago. Now, years later, this slim book offers an even richer experience. I started it tonight and regret that I didn't begin it earlier in the day. It's short enough to be read in a rainy afternoon, yet its brevity belies writing that is simply astounding and straightforward in its honesty and beauty. (By "honesty," I don't mean the cesspool of lurid detail that many of today's writers wallow in and which I find totally repugnant. Bernhard had too much class for that.)

Truth be told, the reader has to like Bernhard's style to get far with him. Bernhard's rephrasing of mundane thoughts and incidents may seem tedious at first to the uninitiated, but he turns the same phrases over and over as if assessing their content and structure. Is it better to write the thought *this* way? That way? Both? Neither? All? How many writers do *that*!?

Bernhard had a genuine love of words (which I share), phrases, sentences and the way they all form an imposing BLOCK that fills the pages (no paragraph breaks). It doesn't seem to matter much that his topics are mundane: I sense he knew that, despite the adventures most of us have, a large part of life is spent alone with our thoughts. Who was it that said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Bernhard expands upon this bleak thought and comes up with art of very high order, indeed.

I have read all of Bernhard's work that has been translated into English, and I can recommend them all with 5 stars. I think this book (or perhaps _Concrete_) is the best starting point for those unfamiliar with this author. I especially love this book because the topic - friendship - is so touching and sensitively handled. Not a word seems wasted.

It was a pleasure to see a book published about J.D. Salinger's writing as opposed to a tell-all about the famous recluse. The editors sent the call out to young (or youngish) writers for their take on JDS.

Essays by Walter Kirn and Renee Steinke were delightful views of meeting up with Holden Caulfield from an entirely different background than the New York, prep, affluent Salinger character. Mr. Kirn hails from a small town in MN and thought of Holden as a dashing sophisticated fellow while Ms. Steinke is a preacher's daughter from Friendswood, TX and saw Holden as a fellow outsider. These were fond and enlightening essays that showed "Catcher in the Rye" was without boundaries.

Lucinda Rosenfeld's "The Trouble With Franny" takes an in-depth look at Franny Glass and how perceptions change when rereading as an adult. John McNally does an excellent job in discussing and illustrating the minor characters in JDS's work and how perfect the brevity and broad brush make even once-mentioned characters memorable. Co-editor Thomas Beller made me think about what it's like to live in "Salinger Weather," a closely reasoned, brilliant piece written with brio! Jane Mendelsohn has an achingly sensitive article, "Holden Caulfield: A Love Story," about how her first take on Holden was a romantic crush, but deepened into a bemused love as she gradually saw the tragedy and despair of Holden.

According to the Introduction, the writers were given carte blanche. Herein lies a problem. Some of the essayists took this to mean a great deal of talk about themselves with the merest nod to J. D. Salinger. One contribution was a fairish "New Yorker" type short story that had the heroine carrying a copy of "Franny & Zooey" as the sole link that I could see to the author. Another most unpleasant young lady was very proud of being young (a temporary condition at best), and allowed as to how she might give Holden a go.

As all the writers are professionals, I was unhappy with the amount of self-indulgence displayed in some (but not all) of the articles. Almost all of the writers were introduced to Salinger as required reading in the 8th or 9th grade. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Discovery by oneself is a much more powerful way to meet a new author, and your insights are your own.

The five excellent essays and a couple more I would rate as good workmanlike jobs make "With Love and Squalor" a good choice for a true Salinger lover.

This is one of the best books I've read about a writer. Each of the 14 articles gives us a different point of view on old J.D., and all of them come up with great insights.

My favorite is "Salinger and Sobs", written by Charles D'Ambrosio (we're sure going to hear this name a lot). This article is very sensitive and really touching. I think the guy understood Salinger - and Holden Caulfield - very deeply.

"The Salinger Weather", by Thomas Beller, is also fascinating. Take a look at this quote: "... there is the fear I have that if you're a Salinger fan, if you are living in the Salinger Weather, you can never have a relationship with another person. I mean a developed, adult, love-type relationship." He hit the mark! And that makes us think a lot.

Well, I had a lot of fun with "Good-bye, Holden Caulfield. I Mean It. Go! Go!", by Walter Kirn.

When it comes to the "with squalor" part of the book, Emma Forrest's piece is very charming. She says that Salinger quit publishing because he sort of knew he could not be one of the greatest world's writers, because he knew he was not so good as people would expect after "Catcher". That sounded like a challenge. And it is a shame that J.D. didn't take it on.

Anyway, if you're a Salinger freak, or if you just like a great reading, this book is indispensable.

This is an excellent survey of the influence(or lack there of in some cases) that J. D. Salinger has exercised over the literary world. Each essay is written by a contemporary writer who details his/her experience with Salinger and his work. All of the essays are very interesting and well done.
However, the essays in the book raise another question, the answer to which isn't found within the essays. What is the influence of Salinger on ordinary people? Is there any or has he had very little influence beyond the writing community. Has the experience of ordinary readers been similar to or totally different from the essay writers? Almost all high school and college students are required to read The Catcher in the Rye and somtimes Salinger's other works, this is where most of the essay writers became acquainted with him. Yet none of the writers attempt to really go beyond their own experience to examine that bigger question. That is too bad, the book would have been even more interesting had some attempt been made to examine this question. Maybe there needs to be a sequel that explores it.

Bailey and Kennedy's documents collection is now a standard in secondary schools and some colleges, and with good reason. The book is well-organized, contains excerpts short enough that students can read them as complements to a narrative text (or even in class), and the authors generally include multiple perspectives on controversial issues. The section on the Spanish/American/Cuban/Filipino war, for example, provides at least one document from each "side," making this a useful resource for those of us who teach.

Readers should beware, however, that subsequent revisions of the original edition have not kept pace with developments in historical inquiry. The book is very lean on social history, and there are almost no documents on cultural history. Furthermore, the collection is very idiosyncratic in its inclusion of African-Americans and women. For example, the text does not include an excerpt of the Brown v. Board decision of 1954 and omits any mention of second-wave feminism in its collection of documents on "the stormy sixties."

Perhaps the 10th edition will be more inclusive, but for now I'd suggest students -- and teachers -- of American history seeking for a supplementary documents collection keep looking.

As a secondary school social studies teacher I found this book very helpful. There are numerous sources, and each has an informative and interesting introduction. A broad range of sources include everyday people and politicians, cartoons, letters, and speeches. A must have for the social studies classroom!

I thought this was a wonderful collection of primary sources that really encouraged the further learning of History. Bailey does such a nice job with this book.