I enjoyed this book for several reasons. It inspired me to hear the stories of real dream teams and their leaders. These are real dream teams - no question. And it gave a very good introduction/overview of seven practices needed to move teams to become high performing teams. I also enjoyed it because it gave real life examples for each of its practices. It covers the basics and even introduces some new basics, which really makes it valuable. The book is a lot of hype and sales pitches for teamwork, and didn't cover much detail, or the nitty gritty hard work of making teams effective, but as an introduction, I haven't seen better. I'm using it as a textbook for a class and my students LOVE it. Well worth the read.

Real Dream Teams provides excellent insight into the underlying thread that makes teams win. The 7 practices are not only identified and articulated but related to amazing accounts of success. Truly inspiring, yet at the same time very practical. I feel more equipped to motivate and lead.

Skeptical of why supposed "teamwork" is so great, I have to say that this book gave the "Real" information behind the reasons why true TEAMS always experience success. We've all seen "Dream Teams", and wished we could be part of one, but this book tells HOW in real-life terms. Other books on this topic have a bunch of "rah! rah!" stuff in it to get you psyched up, but don't teach you how to implement teambuilding, but this book doesn't B.S. about all that. This book is for those that are SERIOUS about experiencing SUCCESS

I'm a sucker for any anthology that ends with Richard Petty accepting the National Book Award. . . This one also has a lot of heart. The first of what promises to be an annual collection of stories promoting "a rebirth of beauty and life-affirming values," the Silver Rose Anthology offers a strong mix of voices and attitudes. Not every story here will appeal to every reader (the opening story, for instance, does little for me), but the collection overall is outstanding. Personal favorites (in addition to George Singleton's outrageous "Richard Petty Accepts the National Book Award") include Robert Olen Butler's seamless "Rafferty and Josephine," Julie Orringer's touching "Note to Sixth-Grade Self" Patry Francis'"Limbe," and Patricia Hackbarth's provocative "A Brief Geological Guide to Canyon County."
Move over Bill Henderson, Katrina Keneson, and Larry Dark. Watson's in the house!

When Kevin Watson gathered the stories for this anthology, he was doing us a public service. This is a hard world: hearts break, and lives are shattered. Stories that don't deal with those realities aren't true to life. But there's so much more to life--and should be to art. These stories are "life-affirming" in the best kind of way: They don't stay sunk in gloom, but they don't stoop to easy answers. Each one shows us a new facet of getting on with life, making things work, following the path. The individual stories are excellent--I especially like the story by Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler, although it's one of several strong stories--and in their cumulative effect, the collection becomes (and I mean this in the best kind of way) inspirational.

i only gave this book 5 stars because i could not give it more. i went to a reading of one of the writers and soon went on to read the rest. it has a good mix of voices, but by far the best writer is Heidi Shayla and her story "The Coffin Builder's Romance", it is a beautiful story of quilts, boxes, and of course, coffins. it is my all time favorite anthology, and i would definetly recomend it.

"Under the Greenwood Tree" does not rank among Hardy's greatest novels, but it includes many moving moments and memorable characters. This first of the great series of Wessex novels introduces the reader to Hardy's beloved and changing countryside. The landscape and it's occupants are lovingly invoked, and the natural humour of the locals shines through.

In fact, the supporting characters are far more interesting than the hero and heroine. "Under the Greenwood Tree" is really a tale of young love, and although Hardy touchingly illustrates the yearning and naivete of his lovers, both characters remain at arm's length. This is particularly true of Fancy, the heroine, whose emotions do not become apparent until close to the tale's end.

Hardy would explore many of "Greenwood Tree's" themes more effectivly in later books, but this novel is more than just a warm-up act. The decline of English country life- one of Hardy's greatest themes- has never been as tellingly illustrated as in the sub-plot of the Mellstock Quire, and the contented, ironic ending rings as true as any of the fatalistic horrors to come.

The painter Poussin's famous title might stand as a rubric for this lovely book. Hardy views his cast of rustics through the prism of music: the old church stringed instruments choir is to be replaced with the spanking new organ. There is the added romantic interest of young musician Dave and the controversially female organist, Fancy Day.

This is a story of established customs breaking down through the interloper: a new vicar in town. Structurally divided into Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, it follows the natural rhythms of the earth and of society. Hardy revels in his descriptive powers.

Filled with nostalgia and that increasingly fashionable concept - "Englishness", and seasoned with wisdom and wit, this is truly fabulous - a mini-masterpice in a similar bag to, say, Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford".

"Under the Greenwood Tree" was deservedly Hardy's own favourite among his novels.

This is one of my favorite Hardy novels! His vivid descriptions bring the rustic setting, characters, and customs to life. It's like peering through a window into a world gone by. The story weaves together love, social position, and the slow displacement of old traditions with modern conventions. A delightful read!

If you're looking to expand your horizons into the world of poetry, this is an excellent place to start. A wonderful collection.

"You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Readers of All Ages" is a wonderful collection of Robert Frost's work. An interesting foreword by Noel Perrin discusses Frost's life and career. The book contains some poems which will surely be familiar to many readers--"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Mending Wall," etc. But that's just part of the treasures in this collection.

Overall, this collection shows Frost's concern with nature and rural life. Many different animals and plants are celebrated: ants, cows, birch trees, etc. Many of the poems have a beautiful musical quality, and the collection as a whole shows an interesting variety of meter and rhyme schemes.

I'll just mention a few of my favorite poems. "Acquainted with the Night" is a hauntingly melancholy sonnet. "A Patch of Old Snow" well demonstrates Frost's keen observing eye and way with figurative language. "The Rose Family" has a comic playfulness that I found quite Seussian. "Fireflies in the Garden" is a humorous short poem with an interesting AAA BBB rhyme scheme. Overall, an enjoyable and rewarding collection by an essential American poet.

I couldn't let April go without digging out this old favorite. This particular edition of Robert Frost's poetry--I mean, this particular one, with illustrations by Thomas W. Nason and in this particular format--is five years old, and you may have already come across it. If you haven't, I can't recommend it highly enough. Designed especially for young readers, the collection includes the most accessible of Frost's poetry, including the "You Come Too" of the title--which, as a phrase, seems one of the most magical and evocative in the language of childhood. Like Frost's work in general, many of the included poems nod knowingly at nature, and Thomas W. Nason's illustrations have a botanist's eye in their design and execution. This is perhaps my favorite book of poetry for older children.

This book is a great science book! It has some experiments that lots of kids will like! I rate this book four stars only because the pictures in the book aren't really good.

An outstanding collection of simple experiments for children of all ages. Can be used from elementary school on up using simple materials available at home to illustrate chemistry basics.

This, reader, is an unvarnished narrative of one doomed by the laws of the Southern States to be a slave. It tells not only its own story of grief, but speaks of a thousand wrongs and woes beside, which never see the light; all the more bitter and dreadful, because no help can relieve, no sympathy can mitigate, and no hope can cheer. -William Wells Brown, Clotel, or The President's Daughter

Clotel would have historic interest simply by virtue of the fact that William Wells Brown appears to have been the first African American to write a novel. But it's not merely a literary curiosity; it is also an eminently readable and emotionally powerful, if forgivably melodramatic, portrait of the dehumanizing horrors of slave life in the Ante-bellum South. Brown, himself an escaped slave, tells the story of the slave Currer and her daughters, Clotel and Althesa, and of their attempts to escape from slavery. The central conceit of the story is that the unacknowledged father of the girls is Thomas Jefferson himself.

There is an immediacy to the stories here--of slave auctions, of families being torn apart, of card games where humans are wagered and lost, of sickly slaves being purchased for the express purpose of resale for medical experimentation upon their imminent deaths, of suicides and of many more indignities and brutalities--which no textbook can adequately convey. Though the characters tend too much to the archetypal, Brown does put a human face on this most repellent of American tragedies. He also makes extensive use (so extensive that he has been accused, it seems unfairly, of plagiarism) of actual sermons, lectures, political pamphlets, newspaper advertisements, and the like, to give the book something of a docudrama effect.

The Bedford Cultural Edition of the book, edited by Robert S. Levine, has extensive footnotes and a number of helpful essays on Brown and on the sources, even reproducing some of them verbatim. Overall, it gives the novel the kind of serious presentation and treatment which it deserves, but for obvious reasons has not received in the past. Brown's style is naturally a little bit dated and his passions are too distant for us to feel them immediately, but as you read the horrifying scenes of blacks being treated like chattel, you quickly come to share his moral outrage at this most shameful chapter in our history.

GRADE : B

This is a exemplary novel that also deals with the harsh realities of slavery. This novel distinctly tells a true story, which is relevant to ALL Americans (believe it or not. This is a must reader for ALL.

The title is a little deceptive. In fact, this book is mostly about Chaucer and his era, 220 pages worth. Stevenson gets a fair shake at 106 pages. But Carlyle gets only 12 pages, and Tolstoy only four, and those a rather simplistic critique of his philosophy. So only buy the book if you're interested in the former two writers.

As in most of Chesterton's biographies, the story of the subject's life is of minor interest here, compared to a philosophical and artistic description of the subject's works in the context of his time and "modern times." Chesterton is interested in the writer as a thinker, as a creator, and as a moral agent. In defending Stevenson and Chaucer, he argues for his view of Christianity, poetry, love, and artistic humility. If you want his religious views in a purer form, go to the brilliant Orthodoxy or Everlasting Man. If you want a detailed narration of the lives of the writers in question, look elsewhere. And even for this style of biography, I think his book on Dickens was the best I've read. But I found his opinionated description and defense of Chaucer and his times also very interesting. And while he does not scatter brilliant sayings like rose petals at a wedding, as in his best books, (reading Everlasting Man, I wanted to copy every other sentence) a few blossoms do flutter down, like the following, which also explain Chesterton's method:

"The truly impartial historian is not he who is enthusiastic for neither side in a historical struggle. . .The truly impartial historian is he who is enthusiastic for both sides. He holds in his heart a hundred fanaticisms."

"The greatest poets of the world have a certain serenity, because they have not bothered to invent a small philosophy, but have rather inherited a large philosophy. It is, nine times out of ten, a philosophy which very great men share with very ordinary men. It is therefore not a theory which attracts attention as a theory."

Author, Jesus and the Religions of Man (July 2000)

d.marshall@sun.ac.jp

G.K. Chesterton, best known for his Father Brown detective stories, also stands out as a remarkable literary critic. He is most astute on Stevenson, his greatest influence, rightly seeing him as the first great writer to find beauty in a modern city. A must!

There is hardly any significant fact about viruses that missed-out in this edition of "Fields Virology". Page after page, this sound all-inclusive reference doles out authoritative information on both viruses and viral syndromes. From taxonomy to etiology, metamorphosis to replication; the analyses of this text is grand. The same applies to its attached CD-ROM. Its practical outlook was intended to benefit both microbiologists and pathologists. Bernard Fields and his colleagues made their mark with this book. It is a great effort.
However, most botanist may not be pleased to know that little attention was paid to plant viruses. Again, many potential buyers may be demoralized by the rather high price that this virology-set demands.

It covers all fields of virology. Perfect and wonderful ! Easy to understand. I really recommend this book to who is involved in biology

If you are looking for a book to bridge the gap between a beginner at linux and an admin this the the book to buy. And that is precisely the problem. This book assumes a fair amount of knowledge about linux. if you do have this level of knowledge, this book will bring you up to the level of a beginner admin, at which point you will have to go out and buy books on topics like Apache, Networking and so on. If however, you are prepared to read through some 1000 pages, and then an armful of other books, HOWTOs and man pages you will not be disappointed.

I would suggest this book to all Red Hat users who are bored with the beginner books and are looking to expand their knowledge of linux. The system admin information contained in this book is useful in the "real world". Thumbs up!

Exceptionally informative, well presented and very highly recommended, Red Hat Linux System Administration Unleashed shows readers how to configure and manage a Linux system to keep it running optimally in a 24x7 environment. The book covers advanced topics such as RAID, customizing the kernel, and hacker security. Readers will also learn the issues and skills related to running Red Hat Linux with other operating systems, internetworking Linux in a network setting with a large user base. Intermediate - Advanced, 1100 pages.

North and Thomas seek to explain the "rise of the Western world" by illuminating the causal importance of an efficient economic organization that guarantees a wide latitude of property rights and both incentives and protection for economic growth. Although they pay homage to both Marxian and neoliberal theory, they take a theoretical middle ground that privileges the sociopolitical backdrop of economic affairs (as opposed to solely private or class-based activity) and in doing so identifies the roots of modernization as far back as the 10th Century. To justify the novelty and originality of this approach, they write that most analysts have misidentified the symptoms of modern economic growth (technological change, human capital, economies of scale) as the causes. In doing so, previous scholars have failed to answer the question "if all that is required for economic growth is investment and innovation, why have some societies missed this desirable outcome?" (2). Their answer is that some societies (England and the Netherlands) were better than others (France and Spain) at providing an efficient economic organization that could guarantee conditions favorable to per capita economic growth among a rapidly growing population.

These conditions are conceptualized as mechanisms to reduce the gap between "social" and "private" rates of return, the key operating concepts in the analysis. Indeed, any old economic undertaking can provide private gains, but the "social" costs or benefits of this undertaking will affect the society's well-being, and a given discrepancy between the two rates of return means that a third party will absorb benefits or costs of this undertaking (an example would be the lack of intellectual property rights for inventions, leading to copying and piracy by third parties). A lack of strong property rights gives these third parties the institutional incentive or imperative to absorb social costs or benefits, and if private costs exceed private benefits then no rational chooser would ever undertake any risky new private economic activity (trade, inventions, investment, etc.). In a sense, then, the analysis becomes a refreshing neoliberal justification for strong government power.

Population growth serves as a convenient control variable for this analysis, because by holding population growth constant across all the countries concerned, the authors are able to pinpoint their causal variable (parity between private and social rates of return) in the cases where it spurred the rise of capitalism (England and the Netherlands). Population growth serves as a control because the authors show that the rise of the Western World happened only after the second population boom in the period being studied (16th Century) - the fact that it didn't happen during the first population boom (10th through 13th Centuries) means that population growth alone cannot be seen as accountable for modernity. But how did the two population booms differ from each other? Only during the second one were England and the Netherlands able to provide per capita growth by providing a climate of incentives and protections (rule of law, property rights, insurance companies, joint stock companies, etc.) that reduced the gap between private and social returns and laid the groundwork for the industrial revolution to begin.

The evidence provided to back up this causal argument comes in two primary forms: citations of historical scholarship (often quoting large passages out of encyclopedias) that are given a "new" economic spin, and a great deal of quantitative evidence, in the form of graphs and charts, to verify the cycles of population growth and economic growth and recession being identified. The authors admit that the quality of statistical data from the early period under study is rather dubious, but if one can grant the integrity of the historians that uncovered such incomplete and partial data then one can probably take this data as high-quality evidence of the trends being identified.

The authors are intentionally ambiguous about their theoretical implications. Clearly, they seek to refute Marx by showing that technological change alone could not have been the cause of capitalist development, since this change itself was a symptom of both population growth and a favorable institutional climate (what Marx would dismiss as the superstructure). However, it's not clear how much they wish to refute neoliberal theory, since they follow much of its logic regarding the role of incentives in economic growth. They admit that Adam Smith himself went too far in his laissez-faire beliefs, since a weak state would not be able to provide the kinds of efficient economic organization that our authors advocate. But their analysis does not clarify just how strong of a state is required for such organization, especially in the information age economy.

An outstanding book that clearly explains how 'our' current understanding of property rights can be found and more fully understood through the feudal history of western Europe. The breath and sweep of this book is truly impressive. The roots of how nations protect property rights are found in western feudal history. The case is made that economic efficiency, or more specifically economic prosperity, is dependent upon how a society defines and protects property rights. Therefore, differences in economic performance among nations can be in part explained by how that particular nation's notion of property rights evolved. North and Thomas compare and contrast the development of property rights and the resulting economic performance during the feudal period in several nations, such as France and England, to make their point. Transaction costs, intellectual property, and negative and positive externalities are also discussed.

I read this excellent book in preparation for the writing of my senior thesis. It is the most thorough and comprehensive tretment of the economic reasons for the rise of the western world. Every sentence is information dense, and I often found it necessary to reread sentences or even whole paragraphs to digest the wealth of information and analysis. That said, it should be kept in mind that firm backgrounds in both European history and economics are necessary prerequisites for a full appreciation of this book. Moreover, this book is a crucial but nevertheless incomplete explanation for the rise of the western world. In this sense, it has everything on something (economic history), but nothing on anything else. For a broader analysis, see McNeill, "The Rise of the West." (McNeill has something on everything, but everything on nothing. Get it?)