Book Description
Harry's first six years of magic, mystery, and adventure at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are now available in a handsome hardcover boxed set.
Includes books one through six: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; and the most recent addition to the bestselling series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Customer Reviews:
HARRY POTTER!.......2007-10-05
These books are a must read for all ages. Even if you are skeptical, try them out. I promise you will love them.
Simply Great.......2007-09-27
Simply Great worth the time to read. I know everyone says this about every book but they are soooo much better than the movies.
Outstanding delivery time.......2007-09-21
Just wanted to say how pleased I was with the quick delivery of the Harry Potter Book Set. It arrived quicker that I expected it to and was exactly what I was looking for.
Harry Potter Hardcover Box Set Books 1-6.......2007-09-16
I bought this set for my 23 year old for her birthday. Two of our other children enticed her into reading Harry Potter. She really wanted the set and so the entire family pitched in to get it for her. She loved it. She was so excited. I have read the Harry Potter series myself except for number seven, which I am going to do soon. The entire series deserves a five star rating. Ordering from Amazon was easy, fast and efficient. The books were shipped promptly and were everything Amazon said they would be. I love ordering from Amazon and will continue to do so in the future.
Awsome Books!!.......2007-09-15
These Harry Potter books are very awsome to read young and adults alike!! I purchased these as set and glad it did. Will be treasure forever!! Recommend to Read!!
Book Description
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, "the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect" (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, "The Worst Hard Time" is "arguably the best nonfiction book yet" (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.
Customer Reviews:
Unbelievable!.......2007-10-03
This book was fantastic. Although the majority of books I read are fiction, I'm not hesitant to read good non-fiction. This book was so well written that it reads like a taut novel. Along with Seabiscuit and The Devil in the White City, it is one of the best historical books I've read. Very well researched and thought out. You almost can't believe that this could have actually happened. You feel like you know the characters, and you certainly root for them even though you seemingly know how it will turn out. I would recommend this book to any avid reader - fiction or non-fiction.
Hopefully, we will learn from our past.......2007-10-02
This is an important event in US history that is so relevant today, supplying more fuel for both side of the ongoing debate on global warming.
I found it a bit difficult to stay connected to the characters. In spite of that, the story remained interesting, showing the plight and hardships endured by the generation before us, and bringing us an awareness of our fragile ecosystem.
Eye Opening and Hard to Put Down.......2007-09-25
A must read for history buffs and readers in general. Information places the midwest, its people, and past in an entirely different light of appreciation. (Absolutely Facinating)!
Fine story, good history, a little light on analysis.......2007-09-18
Egan's *Worst Hard Time* is intriguing and largely well done, if a bit relentless. Granted, he's writing about a phenomenon that dragged on for years, repeatedly raising and dashing ever-slimmer hopes; the people who lived the "Dust Bowl" years were literally worn out, but Egan needed to do something more with the material than recreate that sensation. Toward the last third of the book, in particular, a kind of sameness creeps into the narrative, as if Egan didn't really know what else to say -- which I suspect is connected to my sense that he relied too much on too few sources (including a diary that he overuses) -- and his slightly jerky style gets distracting (he's not a great one for writing transitions). For me, one failing is that Egan never explains, in any specific way, the origin and cause of the "black dusters" and other freakish weather phenomena of the "Dust Bowl" era. He tells us that the dust storms came because the topsoil had been carved off by overfarming (and then aggravated by the abandonment of unsuccessful farms), but a meteorological or ecological explanation - even a nontechnical one - wouldn't have been a bad idea. His description of the CCC efforts at re-grassing the plains left me with significant questions that he doesn't answer: Given that the dust storms continued unabated throughout the effort, what was the government's strategy for protecting the newly planted grass during the time it would have taken for it to mature enough to hold the soil? And how did they water it? In addition, I'd have appreciated a more substantive "bring us up to date" chapter at the end that explained more clearly what happened in the wake of the human and policy failures of the Dust Bowl. Nor would a little class analysis have hurt -- other than wagging a kind of general finger at get-rich schemes perpetrated both by private interests and by the government, he seems careful not to accuse anybody too directly of creating an ecological disaster, of maiming (psychologically and literally) and killing tens of thousands of people, or of engaging in a kind of class warfare that embodied the ferocious social Darwinism of Depression-era capitalism. Finally, I'd just point out that the book isn't really the story of "survivors" of the Dust Bowl; there are essentially no survivors, and this is no movie-of-the-week tale of grit, courage, and heroism that win out in the end. The people Egan follows are bleak and broken, and their desperation is palpable. *Worst Hard Time* begs the question: Is there any redemption? I think Egan knows there was none, but he seems loathe to say it in so many words.
A Good but flawed Bookend.......2007-09-03
Timothy Egan's _The Worst Hard Times: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl_ has been a nice bookend to other books I have read on the Depression. These include Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States, John T. Flynn's The Roosevelt Myth, Jim Powell's FDR's Folly, and Friedman & Schwartz' A Monetary History of the United States. Egan's book provides a human perspective on momentous times.
Although Egan alludes to the state's complicity in the conditions that produced those hard times, and at the end acknowledges the bad long term effects of FDR's intervention, he definitely sets FDR, Hugh Bennett, and farm policy as the heroes of his story.
The state's complicity lies in first running the natives out, then establishing incentives to farm the land rather than use it for grazing. The long term effect has been to establish detrimental farm subsidies. On the one hand, price supports promote overproduction of commodities like cotton, which the government then buys and dumps, depressing world markets and further impoverishing African farmers. On the other hand, convoluted policies such as sugar price supports, ethanol incentives, and ethanol import tariffs are intended to raise corn prices, further impoverishing Mexican peasants. Roosevelt also pursued wide-ranging efforts to dam rivers and pump the Ogallala aquifer dry, environmentally destructive programs that will come to be hung around the neck of "capitalism". It is a sad reflection on people who worship FDR's policies as the salvation of impoverished American farmers while ignoring the ill effect of those policies on the impoverished farmers in the rest of the world and on our own environment.
Egan's book highlights the real stories of real people. In the context of those times, when it seemed reasonable for the state to encourage homesteading and farming prior to the closing of the West, when the prospect of prolonged drought seemed dim prior to 1932, when the invoice for the social cost of their actions was not yet due, what might have happened to those people in the absence of the New Deal? We don't know, but Egan's stories are valuable details of what did happen to them.
Still, one cannot help but think that Egan has absorbed just a little too much of the high school version of those events. The high school version is that the farmers were too dumb to know what they were doing, so FDR hired some smart men who invented and taught contour plowing and the use of trees for windbreaks, and then they paid the farmers to let some fields go fallow. It is an unusually common myth.
The conservation measures discussed had been around long before FDR took office. Contour plowing in particular was practiced by the ancient Phoenicians. In the early 1800s, Thomas Jefferson had promoted it on his own farm. These techniques were not unknown to moderns: Pancho Villa promoted contour plowing.
Egan relies on an article, "Small Farms, Externalities and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s" by Zeynep K. Hansen and Gary D. Libecap, published by the NBER. Among other things, the article discusses erosion as an example of several kinds of externality. Suspension of fine particles was costly to farmers as lost soil, but they also caused health problems to humans and livestock. Saltation and creep are externalities in which the topsoil from one farm is deposited on another farm, not only killing the wheat but also burying the downwind farm's erosion control stubble. In the article, they note that prior to the creation of the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), "The two leading erosion control methods in the 1930s were strip cropping with strip fallow and windbreaks of trees or brush. Both provided barriers to lower surface wind velocity and carrying capacity, but the former was more prevalent because trees could not be grown in many parts of the plains. Strip fallow also had the advantage of building up soil moisture and roughness, which reduced erodibility, whereas tree windbreaks actually absorbed moisture from surrounding ground." This is interesting because it shows that (1) Dust Bowl farmers did practice conservation before FDR saved them, and (2) one of the fables from the high school version, FDR's commitment to using trees to block the wind, was not only a failure, but probably caused more damage. To his credit, even Egan describes the tree idea as a failure.
Further in the article, Hansen and Libecap explain, "To completely combat regional erosion, all of the cultivated acreage in a topographical area of similarly erodible soil would have to be included in a "wind erosion unit" of 50,000 to 500,000 acres or more. The optimal farm sizes for addressing wind erosion and production, however, were not the same. Most estimates by agricultural economists and extension agents in the 1930s of appropriate production sizes for the region suggested two sections of land, 1,280 acres, depending on location in the plains. Few scale economies could be realized beyond that size. Nevertheless, in the 1930s, most farms were smaller than the prescribed levels for optimal production. The Great Plains was covered by hundreds of thousands of small farms. This condition was largely a legacy of the Homestead Act that limited claims to 160 to 320 acres when the region was settled between 1880 and 1925." This is the same opinion reported by Egan of Hugh Bennett, the first director of the SCS. The area covered by Egan's story was formerly the domain of Plains Indians who thrived on grass-fed buffalo. The first whites to successfully live on the land ran the XIT cattle ranch. It was government policy to replace both with small claims farmers, and that -- aside from running off the natives -- is the key cause of the Dust Bowl. According to Bennett's report (quoted from Egan), "'Mistaken public choices have been largely responsible for the situation,' the report proclaimed. Specifically, 'a mistaken homesteading policy, the stimulation of war time demands [World War I] which led to over cropping and over grazing, and encouragement of a system of agriculture which could not be both permanent and prosperous ... The Federal homestead policy, which kept land allotments low and required that a portion of each should be plowed, is now seen to have caused immeasurable harm. The Homestead Act of 1862, limiting an individual to 160 acres, was on the western plains almost an obligatory act of poverty.'"
Egan repeatedly suggests that farmers were ready to try anything, and holds up the federal program as their savior, but fails to note that early federal programs were failures. It wasn't until the initiative fell to the states that the programs succeeded. Hansen and Libecap explain, "Given the mixed incentives to participate in erosion control, the response to calls for voluntary collective action was limited. Indeed, the SCS noted a lack of voluntary farmer participation in the erosion control programs outlined in the demonstration projects. ... More direct and coercive government intervention came in 1937 with inauguration of Soil Conservation Districts (SCDs) that had the authority to force farmer compliance and the resources (subsidies) to cover the costs of erosion control. The SCDs were local government units and required state legislation for establishment." According to Hansen and Libecap, "Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, at the center of the Dust Bowl, enacted wind erosion laws in 1935", but Egan fails to note those, favoring the pro-FDR narrative.
Federal policies created the conditions for this environmental and social disaster. That is not a theoretical, paper claim: even Hugh Bennett agreed that the federal Homestead policy was a mistake. The federal SCS was a failure while the state-led SCDs succeeded. The Nature Conservancy and not the federal government pioneered the use of prescribed fire to maintain the health of the grasslands. Grass-fed buffalo are being reintroduced to the grass-fire-buffalo ecosystem as a sustainable food source. It turns out that laissez-faire would have been the best policy and that federal programs have only made things worse. I wish Timothy Egan had paid more attention to that part of the narrative.
Average customer rating:
- Ack
- Worthy addition to the Stone sagas...
- Jesse please get over that low life ex wife , or i am firing you!
- Jesse Stone in Paradise
- Jesse Stone with Sunny Randall reprised
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High Profile
Robert B. Parker
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0399154043
Release Date: 2007-02-06 |
Book Description
The murder of a notorious public figure places Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone in the harsh glare of the media spotlight.
When the body of controversial talk-show host Walton Weeks is discovered hanging from a tree on the outskirts of Paradise, police chief Jesse Stone finds himself at the center of a highly public case, forcing him to deal with small-minded local officials and national media scrutiny. When another dead body-that of a young woman-is discovered just a few days later, the pressure becomes almost unbearable.
Two victims in less than a week should provide a host of clues, but all Jesse runs into are dead ends. But what may be the most disturbing aspect of these murders is the fact that no one seems to care-not a single one of Weeks's ex-wives, not the family of the girl. And when the medical examiner reveals a heartbreaking link between the two departed souls, the mystery only deepens.
Despite Weeks's reputation and the girl's tender age, Jesse is hard-pressed to find legitimate suspects. Though the crimes are perhaps the most gruesome Jesse has ever witnessed, it is the malevolence behind them that makes them all the more frightening. Forced to delve into a world of stormy relationships, Jesse soon comes to realize that knowing whom he can trust is indeed a matter of life and death.
Customer Reviews:
Ack.......2007-08-17
Thirty-five years ago Mr. Parker started a series about a guy who thought and and acted differently, and the books were fresh and clever. The thing about the books was the way the charaters thought about things, and that was expressed through dialog. By now, we all know very well how RBP's chraacters think, so there's really nothing new to say, unless we start having the characters say things that no person on earth would say. If you can sit through this without wishing that most of the protagonists would be stabbed or beaten, God bless you.
Worthy addition to the Stone sagas..........2007-08-09
First, it might help if the readers understand that I get my Parker books from the library, so I have not invested the typical $20 or so purchase price. Second, I have been a Parker fan for about 30 years, so I tend to give him a break now and then. He does not need the benefit of the doubt for this entry into the Jesse Stone series, however. It is a quick read, as are all of Parker's dialogue-heavy, description-light productions, but the two murders which set the plot going are interestingly done. The suspects are numerous, the clues few. Even better than the murder mystery however, is the double triangle Parker set up by bringing private detective Sunny Randall into Jesse's love life. Sunny, of course, has a book series of her own, but in this one she is a supporting character. Events bring her into an important temporary role in the life of Jesse's former wife Jenn. Jesse and Jenn can't live together, but can't make their divorce a firm fact, either...just as Sunny cannot get her former mate, Richie, out of her own bed totally. Yet Sunny and Jesse seem ideal for each other. Many fans may resent the love complications taking up so much of the book, but to me, they have become more compelling than the killings being investigated. You'll be done with reading this in three hours, so whether it is worth buying instead of borrowing is a tough question. But for me, it worked, and gave me pleasure.
Jesse please get over that low life ex wife , or i am firing you!.......2007-08-04
This is enough! I love Parker, and i love Jesse Stone.He showed great promise in the beginning of the Stone series.However, i am tired of his hanging on to that low life, cheating, obviously disturbed ex wife. I also found Sunny's relationship with Jenn to be odd. If i had the opp to be with a great guy, no way would i condone the way his ex wife jerks him around. Geez, either add more plot or i am firing you Parker.
Jesse Stone in Paradise.......2007-07-22
This is the last book I will ever purchase by Mr. Parker, after a lifetime of buying his hardcovers. The reason? His ridiculous and unreal mooning over a really unlikeable, unbelievable ex-wife which serves only to detract from the real character of Jesse Stone.
We like to think of Jesse Stone as a solver of problems: he is doing just that now in Paradise, MA...it is unreal to believe that, five books later he has come no further than the juvenile pining portrayed by Mr. Parker in this book. It seems to be getting worse, rather than better which only serves to make us feel Jesse is going backwards....and we do not want to believe that for a moment.
Hopefully, Mr. Parker will find a really good shrink and clear his head of this unproductive mess. Then, we can concentrate and the terrific plot and story lines he brings us and not be sidetracked by the dumbdown of an unbelievable side story. Too many pages on too little reality.
Jesse Stone with Sunny Randall reprised.......2007-06-27
The plot is slightly better than OK because of the rather lame outcome, but that aside, this is a first-rate detective novel. I especially like the fact that all of the characters are flawed, i.e., realistic, uncertain of themselves. One does not often see that to such an extent in the heroes of mysteries. And the atmosphere of Paradise, Mass. and New York City has a good feel.
But the very best thing about this, the feature that raises it from about average to excellent, is the dialogue. There is a smoothness to it, a realism that includes humor even when the situation does not call for it. Again, Parker reminds me of Lawrence Block and you can't say anything nicer than that.
The perps were a trifle obvious, I think most readers will find. Murderers in mysteries are usually the ones the reader suspects least, which, in turn, makes the murderers the most obvious--if that makes any sense at all.
Let's hope that Jesse and Sunny never quite get over their exes and that more combo books are in the offing. I'll read them all.
Book Description
The best organizations have the best talent. . . Financial incentives drive company performance. . . Firms must change or die.
Popular axioms like these drive business decisions every day. Yet too much common management “wisdom” isn’t wise at all—but, instead, flawed knowledge based on “best practices” that are actually poor, incomplete, or outright obsolete. Worse, legions of managers use this dubious knowledge to make decisions that are hazardous to organizational health.
This practical and candid book challenges leaders to commit to evidence-based management as a way of organizational life – and shows how to finally turn this common sense into common practice.
Customer Reviews:
No 'one size fits all' solutions here.......2007-08-21
In this well written book, Stanford Professors Pfeffer and Sutton demonstrate the dangers of copying others, blindly applying conventional wisdom, or accepting ideologically based fables without understanding how the underlying human behavioral principles and fundamentals apply to the situation at hand. It asks us to look at the underlying assumptions about how people think and operate - are people really motivated only by the stick or the carrot? Is the relational model for the `rest of life' really different than the relational model for our `work life'? If neither assumption is a fundamental truth, should we be using policies and practices that make these assumptions?
It encourages leaders and organizations to constantly `be in learning' rather than looking for `the answer' in a best practice book or seminar. Simply put, `copy & paste' of someone else's answer is seldom, if ever, your answer on a performance improvement test. If you are thinking that evidence-based management means, "show me who is using this practice", or "show me where this policy is working"; read the entire book. What at first sounds like a declaration that only statistically proven, historical practices should be accepted as the basis for future practices is in itself a dangerous half-truth that will limit the future to a repeat of the past. Hard Facts is recommended for leaders who will read the book in its entirety. Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"
A balanced, practical look at management "beliefs"..........2007-07-12
Pfeffer and Sutton take a hard look at a few management beliefs that have seemed universally accepted in one form or another. Of the ones presented, I have heard and read the most about 1) best organizations have the best people, 2) strategy is destiny, and 3) change or die. The authors have done a very good job at showing that some beliefs are not always true under all circumstances and, in fact, quite often false or at least "half-truths". I also found the financial incentives chapter particularly compelling as it seems that a more balanced reward system is better for most companies in the long run.
I found most of the advice for handling these beliefs to be very sound although a recurring theme is just take a step back, look at hard evidence, and not necessarily follow "the crowd". This book would be best appreciated and most easily "implemented" by executive management but is also a very interesting read for anyone who wants to build out their general management knowledge. Overall, a pretty insightful and practical read.
Finally ... A Management Book Worth Reading.......2007-07-09
The problem with the puffed up, presumptuous world of management literature and reasearch is that it is neither. Most books are an appalling mixture of presumed truths, mishmashed ideas set up, many times as a "science." In fact it Management is much more a dismal art than Economics ever was a dismal science.
But now enter the duo who wrote this book... the true essence of the book could be:
1) lesson of wisdom... wisdom in the Platonic sense -- knowing what you do not know and being smart enought to admit when you do not know and brave enought to continue on using;
2) evidence-based management. This means empirical management, hard facts, not preconcieved notions of how the world is or should work.
Evidence-based management is based upon a scientific approach and this book take evidence-based medicine as its template for how to arrange business. In evidence-based management there is no immutable truth -- science and the socratic method of inquiry mean that the playing field is level. Poeple are able to challenge preconceived ideas, but they must also be willing to submit their ideas to the scrutiny of analyse. Pfeffer et al, give good examples of preconcieved ideas that are either not true or half-baked. Incentive pay is one -- it works in simple, non-dependent environments where individuals control results. It does NOT work in highly structured environments where results depend upon complex interactions with others... ie. Cold-callers should be incentivised by pay-for-performance, but doctors and teachers clearly should not -- and all the imperical evidence supports the above assertion.
So why do people have such a knee-jerk reaction and assume that everyone only needs to be incentivised to spur them ever onwards to better results...? Pfeffer et al, suggest that it is popular culture and sort of presumed ideological supposition that is never challenged.
Other ideas challenged in this book by Evidence-based Management tecniques are:
STRATEGY: Its nowhere near as important as knowing what to do. In fact concentrating only on strategy is most often wrong. What is much more necessary is having a process to implement changes little by little.
LEADERS: Not as important as billed. Change at the top has almost no correlation with corporate performance. Leadership does matter to a degree, but not as much as good systems of work. Here again is the banal overwhelmed by the sexy presumption that someone who is in power of a company must "actually control results" -- as Pfeffer et al show... they clearly do not. Good process, good middle line managers who implement well and who know and listen to process management determine which companies will succeed more than good leaders.
This book was one of the few management tomes that I actually looked forward to reading when I picked it up. I have already ordered "The Knowing-Doing Gap." A very refreshing change and real wisdom for a wretched genre.
Find your company in this book and squirm.......2007-06-19
This excellent book lays out why and how companies fail to drive their business based on evidence, and instead "miracle cure" advice and personal reactions - largely to the detriment of everyone involved. The book quickly lays out why you should take an evidence-based approach and some guidelines on how. The meat of the book comes in chapters on various half-truths that are dangerous in terms of managing people and organizations:
- Is work fundamentally different from the rest of life and should it be
- Do the best organizations have the best people
- Do financial incentives drive company performance
- Is strategy destiny?
- Is it change or die
- Are great leaders in control of their companies (and should the be)?
They wrap up with a call for evidence-based management. The book is well-written, funny in many places and slightly depressing (if you don't see yourself or your company in any of the "how not to" stories I will be astonished) but very worthwhile. Some of my favorite quotes include:
"If doctor's practiced medicine the way many companies practice management, there would be far more sick and dead patients, and many more doctor's would be in jail"
"If you think you have a new idea, you are wrong. Someone problably already had it. This idea isn't original either; I stole it from someone else
Sutton's Law"
"Treat your business as an unfinished prototype"
"No brag, just facts"
In particular they recommend making sure you have identifed cause and effect when considering past successes, taking account of changing circumstances and establishing why something was effective before adopting it. They emphasize the importance of attacking assumptions and establishing which are pre-conditions for success. The book lays out plenty of evidence on the importance of narrow testing of new ideas before rolling them out, especially in ways analogous to the double-blind study used in medicine. They discuss the importance not of individual leaders being great but of them building a structure within which people can be successful (think Toyota) and they conclude by reminding us that wisdom is knowing what you know and what you don't know while still acting on the best available data and being willing to change as new data becomes available.
I would also recommend three other books I have reviewed recently:
Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning
Tom Davenport's book shows one aspect of evidence-based management - driving company behavior with analytics - and uses some of the same examples (Harrah's, for one)
Making Robust Decisions: Decision Management For Technical, Business, & Service Teams
David Ullman's book is a great discussion of decision-making in the face of uncertainty, a key skill in evidence-based management
The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers
Phil Rosenzweig's book disses many of the same business trend half-truths with even more wit than this one. If you are cynical about fix-everything-with-technique-X books, and you probably should be, this is a great book
Lastly if you are more technically minded and enjoy this book, you might enjoy the one I have just finished:Smart Enough Systems: How to Deliver Competitive Advantage by Automating Hidden Decisions
Hard to Believe.......2007-06-04
Pfeffer & Sutton's book is all about how bias and incorrect "common sense" can lead us astray in making management decisions. They show how a great deal of what passes as business management advice is just not all that good. In fact, some of it is, as the title says, total nonsense.
That said, it was far less of a book than I wanted it to be. The title, you see, has this really bold lettering for HARD FACTS. In smaller type underneath is the rest of the title. In fact, on my copy the Total Nonsense is in bigger type than the Half-Truths part (the latter even being gray on a black background). Yet, as I read the book, I kept looking for the HARD FACTS and found a lot of references to Half-Truths. The basic premise seems to be that while most advice is correct in some settings, it is only when it is taken as truth for all time that it becomes dangerous.
I wanted graph after graph of facts from all the studies people mention but never put into digestible form. I wanted to get the translation of management studies into facts that I can use. However, what I did get was basic management book stylistic convention: assertion of some truth followed by an example from one of seven (plus or minus two) case studies. Not that this is all bad, far from it. But it seemed sad given the large HARD FACTS on the top. In fact, I find the convention easy reading. But it doesn't really give me the HARD FACTS. I guess I would have to go into the footnotes (ugh), read all the studies mentioned (ugh, ugh), and then draw the graphs, charts, and summaries (ugh, ugh, ugh). That is what I thought this book would do and doesn't.
So I think it becomes another interesting book that will be put aside for another interesting book in about five months. Are there good insights? Sure. Do I trust all their sources? I don't know why I should since they never explain why they do (the "lots of studies" logic). So maybe they are right, but it is hard to believe.
Book Description
Formerly a publication of The Brain Store
Turn a borderline student into a confident achiever.
This full-color book is packed with powerful tools, techniques, and strategies to help students improve brain function. The author presents a concise outline for identifying the symptoms and causes of prevalent impairments, such as oppositional disorder, attention deficit, dyslexia, hyperactivity, depression, auditory processing deficits, and more.
Customer Reviews:
Different Brains, Different Learners.......2005-08-28
A great book for teachers as well as parents. It helps to understand what is or may be happening in the brain. I like the recommendations given on ways we can help alleviate stressful events under given conditions.
Lacking.......2003-01-21
This book lacks the depth it seems to promise. Some of the illustrations are lacking. There is not enough meat to help anyone with special needs learners. I would suggest you look elsewhere. I was greatly disappointed since the majority of work by Jensen is wonderful.
Essential reading for all teachers.......2001-09-10
Eric Jensen knows the needs of busy teachers and has the gift in helping them to utilize up-to-date knowledge in brain studies. Here it is applied to identifying 10 types of different learners: 1. impulsive ones with ADD, 2. resigned with learned helplessness, 3. challenged reader with dyslexia, 4. argumentative with oppositional disorder, 5. frustrated with learning delayed, 6. hyperactive, 7. with auditory-processing deficits, 8. out of control, 9. the demotivated with chronic threat and distress, and 10. depressed and troubled.
You are given a pre-test and a post-test of 10 unique students to see if you can identify the patterns of symptoms rather than isolated behaviors. There are many color-prints of corresponding brain-images and graphic charts that facilitate learning. Brief summaries of treatment methods, supplementary resources on books, websites and organizations are given on each type. All teachers should acquire such general background knowledge so that the unqiue needs and gifts of students can be respected.
Book Description
Donna Leon’s charming, evocative, and addictive Commissario Guido Brunetti series continues with Suffer the Little Children. When Commissario Brunetti is summoned in the middle of the night to the hospital bed of a senior pediatrician, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men -- a young Carabiniere captain and two privates from out of town -- have burst into the doctor's apartment in the middle of the night, attacked him and taken away his eighteenth-month old baby boy. What could have motivated an assault by the forces of the state so violent it has left the doctor mute? Who would have authorized such an alarming operation? At the same time, Brunetti’s colleague Inspector Vianello discovers a money-making scam between pharmacists and doctors in the city. But it appears as if one of the pharmacists is after more than money. Donna Leon's new novel is as subtle and fascinating as ever, set in a beautifully-realized Venice, a glorious city seething with small-town vice.
Customer Reviews:
Very disappointing.......2007-09-19
I have read all of Leon's Brunetti mysteries and this was the first time I was really disappointed. The story lacks focus and feels completely frazzled. There are too many things going on that never seem to get resolved. The writing style she uses for the interrogations at the beginning and end seems silly and doesn't make sense. I never felt a shred of sympathy for any of the characters, despite the horrible things that happen to them. I sure hope that she can find her old, captivating writing style again or I will have to just go back to re-reading her earlier novels.
Better than her last two books.......2007-09-08
Donna Leon is incredibly skilled at evoking the spirit of Venice, and Brunetti is such a marvelous character. Although not up to the standards of her earlier novels, this one is a vast inprovement over the previous two, which were little more than screeds on environmental issues. If you've never read any of her books, go for the early works; if you're a fan of Leon and have been disappointed by her more recent efforts, this is definitely a step up.
Suffer the little children...........2007-08-13
This book had an entirely different flavor than the other Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries, all of which I have read, some of them more than once. It was less amusing, harder and more depressing than the others and the ending was terrible. If her writing is going in this direction, I won't read any more.
Venice forecast - beautiful with scattered corruption.......2007-08-11
The great enjoyment in Donna Leon's "Suffer the Little Children," and virtually all of the other books in this series, comes from the focus on the book's varied characters and the city backdrop, Venice. The plot of this particular book, involving illegal baby adoption, but also marital betrayal and the intrusion into peoples' lives by an unprincipled moralist, is secondary and only serves as the device that allows for an examination of the professional and personal life of Guido Brunetti, Commissario of Police in Venice. By the time you finish this book (and any of its predecessors), you're ready for a visit to Venice and have a yen to drop in on Brunetti and his family (however aware you are that, sadly, they don't exist).
Other readers have been disappointed with "Suffer the Little Children" for its flaccid plot and generally slow pace. I think those are valid criticisms, but there is still plenty of pleasure catching up with the series' hero and colleagues and listening to the author's gentle rant about troubles in paradise.l
The best yet!.......2007-08-04
Ms. Leon has surpassed herself with this suspenseful book. I loved listening to David Colacci who has read all of her books. He captures the characters she writes perfectly. I did not want this book to end. I only wish these two would visit the US so we could hear them speak about their craft.
Average customer rating:
- Dangerous Words, Beware!
- Very Insightful
- For boys who want to know the facts, this book has the answers!
- so very informative
- Great Information!
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What's Going on Down There?: Answers to Questions Boys Find Hard to Ask
Karen Gravelle ,
Nick Castro ,
Chava Castro ,
Robert Leighton , and
Walker & Co
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ASIN: 0802775403 |
Book Description
Why is my voice making such weird sounds? When will I be able to start shaving? Why do I keep getting pimples? What is a wet dream?
Your body has been behaving very strangely lately. You hardly know what to expect from one day to the next. Karen Gravelle, with some help from her two young advisors, Nick and Chava Castro, has written a down-to-earth and practical book that will help guide you through this confusing time in your life. What's Going On Down There? answers any questions you might have about puberty, from what it is and what it feels like, to what puberty is like for girls, to how to handle the sexual feelings you may be starting to experience. Robert Leighton's funny and informative cartoons ease the confusion and exasperation you might feel.
Part manual, part older brother, What's Going On Down There? will give you the facts you need to feel comfortable and confident about this new phase of your life.
Customer Reviews:
Dangerous Words, Beware!.......2007-05-25
Chapter 8, titled: Is This Normal? States, "it is not unusual for a boy to watch another boy masturbate or to masturbate with a group of boys. Nor is it unusual for two boys to masturbate each other." My 13 year old son was accused of sexual assault by an 11 year old boy (a friend) after the 11 year old suggested they masturbated together, they did so on three occasions. The charge came a year later, social services and the police visited our home. Our younger son was almost removed from our home. Our 14 year old was questioned by police, charged, fingerprinted and we had to hire a lawyer. This book states that boys masturbating together or each other is not unusual. Maybe so, but it is a crime, and your child could be charged with sexual assault. Especially when the other child, out of guilt, fear, or revenge perhaps, tells his parents that he wasn't a willing participate once he realizes his "young, boyish curiosity" was a crime. BEWARE!
Very Insightful.......2007-05-15
I bought this book for my 12 year old son and he finds it to be very interesting. It has opened up discussions on things he would normally not discuss with me which has helped us have great conversations. I recommned this book for anybody with young boys going through puberty whom are normally not used to talking about what's going on with them.
For boys who want to know the facts, this book has the answers!.......2007-04-10
What's going on down there? A general question, perhaps, but one that boys between the ages of ten and fourteen ask regularly about the changes their bodies undergo during puberty. In Karen Gravelle's book, What's Going on Down There: Answers to Questions Boys Find Hard to Ask, she describes the physical and emotional changes that occur in boys (and, to a lesser extent, in girls) during puberty. In addition, Gravelle discusses sexual activity, homosexuality, AIDS, and other related topics. Gravelle had help with the book; 11- and 13-year-old brothers, Nick and Chava Castro, served as advisors, asking questions and working with Gravelle to make the book's language easy to read and to understand.
I bought this book for my older son when he was ten years old. I liked the funny and informative cartoons, and my cursory reading before giving it to him left me believing it might help him navigate the storms of puberty.
I had not read the book cover-to-cover, but I did so recently in connection with an assignment for my master's degree in library science. I am glad I did. Reading the book carefully served to confirm that I made a wise purchase five years ago, something I suspected when I noticed that my older son had handed down the book to his younger brother a few years ago.
Although the book has a few weird and wonderful moments (like stating that many women don't find childbirth to be particularly painful!), I found it to be an excellent source of practical, no-nonsense information. Some parents might be uncomfortable with the book's approach. The author includes frank discussions of orgasms, masturbation, and abortion, and the illustrator has a drawing of an orchidometer so boys can measure their testicles to see how far along they are in the puberty process. For parents who want their sons to know the facts about their bodies, though, and for boys who need to know those facts, this book is the one book on the subject I would recommend first.
so very informative.......2007-03-06
This book is packed full of useful information, easy to read, and helpful drawings. A must-read for any boy going through puberty.
Great Information!.......2007-02-08
I mailed a copy of this book to my 10 year old step son, because he was asking his father questions about the process of becoming a man. I read the book thoroughly. I believe the book is excellent. There are a few points in the book that will make a parent uncomfortable, but it is information a young boy needs to know, and deals with situations he has likely seen on television or in movies. My step son's mother did not let him read the book because she felt he did not need to be exposed to the small section on homosexuality and masturbation. I ordered a copy for him to read at our house, and he told his father he was glad to have the opportunity to read the book. He stated that the book addressed questions he would never have asked his mother, and that the book also helped him determine where his friends had given him misleading or incorrect information about what to expect during puberty. Overall, this is an excellent book, and I hope that parents won't let their fears override an otherwise excellent method of providing a young man with the information he desparately needs to know.
Book Description
Foreclosures are hitting record highs; Americans are declaring bankruptcy at rates ten times that during the great Depression; more college students drop out because of debts than due to poor grades; reports of debtor suicides proliferate in the media. In other words, it's a great time to be in the banking business.
Maxed Out takes us on a road trip that is sometimes hysterical and often horrifying: from Las Vegas to the Bible Belt, from the backwoods to inner cities, where the world's largest financial giants troll for their next victims. Welcome to a country populated by debt pirates, corporate predators, human credit card billboards, debt evangelists, megamillion-dollar spec homes, and, of course, trillions of dollars of easy credit.
Combining startling facts with even more startling examinations of individuals, institutions, the government, and modern religion, James Scurlock separates the myths (there is "good debt" and "bad debt") from the harsh reality (corporations partner with colleges to target today's youth; credit reports are riddled with errors that will never be fixed; and death, for many of those in trouble, is the only way out).
At a time when the financial industry posts ever-higher profits even as its clients drown in the flood of easy credit, Scurlock exposes very real, potentially disastrous systems and policies that are consuming millions of Americans. Maxed Out takes readers on a wickedly smart and entertaining tour of what one interviewee calls "the last taboo."
Customer Reviews:
Nothing new here........2007-10-06
Yes, the financial industry is ripping people off, sometimes getting away with behavior that is even criminal (the book has a story of a mentally challenged mother and son who are losing their house to CitiFinancial). Yes, people are living irresponsibly and are goaded into it by modern society. The book, however, while presenting a list of complaints and anecdotal stories, meanders and never makes a coherent case beyond the two listed above and says really nothing about what can be done. Scurlock forecasts doom for us, but has no idea how to forestall it.
The advice of one reviewer to "just not pay" is not valid. Your credit score is now used in a number of ways that have nothing to do with needing credit -- including judging fitness for employment and determining cost of insurance, including auto insurance. Modern society today, unfortunately, can penalize you for NOT using credit (and therefore having an unacceptable available credit to debt ratio), as well as punish you for using credit irresponsibly.
A fascinating read flawed by an incomplete analysis of root causes and possible solutions.......2007-09-15
I learned about "Maxed Out" as a regular listener of Dave Ramsey (the famous talk radio anti-debt crusader hailing from Nashville, TN). Scurlock asked Ramsey to participate in both his movie and book. I have a tremendous interest in financial psychology so I was very curious if Scurlock could pinpoint the root causes of the current debt crisis while accurately assessing the efforts of consumer advocates like Dave Ramsey.
The author touches on a number of topics related to the world of predatory lending. He includes an entertaining history of BankAmericard (now Visa), MasterCharge (now MasterCard), CitiBank/CitiFinancial, and several other companies. He presents numerous heartbreaking stories of individuals who, by their own admissions, failed to plan for disaster and made poor financial choices that resulted in devastating outcomes (including jail terms and suicides). He provides an inside look at the sleazy world of collection agencies. He also shares the opinions of academics and provides occasional quotes from our esteemed politicians in Washington (who naturally reveal themselves as power-hungry, financially clueless morons). Scurlock also makes a few suggestions to address the crisis.
Scurlock has a reporter's instinct. He is very observant and articulates his findings in a lively way. In my opinion, he demonstrates more maturity, more humility, and less emotion when discussing this topic when compared to many other authors (Tamara Draut, Anya Kamenetz, and Barbara Ehrenreich come to mind). Occasionally, he injects his quirky humor, adding to the entertainment value.
Scurlock rails against the "obscene profits" made by banks when pushing "debt products." He makes it sound like that's all banks do. Banks have always pushed debt products for profit. This isn't exactly a revelation. But Scurlock failed to mention that banks also provide essential services such as check cashing/clearing and ready access to our cash via numerous ATMs, for example. These taken-for-granted services are very important benefits to customers (and expensive to administer). Banks help facilitate our day-to-day financial lives. I'm sure my own bank is interested in extracting more profit from me, but my personal banker has never tackled me, put a gun to my head, and demanded I sign loan papers at some usurious interest rate. Banks sell "debt products" for the very simple reason that we demand them!
The issue of personal responsibility is mentioned by the author numerous times but it is not fully explored. In his many anecdotal accounts, dysfunctional behavior resulted in outcomes that were preventable. Even when job losses and health issues were blamed for causing bankruptcies, I noticed that victims spent large sums of money on unnecessary material goods for years, but failed to set aside even a small emergency fund. Their woes were not due to a lack of intelligence, income, or even a debilitating health problem but rather a stubborn denial of reality coupled with poor planning.
For whatever reason, some people choose to live on the edge, using credit cards as a substitute for a cash emergency fund. There's no cushion to mitigate a negative life event--no margin for error. Every spare dollar is consumed, and then some. An emergency fund is certainly not a panacea, but it is a proven way to reduce risk. The subject of risk is something Scurlock only skirts around but does not address directly. The reason Dave Ramsey's message rings true with many listeners is that debt is seen for what it is: risk. If you have debt, you have risk (yes, even if it's mortgage debt). If you don't have debt, your risk is dramatically reduced. Less risk results in more choices and more freedom. It's not a difficult concept to understand.
Scurlock gets bogged down with the negative aspects of financial ruin, but he unfortunately does not provide a complete picture of consumer behavior. For example, a large percentage of Americans religiously pay off their credit cards monthly, routinely rip up new credit card offers, and actively avoid unnecessary fees. Why do these Americans act so differently compared to those that "take the bait" on the road to financial ruin? I know many ordinary people who live below their means, have an emergency fund, buy adequate insurance, drive older cars, have significant home equity, and invest in their retirement plans. They do actually exist, and at almost every economic level. They're all around us, and their numbers are growing every day. To my amazement, the author never investigates the traits of such people (though authors Thomas Stanley and William Danko do in their book "The Millionaire Next Door"). The reason this is important is that these are the habits proven to lead to financial success. Even while admitting that bad behavior can sink some people, Scurlock never investigates how the transformation of financial habits can resolve the current crisis and prevent a reoccurrence.
The phrase "something isn't quite right" appears repeatedly in the book, as if to imply the current debt crisis came out of nowhere. It didn't. In the past decade, I've noticed a distinct shift in financial behavior from defensive to reckless. I have seen lower income families live like the middle class through easy credit. I have seen acquaintances willingly secure huge mortgage loans for homes that they knew they couldn't possibly service. I have watched in horror as intelligent friends went bankrupt after repeatedly making poor life and financial choices, destroying their personal relationships and the psyches of their children. I have seen unprepared borrowers victimized by overzealous mortgage bankers who they viewed as their "best buddies." I have seen a mother bail out her unemployed 19-year old son, who obtained a credit card to buy "cool stuff" and then defaulted. After all, she didn't want him to suffer a hit to his "precious" FICO score. After the debt was settled, he started running up charges again. Yes, indeed, something isn't quite right.
So who is to blame for all this carnage? Well, everyone as it turns out. First of all, financial education is nearly non-existent in our public schools, so our children are clueless about money management (but at least they can learn a vital life skill like the French language!). Secondly, many parents refuse to educate themselves about finance, so they are incapable of passing along important lessons to their children. Parents are also notorious for enabling the poor behavior of their children and often turning their children into helpless adults. Then we have the financial services industry, which provides easy credit to every borrower possible (and sometimes their pets), lending standards be damned. Finally, federal and state governments punish the middle class with hidden fees and stealth taxes (e.g. the Alternative Minimum Tax), which further erode a household's ability to save and invest.
Borrowers, of course, shoulder most of the blame because they drive the demand for credit. Despite the enormous amount of financial information available to them from multiple sources--many free--borrowers live in a perpetual state of denial, refusing to educate themselves. They don't take defensive measures to protect themselves (i.e., living below their means, establishing emergency savings, securing healthcare, auto, home, and life insurance, etc.). They refuse to create and follow even a simple budget. They refuse to control their spending. They create the circumstances of their own financial ruin. Scurlock certainly describes these behaviors along with the self-flagellation on the part of the "victims," but leaves it at that. He acknowledges that bad behavior often results in disaster, but then proposes solutions that do not address the behavior itself.
This brings me around to Dave Ramsey again. He is a hero to a large number of people who are determined to resolve their problems and achieve total debt-freedom (including the mortgage). He teaches self-control, personal responsibility, risk management, and an easy-to-implement plan to reach financial independence. He teaches his audience not to ask "how can I borrow my way out of this?" but instead "how can I solve my problems without credit?" He makes an exception for mortgage loans, but even then he teaches his listeners to secure a reasonable loan with conventional terms. He prefers his listeners confront their problems, shed feelings of victimization, and turn the tables on the financial services industry. It's a message that plays very well. I felt Scurlock did not adequately acknowledge the importance of this vital movement in the book.
Although it's clear some fraudulent subprime lending occurred in the past few years, nearly all cases were fully disclosed, legal transactions. Even though Scurlock would like government to step in and clean up the industry, he apparently forgot that government helped create this mess in the first place by actively encouraging banks to loosen standards to lend money to borrowers considered very risky by historical standards. The results were predictable. Some borrowers knowingly took the proverbial rope handed to them and promptly hanged themselves. So, basically, the government created the problem and now many are asking the government to fix it.
What happened to people learning to control their own lives and financial futures without government intervention? We can demand punitive regulation of the financial services industry all day long, but this will not solve the problem (incidentally, banking is among the most regulated of all industries which Scurlock mentions, to his credit). The true root cause of the crisis is bad behavior on the part of consumers. The government cannot legislate good behavior. That is our responsibility. It's time Americans openly admit that we are more the victims of our own lofty sense of entitlement and ignorance rather than the tactics of the financial services industry. It is worth noting that first-generation millionaires never count on the government to dictate their destinies (as documented in "The Millionaire Next Door"). The author missed a golden opportunity to balance his research with this well-established information.
Despite the deficiencies I noted above, this is a book worth reading. Scurlock's style and investigative abilities are unique and much can be learned from reading his analysis. I feel that some reviewers are unfair to Scurlock, accusing him of being overly political. I don't feel this is the case at all. While I resist government intervention to solve problems that we can easily resolve ourselves, the root causes and results of our financial decisions are complex and must be fully explored and understood. "Maxed Out" provides an excellent starting point for such a discussion.
Informative.......2007-09-08
Having seen the dvd, this is one of the few times that I actually liked a dvd more than the book. Both were informative (the book actually goes into more depth of the subject of finance companies, payday loans, predatory lending, pawnshops, and credit cards), but I found it dryer and not as interesting. It's hard to feel as involved without a face being attached to the subject. Scurlock does write with wit on a subject that might otherwise be boring. There is some very important information regarding this subject that anyone applying for credit needs to know.
Interesting but..........2007-07-09
Like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, James Scurlock is a consumer advocate with a populist bent and a tendency for hyperbole. I had no doubt reading this book (and watching the more restrained DVD) that Scurlock knows his stuff -- his research is considerable and he has a background in business. The gap between the rich and poor has been well documented elsewhere, so some of his foundational arguments aren't exactly seminal. It does, however, always merit a mention that business has been deregulated in alarming ways, none of them helpful to anyone but profiteers. Anyone wishing to examine the moral health of a country would need to consider unethical business practices as a corrosive effect. It is difficult to see the value of free markets and the "invisible hand" when examing in the "selling money for profit" industry.
Unfortunately, in illustrating his concerns with real people, Scurlock pulls out every trick in the bleeding heart bag. I lost count of the number of people he writes about who had family members commit suicide due to the stress and shame of financial ruin (and by extension, by the unethical practices of the debt industry.) I have a very hard time believing that money stresses are the sole motivator in suicide -- if that were the case, the global population problem would be over during one lean period. The book works when Scurlock focuses on facts; when he resorts to personal stories it starts to seem manipulative. He glosses over the biggest counterargument -- that even the "poor" in these stories are living far better than people did in the 1920s, an era Scurlock fears we are reproducing.
As much as I despise simplistic "personal responsibility" arguments, I'm afraid Scurlock resorts to similar reductionism. A lot of the debt illustrated in this book is frivolous and rooted in materialism. It is sad that people's lives are ruined over debt... but who in their right mind buys a Lexus or Escalade when they're making a median income? That isn't a business problem, it's a common sense problem.
We are facing many financial problems in this country -- one need only look at the military and Katrina relief effort to see two glaring examples. "Maxed Out" is interesting when it focuses on the bigger picture, but the personal financial stories don't gel well with the dire feeling of those larger issues.
Eye opening.......2007-07-08
Very interesting read. You can learn a lot about the practices of lenders and get a quick snapshot of common americans, who are totally baffeled by credit terms, but totally driven by the need of money. Some stories deserved their fate, but some, as the stories described them, are victems of a lending system that preys on the ignorant with legal talk and slight of hand mathematics.
You'll learn lessons that will protect yourself.
Average customer rating:
- Stephanie Plum series
- Got as gift - my brother loved it
- Finally the Ranger we've been waiting for!
- Hard Eight - on audio
- Like a Tastykake, but Without the Fat and Calories
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Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum Series #8)
Janet Evanovich
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
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ASIN: 0312983867
Release Date: 2003-06-03 |
Amazon.com
In Hard Eight, Stephanie Plum picks up a case a little nastier than anything the wisecracking bounty hunter's seen before. Evelyn Soder and her young daughter have gone on the run, leaving an angry ex-husband who's planning to collect on a child custody bond that will leave Evelyn's grandmother homeless. Stephanie's first clue that there's more to it than that comes in the form of Eddie Abruzzi, a shady local businessman who warns her to butt out of the case. Stephanie doesn't scare easily, but when Abruzzi's henchmen leave a bag of snakes on her doorknob and tarantulas in her car, she has no choice but to call Ranger, the hunky man of mystery whom she already owes too many favors. Steph knows that Ranger will soon be calling in his marker, but with her ex- fiancé Joe Morelli out of the picture, that should be OK--shouldn't it? In the meantime, she's got other fugitives to catch, aided by the usual band of misfits, plus a bumbling correspondence-school lawyer who's developed the hots for Stephanie's sister, Valerie. And Steph's in for a surprise from her mother, who proves she's not above wielding a dangerous weapon to save her daughter's life.
Author Janet Evanovich has made a bold move in using a soupçon of child jeopardy to pull this series out of the comfortable but formulaic pattern it was threatening to fall into. It's still funny, and yes, some cars are destroyed, but now there's a real edge of darkness under the humor. Fans needn't fear, though: Jersey girl Stephanie is still full of sass and Tastykakes. --Barrie Trinkle
Book Description
Hard UpFugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum has a big problem on her hands: Seven-year-old Annie Soder and her mother, Evelyn, have disappeared. Evelyn's estranged husband, Steven, a shady owner of a seedy bar, is not at all happy. Finding a kidnapped child is not an assignment for a bounty hunter. But Evelyn's grandmother lives next door to Stephanie's parents, so Stephanie follows the trail left by Annie and Evelyn-and finds a lot more than she bargained for.Hard RiskSteven Soder is somehow linked with a very scary Eddie Abruzzi. Trenton cop and on-again, off-again fianceacute; Joe Morelli and Stephanie's mentor and tormentor, Ranger, warn Stephanie about Abruzzi, but it's Abruzzi's eyes and mannerisms that frighten Stephanie most. Stephanie needs Ranger's savvy and expertise, and she's willing to accept his help to find Annie even though it might mean getting too involved with Ranger. Stephanie, Ranger, Lula (who's not going to miss riding with Ranger), and Evelyn's lawyer/Laundromat manager set out to find Annie. The search turns out to be a race among Stephanie's posse, the True Blue Bonds' agent-a Rangerette known as Jeanne Ellen Burrows-and the Abruzzi crew. Plus, there's a killer rabbit on the loose!Hard EightStrap on your helmet and get ready for the ride of your life! Hard Eight. The world of Stephanie Plum has never been wilder.
Customer Reviews:
Stephanie Plum series.......2007-09-02
I love the Stephanie Plum series of novels. I really hate reading so I purchase them both in audio for me and paperback for houseguests and friends. I'm drawn in with the excitment and adventure of the story that Janet seems to capture in every novel. It has twists, turns, Lula, mystery, wonder, and of course two very "HOT" men! Who wouldn't want a mix of both men. :} I would recommend the "Plum" series, her "Full" series, as well as her earlier novels of mixed titles. They're all great fun and keep you as a reader at the edge of your seat waiting to see if a cars going to get blown up, who's died this week, who attends the pot roast dinner, who she sleeps with next, what will burn down next, and will she get her man (love or bounty). I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. I look forward to #14 in the "Plum" series, the next "Full" novel, and the new novel Janet recently wrote with a new author being released this October. Thank you!
Got as gift - my brother loved it.......2007-06-08
He's been hooked on the series - wonder how high the numbers will go?
Finally the Ranger we've been waiting for!.......2007-05-01
In Hard Eight, Stephanie has the usual problems - people trying to do her in, Lula wanting to shoot everyone in sight and a new woman - Jeanne Ellen who has some secret background with Ranger. But Ranger, oh Ranger - who finally gets Stephanie in bed and totally ruins her for any other man or so she thinks. She's still in love with Joe - handsome cop, good guy, protector, but Ranger.....hot, dark, sensitive, listens to classical music for heaven's sake is hot for Stephanie but has told her he's not the marrying kind. I say use Ranger for all he's worth and go back to Joe when you're ready to settle down. We could all use a Ranger in our lives!
Hard Eight - on audio.......2007-04-12
I have listened to the majority of the Stephanie Plum series on audio, narrated by talented voice actress C.J. Critt. Ms. Critt does a fantastic job with the voice characterizations, but even she could not make this a truly good story. I found this book a little "darker" and less humorous than the previous seven in the series. Stephanie began to get on my nerves in places. I enjoyed getting to know Ranger better and he has an even bigger share of this book than Joe Morelli. This is not a bad book and I will keep reading the series; however, this story is not as clever as some of the other Evanovich books.
Like a Tastykake, but Without the Fat and Calories.......2007-04-07
Janet E's Stephanie Plum series is one of my guilty reading pleasures. I brought Hard Eight with me on a six hour flight and it entertained me the entire way (wish I could same the same of the airline...). This particular offering doesn't really break any new ground - Stephanie is still the bad luck bounty hunter with an attraction for blown up cars and dangerous men. The regular cast of characters is out in full force - Lula, Grandma Mazur, Joe Morelli, Ranger, and Cousin Vinnie - as Stephanie tries to find a missing woman and child on the run from a mobster and capture a few bond hearing deadbeats (always amusing). The dialog is sarcastic and snappy, but in a few scenes it felt a bit overdone and contrived - no matter though, it's still an entertaining and fun read. I always wondered why they haven't turned any of these stories into a film or TV series - it could really be a great combination of comedy and action/adventure.
Book Description
In Lee Child’s astonishing new thriller, ex–military cop Reacher sees more than most people would...and because of that, he’s thrust into an explosive situation that’s about to blow up in his face. For the only way to find the truth—and save two innocent lives—is to do it the way Jack Reacher does it best: the hard way….
Jack Reacher was alone, the way he liked it, soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, watching a man cross the street to a parked Mercedes and drive it away. The car contained one million dollars in ransom money. And Edward Lane, the man who paid it, will pay even more to get his family back. Lane runs a highly illegal soldiers-for-hire operation. He will use any amount of money and any tool to find his beautiful wife and child. And then he’ll turn Jack Reacher loose with a vengeance—because Reacher is the best man hunter in the world.
On the trail of a vicious kidnapper, Reacher is learning the chilling secrets of his employer’s past…and of a horrific drama in the heart of a nasty little war. He’s beginning to realize that Edward Lane is hiding something. Something dirty. Something big. But Reacher also knows this: he’s already in way too deep to stop now.
Customer Reviews:
Big and bad!.......2007-09-13
Jack reacher is big and bad and doesn't take crap from anyone. He also has a heart and a conscience that seem to choose the right thing to do for the right reason. He's far from perfect but he's like a modern cowboy and thinks in a traditional sense. One thing for sure, is you better make him a friend, because you certainly don't want him as your enemy.
Electrifying Climax!.......2007-09-07
Jack Reacher, like John "Lilly" Lelankevitch Evil, Be Gone, walks tall amongst other men. Guys like these are drawn to evildoers and leave dark justice, vengeful mayhem and a certain silencing of evil in their wake. Lee Child has created a character in Jack Reacher who conveys a very comfortable confidence in his ability to handle almost any dire situation that confronts him. The Hard Way is riveting and yet the author also equips his hero with comic relief capability that gives readers a moment to catch their breath. This is a fun book to read and the climax is one of the best in the genre, drawing you so completely into the scene that you'll be looking over your shoulder to make sure there are no bad guys sneaking up on you. Don't worry, with Reacher there...you're covered. Robert John Estko, author of Evil, Be Gone (a John "Lilly" Lelankevitch novel available on Amazon.com)
addictive.......2007-08-25
This writer is addictive. My husband told me to order all of Jack Reacher novels. We both love this guy. Everyone we know would love a guy like this in our lives. Great read!!!!!! Great writing and from start to finish non-stop action. Loved it!!
Thanks
JAS
The best of the series--so far.......2007-07-29
I just discovered this series and read all but the most recent this summer. He keeps getting better. I love his disinterest in possessions and the change in setting in each story. Makes for a one-of-a-kind hero who never fails to surprise.
Typical Jack Reacher Formula.......2007-07-23
I like the Reacher books, even though they are preposterous. Reacher, of course, is a caricature of the loner super-hero and this book is no exception. Sometimes I think the name "Reacher" is literal -- in other words, the author may be reaching a bit too far in his plot turns. BUT...on the whole, this was a good Reacher novel, if you can just suspend belief and reality for a few hundred pages. It's a good yarn, with a lot of suspense and some pretty well-drawn characters. I think the writing here is a shade better than in Child's other Reacher books and the plot is creative. If you're a Reacher fan, you'll like this one. I am and I did.
Books:
- Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel
- High Fidelity
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Books Index
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