Book Description
A PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
The first simple guide to understanding the real estate closing process
Closing and escrow are among the most importantand least understoodcomponents of a real estate transaction. The Complete Guide to Your Real Estate Closing takes the mystery out of the confusing, expensive process by giving real estate professionals, investors, and consumers a step-by-step explanation. In simple, everyday language, the book explains closing documents and paperwork, what to do when something goes wrong, mortgage options, how to save money on title insurance, problems that can occur on a title report,
and much more. With sample forms, work sheets, and more, this sophisticated but accessible book covers:
- Insider tips on how to save moneyfrom a closing professional
- Who does what: the real estate agent, lender, title company, closing officer, attorney
- State-specific information for all 50 states
Customer Reviews:
Could be better.......2006-03-22
Very good book; could have gone a little deeper into the mechanics of the closing process.
Practical, Real-World, Current Information.......2005-10-10
This book is an easy to read, step-by-step guide through that 'magical' period called 'Escrow.' Explanations are easy to understand yet thorough. I highly recommend this book.
Complete and Easy to Read........2005-01-11
Sandy Gadow's real estate closing book explained the part of the buying process which confuses most people, and where most of the costly mistakes can occur. I was able to understand the concepts and explanations which are provided, and felt confident enough to ask questions which I am sure saved me several hundreds of dollars. Before reading Sandy's book, I was intimidated by the professionals involved in a closing: for example, the attorney and closing agent, even the inspector involved. Knowing what questions to ask, I felt comfortable making lists of questions to ask, and which answers I needed. Although real estate laws vary state to state, this book does an excellent job of being all-inclusive for each state. Whether called "escrow", "closing" or "settlement", this book covers the essentials of a real estate deal.
In each chapter are "Tips" and "A Typical Misunderstanding" which lighten the reading and make the subject matter easy to follow along. The chapter on handling Tax-Deferred Exchanges was a welcome addition to the book. I was prompted to buy Sandy's book after watching her on CNN's show, "Open House."
I would recommend this book to anyone buying property, considering entering the escrow profession, or anyone interested in the investment aspect of real estate. I am now a real estate professional and am grateful for Sandy's book. I know the book helped me and I have recommended it to many of my friends and colleagues.
Good book, but...........2005-01-04
...it's the same book as her previous books - only the title has changed. If there were any minor editing done to the book, I didn't notice. If you've read or purchased one of her previous books don't waste your time or money.
Truth in Advertising.......2004-11-08
Gadow does an excellent job of providing a comprehensive view of a California Real Estate Closing. The subject matter is appropriate and well written. The illustrations, tables, charts and forms all useful. The only real problem with a volume like this is that all real estate is essentially LOCAL in nature.
Thus, many of Gadow's points and concepts are inapposite to other parts of the country. I found myself annotating my copy with local exceptions to Gadow's statements (I am a Real Estate Attorney in the Washington, DC metropolitan area). As with any volume with this much information there are certain errors that may have not been caught by the editors. For example, Gadow talks about obtaining multiple termite inspections. "Shopping for a clean termite inspection" and failing to disclose the known existence of termites is a patent violation of the Seller's duty to disclose known defects and could subject the homeseller to serious liability for any resulting damages incurred by the buyer.
Nevertheless, for the layman this book is an essential resource and I wish everyone of my clients would read it before coming to our office for their settlements.
Book Description
Maximize Every Opportunity to Close the Sale What if you have a powerful closing script that you could use to maximize you sales? What if the script was so useful that you doubled your income the first year you started using it? Would you find value in that? This book will give you the edge you need to excel your career in new home sales! You'll Discover: * How the sales process connects to closing. * A powerful closing script designed to maximize your sales! * What to do if the customer gets you off track... * How to navigate the stages of closing. * Why having a plan will get you great results. * How to get the results you want, faster with less stress.
Average customer rating:
- It was hard for me to be hard on this book
- Past closing time for Heller
- Closing Time on Catch-22
- Not really a sequel.
- Just Not the sAme ...
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Closing Time
Joseph Heller
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Heller, Joseph
| ( H )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
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Catch-22
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Something Happened
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God Knows
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Good As Gold
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Picture This : A Novel
ASIN: 0743239806 |
Book Description
Thirty-three years and over ten million copies later...the classic story continues.
Yossarian returns -- older, if not wiser -- to face a new foe.
An instant classic when published in 1961, Joseph Heller's Catch-22 still ranks among the funniest -- and most serious -- novels ever written about war. Now Heller has dared to write the sequel to his 10-million copy bestseller, using many of Catch-22's characters to deftly satirize the realities and the myths of America in the half century since they fought World War II.
In Closing Time, a comic masterpiece in its own right, Heller spears the inflated balloons of our national consciousness -- the absurdity of our politics, the decline of society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture -- with the same ferocious humor that he used against the conventional view of warfare. Back again are characters familiar from Catch-22, including Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and little Sammy Singer, as they come to the end of their lives and the end of the century -- all linked, this time, in uneasy peace and old age...fighting not the Germans, but The End.
Outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as Catch-22 itself, Closing Time is a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.
Customer Reviews:
It was hard for me to be hard on this book.......2007-06-02
I am a big Heller fan who has read most of his work and enjoyed almost every minute of it, but Closing Time was just a painful read.
The book is basically nothing more than a sub-par Catch-22. Heller attempts to catch some of the old magic, but Yossarian as a disappointed geriatric made me want to cry. I would much rather have kept Yossarian sitting naked in a tree inside of my imagination rather than ever see him as a feeble old man. I compare seeing him as a vulnerable old man to the feeling I had when, as a kid, I figured out my dad couldn't beat up everyone else's dad. I didn't want to see my dad as a mortal man nor did I want to see my favorite literary character as a mortal either.
Other than the disappointment of seeing my favorite characters as old timers, the book tries to read like its predecessor but falls very short. The humor is the same but the jokes have become as old and tired as the characters. Catch-22 had me rolling on the floor one minute and then crying a few minutes later, but this book had a few smirks and no tear jerkers. The conversation about where the water went (if you read the book you know what I am talking about) was a brief, shining moment among many lusterless ones.
I would advise anybody who is as big a fan of Catch-22 as I am not to even read this book, even if you get a free copy. I wish I hadn't. The image you want in your mind is Orr paddling away to freedom and Yossarian flying off into the sunset on his trail, but if you read this book that image will be gone forever.
Review from a huge fan of Catch-22 telling other fans do not read this book for your own good.
Past closing time for Heller.......2006-09-27
Joseph Heller's career path described a long slow decline. This book will be very depressing to anyone-- and I imagine this is every single one of its readers-- who reveled in the glorious transcendent wisdom/humor of "Catch-22." That's the only reason to read it and precisely why it will disappoint. "Another book about Yossarian? You know, I always did wonder whatever happened to him..." Man, what a bummer. Turns out he's more or less the same, just older and even more disillusioned and bitter. And the world hasn't changed much (and certainly not for the better.) As a young man, part of Yossarian's appeal was his lust and smugness-- he was smarter and cooler than everyone in the room and that's what made his situation, trapped as he was by the infernal Catch-22, so intriguing... how was he going to escape his purgatory? As an old man, he's (perhaps realistically, but that doesn't mean it's entertaining) become nothing so much as a pathetic nihilist.
You know how at the end of the long run of "MASH" on tv, Hawkeye had over time been so beaten-up he had become a pitiful shell of his former self and it just wasn't funny anymore? Did you find it painful to watch? "Closing Time" is the same way. My guess is most will prefer to remember Yossarian as he was in the first book, or as Alan Arkin's excellent portrayal of him in the movie.
(By the way-- if you transcribe this review and substitute Larry McMurtry, "Duane's Depressed" and "Last Picture Show / Texasville," you'll save yourself some time and a couple of bucks at the remainder rack there as well...)
Closing Time on Catch-22.......2005-12-14
Everyone remembers the famed Catch-22. (Almost as though being Murphey's Law on speed). The famed line of "Thats some catch". And everyone whom has ever read the origional novel first published in 1961 remembers how hard Yossarian struggled to be rid of the Catch, the island of Pianossa and the war itself. However whenever young Yossarian thought that he had found a loophole in the catch his hopes were rapidly crushed by the un-stopable and un-merciful catch. Catch-22.
Although Yossarian did finally find a way to overcome the catch and the island by running away altogether.
In the sequal to the famed Catch-22, Heller picks up with the old caracters from his original novel nearly sixty years after WWII. They are all aged with time and have familys and pasts of their own and are all still struggling with the immortal Catch-22. Only this time it effects their everyday lives in the world that we live in today. Dealing with love affairs, slums, poverty, wealth, political aspects, buisness, death, age and the end.
Joseph Heller uses the same intensity and feirce wit as in all of his writtings however this time his subect matter seems to deal very near to his heart and soul which makes for one of the most passionate and beautiful use of word play and vissuality. Even more so at times than Catch-22 itself.
This book to me is so strong that it could almost stand on its own without its predesesor. (No disrespect intended). I would reccomened it to anyone who would like to visualize our economy, society and life in general from the eyes of an author whom sees the world as it really is; One gigantic Catch-22.
Not really a sequel........2005-09-25
If you're looking for a zany follow-up to Catch-22, don't get your hopes up with this one.
Closing Time is a wonderful take on life. I was rarely bored while reading it, but some of Heller's stabs at politics (George Bush) felt a little forced and unnecessary. I first read samples from this book in Catch As Catch Can, a collection of Heller's short stories, and I was a little put-off at first.
This book is just exquisite; it really captures (what I perceive will be) old age with so many insightful passages. It's not laugh-out-loud funny like Catch-22, it's more philosophical and has different goals than that novel did. It is superbly constructed (as you would expect from any Heller novel), and has wonderful imagery, characters, metaphors, etc. Very high tier as far as fiction goes.
Just Not the sAme ..........2005-08-25
If you loved Catch-22, do yourself a favor, DON'T find out what happens to Yossarian! The book is boring, and drags on, and the worst part is ... there's no more catch! The only person from the first book that is with Yossarian is Milo, and it seems like Heller is trying to recapture the success of his first novel. I mean ... this book has no story line whatsoever. If you're really thAt curious, then I suggest you go to the library and borrow it, or go to Barnes&Noble, sit on the big sofas, sip your grande cappucino and read it for free ... you'll see I'm right, and it's NOT worth buying!
Book Description
In this, the sequel to his critically acclaimed and controversial The End of Homework, John Buell extends his case against homework. Arguing that homework robs children—and parents—of unstructured time for play and intellectual and emotional development, Closing the Book on Homework offers a convincing case for why homework is an outgrowth of broader cultural anxieties about the sanctity of work itself.
After the publication of his previous book, many professional educators portrayed reducing homework as a dangerous idea, while at the same time parents and teachers increasingly raised doubts as to its continued usefulness in education.
According to Buell, the importance of play is culturally underappreciated. Not only grade schoolers, but high school students and adult workers deserve time for the kind of leisure that fosters creativity and sustains a life long interest in learning. Homework is assigned for many reasons, many having little to do with learning, including an accepted, if unchallenged, belief that it fosters good work habits for children's futures. As Buell argues convincingly, homework does more to obstruct the growth of children's minds, and consumes the time of parents and children who may otherwise develop relationships that foster true growth and learning.
A unique book that is sure to fuel the growing debate on school reform, Closing the Book on Homework offers a roadmap for learning that will benefit the wellbeing of children, parents, and teachers alike.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting, but not quite convincing.......2004-11-25
The author primarily convinces us that homework is a tool supported by global corporations to serve as a predecessor to the arduous fifty to sixty hour work weeks expected in many professional careers. Homework is often viewed by school-aged children as a burden due to its usual stipulations of longer hours away from their friends and familial responsibilities. It can promote difficult situations within one's home, and ultimately sever family ties. For example: a child is forced by his or her parents to work on additional assignments after school, that child sometimes becomes rebellious or obnoxious in the attempt to resist the work because it is not generally seen by youngsters as a means to an end. Parents and schools are allegedly a part of an `unspoken conspiracy" to simply inflict unnecessary challenges and inconvenience on its children; rather than enrich them in academic pursuits.
John Buell's assertions substantiate the argument that homework allows organized mega-businesses such as Microsoft, IBM and Coke to acclimate future workers and even future consumers whom fit into the adult world whose mantra is "Hard Work Pays off." Does it really? Will all those extra hours of worksheets and repetitive readings adding to my wealth of knowledge or a time/space filler to minimize the number of hours spent with one's family during the week. Each product for sale is potential bait for the naïve student to develop loyalty to brand names in addition to learning the technology and programming necessary to operate the item.
Although inundation of advertisements and great deals influence the desire for high-performing gadgets and gizmos, increased dependence on technology promotes people to second guess their innate gifts and abilities and start to depend heavily on calculators and other instruments to perform simple mathematic equations. Buell also suggests that documented studies have proven that after a specific percentage of review, a child's ability to retain information is not that impressive. The distinct declaration deviates from the commonly used analogy of "children" and "sponges." This analogy demonstrates that the minds of children have an unlimited capacity for knowledge, just as a sponge retains a substantial amount of water.
This book raises good concerns about the effects of too much homework and the future roles of the students as contributors to the global economy and society. However, more thorough evidence is essential in proving that the liabilities of assigning homework outweigh the benefits.
A eye opening book.......2004-11-15
Greg Davis
Professor Gibbons
Sociology
Closing the Book on Homework
Closing the book on Homework, by John Buell, is a very informative and articulate read. It also has a very catchy title. John Buell not only fights for the suffering children and young adults but also for society as a whole. He does this by arguing that homework hurts our children and society. He does this through a very strong and well backed argument.
I feel that one of his strong points of argument was his discussion on suffering. He defined that suffering is children going to school malnourished or not properly fed. Yes, he pointed out that suffering is a physical problem, but he also pointed out that suffering can be a mental problem also. In my experience in life, I feel that mental suffering can be the worst. And I think that it is common sense that children that perform long hours of homework at home can experience a great deal of mental suffering. Not only are they on there own at home, they are not in a setting that is supportive and as encouraging as a school. And if these children are getting substantial amounts of support from there parents then the whole point of children doing homework is not working, because the children are not doing the work themselves. Buell thinks that the work should be done in the class room where children have the proper support and advice from teachers.
One of Buell's main arguments is that children just like adults need time to themselves. He pointed out that some children in elementary school spend 30 hours a week in school, and spend around 5 hours just traveling there. He then points out that these same children have to go home every day in an environment not as encouraging as school and do more hours of homework. Children need a substantial amount of time to themselves to grow and find themselves. In terms of intellect and educational attainment, kids that work during the school week, have lower levels of educational attainment. Kids working at jobs can be compared to kids "working" on school work. Is there that much of a difference? So if kids who hold jobs suffer than one can come to the conclusion that children spending hours on homework might also suffer.
Buell argues that homework places a constraint on families and on communities. I totally agree with this. How can families be expected to grow and to be close if children have to come home and get there work finished. It is not healthy for children to sit inside all day in school and then come home to hours of more sitting at there desk or study area. And Buell makes a good point about it being more difficult for children of poor economic backgrounds to perform there homework. It is a system set up in favor of middle class children. They can benefit more from taking work home to a more equipped setting.
John Buell is a very intelligent man that is currently engaging in a so called war, over the issue of homework. In his book he outlines many reasons why homework is not helping our society. He many times points out that there are no studies that correlate academic success to homework. I feel that homework is more harmful to the person and the family that to the society. Buell argues this by talking about the many different constraints that homework places on the family. This is a very informative book that should be read and studied by everyone interested on the debate of homework in today's society.
Time to discuss homework?.......2004-11-15
Everyone might have thought at least once that it would be nice to be free from the burden of everyday homework. However, we have convinced ourselves to do homework because we think of it is an unchangeable fact, without any room for discussion about alternatives. Is homework really needed for students to improve their academic performance? John Buell, in his Closing the Book on Homework, claims that the ways in which homework is assigned in today's society is not effective, useless, and there is a need for homework reform. He emphasizes the need for reducing the burdens of homework in America's public school by discussing roles and consequences of homework and by suggesting limitations and alternatives for homework for efficient education. He insists on his points by explaining the impacts of homework on students and the relation of homework beyond the educational (school) setting: America's culture and social conditions. His argument on homework is multidimensional, convincing, and compelling.
Buell challenges America's high value of homework. Admitting that students who get higher scores and grades engage in doing more homework, he claims homework is not the primary factor of improving students' academic performances. He says that homework does not work efficiently without adequate educational environment, such as parenting and well support of teachers to individuals. This is a good point because today's homework is assigned mostly as "one-size-fits all" assignments which puts responsibilities on only children. Furthermore he claims that homework also has negative impacts for children such as causing low motivation and attitudes, endangers health, and is a violation of parents and children by taking away time to spend together. The way he criticizes negative aspects of homework over its positive impacts effectively supports his position, why homework should be eliminated or limited. Thus, his opponents' perspective of homework reform seems too simplistic about assigning more homework without any regards of alternative consequences of it.
Buell depicts the roles of homework in a larger picture that suggests other perspectives of homework. He explains the historical background of homework in America's public education and says that the roles of homework have changed depending on social conditions. This suggests a role of school is to produce potential workers for the country's future. It is interesting to know that there was a homework reform and even agendas to limit homework in the history. This historical background of homework is not known well in today's society, which values heavy homework. His mention of this history is good because it not only shows his call for homework-free classroom and limitation of homework are not extremely pointless or overly optimistic idea, but also induces readers in the discussion of homework reform.
Buell greatly connects a high value of homework in American society with the cultural, traditional and moral value of hard work and the potentials of youth. In addition to his explanation of the historical shift of value of homework, this point explains well why there is a tendency that emphasizes more and more homework on children. He also makes a strong point that there is a strong tendency of parents of low-income families' longing for more homework for their children, because their academic success will lead them to upward social mobility. From his points, readers may gain a perspective that children have huge burdens of expectations from their family and society on their shoulders and those expectations perpetuate the high value of homework and more work on children. This implies an irony of homework when we consider his early critique that claims homework does not directly lead students to successful academic performance.
This book is good especially for teachers, school boarders, educational policy makers, and parents, whether they are against homework reform or not. It provides readers with rich perspectives of the value of homework, and allows them to rethink about its purpose. Buell's claim of home-free-classroom and reducing homework sounds idealistic and optimistic at first glance without knowing his evidence supports, but it is worth rethinking the value of homework in regards to his points because he does not merely suggest reducing all homework with a simple approach. If we go beyond the "norm" of hard work and try to reform today's procedures of assigning homework, we would get best outcome of education from fewer but well efficient and qualified procedures, as he suggests. This book suggests changes and provides room for discussion.
An essential book for parents and education sociologists.......2004-11-12
John Buell's book Closing the Book on Homework is a subtly philosophical look at the purpose of homework in education and the utility of the concept of homework in the context of a global economy that emphasizes production and consumption. His main points are to argue against the effectiveness of homework and to highlight the consequences increased time spent on homework has on family life and the quality of public education. Based on a clear lack of homework research to support its efficacy in enhancing education and to make any substantive correlation between many hours spent doing homework and increased performance in the classroom, Buell dispels the arguments favoring homework as a necessary means to broaden a child's education and to build her character.
One of the most surprising yet undeniable connections Buell makes is the corresponding histories of children's rights in public education and the laborer's rights in the workplace. The progressive labor politics of the 1930's were reflected in increased children's rights and reduced homework. By the 1940's-50's in the post-WWII era, the country had a renewed valorization of work. Buell makes a logical case that the US competition with the Soviet Union and the burgeoning economy provoked the implementation of a more strenuous education centered on the "sanctity of homework". During these decades, homework was increasingly viewed as a way to enhance academic productivity, in the same way that longer working hours enhanced production output. Like the progressive philosophies of the 1930's, the politics of the 60's and 70's were concerned with the length and pace of the workday, and likewise with the mental health and "happiness" of children in school. The 1980's were once again a period of economic insecurity and competition with Asian powers, and as a result there was a heightened skepticism about leisure time as and a fear that "mediocre educational performance" would result in the country losing its competitive edge in the global economy. The consumerism of the 90's likewise contributed to the deterioration of the value of "learning for learning's sake," as the rewards for education became material through corporate sponsored incentive programs.
I have recently suspected our society of moving towards a dangerous and consuming trend of "getting and spending," but prior to reading this book, had never made the connection between consumerism, democratic ideals of individualism and hard work, and the increasing demands on school children. Buell delineates this process articulately with sound sociological reasoning. The myth of American society is one of social mobility. Poor and working-class families stress homework to their children in an effort to demonstrate their commitment to these "American" values and hope for a better life. Having taught an after-school program in a working-class urban community, I can confirm the author's conclusions. My class of second-graders often receives more than five worksheets of homework per night, an assignment which commonly takes the students more than one hour, and which their parents always insist firmly that they complete. Not only is the length of the homework long, but the assignment itself is wholly uninteresting, consisting of page after page of addition problems and tedious "activity" sheets demanding that they answer questions about a story they read in class earlier that day. In light of this experience, I can't help but agree with Buell's thesis that "the very stress on homework and long school day is another, and increasingly problematic, form of this preparation process to accustom the student to long working hours." I would simply add to this that stress on boring and unconstructive homework as students know it today, prepares them to accept boring and unfulfilling work later in life.
According to the author, the school's main function is to teach literacy and numeracy. In order to implement homework reform, he asserts that action must be taken on a grass roots level. Parents, students, teachers, and other concerned individuals need to demand restrictions on homework on the local level. Closing the Book on Homework is a revealing book well-deserving of a read from any citizen who suspects that the country is in the grips of corporate leaders dictating the value of consumerism and acquiring material wealth and likewise by anyone who observes a growing lack of family and free time due to increasing demands on the parents in the workplace and children in and outside of the classroom.
Challenging the Status Quo.......2004-11-05
Author John Buell challenges in Closing the Book on Homework: Enhancing Public Education and Freeing Family Time the sacredly held notion that homework absolutely benefits students. Buell, conversely, believes that "too much of a good thing" is detrimental. Childhood development is defined by education, but not by academic instruction exclusively. Children also need to learn in the context of family, friends, extra-curricular activities, and part-time employment. Balance is imperative.
Buell emphasizes that teachers who blindly assign homework without considering peripheral variables risk impeding childhood development not only in the classroom, but also in life generally. Every student encounters different environments - many of which are negative - upon dismissal at the end of the school day. Since teachers cannot distribute homework on an individual basis, the most dismal circumstances must carry the greatest weight when teachers design nightly assignments. The child who is forced to complete hours of work on the floor of a shared bedroom using light from only a television set will rapidly lose ground to the student who enjoys the comfort of an expansive desk in a bright, quiet family office. In this case, homework creates disparities among students by negating progress made in the classroom. Sadly, those affected - the children - mainly are unable to prevent or improve the situation.
Buell logically points to the classroom's successor, the workplace, as a potentially ideal model for maximizing childhood development without relying on homework. Many professionals work from 9 am to 5 pm for a total of 40 hours per week. Once the office lights are turned off for the day, these individuals return home free to engage in leisure activities such as cooking, exercising, reading, and spending time with family. The defined responsibilities facilitate productivity at the former and refresh the spirit at the latter. Adults agree to work diligently on the job, but they in turn expect to receive personal time as a reward. Students are not granted such a luxury. On the busiest day, a given student will spend eight hours learning at school and several hours studying at home, only to repeat the process after limited sleep. How can student energy levels not be expected to decline over the course of a week, month, and semester?
Imagine the possibilities if the United States workweek mirrored that in Europe, where extended vacation time is the norm. Buell theorizes that less obsession with occupational demands would trickle down into less educational burdens. Students and parents, regardless of age, would be able to "play" with unprecedented frequency. Skeptics contend that such a shift will "dumb down" the country. On the contrary, Buell believes that increased opportunities to explore and share unique interests will spur mental, physical, and emotional growth. Eyes may be buried in fewer books, but the human intellect will be stimulated like never before.
Buell's argument is more than distinct - the argument is thoughtful and compelling. Unfortunately, his pleas to reduce the average homework load likely will go unheeded. Out of one side of the mouth, adults will complain that their lives lack relaxing moments. Simultaneously, they will invest overtime hours at the office in the unending quest for promotions and raises. Buell laughs at the idea that more time spent working always equates to more productivity, success, and fulfillment. Until societal leaders pause for a moment to contemplate the logic behind Buell's alternative, students and parents will continue to toil furiously despite the diminishing returns.
Book Description
Closing that Gift! features dozens of ideas that work day in and day out in fund raising, such as 29 secrets to successful solicitation, 15 fund-raising opportunities with the millionaire next door, 30 commandments for successful fund raising and the top 10 solicitation mistakes. Throughout the book you'll learn the secrets of closing estate gifts, keys to successful prospect research and how to think out of the box about deferred gifts. The book closes with the in-depth, inside stories of five major campaigns, their successes and the lessons learned.
Average customer rating:
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Closing Time
Norman Oliver Brown
Manufacturer: Random House Inc (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| Classics
| Contemporary
| General
| Historical
| Humor
| Letters & Correspondence
| Middle
| Old
| Poetry
| Renaissance
| Shakespeare
| Short Stories
ASIN: 0394711610 |
Customer Reviews:
I love this book.......2006-07-10
This is just a small paperback without an index, but there might have been a hardcover in 1973, when the author, a Professor of Humanities, was sixty years old. What I have is the first Vintage Books edition, September 1974. According to the Contents, the book has five parts. The best for me was:
III. An Interlude of Farce (pp. 39-63).
Page 45 quotes FINNEGANS WAKE and a songwriter who is now over 60:
His farced epistol. [FW, 228]
Subsequently the name for the interludes of impromptu buffoonery which the actors in the religious dramas were accustomed to interpolate in their text.
Bob Dylan:
There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the priest.
The Preface balances four lines from FINNEGANS WAKE with five lines from Vico's NEW SCIENCE.
What a mnice old mness it all mnakes! [FW, 19]
Customer Reviews:
Read Ketchum. Period........2007-03-22
Though this collection contains stories that have been previously published in various capacities, it, as well as his previous collection PEACEABLE KINGDOM, are must reads. Ketchum is not a household name, but he should be. In recent years he has received deserved praise from the master of horror himself, Stephen King, and some readers have found this diamond in the rough, and I assume are very grateful for that. The price for some of Ketchum's books are more than general authors, but I imagine a majority of publishers would not publish his material, because it is so dark and un-mainstream. I found him almost a decade ago, and I am eternally grateful for that. With a few movies already adapted from some of his books, I imagine he will only become more popular and well known. I don't think he wants to be a 'celebrity', but at 60-ish years of age, I assume he's ok with where's he is at financially and publically. So bottom line, read Ketchum, anything by him. The rest will take care of itself, like a running faucet. You will be hooked. If you want to read his best book, it is THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. Anyone who tells you differently, doesn't know what they're talking about. Happy reading!
Average customer rating:
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CLOSING TIME
JOSEPH HELLER
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0671719076 |
Average customer rating:
- Time for letting go?
- Orr begins with style in "Closing Time"
- Closing Time by Jim Fusili
- It's all about the kid.
- Very, very promising work
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Closing Time
Jim Fusilli
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0399147934
Release Date: 2001-09-06 |
Book Description
It's after midnight and a novice private investigator, out for a late-night run, discovers the battered body of a livery cab driver in downtown Manhattan's meatpacking district. Two days later, he witnesses a bloody explosion at a gala opening at a SoHo art gallery.
Unrelated incidents? Not to Terry Orr. A single father to a remarkable twelve-year-old daughter, Terry is still devoted to his beautiful Italian wife, a painter of immense talent, whose life ended abruptly during a brutal event that also took the life of their infant son. Sparked to action by violence and deception, he begins to understand that he's been given a chance to confront his tragic past by learning the skills of the PI trade, and finding the madman who forever changed his life. And, perhaps, to realize fully what it means to be the father of a young, loving daughter.
But the person who took the life of the cab driver isn't so easy to find, and Terry must chase the killer into the upper reaches of Harlem. Beating back his own demons in both his therapist's office and the basketball courts of Houston Street, he finds that redemption can come in the form of a game of horse with the daughter who views him as a hero. So focused is he on the world's injustices, he can barely see the girl who will do anything for her hurting, tormented father.
With brilliant characters and heartbreakingly raw emotions, Closing Time is a superb mystery from a writer to watch.
Customer Reviews:
Time for letting go?.......2007-03-21
Terry Ott's obsession with the shocking death of his beautiful and talented artist wife and his baby son continue in this entry of Jim Fusilli's series. As he tries to deal with his grief and desire for revenge, a mystery involving a murdered taxi driver, and an explosion in the gallery of his dead wife's agent, he risks his relationship with his surviving precocious pre-teen daughter Bella.
There are many good things in this book, most of which have to do with the wonderfully conveyed atmosphere of the great city of New York--just as much a character as Ott himself. And he knows his noir. But Ott's overwrought relationship with his dead wife is just too much, and his daughter Bella is too cool to be real. Ott's suffering is just too self-conscious and posturing as it continues from novel to novel. Whether Fusilli's PI can continue to interest if he doesn't break away from his love/death fantasy is a question that only time can answer.
Orr begins with style in "Closing Time".......2005-08-01
One of the fun things about reviewing (and no, it's not the money) is finding new authors and series that one might not have known about otherwise. I was recently sent the forth book in this series, "Hard, Hard City" by Jim Fusilli for an upcoming review at another site. Having read and enjoyed "Hard, Hard City" so much, it seemed an excellent idea to look for the rest of the series. For once, my local library had them all.
The series opens with "Closing Time" and it is in this book we meet many of the principal characters. Terry Orr is mourning the violent passing of his wife Marina and their baby boy as well as dealing with thoughts of vengeance and retaliation against the man he believes is responsible. Since the police have been unable to help, Terry has put his successful writing career on the backburner and is aggressively learning how to be a private investigator. He believes by doing so he can achieve his goal of apprehending the man responsible for the virtual destruction of his family. Some would say he also put on the backburner his beautiful 12-year-old daughter, Gabriella (affectionately nicknamed "Bella"), but he would strongly disagree.
He would argue that he is dealing with things as best as he can. That is all he can do, day-to-day, as he adjusts but he sees Marina and the baby symbolically in everything around him. He certainly does when he sees Judith Henley Harper and their chance meeting on a New York City street is another dig into his soul. Harper used to be his wife's agent as Marina painted beautiful pictures that sold and sold very well. Thanks to her paintings and Terry's own book sales, money still isn't an issue in their home. The last thing he wants to do is to go to the old art gallery as he will be forced to confront memories of happier times and the sadness of today. But that is exactly what Harper wants Terry and Bella to do, as there will be a showing of a new artist in a few days. Bella who has been after her father to write again, to get out and live again, thinks it is a wonderful idea. Before long, commitments are made and they go to the showing.
Which almost proves fatal as a bomb explodes during the show seriously injuring Harper who is saved only by Terry's quick thinking in the aftermath. Harper unknowingly becomes a client for Terry as he launches a personal investigation into who did it and why. He also takes on another client, this time in the form of an elderly dead man, when he launches an investigation into the murder of Cabdriver Aubrey Brown. Like the Harper case, it became personal for entirely different reasons after finding the man dead in his livery cab. As he works two very divergent and difficult cases, he begins to see commonalities in both as well as links to himself while dealing with the challenges of moving on and being a good father.
This first novel lays an extensive foundation of the series with the introduction of so many of the continuing secondary characters. Told exclusively through Terry's viewpoint, the reader sees his world as he sees it and through judicious use of dialogue how others see him. Unlike so many novels today that shift through various points of view, a reader of this novel is immersed deeply into Terry's world and never once jarred out of it over the course of the 275-page book.
While the psychological component of the past and those issues as well as his resulting emotions are a major theme of the work, the author does not let that interfere with the twin case storylines. Instead, the thematic elements are balanced with the cases and current day life issues in such away to not only further round out the characters but to move the story forward. Not an easy task but one the author does seamlessly in page after page.
After you have had your fill of the summer beach books, take a look at this one for some mystery meat. I can guarantee you won't be disappointed.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2005
Closing Time by Jim Fusili.......2005-07-06
Great first novel. Right on with characterizations. Tight, smooth sentence structure. Descriptive pasages paint a brilliant picture
It's all about the kid........2005-03-26
I love this book. Fusilli gives us an opening into the soft sentimental, underbelly of the male psyche. No wonder some guys didn't like it. They don't want this "weaker" side exposed. So many writers, and men, work so hard to build up the stoic shell, and he cut right down to the sad sweet vulnerability.
Sure, Terry's daughter is more mature than he is. I know that feeling, I felt that way with my daughter since she was about ten. But He never tries to deny that. Instead he appreciates that Bella may have the only exit from his crippling inability to recover from his overwhelming loss.
Both of these characters are keepers, and I'm waiting anxiously for A Well Known Secret to get to me in the mail.
Very, very promising work.......2005-03-07
To those who don't live there, New York can seem a dangerous place. Its inhabitants *know* it is, but they also know how to deal with it. Sometimes. In the case of Terry Orr, respected writer of popular history and husband of a highly-regarded Italian artist, the death two years ago of his wife and infant son on a subway platform at the hands of a crazed derelict has changed his entire world, even in ways he hasn't yet realized. Now, having given up writing for a PI's license, he tries to learn how to find and (perhaps) take revenge on the killer. Rather than explaining all of that, though, this first in the series begins "in media res", revealing the back-story bit by bit, through Terry's letters to his late wife, through his largely hostile sessions with a psychiatrist, and through the words and actions of his circle of supportive friends. The two cases he undertakes here involve the murder of a black hack driver whose body he discovers while jogging, and the bombing of the art gallery owned by his wife's agent. The two plots are uncomplicated but realistic, the sort of thing that happens all the time in the Big City, but the real story centers on Terry's inner turmoil and on his relationship with his very bright twelve-year-old daughter, Bella. Fusilli is a music critic (like Terry's close friend, Diddio the pothead), but this is his first novel. He shows great talent in delineating his vividly three-dimensional characters: Automatic Slim, the ex-con basketball artist; Montana, a street kid on the way even farther down; Sol Beck, derivative artist with nowhere to go; Jimmy Mango, general hustler, and his brother, Tommy the Cop; Luther Addison, homicide lieutenant with thinly-stretched tolerance; and perhaps the most important character of all -- New York City.
Books:
- The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (P.S.)
- The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories: Family Happiness; The Kreutzer Sonata; Master and Man (Signet Classics)
- The Elephant Vanishes: Stories
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Gift Set
- The Losers (Vol.1): Ante Up
- The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs
- The New Wellness Revolution: How to Make a Fortune in the Next Trillion Dollar Industry
- The OASIS Guide to Asperger Syndrome: Completely Revised and Updated: Advice, Support, Insight, and Inspiration
- The Perfect Husband
- The Resiliency Advantage: Master Change, Thrive Under Pressure, and Bounce Back from Setbacks
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