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SirReadaLot.org


We Review the Best of the Latest Books

ISSN 1934-6557

December 2006, Issue 93

Guide to This Issue

Arts & Photography

Big Sky: Wild West Panorama by Tim Fitzharris (Firefly Books)

My words are tied in one
With the great mountains
With the great rocks
In one with my body
And my heart. – Yukots

Big Sky is a personal celebration of the American West by one of its finest photographers and authors. Distilled from more than two decades of exploration, Tim Fitzharris' Big Sky captures beautiful panoramas rarely matched in majesty and diversity. Big Sky includes tinted canyons, cactus-studded deserts, ice-capped mountains, rumpled badlands, the misty beaches of the Pacific and a limitless expanse of prairie wildflowers.

Fitzharris, who writes a monthly column in Popular Photography and Imaging magazine, opens Big Sky with personal observations on photographing the American West and then presents a retrospective of his photographs, organized by region:

  • High Plains
  • Canyon lands
  • Rocky Mountains
  • Sierra Nevada
  • Southern deserts
  • Pacific coast.

For each of these six sections there is an introduction to the landscape, followed by 12 plates for a total of 72 photographs. Here in brilliant color are 72 stunning panoramics of the North American West, including locations in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, California, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Washington, Alberta and British Columbia. Each section is introduced with a short Native American verse about the land, underscoring the connection of the human soul and spirit to its surroundings. Then Fitzharris sets the scene, describing the surrounding land and its flora and fauna, for, as he writes, "the beauty of the land and sky falls empty without the tapestry of life that they support."

According to Fitzharris, the images in Big Sky are the result of more than two decades of exploration, searching for the right sites, the right light, and the right cloud formations to do justice to these incredible landscapes. Shot by this award-winning photographer/writer as three to five separate images each, the photos were stitched together in the field on his computer as huge, detailed billboard-quality images. In Big Sky, they are reproduced as panoramic 15 x 11 inch spreads.

But the book is more than a celebration for, as Fitzharris notes, the ecosystems of the lands he depicts are besieged in numerous ways – by mining, forestry, oil and gas extraction, industrial development, residential sprawl and more. "Making these photographs," he writes, "was a pleasure, especially the time spent in the field gathering images. The enterprise may serve further if it impresses the reader with both the beauty we have – and the beauty we stand to lose."

Short of jumping into an RV and setting out for the western wilderness, there is no better way to see the magnificence of the landscapes than in Big Sky; it is an iconic collection of panoramic views of the North American West. With their brilliant color and wide perspective, these images take readers to the heart of a wilderness dreamland. For those who have visited the Grand Canyon or the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains and Badlands on either side of the border, these images bring back the immediate response of wonder and awe. For readers who has yet to travel to the ‘Wild West,’ these gorgeous panoramic images instantly allow them to imagine the vastness, the openness, the diversity and the majesty of these landscapes. And it may well be Fitzharris' definitive work, demonstrating his reverence and respect for the American West.

Arts & Photography / Religion & Spirituality / Christianity

Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature by Dorothee Soelle & Joe H. Kirchberger (Fortress Press)

Historical fascination with women of the Bible has contributed a wealth of artistic images, literature, legends, fables, and religious poetry to Western traditions. From heroic figures such as Judith and Esther to friends like Ruth and Naomi, the Bible presents a plenitude of women whose deeds and desires have inspired Western art and culture for more than two thousand years.

While they have always inhabited the popular imagination, only in the last generation have the figures of biblical women come strongly to the forefront of historical investigation and theological reflection.

Culled from a larger, more expensive volume by the same authors first published in 1994, Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature, focuses on fifteen biblical characters and gloriously presents not only their stories but also more than 200 art-historical images of them, along with commentary by the late theologian Dorothee Soelle, former Professor of Theology at Union Theological Seminary, and discussion of their post-biblical legacies in art and literature by historian and journalist Joe Kirchberger. Sections open with the relevant citations from the Bible, which are answered by Soelle's commentaries. After the story of Sarah, for instance, Soelle reflects on the meaning not only of that story but also of the parallel one of the enslaved Hagar, with its import for those who desire social justice. This is followed by a summary of the ancient literature showing the way the characters have been used by European writers.

The figures discussed include Eve and Lilith, Sarah and Hagar, Tamar, Ruth and Naomi, Abigail, Judith, Esther, the woman who anointed Jesus, Mary of Magdala, Mary and Martha, and many more. The illustrations range from mosaics to contemporary paintings.

This splendid art book explores the various meanings artists have found in the Bible's female figures. … As for the illustrations – several per page – they range from ancient mosaics to contemporary paintings, with many florid Renaissance artworks in between. Tamar, Potiphar's wife, Deborah, Delilah, the Witch of Endor, Bathsheba, Judith, Mary of Magdala, and more appear in these pages, enlivened and enriched by the artists whom they have inspired. – Patricia Monaghan, Booklist

… The stunning visual program … bridging the ever-widening gap separating ancient narrative from medieval and modern perception. Written in an accessible style, the book achieves a rare balance of cultural history and religious meditation… popular presentation and scholarly authority. Most of all, it robustly shows that any thoughtful reading of the Bible must attend to the decisive presence of the fascinating women who animate it from one end to the other. This book teaches us how to remember. – David Morgan, Duesenberg Professor of Christianity and the Arts, Valparaiso University

Who were these biblical women really and how did they live? . . . If we discount the differences in social, cultural and religious conditions, the women of the Bible are like today's women, in their sorrow and joy, love and passion, freedom and dependence, their intelligence and resignation to their fate. But they were wrongly ignored for years by theologians and preachers. Women had to rediscover women. By digging into the biographies of these great women they have been able, also, to rediscover themselves in the Bible. – Herbert Haag, Professor of Old Testament Emeritus, University of Tübingen

This is a beautiful gift book with real substance. As evidenced in this great treasury and its expert commentary, biblical women from Eve to Mary Magdalene are now better understood in their original historical and literary contexts, as well as in their enormous symbolic legacies in Western art, literature, and culture. Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature gloriously presents the character of these 15 women through art and searching commentary. Treated in this way, the panoply of biblical women becomes a fascinating record of and meditation on the many identities and life meanings of women in history and today.

Audio / Biographies & Memoirs

Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York [UNABRIDGED, 8 Audio CDs, 9 ¾ hours) by Adam Gopnik (HighBridge)

Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York [Hardcover] by Adam Gopnik (Knopf)

Adam Gopnik received wide acclaim for his 2000 Paris to the Moon based on his ‘Paris Journal’ column appearing in the New Yorker. Through the Children's Gate is the continuation of the Gopnik’s adventures against the panorama of a different, though no less storied city, as the family attempts to make a new home for themselves.

In Through the Children's Gate it is Autumn 2000: After five years in Paris, Gopnik moves his family back to a New York that seems, at first, safer and shinier than ever. Here in the wondrously strange ‘neighborhood’ of Manhattan we observe the triumphs and travails of father, mother, son, and daughter; and of the teachers, coaches, therapists, adversaries, and friends who round out the extended urban family. From Bluie, a goldfish fated to meet a Hitchcockian end, to Charlie Ravioli, an imaginary playmate who, being a New Yorker, is too busy to play, the Gopnik's new home is under the spell of the sort of characters only the city's unique civilization of childhood could produce.

Not long after their return, the fabric of living will be rent by the events of 9/11, but like a magic garment, will reweave itself, reviving normalcy in a world where Jewish jokes mingle with debates about the problem of consciousness, the price of real estate, and the meaning of modern art. Along the way in Through the Children's Gate, the impermanence and transcendence of life will be embodied in the person of a beloved teacher and coach who, even facing death, radiates a distinctively local light.

Engaging, witty, thoughtful, clever, casual, ebullient, erudite, and thoroughly modern. – Gabriele Annan, The Spectator (London)

Back … Gopnik… records in his tidy, writerly and obsessive fashion his family's relocation to the city of his earliest professional aspiration: New York. …His 20 various essays meander over topics dear to the hearts of New York parents, such as learning to be appropriately Jewish (‘A Purim Story’) …. The less structured series of essays on Thanksgiving are most pleasing and read like diaries, ranging from the rage over noise to the safety of riding buses. Gopnik conveys in his mannered, occasionally gilded prose that New York still represents a kind of childlike hope – ‘for something big to happen.’ – Publishers Weekly
… he demonstrates anew how, despite tackling two of the world's greatest and oft-written-about cities, he has staked out his own mastery of the literature of place. As Gopnik ranges over contemporary life in the Big Apple, bringing into his purview and commentary such specific topics as raising children in that vastly busy environment and indulging in one of the city's favorite preoccupations (namely, consulting a psychotherapist), he lets there be no mistake that these pieces are literate, serious in his analysis of social issues (even though he can be funny at the same time), deeply thought out and well reasoned, and arise from not only an immaculate writerly talent but also a sharp ability to understand why people, in particular places, do peculiar things. – Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review)

Through the Children's Gate is a chronicle, by turns tender and hilarious, of a family taking root in the unlikeliest patch of earth. Written with Gopnik’s signature mix of mind and heart, the book is elegant and exultantly alert to the minute miracles that bring a place to life. The audio book is unabridged and read by Gopnik, who has written for the New Yorker since 1986. He is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism and the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting.

Audio / Mysteries & Thrillers

A Caribbean Mystery: A Miss Marple Mystery [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio CD, running time: 6 hours) by Agatha Christie, narrated by Rosalind Ayres (A Miss Marple Mystery: Audio Partners, Mystery Masters)

A Caribbean Mystery: A Miss Marple Mystery [AUDIOBOOK] (4 Audio Cassettes, running time: 6 hours) by Agatha Christie, narrated by Rosalind Ayres (A Miss Marple Mystery: Audio Partners, Mystery Masters)

In another of Audio Partners’ Mystery Masters series reissues, A Caribbean Mystery, the indomitable spinster Miss Jane Marple is recovering from a bout of pneumonia. Sent on a dream vacation by her nephew, she basks in the warm sunshine of the West Indies, reminiscing about the good old days in Saint Mary Mead where there was always something interesting going on. The sun, the sea, every day seems boringly and distressingly the same – every day, that is, until the elderly bore, Major Palgrave, dies, thrusting Miss Marple into a murder investigation of a most exotic nature.

"Would you like to see a picture of a murderer?" Jane Marple is asked by the Major one evening, but before she has a chance to answer, he vanishes, only to be found dead the next day. Miss Marple questions whether she should get involved. After all, he did have high blood pressure, didn’t he? Or did she? She gingerly questions the elderly physician, only to discover that the photo of the murderer is missing. She’s given assistance in her investigations by millionaire, fellow guest Jason Rafiel.

So why is the hotelier prone to nightmares? Why doesn't the most talked-about guest, a reclusive millionaire, ever leave his room? And finally will Miss Marple be able to prevent the next murder?

Agatha Christie (1890-1976), Dame of the British Empire, the world's bestselling fiction author, is deemed the most popular mystery writer of all time. She was named Best Writer of the 20th Century at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.

Handled with that exquisitely smooth technique that is uniquely Mrs. Christie's. – The New York Times

Liveliness...infectious zest...as good as anything Miss Christie has done! – Observer

There is no more cunning player of the murder game than Agatha Christie. – Sunday Times

Throws off the false clues and misleading events as only a master of the art can do. – New York Times

Miss Marple, Christie's most appealing sleuth, returns in A Caribbean Mystery, a classic baffler of a vacation turned deadly. In the only Marple mystery to take place outside of England, first published in 1964, Miss Marple's dull vacation, turns into a spellbinding adventure, delightful in its twists and turns. The audiobook is read by Rosalind Ayres, a well-known English actress who is probably best known for her role in the movie Titanic.

Business & Investing / Entrepreneurship / Public Policy

Female Entrepreneurship edited by Nancy M Carter, Colette Henry, Barra Ó Cinnéide and Kate Johnson (Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies Series: Routledge)

Over recent years, the promotion of female entrepreneurship has become a key area of debate among academics, policy makers and support agencies. Today, woman entrepreneurs represent a third of all business start-ups, and the need to understand the why, what and how of women entrepreneurs has increased the need for a well-researched, comprehensive publication on the topic.

Female entrepreneurship, as a subject of academic research is fast becoming a primary focus for scholars, practitioners and governments alike. Women are now setting up the so-called ‘new economy companies’; with success in high technology, life sciences and professional services, women are becoming important agents of economic and social change.

But despite the impact that female entrepreneurs have in terms of economic activity and new job creation, the role of female entrepreneurs is often undervalued and underplayed. Women still have an alarmingly poor share in the new venture creation market and, compared to their male counterparts, tend to start and manage their businesses differently, opting for unconventional industries, mainly in the services sector. Furthermore, according to the literature, women entrepreneurs are both risk and debt averse and, whether due to market failure or direct impediments, typically fail to attract the level of capital investment considered vital for major business growth.

Female Entrepreneurship advances understanding and effect change in the field of female entrepreneurship in strategic ways. First, it promotes the study of female entrepreneurship as an issue capable of separate and detailed analysis, thereby facilitating its development as an academic discipline in its own right. Second, by examining a number of pertinent themes in the female entrepreneurship literature, the book uncovers the nature of women entrepreneurs, their characteristics, their behavior patterns and the challenges they face as they maneuver through the new venture creation process. Third, by examining female entrepreneurship in different country contexts, and by identifying some successful initiatives which have been designed to encourage more women to participate in new venture creation, Female Entrepreneurship informs educators, trainers and policy makers about what can be done to promote female entrepreneurship at the local and national levels.

Accepting that differences exist in the nature of female entrepreneurship in different countries, the editors have adopted an international perspective in their choice of material. This monograph presents a collection of edited, research-based contributions from leading international scholars and researchers within the field of female entrepreneurship. The editors of Female Entrepreneurship are Nancy M. Carter, Vice President of Catalyst Inc., former Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the London Business School; Colette Henry, Head of the Department of Business Studies and Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Research at Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland; Barra Ó. Cinnéide, Professor Emeritus, University of Limerick; and Kate Johnston, Senior Researcher, also at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, Dundalk Institute of Technology. Contributors, in addition to the editors, include:

  • Gry Agnete Alsos, Senior Researcher, Nordland Research Institute, Bodo, Norway.
  • Clare Brindley, Head of Department of Strategy and Innovation, Lancashire Business School, University of Central Lancashire, Preston.
  • Candida G. Brush, President's Chair in Entrepreneurship, Chair-Entrepreneurship Division, Babson College.
  • Sara Carter, Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Stirling, Scotland.
  • Christine Diegelmann, Ministry of Economic Affairs Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart.
  • Elizabeth J. Gatewood, Director of the University Office of Entrepreneurship
    and Liberal Arts, Wake Forest University.
  • Patricia G. Greene, Provost, Babson College.
  • Alison Hampton, Researcher, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland.
  • Myra M. Hart, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School.
  • Shirley-Ann Hazlett, Joan Henderson and Claire Leitch, School of Management and Economics, Queen's University Belfast.
  • Frances Hill, Director, Executive MBA Programme, School of Management and Economics, Queen's University Belfast.
  • Briga Hynes, Department of Management and Marketing, University of Limerick.
  • Elisabet Ljunggren, Research Manager and Senior Researcher, Nordland Research Institute, Norway.
  • Pauric McGowan, Director of NICENT (Northern Ireland Centre For Entrepreneurship), University of Ulster.
  • Susan Marlow, Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, De Montfort University, Leicester.
  • Rick Newby, Lecturer in Accounting and Finance, School of Economics and Commerce, University of Western Australia.
  • Petra Puechner, Managing Director, Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum, Coordinator Innovation Relay Centre, Stuttgart-Erfurt-Zurich, Haus der Wirtschaft, Stuttgart.
  • Ita Richardson, Head of Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick.
  • John Watson, Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance, School of Economics and Commerce, University of Western Australia.

The chapters that make up Female Entrepreneurship combine the theoretical with the empirical to offer insights into the essence of female entrepreneurship. Following the introductory chapter, the monograph is divided into two parts: Part I deals with the authors’ understanding of female entrepreneurship and contains five, mainly empirically-based, chapters, each exploring a pertinent aspect of the current research agenda in this field. Part II considers the promotion of female entrepreneurship and contains four chapters, with a mixture of empirically and experientially-based contributions which aim to identify and share good practice in promoting female entrepreneurs. A Conclusions chapter (Chapter 11) reviews the contributions in the context of what can and should be done to encourage and promote female entrepreneurship.

In Chapter 2, Carter and Marlow lay the foundation for the monograph by reviewing the existing literature on female entrepreneurship and highlighting the key themes to emerge from the early 1980s and into the new millennium and beyond. The authors illustrate how research on female entrepreneurship has not only expanded but matured in recent years, with much of the contemporary literature on entrepreneurship and new venture creation now more sensitive to the nuances of gender.

In Chapter 3, Watson and Newby develop some of the nuances of gender discussed in the previous chapter by focusing on the differences in the goals of owner-operated small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Watson and Newby question the validity of using traditional ‘hard’ economic measures alone to assess and con­trast the performance of female- and male-led firms. Their study, which involved 474 male and 137 female SME owner-operators in Western Australia, argues that future SME studies which seek to examine the impact of gender might be better served by the use of masculinity and femininity scores, rather than biological sex.

The issue of attitudes towards entrepreneurship is examined in Chapter 4 by Hazlett, Henderson, Hill and Leitch. The authors explore the differences in attitudes towards entrepreneurship among female and male students, based on a sample of 596 undergraduates, across a variety of business related subjects. The authors report that the females in the study appeared to place considerable value on networking, were more likely than men to perceive risk as a barrier to starting a business and that considerably fewer men than women perceived not having the necessary business skills as a potential barrier. The authors conclude that, in the absence of further data, there is a need to tailor educational curricula to raise the total entrepreneurial activity particularly for female students at third level.

In Chapter 5, the theme of the general perception of female entrepreneurship is explored in greater depth by Ljunggren and Alsos. Using discourse analysis based on 117 newspaper articles in leading business papers, the authors demonstrate that current media discourse on entrepreneurs is highly masculine in nature. Echoing Watson and Newby's chapter, the authors conclude that the male portrayal of an entrepreneur is very much the ‘norm’, with the female entrepreneur considered as something different, which is, unfortunately, sometimes perceived as something ‘subordinate’.

Chapter 6 explores the networking behavior of female entrepreneurs at the start-up and growth stages of the new venture creation process. Based on research from a pilot study, the chapter authors – McGowan and Hampton – develop a tentative model of the networking practices of female-owned SMEs. Their study illustrates how the length of time a female entrepreneur is in busi­ness impacts her level of knowledge and confidence, thus affecting her networking style and abilities.

Part II of the monograph shifts the focus to what can actually be done to encourage more women into new venture creation. Chapter 7, by Brindley, lays the foundation for Part II by considering the various barriers women entrepreneurs face in the new venture creation process. Quite simply, the fact that success for self-employed women is not solely related to finance but can also mean the effective maintenance of home/work balance, suggests that women will remain disadvantaged as this view of success does not fit with conventional thinking. She calls for specific initiatives to be introduced to address the ‘complex system of interacting motivations’ that prevent women from entering the world of entrepreneurship in greater numbers.

Picking up on the concept of finance as a key barrier to female entrepreneurship, Chapter 8, by Brush, Carter, Gatewood, Greene and Hart, considers women's financial strategies for growth. The authors suggest that women are typically disadvantaged when starting a business because they have been unable to accumulate savings similar to their male counterparts, due to having lower incomes. The authors conclude that bootstrapping as a financing strategy can be highly effective in helping to position the business for external equity investment.

Chapter 9, by Richardson and Hynes, discusses the lack of women in both technical employment and entrepreneurship. Their research supports the literature in suggesting that a lack of women studying technical disciplines has a direct impact on the number of technology-based female entrepreneurs. Based on the experiences of the University of Limerick, three practical initiatives are examined which were designed to encourage more women to study engineering, science and technology based subjects and to consider self-employment as a viable career option.

In Chapter 10, Puechner and Diegelmann report on an international study conducted by the ProWomEn network, an EU initiative established in 2001 to promote women entrepreneurs. The research undertaken by the ProWomEn team considered the state of female entrepreneurship across a range of European countries in an effort to gather data on the varying levels of female entrepreneurial activity and, more specifically, to identify good practice examples in the promotion of female entrepreneurship.

Finally, in Chapter 11, Carter and Cinnéide draw conclusions from the contributions and consider the way forward. The authors recognize that the sudden increase in research into female entrepreneurship in the last two decades is presenting significant challenges to educators, trainers and policymakers. The authors seek to identify the key implications of this research for the education, training and policy agenda, and thus Female Entrepreneurship concludes with some practical recommendations designed to facilitate the task of promoting female entrepreneurship at the regional and national levels.

The volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing female entrepreneurs worldwide, advances the general understanding of female entrepreneurship, and sets a research agenda on how best to promote female owned/led businesses both nationally and internationally.

Providing a much-needed, insightful analysis into the complex range of issues facing female entrepreneurs throughout the world, Female Entrepreneurship also provides recommendations as to how support agencies, educators and trainers can best respond to the challenge of encouraging more women to get involved in new business creation. The book will also be of benefit to those working in the areas of Business Studies, Entrepreneurship, Gender Studies and Business Development.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership / Politics / International / Education

Organizational Learning in the Global Context edited by M. Leann Brown, Michael Kenney & Michael Zarkin (Ashgate Publishing Limited)

The social sciences assign fundamental importance to learning. For example, cognitive psychologists and educators investigate how human beings acquire, organize and store information, ideas and knowledge. Anthropologists and sociologists examine how cultural values, norms and group identities are transmitted across collectives and generations. And economists and the business community study the development of new technologies and how firms survive and become more effective over time.

No less than their cross-disciplinary kin, political scientists have exhibited considerable interest in learning. Dating back to Herbert Simon's seminal formulation in 1947, a significant body of scholarship focusing on ‘organizational learning,’ ‘political learning,’ ‘government learning,’ ‘policy learning,’ and ‘social learning’ has emerged. Taking theoretical cues particularly from psychology, organizational sociology and economics, scholars of public policy and administration, and international and comparative politics have sought to understand how individual decision-makers, government bureaucracies, states and societies draw upon experience, information and knowledge to change their understanding of the world, their policies and their behaviors.

Organizational Learning in the Global Context is edited by M. Leann Brown, Associate Professor of Political Science/International Political Economy at the University of Florida; Michael Kenney, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Political Science in the School of Public Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University, Capital College; and Michael J. Zarkin, Associate Professor of Political Science at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, UT.

Organizational Learning in the Global Context contains twelve case studies based on original research. They consider organizational learning associated with multiple issue areas including the United States Cuban embargo, food security in the European Union, the Russian energy sector, Columbian drug trafficking, terrorist groups, the Catholic Church, and foreign aid agencies, all relevant to international relations, comparative politics, organizational sociology and policy studies. The case studies are organized to consider, firstly, several aspects of learning processes including levels or orders of learning, leaders and learning, and the role epistemic communities play in learning. The editors then devote a segment to social and policy learning that draws particularly on the social learning literature in comparative politics and constructivism. The third segment, Chapters 8 and 9, considers learning by illicit organizations, drugs cartels and terrorist groups, under crisis conditions. The final four chapters acknowledge the potential challenges and pitfalls involved in organizational learning under the heading ‘Deterrents to Learning.’

In addition to the editors, the contributors include:

  • William J. Campbell, with the Heart of Florida United Way.
  • Lynn Eden, Associate Director for Research and Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.
  • David C. Ellis, Visiting Assistant Professor of International Relations at New College of Florida.
  • Karen Guttieri, teacher in the National Security Affairs Department of the Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey, California).
  • Goran Hyden, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida.
  • Brian A. Jackson, Associate Physical Scientist at RAND.
  • Eric A. Morgan, Assistant Public Defender of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida (Brevard and Seminole Counties).
  • Michael J. Oliver, Professor of Economics at the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Rennes, France and the University of Plymouth Colleges, Jersey in the Channel Isles.
  • Paolo Spadoni, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Rollins College.

Most contributors to Organizational Learning in the Global Context focus analytical attention on learning dynamics or processes, for example, acquiring new information, ideas, beliefs and understanding via policy feedback (failure or success), research, epistemic communities, discourse, or learning by doing. However, isolating these organizational processes for analysis is a formidable task, and, thus, indicators of learning must be identified. Changes in organizational routines, procedures, policies, norms, goals and paradigms represent the most easily identified indicators of learning. Given that many factors aside from learning affect ultimate organizational outcomes, most concur that these processes and changes may or may not result in more effective policies or goal achievement.

Contributors to Organizational Learning in the Global Context concur with existing organizational learning literature that several levels of learning sophistication may be identified. The most simple and common forms of learning are relatively small and incremental changes in organizational routines, procedures and policies deriving from experience, particularly policy failure. Several chapters point out the importance of organizational research, policy imitation or transfer, and experts and/or epistemic communities. And several chapters provide evidence that relatively small organizations with horizontal patterns of authority and communication are generally more likely to experience effective learning than larger, multilevel and hierarchical ones. Such factors as leadership, the quality of information processing and storage systems, and social capital including open communication, fairness and trust also figure largely in an organization's capacity to learn. In contrast to a somewhat linear conceptualization of incoming information serving as the basis for organizational learning, several contributors writing within social learning and constructivist orientations are interested in how various actors' interaction and discourse affect organizational learning.

Several of the cases reiterate that the quality of incoming information influences the ability of the organization to achieve productive learning. In general, learning is enhanced to the degree that incoming information is accurate, relevant, comprehensive and clear. Ambiguity and uncertainty may be two-edged sword. Faced with uncertainty and ambiguity, organizational personnel may be more willing to engage in research and solicit information from epistemic communities. On the other hand, policymakers may resort to various heuristic devices to guide policy decisions that may bias interpretation.

The editors note several times in Organizational Learning in the Global Context that the contributors make clear the competitive as well as cooperative nature of learning. Learning processes may be competitive in the sense that actors compete to frame policy issues and act as advocates, persuaders and teachers for their preferred ideas and policy recommendations. And all the chapters identified and confirmed the existence of interactive relationships among ideational, knowledge, learning factors with more overtly political and economic factors.

Several chapters provide empirical evidence of the importance of leadership in facilitating or deterring effective learning. However, Campbell and others' studies also highlight how difficult it is for leaders to learn and how they may represent important barriers to organizational learning. Leaders are often too busy to engage in prolonged periods of research, information gathering or reflection. Guttieri points out that leaders may be invested in status quo practices and prone to exploit existing competences rather than develop or embrace new ones.

An important contribution of Organizational Learning in the Global Context is the fact that illicit actors are included among the organizations studied. Idealist scholars who implicitly associate learning with positive outcomes generate most organizational learning literature. Chapters 8 and 9 depart from this trend by investigating how drug trafficking and terrorist organizations learn. Obviously the previously discussed generalizations apply to illicit organizations, however, the conditions within which they operate are extreme. Illicit organizations operate in very competitive rather than cooperative environments, as a matter of fact, they exist in a constant state of crisis because they must learn in a timely fashion or be destroyed. Moreover, the factors generally regarded as conducive to effective learning are missing: including an open exchange of information, cooperation and trust, and institutionalized systems of information storage. Kenney and Jackson provide convincing evidence, however, that the high negative and positive incentives for learning and the virtually flat network structures of these organizations make surviving illicit organizations important examples of learning organizations.

This is an extraordinary book…the authors bring centre stage a penetrating arsenal of analytic and empirical tools to cast light upon issues of our knowledge based age. Students, scholars and interested citizens will profit immensely from this volume. – John de la Mothe, Canada Research Chair in Innovation strategy, University of Ottawa

This volume provides a theoretical useful and historically rich treatment of learning by different types of actors in a variety of interesting subject areas. It is an important contribution to our understanding of a critical aspect of social behavior that will be of interest to scholars and students in nearly all of the social sciences. – Jack S. Levy, Board of Governors’ Professor, Rutgers University

Organizations in the 21st century have moved beyond industrial age structures and management models to those shaped by information, knowledge, and technology. All theorists of organizational learning concur that simple forms of learning are more common than paradigmatic learning and ‘learning how to learn.’ The editors contend that all organizations are constantly learning – the concerns are whether they learning the ‘right’ lessons and whether the lessons learned can be translated into productive learning, i.e., effective policies that enhance goal achievement.

Organizational Learning in the Global Context does not naively assume that learning provides exclusive explanations for policy change, but concurs instead with Robert Keohane's critique of purely power-oriented, rationalistic theories of international organizations. The book reaches a number of important policy-related conclusions that will be of use to policy makers and well as to all social scientists. Educators as well will find much of interest.

Business & Investing / World Economics / History

The Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War by Prem Shankar Jha, with a foreword by Eric Hobsbawm (Pluto Press)

A strikingly intelligent, lucid and troubling book ... It is essential reading. – Eric Hobsbawm from the foreword

The Twilight of the Nation State provides a detailed history of the rise of capitalism from its early days through the industrial revolution until today. Written by one of the leading scholars of the Global South, it takes the position that globalization is generally poorly understood.

From outside the usual Western perspective, Prem Shankar Jha challenges many preconceptions about the impact of globalization. Jha, columnist for and former editor of the Hindustan Times, New Delhi's main morning daily, formerly Visiting Fellow at Harvard University and also Visiting Professor and Lecturer at the University of Virginia, argues that capitalism has developed in four major stages.

The Twilight of the Nation State attempts to give shape to a widely shared and growing unease about the direction in which the world is moving. It argues – contrary to the belief that pervaded most of the intellectual debate about the future in the mid- and late 1990s – that the world is not moving towards order, peace and prosperity, but towards increasing disorder and violence. The largest and most powerful nation the world has ever known, the United States, considers itself to be at war. This war is not being waged against a state, not even against a clan, a tribe, or a family, but against an abstract noun – terrorism, now shortened to terror. To pursue this war, President George W. Bush has announced that the U.S. military will go wherever the terrorists reside, or are being spawned, in order to prevent the threat from reaching America's shores. This is a recipe for war without end. The boundaries between war and peace are therefore being eliminated, side by side with the boundaries between nations. It is therefore hardly surprising that an opinion poll carried out in the weeks before Bush's second inauguration showed that 58 per cent of the people polled believed that his re-election had made the world less safe – 16 out of the 21 countries covered by the survey felt this way. Fear of an America ruled by Bush was strongest among its traditional allies: Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada, Mexico and Turkey.

The Twilight of the Nation State attempts to study the disorder that has followed the ‘golden age of capitalism’ which spanned the third quarter of the last century. It warns readers that the transition the world is going through will not necessarily end in a new equilibrium. On the contrary, the disorder could easily deepen till it dismantles the entire edifice of civilized society. The Twilight of the Nation State traces the globalization of capitalism; its destruction of the institutions built during more than two centuries of nation state-based capitalism; the first, tentative steps in building institutions that will enable human society to cope with capitalism's stormy rebirth; and the threat that these infant institutions face from the U.S.'s sudden return to nineteenth-century hyper-nationalism.

The book is divided into four parts. Chapters 1 and 2 present the alternate views of the future and puts the rise of global capitalism in the historical framework of capitalism's earlier cycles of expansion. Chapters 3 to 7 describe the onset of systemic disorder in the industrialized countries and the international economic system. Chapters 8 to 12 describe the assault on, and dismantling of, the global political order established after the Treaty of Westphalia, and the inherent unsustainability (demonstrated by Iraq) of the American bid for Empire. Chapters 13 and 14 describe the crossroads at which the world stands poised, the acute pressures that seem destined to force it to continue down the road to nowhere, and the change of direction that is needed if a peaceful global society capable of reaping the benefits of technology and the information revolution is to emerge.

Jha says The Twilight of the Nation State took him nine years to write. He draws especially heavily on the work of four scholars: Fernand Braudel, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Polanyi and Giovanni Arrighi. Jha ends The Twilight of the Nation State with the warning that reifying the market and placing all of one's faith upon it to usher in a more prosperous and peaceful world could lead to the destruction of human civilization. According to him, the twentieth century showed that the violence unleashed by the fourth cycle of capitalism's expansion had proved very nearly unmanageable. But the transition from British to American hegemony is dwarfed in scale by the transition that capitalism is making today. The future is inherently difficult to predict, but the possibility that the violence that it releases will prove unmanageable is too real to ignore. A recognition of the dangers it poses, and concerted international action to slow down the process and protect those who are hurt most severely by it will reduce the threat that civilization faces. But, according to Jha, that is precisely what the transnational corporations and the richest and most powerful nation on earth have set their faces against.

A thoughtful, well-documented, and passionately argued account. It should be read by anyone who cares about the future of world society. – Giovanni Arrighi, Johns Hopkins University

Preen Jha is one of the few experts on globalization from the developing world. He offers a cogent and valuable account of its grand possibilities but also warns against its pitfalls. – Shashi Tharoor, Undersecretary General for Public Affairs of the United Nations, New York

The Twilight of the Nation State is a groundbreaking, provocative, and even frightening book examining the role of the nation state and offering an in-depth historical perspective on the rise of capitalism. Arguing that globalization is generally poorly understood, Jha gives a new synthesis of political and economic theory that sheds light on the consequences of rapid industrialization worldwide. The book presents a unique perspective on globalization that will be of interest to all students of economic theory and international relations.

Children’s / Ages 4-8 / Animals

Black Beauty's Early Days in the Meadow (Library Binding) by Anna Sewell, illustrated by Jane Monroe Donovan (Classic Picture Books Series: Sleeping Bear Press)

The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.

Black Beauty's Early Days in the Meadow gives parents and grandparents the opportunity to introduce their children to one of the classics from their own childhood.

Designed for young readers and a wonderful introduction to the classic, this adaptation of Black Beauty combines simple text with art that captures the tender relationship between mare and foal.

One of the most popular animal stories of all time, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty was first published in 1877. Drawn from the beginning paragraphs of the original text and intended for even the youngest of horse lovers, Black Beauty's Early Days in the Meadow depicts the first few months of the horses life as a foal frolicking in the meadow.

Artist Jane Monroe Donovan has drawn on her love of horses to render the classic story that conveys a pastoral world of green fields and shady trees and the peace and tranquility of the foal's early days. Donovan wrote and illustrated Winter's Gift, for which the Chicago Sun-Times credited her with "lovely, soft paintings, which capture perfectly the contrast of the cold winter weather and the warmth of a generous heart."

Black Beauty was the only book Anna Sewell (1820-1878) was to ever write but its influence on the world of children's literature remains significant. Born in Norfolk, England, Sewell's early Quaker upbringing instilled a lifelong sense of compassion and kindness for all creatures. She sustained an injury at an early age that was to leave her permanently disabled. As a result, she relied on pony carts and horse-drawn carriages for mobility.

Black Beauty is told from the horse's perspec­tive, starting with life as a young foal and then growing into a mature and (by story's end) world-weary animal. Detailing the horse's experiences at the hands of multiple owners, the story is not only a plea for more humane treatment of animals; it is also a vivid and insightful commentary on the customs and social conditions of Victorian England.

In this beautifully illustrated picture book, Black Beauty's Early Days in the Meadow, the harmony of words and pictures proves once again that the simplest messages are often the strongest. Readers will relish the sweetness of life in the meadow and the companionship of family and friends. Horse-lovers of all ages will want to add this edition to their collections.

Children’s / Ages 9-12 / Fiction

The Secret of the Loon Lake Monster (Library Binding) by M. Masters (Can You Solve the Mystery? Series: Spotlight)

The Case of the Clever Computer Crooks (Library Binding) by M. Masters (Can You Solve the Mystery? Series: Spotlight)

Mysterious events are happening all around!

The Can You Solve the Mystery? fiction series is full of mysteries, secrets, and unsolved crimes; both The Secret of the Loon Lake Monster & The Case of the Clever Computer Crooks are good examples. This entertaining series stars 12-year old sleuths Hawkeye Collins and Amy Adams. Hawkeye and Amy love to solve cases and they have their hands full with the nine cases in The Secret of the Loon Lake Monster and The Case of the Clever Computer Crooks, also containing nine cases. These amateur detectives work with Sergeant Treadwell to solve cases in Lakewood Hills. Readers get the same clues as Hawkeye and Amy. Original illustrations provide hints. Young detectives can see if they are on the right track by reading the solutions in their mirror at home. The books, written at the fifth grade reading level, will interest young people from the 3rd to the 8th grades.

Books in the series include:

  • The Case of the Chocolate Snatcher
  • The Case of the Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • The Case of the Mysterious Dognapper
  • The Case of the Toilet Paper Decorator
  • The Case of the Video Game Smugglers
  • The Case of the Haunted House
  • The Case of the Star Ship Movie
  • The Case of the Long-Lost Cousin
  • The Case of the Loon Lake Monster
  • The Case of the Software Spy
  • The Case of the Video Game Scores

Many readers will find it great fun to be a crime-solving heroes by using logic and creativity. Young readers will enjoy following the clues the detectives uncover and solving the mysteries themselves in this series, including The Secret of the Loon Lake Monster & The Case of the Clever Computer Crooks.

Children’s / Ages 9-12 / Travel

New Orleans (Library Binding) by Stephanie F. Hedlund (Cities Series: Checkerboard Geography Library, ABDO Publishing Company)

Paris (Library Binding) by Joanne Mattern (Cities Series: Checkerboard Geography Library, ABDO Publishing Company)

The Cities Series, including New Orleans & Paris, presents up-to-date profiles of some of the most fascinating cities in the world. Each book in the Cities Series details a city's government, economy, and the history that has shaped its identity. The world's diverse cultures come alive as young readers tour the city's neighborhoods and meet the people who live there. Reading level is fourth grade, while the interest level is K through 6. The books each have colorful maps, an index, a table of contents, a glossary, and bolded glossary terms in the text.

Young readers learn about the culture of cities from North America to Asia. They are guided through the neighborhoods and tourist hot spots and meet the people who live there. Students tour the cities of today while also learning what life was like there hundreds of years ago. For example, Paris is called the City of Unrest, due to the Revolution, and World War I and World War II bombing, as well as ongoing dissent, poverty and instability. It is also described as the main cultural center of the West. Easy-to-read text with colorful photos, a City at a Glance section, and a graphic timeline provide a fun reference while furthering readers’ voyages to each city.

Other books in this series include:

  • Bangkok
  • Beijing
  • Boston
  • Buenos Aires
  • Cairo
  • Chicago
  • Dallas
  • Hong Kong
  • Jerusalem
  • Los Angeles
  • New York City
  • Washington, D.C.

With this engaging series, young readers sit back and relax while touring the world's greatest cities. It is actually surprising how much content is packed into such a small book without being overcrowded. New Orleans is up to date with a discussion of the Katrina disaster.

Cooking, Food & Wine

Cooking with Herbs & Spices by Linda Tubby & Manisha Gambhir Harkins, with photography by Peter Cassidy (Ryland, Peters & Small)

Since earliest times, cooks have used both herbs and spices to enhance their food. From rosemary to chilies and thyme to cinnamon – herbs and spices scent the air and give both subtle and intense flavors to food. Aromatic, subtle, pungent, or even fiery – every country has typical herb- and spice-enriched dishes that epitomize its cuisine. With so many exciting varieties of herbs and spices now available, cooking with them has never been so inspiring.

From the familiar to the alluringly exotic, Cooking with Herbs & Spices brings readers a collection of delicious recipes from around the globe.

The recipes in Cooking with Herbs & Spices, written by leading food writer and stylist Linda Tubby and award-winning food journalist Manisha Gambhir-Harkins, begin with Soups and Salads, such as Cajun-spiced Chowder with Corn and Bacon, Indonesian Beef and Coconut Soup, and Mint and Parsley Salad. And then come original Starters and Light Meals like Baked Ricotta and Herb Terrine, Dill-marinated Salmon, and Lamb Kabob Mashwi with Spiced Flatbreads.

Main Courses include Fried Bream Thai-Style, Coriander Chicken with Fenugreek, and Grilled Steak with Basil and Oregano Salsa, while Vegetables includes Sage Buttered Baby Leeks, eggplant Imam Bayildi, and Oven-roasted Vegetables with Rosemary, Bay Leaves, and Garlic. Then Pasta, Rice and Bread are given intense flavors in dishes such as Purple Basil Ravioli with Truffle Butter, Perfumed Persian Pulow, and Sage Schiacciata Bread.

Finally, Sweet Things features the indulgent Fig on a Cushion with Thyme-scented Syrup, Summer Fruit Salad with Kaffir Lime Sorbet, and Mexican Chocolate with Vanilla Cream. Lastly readers can try Little Extras such as a variety of Herb Butters, Salsa Roja, or Plum Chutney. The book also contains a complete Directory of Herbs & Spices and a Mail Order & Websites section to help readers track down suppliers of ingredients.

Readers can explore the rich world of herbs and spices and discover how to bring out the very best in everyday foods through Cooking with Herbs & Spices. The book provides a unique collection of recipes from around the globe. Luscious photography is by Peter Cassidy, one of Europe's finest food photographers, specializing in food and travel.

Cooking, Food & Wine

Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, & Ethan Becker (Scribner)

The new Joy of Cooking continues the vision of American cooking that began with the first edition of JOY. Since its original publication, Joy of Cooking has been the most authoritative cookbook in America, the one upon which millions of cooks have relied for more than sixty-five years. It's the book my mother, a home economics teacher herself, taught me and my sister to cook from, and the book she gave each of us when we got married.

As I moved about from place to place I found myself encumbered with an ever increasing supply of cookbooks ... The result of this encumbrance was an anthology of favorite recipes ... [that] have been deve1oped, altered and created outright, so that the collection as it now stands may make a claim for originality ­enough, it is hoped, to justify its publication, and to hold the interest of those who encouraged me to put it into book form ... I have attempted to make palatable dishes with simple means and to lift everyday cooking out of the commonplace. In spite of the fact that the book is compiled with one eye on the family purse and the other on the bathroom scale, there are, of course, occasional lapses into indulgence. – Irma S. Rombauer, 1931

Seventy-five years ago, a St. Louis widow named Irma Rombauer took her life savings and self-published a book called The Joy of Cooking. Her daughter Marion tested recipes and made the illustrations, and they sold their mother-daughter project from Rombauer's apartment.

Today, nine revisions later, the Joy of Cooking – selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important and influential books of the twentieth century – has taught tens of millions of people to cook, helped feed millions beyond that, answered countless kitchen and food questions, and averted many a cooking crisis.

Cordon Blue-trained son of Marion, Ethan Becker, leads the latest generation of Joy of Cooking, still a family affair, into the twenty-first century with a 75th anniversary edition that draws upon the past while keeping its eye on the way readers cook today. It features a rediscovery of the witty, clear voices of Marion and Irma, whose first instructions to the cook were ‘stand facing the stove.’

The new edition of Joy of Cooking also brings back the encyclopedic chapter Know Your Ingredients. The chapter that novices and pros alike have consulted for over thirty years has been revised, expanded, and banded, making it a book within a book. Cooking Methods shows cooks how to braise, steam, roast, sauté, and deep-fry, while a Nutrition chapter contains the latest thinking on healthy eating by Walter Willett, professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Health – as well as a large dose of common sense.

This edition restores the personality of the book, reinstating popular elements such as the grab-bag Brunch, Lunch, and Supper chapter and chapters on frozen desserts, cocktails, beer and wine, canning, salting, smoking, jellies and preserves, pickles and relishes, and freezing foods. Fruit recipes bring these favorite ingredients into all courses of the meal, and there is a new grains chart. There are recipes kids will enjoy making and eating, such as Chocolate Dipped Bananas, Dyed Easter Eggs, and the ever-popular Pizza.

In addition to hundreds of new recipes, this Joy of Cooking is filled with many recipes from all previous editions, retested and reinvented for today's tastes.

Knowing that most cooks are sometimes in a hurry to make a meal, the JOY now has new dishes ready in 30 minutes or less. Slow cooker recipes have been added for the first time, and Tuna Casserole made with canned cream of mushroom soup is back. This JOY shares how to save time without losing flavor by using quality convenience foods such as canned stocks and broths, beans, tomatoes, and soups, as well as a wide array of frozen ingredients. Cooking creatively with leftovers emphasizes ease and economy, and casseroles – those simple, satisfying, make-ahead, no-fuss dishes – abound. Especially important to busy households is a new section that teaches how to cook and freeze for a day and eat for a week, in an effort to eat more home-cooked meals, save money, and dine well.

JOY grows with the times: this edition boasts an expanded Vegetables chapter, including instructions on how to cook vegetables in the microwave, and an expanded baking section, Irma's passion – always considered a stand-alone bible within the JOY. The new JOY provides more thorough descriptions of ingredients, from the familiar to the most exotic. For instance, almost all the varieties of apples grown domestically are described – the months they become available, how they taste, what they are best used for, and how long they keep. For the first time JOY features a complete section on fresh and dried chili peppers: how to roast and grill them, how to store them, and how long they keep – with illustrations of each pepper.

New chapters reflect changing American tastes and lifestyles: Separate new chapters on grains, beans, and pasta include recipes for grits, polenta, pilafs, risottos, vegetarian chilies, bean casseroles, and make-ahead lasagnes. Little Dishes showcases foods from around the world: hummus, baba ghanoush, bruschetta, tacos, empanadas, and fried wontons. New drawings of all techniques, ingredients, and equipment, integrated throughout a new cover design, and over 300 more pages round out the 75th anniversary edition of Joy of Cooking.

Among this book's other unique features are dozens of new recipes for people who are lactose intolerant and allergic to gluten and an expanded ingredients chart featuring calories, essential vitamins, and levels of fats and cholesterol. There are ideas for substitutions to lower fat in recipes and reduced-fat recipes in the baking sections.

Since its first private printing in 1931, The Joy of Cooking has been teaching Americans how to cook. Craig Claiborne calls it "a masterpiece of clarity" and Julia Child says it's the one book she'd keep if she could only have one English title on the shelf. The nearly 5,000 recipes are handily organized by meal and ingredient, and no cooking instruction goes unexplained, so you can finally understand the difference between poaching and braising. The book includes nutritional information as well as an extremely helpful list of measures and equivalents. You'll find a version of every recipe your mother ever cooked, along with straightforward instructions for cooking more exotic specialties such as turtles and muskrats. – Amazon.com
… For this landmark, the editors have returned to JOY's 1975 edition, rejecting the controversial last edition's perceived foray into 1990s chef-driven fads. … Detailed line drawings that gave JOY's earlier editions their distinctive appearance bestow continuity. …The new Joy of Cooking maintains the title's role as backbone for any library's cookery reference collection, its nearly 4,000 recipes defining essential American home cooking. – Mark Knoblauch, Booklist
The Joy of Cooking has always been a very important book. When it was first published, it made a great impression on American cooking. It is, and should continue to be a staple in any good culinary collection because Irma's voice is there with you in the kitchen giving guidance and encouragement and friendly tips and reminders. The why's and how's are carefully explained, and that's what makes JOY a fundamental resource for any American cook! – Julia Child, June 2004
I highly recommend this book as a must-have in your kitchen. Chock full of great information, this book takes all of the guesswork out and leaves no stone unturned. – Paula Deen
The finest basic cookbook available. It is a masterpiece of clarity. – Craig Claiborne

From cover to cover, JOY's chapters have been imbued with the knowledge and passion of America's greatest cooks and cooking teachers. Even after 75 years, the span of culinary information is breathtaking and covers everything from boiling eggs to show-stopping, celebratory dishes. Every chapter has been rethought with an emphasis on freshness, convenience, and health. All the recipes have been reconceived and tested with an eye to modern taste, and the cooking knowledge imparted with each subject enriched to the point where everyone from a beginning to an experienced cook will feel supported. It is still the book readers can turn to for perfect Beef Wellington and Baked Macaroni and Cheese. It's also the book where readers can now find Turkey on the Grill, Spicy Peanut Sesame Noodles, and vegetarian meals.

As my mama used to say, JOY remains the greatest teaching cookbook ever written. Reference material gives cooks the precise information they need for success. New illustrations focus on techniques, including everything from knife skills to splitting cake layers, setting a table, and making tamales. An invaluable combination of old and new, this edition of the Joy of Cooking promises to keep readers cooking well for years to come.  – Anna Washington, www.sirreadalot.org

Cooking, Food & Wine

Kathy Casey's Northwest Table: Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Southern Alaska by Kathy Casey, with photographs by E. Jane Armstrong (Chronicle Books)

In Kathy Casey's Northwest Table the beloved expert on Northwest cuisine shares more than 100 it-doesn't-get-more-delicious-than-this recipes for everything from cocktails to desserts.

Lambert cherry mojitos waft the fragrance of fresh mint. A Tillamook cheddar spread made with Oregon's famous cheese is spiked with locally brewed ale. Dungeness crab cakes are topped with a vibrant slaw. Wild Alaskan salmon is crowned with herb-tossed rings of Walla Walla sweet onions. And desserts like Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Cascade Berries make the end of the meal special. These recipes – coupled in Kathy Casey's Northwest Table with stories of Casey's Northwest culinary adventures – are inspired by the diverse cultural heritage of the region: modern favorites, cherished recipes passed from generation to generation, Pacific Rim and Native American influences, as well as its natural bounty blend the traditional and the contemporary in a delightfully modern cuisine.

Chef Casey is widely recognized for her role in bringing women chefs and Northwest cuisine to national prominence. She owns Kathy Casey Food Studios, a food, beverage, and restaurant consulting venue in Seattle, and Dish D'Lish, featuring a line of retail specialty projects. She’s also a food writer and a TV guest and host. E. Jane Armstrong's photographs have appeared in magazines such as Travel & Leisure and in many books, including The Perfect Match and From Our House to Yours.

Kathy has been an inspirational force Northwest cuisine since day one and has helped to place Seattle on the culinary map. – Howard Schultz, chairman, Starbucks Coffee Company

If you think you have the best cookbook already, you must be looking at this one by Kathy Casey. – Tom Skerritt, actor and Washington state resident

So much more than a cookbook! Kathy Casey's Northwest Table fulfills appetites of both the soul and the palate. Her recipes as always, are superb, easily turning plain cooks (like me) into chefs. The text is fully evocative of the visual wonders of the Northwest as well as the bounty of the land we who live here are so lucky to enjoy. – Ann Rule, true-crime author of Green River, Running Red and Small Sacrifices, and Seattle resident

With gorgeous photographs showing off the culinary landscape, Kathy Casey's Northwest Table is decidedly distinctive. Whether readers are looking for a delicious dish for a family supper, a unique appetizer, or dinner for company, this new cookbook is destined to become the one they trust to take down from the shelf.

Computers & Internet / Web-Based Education

Games and Simulations in Online Learning: Research and Development Frameworks edited by David Gibson, Clark Aldrich & Marc Prensky (Information Science Publishing)

Whenever one plays a game, and whatever game one plays, learning happens constantly, whether the players want it to, and are aware of it, or not. And the players are learning ‘about life,’ which is one of the great positive consequences of all game playing. This learning takes place, continuously and simultaneously in every game, every time one plays. One need not even pay much attention. – Marc Prensky

Nearly all early learning happens during play, and new technology has added video games to the list of ways children learn interaction and new concepts. Although video games are everywhere, on Web sites, in stores, streamed to the desktop, and on television, they are absent from the classroom. Computer-based simulations, a form of computer games, have begun to appear, but they are not as widespread as email, discussion threads, and blogs. Games and Simulations in Online Learning examines the potential of games and simulations in online learning, and how the future could look as developers learn to use the emerging capabilities of the Semantic Web. It presents a general understanding of how the Semantic Web will impact education and how games and simulations can evolve to become robust teaching resources.

Games and Simulations in Online Learning is edited by David Gibson project co-director of simSchool and Founder and President of Curveshift; Clark Aldrich, co-founder of SimuLearn, the author of two books, and leader of the team that created SimuLearn's Virtual Leader; and Marc Prensky, acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, and software designer in the areas of education and learning, the founder and CEO of Games2train.

The kinds of questions on the minds of contributors to the volume are: What sort of new research and development is emerging around games and simulations? What kinds of learning are involved, and how do we know if users are ‘getting it?’ What is the unique added value and potential for learning and assessment in the digital environment? Are there examples that can inspire researchers to think more deeply, and see a new horizon for e-learning?

An overview of the chapters in Games and Simulations in Online Learning:

Goknur Kaplan Akilli, in Chapter I, Games and Simulations: A New Approach in Education?, provides a brief review of the literature, which she organizes around questions that define games, simulations, instructional design, and instructional development models. Her review situates the problem of instructional design models as outdated frameworks that came into being before the age of ubiquitous games and simulations. She criticizes the current state of design, points to more promising theories, and ends by introducing readers to the FIDGE model as a possible framework for a more game-like instructional design model.

Katrin Becker, in Chapter II, Pedagogy in Commercial Video Games, after tying games to deep learning and urging educators to ‘learn about learning from games,’ gives a point-by-point overview that relates game and simulation elements to several well-known learning theories. But, Becker warns, a demonstration of good pedagogy in games does not add up to a prescription for creating good learning games. Games are a completely new technology calling for completely new instructional design approaches.

Several writers present social analyses of multi-user virtual environments, which leave readers with a growing sense that networked virtual worlds are a new kind of learning ecosystem waiting to be tapped for education. The next four chapters in Games and Simulations in Online Learning explore this idea. Joel Foreman and Thomasina Borkman share their experience in Chapter III, using a commercial off-the-shelf game – The Sims – to teach a Sociology course. In Chapter IV, Lisa Galarneau and Melanie Zibit extend the theme of the new social environment of MMOGs by outlining the 21st century skills that are promoted through online games. They first discuss the new skills for the new millennium from a variety of perspectives. They then demonstrate how online games in MMOGs can serve as a ‘practice arena’ for the skills.

James G. Jones and Stephen C. Bronack, in Chapter V, Rethinking Cognition, Representa­tions, and Processes in 3D Online Social Learning Environments, take the social analysis of 3D spaces further by pointing out their tendency to encourage peer-based informal learning. In Chapter VI, Karen Barton and Paul Maharg use another case example, the Glasgow Graduate School of Law's simulation ‘Ardcallough’ to frame what they see as a new ‘trading zone’ in virtual space. Their chapter E-Simulations in the Wild: Interdisciplinary Research, Design, and Implementation points out that a simulation is more than a likeness of reality; it is a purposeful, focused view that presents the user with a complex conceptual, as well as operational, challenge.

What do the users think of MMOG spaces, games, and simulations as learning tools? The next two chapters in Games and Simulations in Online Learning provide different views. In Chapter VII, Jonathan Beedle and Vivian H. Wright offer readers Perspectives from Multiplayer Video Gainers, a research report based on a survey of gamers. The list of potential benefits of learning with games leads to four questions about motivation, problem solving, communication, and creativity.

Chapter VIII, by David Gibson, William Halverson, and Eric Riedel, titled Gamer Teachers outlines the major concerns that seem to block or hinder the use of games and simulations in teaching and includes the editors take on a self-test that was suggested by Prensky's list of cognitive styles of the gamer generation. The results tend to corroborate what others have found, not so much as an age gap between generations, but a ‘playing gap’ depending on one's game experiences. Continuing with the theme of ‘teaching teachers how to teach,’ Brian Ferry and Lisa Kervin relate their experiences in Chapter IX, Developing an Online Classroom Simulation to Support a Pre-Service Teacher Education Program. Their chapter presents a straightforward step-by-step account of building a software prototyping team in higher education. The team developed a virtual kindergarten teaching application that has shown promise for engaging future teachers in the complexities of teaching decisions.

Gerald R. and Mark Girod and programmer Jeff Denton give readers Chapter X, Lessons Learned Modeling ‘Connecting Teaching and Learning,’ provides a second example of a development process in teacher education. Their effort is based on the ‘teacher work sample methodology’ developed at Western Oregon University over 30 years ago. Sara Dexter, in Chapter XI, Educational Theory into Practice Software, presents a new perspective on teacher development by sharing a unique and powerful case-based reasoning application that has both game-like and simulation elements. The core of the application is a problem space or case, which is a collection of multimedia elements that collectively present a narrative of a specific simulated school Web site.

The next two chapters use real space as part of the virtual experience for players by integrating wireless and GPS technologies into the game and simulation. From their experience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Steffen P. Walz and Odilo Schoch talk about Pervasive Game Design as an Architectural Teaching and Research Method in Chapter XII. The game they designed grew from the idea that architectural students of the future should be able to design both physical and virtual ‘hybrid reality’ spaces. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Karen Schrier built a place-based game that uses the city of Lexington, Massachusetts as the trigger for events and interactions. Players of ‘Reliving the Revolution’ seek to answer the question "who fired the shot heard ‘round the world’?" Becker calls this an ‘augmented reality game’ that is focused on teaching critical thinking and historical inquiry.

The last five chapters in Games and Simulations in Online Learning explore machine learning, network-based assessment, and intelligent agents. Related by today's experimenters and developers, these provide glimpses into tomorrow's potential for games and simulations in education. Richard Van Eck, in Chapter XIV, Building Artificially Intelligent Learning Games, presents a two-part chapter. He asserts that games employ elements that engage and teach through problem solving that embodies the tenets of learn­ing theory and social constructivism. He outlines four principles of learning in games and uses them as a foundation to raise key questions that guide the second part of the chapter. Chapter XV, simSchool and the Conceptual Assessment Framework (CAF), by David Gibson, uses the ‘simSchool’ flight simulator for teachers as an example of building a game-like learning application with assessment in mind. In simSchool, the CAF framework is used to organize the logic of the simulation model as well as to assess the user – a case that may best fit when the goal is to "teach a user by modeling a learner."

In Chapter XVI, Designing Online Games Assessment as "Information Trails," Christian Sebastian Loh discuss some of the specific ways that user artifacts can form the basis for assessment. He introduces readers to the idea of ‘agent-detectable markings’ left by a ‘moving agent in an information-ecology.’ Ron Steven's work on the UCLA IMMEX project has led to Chapter XVII, Machine Learning Assessment Systems for Modeling Patterns of Student Learning. As a concrete example of using player artifacts in assessment, Stevens presents a layered analytic model of how high school and university students construct, modify, and retain problem-solving strategies as they solve science problems online. In Chapter XVIII, Shaping the Research Agenda with Cyber Researcher Assistants, Lyn Henderson concludes the collection with a reflection about the possibilities and open ques­tions of using the powerful tracking, analytic and interactive aspects of games and simula­tions to empower learners and teachers.

Games and Simulations in Online Learning is the real deal, packed with practical information on hot new educational designs. The volume promotes increased serious use of games and simulations in online learning by offering new possibilities for framing research and development efforts. It contributes to readers’ thinking by presenting themes for educational games and simulations from a variety of perspectives, stretching them in new ways, or confirming their own creative ideas and insightful hypotheses about how games and simulations are changing education.

Entertainment / Music

Singing Cowboys by Douglas Green (Gibbs Smith, Publisher)

Favorite cowboys from the heyday of B-western movies are celebrated in Singing Cowboys. Author Douglas B. Green, (aka Ranger Doug of Riders in The Sky), who supports his literary career moonlighting as a singer, guitarist and songwriter, tells the story of the men and women who shone brightly during the magical era of the singing cowboy movie star.

It was an era when western heroes sang and yodeled as well as threw punches and drew six-guns; an era where for a time nearly half the western films churned out in Hollywood's golden age either featured a singer as a hero, or had singing second leads or singing ranch hands to provide that dreamy, romantic, exquisitely beautiful music we now think of as western.

Readers follow the singing cowboy movie fad, from Gene Autry's first films in 1935 to Marty Robbins' drive-in quickie movies in 1959. Singing Cowboys recalls with fondness the stories of nearly sixty men, women, and groups who embodied the singing cowboy tradition, from Tex Ritter to Dale Evans. All the biggest stars are included, as are many great old-timey artists whose names are not so well known. Their voices and images filled an entire generation with optimism and hope, and encouraged everyone to dream big – the ‘cowboy way.’

There may have been pop, country and folk music and comedy, too, in western movies during those days, but what we recall now, in the context of these classical westerns, is the music of the singing cowboy. Along with an audio CD of classic Western songs by artists such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, Singing Cowboys contains movie posters, stills, and studio photographs featuring such famed cowboy singers as Bing Crosby, Dale Evans, Dick Foran, Tito Guizar, Kirby Grant, Eddie Dean, Bill Boyd, Dorothy Page, Riders of the Purple Sage, Tex Ritter, Marty Robbins, John Wayne, Ray Whitley, and dozens more.

Singing Cowboys celebrates the era of the singing cowboy in style and with nostalgia. The book is especially strong visually with full-page photos and numerous posters, often autographed, accompanying the text.

Entertainment / Music / Biographies & Memoirs

Alive at the Village Vanguard: My Life In and Out of Jazz Time by Lorraine Gordon, as told to Barry Singer (Hal Leonard)

I loved jazz from the very beginning.

The legendary Village Vanguard has been an international jazz mecca since 1935. According to New York Magazine, "A musician hasn't truly arrived in the jazz world until he's played at the 'Carnegie Hall of Cool,' the Village Vanguard."

At age 83, Lorraine Gordon is a jazz icon who has lived more than a few lives: downtown bohemian, uptown Grande dame, music business pioneer, wife, lover, mother, and finally – at a point when most women her age were just settling into grandmotherhood – owner of the most famous jazz club in the world. The trajectory of her journey has been remarkable. The details given in Alive at the Village Vanguard by Gordon as told to writer Barry Singer, are a Jackson Pollock-like swirl of fierce colors shot through with larger-than-life creative figures: not just jazz figures but luminaries from every point on the political, social and entertainment spectrum: from Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to Lenny Bruce, Norman Mailer and Barbra Streisand.

1937: Jazz aficionado from the age of fourteen. "I collected jazz records like a maniac. It was serious stuff and we treated it seriously – we read all the books, we listened to every recording ever made, we knew who the soloists were by their sound."

1942: Married Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion. "I learned to type. I did all the bookkeeping. And though I didn't know what public relations meant, I did that too. We were little people in a little business. But we were selling something fabulous."

1947: Discovered and championed Thelonious Monk. "We all sat down on Monk's narrow bed – our legs straight out in front of us like children. The door closed. And Monk played, with his back to us. Thelonious Monk became my personal mission. Did his records sell at first? No. I went up to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me."

1950: Married Village Vanguard and Blue Angel proprietor Max Gordon. "The Village Vanguard had started out as Max Gordon's living room. Max was a writer, a poet, a thinker. Max Gordon truly was a Bohemian."

1961: Women Strike for Peace. "I wound up handling all the New York press relations, as well as marching, and I hosted evenings galore. We were forever demonstrating in Washington. We lobbied our senators. We attended disarmament conferences all over the world."

1965: Traveled secretly to North Vietnam from the Soviet Union. "You couldn't eat, sleep or drink without reading about the Vietnam War. Half of America was against it. You can't just sit there. There was a group of North Vietnamese women we had made contact with who were looking to end the war. Let's see, we said, if Lorraine can get to North Vietnam..."

1989: Assumed the helm at The Village Vanguard upon Max Gordon's death. "I certainly had no fear. I just got into the swim as fast as I could; just held my nose and jumped in. I didn't arrive at The Village Vanguard out of the blue. I stuck to what I loved. That was my art. Throughout my life I followed the course of the music that I loved. I loved jazz. And what I loved was terrific."

2006: Now 83 years young and as impresario of The Village Vanguard, Gordon remains a force of inspiration: "Life is so beautiful when you're passionate about something, when you're committed."

Alive at the Village Vanguard includes Eartha Kitt, Lenny Bruce, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Henry Kissinger, Nina Simone, Oscar Peterson, Allen Ginsburg, Andy Warhol, Harry Belafonte, Nichols and May, Barbra Streisand, Carol Burnett, Pete Seeger, Adolph Green, Betty Comden, Leonard Bernstein, Woody Allen, Maya Angelou, Jonathan Winters, and many more. The volume offers over fifty never-before-seen photographs from Gordon's private collection, and a chronology and discography of "The Lorraine Gordon Years," listing every performer booked and every live album recorded at the Vanguard during her tenure.

"You know something?” says Gordon. “I walk down those stairs of the Vanguard and it's like walking into an embrace of some kind. Layer upon layer upon layer of all that has happened in there. Nobody made the Village Vanguard this way. Like jazz, it just evolved. Very often it gets to me. I sit and think: Boy, am I glad I did what I did."

Lorraine Gordon has not only known everybody in jazz, but just about everybody else as well. This book is a must-read for all who love our city’s roar, its tears, its music, and its history. – Ahmet Ertegun, Chairman, Atlantic Records

Lorraine Gordon is why the Village Vanguard is what it is, and why it is. – Bill Frissel, Guitarist

She's beautiful, hilarious, ornery, outspoken, sometimes outrageous, honest to a fault, endlessly quotable, and simply the living spirit of jazz. – Bruce Lundvall, President/CEO, Blue Note Records

The prototype independent woman. – Charles Gwathmey, Architect

Lorraine's maintained the integrity of the Vanguard as a room where musicians play. It's a very great achievement – not just for jazz, but for our times. – Wynton Marsalis, Trumpeter & Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center

She is the real deal. – Joe Lovano, Saxophonist

Jazz fans get the inside story of New York's legendary club in Alive at the Village Vanguard, a captivating, historic, and unapologetic memoir of a tremendous life. Ever provocative, ever the unapologetic straight-shooter, Gordon's telling of her life adds up to far more than just a jazz story. It constitutes, if only by inference, pretty much the story of jazz over the past half-century. It is also not solely a ‘woman's story.’ Yet it remains one of the more extraordinary and enlightening stories about one woman's life in twentieth- and twenty-first-century America.

Entertainment / Music / Reference

The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings by Tony Russell & Chris Smith, with Neil Slaven, Ricky Russell, & Joe Faulkner (Penguin Books)

From its roots in the American South to today’s world stage, the journey of blues has encompassed countless artists and recordings. But how can readers find the best of them?

The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings is a one-of-a-kind guide to recorded blues compiled by two widely experienced British music historians and journalists, Tony Russell and Chris Smith. Contributors include writer, record producer and discographer Neil Slaven; freelance writer and musician, Ricky Russell; and music journalist, musical director and theatrical composer, Joe Faulkner. The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings is a guide through the jungles of the record shop, download sites and the online music store. Highlights of the book include:

  • Authoritative critical ratings throughout.
  • The authors’ personal selection of the essential recordings for every collection.
  • Full line-ups of recording personal, along with dates and complete catalogue information.
  • A-Z artist biographies.
  • Extensive section on compilation albums, from Hillbilly Blues to Boogie Woogie.
  • Full index of artists.

A little history: In a celebrated meeting of 1903, the bandleader and composer W. C. Handy, waiting for a connection at a small Mississippi railroad station, witnessed a fellow African-American singing, to his own guitar accompaniment, what seems to have been a ‘blues.’ The event was commemorated in 2003 by a Year of the Blues, but no one who knew their blues history would have regarded the gesture as signifying a genuine centenary. All the reliable evidence suggests that blues, or something very like it, has been sung and played in the southern United States since the 1890s. When the authors date its history from Handy's brief encounter, or from the supposedly first published composition with ‘Blues’ in its title, some nine years later, or from the first vocal record called a ‘Blues’ by an African-American artist in 1920, one is merely assigning historic status to incidents in the long journey of the blues from the obscurity of the rural South to the spotlights of today's world stage. 

According to Russell, something like a generation elapsed before the phonograph record was used to document the sound of a black artist singing blues. Once that process got underway, African-American music was recorded vigorously, plentifully and in great variety, and almost immediately questions of definition began to take shape. The blues boom of the 1920s caused many records to be made that were not, by any standard musical definition, blues, and many artists to be recorded who were not, by any useful definition, blues singers – or, at least, not only blues singers. Consequently the subject-matter of The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings, in its early stage, extends beyond the blues idiom, and heaping it all up and labeling it ‘blues’ is no more than a practical solution for dealing with it.

Readers will find the strategy of including music beyond the blues idiom and beyond the strictly-defined category of blues singers, useful, perhaps even illuminating, but the authors are under no illusion that they are doing justice to the complexity of African-American vernacular music and its many decades of change and transformation.

Readers will find in The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings descriptive and evaluative surveys of the recorded work of more than a thousand musicians who have worked primarily, if not always exclusively, in the blues idiom. For the most part, they are career blues artists. The list of artists to whom Russell and Smith have devoted entries is not a roll call of all the artists readers might find in a catalogue or record store under the heading ‘Blues’. They include every artist who has what they consider a serious claim to a blues enthusiast's attention. For example, The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings is selective in its coverage of blues-rock, especially when it seems more closely connected to rock than to blues. The artists in that genre whom the authors have included are predominantly those who record for blues labels. They have also been cautious about artists lately hailed in some quarters as purveyors of ‘21st-century blues’, ‘punk blues’ or ‘nu blues’. They have also excluded artists whose work is predominantly in the soul idiom, though a few genre-straddling figures like Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, Z. Z. Hill and Little Milton could not reasonably be overlooked and have been given at least selective entries. With rhythm & blues, they have been a little more liberal, since, particularly in recent years, the tastes of blues enthusiasts have expanded to embrace many figures once considered peripheral, such as the honking saxophonists and sweet trios of the 1940s and '50s. Gospel music is beyond the scope of the book but, if a blues artist has also recorded re1igious music, that fact may be mentioned, and in a few instances the records themselves have been admitted to the fold. Blind Willie Johnson and Reverend Gary Davis are special cases, and they have duly made exceptions of them.

Readers will notice that some artists' entries are longer than those for similarly, or more, productive figures. This is often because the writer feels that the artist has been too cursorily treated in previous works of this kind and deserves better; indeed, not a few of the artists discussed in this book have never appeared in other guides.

The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings is an informative, insightful, and easy-to-use A–Z guide surveying the recorded work of more than a thousand blues artists. From towering figures of the past like Charley Patton, Bessie Smith, and Robert Johnson to stars of the modern era such as B. B. King, Buddy Guy, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, this valuable resource provides crisp, expert, and witty reviews of almost six thousand recordings and is required reading for blues aficionados as well as anyone just starting a collection.

Health, Mind & Body / Christian / Relationships

Undressed: The Naked Truth about Love, Sex, and Dating by Jason Illian (WarnerFaith)

It doesn’t matter whether readers are Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist. Everyone wants to love and be loved. But in a world where no one knows whether they are dating, wooing, courting, hanging out, flirting, living together, or just having sex, the lines blur awfully quickly.

According to Jason Illian, we're like zippers on over packed suitcases – fighting  to hold everything together and praying that our hearts don't just burst open. As a fellow foot soldier in the trenches of romance, fighting for this thing called ‘love,’ Illian says in Undressed he knows what it's like to face lonely nights and painful breakups. And he knows what it takes to find real joy in the midst of it all.

Illian asks readers:

  • Can you be sexy without sleeping around?
  • Is there a middle ground between ‘kissing dating good-bye’ and ‘kissing everyone good night’?
  • Is there really a Mr. Right, or should you just settle for Mr. Right Now?

According to Illian, a national speaker, successful corporate executive, and television personality, ultimately, love isn't about undressing the body – it is about undressing the heart.

Finally, someone who is the long-awaited voice of uncompromising truth and reason for today's generation! – Marshawn Evans, CEO for Communication Counts! and candidate on NBC's The Apprentice

Jason is a man who knows how to take a stand and lead, and I consider him to be a positive role model for people of all ages. – Dennis Franchione, Texas A&M football coach

With his colorful writing style, Jason Illian tackles dating issues from the desperate to the dicey, issuing important challenges and boundaries along the way. This isn't a stiff 'expert' opinion, but a hip voice from the dating trenches. – Camerin Courtney, author of The unGuide to Dating and Table for One and columnist for ChristianSinglesToday.com

Jason Illian is a man in the trenches who tells it like it is, giving a fresh, godly take on love, sex, and dating. His message is provocative, practical, and poignant and will serve as the field manual for all those in the battle zone of love. Being 'undressed' has never felt so good. – Josh Cox, professional athlete, national speaker, and candidate on ABC's The Bachelorette

Charismatic, clever, and passionate, Jason is a master storyteller with the gift for making the complex easy to understand. In Undressed, he addresses young, single, spiritually-minded adults as he as done many times in both colleges and churches as a touring speaker.

Health, Mind & Body / Fashion & Style

The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style: A Maintenance Bible for Fashion, Beauty, and More . . . by Christine Schwab (ReganMedia)

The ‘grown-up girl’ of today can take the truth, says Christine Schwab ... but she could use a little help along the way.

Renowned style expert and fashion consultant Schwab sees aging as an opportunity for mature women to revitalize their style and enliven their attitude. According to Schwab, now more than ever, women have the ability to look and feel chic and fabulous at any age, simply by understanding age maintenance. Schwab is adamant that with all this new ageless information and technology, it is imperative to be informed about what works and what does not.

From the inside out, The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style takes the approach of a friend, lending humor, hope and practical advice to a generation of women who have more options than ever before – and a voice of reason to help them make informed, responsible choices about anti-aging procedures so they can take new advantage of everyday opportunities that will make them look and feel younger.

In The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style Schwab offers an open-minded approach to style, beauty, health, and well-being that will help every forty-plus woman achieve a classic look while maintaining her edge and personality. The book addresses every aspect of aging, from hair and makeup to sex and family life. Schwab even embraces once taboo subjects, offering the lowdown from leading doctors and surgeons on injectable skin treatments, cosmetic surgery and dentistry, and hormone replacement therapy. Accompanying her advice are dozens of photographs – including celebrity profiles, woman-on-the-street snapshots, professional photography, and even personal photographs of Schwab herself – that demonstrate style disasters (sleeveless tops, head-to-toe denim, and more), and triumphs.

For the first time Schwab reveals what she's ‘had done’, what she'd do again, and what she wishes she'd had left well enough alone – plus how readers can measure the risks and costs associated with all anti-aging procedures. Schwab also shows readers how to empty their closet of the items that age them, and how to find affordable accessories that will keep their wardrobe looking youthful. And taking on age discrimination in a youth-obsessed culture, Schwab counsels readers on how to avoid feeling bad about their age.

For years, Christine Schwab has been telling women how to dress on Live, and now she completes the package in every way to make every woman more beautiful than she ever imagined she could be. – Regis Philbin

Fashion changes by the nanosecond, but true style is all about confidence. Readers of The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style will be able to sort through the changing trends and confidently put themselves together each day, knowing they look stylish and modern – whatever their age. – Deborah Norville, Inside Edition

Christine Schwab's The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style shows you how to look your personal best. – Kelly Ripa

Christine Schwab is the ultimate stylish messenger. Her book is insightful, informative, and makes being forty plus absolutely fun. I promise you, this book will have all those twenty- and thirty-year-olds wanting to be forty – and fabulous – NOW. A true fashion score. – Lawrence Zarian, The Fashion Guy

The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style dishes up insider's secrets to a beautiful, sexy, and healthy life after forty, promising to rejuvenate the already­stylish, the aspiring-to-be-stylish, and the simply style-challenged woman in her prime. In her opinionated, and provocative style, Schwab empowers women, delivering a book that defies many of the fashion and beauty industry philosophies. And she illustrates how to take the concept of ageless living to a whole new level – from the operating room to the lingerie department – with humor, honesty and practical information.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Personal Construct Psychology: New Ideas edited by Peter Caputi, Heather Foster & Linda L. Viney (Wiley)

Personal Construct Psychology presents the latest thinking and research in Personal Construct Psychology (PCP), covering a broad range of areas of interest to both researchers and practitioners. Edited by Peter Caputi, senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Wollongong; Linda L. Viney, Professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Wollongongand Consulting Editor of the Australian Psychologist; and Heather Foster, registered psychologist, it provides reports of empirical research, reflections by practicing personal construct psychologists, and conceptual analyses of issues pertaining to current and emerging theoretical issues in PCP. Personal Construct Psychology consists of five sections:

  • Theory and history
  • Assessment and understanding
  • Problems of living
  • Evidence-based interventions
  • Other interventions, clinical and educational.

Contributors are international scholars and practitioners based in a variety of clinical settings. The contributions reflect the internationalization of PCP (or PCT) with contributors coming from the U.S., the U.K., Europe and Australasia. Contributors to the volume include:

  • Richard C. Bell and Prasuna Reddy, University of Melbourne
  • Mike Bender and Alessandra Lantaffi, Private Practice, UK
  • Nina Bruni, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
  • Vivien Burr and Trevor Butt, University of Huddersfield, UK
  • Carole Carter, Lisbeth G. Lane, and Deborah Truneckova, University of Wollongong, Australia
  • Sabrina Cipolletta, Universities of Padua and Bozen, Italy
  • Julie Ellis, La Trobe University, Australia
  • Paula Eustace, Deakin University, Australia
  • Nicholas Gilbert, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust, UK
  • Bob Green, Community Forensic Mental Health Service, Australia
  • Larry M. Leitner, Miami University
  • Pamela Leung, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
  • David M. Mills, The Performance School, Seattle
  • Derek C. Oliver, United States Army
  • Janina Rado, Tübingen University, Germany
  • Sally Robbins, Coventry Teaching Primary Care Trust, UK
  • Nicole G. Rossotti, Private practice, South Australia
  • Mark W. Schlutsmeyer Sutter-Yuba, Mental Health Services, California
  • Harold Seelig, Institut für Sport und Sportwissenschaft, Universität Freiburg
  • Finn Tschudi, University of Oslo, Norway
  • Bill Warren, University of Newcastle, Australia
  • Mary H. Watts, City University, UK
  • David A. Winter, University of Hertfordshire & Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust, UK

Background on PCP: In 1955, George Kelly published his seminal work, The Psychology of Per­sonal Constructs. Using his original theoretical framework, Kelly abandoned traditional concepts in the psychological literature, concepts such as motivation. People construe or make sense of their worlds, the events in them, and of themselves. This process of construing (and re-construing) results in a system of constructs that provides a unique framework for understanding and anticipating events in one's world. The underlying philosophical assumption in per­sonal construct theory is that "all of our present interpretations of the universe are subject to revision or replacement". This notion is referred to as a philosophy of constructive alternativism. People can reinterpret their worldview and make way for alternative, more meaningful interpretations of their universe. However, the philosophy of constructive alternativism is not a solipsistic position. Kelly does not deny the existence of an objective reality. Rather, he argues that we cannot experience the real world directly. People's experiences of the world are diverse. The centra