June 2008, Issue #110

The enormous number of materials and tools that are available to artists nowadays is exponentially greater than the number of materials that were available in art stores just ten or fifteen years ago. The reasons are varied: the merging of brands into multinational conglomerates that constantly offer new products is one reason; the opening of local markets to those conglomerates is another. In addition, the advances of modern chemical industries have revolutionized the production of binders, and with it, the fabrication of paints. The result is that the availability of fine art products is growing and changing all the time. This gives the artist the advantage of being able to find products that are much more in tune with their particular needs. But it also has some disadvantages, one of them being that the tools that the artist was accustomed to disappear overnight due to the inflexible demands of a global market. – from the introduction

Today more than ever, both beginners and professional artists need reliable information that will help them discern the real novelties from the products in ‘disguise.’

Complete Guide to Materials and Techniques for Drawing and Painting is a one-volume directory that shows and describes virtually everything for every graphic artist – from simple charcoal pencils to easels and canvas-stretching equipment. All items are illustrated in color photos, and examples of how all materials are used are shown in drawings and reproduced paintings. Cataloged in this book are: charcoal and colored pencils, sanguine chalks and pencils, charcoal sticks, crayons, pastel chalks, inks and pens, paint brushes of all shapes and sizes, palettes and palette knives, dry pigments, oil paints, watercolors and gouache paints, acrylics, varnishes and paint solvents, papers of different textures, drawing pads for different media, canvases and stretching frames, easels, cutting tools, sponges, brush and equipment cleaners.
With hundreds of color photographs and illustrations, Complete Guide to Materials and Techniques for Drawing and Painting is a book that allows artists to identify any material, new or traditional, that may come their way. Based on the idea that artists have always been able to obtain what they need, no matter the period, the goal of the volume is to educate readers so they can make the best choices from among the products that flood the shelves of art stores.

The drawing and painting materials are covered in the first half of the book: from drawing pencils and papers to acrylic paints, including the different mediums, solvents, varnishes, and the many additives that are available. This is not only a complete guide but it also contains comments, advice, and suggestions about the use of each tool and how to choose from among them, with the different consequences that result from each choice.

The second half of Complete Guide to Materials and Techniques for Drawing and Painting is devoted to techniques – it shows examples of how to use these many different materials in finished paintings and drawings. Here David Sanmiguel shows the results that can be achieved with the tools presented in the first part. Only those materials that are truly relevant and that can provide an idea of the range of products derived from them are used. There are a total of 50 examples covering a wide field of subjects and styles so artists can see how the materials that they studied on the previous pages can be handled and the results that can be obtained with them.

Complete Guide to Materials and Techniques for Drawing and Painting is an accessible book; it is a reference book that is useful and needed by anyone who wishes to learn or to improve their skills in the field of fine arts. Both beginning art students and practicing artists will find information and advice on a wide selection of materials and equipment to help them expand on their skills and further develop their techniques in all art media.

Business & Investing / Job Hunting & Careers

Change the Way You See Yourself: Through Asset-Based Thinking by Kathryn D. Cramer & Hank Wasiak (Running Press)

Whatever you admire in someone, you have in yourself – if only but a glimmer. In fact, when a person’s talent, virtue, skill or attitude strikes you as amazing, you can be sure it’s something you want more of for yourself. You are ready, willing, and able to incorporate it into your repertoire of assets. – from the Introduction

Everyday we are bombarded with news, much of it negative. Whether reading the morning paper, logging onto a favorite news site, watching the 11 o'clock news or listening to the radio, there are a lot of unpleasant stories being reported – war, poverty, disease, global warming, foreclosures, layoffs, just to name a few – and it is easy to become preoccupied with problems, focus on what's wrong and missing in life. So easy, in fact, it is almost a natural response. This kind of Deficit-Based Thinking (DBT) can, over time, drain the life out of anyone.

In their breakthrough first book, Change the Way You See Everything, psychologist Kathryn D. Cramer, managing partner of The Cramer Institute, and advertising industry leader Hank Wasiak, co-founder of The Concept Farm, inspired readers to imagine what could be possible if they focused on opportunities rather than problems, strengths instead of weaknesses, progress in place of perfection.

Now these revolutionaries are back with Change the Way You See Yourself, teaching readers to be proactive and look inward to improve their lives. So while the first book taught readers how to view their world differently, this next book shows them how to see themselves differently. It reveals that everyone is a leader in their own way, and that, through Asset-Based Thinking (ABT), every person can plug into their unique power.

"We have crossed over a monumental threshold into a world in which the power and importance of ‘you’ has taken on a whole new meaning and dimension," say the authors. This second book in the series shows people how to tap into their own personal power, dramatically expand their circle of influence, and identify and pursue their own ‘mighty cause,’ i.e., their purpose and passion for living, to gain greater meaning in their lives. The impact one has in this world, the authors explain, is fueled by this passion, and changes the way they see their future.

This kind of Asset-Based Thinking (ABT) can make all the difference in how readers see the world, their world. Divided into four sections that focus on one's Power, Influence, Impact and Future, Change the Way You See Yourself outlines for readers where to look for assets (in themselves, those around them, and in any situation (good or bad). Exercises throughout assist readers into recognizing their own unique talents, values and overall power, and help them to hone their networking/influencing skills so that they can create an impact in their lives that's in service of the ‘greater good.’ In doing all of this, they can not only imagine a better future, but rehearse for it and in effect create it.

Cramer and Wasiak proclaim readers to "Call Yourself to Action," pointing out that in order to lead a significant life, it's important for each person to identify what their personal ‘mighty cause’ is – the one they feel born to serve. For some it might be ending world hunger, and maybe initially that means volunteering at soup kitchens on the weekends, or perhaps it is advancing world peace, starting with their own family unit. Whatever the cause, it is up to each to apply ABT and pursue that signature impact over the course of their lives.

According to Cramer and Wasiak, small shifts in thinking lead to big rewards. Readers let the power of ABT help change the way they perceive themselves and their ability to change the world around them. By transforming the way they see their own power, their influence grows exponentially and their personal impact intensifies dramatically.

Change the Way You See Yourself features moving stories of real people who have used ABT to make a difference and impact their lives and the world around them. It is quite a reading experience, fully illustrated with vivid images, inspiring messages, and lessons that will assist readers into realizing their own unique power.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership

A Culture of Rapid Improvement: Creating and Sustaining an Engaged Workforce by Raymond C. Floyd (CRC Press)

Managing a business so that it achieves a supreme pace of improvement requires that all members of an organization can and do make their best contributions to the success of the enterprise – this can seem an impossible task. Management must provide employees with a shared set of values and beliefs so that they can decide for themselves how to behave in accordance with the expectations of a nurturing and empowering culture.

A Culture of Rapid Improvement is intended for those leaders seeking to encourage dramatic improvement within their organizations. It shows these change agents how they can

Develop the shared values and beliefs that serve as the foundation for a dynamic culture.
Engage all employees to join the new culture and provide opportunities for these stakeholders to initiate and participate in improvement.
Measure, evaluate, and manage the performance of the new culture.

Filled with lessons garnered from personal experiences, A Culture of Rapid Improvement is based on Raymond C. Floyd's 40 years of industrial management experience, including his more than 20 years at Exxon Mobil. Floyd is the winner of a Shingo Prize and also holds the unique distinction of having led businesses from two different industries that were both recognized by Industry Week magazine as being among the Best Plants in America.

According to A Culture of Rapid Improvement, the first benchmark on this journey is that readers should be able to make progress of noticeable benefit to their business performance during the first six months, and the rate of progress as they enter the second six-month period should be faster than the pace at which they entered the first six-month period. Two important attributes that world-class businesses share are (1) they improve rapidly, and (2) they sustain rapid improvement once it has been achieved.

The second benchmark of the improvement effort is that they should have all of the elements of the new culture in place throughout their organization by the end of two years. They will not yet enjoy a strong and mature new culture at the end of two years, but they will be clearly positioned to do so and they will already have many attributes of a new culture, including strong, autonomous improvement teams throughout enterprise. After that, the culture will become more stable and more productive with time.

According to A Culture of Rapid Improvement, it is convenient to think of culture – either business or social – as comprised of four elements: values, beliefs, behavior, and rituals. The logic chain of this model is explained in the sections of the book. The value of this simple model is that it provides a handle to grasp the amorphous concept of culture in a way that most people can actually use. The purpose for possessing a usable theoretical model of culture is to enable readers to apply the theory to their specific situation as they design a unique corporate culture that is mindfully appropriate to their people and to their business.

A usable model of cultural theory also provides a basis for communication on cultural issues, especially behavioral issues, among many people of different personal cultures. Cultural discussions, including discussions on differences in personal behavior, will be valuable as readers form and operate a strong cadre of autonomous teams.

The typical expression of a cultural model that is even simpler than this one often stops at discussions of behavior without referring to the underlying roots of behavior. Behavior-only models of personal and social culture typically result in a stereotypical assessment of individuals, and that is often more offensive than useful. Simpler cultural models often cause even more interpersonal problems than they resolve.

Through the communication and understanding facilitated by this model of culture, readers can begin the process of creating an ‘on-purpose’ corporate culture that is specifically designed for their people and their business needs. Readers can begin managing the interface between their corporate culture and the several personal cultures of the people in their business. Finally, they can give their people a way to form and sustain fully functional teams of people from different social cultures. Intelligent and inoffensive cultural discussion often allows teams to work together, despite behavior by team members that is comfortable and natural to some people, but is initially either offensive or completely inexplicable to others.

This model of culture is presented at the beginning of A Culture of Rapid Improvement to enable readers to consider the rest of the material and their own situation in light of the model. As they create their business strategies, they can do so in a way that their people will accept them as a shared value that is consistent with their personal and social values. As they create the social elements of their corporate culture, they can do that in a way that will draw the specific individuals who work with them together into a successful team and enable all their people to behave comfortably at work and to work comfortably together. As they create and use the rituals of a business culture, such as quality stations, they can do that in a way that will reinforce the commonality of purpose and action that they want to be shared broadly across the organization.

Among the many tasks of a leader who intends to achieve world-class performance, including the task of operating the business on a daily basis, is the creation of an on-purpose culture of rapid improvement within the business. Creating that new culture requires four things from leaders, and Floyd devotes one section of A Culture of Rapid Improvement to each of these:

Leaders must establish the strategic direction for the business that will enable each person to contribute to success through tactical actions that are within their normal scope of activity. Section I.
Leaders must provide the framework for improvement, including the objective and subjective support that people need in order to engage with the business and with others. Within this framework, people will have new capabilities for improving their work. Section II.
Leaders must create a new on-purpose culture for the business. Informal business adaptations of social cultures tend to exclude or diminish people who have a different personal or social culture outside of the workplace. The new culture for their business must specifically include everyone. Section III.
Leaders must manage and sustain the new culture. Even cultures such as Christianity that have existed for millennia receive regular attention from leaders to ensure that the values are upheld and the details of daily application of the culture evolve correctly, and to ensure that the people of the culture remain unified. Section IV.

In the first four sections of A Culture of Rapid Improvement, Floyd describes the theory and practice of creating and sustaining a culture of rapid improvement by fulfilling each of those leadership responsibilities. The subject of Section V is a detailed description of activities during the first two years that will lead readers to their goal.

Throughout the book Floyd offers ‘Key Ideas’ that appear in boxes. He includes a chapter summary at the end of each chapter to remind readers of the key points they need to implement in their own organization. Finally, numerous, practical case study ‘Examples’ are described throughout A Culture of Rapid Improvement, based on his experience working with many organizations in different industries and nations during his career.

As Manager for our large manufacturing complex in Baytown, Texas, Ray Floyd and his team fundamentally changed performance by turning the entire workforce into an improvement-idea-generating machine. Over the seven-year period that Ray was manager, Baytown changed from a troubled plant to a world-scale example of manufacturing excellence. Manufacturing efficiency improved at a rate of 16 percent each year and employee participation grew to a level of 40 improvements per person per year all resulting in outstanding bottom line profitability. I know of no one better than Ray to record and teach those lessons. – H. Eugene McBrayer, President (retired), Exxon Chemical Company
Ray Floyd has compiled a complete collection of all the theory, practice and examples that you will need to create an engaged workforce. If you truly want world-class performance, you will want a copy of this book on your desk as a ready reference manual. – King Pouw, Executive Vice President Operations and Business Transformation, ConAgra Foods
Ray has brought the ideas in this book into reality for us. Currently our Chairman, Ray’s experience has assisted us in taking strategy from the Board Room to practical application in creating a true highly productive service culture. I encourage others to read this book and apply these principles to your business so that you may benefit from his insight and experience as we have. – Randall Dixon, President, Energy Capital Credit Union
…If you want to get ahead of your competition and maintain a leadership position in your industry, this book shows the successful application of Ray Floyd's formula for establishing and maintaining an environment of rapid improvement and points out the fundamental importance of creating a culture based on shared values to drive the behavior of an entire organization toward the accomplishment of common goals. – David K. Christein, Vice President of Operations, Molex Incorporated

A Culture of Rapid Improvement is intended for people who will lead change in their organization and for those who will help or advise the leaders. This material may also be of interest to anyone who is joining the conversation or who wants to influence the outcome. Floyd shows through concrete and practical examples how a culture based on shared values and beliefs can drive the right behavior throughout an entire organization, and establish and maintain an environment of rapid improvement. The book is a must read for any organization wanting to out-perform their competition long term in a global economy.

Children / Ages 4-8 / Poetry / Holidays & Festivals

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem by Maya Angelou, Steve Johnson, & Lou Fancher (Schwartz & Wade Books, Random House)

Offering us always the raw truth and the eloquence of hope, Maya has shown our world the redemptive healing power of art. – Bill Clinton, on awarding the National Medal of Arts to Maya Angelou in 2000

“Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, look heavenward,” Maya Angelou writes, “and speak the word aloud. Peace.” First read at the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony, Amazing Peace comes alive again as an illustrated children’s book, celebrating the promise of peace in the holiday season. In this simple story, a family joins with their community – rich and poor, black and white, Muslim and Jew – to celebrate the holidays.
Angelou is a poet, writer, performer, teacher, and director. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, which began with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she has also written five poetry collections, a cookbook, and the celebrated poem “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she read at the inauguration of President Clinton.
Illustrators Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher have collaborated on many award-winning and New York Times bestselling picture books, including My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss, New York’s Bravest by Mary Pope Osborne, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, The Cheese by Margie Palatini, The Boy on Fairfield Street by Kathleen Krull, and Star Climbing.

Angelou’s beautiful and moving poem, Amazing Peace, comes alive as a fully illustrated children's book, celebrating the promise of peace in the Holiday season. The poem is a radiant affirmation of the goodness of humanity. Children will be inspired by Angelou’s words and touched by Johnson and Fancher's illustrations; their textured, softly glowing images perfectly complement Angelou’s resonant poem.

Children’s / Ages 4-8 / Literature & Fiction

Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures by Julie Larios, illustrated by Julie Paschkis (Harcourt Children)

Here in Imaginary Menagerie, we have a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and a Book Sense Children's Pick from the creators of the acclaimed Yellow Elephant: A Bright Bestiary.

Who is half gallop, half walk?

Who can turn you to stone with one look?

Whose voice do you hear in the splash on the shore? – from the book

Centaurs, mermaids, and other curious creatures populate the poems and paintings, inspired by a mythological world.

Imaginary Menagerie is written by Julie Larios, a prizewinning poet for children and adults, faculty of the Vermont College Writing for Children and Young Adults program. Illustrations are by Julie Paschkis, painter and illustrator of numerous books for children.

Using poems and pictures, this modern bestiary proves a fascinating introduction to mythical creatures from different cultures. . . . Each creature is described in a poem capturing some of its unique features as well as its mystery. . . . End-pages ingeniously unite the curious creatures providing the perfect start and finish to this little masterpiece. – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The animals featured in these well-crafted poems flash with color and emotion. – Booklist (starred review)

A dynamic, contagious energy emanates from both the poetry and the art. – Publishers Weekly

Imaginary Menagerie is a book of wondrous poems and paintings full of the mythological world of imagination and mystery. The book includes end notes about cultures and legends.

Children / Ages 9-12 / Science Fiction, Fantasy & Magic

Yesterday's Magic: A Sequel to Tomorrow’s Magic by Pamela F. Service (Random House)

Set 500 years in the future, following a nuclear devastation, in Yesterday's Magic the technological world has ground to a halt, but magic is beginning to take hold again. And the powerful icons of myth are starting to fight for control of the world. From the Russian witch Baba Yaga, to the native American trickster god, Raven, the most ancient magical forces are beginning to awaken, and they have very different ideas about the future of the earth.

Yesterday's Magic begins at the wedding festivities of King Arthur and Queen Margaret of Scotland, where Heather McKenna is kidnapped by the sorceress Morgan LeFay. Arthur is still struggling to unite the warring factions of England, so it is up to Heather’s friend Welly and the wizard Merlin to rescue her.

Thus begins a round-the-world pursuit of Morgan, who is using Heather as a pawn in a centuries-long game with the Hindu goddess of death. But Heather is not helpless. Her own powers of new magic are growing stronger, and she finds she has allies in unexpected places.

Yesterday's Magic, written by Pamela Service, museum director and actor, is a riveting sequel to Tomorrow’s Magic continuing Merlin and Arthur’s quest to reunite the world.
Cooking, Food & Wine

The Farm to Table Cookbook: The Art of Eating Locally by Ivy Manning, with photography by Gregor Torrence (Sasquatch Books)

Farmer's markets are multiplying across the country, and their stalls are bursting with locally grown produce, artisan breads and cheeses and naturally raised meats.

Simultaneously, a revolution is taking place in the way Americans eat. Many are turning away from highly processed foods and turning toward farmer's markets and community supported agriculture to get fresh, locally grown food. But with change, comes challenge. The farmer's market experience can be daunting. Standing elbow to elbow with foodies, it is easy to be seduced by gorgeous greens, the vibrant colors of unknown vegetables, and the aroma of sweet berries. Next thing shoppers know, they are at home with a bag full of fresh produce and they have no idea how to turn it into a delicious meal.

As America's move toward local, natural ingredients continues, author Ivy Manning offers up a spectacular collection of recipes. The Farm to Table Cookbook helps readers make the most of the delectable, colorful foods they find at their favorite market. Filled with full-color photographs, and more than 100 recipes, the cookbook shows readers how to take full advantage of the brightest peppers, wildest mushrooms, and most interesting leafy greens.

Organized by season, this cookbook invites the home cook to sample and explore to prepare such dishes as Fresh Pea and Pancetta Risotto, Baby Artichoke and Fava Bean Salad with Pecorino, Asparagus and Caramelized Leek Bread Pudding, Seared Scallops with Creamed Ramps and Black Truffle, Spice-Crusted Lamb Chops with Quince, Swiss Chard and Feta Phyllo Pockets with Yogurt Dill Dip, and Spinach and Roasted Shallot Flan.

Manning organizes The Farm to Table Cookbook by season, and includes a How to Choose feature for most recipes to help navigate the stalls and get the best vegetable bang for their buck. She encourages readers to make the most of their market experience with:

Tips for Happy Market Going (arrive early, bring cash, don't be shy if they are stumped, and perhaps best of all: nibble, taste, and sniff).
Benefits and reasons to go local with The Flavor of Farm to Table (taste, diversity in diet, humanely raised livestock).
How to be even more supportive in Going One Step Further (buying shares and easing the financial burden on farmers – they will get thanked with fresh produce).

If dessert makes readers weak in the knees, they can flip immediately to the end of each season's section where they will discover mouth-watering treats such as the Peach and Blackberry Hazelnut Crisp, Marsala-Baked Pears with Maple Whipped Cream, Real Gingerbread Cake with Apple Cider Glaze, Strawberry Shortcakes with Lemon Curd Cream. In addition to her own original contributions, Manning also includes recipes from many of the Northwest's premier chefs and restaurants that specialize in fresh and local dishes, including Tilth, Lark, Crush, The Farm Cafe, Wildwood, and Paley's Place.

We love Ivy Manning's first book. Not only is it an important book for people striving to eat locally, but – just like its author – it's warm, sincere, intelligent. – Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugruid, authors of Hot Sour Salty Sweet

I can't think of a better guide to the world of cooking fresh, seasonal produce than Ivy Manning. Her food is delicious and her recipes are smart and efficient; this book is a brilliant vehicle for her talent and passion. Looking through it, you can't help but get happy and hungry. – Martha Holmberg, food editor; The Oregonian

The Farm to Table Cookbook gives in to vegetable lust, not to the exclusion of sustainably raised or harvested seafood, meat, and poultry, but fresh produce rules. Wherever readers’ farmers markets are found, the book urges them to declare their allegiance to the locavore movement. With full-color photographs and more than 100 recipes, readers learn how to think globally but eat locally with this attractive, sophisticated, and satisfying cookbook.

Education

Being an Effective Mentor: How to Help Beginning Teachers Succeed, 2nd Edition by Kathleen Feeney Jonson (Corwin Press)

Mentoring is the professional practice that provides support, assistance, and guidance to beginning teachers to promote their professional growth and success. It is sometimes one program within a larger teacher induction program that also includes, for example, orientations and in-services. The task of mentoring is complex and requires the skills of a teacher, counselor, friend, role model, guide, sponsor, coach, resource, and colleague. An experienced and expert professional develops a relationship with a trained but inexperienced protégé. The mentor may incorporate a variety of strategies and activities to help the protégé grow and develop in professional competence, attitudes, and behaviors – but regardless of the specific activities and goals, the qualitative nature of the relationship determines the overall effectiveness of the mentor.

Being an Effective Mentor provides the rationale and guidelines for setting up an effective mentoring program as well as practical information and advice for new mentors.

Skilled mentors can make a major difference in helping novice teachers succeed and thrive during that all-important first year. This updated edition of the best-selling book, Being an Effective Mentor strengthens practicing mentors' skills with updated strategies to help protégés develop confidence and expertise as teachers.
Educator and mentoring expert Kathleen Feeney Jonson, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Multiple Subject Credential Program in the Teacher Education Department of the University of San Francisco, identifies the skills and experiences that nurture beginning teachers and provides specific, research-based techniques for mentors, such as demonstration teaching, positive observation and feedback, informal communication, role modeling, and providing direct assistance. Readers will find guidance for using reflections to promote discovery, an action plan for professional development, and month-by-month mentoring activities for building productive mentor/mentee relationships and promoting best teaching practices.
This second edition of Being an Effective Mentor demonstrates how to help new instructors improve instructional, interpersonal, and coping skills; examines the components of successful mentoring initiatives; and offers new information on:

The stages of teacher needs and development.
Professional growth for long-term teaching success.
Assessment of student work.
Working with difficult mentees.
The role of mentors within teacher induction programs.

Part I, Setting the Stage for the Teacher-Mentor of Being an Effective Mentor explains the context for mentoring programs, describes components of a successful program, and positions the mentor in the broader scope of teacher induction programs and professional development. Part II, Effective Strategies for the Good Mentor, provides a wealth of strategies for mentors working with new teachers. Part III, Putting It All Together, offers specific activities for mentors to use with their mentees and provides a checklist as a practical guide.

In Part I, Chapters 1 (Passing the Torch) and 2 (Setup for Success) provide a knowledge base useful to those structuring a mentor program. These introductory chapters contain a historical and policy perspective. Topics explored include the role of the mentor, qualifications of a good mentor, and the importance of providing preparation and support for the mentoring process. New to this second edition is an expanded discussion of successful programs in Chapter 2, as well as a look at some possible variations in mentor programs.

In Chapter 3, Remembering the First Days, mentors are encouraged to think back on their own first days in the classroom. ‘Reality shock’ and the fears and anxieties of beginners are discussed. Chapter 4, Beyond Survival, provides an overview of the myriad of skills that beginners need to get off to a good start. Helping the beginner acquire these skills requires that the mentor perform a variety of functions, from serving as a role model in the full scope of daily professional activities to developing specific skills such as classroom observation.

An all-new Chapter 5, Moving Toward Professionalism, sets the mentor in the broader context of teacher induction programs. It takes a close look at the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project, one program that is working and serves as a model for other programs. This new chapter also examines ways mentors can help teachers move beyond their initial need to survive and toward professionalism.

How mentors develop trusting relationships is the heart of Chapter 6, Working as a Partner With the Adult Learner, the first chapter in Part II. Because mentoring relationships go through phases, Chapter 6 deals with how mentors need to adjust their responses as their protégés develop. Another chapter new to this second edition, Stages in Teacher Development (Chapter 7), explores the stages of development typical for teachers through two models – one that tracks the teacher through the first year on the job and another that looks at development throughout the teaching career.

Chapter 8, Practical Strategies for Assisting New Teachers, explores specific strategies for mentoring. New to the second edition is a section on assessing student work.

And finally, Chapter 9, Overcoming Obstacles and Reaping the Rewards, takes a close look at the pitfalls and payoffs of mentoring. The chapter includes an expanded discussion of ways for mentors to deal with some pitfalls, notably finding time to mentor in addition to all of the other teacher tasks and how to work with difficult mentees.

In Part III, Putting It All Together, the mentor finds a month-by-month listing of suggested activities designed to promote interaction between mentors and their protégés. Following the monthly list of activities is a checklist to use as a guide. Finally, three appendixes provide tools to help the mentor work with the beginning teacher.

Although intended primarily for mentors, Being an Effective Mentor will be of interest to anyone concerned with the complex process of guidance, assistance, and support to promote growth and success for beginning teachers. Principals, staff developers, university supervisors, beginning and experienced teachers, and even parents and community members, all can benefit from an understanding of the value and process of mentoring. Straightforward, readable, well-organized, practical and thorough, Jonson’s handbook contains everything mentor teachers need to know to establish a partnership with a beginning teacher and start them on a rewarding and satisfying path of career-long development.

Entertainment / Humor / Political

So You Want To Be President? by John Warner (Tow Books)

What's the best job in the world? No, not Oprah, although that's a pretty sweet job. It’s probably the President of the United States. As we've found out lately, almost anyone can do it. Now, just in time, while there's still time, readers who are dissatisfied with this year's current crop of Presidential candidates can find out for themselves if they would be a better candidate for the job.

And, according to So You Want To Be President?, who wouldn't want to be president? Consider the perks: Nice house (rent-free), massive staff (taxpayer-supported), private plane (and helicopter and hovercraft and super-secret modes of transportation the public doesn't even know about), guaranteed television exposure ... it's like being Donald Trump, with access to nukes.

That said, becoming president – getting elected president – is much, much harder than being president.

In theory, there are only two qualifications needed to run for President of the United States: one must be 35 years of age and a natural born U.S. citizen. But what else does one need to be a contender? Whether readers are elephants or donkeys, or whatever animal may be associated with an independent candidate, So You Want To Be President? helps readers figure out if they are cut out for the job.

Humorist John Warner, editor of McSweeney's Internet Tendency and teacher at Clemson University, guides them through a series of obstacles that determines their ability to lead the biggest nation in the Free World. So You Want To Be President? takes readers from choosing their party affiliation, through the primaries and ultimately to the general election. Along the way quizzes, tests and obstacles test their presidential mettle. In the back of the book is a scorecard for readers to track their progress toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. During the Primaries, ‘candidates’ attempt to amass enough delegates to win the nomination. In the general election, ‘candidates’ gun for electoral votes. If they manage to successfully navigate all challenges, they'll win the ultimate prize, the Presidency of the United States.

(Well, it's only make-believe, and not really a credible endorsement for any potential candidate. But readers can try and use it on their resume if that's all they got.)

Consider all the great historical figures who have never held the top office: Bob Dole, Florida Evans, Winston Churchill, Anne Frank, Lassie, Q*Bert, Thomas Jefferson – How on Earth did those people not get elected president?" readers may ask. Because they didn't have So You Want To Be President?, a paper and ink-based dry run for the oval office that serves as a step-by-step guide to the entire campaign. By reading this book readers find out if they have the right stuff to pander, grovel and humiliate themselves to win the ultimate prize, the Presidency of the United States. Handy-dandy scorecards, too.

Entertainment / Music

The James Brown Reader: Fifty Years of Writing About the Godfather of Soul edited by Nelson George & Alan Leeds (Plume)

When James Brown passed away on December 25, 2006, the world lost one of the most celebrated and memorable entertainers of the last fifty years. In addition to being one of the most influential musicians, James Brown has been one of the most written about.

In The James Brown Reader edited by Nelson George and Alan Leeds, James Brown's phenomenal career of epic highs and lows is chronicled in this collection of newspaper and magazine articles of the soul musician’s life. George, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker, and Leeds, a superstar networker and one of the leading experts on Brown, were among the team of writers who won a Grammy for the liner notes of the James Brown boxed set Star Time.

Known as the hardest-working man in show business, James Brown (1933-2006) embodied rhythm and blues, funk and soul, sensuality and the power of a good performance. His musical innovations in such indelible grooves as “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” “I Got You (I Feel Good),” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” transformed American music.
To appreciate Brown’s influence, to chronicle his professional and personal triumphs and struggles, and to capture his essence, in The James Brown Reader writers from four decades weigh in on the legendary Soul Brother Number One. Separated into five sections, this collection paints a textured portrait of Brown through the eyes of over forty journalists. What emerges is a comprehensive collection of writings about the Godfather of Soul. It is a tribute to a trailblazer, and includes rare photographs of Brown, a timeline of his life, and a discography.

From hardscrabble roots in the deep South, Brown, by virtue of immense talent and indomitable will, built and international following that parallels the ubiquity of black popular culture in every corner of the globe. From R&B to soul to funk to disco to hip hop and the fusions in between, it was Brown who perfected, created or inspired all of these musical genres. Brown's strong-willed personality, political ambitions and massive ego pushed writers to do their best work in an attempt to capture his essence. Editors, George and Leeds have assembled seasoned music writers such as Thulani Davis, Gerri Hershey, Philip Gourevitch and Jonathan Lethem; from publications such as The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Penthouse to now defunct publications like Look, Sepia, and Crawdaddy.

This unique and fascinating collection illuminates, celebrates and memorializes a legend whose impact on music is immeasurable. George and Leeds have assembled the first comprehensive collection of writings about the late, great Godfather of Soul, creating a fascinating mosaic of the man and the musician. The James Brown Reader, especially with the extensive discography, is a book that no dedicated James Brown fan or music history buff will want to be without.

Entertainment / Sports / Baseball

Classic Cubs: A Tribute to the Men and Magic of Wrigley Field by Chris De Luca, with artwork by John Hanley (Cumberland House Publishing)

Few things evoke as much emotion as the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. Love them or hate them, the Cubs have a mystique all their own. And both Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs have been the subject of many books, but none have captured the spirit of the team through the display of the artist's brush.

In Classic Cubs, John Hanley, nationally renowned sports artist, celebrates the history and milestones of the team and highlights a galaxy of hall of fame ballplayers with more than 125 original oil paintings and drawings created exclusively for this book, evoking the sense of mood that only art can create. Hanley's paintings record the legacy and beauty of the game and the valor of those who played it, illustrating the ivy-covered walls and the manually operated scoreboard of Wrigley Field and recounting the legendary players, announcers, owners, and the famous curse. The text is by Chris DeLuca, who has covered Chicago baseball for the Sun-Times for eleven years.

The book illustrates what makes Wrigley Field one-of-a-kind. Hall of Fame players such as Ernie Banks, Cap Anson and Grover Alexander are captured by the artist's brush, with great attention given to the managers, great and not-so-great moments, the owners and the voices of the game. Forewords by Fergie Jenkins and Ryne Sandberg, as well as an introduction by Pat Hughes round out the book.

Classic Cubs is a living tribute to everything that is special about one of the greatest baseball organizations ever. – Ryne Sandberg, Cubs second baseman, 1982-97

John Hanley is one of the most talented sports artists I have ever seen. The beautiful work he does is only surpassed by his generosity and spirit. The 1st Touch Foundation is proud to support his art and call him a friend. Our partnership has been an honor. – Derrek Lee, President and Founder, 1st Touch Foundation Chicago Cubs First Baseman

John Hanley's paintings in Classic Cubs bring the rich history of the Cubs and Wrigley Field to vivid life. His stunning depictions of the ballpark and the Wrigleyville area and his portraits of all the Cub greats are breathtaking. Chris De Luca's writing is a perfect companion to Hanley's art – just the facts with no clutter – as he succinctly paints the written history of the Cubs. – Len Kasper, Cubs TV Play-by-Play Announcer

This is a compelling collection that all Cubs fans, baseball fans, and art lovers everywhere will appreciate for years to come. – Pat Hughes, Cubs play-by-play announcer

A beautifully painted history of the team, Classic Cubs dramatically details where some of baseball's most dramatic and bittersweet moments occurred with interesting stories and little-known facts. Hanley has clearly brought his love of the game of baseball to this project; his art recreates the personal connection and intimate friendship between a team and its fans. The book is the perfect gift and collector's item for any Cubs fan.

Entertainment / Sports / Tennis / African American Studies

Blacks at the Net: Black Achievement in the History of Tennis, Volume 2 by Sundiata Djata (Syracuse University Press)

While much has been written about black triumphs in boxing, baseball, and other sports, little has been said of similar accomplishments in tennis. In Blacks at the Net, the final volume of his examination of black achievement in international tennis, Sundiata Djata fills that gap. Exploring the discrimination that kept blacks out of pro tennis for decades, he examines the role that this traditionally white sport played in the black community and provides insights into the politics of professional sports and the challenges faced by today's black players.

Drawing on original and published interviews, life writings (autobiographies, memoirs, etc.), and newspaper and magazine articles, Djata, who teaches African and African American sports history at Northern Illinois University, in Blacks at the Net offers a look at black participation in tennis in Europe, Africa, Australia, and the Caribbean. He investigates how black African players broke through the color barrier of South African apartheid using sports to gain international sympathy in the face of oppressive discrimination. Djata's wide-ranging history includes Aboriginal Australians and a chronicle of Yannick Noah's racial identity in the eyes of the French and the world.

Volume one covered the formation of early black clubs in the United States, the emergence of professional black tennis players, and some insights into the particular pressures that black players have faced. In this second volume page after page is filled with fascinating stories of black players from Africa, Australia, Europe, and the Caribbean and the matches that would affect the sport of Tennis from the late 19th century to the present.

The major purpose of the study is to provide a historical outline of black participation in tennis, highlighting some important personalities and the challenges they confronted.

Although most professional black tennis players have come from the United States, Blacks at the Net looks also at blacks and tennis in other countries. In addition, Djata offers an extended discussion on African players (of any race). He discusses South Africa separately from other African polities owing to its peculiar and lengthy history of racial segregation. Through Yannick Noah and Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, one can see some issues that players of color have faced in France and Australia. He compares other athletes, other highly visible personalities, and circumstances from other sports and professions to professional tennis to shed light on issues of image, advertising, and racial identity.

There are few works on sports in Africa, with the exception of South Africa. However, the sport traditions in Africa have long histories, and with the introduction of sports such as tennis by colonial powers, the histories became richer and more dynamic. Because of the tradition of sport in South Africa and Australia, there is a wealth of general literature on sport for those two countries. However, the role of sports among blacks has been largely omitted from these tomes.

A fascinating look at the exploits of outstanding black tennis players and how the sport was closely intertwined with racial identity, advertising, and notions of style in such [regions] as Australia, Africa, and South America. Essential reading for anyone interested in knowing how blacks have negotiated the racial divide in one of the most popular, yet traditionally white sports. – David K. Wiggins, George Mason University

Despite black professional player’s successes, the issues of race and gender have remained constant. Djata fills the gap in the record of black achievement in international tennis with Blacks at the Net, the final volume of his ambitious examination of black achievement in international tennis. There is still much work to be done. Combining the available materials, these books begin to assemble the puzzle of a largely ignored history. Hopefully these two volumes will stimulate additional scholarship.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Parenting & Families

The Case for Make-Believe: Saving Play in Our Commercialized World by Susan Linn (New Press)

Does your teen turn on the sarcasm when she's kicked off the computer?

Is your grade-schooler asking for more quality time with the TV?

In the nationally celebrated Consuming Kids, Susan Linn provided an unsparing look at how modern childhood is molded by commercialism. The resulting threat to children's play is the subject of her new book. In The Case for Make-Believe, Linn argues that while play is crucial to human development and children are born with an innate capacity for make believe, the convergence of ubiquitous technology and unfettered commercialism actually prevents them from playing. In modern-day America nurturing creative play is not only countercultural – it threatens corporate profits.

In an age when toys come from TV shows, dress-up means wearing Disney costumes, and parents believe Baby Einstein is educational, Linn lays out the inextricable links between play, creativity, and health, showing readers why they need to protect their children from corporations that aim to limit their imaginations. At the heart of The Case for Make-Believe are gripping stories of children at home, at school, and in a therapist's office using make believe to grapple with real-life issues from entering kindergarten to the death of a sibling, revealing feelings they can't express directly, and making meaning of an often confusing world.
Linn, a psychologist at Judge Baker Children's Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston and also a pioneer in using puppet therapy with children, believes adults should make an effort to spend ‘unplugged’ time with children. She advises creating special times after they unplug, shut down and switch off. In The Case for Make-Believe, she says nix the phone, shut down the computer and turn off the television for a ‘family slowdown’ – it may be hard to find the time, but it's worth it.

"Remember that your child is going to be grappling with electronic media and the things it sells for the rest of their lives," said Linn. "They'll be better equipped to cope if they have lots of experience enjoying their own ability to make things happen, using their own curiosity as an impetus for actively exploring the world."

Of course, there are times when even the most attentive parents are grateful to the creators of DVDs and video recorders. But quieter activities that kids can do mostly themselves with exhausted grownups nearby can replace electronic babysitters. Parents can dig into the desk for rubber bands and have the kids start a rubber band ball. Parents can teach children old-fashioned hand string games, get them to think up a story and draw their own illustrations to go with it, pack travel puzzle books with enough variety to keep fresh on the road or suggest freestyle origami that encourages kids to be inventive.

Whatever suits the family, Linn in The Case for Make-Believe urges parents to start young. In good weather, a family hike in the woods or a walk around the neighborhood can clear everybody's heads and provide a quieter outdoor alternative to noisy and chaotic playgrounds. They can visit the pet shop, the firehouse and the resident cat at the corner store as they stroll.

A trip to the airport just to watch planes take off and land is oddly exciting when they are not running to and fro with luggage. For youngsters learning how to identify money, they can grab the spare change jar, toss the contents on the dining room table and let them create sorting and counting games of their own.

"Don't buy into the ‘educational’ baby video and software scam," said Linn, who is the director and co-founder of the nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "There's no credible evidence that screen time is beneficial to babies and toddlers and some evidence suggests that it might be harmful."

This timely book documents the contemporary paralysis of imaginary play while offering us the means to revive this critical ingredient of child development. – Mel Levine, professor of pediatrics, University of North Carolina Medical School, co-founder of All Kinds of Minds

An eloquent brief on the indispensability of unmediated, unadulterated play. – Howard Gardner, author of Five Minds for the Future and Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

… An important and engaging read! – Alvin F. Poussaint, professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Judge Baker Children’s Center

[Makes] a strong argument for play as health, play as learning, and play as intellectual freedom. – Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of Unmarketable

This book is a superb tool for growing social capital right from the start with our young…. – Raffi Cavoukian, singer, author, and founder of Child Honoring

The Case for Make-Believe is all about giving children the space to play … and parents, too. – Joan Blades, co-founder of MomsRising.org and MoveOn.org

Her research is comprehensive, her firsthand knowledge is impressive, and her examples are damning in their conclusions. Linn brings invaluable expertise to this well-organized and straightforward exploration of a neglecter subject. – Booklist

Linn argues that the contemporary reliance on media and toys based on media stifles children's imaginations and ability to cope with the world as life progresses. This is a welcome addition to such books as D.W. Winnicott's Playing and Reality, Bruno Bettleheim's The Uses of Enchantment, and Mihaly Csiksznentmihaly's Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. – Library Journal

Both timely and important, The Case for Make-Believe helps readers understand how crucial child's play is – and what parents and educators can do to protect it. Linn lays out the links between play, creativity, and health, showing readers why they need to protect their children from corporations that aim to limit their imaginations. The book is a clarion call for preserving play in our material world, a book every parent will want to read.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Making a Difference in Patients' Lives: Emotional Experience in the Therapeutic Setting by Sandra Buechler (Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book Series: Routledge)
To make a difference –

Within the title of her book, Making a Difference in Patients' Lives, Sandra Buechler, training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute in New Your City and supervisor at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, echoes the hope of all clinicians. But, she counters, experience soon convinces most of us that insight, on its own, is often not powerful enough to have a significantly impact on how a life is actually lived. Many clinicians and therapists have turned toward emotional experience, within and outside the treatment setting, as a resource.

How can the immense power of lived emotional experience be harnessed in the service of helping patients live richer, more satisfying lives? Most patients come into treatment because they are too anxious, or depressed, or don't seem to feel alive enough. Something is wrong with what they feel, or don't feel. Given that the emotions operate as a system, with the intensity of each affecting the level of all the others, it makes sense that it would be an emotional experience that would have enough power to change what we feel. But, ironically, the wider culture, and even psychoanalysts seem to favor ‘solutions’ that aim to mute emotionality, rather than relying on one emotion to modify another. We turn to pharmaceutical, cognitive, or behavioral change to make a difference in how life feels. In prose that utilizes both clinical vignettes and excerpts from poetry, art and literature, Buechler explores how the power to feel can become the power to change. Through an active empathic engagement with the patient and an awareness of the healing potential inherent in each of our fundamental emotions, the clinician can make a substantial difference in the patient's capacity to embrace life.

Making a Difference in Patients' Lives is Buechler’s effort to formulate what emotion theory, interpersonal psychoanalysis, and her own clinical experience have taught her about having a significant emotional impact in treatment. The fundamental tenets of emotion theory can suggest much to the clinician. They have powerful implications for our understanding of therapeutic action. Buechler draws on both her own clinical experiences and treatment accounts contributed by others to explore the clinical relevance of concepts taken from emotion theory. Each chapter approaches the issue of the clinician's emotional impact from a different angle. The first chapter outlines some basic precepts about human feelings that emotion theory has researched, and then explores their potential clinical applications.

Throughout Making a Difference in Patients' Lives, Buechler explores what her reading of some of the interpersonal analytic literature and emotion theory suggests about the sources of treatment's emotional impact. While analytic theories differ in how they understand therapeutic action, we know that to have lasting significance a treatment must engage forces with the power to affect the course of a human life. Poets, visual artists, philosophers, ecclesiastics, developmental researchers, and others have long searched for an understanding of what is powerful enough to truly affect life experience. It is her belief that one set of answers can be found in the feelings that form our bonds, our passions, our shared emotional experiences. In each chapter, in a sense, she asks what the analyst can learn from this and other vignettes of human beings whose emotional experiences have been profoundly affected by the behavior of another.

The second chapter of Making a Difference in Patients' Lives applies emotion theory and interpersonal analytic theory to our understanding of empathy in treatment. How can we envision empathic therapeutic action if we use ideas contributed by these theories? First, our conception of an empathic therapeutic stance would be likely to focus on the feelings that the analyst's presence adds to the patient's emotional experience. Using her own reading and clinical experience as guides she suggests that it is often through the analyst's (and the patient's) struggle to regain balance, in unpredictable, previously unformulated ways, that emotional modifications occur for them both. What is added is the analyst's active emotional effort to discover how to be in relation to this patient.

The following five chapters of Making a Difference in Patients' Lives honor the emotion theorist's fundamental belief that each emotion deserves to be understood as a different human experience. Our regret is not entirely the same as our shame or our guilt, although all three may have much in common. Analysts come into contact with every possible human feeling in their patients and in themselves. Can we say anything about working with regretful moments? Is there some way empathic immersion in these experiences differs from work with intense shame, or anger, or sadness? It is especially important, in Buechler’s view, to consider nuances of difference in our own and our patients' emotions. Too often we refer to counter-transferential emotions as though they were interchangeable. We write about disclosing ‘affect’ as though it makes no difference which feeling it is.
Shame, regret, joy, sadness or depression, and anger are each considered in separate chapters. Buechler believes it is crucial to think in emotion-specific terms when we write about the treatment exchange. What can we say about working with these feelings when each predominates? Is the nature of an empathic response to regret different, in any identifiable way, from an empathic response to sadness? While every clinical moment is unique, and every treatment pair its own interpersonal milieu, it seems probable that we can say something about what it feels like to respond to great joy, for example, when we encounter it in treatment.

Making a Difference in Patients' Lives’ final chapters make up a special section on clinical training, where she considers how we can nurture the cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal strengths needed to treat patients using insights derived from emotion theory and interpersonal psychoanalysis. What is the ‘right stuff’ to do this kind of work? Is it ‘born’ or ‘made’? Are there ways to recognize candidates who can use their emotions well in clinical exchanges? What fosters the development of a capacity for empathic emotional relating as it is discussed in this book?

When termination of treatment with one of her patients approaches, Buechler makes it a point to reflect, with the patient, about their emotional experiences with each other. In particular, she asks what the patient thinks affected him or her most. She says that patients have taught her that making a difference can come in various forms. This complicates research into a treatment's course and outcome studies of its effectiveness. How can effectiveness be measured, if the patient's definition of progress is always evolving? But, although this complexity makes the study of therapeutic action more difficult, the vast array of ways a human life can be improved is a blessing for both clinician and patient. Emotion theory and interpersonal psychoanalysis can both be mined by the clinician for new ways to think about how to make a meaningful difference in patients' lives.

Aimed at therapists, Making a Difference in Patients' Lives is a clear and jargon free exposition on the use of emotions in the therapeutic relationship, using extensive, enlightening clinical examples. Buechler has a deep understanding of how to harness patients’ feelings to help them heal. She decries the numbing that often accompanies therapy in a culture that fears emotional intensity. And she bravely lays her own feelings bare in service to her patients.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Treating PTSD in Battered Women: A Step-by-Step Manual for Therapists and Counselors by Edward S. Kubany & Tyler C. Ralston (New Harbinger Publications)

Treating PTSD in Battered Women, a book for clinicians, is based on a new treatment model for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It offers a comprehensive therapy targeting symptoms of PTSD in battered women.

Pioneered by Edward Kubany, this innovative intervention is called cognitive trauma therapy (CTT). CTT is a highly structured intervention, deliverable to clients unlike any other therapy. Treating PTSD in Battered Women, written by Kubany, and Tyler C. Ralston, both clinical psychologists in private practice in Honolulu, describes the CTT protocol for:

Managing trauma-related symptoms.
Building cognitive and behavioral self-advocacy skills.
Assessing and correcting irrational guilt-related beliefs.
Learning assertive communication skills.
Managing unwanted contacts with former partners.
Identifying potential perpetrators and avoiding revictmization.

The CTT intervention therapy described in Treating PTSD in Battered Women represents an innovative advance in the study of psychosocial interventions in at least two respects. First, the intervention directly targets and addresses symptoms of PTSD in battered women. Although some counseling or therapy approaches for battered women have been reported, these accounts are largely descriptive or anecdotal in nature, they have not generally been aimed directly at PTSD, and few have been subjected to peer review.

A second way in which this intervention is innovative is in how the treatment is described. Cognitive trauma therapy is highly psycho-educational, and its delivery is described more specifically than any other psychotherapeutic intervention. For example, most procedures are described in such detail that they can literally be read or paraphrased by therapists conducting CTT. Moreover, according to Treating PTSD in Battered Women, CTT has proven to be highly efficacious in two treatment-outcome studies.

CTT includes several elements adapted from existing cognitive behavioral treatments for PTSD, including psycho-education about PTSD, stress management (with relaxation training), talking about the trauma, and exposure homework. In addition, CTT includes specialized procedures for reducing negative self-talk and assessing and correcting irrational guilt-related beliefs. CTT also includes interventions addressing issues that can complicate the treatment of battered women. These interventions focus on self-advocacy and empowerment and include education on self-advocacy strategies, building skills in assertive communication, managing stressful contacts with former abusers, and learning how to identify potential perpetrators, thereby enabling women to prevent revictimization.

The course of treatment described in Treating PTSD in Battered Women includes fifteen modules that are used with all clients, five optional modules addressing issues that may be less relevant for some clients, and a closing module that is used with all clients. Most modules require one to two sessions to complete with the exception of the module on guilt, which usually takes four to five sessions. The number of sessions needed to complete each module can vary depending on the client's specific trauma issues.

After a brief introduction, each module presents lists of objectives, materials needed for that module, and homework assignments. Next is a checklist of module procedures, followed by detailed descriptions of module procedures, including therapist scripts.

Kubany and Ralston in the Introduction elaborate on their rationale for conducting CTT modules in the sequence described in Treating PTSD in Battered Women. Their clinical experience has shown that it is a good idea for clients to start talking about traumatic experiences at the very first session. This initiates the process of overcoming trauma survivors' tendencies to avoid reminders of traumatic experiences. Also, Kubany and Ralston believe that talking about traumatic experiences in a nonjudgmental interpersonal atmosphere is therapeutic. Clients often cry when disclosing events that were highly distressing, and they typically feel better after they have cried.

In the second session, the therapist shifts the focus by addressing negative self-talk and stress. The therapist assigns homework for monitoring and breaking negative self-talk habits (module 2) and then focuses on managing stress (modules 3 and 4) to provide clients with some practical coping skills for regulating their levels of tension or emotional arousal. Module 5, in which the therapist inquires about trauma history other than partner abuse, serves to identify other trauma issues that may need to be addressed and gives clients additional opportunities to discuss or disclose other emotionally charged memories or issues.

PTSD psycho-education (module 6) sets the stage for the exposure homework by giving clients a strong rationale for the often difficult work of experiencing abuser – and abuse-related reminders. Therapists assign exposure homework (module 7) early enough in therapy to be confident that clients will have sufficient time to overcome abuse – or abuser-related avoidance issues before the end of CTT. Module 8, on learned helplessness and how to overcome it, is an extension of the PTSD education module in which clients learn why PTSD may not diminish with the passage of time.

Module 9 of Treating PTSD in Battered Women, which provides psycho-education about negative self-talk. When negative self-talk remains high, PTSD symptoms almost always remain at relatively high levels too. With heightened motivation to break negative self-talk habits, most clients are able to reduce negative self-talk to an insignificant level by the end of therapy.

The guilt intervention (module 10) also addresses exposure and avoidance issues. For example, the guilt incident debriefings often require clients to revisit experiences of abuse, and here too, clients often cry while discussing and disclosing painful events from the past. The module on challenging ‘supposed to’ beliefs or guiding fictions (module 11) is usually conducted directly after the guilt work because one of this module's goals is to put to rest any residual guilt about not having left an abusive partner sooner – an extremely common guilt issue among formerly battered women.

Building assertiveness skills (module 12) provides clients with practical self-advocacy skills for dealing with interpersonal conflict and getting their needs met in relationships. An important aspect of this is to avoid getting involved in abusive relationships in the future. To that end, module 13, on managing mistrust, teaches clients about some clues that are likely to indicate someone can't be trusted. Module 14 teaches clients additional ways to tell whether someone is likely to become abusive. Module 15, on managing contacts with former abusers, builds directly on the assertiveness skills developed in modules 12 and 13.

The final module (Self-Advocacy Strategies Revisited) in Treating PTSD in Battered Women is in some respects a review or compilation of everything covered in earlier modules. The self-advocacy exercise in this module is typically uplifting for clients, as it heightens their awareness of how much they have overcome, learned, changed, and grown psychologically as a result of their experiences with CTT.

… This manual is a crucial resource for anyone treating women traumatized by intimate-partner violence and abuse. – Josef I. Ruzek, Ph.D., acting director of the Education Division, National Center for PTSD, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Menlo Park, CA

Finally, a manual that describes a highly effective cognitive-behavioral treatment for PTSD in formerly battered women – boasting a 90 percent recovery rate – with such detail that even helpers with no prior psychotherapy training have used it successfully. …Highly recommended for every clinician who treats trauma, and essential reading for therapists who treat battered women. – Irene G. Powch, Ph.D., psychologist on the PTSD Clinical Team at the Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center

At last! A book that addresses the unique struggles of battered women in their battle to reclaim their dignity and personal power. … This concise, well organized guide is a must-read for anyone in the field of domestic violence. – Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D., practicing psychologist

Written by clinical scientists, this volume is an excellent resource for clinicians from all disciplines who are interested in learning specific strategies for addressing problems associated with surviving domestic violence…. While the treatment of battered women has been of clinical interest for many years, this text is one of the first to present treatment strategies based on empirical findings. This important text will definitely be an asset to practitioners who are new to this area, as well as experienced providers in the field. – Victoria M. Follette, Ph.D., chair of psychology and professor of clinical psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno

Treating PTSD in Battered Women offers therapists, counselors, and social workers an effective new tool for treating the lingering effects of domestic violence and abuse in women. Most procedures are described in such great detail, they can be literally read or paraphrased by therapists – thereby facilitating ease of learning and delivery and making the book a valuable resource for community health providers and other individuals who counsel battered women, but who may not have advanced higher education.

Kubany and Ralston‘s systematic approach to the treatment of PTSD in battered women is firmly grounded in empirically-supported principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. This approach is comprehensively described in this procedural guide, which is complete with client handouts and homework forms. Their data on the efficacy of this approach, provides yet another reason to consider this volume as an outstanding source of information on treatment in this area.

Health, Mind & Body / Self-Help / Women’s Issues

Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips by Kris Carr, with a foreword by Sheryl Crow (skirt!)

I love Kris’s book because it made me feel so many things. Familiar things. It made me laugh and reflect. And thank God she has the courage and generosity to share her experience. This book will be a comfort to so many who are going through the experience or who have graduated to survivor. – from the Foreword by Sheryl Crow, nine-time Grammy-winning American blues rock singer, guitarist, bassist, and songwriter, also a breast cancer survivor

For Kris Carr, as told in Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips, news of ‘the big C’ came on Valentine's Day. After a week of partying at Florida's Sarasota Film Festival, where a film she was in premiered, she returned home to New York City ready to detox, shape up, and live healthier. She kicked off her new regime with a kick-ass yoga class, and wound up feeling as if she had been hit by a truck. When the pain got worse, Carr called her doctor. On February 14, 2003 the young photographer and actress, best known for playing Marilyn Monroe's ghost in an Arthur Miller original and a ‘Bud Girl’ in Super Bowl commercials, was diagnosed with a rare cancer . . . Epithelioid Hemangio-endothelioma, (and according to Carr it was better known as, "Holy Shit! Try to say that one five times fast!") It was Stage IV. And it was incurable. At 31, Carr wasn't ready to ‘watch and wait’ for the tumors covering her liver and lungs to declare their intentions. So, when her doctor threw her a crumb – to focus on building up her immune system through diet and lifestyle – she vowed to turn it into a cake.

She entered trench warfare, wearing cowboy boots into the MRI machine, vowing, “Cancer needed a makeover and I was just the gal to do it!” She began writing and filming her journey, documenting her interactions with friends, doctors, alternative ‘quacks,’ blind dates, and other women with cancer – sadly a growing group.

To reinforce the need for support and the strength of sisterhood, in Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips Carr shares the inside expert spotlight with her cancer posse – thirteen women with cancer encounters and coping strategies of their own. MTV personality Diem Brown (Real World/Road Rules Challenge), model and ‘Bald Is Beautiful’ founder Sharon Blynn, Glamour columnist and author Erin Zammett, playwright and actress Oni Lampley, rebel rock & roll tour manager Jackie Farry, illustrator-author Marisa Acocella Marchetto (Cancer Vixen), and Glamour writer-editor Erin Zammett (My So-Called Normal Life) are among the cast.

Carr reveals her secrets for rebounding from the devastating blow of a bleak prognosis. She starts with the story of how she set out to give cancer a makeover and totally renovate her life. To keep her creative edge, she made a documentary of her healing journey, Crazy Sexy Cancer, which was snapped up by The Learning Channel (TLC). Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips gathers the lessons learned and advice offered from Carr’s own journey. Full-color photos accompany personal stories and candid revelations in this scrapbook of advice, warnings, and resources for the cancer patient. Chapters cover how readers change their social life, dating, sex, and appearance; essential health tips on how to boost the immune system; recipes; medical and holistic resources; and information on young survivor support groups.

Packed with personal revelations, from-the-trenches advice, and photographs, Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips presents a crash course in cancer management, a tour of the best holistic care and spiritual practices, sensible nutritional guidelines, plus professional beauty tricks and image boosters. Along the way, she learned about the biology and psychology of cancer, discovered the power of meditation and veggies, heard inspirational stories from incredible women, bought a house in the country, fell in love with her editor, Brian, on the documentary and ... married him!

Wrapping up with a sweeping list of Web resources and a selection of Carr's favorite recipes, Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips is a companion for every young woman ready to rise to the dare of a dire diagnosis. "Take the best and leave the rest," Carr urges kindred Cancer Cowgirls. "Don't forget to feel the ground beneath you and notice the groovy scene as you hitchhike down the highway of one-day-at-a-time."

Today, Carr is still stuck with a chronic disease. But her tumors haven't grown, which means her cancer is completely, remarkably stable.

Kris is a ray of light that is needed to raise awareness of what it means to give back. What more can one wish for? She is a true leader of courage and inspiration. – Donna Karan

Kris Carr has done something extraordinary with this book: She has put cancer in its place. She has triumphed, and paved a path by which others can triumph too. She deserves our most heartfelt ‘Bravo.’ – Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love and Everyday Grace
When you have been there you know the experience and can help others survive their journey through the difficulties of life. Kris Carr's book is an excellent resource filled with tips on how to not only survive but thrive. If you have the inspiration, desire and intention to be a survivor the abundant information about life and living contained in this book will coach you in a way that will make you an empowered star performer and winner in the face of adversity. – Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine & Miracles and Help Me to Heal

Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips is more than just a memoir. Written with humor, guts, and a go-girl attitude, it is a vital collection of facts, hints, know-hows, how-tos, and hell-yeahs. The book is an outrageous, empowering, and practical survivor's guide for young women who refuse to let cancer rule their lives or define them. This collection of candid revelations, personal stories, and useful resources is an inspiring and informative tool for any woman newly diagnosed with the disease, and for those who love them.

History / Adventurers & Explorers / Biographies & Memoirs

Storms and Dreams: The Life of Louis de Bougainville by John Dunmore (Lives of Great Explorers Series, No. 1: University of Alaska Press)

Witty, charming, and fiercely intelligent, Louis-Antoine Comte de Bougainville (1729-1811) managed, in the course of a long life, to play a part in nearly every facet of eighteenth-century life and culture. Storms and Dreams is a recounting of Bougainville's adventures and achievements, which ranged from seamanship and soldiering to mathematics and navigation. John Dunmore, professor emeritus of French at Massey University, New Zealand, follows Bougainville from the French and Indian War, during which he commanded a unit in the defense of Quebec City, to his circumnavigation of the globe in 1766-1769, for which he is best known. During that trip, he became one of the first Westerners to visit Tahiti; on his return, he published a book about the island that contributed greatly to Tahiti's lasting reputation as a paradise of noble savages.

Throughout a long and distinguished life, he witnessed the birth of the United States, the fall of French Canada, the opening of the Pacific, the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, the crowning of Napoleon and the modernization of France. In his last years, Bougainville served in the senate under Napoleon and was made a member of the Legion of Honor.

Bougainville was also a witty and charming courtier, becoming one of Napoleon's senators. A true man of the Enlightenment, he was gifted in navigation, seamanship, soldiering, mathematics, longitude and latitude many of the arts that made his age one of most productive and creative in modern history.

[Dunmore] wears considerable learning lightly ... [he] is consistently excellent. – Canberra Times

The first biography of Bougainville in English, Storms and Dreams opens a window to a remarkable eighteenth-century life – and to the greater world of the Enlightenment.

Authoritatively, Dunmore, a distinguished historian and an expert in French Pacific exploration, brings the man and his era to life in this lively, vivid and elegant biography, the first in the new series from University of Alaska Press: Lives of Great Explorers.

History / Americas / Social Sciences / African American Studies

For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America Since 1865 by Robert H. Zieger (University of Kentucky Press)

Since winning Constitutional guarantees of freedom in 1865, African Americans have fought powerful societal impediments to attaining the full rights of citizenship, both in the general polity and in the workplace. The political and social status of African Americans, whether they were slaves or freedmen, has always been tied to their ability to participate in the nation's economy. Freedom in the post-Civil War years did not guarantee equality, and African Americans from emancipation to the present, have faced the seemingly insurmountable task of erasing pervasive public belief in the inferiority of their race.

For Jobs and Freedom describes the African American struggle to obtain equal rights in the workplace and organized labor's response to their demands. Award-winning historian Robert H. Zieger asserts that the promise of jobs was similar to the forty-acres-and-a-mule restitution pledged to African Americans during the Reconstruction era. The inconsistencies between rhetoric and action encouraged workers, both men and women, to organize themselves into unions to fight against unfair hiring practices and workplace discrimination.

For Jobs and Freedom is a study of African American struggles against racism and discrimination, as well as other race and labor issues in America, from the Civil War to the present. Zieger details numerous efforts by labor activists and policymakers to expand employment opportunities and achieve material improvements for African American workers. Zieger, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Florida, chronicles the contradictions between the labor movement's egalitarian ideals and its racist practices. Despite organized labor's checkered past, African American workers have supported collective action and sought membership in the labor unions, even forming segregated unions when necessary.
Though the path proved difficult, unions gradually obtained rights for African American workers with prominent leaders at their fore. In 1925, A. Philip Randolph formed the first black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, to fight against injustices committed by the Pullman Company, an employer of significant numbers of African Americans. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) emerged in 1935, and its population quickly swelled to include more than 500,000 African American workers. For Jobs and Freedom also highlights organized labor's key support of the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the influential alliance of blacks and the labor movement at the heart of contemporary liberal politics. The most dramatic success came in the 1960s with the establishment of affirmative action programs, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title VII enforcement measures prohibiting employer discrimination based on race.

Though racism and unfair hiring practices still exist today, motivated individuals and leaders of the labor movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries laid the groundwork for better working conditions and greater employment opportunities. Unions, with some sixteen million members currently in their ranks, continue to protect workers against discrimination in the expanding economy.

A monumental achievement, broad in its scope: rich in its insights, judicious in its judgments. Informed a lifetime’s worth of research, reading, and thought by one of America's wisest and most accomplished historians, this book offers the best introduction now available to the long and difficult history of African Americans' struggle for opportunity and justice both in the workplace and the labor movement. In a narrative arc that stretches from emancipation to globalization, it tells a story that is at once sobering, enlightening, and inspiring. – Joseph A. McCartin, author of Labor's Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-1921

A comprehensive, balanced, and meticulously-detailed history of a contentious subject. It makes clear that race has been and is the most important fault line not just in the U.S. labor movement but in society as a whole. This book is destined to become the standard introduction in the field. – Michael D. Yates, author of Why Unions Matter

Zieger's scholarship is always judicious, balanced, thorough, relentlessly intelligent, and beautifully crafted. For Jobs and Freedom is a marvelous book. – Kevin Boyle, Ohio State University, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age

For Jobs and Freedom is the first authoritative treatment of the race and labor movement in more than two decades, and Zieger's comprehensive study will be standard reading on the subject for years to come.

History / Arts & Photography / Comics & Graphic Novels

A People's History of American Empire: The American Empire Project by Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, & Paul Buhle (Metropolitan Books)

A People's History of American Empire is adapted from the bestselling grassroots history of the United States, the story of America in the world, told in comics form.

Since its landmark publication in 1980, A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, has had six new editions, sold more than 1.7 million copies, become required classroom reading throughout the country, and been turned into an acclaimed play. More than a successful book, A People’s History triggered a revolution in the way history is told, displacing the official versions with their emphasis on great men in high places to chronicle events as they were lived, from the bottom up.
Now Zinn, historian Paul Buhle, and cartoonist Mike Konopacki have collaborated to retell, in comics form, a most immediate and relevant chapter of A People’s History. Narrated by Zinn, this version opens with the events of 9/11 and then jumps back to explore the cycles of U.S. expansionism from Wounded Knee to Iraq, stopping along the way at World War I, Central America, Vietnam, and the Iranian revolution. A People's History of American Empire also follows the story of Zinn, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, from his childhood in the Brooklyn slums to his role as one of America’s leading historians.
Zinn is the author of numerous acclaimed histories, former teacher of history at Spelman College and professor emeritus at Boston University; Konopacki is a syndicated cartoonist; and Buhle is a senior lecturer in history at Brown University and the editor of the Encyclopedia of the American Left, among other books.

According to the Foreword, the history of the United States was written for many generations as a heroic conquest of the land and its original inhabitants, and as the steady spread of democracy from border to border and sea to sea. It culminated in the current nation being uniquely suited by history, perhaps by divine destiny, to make the rules for the planet and carry them out when necessary. Every sacrifice made, by Americans and others, was justified by that end. Even when, by 1950, atomic and finally thermonuclear war threatened to wipe out civilization, the sense of rectitude remained firmly in place.

But according to A People's History of American Empire, the Vietnam War changed the perceptions of a generation. Some few earlier dissenting historians, such as W.E.B. DuBois, had pointed toward a markedly darker national saga, but they had been not much heard. Then, an evident crisis in empire brought into view past crises of empire, internal as well as external, and the high price that had been paid for those crises. Another story began to be told, not of America as a wicked place or Americans as wicked people but of the trouble in the soul of an imperial nation.

Beginning in the 1960s, scholars of various kinds started to write widely about Indians, African Americans, working people, and women, of struggles for reform won and lost, of wealth gained at vast public expense in squandered dollars and lives. This was the saga of the internal empire, precursor in many ways to the transcontinental empire to follow. None of the scholars charting this empire epitomized the truth teller and political visionary better than the then young professor Zinn. None reached as many readers, a decade after the decline of the social movements of the 1960s, as an older Zinn. A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, its pages afire with lucidity, set a new standard for the retelling of the nation's story, this time linked closely to other peoples everywhere, and likewise to a distant human past and a hoped for future.

A People's History of American Empire does not displace A People's History, something that would be impossible in any case. It presents the key insights in Zinn's volume in the light of another art form, with artist Konopacki working from a script developed chiefly by Dave Wagner.

Comics, sequential art forms, are as old as cave drawings. They precede written history and, like oral history, lend themselves best to storytelling. Perhaps for that reason, comics flow almost naturally from the writings of the superb storyteller. The editor and the writer-artist have taken some liberties with the original, mainly for reasons of dramatic presentation, but with no essential shift from the original ground. Also, the autobiographical Zinn of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train here becomes part of the story, of the twentieth century – and beyond.

At the heart of this wide-ranging comics indictment of American Empire are the terrific human stories of those who have resisted – including wonderful autobiographical episodes from author Howard Zinn’s own courageous and inspiring life. – Joe Sacco, author of Safe Area Gorazde
Ingenious in its conception and brilliant in execution, this comics version of Howard Zinn's classic history breathes new life into the stories of people who never thought their stories would be told. It is urgently necessary for our times: read this book and see how to raise your voice against all the forces that would drown you out. A modern activist's primer! – Ben Affleck

Shifting from world-shattering events to one family’s small revolutions, A People's History of American Empire presents the classic ground-level history of America in a dazzling new form. Readers find the story of the narrator, Zinn, as an inescapable part of the history he wrote. In this way, bringing together visual documents of various kinds with original art, the authors have brought something original, vibrant, and possibly revolutionary, into the world.

History / Europe / Biographies & Memoirs

William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner by William Hague (Harcourt)

From William Hague comes a major biography of abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the man who fought to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Wilberforce, known as a hero to the slaves, the ‘nightingale of the House of Commons,’ was lauded in the major motion picture, Amazing Grace.

According to Hague in William Wilberforce, Wilberforce was born to a prosperous family. The book introduces readers to a young man who underwent a spiritual awakening and chose a life of public service, charity, and adherence to evangelical values over the comfortable merchant existence that was laid out for him. Hague explores Wilberforce's strengths and contradictions with equal clarity. For example, he frowned on intoxication, but his own consumption of opium (made necessary by painful ailments) would be considered an addiction today. He never held or desired a cabinet post, but became an expert in any subject he addressed as a member of Parliament. And although his convictions were informed by deep religious fervor, he never hesitated to change his mind upon reflection.

Of a conservative bent, Wilberforce was actively hostile to radicals and revolutionaries, but championed one of the great liberal causes of all time – the abolition of slavery – and was an invaluable contributor to its ultimate success. A formidable orator, campaigner and tactician, he spearheaded the twenty-year campaign to abolish the trade in slaves that was one of the great abominations of the eighteenth century. When Parliament finally outlawed the slave trade in 1807, Wilberforce was given an emotional standing ovation by friend and foe alike. Wilberforce did not rest on his laurels but took part in the campaign for the abolition of slavery itself.

Author William Hague has served in various capacities in the British government since 1989, including Leader of the Conservative Party. He is the shadow foreign secretary and senior member of the Shadow Cabinet, and the author of William Pitt the Younger. Like Wilberforce, Hague is a politician of many contradictions. A controversial leader of Britain's Conservative Party, Hague cemented the Conservatives' reputation as ‘the nasty party’ with his incendiary speech to party members in 2001, and his many verbal battles with Tony Blair are infamous. But he has never hesitated to show a softer side – he frequently pokes fun at himself on satirical UK programs, speaks eloquently against social injustice.

Hague illuminates Wilberforce's turbulent life and career, offering a politician's insights into the parliamentary maneuvers and electoral dramas with which the abolitionist had to contend. He shows how Wilberforce's conviction and faith allowed him to hold fast to his independence and beliefs even in a time of war, revolution and social upheaval. And he demonstrates how the eradication of the slave trade paved the way for the abolition of slavery itself in the British Empire, a change enacted while Wilberforce lay dying in 1833.

Richly satisfying biography of a great humanitarian who was also thoroughly likable. – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Now the British antislavery campaigner gets his own well-deserved biography in this clearly written, sympathetic work by Hague, a member of Britain's shadow cabinet ... Hague provides plenty of historical context about Britain's involvement in the slave trade and British domestic affairs, making this rewarding reading for those interested in the history of Britain as well as the history of the battle for equality and justice. – Publishers Weekly

Magnificent . . . Hague has assumed from Roy Jenkins the mantle of Britain's foremost politician-biographer. – Evening Standard

The author has produced a splendid read, for which he deserves the utmost credit. He tells Wilberforce's story with such enthusiasm and narrative skill that his book seems assured of bestsellerdom. – The Sunday Times

This richly detailed and engrossing biography, a fine companion volume to William Hague's life of Pitt, will still many arguments and feed others. – The Spectator

Wilberforce has found a sympathetic, judicious biographer and Hague has found the ideal sequel to his book on Wilberforce's great friend William Pitt. –The Mail on Sunday

Hague has written a biography that is authoritative, sympathetic, and stimulating. – The Independent on Sunday

Gripping ... absorbing ... the definitive biography. – Daily Mail

Informed by a nuanced sense of what was and was not politically possible at that moment ... lucid and convincing. – The Daily Telegraph

In William Wilberforce this great man is captured in all of his nuance and complexity in a definitive, clear-eyed, and moving biography, a compelling account of a politician who achieved the rare feat of placing principle above politics, mankind above party and results above ambition.

Home & Garden / Antiques & Collectibles

Warman's Antiques & Collectibles 2009 Price Guide, 42nd Edition by Ellen T. Schroy, edited by Tracy L. Schmidt (Krause Publications)

There's more than a kernel of truth to the fact that many things only improve with age. Just like the antiques and collectibles it identifies, the world's longest-running antiques price guide continues to get better with time. Warman's Antiques & Collectibles 2009 Price Guide boasts 2,400 color photos, a color-coded catalog format, tens of thousands of detailed listings for furniture, glass, ceramics and toys, a chapter on fakes and reproductions, and exclusive market trend reports written by expert appraisers and collectors.

As the longest-running price guide and the most-trusted name in antiques and collectibles, Warman's Antiques & Collectibles 2009 Price Guide provides readers with complete coverage of today's top collectibles. This edition is written by Ellen T. Schroy, involved with Warman's since the 16th edition, well known and established in the antiques and collectibles field, and edited by Tracy L. Schmidt, an antiques and collectibles book editor, who has been with Krause Publications for 12 years.

In this new 42nd edition, readers find:

2,000 color images to help readers identify collectibles.
Color-coded format.
Information on history, fakes, reproduction alerts, and manufacturer's marks.
Price listings, along with market reports and trend reporting.

An absolute must-have for dealers and collectors alike. – Judy Penz Sheluk, Senior Editor, New England Antiques Journal

Warman's provides readers with the up-to-date tools they need to effectively evaluate their collectibles and make smart buying and selling decisions – based on 60 years of evolving with the needs of the collecting community. Whether their passion is cameo glass, majolica pottery, costume jewelry, Chippendale furniture or anything in between, Warman's Antiques & Collectibles 2009 Price Guide gives readers the ‘advantage’ they need to get ahead, stay on top, and most of all, enjoy their hobby.

Literature & Fiction

The Gift of Rain: A Novel by Tan Twan Eng (Weinstein Books)
In the tradition of war-time storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene comes an epic tale about a young hero forced to make life-altering decisions against the devastating backdrop of World War II. This extraordinary debut tells the story of a young man's perilous journey through the betrayals of war and into manhood. The Gift of Rain spans decades as it takes readers from the final days of the Chinese emperors to the dying era of the British Empire, and through the mystical temples, bustling cities, and forbidding rain forests of Malaya.
Author Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang and lived in various regions of Malaysia as a child. He studied law at the University of London, and later worked as an advocate and solicitor in one of Kuala Lumpur’s most respected law firms. Eng's debut novel, The Gift of Rain, which was long-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize, is a literary page-turner. With a broad sweep of history that embraces the Chinese, Japanese, British, and Malayan cultural cross-pollination of the region, Tan tells a tale about a young man's unwitting role in a tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits.

The Gift of Rain tackles archetypal themes of loyalty and betrayal, loss and redemption, through the story of a boy's coming-of-age by way of the harsh and complicated realities of war. Told in evocative retrospect, the novel begins when the now elderly Philip Hutton gets a surprise visit from Michiko Murakami, a Japanese woman who was once romantically linked to Hayato Endo, Philip's former mentor. Her arrival sparks complicated memories for Philip – some warm, some bitter – but he agrees to share his harrowing tale with her.

The year is 1939. Philip is the youngest son of the owner of one of the dominant British trading companies in Penang, which dates back to the glory days of Victoria's empire. Unlike his brothers and sister, Philip is half-Chinese, the product of his father's second marriage. Since his mother's death, Philip has been a loner, merely tolerated by the British community and not fully accepted by his Chinese compatriots. He derives his greatest pleasure from furtive visits to the uninhabited island just off shore from his family's palatial home, and he is incensed when he learns that his father has rented the beloved retreat to a Japanese diplomat.

Hayato Endo is a Japanese consular officer who, like Philip, craves the isolation that the island provides. When he meets the sixteen-year-old, Endo takes an instant liking to the boy, inviting him to visit the island whenever he wishes. He also begins to train Philip in the martial art of aikido. Soon sensei and student become inseparable, with Philip serving as Endo-san's personal guide to Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Others warn young Philip that he should keep his distance from this Japanese man with a mysterious past, reminding the boy of the atrocities that Endo-san's countrymen have reportedly unleashed upon China. But totally enthralled with his new friend and teacher, Philip brushes off their objections as racial prejudice.

Visiting a fortune teller with Endo-san, Philip is told, "You were born with the gift of rain. Your life will be abundant with wealth and success. But life will test you greatly. Remember – the rain also brings the flood." The woman's prescience proves accurate when war begins and Philip comes to realize that his friend, now the enemy of his country, has irreparably betrayed him. Endo-san is indeed a spy, and Philip's innocence has made him complicit in the Japanese invasion of his homeland. As Malaya's once idyllic way of life is crushed beneath the oppression of war, so too is Philip's life forever changed.

Throughout his lush narrative, Tan weaves the details of overlapping histories – the last days of Imperial China, the opening of Japan to the West, the colonial legacy of the British – imbuing The Gift of Rain with a profound weight that anchors its highly personal story in the mythic splendor of an elusive time and place. The book serves as a paean to parts of Penang that are fast disappearing or have already been lost forever: the historical buildings, the colonial architecture, and the narrow streets of Georgetown.

As an expert practitioner of aikido, Tan also offers readers a deep understanding of the discipline and nobility of the ancient art. He says: “There were many philosophical issues of the East I wanted to convey and discuss in The Gift of Rain, but I did not want to impede the flow of the narrative. I used the Japanese martial art of aikido as a vehicle to carry these philosophical elements, because it embodies so many of these principles and viewpoints…. By using brief scenes describing the practical movements of aikido between the characters, I could let the reader see with greater clarity what I wanted to express.”

The Gift of Rain is an amazing book. …With its beautifully evoked place and time, this quietly spellbinding novel tells of lives lived through war and occupation, through years of alliances, bonds, and betrayals with compelling grace and rare depth. The Gift of Rain embodies, in a way this reader has seldom encountered, how what can be heartbreaking in life can also be heartmaking. – Rick Simonson, The Elliott Bay Book Company

This remarkable debut saga of intrigue and akido flashes back to a darkly opulent WWII-era Malaya. … Eng's characters are as deep and troubled as the time in which the story takes place, and he draws on a rich palette to create a sprawling portrait of a lesser explored corner of the war. Hutton's first-person narration is measured, believable and enthralling. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
… Philip's personal drama unfolds against the backdrop of fascinating glimpses into Chinese culture, British imperialism, and the Japanese occupation that eventually claims the lives of everyone around him. Strong characters and page-turning action make this a top pick for historical fiction. – Library Journal (starred review)
… The Gift of Rain is a treasure. – Elaine Petrocelli, Book Passage

A rich, absorbing epic – The London Times

Vivid...Strong narrative...rich in imagery and action... I was so totally hooked that everything else had to be put on hold until I had finished it! – Sharon Bakar, The Star (Malaysia's largest circulation newspaper)

A story of honor, courage, and enduring loyalty written in lush, evocative prose, The Gift of Rain is a riveting and poignant tale, a true literary page-turner – a breathtaking novel that is compelling to the very last sentence. A luminous and ambitious tale, this outstanding debut novel is a triumph of forgiveness over cruelty and beauty over destruction. It also exhibits the classic storytelling instinct of an exciting new voice in fiction.

Literature & Fiction / Historical

The Count of Concord: A Novel by Nicholas Delbanco (American Literature Series: Dalkey Archive Press)

1814

They laughed at him. They watched him pass. Fond mothers drew their sons to the embrasure of the window and, peering, pointed him out. “Formidable,” they whispered. “Extraordinary. It is something to remember and tell your children’s children you have seen. Look!”

Around the corner, rattlingly, the Count appeared. Along the Avenue des Ternesand stopping to collect his glass beyond the Place des Ternes – around the corner, well concealed and from French spies disguised – the beakers and alembics privately prepared for him, the necks in their tight spirals blown according to his secret and exact specifications, these coded in his assistant’s German so that the envious incompetent calumniating locals could neither copy nor take the credit – from Boulevard du Bois le Prêtre… or to the north – Berthier, Bessières – he made his great processional: one coach.

The women stared. …They called their daughters also. “Come and watch this. Remember,” they said. The worldly ones – the eligible – gazed boldly down at his carriage; the modest averted their eyes. No window was unoccupied, no doorway empty where he passed. Old women peered through the folds of the drapes; old men muttered sagely or shook their powdered heads. Servants caught a glimpse, or tried to, jostling for position by the garden wall; the brazen ones braved passage in the street.

There his horses thundered: four white stallions draped in white. They did not require blinders; their manes and tails were clipped. Air escaping from the matched team’s nostrils plumed; black hooves struck sparks from the cobblestone paving. The coach doors bore his crest. His wheels were thrice the width of wheels on any other équipage, the felloes broad and stable, this effected to his satisfaction and by his own particular design; while clattering round the corner, in mud or snow, on hill or ice or thoroughfare, his conveyance did not lean. – from the Prologue

The subject of this novel is the historical figure Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753-1814), who was – as author Nicholas Delbanco writes – ‘world famous in his lifetime,’ yet now ‘almost wholly forgotten.’ Like Delbanco himself, Sally Ormsby Thompson Robinson – the narrator of The Count of Concord and the Count’s fictional, last-surviving relative – is ‘haunted’ by one of history's most fascinating and remarkable figures. On par with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, Count Rumford was, among many other things, a politician, a spy, a philanthropist, and above all, a scientist. Based on countless historical documents, including letters and essays by Thompson himself, The Count of Concord brings to life the remarkable career of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.

Thompson has been neglected by American history because he was a Tory – that is, he sided with the British during the Revolution – who was eventually made a count of the Holy Roman Empire under Francis II. Delbanco, a British-born American who currently directs the Hopwood Awards Program, the Robert Frost Distinguished University Professor of English at the University of Michigan, covers that material. He also is quite interested in Thompson's cunning study of household thermodynamics and horticulture, and his invention of such appliances as roasters and coffee pots. He further details the married Thompson's libertine lifestyle and varied sexual peccadilloes. Along the way, Delbanco celebrates Thompson's social reforms and innovation and his military genius.

An excellent writer is among us, and if we neglect him, we shall have to apologize to posterity. – New York Times

From humble beginnings in colonial New Hampshire through to the courts of imperial Europe, Delbanco imaginatively maps the deeds, misdeeds and accomplishments of the real-life polymath Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814), an American contemporary of Franklin and Jefferson, and their equal in scientific inquiry and sociological (if not philosophical) thought. …Unfortunately, the story is told from the point of view of Sally Ormsby Thompson Robinson, Thompson's fictional present-day descendant: her rat-a-tat voice is often intrusive, and the whole ends up more a collection of variously colorful set pieces than a character-driven novel. – Publishers Weekly
Once in awhile you sense that a novelist has found the subject, character, time, The Count of Concord is that kind of book. He's brought his entire array of amazing gifts into play and has written a wonderfully sad, funny, bawdy, and intellectually adventurous novel. – Russell Banks
[Nicholas Delbanco] wrestles with the abundance of his gifts as a novelist the way other men wrestle with their deficiencies. – John Updike

Delbanco, a gifted writer, in this historical novel, brings to life the fascinating career and times of the little known Count Rumford in The Count of Concord.

Medicine / Administration & Policy

Jonas and Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States, 9th Edition edited by Anthony R. Kovner & James R. Knickman (Springer Publishing Company)

... A treasure. It is in very small company among available explications of the nature, components, history, stakeholders, dynamics, achievements, and deficiencies in a system of gigantic size and equally gigantic complexities. The editors are world-class scholars, and they have organized the writing of an equally distinguished squad of contributors. In their hands, many of the mysteries of health care dissolve into orderly and clear frameworks, and the most important dynamics become visible. – from the Foreword by Donald M. Beckwick

How do we understand and also assess the health care of America? Where is health care provided? What are the characteristics of those institutions which provide it? Over the short term, how are changes in health care provisions affecting the health of the population, the cost of care, and access to care?

The 9th edition of the textbook, Jonas and Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States – the first in the field – provides answers to these and other core questions. Anthony R. Kovner and James R. Knickman have commissioned leading thinkers and practitioners for this book which boasts ‘320,000 copies of this classic text sold!’ Under the editorship of Kovner, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University and with the addition of Knickman, current first President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Health Foundation and former Senior VP of Evaluation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, leading thinkers and practitioners in the field examine how medical knowledge creates new healthcare services. Emerging and recurrent issues from the wide perspectives of health policy and public health are also discussed.

Jonas and Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States has enhanced its student-friendly format and maintains those additional attributes that separates it from other textbooks on the topic: its depth of coverage and the standardization of its presentations by expert authors. Highlights of the new edition include:

Completely revised and updated.
Enhanced charts, tables, and figures.
In-depth approach to the topics covered, written by national experts and educators.
Emphasis throughout on issues of quality and prevention.
Addresses such key issues as health manpower, health behavior, work-force, international comparisons, information, drugs, the role of government, governance and management, and Medicare Part D.
Detailed coverage of access to care and the relationship between cost of services and value of the services.
Thought-provoking discussion of future trends.

According to Berwick in the foreword, making health care in the United States become what it should become is too important and too difficult a job to be left to any one stakeholder, profession, institution, or change agent. It affects everyone, and, somehow, sometime, we will need to find the will to act in concert to rebuild it – laypeople and professionals, hospitals and ambulatory care, payers and consumers, executives and the workforce, and more. Concerted effort will have to begin on a foundation of clear knowledge of the system we will work to change, and, to gain that knowledge, few resources are as valuable as the masterful and sweeping overview that these pages contain.

Jonas and Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States, 9th edition, is organized into five parts: Perspectives, Providing Health Care, System Performance, The Future, and Appendices. The titles of these five parts can be formulated as answers to the following questions: How do we understand and assess the health care sector of our economy? Where and how is health care provided? How well does the health care system perform? Where is the health care sector going in terms of the health of the people, the cost of care, access to care, and quality of care? And what else do we need to know to answer the four previous questions?

Part I, Perspectives, is divided into an overview with supplemental charts and chapters on measuring health status, financing health care, public health, the role of government, and a comparative analysis of health systems in wealthy countries. Part II, Providing Health Care, contains chapters on acute care, chronic care, long-term care, health-related behavior, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, the workforce, and information management.

Part III, System Performance, includes chapters on governance, management, and accountability; health care quality; access to care; and costs and value. Part IV, The Future, projects what health care in the United States will look like over the short term. Three appendices in Part V contain a glossary, a guide to sources of data, and a list of useful health care Web sites.

Available as a book or as an online file, the 9th edition instructor's guide features a synopsis of each chapter, numerous tables and figures, key words, additional discussion points, and suggested reading.

The 9th edition of Jonas and Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States has been thoroughly updated and revised, making this text still the best in the field. The book provides authoritative, up-to-date and comprehensive answers to the core questions regarding health care delivery. It continues to serve those studying a wide range of topics in health care and public health, including introduction to public health; health care management and administration; health care systems and delivery; health care policy and politics; health care planning and evaluation; and public health nursing. With an easy to understand format and a focus on the major core challenges of the delivery of health care, Jonas and Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States is the textbook of choice for course work in health care, the handbook for administrators and policy makers, and the standard for in-service training programs.

Medicine / Nursing

Fundamentals of Nursing, 7th Edition by Patricia A. Potter & Anne Griffin Perry (Mosby)

The nursing profession is always responding to dynamic change and continual challenges. Today, nurses need a broad knowledge base from which to provide care. More importantly, nurses require the ability to know how to apply best evidence in practice to ensure the best outcomes for their clients. Nurses of tomorrow need to become critical thinkers, client advocates, clinical decision makers, and client educators within a broad spectrum of care services.

The seventh edition of Fundamentals of Nursing was revised to prepare today's students for the challenges to come. The textbook is designed for beginning students in all types of professional nursing programs. The comprehensive coverage provides fundamental nursing concepts, skills, and techniques of nursing practice and a firm foundation for more advanced areas of study. To address the needs of all levels of learners, as well as those students whose native language is not English, this revision of Fundamentals of Nursing was edited by an English-as-a-Second-Language/Readability specialist to streamline the text, improve readability, and enhance comprehension.

Fundamentals of Nursing provides a contemporary approach to nursing practice, discussing the entire scope of primary, acute, and restorative care. This new edition addresses a number of key current practice issues, including safe patient handling and informatics in nursing, new, cutting-edge chapter on Caring for the Cancer Survivor helps prepare students to address the unique health care needs of patients who have survived cancer, but still face the physical and emotional after-effects of the illness and its therapy A new chapter on Evidence-Based Practice helps students understand how to translate nursing research and use findings at the bedside for best nursing practice. Authors are Patricia A Potter, Research Scientists, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Siteman Cancer Center at Washington, University School of Medicine, St. Louis and Anne Griffin Perry, Professor and Chair, Department of Primary Care and Health Systems Nursing, School of Nursing, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Section editors are Amy Hall, Chair, Department of Nursing and Health Sciences, Associate Professor of Nursing University of Evansville; and Patricia A. Stockert, Professor and Associate Dean Undergraduate Program, Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing, Peoria.

Potter and Perry have carefully developed this seventh edition of Fundamentals of Nursing welcomes new students to nursing, communicate their own love for the profession, and promote learning and understanding. Key features of the text include the following:

Full-color text to enhance visual appeal and instructional value.
Nursing process format provides a consistent organizational framework for clinical chapters.
Covers health promotion and acute and continuing care to address today's practice in various settings.
A health promotional wellness thread is used consistently throughout the text.
Cultural diversity is presented in Chapter 9, stressed in clinical examples throughout the text, and highlighted in special boxes.
Client education is presented in Chapter 25 and stressed in boxes that list teaching objectives, strategies, and evaluation for clinical topics throughout the text.
Gerontologic nursing principles are addressed in Chapter 14, as well as in special Focus on Older Adults boxes throughout the text.
Diverse clinical settings are addressed throughout the text, describing practice examples in clinics, extended care facilities, and the home, as well as acute care settings.
A critical thinking model provides a framework for clinical chapters, showing how elements of critical thinking, including knowledge, critical thinking attitudes, intellectual and professional standards, and experience, are integrated throughout the nursing process for making clinical decisions.
Important nursing skills are presented in a clear, two-column format with a rationale for all steps; whenever possible, rationales are based on the most current research evidence.
The 5-step nursing process provides a consistent framework for clinical chapters.

Critical Thinking in each clinical chapter includes Critical Thinking Models demonstrating the application of the nursing process and critical thinking.
More than 60 skills are illustrated and provide step-by-step instructions for practicing safe nursing care.
Unexpected Outcomes and Related Interventions for skills alert students to possible problems and appropriate action.
Procedural Guidelines boxes provide streamlined, step-by-step instructions for performing very basic skills.
More than 20 care plans demonstrate the application of the 5-step nursing process to individual patient problems to help you understand how a plan is developed and how to evaluate care.
Over 20 concept maps visually demonstrate planning care for clients with multiple nursing diagnoses.
Planning sections include sections on Goals and Outcomes, Setting Priorities, and Collaborative Care to help students plan and prioritize comprehensive client care.
Implementation sections include health promotion, acute care, and continuing care to prepare students for all levels of care in all settings.
Safety Alerts provide information and techniques to ensure client and nurse safety based on The Joint Commission's list of National Patient Safety Goals.
Cultural Aspect of Care boxes summarize cultural considerations related to the chapter topic and provide practical guidelines for how to meet clients' cultural needs and preferences.
Client Teaching boxes help students plan effective teaching by first identifying outcomes, then developing strategies on how to teach, and, finally, implementing measures to evaluate learning.
Focus on Older Adult boxes highlight key aspects of nursing assessment and care for this population.
An ESL/Readability specialist has edited each chapter to streamline the text and improve readability.
Companion CD, included with the Fundamentals of Nursing, provides students with interactive learning activities, searchable audio glossary, Spanish/English audio glossary, Butterfield's Fluids & Electrolytes Tutorial, test-taking skills, and NCLEX exam-style review questions.
Evidence Based Practice boxes summarize the results of a research study and describe the difference the study has made in nursing practice.
NCLEX examination-style review questions for each chapter include new alternate-item format questions, as well as rationales for all answer choices.
Delegation coverage is enhanced, noting which skills can and cannot be delegated, and indicating related tasks that should be delegated. To help students apply this information, many chapters incorporate delegation considerations into the chapter case study and address them in the critical thinking and NCLEX exam-style review questions.
Nursing Assessment Questions boxes help students learn to effectively phrase questions for clients.
Expanded coverage of informatics familiarizes students with the use of information technology in documenting care and researching best practices.
Critical Thinking in Practice sections at the end of each chapter provide questions that require students to apply knowledge, often to the case study detailed in the chapter's care plan.
New Safe Patient Handling Guidelines are included in the Safety chapter.
NOC outcomes, as well as NIC interventions, are incorporated in care plans to reflect the standard used by institutions nationwide.
Key terms are conveniently placed at the beginning of each chapter and include page references where definitions can be found.

Fundamentals of Nursing provides students with all of the fundamental nursing concepts and skills they will need as a beginning nurse in a visually appealing, easy-to-use format. This book was designed to help students succeed in this course and prepare students for more advanced study. In addition to the readable writing style and abundance of full-color photographs and drawings, Potter and Perry incorporated numerous features to help students study and learn.

Nobody does it better than the unique and clear Fundamentals of Nursing, still the number one nursing fundamentals text. Comprehensive, logically organized, accurate, and now easier to read, this market-leading fundamentals text provides students with up-to-date coverage of nursing principles, concepts, and skills. The book's nursing process framework, critical thinking emphasis, health promotion focus, and thorough coverage of acute and continuing care in all settings help prepare students for nursing practice today. This new seventh edition of Fundamentals of Nursing addresses the increased focus on evidence-based practice and new guidelines for safe patient handling. The new, cutting-edge chapter on Surviving Cancer helps prepare students to address the unique health care needs of patients who have survived cancer, but still face the physical and emotional after-effects of the illness and its therapy.

Medicine / Administration & Policy

Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness by Jon B. Christianson, Aylin Altan Riedel, David J. Abelson, Richard L. Hamer, David J. Knutson, & Ruth A. Taylor (Sage Publications)

There has been a great deal of conjecture in the popular press and academic publications about the appropriateness of managed care as a philosophy, an organizing framework, and an operational approach for treating people with chronic illnesses. It is often hard to make sense of this discussion because what is encompassed by the term managed care typically is not clear. The discussion is frequently carried out without reference to empirical evidence on either side of the argument. Or, when study findings are referenced, it is difficult to determine how much faith to place in them. Was the study setting appropriate for the question? Was the study sample selected appropriately? Were the appropriate outcomes measured? Did the authors draw reasonable conclusions from their data? Are the results likely to be generalizable?

The purpose of Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness is to examine critically and summarize the research on managed care treatment of the chronically ill, to expose what is not yet known in this health care field, and to reveal the outcomes of existing treatment methods. The book is a unique presentation of available research in the treatment and outcome of care for the chronically ill patients in managed care settings. Chronic illnesses require frequent and specialized treatment for patients – anathema to the short-term and cost-effective objectives of MCOs. Jon B. Christianson, aided by five expert collaborators, addresses MCO strengths and issues in treating these patients, looks at research results comparing treatment in MCOs versus fee-for-service medicine, and considers the various management techniques and programs to deliver care to enrollees with chronic conditions. The authors critically address the anticipation of the future for this growing population and research: the changes in the MCO environment this population will demand for successful care and the suggested directions for future research. They consider the use of administrative and medical records data by MCOs in benchmarking, assessment, and characterization of high-risk patients. The authors conclude with a section on member-wide interventions and the effectiveness of targeted initiatives in treating the specific chronic diseases of asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and congestive heart failure.

Authors are Jon B. Christianson, economist on the faculty of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and James A. Hamilton Chair in Health Policy and Management; David Knutson, Director of Health Systems Studies at the Park Nicollet Institute for Research and Education in Minneapolis; Ruth Taylor, coordinator for the Center for the Study of Healthcare Management at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota; David J. Abelson, chair of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement and medical director, information management and care improvements, Park Nicollet Clinic and Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minnesota; Aylin Altan Riedel, formerly researcher in the Health Research Center at the Park Nicollet Institute and currently senior research analyst at Ingenix Pharmaceutical Services; and Richard L. Hamer, director of InterStudy Publications, a Minneapolis-based health care research and information company.

According to Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness, the need for a critical examination of the research in this area seems clear. Chronic illness is recognized as a major health problem in the United States. Furthermore, the prevalence of chronic illness in the U.S. population is expected to increase with the aging of the ‘baby boomers’ and the continued growth in life expectancy. Paralleling these trends is the growth in managed care and in the number of individuals who receive care through MCOs in the United States.

In a relatively short period of time, MCOs have become the dominant organizational structure for health care delivery in America. The rapid growth in managed care, and the replacement of traditional insurance options in employer benefits plans with MCOs, has contributed to a widely publicized managed care backlash. Physicians and patient advocacy groups have led the way in arguing that the management of care in MCOs is often ill-advised and overly aggressive, inappropriately usurping physician decision-making responsibilities and restricting patient choices. The American Medical Association (AMA) has suggested that physician unions may be necessary to represent physician and patient interests in negotiations with MCOs, while Congress is following the lead of many state legislatures in considering various versions of a patient ‘bill of rights.’

Many of the issues being raised in the current debate about the promise and pitfalls of managed care echo concerns expressed 15 years ago about the advisability of treating individuals with chronic illnesses in MCOs. At that time, policy analysts noted that people with chronic illnesses are often in regular, frequent contact with the health care system and typically are more expensive to care for than average enrollees in MCOs. The careful management of their treatment could potentially save dollars for MCOs while at the same time improving the health status of patients. However, inappropriate restrictions on treatment could have immediate deleterious effects on these patients, because of their need to access a broad array of health care resources and their relatively precarious health status. Furthermore, according to these analysts, people with chronic conditions might be unable or unwilling to advocate for themselves aggressively in interactions with an MCO over benefit coverage or treatment regimen. Or, MCOs might seek to avoid enrolling chronically ill people in the belief that they cost more to care for than the ‘average’ enrollee.

For these reasons, it is important to understand how MCOs care for people with chronic illness and the effects of that care on health status. In Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness, the authors report the findings of a critical review and synthesis of the existing literature on this subject. This is a challenging task in several respects, not the least of which is the shifting, somewhat ambiguous use of the terms chronic illness and managed care. They begin by discussing these concepts and the definitions the authors relied on to guide them in their review.

The literature review begins in Chapter 2 with a synthesis of articles written by health care analysts, policy makers, patient and managed care advocates, and medical care providers that identify potential strengths and issues related to managed care and the treatment of patients with chronic illnesses. The chapter attempts to present the often conflicting views in an organized and unbiased way. This discussion is used to identify topics that guide the literature reviews in the chapters that follow.

Chapter 3 focuses primarily on research that compares the performance of MCOs in treating people with chronic illness to that of fee-for-service medicine. In this research literature, comparisons are carried out at the system or organizational level and contrast cost, process, and outcomes of care. Typically, these studies are not designed to assess what specific approaches or strategies used by MCOs are effective, or problematic, in treating people with chronic illness.

In Chapter 4 in Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness, the authors document what is known about the prevalence in MCOs of different chronic illness management techniques and programs. Based largely on the self-reports of MCOs, these studies provide an overview of MCOs’ strategies designed to improve chronic illness treatment. But, they are limited in the detail they contain regarding specific structures or initiatives and their effectiveness.

In Chapter 5, the authors shift emphasis to what is known about the different approaches used within MCOs to deliver care to enrollees with chronic illnesses. As a first step, they review the literature that compares the performance of a specific MCO in caring for its chronically ill members to either an explicit benchmark or to past performance.

Chapter 6 moves the analysis down to the micro level, focusing on interventions or programs implemented in managed care settings. There is a growing literature that consists of evaluations of specific chronic illness treatment programs implemented in a variety of environments. Early studies of this type tended to be carried out in academic medical centers or large urban hospitals. More recently, however, an increasing number of studies have been conducted within MCOs, or within physician organizations, hospital systems, or integrated delivery systems that contract with MCOs on a risk basis to serve an enrolled population. The authors’ review of this literature summarizes what is known about the effectiveness of these chronic illness management initiatives.

The final chapter in Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness goes beyond the review and critique of published research. It underscores the difficulties researchers face in conducting rigorous evaluations of MCO initiatives to manage chronic illnesses and formulates research questions relating to the treatment of chronic illnesses in MCOs. The focus is on identifying questions that have received limited attention, or have not been addressed at all, in published studies to date. The chapter highlights for policy makers topics on which more information is needed in an attempt to stimulate new research in these areas. The chapter describes changes in the environment and in the structures of MCOs that are now occurring, or are likely to occur in the near future, and briefly discusses the opportunities these changes could create for new research.

For anyone interested in the effectiveness of managed care operations, the challenges of treatment of chronic illness, or future health management for the elderly population, this book is a one-of-a-kind examination in its field. Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness will be a stepping stone for health service researchers, policy analysts and policymakers, managed care administrators, and educators in the fields of medicine, epidemiology, economics, and sociology. The book makes an important addition to the growing literature advocating more comprehensive system change to improve the outcomes of patients with chronic illness.

Mysteries & Thrillers / Thrillers

Blood Alley by Tom Coffey (The Toby Press)

Years ago I became an eccentric. Almost a recluse. My hair is longer than it should be. Stubble crowds my face. I have the distracted manner a man obtains when he limits his human contacts to the minimum he needs to survive.

I live in the desert. I moved here because liked the landscape: brown and arid, stretching forever, shimmering so much in the summer heat I no longer knew what was real.

It is now the first decade of a century I never expected to see. I have been tired of life for a long time, but I am afraid of facing what comes next. I brought one thing with me from my previous existence: a photograph taken on the only night I ever moved past the feeling that I was destined to stare at all the best places in the world with my face pressed against the window. For a few hours I had a taste of what it was like to dance and laugh and be carefree. The picture shows a man and a woman who seem impossibly young. The man wears a tuxedo in which he appears ill at ease. His eyes gaze directly into the camera. He is trying to smile. The woman is in a sleeveless dress. Although she is seated she conveys passion and energy and most of all – the gleeful air of a girl who knows that nothing bad will happen to her, no matter how much trouble she brings to those she knows.

A few days ago a dark-skinned man came to my door. I heard the knock and looked through the cracks in my blinds, which I usually keep closed. It is a habit I acquired when I moved here, so long ago, when there was so much to hide from. He wore a navy blue suit. Daylight gleamed off his white shirt. Anyone who looked at him too long would go blind.

At first I imagined he was Death. I've often heard he can have a pleasing appearance.

I opened the door. – from the Prologue

The author of Blood Alley is Tom Coffey, staff editor at the New York Times, has also worked for New York Newsday, The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the Miami Herald.
Blood Alley takes place in 1940s New York, a wide-open town. As told by Coffey, in the city of Swing Street, Frank Costello and the Stork Club, everything was for sale, including its people. Into this arena steps Patrick Grimes, a World War II veteran who was the graveyard shift for the New York Examiner, one of the city's brassiest tabloids. Late one night, Grimes learns that a watchman has found the body of a young woman in a squalid section of tenements and breweries by the East River, and races over to investigate. The victim turns out to be Amanda Price, the eldest daughter of one of Manhattans wealthiest men. Grimes can't help but wonder what would draw such a woman to that part of town.

So in Blood Alley the watchman who found her is arrested for her murder, and confesses, but Grimes is convinced it is a forced confession and the man is truly innocent. He begins an investigation into Amanda Price's life and death, uncovering truths that jeopardize not only his life, but also his sanity. Along the way, he traverses a dizzying world that offers endless possibilities that are tempting, dangerous and – for some people – overwhelming.

Sterling prose and a pulse-pounding plot combined with an authentic picture of a mob-ruled New York City makes this compelling read. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

…a complex, often gripping crime story that should come with a warning. – Kirkus Reviews

Blood Alley is a hard-boiled detective novel, in which a WWII veteran and reporter investigates the murder of a young woman in a seedy area of New York. The book provides a gritty, yet compelling glimpse into 1940s New York City.
Mysteries & Thrillers / Thrillers

Escape: A Novel by Robert K. Tanenbaum (Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi Series: Vanguard Press)

From New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum comes the twentieth book in the Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi series.

Escape is a classic encounter between the forces of good and evil in human form that asks, and answers, questions of how to deal with supposedly ‘God-inspired’ acts of murder and mayhem. This thriller races from inside the courtroom to the mean streets of Manhattan, as New York District Attorney Roger ‘Butch’ Karp faces two seemingly different situations that ultimately prove to be shockingly alike. In a trial of garish courtroom confrontations, newly elected NY DA Karp battles the ‘insanity of the insanity defense,’ as he tries to make Jessica Campbell, a rabble-rousing political science professor at NYU, pay for the murder of her three children. While Campbell claims that God told her to “send her three children to Him,” it is up to Karp to prove that she was fully aware of the nature and consequences of her actions.

Meanwhile, an Islamic terrorist who calls himself ‘The Sheik’ and his suicidal ‘jihadi’ followers devise a plan, an incendiary attack that will occur in Manhattan's heartland. If successful, it would have a devastating effect on the economy of the United States and the world. Before time runs out, it is up to Karp; his wife Marlene Ciampi, a private detective focused on protecting women from abusers; their daughter Lucy, who has joined a secretive anti-terrorist organization; and an eccentric yet effective group of accomplices to stop them.

As these two plots interweave with explosive twists and turns, Tanenbaum asks: Is it acceptable for a person to commit murder if the killer believes it is God’s will? Does this motive provide the murderer with an easy out using the insanity defense? And perhaps, most provocatively, just how insane is the insanity defense itself?

Tanenbaum is at his very best in Escape – a brilliantly complex thriller that races the reader from the courtroom to the killing fields – with clever twists, smart dialogue, and a story that grabs you by the throat at the outset and keeps you turning pages till late into the night. Tanenbaum's tour de force – a stunning read. – Linda Fairstein, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Blood
It is a rare novel that both thrills and cuts you to the bone. Robert K. Tanenbaum's latest thriller, Escape, slices even deeper, chilling down to the marrow with a story as topical and real as the pages in your hand. As challenging as it is riveting, here is a story that delves into the root of evil and leaves one questioning where morality ends and insanity begins. It will leave you breathless. – James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Judas Strain
Escape is yet another riveting crime story and courtroom drama by the inimitable Robert K. Tanenbaum. The former top Homicide Prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney Office shines a penetrating light on one of the most controversial topics in our justice system – the insanity defense. The result is a fast paced, provocative legal thriller that Tanenbaum almost has a copyright on. – Vincent Bugliosi, former Los Angeles District Attorney and bestselling author of Helter Skelter
Another chilling courtroom thriller by Robert K. Tanenbaum. Roger ‘Butch’ Karp and his cast of characters are as exhilarating and compelling as ever. Brilliantly executed and entertaining thrill-a-minute action – Tanenbaum is a true pro and it shows. – David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Scavenger

Tanenbaum, who has never lost a felony case and who has taught Advanced Criminal Procedure at the University of California Berkeley, Boalt Hall Law School, is one of the country’s most respected and successful trial lawyers. In Escape he is at his best, with a story that is fast-paced, explosive, and riveting – his experience in the New York District Attorney’s Office pays off yet again.

Politics & Politicians / Public Policy / Biographies & Memoirs

Does People Do It?: A Memoir by Fred Harris (Stories and Storytellers Series, Volume 5: University of Oklahoma Press)

Robert Kennedy never chided me about my friendship with [Lyndon B.] Johnson, although he and his effervescent wife, Ethel, did tease me about it from time to time. Indeed, Kennedy once agreed to support me for a leadership position in the Senate precisely because I got along with Johnson and could therefore serve as a go-between with him.

Johnson never said anything directly to me, either, about my friendship with Robert Kennedy, but he let me know he did not like it. One time, of several, when LaDonna [Harris] and I were weekend guests of Robert and Ethel Kennedy at their Hyannis Port home, the president called me there. Ethel had to leave the table to answer the telephone in an adjoining room. She rushed right back, giggling, ‘It's President Johnson for you, Fred,’ she announced. ‘He’s found you, and you're in big trouble now, kid.’ Half thinking it was a joke, I went to take the call. It was indeed President Johnson on the line. ‘How're you doing, Fred?’ he asked. And after that bland opening, there followed nothing more than some amiable chitchat between us. Johnson clearly wanted nothing in particular except to let me know that he knew where I was. – from the book

One of Oklahoma's most famous native sons, Fred Harris faced life's challenges with the same resolve as a favorite uncle, whom he famously quotes: "Does people do it? If people does it, I can do it." In Does People Do It?, he describes how he met those challenges head-on.

A child of the Great Depression, Harris grew up in the small town of Walters, Oklahoma, where he was born in a two-room house. He describes that upbringing and his initiation into state politics, and tells how he was elected to the U.S. Senate at the age of thirty-three. As he recounts his experiences in national politics, he provides a glimpse into the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.

Earning a reputation as a ‘new populist,’ Harris chaired the national Democratic Party and was a serious presidential candidate. Along the way, he encountered such giants as Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and Robert F. Kennedy. Enlivening his account with firsthand conversations, Harris contributes to our understanding of the motivations and personalities of these figures – including the infamous tensions between Johnson and Kennedy. Despite rubbing elbows with such power brokers, Harris maintained his own reputation as a down-to-earth man of the people whose advocacy included American Indian causes.

Does People Do It? is an engaging and masterfully written memoir providing a glimpse into two turbulent decades. Harris accomplished much in his distinguished career, championing human rights at home and around the world. Twice elected to the U.S. Senate from Oklahoma, Harris is now Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Does People Do It? attests to a philosophical consistency and humane liberalism that today are all too rare. The book is Volume 5 in the University of Oklahoma’s the Stories and Storytellers Series under the direction of Series editor, Teresa Miller.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Theology / Mysticism

An Introduction to Christian Mysticism: Initiation into the Monastic Tradition, 3 by Thomas Merton, edited by Patrick E. O'Connell (Monastic Wisdom Series, No. 13: Citercian Publications)

If one hopes to grasp the mind of Thomas Merton and not be satisfied with the clichés and stereotypes, then one must take into account these profound academic exercises. They are a key to his understanding of the contemplative life. – from the Preface by Lawrence S. Cunningham

An Introduction to Christian Mysticism is a course of twenty-two lectures. The editor, Patrick F. O'Connell, is Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Theology at Gannon University, Erie, Pennsylvania. A founding member and former President of the International Thomas Merton Society, he edits The Merton Seasonal. This is volume 13 in the Monastic Wisdom Series under the direction of Patrick Hart, General Editor.

In these materials, dating from 1961,Thomas Merton (1915-1968) provides for his audience of young monks an overview of major themes and figures in the Christian mystical tradition as an integral part of their religious inheritance and a crucial part of their spiritual formation. From Fathers of the Church such as St. Athanasius and St. Gregory of Nyssa, through such important medieval theologians as St. Bonaventure, Hadewijch and Meister Eckhart, to the great Spanish Carmelites St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, Merton traces such key topics as the integration of theology and spirituality; the importance of ‘natural contemplation’ – recognizing the divine presence in creation; the centrality of apophatic or ‘dark’ contemplation; and the role of spiritual direction in forming mature and balanced contemplatives. In the process he reveals much about the foundations of his own spiritual vision as articulated in such classics as New Seeds of Contemplation.

In the 1949-1951 correspondence between the newly ordained Merton and his abbot, James Fox, later published in The School of Charity, there is a discussion about the education of young monks that is relevant. Merton felt that the young men entering the monastery were being educated for the priesthood but that there was no coherent program of monastic formation. The net result of Merton's convictions was a whole series of courses designed for novices or, in the case of An Introduction to Christian Mysticism, a kind of ‘post-graduate’ seminar for newly ordained priests. Anyone who has visited the Merton archives in Louisville can inspect the vast pile of bound mimeographed volumes that give witness to how seriously he took this task of monastic education. Editor O'Connell has undertaken the arduous task of seeing some of these volumes to publication, and An Introduction to Christian Mysticism is one of these.

Merton compiled these notes nearly two decades before the first volume of the Paulist Press Classics of Western Spirituality saw the light of day and a generation before Bernard McGinn published the first volume of his massive history of the subject. As O'Connell notes, Merton, thanks to his linguistic skills, had to draw heavily on Francophone sources and what little was available to him in Gethsemane's library. Wisely, Merton drew on primary texts when he had access to them and studiously avoided the swamp of neo-scholastic debates that had been common in the earlier twentieth century about the nature of, and distinction between, ascetical and mystical theology.

According to Merton in his Introduction, if this ‘course’ is restricted to twenty-two lectures in the Pastoral year, it is obviously taken for granted that much else has been said and taught and assimilated, especially in ascetic theology, before readers come to this short series of lectures.

Hence the purpose of the lectures presented in An Introduction to Christian Mysticism is not to cover every detail and aspect of the subject, but to look over the whole field, to coordinate and deepen the ascetic knowledge that it is presumed everybody has, and to orient that asceticism to the mystical life. The main task, according to Merton, is to situate the subject properly in readers’ lives. It belongs right in the center, in order to give the monastic priest, the future spiritual director and superior, a proper perspective, then to deepen his knowledge of the Church's tradition and teaching, to make him fully acquainted with the great mystical tradition, which is not separated from the dogmatic and moral tradition but forms one whole with it. Without mysticism there is no real theology, and without theology there is no real mysticism. Hence the emphasis is on mysticism as theology, to bring out clearly the mystical dimensions of our theology, to help newly ordained priests to do what they must really do: live their theology. Some think it is sufficient to come to the monastery to live the Rule. But, Merton says, more is required – they must live their theology, fully, deeply, in its totality. Without this, there is no sanctity. The separation of theology from ‘spirituality’ is a disaster.

The course in An Introduction to Christian Mysticism also strives to treat of some of the great problems that have arisen, in the ascetic life, and in its relation to mysticism, and in the mystical life itself. However, the course concentrates on the witnesses of the Christian mystical tradition, with emphasis on a return to patristic sources. It covers the following ground, after a preliminary survey of the fundamentals of mysticism in St. John's Gospel:

Covers the great tradition of the Fathers – the beginnings of Christian mysticism in and with theology.
Traces the apophatic tradition down into the West – readers see the growth of mystical theology in the modern sense.
Pursues this line of thought through modern developments, when mystical theology becomes more and more of a backwater and a specialty (although it has been exhaustively treated in the twentieth century).
Covers the revival – after the complete, or almost complete, extinction of mystical theology in the nineteenth century, a revival of interest starts.
Investigates, to some extent, non-Christian ‘mysticism’, its claims, and the mystical tradition of the Oriental Church since the separation.

For serious students of Merton's work An Introduction to Christian Mysticism is an estimable resource.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Theology

Toward a Culture of Freedom: Reflections on the Ten Commandments Today by Thorwald Lorenzen (Cascade Books)

The Ten Commandments belong to the ‘classics’ of Western culture. They are an authoritative part of the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures. Since they come to us from an ancient past, it is worthwhile to inquire what they may mean for readers today. Thorwald Lorenzen, Professor of Theology and Principal Researcher within the Public and Contextual Theology Strategic Research Centre (PACT), Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia, in Toward a Culture of Freedom contends it is important to hear God's invitation. This invitation proposed an alternative lifestyle: "you shall not kill," "you shall not commit adultery, you shall not covet." His reflections on the commandments for today's tumultuous world begin with the God who ‘speaks’ ten words to liberate God's people from oppression. Grounded in God's liberating ‘yes,’ the ‘ten words’ are neither laws nor rules. They are elements for a culture of freedom.

According to Lorenzen, we are born into life. It is not our decision. We are thrown into the sea of life without being able to swim. At first life is fragile. For a few years we remain dependent on our parents, especially on our mothers. Gradually we develop self-awareness. Slowly but surely, we become members of the immediate family, the nation, and the human family. As we become increasingly independent of our parents, we develop the freedom, the courage and, with these, the responsibility to act. There is much in life over which we have no control.

But there is no invisible force that determines everything we think and do. Although Western economists and politicians talk in personal terms about the ‘market’ which they seem to trust for arranging everything, and Calvinist Christians expect God to plan and enact every detail in life, in fact human beings are responsible for planning and living their own lives. The challenge is to use freedom towards a successful, meaningful, and fulfilled life. Toward a Culture of Freedom turns readers toward the celebration of life and toward an ancient and ever modern text, a ‘classic,’ a text that has stood the test of time, with the question whether and in what way it can help readers to make the best of life.

Lorenzen calls his book Toward a Culture of Freedom and hopes that the Ten Commandments may help readers to see a culture of freedom as the best context for a meaningful and successful life. It is an illusion to think that freedom is doing what we feel like doing at any particular moment. It is not freedom, for instance, when intentional athletes follow their momentary desire to eat fatty sausages or take drugs. Their freedom includes discipline, patience, hard work, and good coaching towards becoming who they want to be. That is what technique is for: liberation. Practicing freedom is the delicate challenge to find a way beyond anarchy, legalism, and control.

Lorenzen says in the Introduction that ‘culture’ describes the content, the values, the art, and the discipline of living together. It provides the basic parameters for planning and living our lives. Within these rules each player or dancer can freely develop and display her or his own creativity, expertise, and competence. The rules provide the context for identity, joy, and excellence. Culture includes the vision and values that provide the context for a meaningful and successful life.

We need to discover and name resources that can contribute toward a culture of freedom. In the long run, the cultures that will survive are those that have the spiritual and intellectual resources to live in hope rather than fear, that are committed to peace rather than war, that provide for the basic needs of their people, that will face terrorism with the resilience of people who feel good about themselves and therefore do not need to suppress others.

Such a culture of freedom is a constant challenge and is constantly threatened. A culture of freedom builds trust, hope, and responsibility and thereby strengthens the resilience of people to face the challenges that lie ahead confidently and energetically. The meditation on the Ten Commandments in Toward a Culture of Freedom aims to tease readers towards a culture of freedom where liberation from coercion and oppression can pave the way for a meaningful and fulfilled life.

Many people question today whether there can be a universal vision of morality. It is true, of course, that many things in life are relative. A woman wearing a scarf (the hijab), tied in a certain way over her head, is demanded in Tehran, is controversial in Sydney, and is offensive in Paris. People looking each other in the eye while conversing can be a sign of openness and honesty in Berlin, and a sign of arrogance and offence in Kamasi.

While many things are relative and situational, the question is, nevertheless, whether that applies to all things. Is everything relative? Can torture, can the rape of women as an instrument of warfare, can sexual child abuse ever be tolerated or justified? Modern human rights are universal and as such they are reminders that cultural and religious differences do not relativize or even abrogate the ethical demand – quite the contrary. Our awareness of differences raises the question as to what is right and what is wrong in different respective situations. Human existence as such includes the ethical challenge.

Lorenzen asks, Who says that we are ‘free and equal’? For people of faith, freedom and equality are the free and unconditional gift of the creator. No person, no state, and no religion can confer this dignity, nor can they take it away. Freedom needs to be recognized, guarded, and given room to flourish.

Toward a Culture of Freedom is a meditation on the Ten Commandments. In the Bible the Ten Commandments are found in two versions, which are quite similar: Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21.5. They are set in different contexts. It is only in the introduction and in the reasons given for keeping the Sabbath (the fourth word) that the substantive differences are significant.

According to Toward a Culture of Freedom, The Ten Commandments are actually never named as ‘laws’ or ‘commandments.’ They are referred to as the ten ‘words,’ the Decalogue, from the Greek deka ‘ten’ and logoi ‘words.’ More important to fuel the story of freedom is the indication that the ‘commandments’ are ‘words.’ The God who ‘speaks’ these ‘words’ is the God who liberated Israel from bondage and slavery and at Sinai proclaimed the structures for the journey of freedom. The intention of these ‘words’ is not to replace or negate freedom, but to shape freedom in such a way that it leads to a meaningful and successful life. Freedom is grounded in love. "God is love" summarizes the central affirmation of the Jewish and Christian faiths. Laws cannot create love. Therefore laws cannot meet our deepest human needs. The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel realized this when they spoke of a new relationship with God – a relationship not grounded in law but in love. God "will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more." The prophets hear God saying: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." Indeed, in Deuteronomy, where we find one of the versions of the ‘ten words;’ we are told that the ‘words’ are not far away – in heaven or beyond the sea – "No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe."

We must keep in mind that the ‘ten words’ were spoken to a nation, ‘all Israel’. Every culture needs a story that sustains and feeds it, a story that can be told from generation to generation, a story that transcends the business and problems of the day. Moreover, if such a story is to build a resilient culture, a culture of freedom, then it must be liberating and compassionate.

According to Lorenzen, the ‘ten words’ have an inherent dignity and authority that is inspiring and persuasive. Theologians, philosophers, moralists, and lawyers of past and present have viewed the ‘ten words’ as a summary of the Judeo-Christian message and guidance to a better future. Lorenzen in Toward a Culture of Freedom presents a chapter on each of the Ten Commandments. He begins each chapter by citing the respective texts from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 and adding some brief theological comments. Then, in a more meditative fashion, he reflects on the message of each of the ‘ten words.’

Combining exegetical acumen with sharp theological insight, Lorenzen has produced a fresh and deeply profound meditation on the Ten Words of the Torah. Filled with historical and contemporary illustrations, Lorenzen proves that the Decalogue is as relevant, practical, challenging, and disturbing today as ever. Highly readable yet informed by a lifetime of scholarly study, Lorenzen's book will be immensely valuable to both pastors and laypersons and would make an excellent supplemental classroom text…. – Kent Blevins, Professor, Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Gardner-Webb University

Here is the most careful and relevant study of the Ten Commandments now available. Biblically grounded, theologically astute, Lorenzen's penetrating treatment of each of the commandments results in constructing a mature, global ethic for Christians. Far from a legalistic list of commands, Lorenzen shows how ‘the Ten Words’ function as a blueprint for connecting the dots between a private and social ethic in a pluralistic world. – D. Dixon Sutherland, Professor of Religious Studies, Director, Christian Ethics Institute, Stetson University

Toward a Culture of Freedom is a superb ethical treatise based on the Ten Commandments. Deeply grounded in scriptures and equipped with an expansive and compassionate experience of today's world, Professor Lorenzen will help you to discern some solid rocks to stand on in an era when all human foundations seem to be quivering. Though writing from a Christian perspective, he speaks to persons of all faiths and even no faith. Would that every American, nay, every human being, would glean the wisdom she or he will find here. – E. Glenn Hinson, Professor Emeritus, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

Toward a Culture of Freedom provides not just thoughtful reflections but guidance, a solid rock to stand on. The appendices on interpreting the Ten Commandments and on making ethical decisions make a book that is already well worth the price. a bargain indeed. The book is appropriate for all, not just Christians.

Social Sciences / Library & Information Services / Geography / Computers & Internet

Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services: A Guide for Academic Libraries by John Abresch, Ardis Hanson, Susan Heron, & Peter Reehling (IGI Global)

With the onslaught of emergent technology in academia, libraries are privy to many innovative techniques to recognize and classify geospatial data above and beyond the traditional map librarianship. As librarians become more involved in the development and provision of GIS services and resources, they encounter both problems and solutions.

Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services brings together traditional map librarianship and contemporary issues in digital librarianship within a framework of a global embedded information infrastructure, addressing technical, legal, and institutional factors such as collection development, reference and research services, and cataloging/metadata, as well as issues in accessibility and standards.
Authors are John Abresch, instructor librarian, research services and collections, in the Tampa library; Ardis Hanson, director of the research library at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute; Susan Jane Heron, associate director of the Collection Analysis and Technical Services Department; and Peter J. Reehling, geographic information librarian – all at the University of South Florida.

Maps allow us to visit or revisit areas of the world that fascinate us. They allow us to travel across continents, explore hidden cities, understand the planning of medieval walled towns, and escape to exotic locales that may no longer exist. The need for us as humans to understand ‘place,’ as well as our place in the world, is essential. Geography gives us those skills and concepts to understand the physical, human, political, historical, economic, and cultural factors that affect the human and natural environments.

According to the authors in the preface, libraries represent our attempts to understand, to wonder, and to reflect on the myriad wonderfulness of our universes, local and far away, real and imagined. Libraries house riches. Libraries provide ways to access and acquire those materials that can give us a deeper understanding of all those factors that make us human and that help create societies. Libraries are also places of instruction, of learning how to find that bit of knowledge that keeps us wondering or lying awake at night trying to figure it out.

Both geography and librarianship have evolved significantly in their breadth of understanding their respective universes, including the emergence of exciting conceptual and theoretical models, innovative methodologies, cutting-edge technologies, and application of these technologies. Both cover the waterfront, so to speak, from the tangible, such as paper, photographs, and maps, to the intangible, such as digital objects, numeric/spatial data, and streaming media.

In writing Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services, the authors address these new forms of geography and library. In the world of information it is impossible to dissociate oneself from the use of technology. Fifty years ago, we would have been hard-pressed to imagine ourselves pulling up a map or a book on a cellular phone or a personal digital assistant.

According to Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services, examining how academic libraries and geographic information science intersect must begin with a review of the information-based economy we now live in. Certainly, the convergence of computer technologies and communication technology in the past two decades has revolutionized business organizations in how they operate, especially with the rapid and efficient transmission of information on a global scale. This economic restructuring is driven by an information economy that continues to value knowledge work as commodity. Geospatial data and libraries have become important components of socioeconomic processes, political activities, and academic research within the emerging information economy.

The social milieu is another aspect of this new economic structure that cannot be ignored. What information is available affects how individuals participate, as well as who participates. Libraries offer digital services and digital resources to increase access to information to a wider community of online users, both in the physical library as well as to remote users. Chapters I and II in Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services attempt to place geospatial information science and library/information science in the context of the information economy and the digital infrastructure we know as the Internet.

To create a holistic view of the ‘landscape of information,’ librarians and geographers use classification schemes and measures relevant to the phenomena in the landscape under study. Analytic and statistical tools continue to enhance the use and display of spatial information, providing linkages to previously undiscovered and unknown relationships between factors. Research into the structure and inter-connectedness of databases, data structures, and indexing methods have resulted in new data frameworks and typologies in both geographic and library information science. Both fields are still faced with challenges in the cataloging and mining of digital data. To do so will require us to address the challenges in describing geospatial works, such as quality and relevance of metadata, record formats, intellectual analysis of works, and search and retrieval frameworks to meet the different uses of geospatial information. These interrelated topics are integrated throughout Chapters II through VI.

Since the 1990s, digital geospatial data interoperability has been the target of major efforts by standardization bodies and the research community. With the rise of new digital models, applications, and networks, the authors suggest that libraries can better organize and increase the resource discovery of digital geospatial data. For some, a ‘geolibrary’ that results from the intersection of the library and the spatial data infrastructure would extend the use of geographic information far beyond scope of a traditional map library. As remote access to digital resources increases, how libraries will address the information tasks performed by users is critical. First, users will have to create effective search criteria to gather materials, determine if the items they found actually can meet their information need, hone in on specific items that are ‘perfect,’ and then retrieve the actual item online. It sounds simple, however, in an online environment, access, discovery, and retrieval are more complicated. What will be important is that legacy materials, in print and superseded digital formats, are not lost to researchers and users, rather that they remain findable and usable through library catalogs and other digital frameworks. This is discussed in Chapters III, IV, and V of Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services as the authors delve into the design and development of databases, metadata frameworks, and standards to ensure interoperability and access.

To make things findable and retrievable requires compatibility between hardware and physical facilities; software applications and software; and network standards and transmission codes. It also requires that persons who produce and provide access to resources work within standards to ensure interoperability between my system and your system, our interfaces, and our respective products. Standards exist for cartography, hardware and software, telecommunications, and information technology at national and international levels. It also requires a common language to ensure availability, access, integration, and sharing of geographic information. How language is used in the discipline of geographic information science, as well as those disciplines using its methodologies and data, will have the user looking at semantics, which change as one moves across and within disciplines. Chapters IV, V, and VI address these issues from the perspective of cataloging, metadata, and ontology development.

For librarians, the opportunity to work with geospatial data and its users offers a world of exciting possibilities. There will be new services, new resources, new research collaborations, and possibly new business ventures, should libraries also become producers of data or other geographic information products. This means, of course, more sources, more options for sources, higher patron expectations, and, of course, more reliance on new technologies. Accordingly, the most remarkable opportunities and challenges emerge within academic libraries with regard to the incorporation of technology and services into our daily work lives. Both affect how libraries operate and how librarians keep up with ever-changing technology, user needs, and user expectations. It also affects the instruction and training librarians provide to their users, from undergraduate students new to maps, much less complex data sets, to researchers who is looking for assistance in managing a literature review or gathering background information on a topic that is inevitably squirreled away in thousands of places, none of them obvious. It also affects how we teach. Geospatial data requires instructors to rethink how questions are asked and answered. It also requires them to rethink how they teach users to navigate the foreign and highly mathematical territory of geospatial information. Chapters VI, VII, and VIII in Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services address these issues from the perspective of accessibility, reference services, and collection development.

Those who run libraries now have opportunities to support the scientific research infrastructure at our universities and colleges. GIS also allows librarians to increase their market of services and resources as geospatial data users are in every college, in every department, in every school, and throughout administrative units, such as facilities planning and building maintenance. It creates further opportunities for collaboration in large, distributed, and often international partnerships and consortia, as they house, share, and produce product. Most importantly, it allows them to keep current with innovative practices and technologies that can make the world a better place, or at least allow them to better understand it.

Education will also have to change to encompass GIS. Programs must be designed to meet the information needs of library students and library professionals to acquire the necessary technical knowledge and computer skills to handle geospatial information. Even the most basic of GIS services requires significant investment in training programs and resources for librarians and staff. A more holistic, trans-disciplinary approach to training and working with other disciplines will provide a richer, in-depth education for librarians with geospatial information. This is discussed further in Chapter IX.

The authors ask: What does the future hold for geographic information science and library/information science? Forecasting the future is always fraught with the possibility of being wrong. What they do suggest in Chapter X is that GIS applications will become easier to use and more intuitive for users. As with computing, there will be accompanying increases in analytic capacity. Further, GIS software will become more embedded within current and emerging applications and technologies, much as word processing, spreadsheets, and databases are now found in computer ‘office’ suites.

Can GIS help librarians assess, evaluate, and interpret trends of mutual influences across society? How will the digital divide, literacy, and economic disparities influence future applications and their use? Data integrity and privacy will continue to be a concern as data is misrepresented or misused. What will be the effects on social organizations, groups, and places affected by uses and outcomes of GIS, such as communities, business monopolies, or political hegemony?

For the authors, all librarians in an academic environment, Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services has allowed them to explore some of the larger, and smaller, issues that are at work in their interactions with students, researchers, community users, and other librarians. It has also permitted them to explore less obvious connections, such as social constructionism and the issues of trust in a distributed data-sharing environment. Most importantly, it has given them an opportunity to take questions that they have had with descriptive and semantic concerns and explore them within the framework of geographic and library information sciences.

Readers of the monograph will be intrigued, provoked, and reflective as they work their way through this attempt to tie geographic information science and library science, theory and practice, together in a coherent being, with applications in the real world for practitioners, students, educators, and those individuals fascinated with the world of maps and landscapes, real or imagined. With its authoritative coverage of an important, cutting-edge topic in computer science and information technology management, Integrating Geographic Information Systems into Library Services is essential to academic libraries in the U.S. and abroad and is also suitable for advanced undergraduate or graduate students. Those interested in integrating traditional map librarianship and contemporary digital librarianship as well as those involved in building and managing digital spatial collections for libraries will find this publication useful.

Science / Astronomy / Cosmology

The Unknown Universe: The Origin of the Universe, Quantum Gravity, Wormholes, and Other Things Science Still Can't Explain by Richard Hammond (New Page Books)

A new scientific theory does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die. – Max Planck, as quoted in Chapter 1

For the past 10 years, physicists have been banging their heads against the wall, trying to understand one of the greatest new mysteries of the cosmos: Why is the universe pulling itself apart at an ever-increasing rate? Is this a mysterious new force – dark energy – or must we alter our most fundamental theories of time and space?
For 30 years, we have been struggling to understand the nature of dark matter – the mysterious invisible matter that outweighs ‘normal’ matter 10 to one and fills the ‘empty’ spaces in our galaxies.
For 50 years, we have grappled with the seditious theory of gravity, which has failed to fall in line with all other known forces.

But the biggest mystery of all time – one that dates back to man's earliest writings – is our universe, and physicists are the detectives trying to piece together disparate clues that continually turn our view of the cosmos upside down.
The Unknown Universe, written by Richard Hammond, describes how physicists view the creation of our universe, when space and time itself came into being, and how stars formed and exploded, seeding the universe with new stars and galaxies, including our own solar system. This book also explores some of science's newest theories and their implications, such as string theory, which suggests a seemingly bizarre world of 10 dimensions, yet may explain quantum gravity.
The Unknown Universe also describes the biggest conundrums physicists are grappling with today. From dark matter to cosmic rays, from black holes to wormholes, Hammond, adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and theoretical physicist for the Army Research Office, explains how these vexatious riddles arose.

Chapters include:

Cosmic Acceleration. The universe is expanding, and expanding faster than a California fire fueled by Santa Ana winds, and nobody knows why.
Dark Matter. We have seen only a small percentage of all the kinds of matter in the universe.
The Cosmic Ray Paradox. Theory tells us that the energy of cosmic rays has an upper limit. Today we are measuring the energy of cosmic rays that far exceeds this limit.
Renormalization. What is infinity minus infinity? It is very often something small, but not zero, and that mars the beauty of physics.
The Higgs Particle. It has never been observed or measured.
Quantum Gravity. This is the hardest problem there is – no other problem has attracted so many great physicists and remained unsolved.
Ashes to Ashes – Things We Know. This chapter is devoted to past riddles we have solved, or partially solved, including stars, binary stars, red giants, neutron stars, quasars, pulsars, black holes, white holes, wormholes, and duds.
String Theory. As far as we can tell, an electron is just a point. It is there and it is observed, but it has no size (which is the definition of a point). Everything known about particle physics is based on point particles. Now try to imagine that a particle is really a string. This little modification can change our world more than the invention of the telescope.
Origin of the Universe. One of the greatest accomplishments of physics is that, as difficult as it is, we can even think about this issue. In fact, it is so difficult, some people have stopped asking about it.
Mysterinos. This chapter is an odd-and-ends compilation. It describes things such as gravitational waves, the mysterious force acting on Pioneer 10, the left-handed nature of the universe, and other pesky problems with which we are still wrestling.

Filled with personal insights from his own research and historical interludes, The Unknown Universe drags some of our darkest enigmas into the light of day. The book is a fascinating reference work for professionals and amateurs alike.
Science / Earth / Environmental

Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine by Stan Cox (Pluto Press)

Neoliberals often point to improvements in public health and nutrition as examples of globalization's success, but Sick Planet argues that the corporate food and medicine industries are destroying environments and ruining living conditions across the world.

Stan Cox, senior scientist at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, expertly draws out the link between Western big business and environmental destruction. This is a shocking account of the damage that drug manufacturers and large food corporations are inflicting on the health of people and crops worldwide. Companies discussed include Wal-Mart, GlaxoSmithKline, Tyson Foods and Monsanto. On issues ranging from the poisoning of water supplies in South Asia to natural gas depletion and how it threatens global food supplies, Cox, who used to work for the US Department of Agriculture, shows how the demand for profits is always put above the public interest.

While individual efforts to ‘shop for a better world’ and conserve energy are laudable, Cox explains that they need to be accompanied by an economic system that is grounded in ecological sustainability if we are to find a cure for our Sick Planet.

Cox says his aim in writing Sick Planet is neither to catalog the ecosphere's many grave symptoms nor supply a prognosis. Readers already know that the global outlook is grim and getting worse. Instead, he shows how ecological damage happens in two essential parts of our lives – health care and food – and argue that the changes needed to reverse that damage are much more radical than the dilute quarter-measures currently being proposed in Washington and other capitals.

The stories in Sick Planet illustrate how all economic growth is ecologically destructive and why all of these sectors will have to be reined in together. Furthermore, it is crucial not to allow the biggest crisis looming ahead of us – rapid climate change – to blind us to other ecological problems that are already an everyday reality to impoverished people and threatened species on every continent.

It is too easy to see us all having a common interest in curbing climate change, whether we are tycoons or working people, whether we live in a powerful or a weak nation – to stress, in the words of former Vice-President and current climate-change ambassador Al Gore, that ‘we're all in this together.’ True, but some of us are ‘in it’ much deeper, and destined to sink much, much deeper, than others. And those divisions have everything to do with the causes of human-made climate change. The class struggle hasn't ended after all; it is going into sudden-death overtime. The global economy has proven itself capable of producing environmental misery and devastation at least as efficiently as it produces wealth. Those two faces of economic growth may be best illustrated by the ways in which the food and medical industries meet fundamental biological needs. Each of Sick Planet's first nine chapters illustrates contradictions in the way economic life-support systems operate in the world's second and third largest nations: India and the United States. These chapters show that:

The fastest-growing major industry in the US, one meant to improve people's health, is instead undermining health – both directly and by degrading natural systems on which human well-being depends.
Drug companies are achieving growth not only by making remedies for people who are sick, but also by creating whole new populations of sick consumers.
The very symptoms meant to be treated by drugs manufactured in India for export are appearing among people exposed to pollution from bulk-drug factories there; even their ability to grow food is being lost.
Nutritional products meant to cure health problems caused by overproduction and over consumption end up stimulating greater consumption.
As America mobilizes to protect industrial agriculture against terrorists, agriculture itself is doing the very kind of damage that terrorists are said to be planning.
A ‘cleaner’ fossil fuel increasingly being relied upon to curb global warming will be consumed at a rate that may threaten soil fertility and food production in countries already endangered by global warming.
Rapid industrialization, being relied upon to pull a billion South Asians out of deep poverty, could end up weakening monsoon rains, making people even poorer and hungrier.
Retailers are managing to sell more pleasing, healthful food, but almost exclusively to the well-to-do, and only by employing people who can not afford those very luxuries.
Chemical compounds manufactured to help people cook in a more healthful way have been found in the bloodstreams of humans and other animals all over the planet – possibly causing cancer and other diseases.

There follows a tenth chapter in Sick Planet that examines questions raised throughout the first nine, with help from three thinkers going back a century and a half: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, who demonstrated that all economic activity, whatever its purpose and however well it is done, inevitably accelerates the depletion of resources, production of waste, and sickening of ecosystems; Karl Marx, whose work showed how the essential mainspring of capitalism is the pursuit of insupportable growth; and William Stanley Jevons, who demolished the idea that resource efficiency alone can reconcile limitless growth with ecological sustainability.

Sick Planet is populated with companies and individuals that are pushing the planet toward ecological ruin, but only as part of their routine, almost always legal, operations. Cox goes the hardest on those with seemingly good intentions, because they illustrate how idealism cannot tame capitalism's nasty side. Cox shows that the planet's current predicament is not necessarily the work of evil, scheming tycoons bent on personal enrichment. Rather, it is the natural product of a system that rewards the industrious capitalist who pours a life's energy into building a vigorous, growing business in a competitive world. Just as we cannot blame the current global predicament on ‘bad’ corporate executives, we also cannot expect the ‘good’ ones to come to the rescue. When corporate owners and managers claim they cannot operate in greener ways without sacrificing essential profits, they are not just being stubborn and greedy; they are acknowledging material reality.

The immediate causes of the destruction and misery that Cox describes may be industries or corporations or investors, but lying behind all of those is capitalist economics. If the human species, against all odds, finds an alternative to capitalism, it won't necessarily save the Earth. But if we find no alternative to capitalism, the Earth cannot be saved.

Efforts by ‘green’ capitalists to pursue a so-called ‘triple bottom line’ by accounting for the well-being of people and nature along with profits, are as doomed as any effort to build a perpetual-motion machine. When those three goals come into conflict, as they inevitably will, it's the bottom-bottom line – profit – that must take priority. Cox says he also takes no comfort in predictions that capitalism will erode its own foundations, eventually crumbling along with the breakdown of ecosystems and depletion of resources, ushering in a new, green era.

Just as futile, according to Sick Planet, is the hope that increasing awareness of global climate change will wake people up to the danger of unlimited economic growth and, therefore, of capitalism. If the horrors that capitalism has inflicted over the past couple of centuries on billions of our fellow human beings have not shaken us out of our comfortable political positions, the threat of certain but only partially understood climatic disruptions won't do it either. That is why Cox attempts in Sick Planet to demonstrate with specific examples the outrageous demands that capitalism places on humans and the planet. Then he asks readers to widen their field of view from these stories of food and medicine to the global economy as a whole and imagine what we will face if we continue to allow the growth requirements of capitalist economies to dominate over biological necessity.

Stan Cox, scientifically accomplished and politically astute, casts a sharp eye on the deadly affliction that threatens our planet, and identifies the penetration of capital into all aspects of life as the pathogen. Cox convincingly shows that only a radical attack on the roots of this disease can reverse the slide of our civilization into oblivion. – Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature

Sick Planet does not include a hopeful final chapter plotting a sure, safe route out of this mess. Before any new, ecologically sound society can be conceived, much less constructed, there has to be much wider agreement that the current economic system, with the engine of growth at its heart, cannot be part of that new society. Cox says his more modest goal is to stir readers to question both the desirability and the inevitability of capitalism on a sick, shrinking planet. A depressing, horrifying, really, but necessary book.

Transportation / Aviation

Milestones of Aviation, 2nd Edition, edited by John T. Greenwood with Von Hardesty, with a preface by Michael Collins (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Universe)

One day a young boy named Paul Garber took the trolley from Washington to Fort Myer, Virginia, to watch the Wright brothers demonstrate their first military airplane, The year was 1909, and it had taken the Wrights only six years to find a military application for their new machine, Today Paul Garber is Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and he is now watching spacecraft in addition to aircraft.

In 1924, four biplanes known as Douglas World Cruisers set out to circumnavigate the globe, and two of them made it. General Leigh Wade was one of the pilots on that epic trip, which took 175 days. In 1986 General Wade witnessed the nonstop, round-the-world flight of Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager in their frail Voyager, which took only nine days. What a span of achievement, what a dizzying technological pace, that allowed Garber and Wade to witness such changes in their lifetimes! – from the Introduction by Michael Collins, Astronaut and former Director, National Air and Space Museum

To fly! For centuries, it was the dream of humanity. What historians call the ‘Air Age’ marked its centennial year in 2003. This milestone became an occasion to look back on the rapid advance of aviation technology during the course of one hundred years – from Orville Wright steering his Flyer across a 120-foot course at Kitty Hawk to modern-day jet airliners routinely transporting thousands of passengers across the globe daily. In the military sphere, the primitive wood and fabric flying machines of World War I (1914-18) have given way to the latest warplanes fitted with stealth technology, smart weapons, and instantaneous global communications. The airplane continues to shape modern civilization in profound and enduring ways. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the spirit of innovation continues to forge new breakthroughs in aircraft design, propulsion, and computerized flight control systems.

Milestones of Aviation offers air enthusiasts a chronicle – in words and images – of the rapid advance of aviation. The narrative represents the perspectives of noted aviation historians and aeronautical experts including Charles Lindbergh and Chuck Yaeger. The volume is edited by John T. Greenwood, chief historian for the Office of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army, in Falls Church, Virginia, former historian with the U.S. Air Force from 1970 to 1978, when he became chief historian of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1978-88) in Washington, D.C and Chief, Field Programs and Historical Services Division, U.S. Army Center of Military History (1988-98).

Contributors to Milestones of Aviation include:

Terry Gwynn-Jones, freelance aviation writer who served in the Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, and Royal Australian Air Force before joining the Australian Department of Transport's Aviation Group as a flying examiner in 1969.
John D. Anderson, Jr., curator of Aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum and professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.
James R. Hansen, professor of history and director of the Honors College at Auburn University in Alabama, an internationally distinguished expert in aerospace history.
Richard K. Smith, who served on the staff of the National Air and Space Museum and taught aviation history at various universities.
Von Hardesty, curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum where he has specialized in Russian/Soviet aerospace history.
Lawrence A. DiRicco, photo researcher for the 2007 revised edition, and volunteer researcher in the Department of Aeronautics, National Air and Space Museum.

According to Greenwood, Milestones of Aviation originated in 1987 in a discussion among Von Hardesty, then chairman of the Department of Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution; Trish Graboske, Chief of Publications for the National Air and Space Museum; Martin P. Levin; and Greenwood, editor and then consultant to the Department of Aeronautics. Their talks centered on developing a fresh approach to the fascinating history of flight that would enliven readers about many of the little-known, fundamental advances in aviation and place the more well-known achievements in their proper historical context. They concluded that they would focus on the milestones marking the process of aviation since December 17, 1903, when Orville and Wilbur Wright first achieved manned, powered flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine. In its essence, aeronautics is the quest to achieve and then improve upon four fundamentals: the attainment of sufficient speed and altitude, without which light is impossible; the covering of distances, without which flight has little purpose beyond personal enjoyment; the development of size, which will satisfy societal and economic demands while fostering continued growth and utility and the constant drive to better all these attainments both individually and collectively. These objectives became the first four chapters of Milestones of Aviation. The chapters in the book include:

Farther: The Quest for Distance – Terry Gwynn-Jones
Faster and Higher: The Quest for Space – John D. Anderson, Jr.
Bigger: The Quest for Size – James R. Hansen
Better: The Quest for Excellence – Richard K. Smith
Bolder: The New Generation of Flight – Von Hardesty

When Hugh Levin contacted Greenwood late in 1994 about adding a new chapter to Milestones of Aviation he says he thought it a worthwhile undertaking. Though only six years have passed since the book first appeared, many critical changes had fundamentally reshaped the global, political, economic, and military context in which both commercial and military aviation exist and develop.

According to Greenwood in the introduction to the book, this expanded edition of Milestones of Aviation continues to trace the ever-evolving history of aviation by examining the newest trends and developments from 1989 to the present, in the wake of worldwide economic turbulence and global transformation.

If aviation has lost some of its glamour, it has certainly made up for it in increased economic impact. Today the aerospace industry has surpassed agriculture as this nation's greatest contributor to a favorable balance of trade. Having lost most of the electronics market to the nations of the Pacific rim over the past decade, we need to keep exporting airliners, the only major American product that still dominates the world market.

According to Milestones of Aviation, it is undeniable that flight has caused our planet to shrink, and in ways that are both good and bad. Flowers flown in from South America grace our tables, but cocaine from South America is undermining the foundations of our society. Our children fly to Europe for a semester's work, but then they perish at 30,000 feet when a terrorist bomb explodes on their return trip. Generally, however, increased mobility and shortened travel times have improved the quality of our lives. The airplane really was the instrument that brought about the adoption of Hawaii as the 50th state in the Union and opened communications around the Pacific basin. Now routinely, the airplane sets us down among our global neighbors, whom we usually discover to share our concerns, values, and hopes for the future. This understanding is essential in working out solutions to global problems.

This book has been produced with the help and endorsement of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. It is a success in every respect; the articles, contributed by expert and renowned aviation writers, are well written and accompanied by beautiful photographs. The book covers significant developments in flying from the Wright brothers to the jet age and includes a brief discussion of stealth technology. Each chapter traces the evolution of American and European aircraft – civilian and military, piston and jet, subsonic and hypersonic – in the quest for distance, speed, altitude, size, and excellence. There are interesting accounts of the aviation pioneers and good discussions of aircraft design, performance, and aerodynamics, and power plants. For those who can afford it, this is an excellent book, both fun to look at and a tremendous educational resource. – William A. McIntyre, New Hampshire Vocational-Technical Library, Nashua, Library Journal

Milestones of Aviation is an aviation book to behold as well as to read. In all its remarkable detail and insightfulness, the complete story of aviation unfolds in this spectacular book. This revised edition offers a feast for the eyes in its 400 full-color photographs and archival illustrations from museums around the world. Sure to be cherished by aviation enthusiasts, this handsome, oversized volume will intrigue anyone whose life is touched by the miracle of flight.