Book Description
Do you love America? Are you proud to call this country your home? Now, what about your kids? You want them to love America as much as you do, but when popular culture tells them it’s cooler to bash this country than to love it, how can you teach them to be proud and loyal citizens?
As mothers themselves, bestselling author Myrna Blyth and former presidential speechwriter Chriss Winston have struggled with the same dilemma. Shocked by the growing patriotism gap, they set out to create a real-world resource all parents can use to teach their kids about the greatness of America’s past, the promise of its future, and the important role each of us plays in this democracy. How to Raise an American shows you how to make patriotism a priority without it becoming a chore for you or your kids.
This practical guide offers tips, games, activities, quizzes, and information you can use to make patriotism part of your family’s daily life, including:
- 60-Minute Solutions that easily and seamlessly instill a love of this country
- Dinner Table Debate topics that will have the whole family talking
- Road trip ideas that bring America’s history to life
- Books and movies that exemplify our shared ideals
- Inspiring stories of American courage, honor, and ingenuity
- Fun and educational ways to celebrate American holidays like the Fourth of July and Veterans Day
Blyth and Winston consulted prominent historians, academics, military leaders, politicians, authors, scholars, film critics and parents around the country to bring you a truly useful guide. Part treatise on patriotism, part American history primer, part civics lesson, this book is the antidote to the virulent America bashing our children hear every day.
Inspiring and practical, How to Raise an American is a must for every patriot—parent and child.
Customer Reviews:
This may be the most important book published in years.......2007-09-30
With a son-in-law still serving in the military after his retirement and a grandson having just graduated from West Point and going to Ranger school, imagine my shock to hear our 15-year-old granddaughter telling her brother that America isn't worth fighting for. I could hear her ancestors (who have fought in every war the USA has faced, beginning with the Revolution and French/Indian Wars) rolling in their collective graves. However, I'm smart enough to know not to argue with her. I have, though, been looking for a way to change her mind.
Then I stumbled on this book at the library. THANK YOU, Ms. Blyth and Ms. Winston. This is exactly what I need. Fortunately I love history, especially American history, and can easily take the projects and ideas in the book and develop them to fit our family.
Furthermore, I am relieved and encouraged to see that others have not only recognized the problem but have studied it and have found solutions to offer. It's always nice to know that one isn't fighting alone.
refreshing.......2007-06-11
I just finished reading this book, and I honestly can say I believe that I had been unknowingly temporarily influenced by the media. While I was reading about critics of the U.S. I realized that I have bought into a lot of the hype and negativity, focusing on a lot of bad and not remembering the tremendous good we do and have done as a country. I found myself getting teary eyed throughout the book with the stories of our founding fathers, immigrants, and military. Thank you for the dose of reality it gave me. I think it is hard to find a balance between looking at things through the media and looking at things through rose colored glasses. I loved the part of the book where the author talked about how the United States of America started as an idea, not by people who wanted more power, or wanted to rule, but by men who believed that all people had the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", that we were all created equal. And through this idea, they wanted to form a more perfect government.
Amazing....
This book is full of interesting facts like the reason John Hancock's signature was so big is because he wanted to make sure that King George could read it without his spectacles. I love this country, I feel blessed to have been born here and to raise my three children here. I am determined to help them appreciate this great country, and the freedoms we enjoy. My family and I are going to celebrate Flag day this year for the first time, by reading a small book about the flag, learning how to fold it, and learning about the design and history of it.
Thank you very much for this much needed book!
Silly and Politically Motivated.......2007-06-03
First of all, I love this country and what it stands for. But what I dont understand is how conservatives like Myrna Blyth can label anyone who doesn't agree with her as angry and hateful, while picking right up on her hatred and suspicion of the media and liberals. For example this book is "the perfect antidote for all the liberal bile and anti-American bigotry that the left imposes on public schools, universities, Hollywood morons, and of course the news media"? I haven't heard this much hatred since listening to Bill O'Reilly.
Unfortunately this book is just plain silly and is filled with inaccuracies and politically-motivated content. If you want your kids to learn about this country, take them to a museum or to Washington DC or Philadelphia.
Gresham's law for intellect........2007-05-27
Think tanks most often provide "commissioned" sources for policy makers and ideologues or "hired guns" like attorneys for the rich. Like the Gresham's Law describing how bad adulterated currency drives out the good; these sources generally provide adulterated thinking rather than quality dialog and solid logic. They are a source of intellectual decline. Heritage sponsored promotion of this book. One is reminded of flags on lapels of those who undermine the Constitution while rhetorically exaggerating their defense of American freedoms.
Myrna Blyth's book is an example which also suggests that people, reading less, have lost much of their critical capacity while seeing what they believe and wanting confirmation of their bias rather than a rational challenge. The purpose is to create little patriots with heroes and selective history.
Her methods and examples exemplify, despite pretense, brainwashing more than enlightenment. Too strong? Consider the ironies (lost on the author) that idealizing American democracy should require books to write more about the Moon landing (technology) rather than detailing Iran Contra and similar policies. She also writes that more teaching of history and rational discussion are needed - but then dismisses as unworthy of debate the arguments of the "Communist" Howard Zinn. She also seems to ignore that the decline of teaching history is itself part of the educational policy of creating technicians and worker automatons who lack the desire, habit, and capacity to question authority.
Some of the most incredibly stupid statements and policies have been accepted, against all independent logic, from just such "patriotism". As Lincoln noted, most of the people can be fooled most of the time - especially with this kind of "patriotic" education. One might be reminded that Fascism is built on extreme nationalism and the coaltion of government and the military industrial complex (to use Eisenhower's term).
One might also consider that idealization of heroes is like war memorials - designed to forget all but myths and so ignore the errors and crimes of governments. Reagan is responsible for the terrorism of the School of the Americas, Iran-Contra, assassinations and not by any means the sole reason for Soviet decline. Ford was a nice guy but pardoned a scoundrel, supported the Chilean intervention (installing more like Fascism than democracy), and Timor genocide. Ideas have consequences and our leaders have no fear of judgment for their crimes or mistakes. Phony heroes destroy America and false patriotism is cancerous. Concentrate on reality and things we can legitimately be proud of. Flags can make Nazis as easily as free peoples. As Mark Twain said, one can always love one's country while still only sometimes its government.
presumption.......2007-05-21
It seems overly presumptuous to attempt to instill particular beliefs in your childern. The role of a parent is to foster education and knowledge, teach your childern how to think critically for themselves and not rely on others to form their all important beleifs. Attempting to dictate your childs point of view is extremely detrimental to their intellectual development and if American parents are to do this it will inevitably lead to a far weaker nation in the future. The best way to contribute to your child forming a positive point of view of his country is to contribute in making America a better place.
Customer Reviews:
Required Supplement to LabVIEW Documentation.......2007-10-01
This book fills in the yawning gaps of LabVIEW 8.xx's documentation and ambiguous and dense "HELP" sections. For example, as a retread LabVIEW user from over a decade ago, I looked for a simple step-by-step procedure to turn on, write, a single digital line. Just to turn on and off a single LED. The LabVIEW HELP returned many dozens of topics and forced me to read many extraneous topics to come to the conclusion that I was not going to find any help. Then, I tried to use the "easy" virtual instruments already made for the occassion, but the only one found after navigating through a thicket of unrelated virtual instruments was one which wrote a digital port of eight channels and no explanation of how to set it up to write one digital line. LabVIEW for Everyone... solved my problem and a whole lot more. This book is needed by anyone who is not an experienced LabVIEW programmer and who does not have the time or resources to attend training classes and wants to get started as soon as possible. Travis and Kring have created a readable and effective reference source for LabVIEW programmers. It is possibly the only book which addresses recent LabVIEW 8.xx software and truly does make it easy and fun.
A good introduction to LabView.......2007-08-26
While there is a a lot of good information of the NI website, I thought buying a book would be helpful as I needed to learn LabView quickly. I thought this book was very helpful and would definately be a good book for someone new to LabView. My only wish is that it would have more converage on the DAQ part. To me this is not only the key part of LabView, it is the only part that got me confused (and still does) at some points. Some additional coverage would have helped.
The Single Best Overall Book On LabVIEW.......2007-07-03
If you are a beginner to intermediate with LabVIEW, then the 3rd Edition is the single best book on LabVIEW available to you as of summer of 2007. If your budget only allows for one or a few books, put this one at the top of you list. I have read this book cover to cover, twice, and some sections in further detail as well as worked through all of the example code in detail.
I won't repeat the fine comments of others in their reviews. I speak from the perspective of 15+ years of working with LabVIEW, as a beginner in the early 1990s, a Certified LabVIEW instructor in the mid 90s, a small control and test system business founder and owner since the late 90s and an enthusiastic member of the LabVIEW community all during that time. I have bought most of the LabVIEW books that have ever been published as well as the (late) LTR newsletter and this 3rd Edition is the best book I have come across. If I were hiring someone new to do LabVIEW work, I'd give them a copy of this book first. The investment is a no brainer.
A great book for beginners.......2007-04-30
LabVIEW stands for: Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench. Unlike traditional programming languages (Basic, C, C++, Java, etc.), where you have to write text instructions line by line, LabVIEW is a graphical programming language. Here you create a program using a graphical notation; in other words, you interconnect functional blocks (or icons) via wires, through which data flow. LabVIEW is specifically designed for data acquisition (DAQ), data analysis, and presentation of results.
If you have never worked with LabVIEW, you are like me. First you have to acquire the basic concepts. After that you will be able to read and fully understand more advanced LabVIEW books (at amazon.com you will find a lot of them).
LabVIEW for everyone give you those basic concepts. It has 981 pages divided into 17 chapters, 6 appendixes and 1 glossary. The fundamentals of LabVIEW are shown in the first 10 chapters. Advanced topics can be found in the last 7 chapters. There are plenty of illustrations (almost every page has at least one).
In this book authors explain, step-by-step, every pop-up menu, every pull-down menu, every functional block and its applications, etc. To follow those explanations, you just need to have the basic knowledge of your PC's operating system. There is an accompanying CD-ROM that includes a 30-day evaluation version of LabVIEW 8.0 for Windows, which allows you to practice all activities (exercises) found inside the book.
Well organized, best choice I know of.......2007-04-02
Labview is a problematic language. At first it seems so easy, and then something comes up and you can spend a lot of time tracking it down.
This book is well organized and has a lot of good content. Other books I've bought were terrible by comparison. This is written by those who know what they are doing.
However, you still have to get under the hood and practice and learn how to work with the program. The book will help.
Book Description
The revised and updated edition of a groundbreaking special-needs activity guide
This revised edition of the companion volume to The Out-of-Sync Child includes new activities that parents of kids with Sensory Processing Disorder can do at home with their child, along with updated information on which activities are most appropriate for children with coexisting conditions such as Asperger's, autism, and more.
Customer Reviews:
Fun activities for each sense.......2007-08-21
This book has great activities for kids! It was helpful to find information and ideas to help my kids. You just look up the sense and go have some fun.Meghan's World: The Story of One Girl's Triumph over Sensory Processing Disorder
Great book so far.......2007-07-20
I am just starting to read this book but so far, I love it. I love reading the mother's and therapist's notes. I think they give you such good ideas that come from experience. The activities are clear and resources are always offered.
Great Resource for Parents and Teachers.......2007-05-29
The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun is a great resource for parents and teachers. As a teacher of special needs kids, I'm always looking for materials to share with parents, and this one is really meeting the need. Ms. Kranowitz knows her topic. Her ideas for simple, fun activities that teach are easy to follow. This is a book I will use over and over again.
review.......2007-05-13
This book is a must have to go along with The Out of Sync Child. It gives you some ideas on how to help your child be a kid despite having sensory issues. Good book for parents of autistic children.
Great Resource.......2007-05-12
We got this book right after our son was diagnosed with autism. It is the kind of book that you can constantly refer back to as your child progresses and learns new skills. Our child has really enjoyed participating in the activities. Also, the activities are interesting enough that our other son, who does not have autism, enjoys participating as well. This allows for some great peer interaction. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is dealing with a child with sensory integration issues. It is just great!
Customer Reviews:
Print T Shirts For Fun & Profit.......2007-09-06
A brilliant book with all the how-tos required by a budding home-business owner and it shows you how to easily print teeshirts for fun and profit just like the title promises.
Can't recommend this book highly enough.
Its somewhat informative.......2007-04-29
This book has good information but I would try to find it used as it is a bit pricey. If you really want the information try to go to a local tradeshow. That seemed to help me more than the book.
excellent book.......2007-03-10
this book really has it all. I bought this book after reading previous reviews and I was not disappointed. It takes you through all of the silkscreening approaches from begining to end. It also gives you loads of resources for shirts and supplies. It gives alot of advice from the business end as well. My book also came with a helpful DVD. Of all the books that i've seen for sale on this subject, I think this is probably your best choice.
Good book Despite Scott Fresner.......2006-12-13
This is a good book despite Scott Fresner. I suggest that you don't buy anything else from him. He will sell you the moon if you let him.
perfect.......2006-08-07
very thorough. has info on a variety of aspects of the t-shirt business. i am using it in stages as i start my own business. i highly recommend this as a nuts and bolts type book, no fluff.
Book Description
Raising a happy, well-adjusted puppy is much like raising a child--owners have to listen to what their puppy's behavior is trying to tell them. And it's far simpler than people think. With the intuitive and step-by-step methods included in this invaluable book (with a bonus DVD featuring demonstrations of great training techniques) from experts Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson, puppies can be trained quickly and painlessly. Readers will learn: - The easy way to housebreak or paper-train your pup - Quick lessons in canine communication - Common problems and quick solutions, from barking to mouthing to chasing cars or people...and more! With humor, time-tested advice, and an arsenal of tricks, MY SMART PUPPY teaches new dog owners everything they need to know to raise a healthy, happy, and well-adjusted dog.
Customer Reviews:
Nice Combo.......2007-09-26
This combo is a nice resource. Some subject are very informative, other lacking. It's not the super book that some reviews might lead you to believe, but an adequate general resource to raising a puppy at a nice price. Video is a complement to the book. Be sure to also get a book specific to your puppies breed.
Not what I Was Looking For.......2007-09-18
In the domesticated animal world I have noticed that animals I want/need to train don't speak English. They speak who'sthebiggest. They use biting and kicking (horse, ouch)to communicate. I was looking for a book that would help me communicate to a very wily puppy that our family is ahead of him in the pecking order. This book was not suitable for us, as it did not cleary establish that the dog is a dog. This training method may work better for someone with a less willful breed. We found excellent results with training classes at our local Petsmart.
Very Helpful!.......2007-09-16
This book did wonders for my understanding of dogs' "thought process". i wish I read this book years ago. If I had, my dogs would have always been trained and well behaved. Everyone is surprised at how well behaved my 7 month old puppy is. This is a must!
Not to bad.......2007-08-23
I really like to DVD included, It was much more easier to visualise it
after to read it from the book
Great book.......2007-08-08
This is one of the better puppy books currently out. It gives not only background information on dog types and their tendencies..but a easy and fun way to train them and what works for certian peronality types. It tells why doing or not doing certian things effect the puppy's learning to be a good dog.
Book Description
Coaching Youth Softball is written especially for the unprepared parent thrust into the role of coaching his or her 8- to 12-year-old child's softball team. Upbeat and inspirational, it schools new coaches in the fundamentals of controlling, motivating, and encouraging a disparate group of kids in the art and science of softball.
Parents learn the logistics of running a youth team and the specifics of coaching softball. They learn how to match drills to a player's skills and motivation level and gain a wealth of detailed instructions on such specifics as how to run a successful practice and manage during a game.
- Takes a drill-based approach to teaching basic skills
- Reviews softball fundamentals for inexperienced parents
Customer Reviews:
Great Book!.......2005-04-22
This book is another great in the series of A Baffled Parent's Guide. These books are thorough and complete - a coach's bible, especially a new coach. The book covers everything from basics of the game to working with the children and dealing with the parents. I highly recommend books from this series.
good book for beginning coaches.......2002-06-23
I have yet to coach a girls' softball team, but I am really interested in doing it. This book has some great advice on how to handle beginner players and their parents. The thing about this book that I found great was that it told you some characteristics to look for when selecting a pitcher, something that I would not have had a clue about doing. Highly recommended.
Excellent for beginner or experienced coach.......2002-05-11
This is an AMAZING book! Even if you have never coached, played, or even heard of softball, it helps you out. It breaks every aspect of the game down and puts it in simple terms so you can explain it to your team. It gives you practice advice and schedules as well as drills you can use for team members to improve, or establish, softball skills. It also gives you advice on how to become the best coach, dealing with gender issues and how to handle difficult parents. This book is a MUST for EVERY coach!
Excellent Coaching Book for New Coaches.......2001-04-28
I am not a parent but nonetheless, this book is excellent! This book gets right down to the heart of coaching. It tells you step by step how to teach someone how to throw, catch, pitch, hit and play every position. It also tells you what type of girl would be good for positions of pitchers and catchers which is important since most girls at this age have no experience in many positions. The drills have diagrams and there is glossary in the back to help with the terminology. There are not that many good softball coaching books (believe me I've looked), so grab this one!
Average customer rating:
- An Epic Journey Toward Honesty
- a new genre
- Achingly True and Elegant
- Just amazing.
- Brilliant...and sad
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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Alison Bechdel
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
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ASIN: 0618477942 |
Book Description
This breakout book by Alison Bechdel takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It's a father-daughter tale pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings andlike Marjane Satrapi's Persepolisa story exhilaratingly suited to the graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift . . . graphic . . . and redemptive.
Customer Reviews:
An Epic Journey Toward Honesty.......2007-10-01
When your father is an exacting home renovator, meticulous interior decorator, local mortician, high shcool English teacher, and closeted homosexual, who you suspect likely had sexual relations with adolescent boys - if you're like most autobiopic authors these days, then you'd probably write your own private hyperbolic "Running With Scissors," throwing everything up against the wall, and crudely splattering your immediate family's history across the pages of your tunnel-visioned, self-promoting, and sensational memoir. But Alison Bechdel is neither an ordinary author nor a poorly educated one. She has both an independently crafted intellect and a capable library of classic literary sources and themes. She does not choose to focus on minutia or overly far-reaching causalities. Her first autobiography is a corncopia of expertly-coordinated art forms, carved into a concise, gravitational, and enlightening narrative.
I highly recommend not only buying and reading this book, but I also encourage studying Bechdel's perspectives, reasoning connections, and causal theories.
This book is a modern heroic quest to find meanings, understandings, and truths in intimate behaviors, wants, and relationships.
Many authors focus on picturesquely and emotionally describing the abnormalities of their past. Bechdel is fully capable of parroting those common abilities. But her aims are further reaching and more well-intended than simply trying for accurate multi-sensory recollection. She goes happily beyond and effectively reveals the origins of some of her creative forces. She sympathetically and honestly portrays the cultural, familial, and private paradoxes that likely disabled so many of her (and our) loved ones who are not ordinary in their desires.
Anyone who incorrectly thinks women can't be visually-centric need only read this book. Bechdel's visual memory is both astounding and rewarding for the rest of us. And her other areas of memory, from smells to feelings to current events to literary quotes in her educational development are indicative of an artist who tries to consider, evaluate, and remember more than most people do. She does not filter her memories through rose colored glasses, but she does effectively step outside status quo lenses to make her own evaluations and portrayals.
Reading some of the recent popular homosexual memoirs, a person might think homosexuals are NOT predominantly driven by love or desire, but rather driven by poor experiences, revenge, whistleblowing, or hatred. Where most authors blame their family and past relationships for their own problems, Bechdel does not. She sees more perspectives and she is better educated than most. Bechdel chooses to not simply blame others for her past OCD, inabilities, and abnormalities, even while she illustrates capably the environment in which those conditions arose.
The title "Fun Home" probably has many intended meanings, like Jeannette Wells memoir entitled "The Glass Castle" has many transparent meanings. Both memoirs speak of fun times, but I think Bechdel sees even more of the good intentions in her father's "mad" pursuits than Wells perceived. Both fathers showed flashes of brilliance mixed with Achilles Heels so notorious, it's a wonder they could walk at all sometimes. And in Wells' defense, at least Bechdel's father was better read and less often intoxicated.
The title "Fun Home" is not singularly intended with negative or sarcastic connotations. Alison Bechdel shows us how she had fun growing up, as much fun as a person could have dealing with the ever present spoken and unspoken, addressed and unaddressed familial conflicts constantly battling in her home.
I think it would be insufficent to call this a young woman's "coming of age" book. It may be more accurate to say this book is about a family coming of age. And I think the publication of this beautiful story is an assertive exercise in encouraging societal sensibilities to come of age.
Bechdel does not seek to excuse all of her father's behaviors, but rather to help others understand them. She wants more people to understand what can happen to very intelligent and talented people when they are incorrectly trained to believe that some of their primary drives and loves are sinful, shameful, or should be killed or hidden. She writes:
"I suppose a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cummulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death. Ulysses, of course, was banned for many years by people who found its honesty obscene."
I felt pretty good that I was able to not cry while reading the book. But after I read the last page, the tears just flowed.
a new genre.......2007-09-26
I didn't know that graphic novels could be so smart. I felt smarter after reading this one, and also very moved by a sad story. This book doesn't have good guys and bad guys, which is how you know it's not a typical comic.
In addition to a great tale, the art is so beautiful. What a tremendous book.
Achingly True and Elegant.......2007-08-25
This memoir could have been called "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" but that title is taken. Nevertheless, that is the most apt description for Fun Home that I can think of. Alison Bechdel's spare prose and simple, black-and-white line drawings convey an emotional complexity that will push buttons for many, if not all, readers because in one way or another most of us suffered childhoods that tested our abilities to make sense of the senseless.
My own childhood was nothing like Bechdel's, yet at the same time it was exactly like hers. All of the details are different, while all of the feelings are the same. I would say that at the heart of Fun Home lies Bechdel's need to justify to herself the love she felt (and continues to feel) for a father who was too wrapped up in his own identity conflicts to even acknowledge, much less help address, his child's. And who was too weak even to live out his full two score and seven, taking his life sometime in his 40s when Bechdel was just out of college.
Bechdel's contempt for her father is apparent, as is her love. She is at once angry and admiring, cynical about his motives and proud of his accomplishments. Her ambivalence is nearly overwhelming, and something that I suspect many of us share in relation to our parents. In the end, I believe, the lucky ones among us come to some inner accommodation wherein we are able to forgive our parents for their lapses, even those that are quite literally sinful, and honor the things they were able to do that live on in our hearts and minds after they are gone.
Fun Home is a beautiful book whose drawings aid the reader's imagination in fleshing out details of an early life that was deeply felt and well lived. I highly recommend it.
Just amazing........2007-08-22
I just want to say, I had never read Alison Bechdel before I read a review of this book in Bitch Magazine. I picked it up and am now a huge fan of hers. This book is incredibly well thought-out and I think that many people will see their own story reflected in hers in that, as a child (as a human for that matter), you see your parents as end-all, be-all, endlessly fascinating human beings...almost as if they were Adam and Eve...It's such a strange paradox in that they existed for a long time before you did, they they do or don't take care of you, that no matter what the status, everyone has parents...you pore over seeminly innocuous details of their lives searching for some "truth", you compare them favorably and unfavorably to other people's parents...you put together pieces of the puzzle for yourself where there is no information...but at the end of the day, they are just people who make mistakes, no more, no less. This story is mainly about a daughter's fascination with her father and his life/secrets, an attempt to get to the root of a completely tragic experience and a reconciliation with herself and her own grief and (misplaced) guilt.
I met Alison at the NYC Comic Con and she was pretty fascinating herself. This book has been a obvious victory for her as well as a labor of love and a harrowing journey. Once I finished this book, I bought the DTWOF books and was bowled over. It's a twenty year long soap opera with aging characters, intricate story lines, whip-smart commentary on social, governmental and civil rights issues, and funny too boot.
Brilliant...and sad.......2007-08-07
This was one of the most engaging and crushingly sad books I've ever read. Most authors are unable to write about agonizing personal history without being mawkish or manipulative. But Bechdel tells a raw and gripping story with not a hint of cheap sentimentality.
Jennifer Parello, author of Dateland
Book Description
Leading a meeting? giving a presentation? Heading a workshop? Icebreakers are great for lightening up the atmosphere at the beginning of a meeting or event, and encouraging everyone to participate fully. This collection of 50 icebreakers is organized around common business situations and is designed to help leaders start every session, meeting, presentation, or workshop with a burst of energy and fun. Includes icebreakers for sales meetings, team building, complete strangers, introducing a topic, staff meetings, groups over 20, outdoor settings, and more. this latest book in the popular Big Book of Business Games series is the most fun yet!
Customer Reviews:
Did not buy this item.......2007-05-03
Don't know why this is here as I never purchased this item.
Inventive but is it practical?.......2003-07-21
My first observation on this book is that it is focused on the large group not the small group. However, the rationale for some of the large group focus seems to flow entirely from a preoccupation with dividing large groups into smaller groups and then applying tasks or games to these subgroups. If you have never thought about working with groups this book may be of some use, but by and large I judged many of the examples were impractical in terms of the time and resources needed to get deploy them.
My key reservation about these icebreaker books is that they are written more to help the presenter break the ice rather than any presumed intra-audience barriers.
reveiw by hands-on trainer.......2000-09-09
This book is packed with icebreakers, but I personally wouldn't use most of them. They border on the "touchy-feely" side, and will only work if your audience is open to that type of activity.
Hot Icebreakers.......2000-03-30
There are so many great ways to get a group started with this book. It's perfect for the people who are inactive and very active. From get-to-know-games to every-day-fun. This book covers business meetings, weekly meetings, workshops, and almost every other type of get-together. The groups sizes go from small to huge. I would definitly recommend this book for any coordinator or leader. Enjoy and have fun!
Book Description
The mastermind behind Apple sheds his low profile and steps forward to tell his story for the first time.
Before cell phones that fit in the palm of your hand and slim laptops that fit snugly into briefcases, computers were like strange, alien vending machines. They had cryptic switches, punch cards and pages of encoded output. But in 1975, a young engineering wizard named Steve Wozniak had an idea: What if you combined computer circuitry with a regular typewriter keyboard and a video screen? The result was the first true personal computer, the Apple I, a widely affordable machine that anyone could understand and figure out how to use.
Wozniak's life—before and after Apple—is a "home-brew" mix of brilliant discovery and adventure, as an engineer, a concert promoter, a fifth-grade teacher, a philanthropist, and an irrepressible prankster. From the invention of the first personal computer to the rise of Apple as an industry giant, iWoz presents a no-holds-barred, rollicking, firsthand account of the humanist inventor who ignited the computer revolution. 16 pages of illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Get to know THE man.......2007-09-26
It's Woz, how can you go wrong? I really enjoyed this book, although I would have enjoyed it a little more if Woz told more up-to-date stories. I know he has a ton, and I was really hoping to learn much more about Woz TODAY. Still, if you want to read about one of the most important people in Computer history, this is a good start.
Disappointed.......2007-08-30
Steve Wozniak is interesting because he helped found Apple. This book is not about that time in his life. It covers it, but only minimally. Less than a quarter of the book covers this time period. In fact, it is over half done before Apple even really gets mentioned. Instead, this book is about Steve Wozniak himself. It's about his high school science projects, his pranks, and his philosophy of life. Steve is a little different than other people and it comes through in this book. He talks very highly of his accomplishments and often frames them as more important or unique than they really were. He did good work, but not all of what he claims he was first to do was he truly first.
I love Steve Wozniak, but this book was just too much about the small things in his life to be interesting to me.
Fun and interesting.......2007-08-12
This is a very enjoyable book that tells a fascinating story, one most of us are only vaguely familiar with. Wozniak comes off likeable. There are laugh out loud segments. You don't have to understand all the computer stuff (although the writer makes the stuff understandable)to grasp the thrill of the ride.
A must read for every engineer.......2007-08-01
Its a book with which you can relate to very easily if you're an engineer. At the end it gets boring when he starts talking about how Apple became big but its the part on how he starts off and how difficult it was for him to get to making computers that makes for a very interesting read. Certainly a book I would recommend every engineer to read!
An interesting overview of the history, but a tad banal.......2007-07-17
The story Woz is telling is engaging and makes iWoz a very enjoyable read, but the structure of the book itself and the method of telling his story just feels like it's either being told to an eight year old or it feels like the author needs to write the subject down to a very basic level. iWoz is filled with phrases like, "I was so proud," "We were so excited," and "I was very excited." Even I feel redundant and excessive just mentioning it but I'm not exaggerating to say that nearly every topic includes several statements like this. As other reviews have said, it doesn't take long - only a few paragraphs - to feel like Woz is bragging and the book is just an expression of ego.
If you can look over this, it is an entertaining overview of his life as an engineer, the early days of personal computing and the beginnings of Apple.
Amazon.com
Many of us pursue fitness because we want to remain attractive to partners and potential partners, and we stay healthy so we can continue to have sex with those partners. But why do people care so much about sex? This book, written by an evolutionary biologist, explains how all the weird quirks of human sexuality came to be: sex with no intention of procreation, invisible fertility, sex acts pursued in private--all common to us, but very different from most other species. Why Is Sex Fun? asks us to look at ourselves in a brand-new way, and richly rewards us for doing so.
Book Description
In Why is Sex Fun? Jared Diamond argues that, in our evolutionary history, humans' strange sex lives were as crucial to our rise to human status as our upright posture and large brain. He explores questions such as, `Why are humans one of the few species to have sex in private? Why do human have sex any day of the month or year? Why are human females one of the only mammals to go through the menopause?' Diamond concludes that, by the standards of the world's 4,300 species, we are the ones that are bizarre.
Why is Sex Fun? is a delightfully entertaining and enlightening account of the evolutionary forces that have shaped our sex lives: of the book Diane Ackerman writes that it offers `fascinating reading for anyone curious about why lovers do what they do'.
Customer Reviews:
Get this book to finally understand the opposite sex.......2007-09-12
Are men and women basically alike, save the obvious physical differences? Absolutely not! This quick read explores the different evolutionary pressures that shape human sexuality. The "Battle of the Sexes" has evolutionary roots millions of years old. Diamond explains how each gender of a given species seeks to leave as many off-spring as possible, and how biological gender differences lead to different strategies and behavior. Diamond convincing promotes an evolutionary paradigm of human sexuality that goes quite far in explaining why men and women act the way they do. Witty and concise throughout, this book is enjoyable and illuminating.
Very good overall.......2007-07-05
There is a bit of overlap in this book with "The Third Chimpanzee," and this is to be expected. (Many of us have noticed that authors tend to cover the same points again and again.) On account of this, it loses one star.
On the good side, this book is very concise and light to read. There are almost no graphs in the book (for maximum simplicity).
The best points:
1. There wwas a good discussion of the process of going about testing a theory/ hypothesis, and though this may need to be read several times to be understood it is something that is interesting to know.
2. There were lots of neat little factoids about animals (such as elephants having 5 sets of teeth over the course of a life).
3. The questions surrouding the function of concealed ovulation were dealt with in a very easy-to-understand way that didn't bog the reader down with excessive technical details.
4. Diamond's beginnings into analyzing the male/ female division of labor were, by far, the best part of the whole book. It was sufficiently quantitative to be believable, but not so much as to be boring.
A misleading title written solely for advertising purposes.......2007-06-24
The book is a blend of "Animal Planet" and Maxim, so at times many of its theories sound more like folk tales than well researched data and at the end you feel that it lacks a clear conclusion. There are many generalizations such as: Women tend to be more responsible with their off spring because they have invested more time and resources on their creation, (ii) That there is a war of the sexes going on, as the reproductive interest of women and males is often at crossroads, as we are more promiscuous and they prefer the company of a single by very well endowed male who could provide security. That ovulation in females is hidden and they are sexually available 24/7 so that their partners will be more inclined to keep them company and not run away looking for sex somewhere else, leaving them abandoned and at peril. Each one of them could be true but at the same time is possible to point out to certain facts which could prove that the premise is wrong. For more interesting observations and analysis buy a book of Desmond Morris.
By they way the book never really tell you why sex is fun (I mean outside the fact that we all know that is fun) and why we humans like to keep it private in practically every society.
Oh, GOD! This is the most stupid book EVER........2007-04-09
How does this man actually get his work published? He is an absolute idiot. This is the most nauseating drivel, I just can't believe anyone can take this guy seriously. He should retire from writing and someone should hide his laptop just incase. Perfectly pointless.
Laughable and Questionable.......2006-10-02
Diamond spends twenty one laughable pages on male lactation. What's next? How about implanting a uterus? After all, men are stronger and could probably carry babies better.
Big game hunting by the males of indigenous tribes was probably more effective when there was more game. But, for Diamond, it leaves the question open as to "What are men good for?"
My question is "What is Jared Diamond good for?"
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- How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle -- How the World's Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers
- In the Night Kitchen (Caldecott Collection)
- Into the Woods (Vocal Score)
- Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History
- La Sombra Del Viento/ the Shadow of the Wind (Autores Espa~noles E Iberoamericanos)
- Landscape as Spirit: Creating a Contemplative Garden
- Magic Lantern Guides: Canon EOS 30D (Magic Lantern Guides)
- Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
- Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook: The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home
- Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers
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