Sink or Swim!: New Job. New Boss. 12 Weeks to Get It Right.

Book Description

In today's job market, getting to "yes" doesn't mean getting a break. Like most new employees today, you'll probably get thrown into your new position with little or no orientation. You'll have to "sink or swim" in the first 90 days-or face termination.
No worries. Sink or Swim shows you how to be a top performer from day one.
"Everyone starting a new job should have this book under their arm at work, next to their plate at dinner, and under their pillow at night." -Jeffrey Fox, author of the national bestseller, How to Become CEO
With week-by-week charts, and straightforward, no B.S. information, Sink or Swim enables you to decode the company's culture, discern what your priorities should be, and survive and thrive in your first twelve weeks-no matter what industry you're in.

Customer Reviews:

Read This and Refer Back.......2007-08-22

Within the first week of starting my new job at a startup internet company, I came across this book and it made all the difference. Working at a startup can often be disjointed, especially since we didn't have an office to call our own. By incorporating some of the advice in my weekly routines, I created a structure for myself that I continue to follow. The advice was clear, concise and right on.

This is definitely a must-read for anyone starting a new job.

Another 5-star review from SF, jeffnc!.......2007-07-03

Pay no attention to Jeffnc, the bitter reviewer from SC! I live in SF and have no idea who the Sidells are, but this book is fascinating! Follow everything they say week by week,a nd you'll get that "This is going very well" at your 90-day review just like me! What's more, you look not only super organized with this book on your desk, but also super-conscientious....I brought this book into a one on one with the boss, and I cracked the book and said "I'd like to talk about my career goals.." she asked me what the book was...she was impressed!

A Great Resource/Tool.......2007-04-10

"Sink or Swim" is the book that I wish I had when I started in the working world over 18 years ago! It is a simple, step-by-step tool that shows new hires how to "get it right in 12 weeks". The week-by-week approach gives individuals the opportunity to set good habits and strategies that can be applied throughout one's career. This book has been very helpful to me as an HR professional in getting my recent college graduate new hires to better engage with the company and job they accepted within it! I would highly recommend this book.

Mediocre.......2006-12-20

Be knowledgeable about your industry. Be knowledgable about your company. Be knowledgeable about your required job skills. Communicate well with people. Set goals for yourself. Dress like others around you dress. Pretty common sense stuff.

By the way, check out some of the other reviews. It's pretty unusual for any book, especially a one like this, to get all 5 star reviews. Look at the earliest 8 reviews. This is the only review that has been written by each of these 8 reviewers. All written on May 8. Almost all from San Francisco/California (interesting that the company founded by the authors is in San Francisco.) A bunch of people from San Francisco just happened to swarm to Amazon on May 8 to give the book a bunch of 5 star reviews. Interesting.

An Excellent Guide that Came in Handy.......2006-09-25

Let me begin by saying that I started a new job, and before the transition, I bought four books on this same topic. I hoped that between all of them, I would learn everything necessary for my first 3 months at my new job.

After having read all of them, I came to the conclusion that I would have saved some money had I only purchased Sink or Swim. It was by far the most comprehensive, week by week guide about how to start a new job and successfully chart your path within the first three months of your new job.

Some of the sage advice includes simple matters like knowing the right time to speak to your boss, the types of conversations you want to have when first being introduced to your new colleagues. Some of the best advice comes in the form of advice for the reader that helps them present the best possible image to others.

Readable, engaging and formatted in a clear reference style, I highly recommend this for anyone who is starting a new job, or for anyone who wants to start their old job, anew.

Average customer rating:

Searching for meaning in the darkness of the human heart.
The human face of the news we don't want to hear...
A stark, beautiful, raw novel
MEDIOCRE
A review from someone not interested in plot or Sri Lankan affairs

Anil's Ghost
Michael Ondaatje
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Running in the Family
In the Skin of a Lion
The English Patient
Ways of Dying: A Novel
Divisadero

ASIN: 0375410538
Release Date: 2000-04-25

Amazon.com

In his Booker Prize-winning third novel, The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje explored the nature of love and betrayal in wartime. His fourth, Anil's Ghost, is also set during a war, but unlike in World War II, the enemy is difficult to identify in the bloody sectarian upheaval that ripped Sri Lanka apart in the 1980s and '90s. The protagonist, Anil Tissera, a native Sri Lankan, left her homeland at 18 and returns to it 15 years later only as part of an international human rights fact-finding mission. In the intervening years she has become a forensic anthropologist--a career that has landed her in the killing fields of Central America, digging up the victims of Guatemala's dirty war. Now she's come to Sri Lanka on a similar quest. But as she soon learns, there are fundamental differences between her previous assignment and this one:

The bodies turn up weekly now. The height of the terror was 'eighty-eight and 'eighty-nine, but of course it was going on long before that. Every side was killing and hiding the evidence. Every side. This is an unofficial war, no one wants to alienate the foreign powers. So it's secret gangs and squads. Not like Central America. The government was not the only one doing the killing.

In such a situation, it's difficult to know who to trust. Anil's colleague is one Sarath Diyasena, a Sri Lankan archaeologist whose political affiliations, if any, are murky. Together they uncover evidence of a government-sponsored murder in the shape of a skeleton they nickname Sailor. But as Anil begins her investigation into the events surrounding Sailor's death, she finds herself caught in a web of politics, paranoia, and tragedy.

Like its predecessor, the novel explores that territory where the personal and the political intersect in the fulcrum of war. Its style, though, is more straightforward, less densely poetical. While many of Ondaatje's literary trademarks are present--frequent shifts in time, almost hallucinatory imagery, the gradual interweaving of characters' pasts with the present--the prose here is more accessible. This is not to say that the author has forgotten his poetic roots; subtle, evocative images abound. Consider, for example, this description of Anil at the end of the day, standing in a pool of water, "her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day, removing layers of events and incidents so they would no longer be within her." In Anil's Ghost Michael Ondaatje has crafted both a brutal examination of internecine warfare and an enduring meditation on identity, loyalty, and the unbreakable hold the past exerts over the present. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing.

The time is our own time. The place is Sri Lanka, the island nation formerly known as Ceylon, off the southern tip of India, a country steeped in centuries of cultural achievement and tradition--and forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war and the consequences of a country divided against itself.

Into this maelstrom steps a young woman, Anil Tissera, born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to work with local officials to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island.

Bodies are discovered. Skeletons. And particularly one, nicknamed 'Sailor.' What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past--all propelled by a riveting mystery.

Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka's landscape and ancient civilization, Anil's Ghost is a literary spellbinder--the most powerful novel we have yet had from Michael Ondaatje.

Download Description

With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. The time is our own time. The place is Sri Lanka, the island nation formerly known as Ceylon, off the southern tip of India, a country steeped in centuries of cultural achievement and tradition--and forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war and the consequences of a country divided against itself. Into this maelstrom steps a young woman, Anil Tissera, born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to work with local officials to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. Bodies are discovered. Skeletons. And particularly one, nicknamed 'Sailor.' What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past--all propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka's landscape and ancient civilization, Anil's Ghost is a literary spellbinder--the most powerful novel we have yet had from Michael Ondaatje.

Customer Reviews:

Searching for meaning in the darkness of the human heart........2007-09-02

"One village can speak for many villages. One victim can speak for many victims" (p. 176).

In its examination of human brutality, this is a powerful novel that searches for meaning in the darkness of the human heart. The horror, one is reminded, the horror. Best known for his Booker Prize winning novel, The English Patient, Philip Ondaatje's (1943) fourth novel, Anil's Ghost (2000), tells the story of 33-year-old Anil Tissera, a westernized native Sri Lankan, who returns to Sri Lanka to investigate claims of international human rights violations in the form of political massacres. The novel is set in the in the 1980s and '90s, while the government, anti-government insurgents, and separatist guerrillas are secretly eradicating the fearful population. With the help of a 49-year-old government archaeologist, Sarath Diyasena, Anil--a forensic anthropologist--attempts to identify skeletal bones (nicknamed Sailor) she suspects are the remains of a recent victim of Sri Lankan governmental murder. "The central truism" of Anil's work is that "you could not find a suspect until you found the victim" (p. 16). As Anil pursues her fact-finding investigation into the mystery surrounding Sailor's death, she becomes intwined in a suspenseful web of politics, paranoia, and tragedy, and it is difficult for her to know who to trust. Even Sarath's motivations are confusing, if not suspect. Through a series of flashbacks, as the title suggests, Anil is forced to confront her own ghosts, which is really the center of Ondaatje's novel. The plot unfolds with the tension of a thriller, and with Ondaatje's characteristic subtle, poetic flourishes along the way. (When he describes the "starkness of the desert" in the rain, you can smell the "toxic quality" of the creosote, pp. 148-49.) It is his stunning writing style that has made me a loyal Ondaatje reader.

G. Merritt

The human face of the news we don't want to hear..........2007-06-29

In order to maintain our sanity, we live on the very margin of our conscience, barely conscious of the world around us. If we want to step deeper inside this world, the revelations will ruin us for the lack of solutions for the ever existent human crises. A mere glimpse into the world will make us longing for the peace of mind we once had, to find an easy solution or forget the truth of life altogether. The absent minded happiness and peacefulness of the middle class is the healthiest/least self-destructive of all available ways to ignore the world. This book is about the people who can't escape the truth, either because they live in the midst of it or because they were thrown in and forced to face it.

Whatever is lacking here in the quality of a solidified prosaic form is irrelevant due to the immediacy of the human tragedy that is happening in Sri Lanka and other countries. Read it just to become part of the real world, nor for any other reason.

A stark, beautiful, raw novel.......2007-05-16

I read this book over two days, and I could hardly put it down. Ondaatje's prose is lyric and clear, evoking so many emotions at once. He creates pictures, and I could feel the environment of his characters. It makes me want to go to Sri Lanka and discover this culture. Yet I also understand that all of us are in the human experience together, with the love we share with one another, and the pain we use to control one another. A gorgeous novel. Thank you Mr. Ondaatje.

MEDIOCRE.......2007-02-09

Some parts of the book weren't bad and it tells something about the war in Sri Lanka then flashes back to the skeleton man named Sailor that was found. Too vague and too much flashing back and I didn't care for the end. Some parts I really got into and were interesting but other parts were boring. I was dissapointed somewhat in this one. Didn't care for the plot. Would I read it again, NADA.

A review from someone not interested in plot or Sri Lankan affairs.......2006-12-09

I came across "Anil's Ghost" more or less by accident. An acquaintance of mine gave me the book, I sat down with it and found myself rattled. Not, however, by the brutal and monotonous descriptions of wounds and traumas the author uses to drive in his anti-war message - if you read, expect to spend plenty of time in hospitals. Nor by the loose plot: many of the very greatest novelists (Musil, Cortazar, Kundera, to name a few) wrote books "about nothing," although there is a difference between not going for plot and trying but failing. The characters, by the way, did not intrigue me, even the ones, Palipana for instance, with a little depth.

But it was the style that bothered me, the style and the praise heaped on it by authorities no lower than The New York Times Book Review. The prose of "Anil's Ghost" is simple. Too simple. Now we know, of course, an entire range of lauded simplicities in literature, from the noble harmony of Lord Dunsany to the gruff brevity of Hemingway. Come to think of it, Ondaatje's is somewhat like the latter - minus the concentrated, stored energy, where the durable power of a phrase stands in inverse proportion to the length of it. Ondaatje tries to speak of war and mutilations and fear with the terse language of a medical investigator, which is, of course, exactly who Anil herself is. Yet, having left Sri Lanka long before the civil unrest, Ondaatje is the sort of Hemingway who knows bulls by hearsay. There is no sense of a close, lived-in familiarity behind the lush exotics. The simplicity of sentence structure ("She went, he did not think" etc.) reveals in this case a sort of poverty rather than a need to pack experience tightly.

After all, Ondaatje tells very little of the actual situation in Sri Lanka. Others have already noted how the book leaves us in the dark as to the particulars, the "beef" of the conflict: the who, the where, the why. Ninjas all of the fighters, looks like. It may be "poetically" appealing to think that war begets war, and something like this Ondaatje says, yet it is true only on the level of personal vindictiveness. A novelist is in position (perhaps it is a unique position) to take a broader view, rise over the grief and pain of those actually involved and extract, with the necessary cruelty, some meaning out of the mess - not a prediction or an easy recipe but at least a diagnosis. Then, perhaps, the suffering of Sri Lanka would present itself in terrible colors to us - something that mere gruesomeness of gore can no longer achieve. It is a cliché that we have all been anesthetized by violence on the TV screen, and a novelist must turn journalist to bring back the sense of dreadful reality. To do that in earnest, however, would require a different eye and a longer book.

In "Anil's Ghost" the Sri Lankan conflict comes across as a plot device for a plot that doesn't exist.

One alternative to journalism is, of course, character and textual study, a careful management of all levels of one's writing. From novel to novella and across the genres, there is space for allusions, for breaking sentences up, for humor and idiosyncrasy. Sarath, Anil, even Sailor could be actors in a drama. War or peace, the human mind is a fine and inept thing, bloated and full of itself, ironic, branching into minute obsessions, habits and rituals, not random, but bound and indebted to each other by history. The way someone ties his shoes can speak volumes... but not this volume. Ondaatje does not choose this second path, nor a third one - he builds dialogues and chooses mannerisms according to rules of symbolism. As a result, even quirks such as Anil's past as a "swimmer" and her dance in the rain much later in the book begin to MEAN something - embracing her heritage, in this case. Everything fits a little too smoothly into Ondaatje's general plan. When characters spell out some kind of message, it is a sure sign that the writer lacks interest in them for their own sake. The war in "Anil's Ghost," then, is not a backdrop for character study. But if Sri Lanka is neither scenery nor, in its total vagueness, the subject of the novel, what is it?

Something is wrong, something is lacking, and I'm searching here for that missing element. Why is it, I ask myself, that I only give it 3 stars (which it deserves, not being a "bad book")? How did Ondaatje annoy me into reviewing? And the best I can come up with is the following: there is something monstrous about writing, something involving a re-arrangement of consciousness into new forms, something similar to re-making a world. To write fiction is not to simply to tell what happens or might/would have happened. It is to trap with words, to draw into a realm that breathes and moves in a kind of unsettling semi-independence. A novel is a cat of hidden and delicate tastes - where it goes, no one knows, and it starves on a diet of INTENTIONS - especially on the thin milk of ideology. This is all quite generic, not too helpful and, of course, whether an attempt to breed a world succeeds cannot be seen in advance. Yet, if successful, the true masterpiece more fairly deserves, and more easily carries, the accusations of solipsism and density than the sort of insufficiency that gasps on these pages.

To conclude, I was reading Bytov's "Pushkin House" the other day. (Aside: it's funny how mediocre novels get 169 reviews - 170 with this one, and counting, but one of the most magnificent pieces of Russian literature has received exactly -1- comment. At least it's five stars.) This phrase of Bytov's drew my eye: "...The writing was plain, but with occasional lucky finds, which he seized on, developed and so nearly approached artistry..." I remembered it now in connection with the "lucky finds" of Ondaatje, who has put out thirteen books of poetry. Beauty frequents "Anil's Ghost": the vigor that Ondaatje's prose is missing bubbles in his metaphors. He should have assembled them into a fourteenth collection instead.

This contrast between prose and poetry in "Anil's Ghost" is bewildering. What is more, the figures are more often than not superfluous - not to say excessive, but they do little for the rest of the scene. Frequently they are inappropriate for the context or just make little sense, Ondaatje being too preoccupied with the "lucky find" itself to examine it. I quote from page 101: "She had one arm up, holding on to the rafter above her head. She herself felt like a whip that could leap out and catch something in its long finger." Feeling like a whip, ready to catch, is intuitively correct and understandable, but comparing a whip to a finger is, I think, "wrong." It does not work - the things compared operate in completely different ways. Both are long already, granted, but a whip lashes out, and even when it snatches (think Indiana Jones), it is flexible, tail-like or, perhaps, trunk-like.

A finger, on the other hand, is thicker, can snatch nothing by itself and bends only one way. Then there is the dubious grammar of "catch IN the finger." Ondaatje bravely takes these risks, but the two images, juxtaposed side by side in a reader's imagination, are not likely to mesh very well, or all that well. In short, the metaphor is so-so. Yet in this instance and always Ondaatje seems to be of the opinion that the more, the merrier, and that better a random figure than none at all. He is not aware of the silent crowd-like presence of the surrounding text, whose approval is the rite of passage for a sentence.

At other times he simply does not know when to quit. Consider the quote from the Amazon review: "...her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day, removing layers of events and incidents so they would no longer be within her." Beautiful, yes, although there is something with perspective here (reading, I never knew whose voice I heard, it seemed neither the author's nor the characters'). And the question of fitness remains. No sentence is an island: what does this one aim to do, what does it follow, in what does it result, are these all important in the overall melody and in the melody of the scene... the author never shows a sensibility for looking that far.

Assuming no conflicts there, how I wish Ondaatje had STOPPED after the word "day"! "Her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day." Nothing more: one could end a paragraph, an entire chapter with this. The second half of the sentence adds nothing new. And while something can be said for "layers," the glorious expression "undressed the day" comes just before it, leaving the reader no respite, no two-second break to catch his breath, climb down from the height of admiration for "stripped" into the quiet gulf between it and "layers." There he could combine the two figures, observe them together for double the fun. But the tropes blend, overreach, and the result is begging for excision.

And yet it is considered "quite well-written"... Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

On the other hand, I suppose it is good to know that someone can still produce imagery, even if he does not know what to do with it. Better misplaced poetry than another Grisham - that unhappy sentiment, I would guess, usually funds the praise reviewers heap on the countless books they must sort out. The bar has been seriously lowered... Near the beginning I mentioned a few of the literary giants. It is hard to say how they would fare with today's critics. Would "The Man Without Qualities" earn "acclaim," when a book such as this earns it as well? Is there some greater badge of merit, some superlative award and reward? Even the Nobel Prize falls into odd hands sometimes. Really, what kind of fame can the most talented writer on Earth (let us imagine him) hope for in the year 2006 or 2007? But, perhaps, the hour is too late for the label "great literature" to be assigned.

Average customer rating:

A real page turner
Who did kill Dr. Buckwalter? Was it the obvious, or not?
Jance Can't Seem to Tie This One Together
Dead is Exciting!
Great - Except for Chapter 20

Dead to Rights (A Joanna Brady Mystery)
J.A. Jance
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Shoot Don't Shoot: A Joanna Brady Mystery
Skeleton Canyon: A Joanna Brady Mystery
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Rattlesnake Crossing
Outlaw Mountain: A Joanna Brady Mystery

ASIN: 0380724324

Amazon.com

The best thing about Jance's books is Joanna Brady who became an Arizona county sheriff after her father and husband died on the job. Jance can move Brady from an exciting, dangerous scene on one page to a sensitive, touching personal moment on the next. In her latest outing, Brady is looking into two major crimes. But that doesn't stop her from giving a terrific speech about why selling Girl Scout cookies gave her confidence, or worrying about a friend trying to adopt a child in China, or even finally beginning to understand what makes her annoying mother tick. Earlier books in the Brady series: Desert Heat, Tombstone Courage, Shoot, Don't Shoot. Jance also authors the popular J.P. Beaumont series, which includes Dismissed With Prejudice, Failure to Appear, Lying in Wait, Name Withheld, Without Due Process.

Book Description

A woman is cruelly cut down in a remote corner of Arizona, killed on her nineteenth wedding anniversary by a drunk motorist. A year later, the driver himself dies badly, and all suspicions point to the slain woman's still grieving husband as his murderer. But the truth is rarely black and white in the long Southwestern shadows, and one law officer is not rushing to condemn the tragic widower so quickly: Joanna Brady, Sheriff of Cochise County. Brady's convictions, however, are leading her on a twisted trail through inhospitable country -- and setting her on a path that will bring her face-to-face with cold, calculating death in the high, lonely desert.

Customer Reviews:

A real page turner.......2007-10-03

An interesting book about Joanna Brady right after she became sherrif. Having read books that came after this one, it was nice to have the back story.

Who did kill Dr. Buckwalter? Was it the obvious, or not?.......2007-06-20

In the beginning of the book, Hal Morgan and his wife of 10 years are celebrating a wonderful 10th wedding anniversary. But it all comes to a very tragic end when Bucky Buckwalter, the veterinary doctor in Bisbee Arizona, kills Hal's wife in a hit and run after he is stone drunk that night. All Bucky receives as a punishment is a hefty fine and a few days in jail. Hal Morgan wants to strike back, so he is targeting Dr. Buckwalter's vet practice for ways to get him back. There is a fire set one day at the clinic, and when Joanna Brady discovers this, she knows there are several injured, and finds right away almost that Bucky is dead.
Knowing that Hal had been hanging out there, right away he becomes a suspect in this murder. But he is not the only one under suspicion. Terry Buckwalter, Bucky's wife seems all too happy that Bucky is dead.

Joanna slowly uncovers the whole picture that Bucky was very unhappy in his marriage and having an affair with Bebe Noonan, who is actually pregnant with his child at the time of his death. With this information she has her doubts that Hal Morgan was the actual killer on the scene, but there are other things she has yet to uncover.

The chase is on toward the end of the book, and if Joanna and her other senior cops on the team don't act quickly, the real killer may escape town.

Jance Can't Seem to Tie This One Together.......2006-08-25

The theme of the plot & story are very good, but after reading Rattlesnake Crossing, this was a disappointment. Maybe Jance is trying to develop her characters & their relationships here. But there is so much superfluous dialogue it becomes boring. A couple pages later you get lucky & she returns you to the story. A previous reviewer stated his least favorite chapter was #20. I agree. Unfortunately Chapter 20 is where the book's climax takes place. More superfluous nonsense in the middle of the story with the introduction, ever so briefly, of another character & a dog. Unneeded fluff. The book falls flat on it's face in it's ability to tie the story together well at the end. Possibly Jance was so distracted by other dialogue. Save your time & money unless you need a sleeping pill. Dead to Rights will put you out in short time

Dead is Exciting!.......2005-04-15

The character of Joanna Brady keeps growing on the reading audience and J.A. Jance has created another winner with this series.

This book picks up the life of Joanna Brady a few months after her husband was killed and shortly after she's elected as the new Sheriff of Cochise County in Arizona (actually this is the fourth book in the series following DESERT HEAT, TOMBSTONE COURAGE, and SHOOT, DON'T SHOOT). This tale is another fast paced journey into not only Joanna's life as sheriff, but also through her personal life as well.

The main storyline revolves around the killing of a veterinarian, Bucky Buckwalter, and the new sheriff is once again tossed in the middle of turmoil. You'd think the murder investigation would be enough, but add in the facts that the prime suspect is a former cop and Bucky had killed the guy's wife a few years before while driving intoxicated and only received a slap on the wrist for his crime. Bad enough? Jance didn't think so, so then she inserts the fact that the two of them have had heated public arguments that Joanna didn't think needed intervention by the sheriff's office. Some in her department, looking for any excuse available to disrespect the new boss, are implying that she was ineffective and basically allowed the murder to happen. Ok, now it's getting more interesting but Jance still doesn't stop. Since all of the evidence conveniently points directly to Hal Morgan (the husband bent on revenge), Joanna feels it's a little too easy and investigates the case herself. Ok, now we have the makings of a great J.A. Jance mystery!

If you haven't read this series yet, that could be a good thing. You can begin reading now and when you finish one book you can easily obtain the next line. For those of us who've read each one as they've come out, it can be a difficult wait while J.A. Jance and the publishers perfect the next book. A difficult wait yes, but it will most certainly be worth the time you've anxiously awaited its arrival.

Great - Except for Chapter 20.......2004-05-10

Dead to Rights tells the story of a very bad week in the life of Sheriff Joanna Brady. Still trying to cope with the murder of her late husband, Sheriff Brady also has to cope with murder, suicide, undocumented aliens, a weaselly governor, workplace squabbling , and hostile newspaperfolk. Add to that enough mother-daughter conflict and examples of marital frustration to rival The Joy Luck Club, and you've got a novel that keeps things hopping.

The only area in which the book falls short is when it reveals the murderer of Bucky Buckwalter. I've read Chapter 20 several times and motivations still don't make a lot of sense.

This book has a great deal of character development in it, as well as the advancement of several of the ongoing subplots. If you've read later books, but not this one you'll find it helpful in its detailing, among other things, Marianne Maculyea's adoption experience, how Jenny gets Kiddo the horse, Butch Dixon coming on the scene, and Eleanor and Doc Winfield hooking up.

While the mystery falls a little flat at the end, Jance does an excellent job keeping the pace up and developing her characters and storylines. While I wouldn't suggest this as the first Joanna Brady novel you read - pick up Desert Heat or Partners in Crime for that - this is definitely a don't-miss book.

Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia
Average customer rating:
Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia
Neal Nicol , and Harry Wylie
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0299217108

Book Description

Dr. Jack Kevorkian—the enigmatic and intrepid physician dubbed "Dr. Death"—has for years declined public interviews about his life and the events that led him to be a vehement advocate of doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. But here, finally, is his own life story, as told to Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie.
Dr. Kevorkian gained international notoriety in the 1990s for his passionate advocacy of choice for terminal patients, who have increasingly won the right to decide the time, place, and method of their own death in several western countries. In 1998, he assisted Thomas Youk, a terminally ill patient suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, with a lethal injection that was broadcast on CBS's 60 Minutes. Immediately thereafter, Kevorkian was arrested, charged with second-degree murder, tried, and sentenced to 10-25 years in Michigan's maximum-security prison system.
Today, Dr. Kevorkian is in his late seventies and in failing health himself. He shares an eight-by-twelve-foot cell with another inmate in the Thumb Correctional Facility at Lapeer, Michigan. The unique story Prisoner Number 284797 shares far exceeds the battle to legalize euthanasia and end human suffering for terminal patients. "Personal choice is really what it is all about. Quality of life, as opposed to maintaining existence" (Kevorkian to Vanity Fair, 1994)

Co-published with Vision, U.K.

Dead To Rights (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

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Dead To Rights (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)
Prima Development
Manufacturer: Prima Games
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0761539417
Release Date: 2002-08-27

Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature

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Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature
Catherine Osborne
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0199282064

Book Description

Animal rights do not feature explicitly in ancient thought. Indeed the notion of natural rights in general is not obviously present in the classical world. Plato and Aristotle are typically read as racist and elitist thinkers who barely recognise the humanity of their fellow humans. Surely they would be the last to show up as models of the humane view of other kinds? In this unusual philosophy book, Catherine Osborne asks the reader to think again. She shows that Plato's views on reincarnation and Aristotle's views on the souls of plants and animals reveal a continuous thread of life in which humans are not morally superior to beasts; Greek tragedy turns up thoughts that mirror the claims of rights activists when they speak for the voiceless; the Desert Fathers teach us to admire the natural perceptiveness of animals rather than the corrupt ways of urban man; the long tradition of arguments for vegetarianism in antiquity highlights how mankind's abuse of other animals is the more offensive the more it is for indulgent ends. What, then, is the humane attitude, and why is it better? How does the humane differ from the sentimental? Is there a truth about how we should treat animals? By reflecting on the work of the ancient poets and philosophers, Osborne argues, we can see when and how we lost touch with the natural intelligence of dumb animals.

Where Did I Go Right? : You're No One In Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead

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REALLY JUST A SALESMAN, AFTER ALL THE FUSS!!
Brillstein is as a big a star as those he represents
Unexpectedly Touching
Passably interesting but...
Readable, but not essential reading.

Where Did I Go Right? : You're No One In Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead
Bernie Brillstein , and David Rensin
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0316118850

Amazon.com

"My wink is binding," Bernie Brillstein writes in the middle part of his memoir of a career in showbiz. At this point the movie-star manager has already admitted that he wanted power and prestige as soon as he started in the William Morris agency mailroom. And that he chased after a Don Corleone-ish kind of respect afterward. But even when he became a clout-carrying manager and near-mogul he kept his people-first credo. You suspect he loves it too for the way it echoes the Borscht Belt, since that's the kind of verbal energy he draws on throughout this anecdote-crammed autobiography. He calls himself "show," but in four decades he had to be "business" too, tough enough to tell clients, as he says he did, when to start their career over from scratch. The book begins with a graphically honest memory of his visit to the proctologist with his family when he was 24--something he guffaws off, but it's probably not far from the sort of reality check he regularly gave clients like Jim Henson, Norm Crosby, Lorne Michaels, John Belushi, and Brad Pitt. He cops to a gambling addiction, a love of "high class call girls," and to the way he stole from Laugh-Into invent Hee Haw. But he also brokered Lorne Michael's big break with SNL, produced Dangerous Liaisons, and eventually got News Radio and The Sopranos on the air. He candidly assesses professional pains too, including Michael Ovitz's pathology, Garry Shandling's riddling neuroses, and the loss of Belushi and Henson. "I care," he writes finally, "because that's who I am." It's easy to smile at that, but by the end of the book it's also easy to believe he means it. --Lyall Bush

Book Description

Bernie Brillsteins forty-five-year career has allowed him to work with and nurture many world-class talents, including John Belushi, Jim Henson, Dan Aykroyd, and Martin Short. Brillstein speaks out for the first time about the lives and deaths of his clients. He teaches the art of the deal, show business ethics, and reveals behind-the-scenes stories with his humour and savvy.

Customer Reviews:

REALLY JUST A SALESMAN, AFTER ALL THE FUSS!!.......2001-03-28

Because we're so star-struck in America, we tend to be overly impressed with ShowBiz and the people who inhabit that world. But as charming, determined and persistent a personality Mr. Brillstein may be, he's essentially just a salesman - NOT the creator, but a "dealmaker" of the ShowBiz Old School - and after almost 400 pages, I found he'd worn thin his welcome! However dramatic it may have been FOR HIM to accompany John Belushi's body back East, or "duke it out" with the Big Boys in corporate takeovers while at Lorimar, the emotions are thinly drawn and shallow in this book. Brillstein made me less than intrigued with his machinations, unimpressed by his self-aggrandizing spin on events and ultimately unsympathetic to his life challenges. (His obvious misogyny doesn't help, either - he has no use for women outside of the sack, it appears.) Here's another absurdly fortunate, rich powerful older man feeling sorry for himself because time changes everything? I'd have hoped he'd have learned to adjust better to the slings and arrows of life by the time he got to his 60s and 70s!

This book was distressing to me because I REALLY WANTED to LIKE the guy - but I found I couldn't. He's kinda ordinary, and once you remove the "famous" names and large amounts of money, his anecdotes are kinda ordinary! He's not terribly brilliant, sage or extraordinary in any other way than being sublimely LUCKY! I gave the book 3 stars, because it's certainly not dreck, but for inspiration or insight, I'd advise looking elsewhere!

Brillstein is as a big a star as those he represents.......2001-03-07

I'm not sure what drove me to buy the Brillstein book. I had heard of him of years, but wasn't sure that a managers tale was all that interesting. Oh, but is! This book is filled with humor, honesty, and and ego. Bernie seems like a terrific guy and he tells fantastic stories. Some are filled with love: Belushi, Radner, etc. Others venom (and these are the most fun, he pulls no punches): Ovitz, Shandling (more would have better on this), etc. You learn about the inside story of Hee Haw, The Muppets, SNL, and Lorimar. My favorite stuff was about Jim Henson, rarely have I seen so much great stuff written about one of my heroes.

While this may not be a roast, I raise my glass to Big Bernie and the wonderful life he has led. Thanks for sharing.

Unexpectedly Touching.......2000-12-04

I found myself unexpectedly touched by this autobiography. Having read it, I consider Bernie Brillstein a friend. With no self-praise, Brillstein shows himself to be a man of decency, of compassion, of empathy. He began in his profession as an agent at William Morris, dreaming of representing mid-Century comics such as Jackie Gleason and Jackie Gale. When he left William Morris, he became a personal manager, starting the careers of dozens of entertainers who have become household names. The stories Bernie has to tell! He survived--there's no other word--until the end of the century, representing Jim Henson, Lorne Michaels, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd and, as the saying goes, a cast of thousands along the way. He created HEE HAW and greenlighted THE SOPRANOS, headed a movie studio for a short time, got fired, picked himself up and started again. His very life has been the personification of the entertainment business; there are few who exceeded his success. And he is the one having the last laugh: He's still here! But along with the chronological report of his professional experience, what he was thinking, how he pulled it off, there is this man, this basically sweet and decent man, and that's what shines through his book. I enjoyed reading about Bernie's fascinating life.

Passably interesting but..........2000-10-29

A passably interesting look into life of an "old school" agent/manager with some real insights into his client's lives and the behind-the-scenes machinations of Hollywood. WARNING: You'll have to wade through a considerable amount of self-aggrandizment that I found tremendously off-putting toward the end. It's a rare occasion when I don't finish a book but I found myself skipping through the last third and ultimately bailed out with just a few chapters to go.

Readable, but not essential reading........2000-09-07

There's really no good insider showbiz tips or amazing gossip here. I found the book to be readable -- meaning I kept on reading once I picked it up but at any time I could have stopped and not felt like I was going to be missing a golden nugget.

Book Description

Twenty years ago Madeline Barker's father disappeared. Despite what everyone else thinks, Madeline's convinced her stepfamily had nothing to do with it. But the recent discovery of his car finally proves he didn't just drive away. Worse, the police find something in the trunk that says there's more to this case than murder.

With no other recourse, Madeline decides to hire a private investigator—even if the cops don't like it. Even if her family doesn't like it. But when P.I. Hunter Solozano begins to uncover some shocking evidence, someone in Stillwater is determined to put a stop to Madeline's search for the truth.

And that means putting a stop to her. Permanently.

Customer Reviews:

Captivating right to the end!.......2007-09-26

This is the 3rd book of the Stillwater Trilogy.

Brenda Novak sustains the suspense right through the end of this book by pulling no punches. The story line is both heart wrenching and gruesome at times. She continues to grow the characters that were fleshed out in the previous two installments, and creates an unforgettable character in Madeline Barker. She also continues to illustrate how the actions of Reverand Barker still effect the lives of the residents of Stillwater.

In this book, the main characters Madeline Barker and Hunter Solozano are both flawed - Madeline's unflappable belief in her father and Hunter's past are both used to develop the characters and to move the story line along. It's Madeline's coming to terms with the truth about her father that drives the plot forward in a gut wrenching manner.

I highly recommend this book. I guarantee that you won't be able to put it down. It is written in such a way that the characters will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

Finally in Dead Right, we have the conclusion to the mystery.......2007-09-23

Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

When Rev Lee Barker disappeared twenty years ago, everyone was convinced his stepfamily, the Montgomeries, was responsible. Everyone but Madeline Barker that is. How could a family who was so kind to her and took her in after her father disappeared, ever be capable of killing someone? But when Rev Barker's car is recovered from the old quarry, Maddy can't stand not knowing anymore and hires a private investigator to find the answers, much to the Montgomeries' dismay.

Hunter Solozano needs to escape for a while and recover from his nasty divorce and an ugly custody battle over their daughter. He needs something other than the liquor bottle to occupy his days and nights. He reluctantly takes on Maddy's case, not convinced he'll find anything worthwhile after so many years, but unwilling to refuse the desperate plea in her eyes. However, the discovery of a bag full of questionable... and sexual... items from the trunk of Barker's car leads Hunter to believe there is far more to this case than anyone imagined.

As the ugly facts reveal themselves bit by bit, someone out there will do anything to stop Maddy from uncovering the truth. Hunter is the only one who can protect her but as he spends more time with her he realizes he's getting a lot more than he bargained for, what could quite possibly be a second chance at love.

Finally in Dead Right, we have the conclusion to the mystery. Granted, we readers have known from the beginning what really happened to the reverend, but the real story is finding out the full depravity of which the reverend was capable, and Maddy's quest to find the truth, one that is far worse than she ever could have imagined. Then there is the added factor, even though never really mentioned before this story, that someone had to be "helping" him with his activities since someone had to have taken those pictures! So in Dead Right, this all comes to the forefront as the mystery person will do anything to prevent the truth from coming out.

Poor Madeline. Her entire life has been colored by her father's disappearance and that has affected everything she says and does. She is such a kind hearted soul that she can't even imagine the atrocities some people will commit. It doesn't help that her opinion of her father has morphed over the years into hero worship, causing her to complete forget that the man had his faults, even if she never knew the worst of them. As more and more evidence comes to light about the kind of person her father was, we can see her entire world crumble down around her. My heart has cried out to her character from our first meeting in Dead Silence and I hated the thought of what the truth would do to her. Fortunately, she is a strong woman with a will of steel and this strength is what helps her to face the truth and rebuild her relationships with her family.

Hunter has his own personal demons to face, though nothing quite like Maddy has to overcome. His life collapsed around him with the breakup of his marriage (which was far from perfect already) and more importantly, the custody battle over his daughter. Novak hits the nail on the head with how she writes about the situation. It's sad but true how many parents will put their children through such emotional agony, just so they can feel vindicated when they negotiations are over. Hunter needs to overcome his perceived failures in his marriage and his growing dependence on alcohol. Meeting Maddy helps him to overcome his difficulties and gives him a sense of worth again.

Of course, the entire Montgomery clan is back in this final installment in the Stillwater trilogy, and finally can find peace. I felt awful for Grace having to confront her past again as the discoveries in the trunk of the car bring back all her awful memories of what Rev Barker did to her. Clay also had his struggles in Dead Right as the suffering of his sisters reminds him of everything he did to protect them and save them from the grief. He has dedicated his entire adult life to preventing the problems brought on by the truth getting out, and here that's exactly what happens.

The best part about Dead Right however is how it shows each and every one of us that we are stronger than we think. We can face anything thrown our way, if only we have the healing power of love (family, friend and romantic) to fall back on and ease our pain. At the end of the story we are left with a feeling of hope for the Montgomery clan, knowing that they will heal and be all the stronger together as a result.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, August 2007. All rights reserved.

Awesome end to a great series.......2007-09-17

When her reverend father's car is pulled from a quarry, Madeline Barker is not ready to give up on believing that her father will someday return. Worried that her step brother Clay Montgomery will once again be the #1 suspect, she decides - against her family's wishes - to hire a private investigator to locate her father and the culprit behind his disappearance. Hunter Solozano is known as the PI that can find anything or anyone. He immediately steps on toes in the small Mississippi town that would rather solve their own mystery than let someone from California surfer dude do it. Hunter and Madeline are instantly attracted to each other, and to save money on expenses, she offers to have him stay in her guest house. But his close proximity is wreaking havoc on her emotions. When girl's panties turn up in the trunk of the reverend's car, no one believes that they can belong to the reverend, except for a select few that were there the night he disappeared, as well as his partner in crime. Suddenly everything that Madeline has left of her father is shrouded in doubt and she counts on Hunter more than ever to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, every clue Hunter uncovers could be bring heartache to Madeline when she learns the truth.

At times pretty gruesome due to the nature of the crime, Novak has ended the Stillwater trilogy with a bang. From book to book, each of the characters have retained the same personality (which is often not the case in a series). All the usual suspects are back and further insight into Barker's unscrupulous yet well hidden character are fully developed.

Dead Right ON.......2007-09-17

If you like romantic suspense, you're going to love Dead Right by Brenda Novak. After building the suspense of whether it was going to come out who killed Madeline Barker's father and what that is going to do to Maddie and building wonderful characters, we finally get into Maddie's head and meet hot Hunter Solozano! You're in for a ride and a great read! A ride that takes twists and turns you won't expect!

Dead Right (Stillwater Trilogy.......2007-09-16

First let me say that I have enjoyed everything that I have read by Brenda Novak. This was a great series. The characters were well developed but left you wanting to read more, so I was so glad that Grace, Clay and Madeline each had their own book. Each was affected differently by Reverend Baker, their step father and in Madeline's case father. Their lives changed so much with his murder. I really liked the ending to this book. Without saying too much and giving anything away, Brenda Novak doesn't just end the book with a HEA. She lets you worry about that for at least a few pages! I strongly recommend that you buy this series. I honestly cannot say I enjoyed one book over the other I enjoyed them all.

Average customer rating:

Animal Abuse and Art
Polemic by artist with seriously warped view of life
meet your meat
Haunting Pictures
Animal lovers unite.

Dead Meat
Sue Coe
Manufacturer: Four Walls Eight Windows
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 156858041X

Amazon.com

British artist Sue Coe is well known for her social and political paintings and illustrations, which appear regularly in such publications as the New York Times and the New Yorker. Her latest effort is the disturbing book Dead Meat, a visual record of Coe's visits to 40 slaughterhouses, cattle ranches, and hatcheries to document the grisly practices of the meat-packing industry. Although she was not allowed to photograph on the premises, she was permitted to draw and sketch, and much of this work is jarringly graphic. Incorporated with the artwork are her thoughts and observations laid out in diary form. Even if you don't agree with Coe's politics, this is social and political art at its most powerful, in the tradition of Goya, Daumier, and Rockwell Kent.

Customer Reviews:

Animal Abuse and Art.......2005-05-30

This book comes from someone with an animal rights background and a background in the arts as well. The images are so well done,perfectly disturbing and the stories,truthful and profound. A great read for anyone that wants to know the truth behind the industry.

Polemic by artist with seriously warped view of life.......2004-02-17

I purchased this book because I like deviant art, but this one goes beyond deviant..it's just crazed and illogical. I'd like to state for the record that I have personally killed and helped gut hundreds of chickens. When you are hungry and dealing with the processing of a winter food supply, sentimentality is a luxury you can ill afford. I did not believe then nor do I believe now that chicken killers are "Nazis" perpetuating a holocaust. Sue Coe exaggerates the grim reality of farm animal slaughter, taking it to grotesque extremes. By attributing human-like emotions to the animals, she tries to get her audience to identify with the victims and respond with pity. Her portrayal is more melodramatic than accurate. In fact Sue Coe, like many animal activists, exhibits an almost unhealthy obsession with pain, death, blood, and torture. The animal rights purity trip allows these gothic animal rights types to guiltlessly wallow in their perversions in the name of a "good" cause. I don't have any problems with kinky art per se but Sue Coe just goes over the top with her sanctimonious go-veg shock tactics. While some of the drawings are strictly representational most of them seem self-indulgent and just plain nuts at times. It's actually a valuable book for the non-believer trying to understand the animal rights mentality, that's why I am giving it two stars. Perhaps Sue Coe reveals more of that mentality than she really intended. If I was a parent who found this book in a pre teen's room, I'd be seriously concerned. Sue Coe is definitely not for everyone.

meet your meat.......2003-11-17

Sue Coe's daring and disturbing voyages through the average day in the lives of the people and animals involved in the factory farming industry. This is the book that converted me to Veganism.

Though I am wary about drawing comparisons to the Holocaust, Sue Coe exposes the primitive, barbaribaric and ignorant side of 'civilized' human society that made the Holocaust to happen, the very same side of human nature that minute by minute allows the systematic torture, neglect and abuse of rights of sentient beings to go on, in secrect, out of sight of our dinner tables. The hellish world of factory farming is graphically exposed by first hand accounts and dark drawings.

To her credit Coe's accounts in the main remain focused and unsentimental, though one wonders how, with the things she witnessed, when her drawings alone are enough to get inside your head. This book should be categorised under 'Educational' and should be used as a text book in schools. Meat eaters, I challenge you not to defend your guilt in ignorance, educate yourselves, read this book.

Haunting Pictures.......2001-12-04

Some of the pictures in this book will stay with you for a long time, some may even make meat-eaters turn vegetarian. But, even more so than the pictures, the description of the horror of factory farms - to the animals and the workers - will disgust anyone with a heart.
I reccommend this book to longtime vegetarians, new vegetarians, and also to people who are just interested in maybe trying vegetarianism.
(...)

Animal lovers unite........2001-07-09

If you are passionate about animals, you must read this book. The drawings alone tell the story. The introduction is very educational and will enlighten you. This book is very informative in the body and the drawings and a must read for anyone. It explains the horror that goes on in the slaughterhouses and even gives you a tour through them. I learned more from this book than any other in my personal library on this subject.

The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics

Average customer rating:

Great premise, surprisingly poor execution
Great book and a wake up call to real intellectual debate and study
excellent popular exposition
Who's in charge and why?
Lacks Insight, Replaces Analysis With Ad Hominem

The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics
Norman Kelley
Manufacturer: Nation Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Devil and Dave Chappelle: And Other Essays
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ASIN: 1560255846

Book Description

Al Sharpton’s entrance into the 2004 Democratic presidential race is evidence of a decaying black political culture where ego trumps politics. It is the last gasp of a tradition that has been transformed over a generation from bold, effective and results-oriented politics to rhetoric and symbolism, argues crime writer and social commentator Norman Kelley. As Kelley shows, what Sharpton covets is the sobriquet—The Head Negro in Charge (HNIC), a symbolic political mobilization that replaces effective politics and organizing. “The HNIC syndrome has seen the rise of symbolic leaders—Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Sharpton and now Russell Simmons—who may be charismatic,” Kelley writes, “but are politically unaccountable to the very people they claim to represent, namely African Americans. The transformation has been underway since the 1970s, but most African Americans have yet to confront it.” HNIC syndrome is both a symptom and response to the failings of black political and cultural orthodoxy, of a sclerotic black elite represented by the NAACP and the Black Congressional Caucus, who have embedded themselves into the machinery of the Democratic Party and the conservative movement.

Customer Reviews:

Great premise, surprisingly poor execution.......2006-07-03

Now I can certainly enjoy fights between intellectuals. The recent best being the scuffle between former Nation writer Christopher Hitchens and the remaining Nation crew including Katha Pollitt and Alexander Cockburn. The arguments tend to be well-argued and well-written from a particular point of view. So when I saw that Nation books published this work by Norman Kelley I thought it would be a compelling and interesting read.

Mr. Kelley's main argument is that so called black leaders (the likes of Cornel West, Russell Simmons, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Tavis Smiley) have abandoned the WEB DuBois Talented Tenth model of black intellectualism. Mr. Kelley's criticisms of course offer a certain amount of truth: black intellectualism is at a low point and black leaders (as named by Kelley) offer very few solutions to their fiery statements of social injustice. This argument is an old one, however, like the counterparts he criticizes, Mr. Kelley himself offers very little, solution wise, to this problem. Instead, he focuses on the public intellectualism of Cornel West whom he believes has sold his PhD for fame and money.

Kelley also finds fault with other blacks in their motivation for joining the spotlight at all, believing they are in it for fortune, fame, the occasional book deal and multiple guest spots on CNN talk shows. Criticism of this nature is fine, but what is the point of this book? To publicly flay West and the others or to offer some sort of response to the age old question of where have all the black leaders gone? Rather than offering alternatives Mr. Kelley gives us the unfortunate debacle of an intellectual rather distatefully make personal attack against his counterparts. The unfortunate part is not the attack, but rather the method. A carefully honed and crafted argument wins against cable network news style criticism anyday. Distract with personal attacks and no one will realize that your arguments offer very little other than a tired retread.

Besides an interesting chapter about James Brown, there is very little to recommend about this book. However, I would suggest a read to anyone who wants to understand (through Kelley's unfortunate example) why black leadership has gone astray. Too much infighting for the top spot, very little community action. Mr. Kelley's 2nd edition of this book may need to include a chapter about himself.

Great book and a wake up call to real intellectual debate and study.......2005-10-26

Norman Kelley has written one of the great intellectual books of the begining of the 21st century, The HNIC Syndrome is a perfect companion to Harold Cruse crisis of the Negro Intellectual. Kelley spares no one in this book from the almost lethargic black left (who used to deliver) to the whiny do-nothing right (who are intellectuals in name only) and the black masses who are being used by both sides looking for real leadership. His greatest blows are against the so-called black intelligensia who has neither offered any ideals or are just prime time intellectuals from Cornel West, Micheal Eric Dyson and Bell Hooks (he calls them frauds ) and right-wingers like Sowell, Loury, Walter Williams, John Mc Worther, and Steele are just thrid -rate thinkers with huge white conservative money. My favorite part of the book are the solutions that the average brotha and sista can do to combat the modern black elite from withholding your vote because "It is better to be feared than liked" to the establishment of leadership schools. It may not be a large book but you will find yourself agreeing with Kelley's points from the leadership vaccum since King and Malcolm X died to the failure of African- American leadership to develop an independent think tanks. Get this book now, It will make you think.

excellent popular exposition.......2005-08-19

The author is very sharp. I especially relished his evisceration of 'market intellectuals'. Politically he is a more popular version of Adolph Reed, Jr., his major contemporary influence. His intellectual heroes of earlier times are Du Bois and Harold Cruse, which I think is symptomatic of his boundaries. What concerns him most about today's black intellectuals is not just the bankruptcy of their ideas but the question of their connection to the creation of effective political power.

While I have no quarrel with him on overt political matters, on a more subtle philosophical level I think differently, and this is where the intellectual qua intellectual divides from practical politics. Another way of saying this is that there's a limit that his political thinking reaches which is also the limit of his intellectual thinking, beyond which an unspoken new dynamic must open up, which involves the precarious role of the creative thinker at a time when all of society is organized against him or her.

There's also a deeper question of the conception of ethnic identity for the 21st century, which I don't think he delves into as deeply as he should.

The next question is: what is the relationship between creative intellectual work and the practical political situation? This is the toughest question of all, one that challenges the imagination in an era of the imaginatively-challenged. I addressed this issue when I had the opportunity to meet Kelley. His response was that intellectuals are irrelevant. He admits to being a member of the tiny reading class, but he says that people who read books are irrelevant. This is why he is directing his attention to the political economy of black music.

This is the juncture at which I part company with Kelley, but as his frame of reference is the quest for efficacious political organization, he is an important person to learn from.

Who's in charge and why?.......2005-04-09

Norman Kelley has taken on black leadership in America and attempted to expose its delicate underbelly. He accuses them of missing the point when it comes to what the black populace needs in order to succeed in this country. Kelley feels especially hostile toward those he labels the "niggerati" (a term coined by Zora Neal Hurston) who are the black intellectuals. Cornell West, Michael Eric Dyson, bell hooks, and Henry Lewis Gates all take something of a beating at his capable hands. He states that they are able to "dazzle the white world with their mixture of "street" analysis and postmodern argot." I get the distinct impression he thinks that dealing with the hip hop generation is merely a way for them to keep their names in the news while not really saying or doing anything helpful.

While many of his comments are on the mark, he doesn't explain just what black leadership should do to effectively help the common people. He doesn't discuss the issues that the black leaders themselves face in that they are not welcome at the American table - either as politicians or as leaders of a people the white American leadership would prefer to ignore. I feel that he omitted the many roadblocks that have faced black leaders from DuBois to Sharpton. It's almost as if he's suggesting that if black leaders did x, y, or z differently, then the problems would be solved, while totally leaving out the racism that caused them in the first place. (RAW Rating: 3.5)

Reviewed by alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Lacks Insight, Replaces Analysis With Ad Hominem.......2004-11-24

Although Kelley makes valid points about the general ineffectiveness of black political leadership today, his argument is, unfortunately, premised wholly on an indictment of the motivation of the leadership. Kelley ignores any and all structural or systemic causes that would prevent even the best-intentioned leaders from creating meaningful change in national policy towards urban areas and black America.

Instead of proposing alternatives, or laying out the means of accomplishing the change in education and employment policy that he claims to want, Kelley succeeds only in writing a screed against black political leaders and especially black "public intellectuals." Cornel West especially takes enormous amounts of abuse in this book. Indeed, Kelley seems almost obsessed with tearing down West, whose primary sins (as far as I can glean from the book) are being well-known, counseling Al Sharpton, and writing books about race that the average people might be able to understand, rather then dense theoretical work that will be published only in obscure academic journals. While intellectual assualts on West are welcome (and have been launched, notably by Adolph Reed, who is plugged again and again in Kelley's book), there are none of them here. Instead, like the entire book, there are only personal attacks on the supposed power- and celebrity-hungry character of the most notable blacks in public affairs circles.

How unfortunate that such a gifted writer and journalist would squander his talent on such a simple-minded and personally vicious "critique" of the politics of American life. If you're actually interested in black political leadership, I would highly recommend "We Have No Leaders" by Ron Walters, which is far more insightful.

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