CAUTION: if you are a fingernail biter, read this book with your gloves on as the contents may cause you "finger" problems. This book reveals employee conduct that is unbelievable, yet true. The authors present a complex case with simplicity that should keep you reading through the night. I read this aloud to my wife and she loved it. There are more twists and turns in this story than any body of fiction. Read it.

I finished CLASS ACTION last night and find myself stunned at (first) the treatment of the women who worked at the mine and (second) the 10-year court battle. It is so inhumane that it's difficult to comprehend that it's all true. Brava to the authors for telling this important story. Now we have to find someone to make it into the next gripping, blockbuster movie!

Class Action is one of the best books I have ever read. I simply could not put it down once I started reading it. The story, itself, is gripping. If this were a work of fiction, it would stretch the imagination to believe that such things could happen. The fact that this is a true story just stuns the reader to the depth of the soul.
But, beyond the nature of the story, is the excellent writing. It is as engrossing as the best novel - cohesive, fast paced & intelligble. There is just enough legal background and explanation given to make the events understandable to the lay person without making the book a lesson in Civil Procedure.
I cannot recommend this book too highly. Thank you to the authors for bringing this story to the public in such an empathetic and understandable way, and to the women of the story who changed the lives of all human beings for the better.

I bought this book used from a library, along with a dozen others, a decade ago without much thought of what I was buying. Wow! I ended up with a lifetime of excellent reading. I've since had this book at my bedside, off and on, for the last ten years. So much excellent information is packed into this book that you can keep coming back to it and learning the most important writings of civilization.

This book summarizes the works for you. With just a little reading you can say something like, "What Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity did was radically change our perspective of time and space, and matter and energy. He showed that all motion is relative, and that the velocity of light is independent of the motion of its source. The implications are profound. To illustrate..."

Or, "What Socrates means by his definition of love, as written in Plato's Symposium, is that love is the pursuit of the beautiful; a desire for the immortal though reproduction. This, at its highest state, is manifested in a generalized love of universal beauty - beautiful souls, thoughts, laws, institutions and the immortal afterlife."

Everyone needs to read these works, and here is a condensed way to do it. It's a small investment in your education.

I recently had the pleasure of taking a class at Missouri Southern State College in Joplin, MO that used the Downs book as a textbook for the class! At that time, I had not read, nor even heard of many of the works Downs discussed. However, after reading his insightful summaries on these classics of political, social and economic history, I felt I owed it to myself to pick up the full length versions and devour them!

I have been reading an average of 2 books a month. Yet I throw most of them away after reading. This is one of a few books I keep in my library. And it is the third time I bought it because every time someone borrow the book, I never got it back. Books That Changed The World summarizes the influences of the great books to the way we believe in things, some of which we take it for granted now. Things like the solar system, gravitational force. I hardly give a five-star to any book reviews, but this one well deserves it.

The 5-minute pediatric consult is written in an easy to read outline format. The writers have eliminated unnecesary obscure data and offer a concise outline of all major pediatric diseases. The topics are designed to be read in 5 minutes or less and all the up to date information to diagnose and treat a specific illness is included. The topics are alphabetized, so they are easy to look up. The writers are accomplised experts in their fields and the book has been edited by the distinguished Dr. Schwartz, at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. As a professor of Pediatrics, I highly recommend this book to practicing pediatricians, family practitioners, nurses and students.

when will the CD be available? I travel to several schools providing healthcare to uninsured children and would like to use this valuable reference. (a PNP)

love the format. listed alphabetically, the items are presented in a easy to read format. Just about all I want to know about the problem when working in a busy office. I can read more later but this gets the job done. an excellent 90's type of book. where is the CD?

My just 2 year old loves this book! It is easy for him to carry while he is on the go - and it goes everywhere!! He loves trucks and this is great for him!

I purchased this book for our 2 year old, thinking he would enjoy it in a year or so. To my surprise, he loves it now! Be prepared to read this book numerous times at each sitting, and to make enthusiastic machine sounds!

We had to purchase another copy because our 2 1/2 year old son has read and played with the first copy so much he has destroyed it. Yet it is still his favorite. It is a great book for little boys. The pictures are terrific. He now knows his construction equipment when we are out and about.

I am a 30 year old woman who received this book back in 1987. I just "rediscovered" it this week. As I look back on the entries, I'm surprised at how much I've grown, how much I've learned, how tolerant I've become & also how I have very much stayed the same. This book guides you thru some of the bad things that can happen to a woman who doesn't plot a course for her life. Some of the myths of being a woman are debunked (can't do math, can't be a trucker, or a construction worker, etc). What I liked most is that it doesn't push any specific feminist ideaology - just asking the question - what would you do? The message is clear - don't count on anyone to "take care of you". It tries to teach us to take care of ourselves. It is true that this book (at least my edition) is geared toward working / middle class teens. But as a middle class teen, it helped me enormously! This book is great and I look forward to getting it for both of my daughters!

I am constantly ordering this book. I am a foster parent for teenagers and I use this book as a family activity as well as at girls slumber parties. It makes thinking of the future and what you want to do with your life almost a fun thing. My childrens' therapists keep borrowing it and not giving it back!

This book really helped me in believing that sex before marrige isn't right and now that I am married and can always look back and thank the author!

I have enjoyed the benefits of yoga for several years, guided by excellent teachers. After moving to a new city, I found that I was ready to pass on some of what I know, by starting to teach. This book has been a terrific find -- reminding me to look with fresh eyes at things that I had once learned in class or in workshops which had since become "automatic". I found the writing, illustrations and photographs clear and useful, with enough detail to support good practice. The examples of "misaligned forms" are also wonderfully clear for the novice -- with a colleague or a mirror, an independent student could make good and safe progress. It is a valuable complement to the other books on my Yoga shelf.

I am a rank beginner when it comes to yoga--I didn't even think about it until last year and just started taking classes this year (2001). This book provides a good introduction to Yoga Zone's brand of yoga--a mixture of three types: Hatha yoga (a physical form of yoga), Tantra yoga (a more philosophical form of yoga) and Ayurveda yoga (a healing form of yoga). The section on breath and breathing (an important part of yoga and life in general) is great and the descriptions and illustrations of the various postures are quite helpful (and take up the bulk of the book). Finger and Bingham have a very personable style of writing that makes it seem you are being spoken to, rather than reading a book.

like me! Completely new to the yoga scene, I saw this listed in the "Editor's Picks" as one of the top yoga books and decided to buy it based solely on that. And I don't regret it. Alan Finger takes you not only on an informative and practical journey into the world of yoga, but a gently spiritual one as well.

The book is nice quality, with easy-to-read pages and beautifully illustrated poses. I like how he emphasizes substance over form i.e. you don't have to *look* perfect to have a perfect yoga practice. It's the approach and the inner work that goes with it that matters the most.

The form he teaches (ISHTA) is an amalgamation of different yoga "schools", developed by he and his father(a master yogi) and taught in their Yoga Zone studios. He gives a 20 min. practice and a 40 minute regimen, with the option to customize it later when you feel more adept and comfortable.

As for me, I already have all the poses for the 20 minute series marked in red, pages bookmarked, and I plan to get the video tape as well, to get even more benefit from seeing it in action. So, if you're a beginner like me, this seems like a great place to start and I highly recommend it. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll practice more of that "ujjayi pranayama" breathing... ;)

I read this book looking for more inspiration from the legendary John Bingham. He didn't let me down - the book is styled in Bingham's trademark realism and acceptance towards running, plus the encouraging words of other runners. As an amateur musician, I appreciated and laughed at his music analogies, although non-musicians would find them equally clear. His philosophical style is both witty and profound, but always good-natured and likeable. I hope he writes another book.

I used to hate running because I wasn't very fast, it hurt, and it was boring. Bingham's book changed all that. I'm 38 now, I still don't love running as much as the author, but his advice and words helped me incorporate running into my life. It also gave me the encouragement to train and run regularly and tell people that I am a runner.

It encouraged me to enter races, not to win, but to get the feeling of being around other runners. Finally it encourgaed me to train for a goal - a marathon. With this book and "The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer" (Whitsett) book I began a solo sixteen week training program to enter and finish a marathon. That was the goal, just to finish and become a marathoner.

I finished the 26.2 miles in just under 5 hours. I was 890th place out of 1100 runners, but I felt like I'd won a gold medal. This book taught me that "you don't have to run fast to be a real runner." I may or may not run another marathon (1/2 marathons are more tolerable), but I will keep running as part of my lifelong fitness plan, because I am a runner.

Bingham's first book "The Courage to Start" is also a great book and I frequently re-read both of his books. In "The Courage to Start" he states, "The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start." If you want to start feeling better about yourself and start taking steps to become a runner, there is no better book.

"No Need for Speed" by John Bingham is an excellent book for all runners. It has helped me to put into words why I run so I have an answer for all of those people who think I'm crazy. In addition, the chapters on Inspiration happen to be some of the neatest, most motivating chapters I've ever read concerning sports in general.

The Charge of the Light Brigade on the 25th October 1854 was one of the three famous engagements that formed the Battle of Balaklava. The Charge, the most famous of all military blunders, was barely over before the process of transforming it into myth began. Accusations, counter-accusations, legal actions and patriotic poetry created more obscuring smoke and dust than the infamous Russian guns. Cecil Woodham Smith traces the careers of two of the major players: Lords Lucan and Cardigan, the brothers-in-law from hell, whose vanity, arrogance and (at least in the case of Cardigan) incompetence, inexperience and crass stupidity, contributed to the fatal Charge. Almost 40 years of peace, and the reactionary influence of the Duke of Wellington, had left the British army in a parlous state of unreadiness and bureaucratic confusion when the call came to defend Turkey against the Russians. The choice of the aged, gentle, inexperienced and unassertive Raglan, as leader of the expeditionary army, only made a bad situation worse. (For a rather more sympathetic portrayal of Raglan, as victim of an inefficient military system, criminally disorganised commissariat and unreasonable government, see "The Destruction of Lord Raglan" by Christopher Hibbert.) A more recent study, "The Charge" by Mark Adkin, provides a detailed and well-illustrated account of the events leading to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Adkin challenges traditional views , including parts of Cecil Woodham Smith's account. Particular attention is given to the role played by Captain Nolan (the messenger). Adkin suggests that Nolan may have deliberately misled Lucan and Cardigan as to Raglan's real intention. Whatever the truth, which is of course unknowable, "The Reason Why" is a genuine classic and an excellent introduction to a fascinating subject.

Woodham-Smith presents, in minute detail, the wages of placing social rank over experience, and even competence. British military history follows a disturbing trend. War starts, Brits get trounced upon, influx of fresh talent and new ideas comes (along with, sometimes, timely intercession by allies), British return to triumph. Woodham-Smith attributes this pattern to the notion in the higher ranks of the army (a notion espoused by the Duke of Wellington himself, pip pip!), that nobility ensures, if not competence, at least loyalty.

The price of this notion, is, of course, massive death, but because the massive death does not happen to the nobility, nobody important really minds. This is one reason the Charge of the Light Brigade, with which _the Reason Why_ primarily deals, was so different, and worthy of eulogizing in prose and song (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by the way, appears absolutely nowhere in this text)--those dying, those paying the price for the Army's obsession with aristocracy, were aristocrats themselves.

Woodham-Smith manages to trace the careers of two utterly unsympathetic characters--Cardigan and Lucan--in a fascinating manner. This is no small feat, considering the reader will probably want, by the end of _the Reason Why_ to reach back in time and shake both of them, and maybe smack them around a bit.

Again, Cecil Woodham-Smith proves herself a master of the historian's craft, and produces a well-researched, thorough and driving account of what is probably the stupidest incident in modern military history.

The Crimean War changed so much about how war is waged--the treatment of prisoners and wounded being tops on the list of reforms brought about in the wake of the debacle. _The Reason Why_ is an excellent account, and should be required reading for anybody with even a remote interest in military history, or European history in general.

The Reason Why remains the classic study of the intriguing and sadly ludicrous episode in military history known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. The author, coming from an Army family and relying heavily on the writings of officers, largely neglects the experience of the private soldier and concentrates on the main characters in the drama. The story is dominated by these extraordinary personalities, serving as a reminder that war is an inherently human drama. On a second level, it is a criticism of the privilege system of the British Army of the mid-nineteenth century. In retrospect, one is hard pressed to believe such a purchase system could have ever won a victory at Waterloo. Intolerant aristocrats with no experience in battle, paltry leadership skills, and maddening unconcern for the soldiers under their command, bought their commissions. The Charge of the Light Brigade illuminated all of the faults of the system and proved that bravery alone was insufficient for victory. While human blunders led to the debacle that was the Charge of the Light Brigade, the British military system was intrinsically to blame.

The heart of this book concerns the relationship between society at large and the military. Military leaders feared nothing so much as public scrutiny, for widespread discontent could lead to political interference and, indeed, political control of the army. Whether in dealing with the incorrigible personalities of Lords Lucan and Cardigan or in covering up the series of blunders that resulted in the sacrificial ride of the Light Brigade, the military leadership acted with the overriding principle of preserving the Army from governmental control.

The embarrassments of the Crimean campaign proved uncontainable. A great source of difficulty was the incompetence of the Army staff; rank and privilege were held to be superior to actual experience. When these difficulties led to humiliation and defeat, the commanders' concern was not with the men they had lost nor the future of the war effort; to the exclusion of these, their main concern was that bad publicity would appear in Britain, that the public would hear of the lack of success, that the House would begin to ask questions of the military leadership, that the press would begin to criticize the Army. This great fear of political interference was realized in the aftermath of the Crimean War. The author portrays this as the one positive effect engendered by the War effort. A new era of military reform was born in Britain, Europe, and America. Experience now became a prerequisite for command, and officers were trained in staff colleges. The author's final point is that, above all, the treatment of the private soldier changed as the military system was humanized to some degree. Her assertion that at the end of the Crimean War the private soldier was regarded as a hero seems rather bold, but it is clear that he was no longer seen as a nonhuman tool of his commanders' designs.

This short biography of Mark Bingham, who died on Flight 93 that terrible day of September 11, 2001, most likely as a member of a heroic group attempting to thwart the hijackers who had taken over his plane, is carefully written and researched by one of the senior editors of the Advocate. He's done the best job possible of presenting Mark Bingham as the human being he was, which includes the fact that he was a gay man. The parallels and differences drawn between Bingham and the gay man who saved Gerald Ford from possible assassination by Sara Jane Moore are very striking and food for thought. Most of the quotes are carefully chosen and only occasionally, as in a long string of e-mail correspondence between Bingham and a friend, is there a suspicion of padding.

Ultimately the impact of this book is muted solely by the fact that no words can adequately reproduce the impact of the attacks that changed America forever, and too many facts tend to obscure, rather than clarify, the subject and its attendant emotions. The short quote from Mark Bingham about his philosophy of life near the end of the book, as related by one of his friends, is more moving in context than anything else. If you know what I'm talking about, it's not necessary to read the rest; if you don't, it's worth buying the book just to read that.

Reading this book was the most moving experience I have had in a long time. I really wish I had the honor of having known Mark Bingham, but now I find that I mourn his loss just as if I had. He, along with the others of Flight 93, should never be forgotten for their ultimate act of bravery. It will take me a long time to get this short account of such a rich and full life out of my mind, and it will never leave my heart. We must all promise ourselves never to forget Sept. 11 and stick together the way Mark did with those he loved. Rest in peace, Mark, and God bless all of you.

What a wonderful book protraying Mark for who he was. I had the honor of knowing this fine man. It was wonderful to read about different things that happened in Mark's life and remembering him telling me about those times.

September 11, 2001, brought many heroes forth. I do not think people in our nation really knew what others would do for others and and what cost to themselves. Mark's selfless acts were a modest reflection of the many things he did for others.

His story is extremely well told and will give you more insight into the day will now think of as, Patriot Day. He was truly a patriot. His actions and those of all the people on board Flight 93 have given us hope since they fought the first battle against terrorism.

The ultimate compliment you can pay a travel guide? "Works as advertised". I'd argue the same goes for this survival guide of Germany and to a less extent, Austria.

I acquired a handful, really just a small amount of German as a result of this book, but I used it all for twelve days, and it made a world of difference. The cultural notes, however, were of even greater value: *when* to use phrases is integral to knowing *how*.

My only two concerns, a half-star I withhold for each: the two-cassette method of delivery and a too-small glossary/ vocabulary/ dictionary. Pack a CD with the book and it's a five-star value; pack another forty pages of German-English word translations and it's official.

However, if you're serious about German, get the FSI course; if you need a German-English dictionary, pick up a Collins Pocket Gem. Tschüs!

Mrs. Bingham's German Survival Guide is definitely not just another guide listing numerous tourist attractions, because it deals with an essential part of travelling abroad - language - and how to use it in order to make your trip enjoyable. Your memories of travelling abroad should not be limited to the number of sights you have seen, but should include memories of different cultures and ways of life, people or food. The basic knowledge of a foreign language certainly helps! This Survival Guide offers everything you need to travel to Austria or Germany, all situations you are likely to come across are covered, like greetings, introductions, transportation, food, shopping, lodging, emergencies and sightseeing. Basic German grammar is explained well, all the necessary vocabulary is provided, there are useful exercises to test yourself, and at the end of the book you will find a very useful dictionary and a survival summary. The book is well-researched and shows the author's profound knowledge of the German language and Austrian and German culture. This aspect is very important, because one can't stress the importance of knowing a few basic things about a foreign culture enough. I am convinced that this Survival Guide is a useful companion on your trip abroad, so take it along!

Elizabeth Binham's book German Survival Guide has finally made learning a foreign language easy enough that anyone can travel. She freely admits that this book is made to teach you enough to get by in Germany and Austria with a comfort level. She doesn't clutter her book with why this word should be used on the week day rather than the weekend. There is no doubt that a person can learn from this book about the language,the customs, and the country. German Survival Guide will let you enjoy the learning experience, and the vacation without over burdening the reader. Personally I'm looking forward to further publications of hers. There's a lot to see out there.