This book is part of a new series on Family Matters introduced by Wiley to highlight common topics relevant to the 21st century family.
John Coleman is a clinical psychologist with many years of clinical and academic experience at the Royal London Hospital. Since 1988 the director of the Trust for the Study of Adolescence in Brighton, where he has published widely on the subject of adolescence and in 2001 awarded the OBE for services to youth justice.
This book is for parents or caregivers on the important topic of sex and sex education for our children today. It is devided into nine chapters: puberty, learning about sex, sexual development, first relationships, impact on family, risky behaviours, sexual orientation, the law and the role of the parent. Each chapter is well-written with "case stories" or comments by teenagers or parents and information on useful organisations, readings or websites.
The style is short and informative and we believe this book can be a useful guide for many parents, but also teachers and even teenagers, who wants to take a peek.

Society and the Language Classroom is a collection of case histories from language teachers and researchers of the language learning processes in secondary and tertiary institutions from around the world, but with a major focus on Asia and Africa. The overwhelming theme of nearly all of these studies is that a conflict exists, either between the balancing of pedagogical and social functions within the classroom, or in the interpretation of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior from the differing points of view of the teacher, the learners or the onlooker. Most of these essays are qualitative and ethnographic, and in nearly of them, I agreed with the interpretation and conclusion of the essayist, with the possible exception of that of the editor's. Apparently, in Indonesia, it's perfectly acceptable to come and go to the lecture room as one pleases, to bring one's mother or boyfriend, to eat, to smoke, to talk and to laugh, because this is what goes on at shadow puppet performances in Java and Bali. Mmm... very broad minded Hywel. Anyone western dog who would complain at such a scenario is guilty of Tibetan tea syndrome - saying that the tea tastes crap simply because it's called tea and is crap, not because it's crap anyway. Perhaps I am being culturally insensitive and shouldn't impose my western values about what to expect in a lecture theater from my limited world view (which is what the book is all about ), but perhaps Coleman could also have investigated whether there was any complicity between the teacher and the students (great bloke, gives us all As.) We have a lot of that in Japan. All in all, though, Society and the Language Classroom is fascinating and very though provoking, and I'm still (believe it or not ) open-minded about Indonesian universities. If you are a language teacher or researcher, or if you just happen to be interested in cultural relativity, there is much to enjoy in this collection of essays.

This is a very entertaining book about this groundbreaking saxophone stylist. However, the analyses of his recordings are kind of nonsense. The author himself isn't a musician instead of a devoted fan? The author does not compare the Hawk with other players of the era very critically, ie. based on musical facts. Still, a very readable book.

Untrahigh pressure metamorphism has affected rocks that have been buried deep within the Earth (>60km). Such rocks were unknown about 15 years ago, but more and more examples are being found. This book summarizes what was known about these rocks in 1994 and is an excellent introduction to the topic. Research is continuing at a rapid pace, so the book is slightly out of date (the only reason for not giving it 5 stars). There are chapters on the mineralogy, the metamorphic textures and the tectonics of these remarkable rocks. The general public should be aware that this is a book for geoscience graduate students and professionals.

When studying Texas History, invariably it is the men's accounts that are presented. Tales of daring deeds, flashing bowie knives and shoot-outs are pretty commonplace, but Anne Coleman was every inch a lady and I doubt many men could best her. A native of England, Coleman arrived on the Texas coast in the twilight of the Mexican Republic. Many might consider her work as "insignificant" but she was THERE. Her observations of typical mannerisms and the surroundings offer a unique glimpse of early Texas. Her account of life in frontier boarding houses is revealing. Such manners! (or lack thereof) Coleman played a significant part during the Battle of Fort Velasco, by molding rifle balls, cutting patches and securing gunpowder. She barely escaped a Mexican patrol after delivering the supplies. She raced across some fifteen miles on horseback and still managed to lose her attackers. Out of print for many years, Coleman's account is worth finding for your bookshelf.

If you've ever seen this wonderful musical you know that the text contains many wonderful voice parts. Rejoice! Here is your book. This book contains many of the songs from the wonderful show, including: "The Prince Of Humbug", "The Colors Of My Life", "Bigger Isn't Better","I Like Your Style" and the sassy "Thank God I'm Old". Many more are included. This book is great for young vocalists just starting to find their range because, as I said before the parts are so diverse. The piano score, is as well, easy to follow. Beginners should definitely pick up this book.

This collection of essays and photographs marks the first (and hopefully not the last) serious attempt at reviving and redeeming the nearly annihilated and forgotten reputation of the late American photographer, William Mortensen (1897-1965).

While it is often true that a great artist never lives to see his ship come in, the opposite was true of Mortensen: In the late 1920s through early 1940s, his star was ascending, seemingly without end. Based in Laguna Beach, California, he was photographer to many of Hollywood's most famous, working with such acclaimed figures as Fay Wray, Cecil B. deMille and Marlene Dietrich. While his "pictorialist" style of photography -- painterly and posh, relying on soft-focus and darkroom knowhow to produced luxuriously toned and finished prints -- was favoured by the stars, clearly Mortensen found himself on the wrong side of history when it came to fine arts photography. The new "purist" movement, which celebrated the "straight," unadorned, print and a more documentarian style, was afoot and found no place for the Gothic-inspired Mortensen.

Except that's not quite the way it happened. For the f/64 group, spearheaded by Ansel Adams and Beaumont and Nancy Newhall (of the Museum of Modern Art), it was not enough merely to disagree philosophically with Mortensen. Had they done so, it would have been unlikely that Mortensen would have been forgotten and ignored so during his own lifetime and after his death, for he was something more than just another painterly salon photographer: His compositions were steeped in Gothic and Romantic traditions, his subject matter often whimsical, often bizarre, his style a strange combination of Lorenzo de Bernini, Edgar Allan Poe, Salvador Dali and Maxfield Parrish. Unfortunately for Mortensen, though, his eclectic aesthetic was viewed as bizarre and irrelevant by those hoisting the purist banner.

In his essay, "Beyond Recall," photographer A.D. Coleman -- who is quite sympathetic to the Adams aesthetic -- presents a scathing indictment of Adams and the Newhalls, and their active campaign to completely shut out Mortensen from the elite artistic inner circles. Although he never said so, it is evident from reading these essays that Mortensen died a broken man. Even after Mortensen's death, "Saint Ansel" Adams tried to prevent Mortensen's work from being archived at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. Fortunately, for posterity, curator James Enyeart (who, though a friend of Adams) remained objective, and was instrumental in finding a permanent home for Mortensen's artistic legacy.

Sadly, little remains of his artistic output: Most of Mortensen's negaives are missing, whereabouts unknown. He also left few notes or letters. No conclusions can be drawn, but it is strongly suggested that by the time he died Mortensen felt so irrelevant to the history of photography that he never bothered to leave much behind.

However, the authors and editors of this handsome book have constructed a strong foundation on which to rebuild Mortensen's reputation. Michael Dawson's essay "William Mortensen: Gothic Modernist" and "William Mortensen and George Dunham: Photography as Collaboration," by Diane Dillon go a long way in providing a narrative to Mortensen's often quiet and secretive life, and in outlining his artistic method (Dunham's collection of prints, articles and memorabilia filled in many of the gaps in the Mortensen archive).

The book's only shortcoming is that while it has three excellent essays and a bibliography and chronology that put Mortensen's work in context of the greater photographical history of his time, it is a bit short on photographs. There are only about three dozen plates of his work, which -- while representative -- don't really do full justice to fleshing out his life's work. I would have loved to have seen more of his color portraits and nudes.

That said, don't let this stop you from buying this book. The printing is first rate, and so is the treatment of its sorely neglected subject. Admirers of William Mortensen can only hope for a more exhaustive book of photographs to be released in the near future.

This 1995 publication by Dorling Kindersley has the hallmarks of DK publications, large glossy pages, interesting details, and high quality color pictures. However, because it focuses on developing basketball skills, there are few of the archival photos, sidebars, and memorabilia that DK usually presents. Basketball history is limited, and there are very few shots of NBA players.

Instead the book gives a thorough presentation of fundamental basketball skills, including dribbling, several types of passing and shooting, defense, and some plays such as the fast break, the give and go, and the screen play. Young models illustrate these basics and the presentation is very clear. Again, however, this is a book for beginning players, those with some experience playing on a supervised team will probably not benefit that much from this material.

This is the first Tarot deck and "manual" I've purchased. I would not recommend it as a good single source for beginners. The enclosed "instruction" book is far too small to read easily (it's about the size of a deck of cards) and the interpretations/descriptions are a bit short on many of the cards. If you choose this as your first deck, buy a comprehensive book on Tarot reading as well.

The cards are very slick, and of heavy stock, making them a little difficult to handle for a beginner like me; though in their defense they are probably more durable because of this, and will last longer.

In comparison, I just bought the Celtic Dragon Tarot deck, and find the effort put into describing each card and its meaning much more comprehensive...still I'm sure that a comprehensive book on Tarot by one of the respected authors is the best step in learning to read any of the various decks.

My advice, for what it's worth is to remember that with any spiritual enlightment journey, each one's journey may take a different path, and be wary of criticizing how others go or of putting too much faith in the criticisms of others on any product in terms of its suitablity to meeting your spiritual needs.

I have had several different versions of the Rider-Waite tarot deck. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed with the "original" deck. The colors of the cards are dull, and the cards themselves are large and awkward to handle. The accompanying book is smaller than a man's wallet, with small print. The author tends to rattle on about "secret doctrines" and really offers very little information for beginners. I wouldn't recommend this set for anyone serious about learning the Tarot. The other resources available today are much more easy to learn. I'm purchasing the CD-Rom set "Tarot Magic", and maybe with both I can refresh my skills as a reader.

This Set gets one more * than the Rider Deck, because this one comes with a book. A. E. Waite is well-respected in the study of The Mysteries!

This is a truly Wonderful Deck for the Beginner. The Pictures are full of colorful Symbolism (I have taken Tarot classes based-upon studying the Symbolism of these "simple"-looking cards). The images are perfectly acceptable for teaching Children the use of/or stories of The Tarot. In fact, they almost seem to be created with a child-like Happy view of the world, set in fairy-tale history. The Advanced Tarot Reader will not be so impressed with this deck, yet each person must begin somewhere on the Royal Path. Personally, I believe this is a great first stepping-stone on the path of enlightenment. Even thoroughly Indoctrinated Christians will not find too much to worry about in these beautiful cards. This is a great way to start your Mystical Journey!

The title of this book is definately misleading, there is no practical advice on "How " to work with emotional intelligence besides endless anecdotes and examples.

Even with this entire book of loosely collected anecdotes, the auther still failed to convince me that his conclusion is based on serious, scientic research with logical analysis.

I think the auther is very biased on EQ vs IQ, the importance of EQ is overly stated. We all know IQ provides a basic framework/blueprint of a person, while EQ can really make a person excel compared with other people in similar IQ level. It should also put these two concepts in context, how important EQ/IQ in a person's success is really a variable, depending on what field, what job and what role a person is playing. In high-tech field, for example, for a technical position, I would rather hire a person with extraordinary IQ with average EQ, cause I know s/he could possibly perform as efficient as a group of 5 to10 people with average IQ. But for a tech manager position, a person with high EQ, reasonable IQ and profound knowledge in respective field would be a good fit. The way the author presents EQ is very simplistic and misleading!

Since the publication of Daniel Goleman's first book, Emotional Intelligence he has generated a remarkable industry around the topic. In this book from 2000, Goleman applies the ideas of his previous book to the workplace. Why should executives bother with this soft stuff? According to research cited by Goleman (see the summary in Appendix 2) almost all of the abilities that distinguished stars from average performers were emotional competencies. While pattern recognition and "big picture" thinking were correlated with outstanding performance, cognitive abilities in general - above a certain threshold - did not have significant correlation. "Emotional intelligence" refers to a set of competencies that characterizes how people manage feelings, interact, and communicate. Building on previous work by others, Goleman characterizes emotional intelligence as being founded on five personal and social competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills. Each of these five is further analyzed into 12 personal and 13 social competencies such as Accurate Self-Assessment, Self-Control, Initiative, Developing Others, Influence, Conflict Management, and Building Bonds.
Unlike IQ, we can continue to improve emotional intelligence. Working With Emotional Intelligence is not a how-to book in the usual sense. It will help any executive understand the importance of EI in all its diverse aspects as well as showing examples of strong and weak EI in individual and organizational contexts. Improving is not easy work. Goleman explains the neurological basis of much of EI, including the role of the amygdala (which can make us impulsive and which affects our resilience under stress) and its interaction with the prefrontal lobes (which together also affect the ability to adapt to change), and the role of the catecholamines adrenaline and noradrenaline (which allow us to distinguish good stress from bad stress). Goleman looks at "empathic design" (p.139ff) and the contagious effects of emotions on groups, among other important applications in the workplace. He also provides a three-page list of "Guidelines for Emotional Competence Training". Although parts of Working With Emotional Intelligence will strike you as the obvious dressed up with stories, you can extract some important information by scanning through this book. In an age of record levels of job stress (according to an October 2002 study), any words of wisdom on this subject deserve a hearing.

How we need to over ride our emotions sometimes! Daniel Goleman's book is indeed an insight to cultivate one's mind emotionally. Understanding and raising emotional intelligence is essential to your success and leadership potentials. Daniel selects examples and anecdotes from the Fortune 500 companies which shows the competency to deal with various factors at workplace. The training tools, conflict management, building bonds and motivation, encouragement and inspirations are really necessary not with the IQs only but with the 'Emotional Intelligence skills' which enhance leadership to excel. The author shows the way how to manage feelings, interact, communicate and tackle with the issues in organization. Initiative, self control, optimism are some key factors of personal competency which make the emotional control board of the mind geared up to treat right, care and understand. A must read for every business. Its never an arrogance, ego or pride but be in tune with 'Emotional Intelligence'- Thats the trick of the trades for every savvy Leader.