Bradford's Crossword Key Dictionary is another fine aid to both solvers and setters. A hefty paperback with 1174 pages, it boasts a comprehensive list of words. Its 390,000 entries are organised into chapters according to the length of the word (from four to fifteen letters) and sorted according to each letter position within the word. The method takes a bit to get used to but after a while it is easy to use. It means that the 4-letter words are entered four times, listed alphabetically according to the first letter, then the second letter and so on. Thus FRAB comes after FOZY in the first section, after ERYX in the second, after FOAM in the third and after FORB in the last. Of course, this means that the 15-letter words are listed 15 times.

What it means to the solver is that it is easy to find a word when you only have a few letters. If you only have the fourth and last letters of a ten-letter word it is a simple matter to find all the words that match and to choose the best match. It is far easier than trawling through Chambers. The book claims to be based on 20 dictionaries that they publish - Collins, I suppose. It proved to very efficient in finding words to complete a Guardian blocked puzzle.

Anne Bradford is a crossword solver with much experience of solving Ximenes and Azed puzzles. She has kept notes of all the clues that she has encountered in 40 years of solving. This is why her Crossword Solvers' Dictionary is such a superb aid for solvers. Unlike many other crossword dictionaries, hers includes lots of rare and unusual words.

The real test for solvers of Azed or the Listener puzzles is whether the Crossword Key Dictionary includes all those obscure words. Using this month's Azed competition puzzle there were at least four of the answers that were not in this book. Then I compared pages at random against the entries in my 1978 edition of Chambers Words. The Key dictionary missed a few of the entries but included words that did not appear in the Chambers list. For instance, it included DJIBOUTI but omitted DJELLABA. I have not had time to give the book a thorough test but it initially it does seem to be inferior to the Chambers' listing.

This is certainly a book that I will keep on my desk and I will certainly use it to help me solve a puzzle or compose a grid.

It's raining Victorian poetry anthologies--*heavy* Victorian poetry anthologies. Collins and Rundle have produced an intriguing textbook that combines selections from both famous and lesser-known figures with Victorian writings on poetic theory. The selections are well-chosen, including good chunks of *The Ring and the Book* and *Aurora Leigh* along with all of *Modern Love* and *The City of Dreadful Night.* (It is particularly nice to see the latter.) Women are nicely represented by poems from Augusta Webster, Amy Levy, Michael Field, and the Bronte sisters, among many others. Teachers thus have the flexibility to construct anything from a traditional course, focusing on the major authors like Tennyson, Arnold, and the Brownings, to a course on women, later poets (the 1880s and 90s are well-represented), and so forth. Moreover, the double-columned text is set in a readable font (a feature not to be underestimated!). The anthology's primary failing, however, lies in its virtually non-existent annotation; what *is* there is often spectacularly unhelpful. Headnotes could also have been fuller. Overall, however, this is a notable achievement.

James Collins is a management researcher from Boulder (Colorado) and Jerry Porras is a professor of organizational behavior and change at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This article is based on their novel 'Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies'.

In this 1996-article, the authors explain the successful companies have core values and core purpose that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices adapt to a changing world. Great companies understand the difference between what should never change and what should be open for change. Vision provides guidance about what core to preserve and what future to stimulate progress toward. Vision consists of two major components: (1) Core ideology defines the enduring character of an organization - a consistent identity, in which core values are the essential and enduring tenets of an organization, and core purposes is the organization's reason for being. The role of core ideology is to huide and inspire, not to differentiate. It needs to be meaningful and inspirational only to people inside the organization. (2) Envisioned future consists of vision-level Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAG) and vivid description. Big, hairy, audacious goals are often bold missions, although they should be clear and compelling, and are a powerful way to stimulate progress. Vivid description is a vibrant, engaging, and specific description of what it will be like to achieve the BHAG. It serves as a translation of the vision from words into pictures in which passion, emotion and conviction are an essential part.

Great strength of this article is that the authors recommend a conceptual framework to define vision and give practical guidance for articulating a coherent vision within an organization. They also provide reassurance for people with less imagination - according to the authors building a visionary company requires 1% vision and 99% alignment. Great article, which resulted in me buying their book 'Built to Last'. Jim Collins has recently published his latest book 'Good to Great' (October 2001). The authors use simple US-English.

This small book contains a surprising amount of informative material for both the amateur and professional entomologist. It lists the common and scientific names for 240 species of British and European moths and butterflies along with an excellent photograph showing the species in a natural setting. Some of these photographs are particularly good in that they illustrate the insect in its defensive warning colouration or as camouflaged against its background. Included with each species is a brief but detailed description of the species size, distribution, flight times, hibernation stage and caterpillar food plants. It's rare to get this much information so concisely and conveniently organized even in more academically scientific books. Anyone who is seriously interested in moths and butterflies would do well by buying this well-priced and excellent guide.

It may take a couple of tries to get started, the shifting - and mostly unrelated - narratives making it hard to get a bead on things, but once you get into Dan Collins' head, discovering that the threads aren't so unbound after all, you know you're in the midst of something special.

This isn't going to end up anyone's favorite book; so many of these empty-souled characters deserve their truncated form. But the beauty of Cannibals lies in Collins' craft, his ability to spin out a gripping and slippery narrative in the briefest of scenes and details. You never doubt these characters are real, every last one of them, and more importantly, when you put it down, you're all the more certain that modern life really is rubbish.

This is a truly delightful Cinderella tale told with a bayou/cajun flair. I particularly like the french phrases that are used throughout the book and then translated at the bottom of the pages. I feel it captures so many elements of the New Orleans area while remaining true to the classic storyline. This book is sure to delight adults and children alike!

This book offers a very good referance when used together with a text book on chemistry. I used it with "Chemistry the easy way". It explains in more detail all the facts that textbooks seem to cover much to quickly. I highly reccommend it for anyone studying chemistry individually, or in school.

Le "Cinquième Cavalier" décrit un incroyable chantage. Des terroristes Palestiniens, commandités par la Lybie, arrivent à cacher une bombe H en plein coeur de Manhattan. Les Américains ont 36 heures pour convaincre les Israëliens à évacuer les colonies "sauvages" installées dans les territoires occupés. Les auteurs, apparemment très bien informés, décrivent ce qui se passe à toutes les échelles de la hiérarchie du pouvoir, depuis les chefs d'état, en passant par les services secrets de différents pays, jusqu'aux policiers Newyorkais qui sont à la recherche de la bombe... Un livre qui tient en haleine le lecteur. Un vrai film!

CivPro is notoriously the most difficult first-year course. F&P, while not simplifying the material, does help make the material more comprehensible. The authors use a socratic method in the casebook. If you read the case and work through the questions after the case, you should have a pretty good understanding of the case and why the authors included it. They also, and this will kill some who read it unknowingly and skip over notes habitually, hide a LOT of really good info (terrific testbait) in their NOTES. Read the notes. Digest the notes. Learn the notes. Get a decent grade in CivPro.