Modern Dance: Paper Dolls

Book Description

Eight full-color paper dolls and 21 exquisite costumes capture the lavish ambience of modern dance. Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Loie Fuller, Erick Hawkins, Hanya Holm and Katherine Dunham are depicted. Essay on inside covers. Captions.

Book Description

There`s a killer tossing dead bodies out of L.A. sewers like hot potatoes, and all the evidence points Detective Kate Lockley towards one man: a certain vampire named Angel. But Angel knows there are a lot more monsters in L.A -- he just doesn`t know which one`s trying to set him up. In Lovely, Dark, and Deep (from Dark Horse Presents, colored by Matt Hollingsworth) Cordelia lands the starring role in a Blair Witch rip-off about three filmmakers searching for the legendary Helm of Haraxis. But what she doesn`t know is that the film is a sham and the Helm`s the real thing. Angel, who smelled a rat from the beginning, has to rescue Cordelia and her fellow filmmakers from a cabal of Hollywood demons and angry forest spirits, who all want to keep the Helm of Haraxis and the power it gives them.

Customer Reviews:

Now Starring..........2002-10-28

This trade paperback contains two stories: 'Hunting Ground,' which ran in issues 153 thru 155 of Dark Horse Presents, and 'Beneath the Surface,' which appeared in issues 8 and 9 of Angel. Both stories are by Chris Golden and Tom Sniegoski.

In 'Hunting Ground,' Cordelia finally gets a part in a film. Not just a bit part, but a starring role as one of a team of treasure hunters who are searching for the Helm of Haraxis. Deep in the woods things suddenly start to go wrong. Suddenly real life becomes too much like a horror film and Cordelia is desperate for Angel's aid.

'Beneath the Surface' finds Detective Kate Lockley in the middle of a series of killings that have all occurred close to underground accesses that Angel also uses. His investigations turn up a suspicious demon, but the case gets complicated when Kate decides to search the sewers herself. Worse, topping her list of suspects is the broody vampire himself.

Typical of Dark Horse Presents stories, which are originally done without color, the illustration for 'Hunting Ground' (done by Brian Horton and Paul Lee) is simplistic and two-dimensional. The coloring, which was added as an afterthought is also too flat. In contrast, Eric Powell's work on 'Beneath the Surface' is much more alive and the colors show much more modeling and shading. Even so, this is a case where both stories are much better than their graphic presentation.

Average customer rating:
Angel: Hunting Ground
Christopher Golden; Et Al
Manufacturer: TITAN BOOKS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OJPVZ6

Average customer rating:
Start With A Laugh
Liz Carpenter , and Liz Carpenter
Manufacturer: Eakin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Political | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Public Speaking | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1571684115

Average customer rating:
START WITH A LAUGH-AN INSIDERS GUIDE TO ROASTS, TOASTS, EUGOLIES AND OTHER SPEECHES
Liz (With Sondra Williamson Runnells) Carpenter
Manufacturer: Eakin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IOCX7Q

Book Description

For 50 years Today on NBC has captivated the nation with its winning combination of news broadcasts, rich features, cultural updates, and morning levity. Once hooked, many fans have come to rely on this institution for timely information about themselves, the country, and the world.Now This Is Today provides the first-ever in-depth retrospective of the showÂ's magical formula. Readers will find the complete Today show story, from the days of pioneer host Dave Garroway to the winning style of one of AmericaÂ's most trusted commentator teams: Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. TheyÂ'll relive historic moments in news and relish some of the most colorful personalities to cross the national stage. This lavish volume, the first in a series of forthcoming NBC-branded book properties, will enjoy natural marketing and promotions exposure like few other titles. Sure to be one of Â“theÂ” gift books of the holiday season, This Is Today will undoubtedly lend itself to segments on the show itself, video news releases, radio play, and favorable print reviews throughout the country. A DVD packaged with the book, containing more than two hours of memorable broadcasts with classic interviews and great events, promises to provide the same multimedia experience for book buyers themselves.The Today show never fails to fascinate, satisfy, and hold its viewers day after day. This Is Today will undoubtedly continue that steadfast tradition.

Customer Reviews:

book good - problem with vendor.......2007-01-16

For some unknown reason I was sent two copies of this book - (I only ordered one). they came seperately and I was charged for both and also charged shipping and handling for both. It will cost me too much in shipping to bother returning the second unwanted book. So I'm stuck with it. I don't know if I will order this way again. It is too much of a bother to rectify any mistakes. I prefer dealing directly with Amazon.

The Today Show.......2005-11-29

Wow! What a great read! After buying this for myself, I also purchased it for my mom and father-in-law. There is so much history in this book... and full of pictures, it makes the reading so interesting!
Any Today Show fan (like me) should check this out! It's so great! :)

A News Lovers Must!.......2003-10-21

The Today show has woken up with America for over 50 years and America has woken up to every morning to amazing stories and amazing people telling them. If you are a Today Show fan, you need to express mail the book now! What is great about it is that it is not only a book with pictures and words, but it is a three-hour DVD. What could be better?

Average customer rating:

Roman Keycards

Kantar is a Mad Scientist

The "Bible"

Roman Keycard Blackwood: Slam Bidding for the 21st Century

Roman Keycard Blackwood: Slam Bidding for the 21st Century
Edwin B. Kantar
Manufacturer: Master Point Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Bridge | Card Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Cue Bidding to Slams (Master Bridge Series)

Eddie Kantar Teaches Modern Bridge Defense

Modern Constructive Bidding

Eddie Kantar Teaches Advanced Bridge Defense

ASIN: 1894154886

Customer Reviews:

Roman Keycards.......2007-08-09

The book I ordereed was in excellet condition, as expected. I received the book in a timely manner.

Kantar is a Mad Scientist.......2006-12-28

The book covers RKCBW, and keeps on going. Kantar presents some interesting ideas on how to handle different suits. This is definately a PARTNERSHIP book, if you sping any of this on a pick up pard, you will end up in a Grand Slam down 1, or missing a slam.
For example - Kantar proposes that there be 2 sets of Asks. One by the Strong Hand, and one by the Weak hand.

I found it "funny" when Kantar was saying Kickback was too complcated!
:-)

Anyway, this is a useful book, not just on RCKBW, but on Slam Bidding and Judgment. It's not a fun read (though Kantar has a GREAT sense of humor), but slam bidding is important, and it's worth investing the time with this.

The "Bible".......2006-05-28

My partner and I call this book the "Bible." Just like the Bible, this book is a difficult read. I have yet to read the entire book. Just like the Bible is the Gospel, this book is the Gospel for Roman KeyCard Blackwood. Very well written in the Kantar style...humorous and it seems like he is in front of you discussing the ideas. For RKB this book is the only way to go.

Roman Keycard Blackwood: Slam Bidding for the 21st Century.......2006-03-16

Fantastic book. We, my partner and myself have already included some of the conventions and suggestions on our card and practice.

Average customer rating:

A real sleeper

Profoundly Insightful

The Other View

"Must" Reading for Executives

A Fundamental Look at How Managers Should Think

The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning
Henry Mintzberg
Manufacturer: Financial Times Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Business Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through The Wilds of Strategic Mangament

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The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World

ASIN: 0273650378

Book Description

In this definitive and revealing history, Henry Mintzberg, the iconoclastic former president of the Strategic Management Society, unmasks the press that has mesmerized so many organizations since 1965: strategic planning. One of our most brilliant and original management thinkers, Mintzberg concludes that the term is an oxymoron -- that strategy cannot be planned because planning is about analysis and strategy is about synthesis. That is why, he asserts, the process has failed so often and so dramatically.

Mintzberg traces the origins and history of strategic planning through its prominence and subsequent fall. He argues that we must reconceive the process by which strategies are created -- by emphasizing informal learning and personal vision -- and the roles that can be played by planners. Mintzberg proposes new and unusual definitions of planning and strategy, and examines in novel and insightful ways the various models of strategic planning and the evidence of why they failed. Reviewing the so-called "pitfalls" of planning, he shows how the process itself can destroy commitment, narrow a company's vision, discourage change, and breed an atmosphere of politics. In a harsh critique of many sacred cows, he describes three basic fallacies of the process -- that discontinuities can be predicted, that strategists can be detached from the operations of the organization, and that the process of strategy-making itself can be formalized.

Mintzberg devotes a substantial section to the new role for planning, plans, and planners, not inside the strategy-making process, but in support of it, providing some of its inputs and sometimes programming its outputs as well as encouraging strategic thinking in general. This book is required reading for anyone in an organization who is influenced by the planning or the strategy-making processes.

Customer Reviews:

A real sleeper.......2007-04-10

Mintzberg goes back and forth on the issue of Stratgic planning. Basically, he quote's about 50 other authors thoughts on planning. I didn't find this book helpful and it was borning to read so many quotes from other authors.

Profoundly Insightful.......2006-07-02

Henry Mintzberg provides a panoramic overview of the history of strategic planning. He uses this backdrop to offer powerful insights into strategy development.

Mintzberg carefully examines the vexing question of how strategy is formed. His clear differentiation between strategy formation and strategic planning are helpful in understanding the actual creation of strategies vs. the planning for those strategies. He contends strategic planning should be called strategic programming based on the fact that it has little if anything to do with the formation of strategy. He clearly delineates the difference between deliberate and emergent strategy formation while explaining the need to respect both methods. His "black box" of strategy creation, where human intuition works in yet unknown ways, provides insights in how to support and improve a process one cannot hope to fully understand.

Mintzberg creates useful and memorable constructs which help sort out strategy's key aspects. First he addresses how strategy is actually formed in the real world, as opposed to how planners think it should be formed. On that foundation he reviews the pitfalls and fundamental fallacies of planning, such as assuming strategy will appear spontaneously out of a planning process not specifically equipped to create strategy. Lastly, he proposes remedies for how strategy creation can actually be fostered to improve results and be integrated into strategic planning.

Mintzberg's constructs and perspectives will help business leaders make sense out of the flurry of strategy information which continually bombards them.

The Other View.......2004-05-04

Henry Mintzberg is, as always, the iconoclast. It is well worth reading any book he writes because, invariably, he presents an alternative perspective on how business and how organisations work, generally one which drives from the combined power of both a theoretician and an experimentalist - a rare breed indeed.

The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning is no exception. It is a book about finding a general theory of strategic planning which, given that the search is rooted in Mintzberg's observations of what actually happens in the real world, has the potential for practical application.

His perspectives make one's understanding of the subject more complete; they promote one's ability to balance a potentially narrow view of the world with something richer. It doesn't really matter whether you think Mintzberg right or wrong, spot-on or off-beam, at least you have an alternative view. There are so many tidbits in his books that you invariably pick up something of worth.

From my own perspective, having read through (and intending to continue to read) the book on many occasions in my own attempts to implement some strategic planning concepts, I draw my own conclusions about two of Mintzberg's perspectives which I feel are worth commenting on.

Firstly, he takes the unique view of dividing the conventional planning model vertically along budget, objective, strategy and program lines (rather than cascading traditionally through corporate, business and functional lines down to actions). I have found, after much toying with this perspective, that it amounts to an hypothesis on how strategic planning actually works, and nothing more. His book focuses on expounding that exploratory hypothesis and, to some extent, because he focuses so heavily on it and because it is such a novel way of looking at things, it actually tends to make one forget that it is only a hypothesis. After many readings, I'm not sure how much the perspective enlightens and how much it obscures - that is the nature of hypotheses.

Secondly and finally, Mintzberg provides his own outline of how to pursue strategic planning using a three step model. Alas, and disappointingly, the model provides little practical guidance at the end of the day. It is far too vague, far too removed from everyday requirements. It also suffers from the absence of an actual example of its application. Then again, that's not what the book was about - although I was hoping.

Thank you Henry Mintzberg for the insight. The book is worth every cent for that alone.

"Must" Reading for Executives.......2003-07-09

Even if you don't agree with Henry Mintzberg, this is "must" reading for executives. It is thought-provoking for the individual reader; and it is a great discussion starter for a management team. I highly recommend it!

Dr. Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"

A Fundamental Look at How Managers Should Think.......2000-05-06

The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning is an important book, whose significance goes well beyond its subject. Most leaders, managers, and companies have adopted methods of deciding what to do and how to implement them without considering the fundamental assumptions and experiences with those methods. In essence, this important knowledge work is back where the planning of manual work was before Frederick Taylor. What he says has implications for quality, production planning, capacity expansions, new product design, IT, and many ohter functions, processes and activities.

Before you dismiss this point as being merely of academic interest, consider several of Mintzberg's more telling points: Forecasting is seldom accurate for long; creating intense alignment in the wrong direction can make a company vulnerable to sudden shifts in the market; formal staffs can simply create political games; and thinking that is not linked into the important processes of the company will have limited impact. If those points are right, what does it mean about how work should be performed in your organization?

Having been there and done that as both a strategic planner in the early 1970s and a strategy consultant before that, I recognize the disease as he diagnoses it. In fact, many of the people he quotes and evaluates are people I know. I also saw many of the companies improve themselves by doing less planning.

You can only cover so much in one book, but the potential of strategic work is to improve significant communications, thinking and action in the enterprise. That can help eliminate the significant stalls that delay progress. If Professor Mintzberg decides to do a second edition of this book, I hope he will do more with those subjects.

What has been disappointing to me and others who are familiar with the problems that strategic planning has experienced is the lack of alternatives being proposed. Mintzberg has proposed one, but it is pretty primitive. It just gets rid of some of the wasted motion in strategic planning, without building on success.

One of the few advanced processes that I know of is one that I co-authored in the soon-to-be-published, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise. If you are interested in that subject, take a look at that book's introduction.

I was pleased to see Mintzberg challenge Michael Porter to choose a method for selecting among paths for a business or company. When I first read Porter, I felt he waffled on that point, too. My research and experience strongly suggest that paths that leave you better off regardless of the unexpected changes you could experience work best. To locate those paths can be made systematic, as a way of helping people apply both analysis and intuition to finding better alternatives. That is what strategic planning should have focused on. I agree with Mintzberg in assigning importance to the generation of new and better alternatives as one potential benefit of strategy work, whether done by the line executive, a staff person, a consultant, or all of the above together.

I especially liked his awareness of the need for commitment. Involvement is a necessary part of gaining commitment, and the strategy processes that many use misses that important connection.

The book could have been improved, however, by doing some field work with companies which developed strategies that prospered well beyond their peers and seeming potential. What did they do that helped to create these results? Or was it a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day? Without answering that question, Mintzberg leaves us back in the pre Frederick Taylor days, except with a better idea of what does not work.

I have done substantial unpublished research on just that question. It is clear that there are several models that companies have used successfully to develop better strategies, implement them well, adapt to changes in a timely manner, and build systematically on success. I suggest you consider Clear Channel Communications as a company that focuses on rethinking the basic business model, Southwest Airlines as a company that achieves a superior cost position and efficiently transfers benefits from that to all stakeholder groups, and Linear Technology as a company that follows a strategy that should allow it to prosper regardless of the shifts in things it cannot stop or control.

No review of this book would be complete without noting that Mintzberg's persistent skepticism makes for some pretty humorous reading (unless you are one of the writers or planners he is questioning). Be sure you take time to enjoy the subtle humor in his writing.

Well done, Professor Mintzberg! I think this is the best work about how managers should manage their fundamental thinking that I have seen in the last 20 years.

Book Description

Strategic planning has fallen from the pedestal it occupied when it came on the scene in the mid-1960s. Strategic planning failed because it is not the same as strategic thinking. Planning is about analysis--about breaking a goal into steps, formalizing those steps, and articulating the expected consequences. Strategic thinking, in contrast, is about synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective, a not-too-precisely articulated vision of direction that must be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization.

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Customer Reviews:

The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning.......2006-01-22

Strategic Planning came on the scene in the mid-1960s and was embraced by organizations as the most effective way to draw up and implement strategies. However, it fell from the pedestal it once occupied. According to Mintzberg, this fall was due to confusing strategic planning with strategic thinking. Planning is concerned with analysis, which entails breaking down goals into steps and formalizing the steps to enable implementation. Strategic thinking, on the other hand, is about synthesis which involves intuition and creativity, the outcome of which is an integrated perspective of an organization and an articulated vision of direction the firm should take.

Mintzberg argues that strategic planning is rooted in a grand fallacy that analysis encompasses synthesis, therefore strategic planning is strategic thinking. He states that this grand fallacy arise from three fallacious assumptions namely that prediction is possible, that strategy formulation can be separated from implementation and that strategy making can be formalized. The result, according to Mintzberg has been disappointing corporate performance and hence the decline in managers faith in strategic planning.

Mintzberg is right that "we think in order to act, but we also act in order to think". We experiment with things and we take what works and these "converge gradually into viable patterns that become strategies". According to Mintzberg, this is the essence of strategy making as a learning process.

This article is very interesting and is in contrast to some views of another strategic planning guru, Michael Porter, who favour analytical techniques for developing strategy. Having read the article, I recommend that one reads the book by the same author "The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, Free Press, 1994" for a more in depth look into this subject.

An excellent primer for strategic design.......2005-06-17

I read this book a few years ago when I was new to strategic planning and particularly enjoyed how it deconstructed the assumptions of strategic planning and encouraged strategic design and systems thinking. I can't help but think that the past few years of business misteps and unfortunate mergers have only added value to this work.

Average customer rating:

Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning
Henry Mintzberg
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O92VYK

Average customer rating:

Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning
Mintzberg
Manufacturer: Financial Times Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORBAVM

Average customer rating:

Rise Fall Strategic Planning
Mintzberg
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall (Higher Education Division, Pearson Education)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0134407369

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