bookpagedev

Business & Finance

Briefly noted

Review by bookpagedev

Author Deborah J. Swiss spent a year conducting interviews with 52 successful men to determine how they think and act in the workplace. The results are revealed in The Male Mind At Work: A Woman’s Guide to Working With Men, a provocative guide for women to the way male co-workers approach the workplace and what they think about their female counterparts. For any woman who thought swinging a golf club might help her chances to succeed in the marketplace, Swiss offers a different remedy: learn to promote women’s unique strengths. Far from male-bashing, Swiss offers inside information for women serious about their careers and gives tools to bridge the gender gap at work.

Sharon Secor is a business writer based in Nashville.

 

Author Deborah J. Swiss spent a year conducting interviews with 52 successful men to determine how they think and act in the workplace. The results are revealed in The Male Mind At Work: A Woman's Guide to Working With Men, a provocative guide for…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

et the cute pompom tail. Don’t be tricked by the cute twitching nose. And whatever you do, don’t leave any spare carrots around when Nibbles O’Hare is in town. Nibbles is the bad boy of bunnies. He’s sly. He’s tricky. And he’s a real wascally wabbit! This colorful book follows the adventures of Nibbles O’Hare. The story opens in Nibbles’ not-so-posh basement apartment furnished by treasures from the trash, which he regularly leaves to go steal carrots and lettuce from a nearby restaurant. Nibbles’ life is interrupted when the restaurant’s chef decides to put WANTED signs for Nibbles all over the surrounding area.

In order to avoid being captured, he and his best buddy, Struts the pigeon, head to the country and find a small playhouse to call home. They spend a day cleaning it up and move in, only to be awoken by enraged rabbits who don’t take well to strangers. Caught in a carrot, Nibbles suggests that he deserves the house because he’s the Easter Bunny. The other bunnies not only believe him but agree to let him keep the small home. Nibbles is trapped into acting and behaving like the famed rabbit. The kitchen is turned into a chocolate factory, and the bunny helpers begin dying eggs en masse. Meanwhile, One-Eyed Jack finds an old WANTED poster on the side of the road, and Nibbles is caught in his own tale, so to speak. Nibbles admits he’s not the Easter Bunny but decides to fulfill his commitment to deliver the goods through a rough storm, earning the fellow bunnies’ approval and respect.

Nibbles O’Hare manages to escape the usual lessons and themes of redemption that fill most children’s books. The story is unique, fresh and shows a bit of attitude. It’s an honest reflection of a deceitful character and seems to applaud tenacity over other values. Both adults and children will enjoy the colorful artwork and funky looking bunnies. For those who enjoy the Warner Bros. classics, it’s time to move over, Bugs Bunny, and make room for a little bit of Nibbles.

Margaret Feinberg is a freelance writer based in Colorado Springs. She’s wanted a bunny since she was a little girl.

et the cute pompom tail. Don't be tricked by the cute twitching nose. And whatever you do, don't leave any spare carrots around when Nibbles O'Hare is in town. Nibbles is the bad boy of bunnies. He's sly. He's tricky. And he's a real wascally…
LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Robert Dash’s columns in the East Hampton Star have delighted readers for 12 years. He writes about gardening with an expert’s eye and his own unique ear for wit, exhibiting both the intensity required for planting a garden, but also the resilience required of anyone who undertakes such a potentially frustrating project. Notes from Madoo is a compilation of these columns. It is the perfect book for anyone who gardens, a harvest of images to sample as you contemplate plans for your own Madoo.

Dash’s columns often give very practical, yet simultaneously reverent, accounts of the plants he likes most, which he titles Plant Portraits. As he writes of the plume poppy, A wonder of a plant, nearly eight feet in height and, placed properly in the garden, of splendid effect. I like it opened up and do quite a bit of stem-stripping (hence, saffron hands) in order to see the fine silken sheen of its blue-green but nearly silver stem. The image of Dash staining his hands bright yellow in an attempt to make the plume poppy as majestic as possible inspires gardeners to put forth this kind of effort in their own gardens, even if their foliage is considerably more pedestrian.

But Dash does not restrict himself to accounts of even his most exotic plants. In a section called simply Fairies, he writes about the old folk tale that says that anyone who stands in a fairy ring of mushrooms and moss on Midsummer’s Eve will have countless wishes granted. Dash’s wishes are, of course, botanical, and he recalls that for different gardens he has tended over the years he has wished for such necessities as more level ground, better soil, a longer frost-free season, and simply rain.

But in the end, he concludes that it is better to take your chances and know the garden is your own, warts and all. For, as he writes, The voices would speak and I would heed them all and all good things would come to my garden. Or should I say their garden, for the garden would no longer be mine. I don’t think that I want a fairy-run, fairy managed garden. As a matter of fact, it is out of the question. Eliza R.

L. McGraw lives and writes in Nashville.

Robert Dash's columns in the East Hampton Star have delighted readers for 12 years. He writes about gardening with an expert's eye and his own unique ear for wit, exhibiting both the intensity required for planting a garden, but also the resilience required of anyone…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

oetry were cooking, Douglas Florian would undoubtedly be considered a master chef. In previous books like On the Wing, A Pig Is Big and Insectlopedia, he has developed a distinctive cuisine guaranteed to tempt the most finicky poetry reader.

Florian’s new book, lizards, frogs, and polliwogs, is no exception. Here are some of the ingredients of his never-fail recipe: Â¥ Begin with children’s fascination with animals, birds, insects and other creatures. The weirder, the better. Crocodiles, geckos, newts, iguanas, skinks and polliwogs will all do perfectly well.

Â¥ Add liberal amounts of humor, watercolor paint and brown paper bags. (That’s right, the art is done on brown paper bags!) Â¥ Now mix, whip, fold, knead and stir.

Â¥ The result: a delicious concoction of witty (and informative) poems with delightful illustrations, sure to get kids and parents giggling with joy.

lizards, frogs, and polliwogs boasts a design as elegant and playful as a nouveau cuisine main course. White space is used to advantage, with each poem set by itself on a page opposite a full-color illustration. In poems like The Gecko, celebrating the ability of geckos to climb walls, the words are arranged in a rectangle. The words in The Python circle around like a snake. The book is a feast of language, too, with lots of fun word play. Take a poem called The Newt. The illustration shows a newt comfortably settled in with his morning coffee and newspaper, the Newt News.

Some children’s poetry is so saccharine, parents can’t bear a second reading. Not so with Florian’s work, which is accessible enough for children but contains a sophisticated edge teens and adults will appreciate.

April is National Poetry Month, but if you want to encourage a love of language, then you just might consider making Douglas Florian’s books a part of your family’s regular diet of reading. They’re simply too delicious to pass up.

Deborah Hopkinson appreciates poetry and animals in Walla Walla,Washington. Her new books are Bluebird Summer and Fannie in the Kitchen.

oetry were cooking, Douglas Florian would undoubtedly be considered a master chef. In previous books like On the Wing, A Pig Is Big and Insectlopedia, he has developed a distinctive cuisine guaranteed to tempt the most finicky poetry reader.

Florian's new book, lizards,…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

subtitle of this handsome horizontal work explains its contents well: A Picture Book on the Last Week of Jesus’ Life &and His Resurrection. Starting with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, each of the 18 spreads contains a brief narrative and a large illustration about one of the dramatic episodes in the last week of Jesus’ life. The last four pictures center around his resurrection, ending with Jesus’ appearance to the disciples in the Upper Room. Haidle has done a good job condensing and simplifying the Gospel accounts. Each of her narratives retains the feeling of the biblical text, primarily that found in the Gospel of John. The dramatic tension builds to the crucifixion, and then Jesus appears at the end. A page of introduction and a concluding page make clear the evangelical thrust of the book. The last page bears the title designed to draw a decision from young readers: Will You Doubt . . . or Believe? The dramatic illustrations are obviously based on live models. Spector uses different perspectives and ranges to give variety to the scenes, e.g., a close-up of hands and money as a priest counts out the coins to Judas and a bird’s-eye view from the cross as Roman soldiers gamble for Jesus’ seamless robe. The nighttime scene In the Garden gives a long-range view of Roman soldiers coming up the hill as the disciples sleep. The colors throughout are rich and strong, and in some images a brilliant red is used for Jesus’ blood. The art seems to be making a theological point about atonement that may alarm some children, especially those at the lower years of the 4 to 8 recommended age range. In any case, a parent will probably prefer to read He Is Alive! the first time through with the child and perhaps read additional Bible passages by way of explanation. What we choose to read to children at Easter, of course, depends on our own convictions. For Christian readers, this book seems preferable to stories about bunnies and chicks and Easter eggs. ¦ He Is Alive! By Helen Haidle Illustrated by Joel Spector Zonderkidz, $12.99 ISBN 0310700337 Review by Paula Zachary The subtitle of this handsome horizontal work explains its contents well: A Picture Book on the Last Week of Jesus’ Life &and His Resurrection. Starting with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, each of the 18 spreads contains a brief narrative and a large illustration about one of the dramatic episodes in the last week of Jesus’ life. The last four pictures center around his resurrection, ending with Jesus’ appearance to the disciples in the Upper Room. Haidle has done a good job condensing and simplifying the Gospel accounts. Each of her narratives retains the feeling of the biblical text, primarily that found in the Gospel of John. The dramatic tension builds to the crucifixion, and then Jesus appears at the end. A page of introduction and a concluding page make clear the evangelical thrust of the book. The last page bears the title designed to draw a decision from young readers: Will You Doubt . . . or Believe? The dramatic illustrations are obviously based on live models. Spector uses different perspectives and ranges to give variety to the scenes, e.g., a close-up of hands and money as a priest counts out the coins to Judas and a bird’s-eye view from the cross as Roman soldiers gamble for Jesus’ seamless robe. The nighttime scene In the Garden gives a long-range view of Roman soldiers coming up the hill as the disciples sleep. The colors throughout are rich and strong, and in some images a brilliant red is used for Jesus’ blood. The art seems to be making a theological point about atonement that may alarm some children, especially those at the lower years of the 4 to 8 recommended age range. In any case, a parent will probably prefer to read He Is Alive! the first time through with the child and perhaps read additional Bible passages by way of explanation. What we choose to read to children at Easter, of course, depends on our own convictions. For Christian readers, this book seems preferable to stories about bunnies and chicks and Easter eggs.

Paula Zachary is a stay-at-home mom who also develops material for an educational Web site. She lives in Huntsville, Alabama.

subtitle of this handsome horizontal work explains its contents well: A Picture Book on the Last Week of Jesus' Life &and His Resurrection. Starting with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, each of the 18 spreads contains a brief narrative and a large illustration about…
Children's & YA

A classic tale of Easter

Review by bookpagedev

With repetitive, child-friendly words that build into a sweet, simple retelling of one of the most loved stories of all time, Carol Wedeven creates a picture book perfect for any Easter basket. The author of nine children’s books, including the classic Bible tales of Noah and Esther retold for first-time readers, Wedeven now turns to the most treasured Bible story of all, the resurrection.

Little tykes probably aren’t ready for a graphically detailed version of Christ’s death, and Wedeven’s take on the timeless story celebrates without scaring. Titled The Easter Cave, she begins with a text from Matthew 27 that relates the kind act by the rich man of Arimathea who placed Jesus’ body in his own new tomb. Matthew states that He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. From there, Wedeven launches the narrative with one simple, rhythmic sentence. This is the cave the friend gave. As you turn the pages, the story builds by adding a new phrase to the previous one. Line by line Wedeven tells the unforgettable story with a rhythmic, poetic feeling. The simple repetition walks you through the crucifixion and resurrection, telling the entire story with only 10 lines an impressive feat for such a tragic, passionate story.

Faced with the task of fleshing out the miniscule text, illustrator Len Ebert has created a warm landscape that expertly conveys the meanings and tone. Spring is on full display in his soft, inviting illustrations. On almost every page flowers are blooming, birds are singing and squirrels are listening to the good news of Christ’s resurrection.

With so few lines and rhymes, you can’t cover everything, and in this case, less attention is focused on Jesus’ time spent on the cross. The text and art dwell more on the events before and after the crucifixion and on often-overlooked details like the crowing rooster, the women who found the empty tomb and the generosity of Joseph of Arimathea.

Ebert’s warm illustrations make the timeless story accessible for young readers, and the simple, straightforward text makes it easy for youngsters to join in, interact and read along. A perfect introduction to the meaning and history of Easter.

With repetitive, child-friendly words that build into a sweet, simple retelling of one of the most loved stories of all time, Carol Wedeven creates a picture book perfect for any Easter basket. The author of nine children's books, including the classic Bible tales of Noah…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

small hidden eggs to creeping, fuzzy caterpillars to silky, transparent cocoons to bold, beautiful butterflies, Lois Elhert reveals nature’s miraculous transformation in Waiting for Wings. The dramatic collages, drenched in vibrant color, are creatively arranged on uniquely shaped pages. The layout adds to the fun and sense of wonder, as each page grows in size, ultimately revealing the coming of spring and with it, the full-grown butterfly. The simple, rhyming text provides children and adults alike a glimpse into the life cycle of four common butterflies. From the very first page, Waiting for Wings challenges children to explore the art for tiny eggs clinging to leaves with butterfly glue. Next, the differing shapes and colors of caterpillars chomp leaves (actual holes in the pages!) as they crawl across the flora, searching for safe, out-of-the-way places to make cocoons. There, tiny bodies and wings grow and wiggle inside the caterpillar cases as the pages themselves appear to bloom with color.

Spring has finally arrived! Butterflies pump their wings, unroll their tongues and begin dipping and sipping. Finally, they flutter across the fields, ready to lay eggs and start the whole process all over again. Eye-catching art, imaginative design and descriptive text are not the only reasons children and adults will be anxious to read this book again and again. The last few pages reveal detailed descriptions of each caterpillar, butterfly and flower pictured throughout the book. It also provides a Butterfly Information page that labels specific body parts of the insect, explains how it begins life and how it eats. The last page offers ideas on growing your own butterfly garden. Imagine the fun parents and children can share on a sunny day, exploring their own garden while identifying the caterpillars, butterflies and flowers found there! This isn’t the first time Lois Ehlert has created an eye-popper. She also wrote and illustrated Hands, the visually enchanting, hand-shaped book about a child’s delight in helping Mom and Dad. Another don’t-miss is her Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, brimming with color and information on the life cycle of a sugar maple. But for now, as the days grow longer, celebrate the arrival of spring (and butterflies) with Waiting for Wings.

small hidden eggs to creeping, fuzzy caterpillars to silky, transparent cocoons to bold, beautiful butterflies, Lois Elhert reveals nature's miraculous transformation in Waiting for Wings. The dramatic collages, drenched in vibrant color, are creatively arranged on uniquely shaped pages. The layout adds to the fun…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

EF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, has co-published, along with Phyllis Fogelman Books, a new picture book that nicely sets an optimistic tone for the new millennium. For Every Child is drawn from the 54 principles formally adopted in November 1989 by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and for every book sold, the publisher will donate $1.50 to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Fourteen of the principles are addressed in simple, ringing language and are accompanied with illustrations by 14 artists from around the world. You’ll find the full legal wording of the principles in an appendix at the back of the book.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu sets the tone of both outrage and optimism in his powerful foreword. After describing some of the horrifying photographs of children taken during recent wars, he declares a manifesto: . . . Let the twenty-first century be marked by peace and justice and development. . . . We each can make a difference if we are vigilant to create a new kind of society, more compassionate, more caring, more sharing, where human rights, where children’s rights are respected and protected. The 14 UN principles include such sentiments as, Understand that all children are precious. Pick us up if we fall down, and if we are lost, lend us your hand. Give us the things we need to make us happy and strong, and always do your best for us whenever we are in your care. The words appear across the bottom of double-page spreads that give the artists elbowroom to create their splendid variety of pictures.

Not surprisingly, the illustrators include an international spectrum of talent. Currently the artwork is on tour, exhibiting in museums and bookstores throughout the U.S.

For Every Child isn’t a speech or a lecture. It is a celebration a celebration of variety and youth and innocence and a reminder of our commitment to those who cannot fend for themselves.

Michael Sims writes about science and nature for adults and children.

EF, the United Nations Children's Fund, has co-published, along with Phyllis Fogelman Books, a new picture book that nicely sets an optimistic tone for the new millennium. For Every Child is drawn from the 54 principles formally adopted in November 1989 by the UN Convention…
Memoir

A reporter’s diary made public

Review by bookpagedev

Like Leno and Letterman, he is a fixture of the after-hours cultural zeitgeist. But instead of delivering monologues and Top Ten Lists, Ted Koppel delves into issues. His name is synonymous with ABC’s Nightline, the respected news show he has anchored for more than 20 years. Esteemed for his journalistic skills, especially his intrepid interviews, Koppel is a preeminent force in TV news. Befitting that status, he has been toasted and roasted (of his decidedly bad hair, the Washington Post declared, "it looks like a Brillo pad ). And, he has journeyed from the small screen to the book shelves.

In his televised reports, Koppel strives for objectivity. Viewers are not privy to his personal thoughts. So he has delivered them in print.

Off Camera: Private Thoughts Made Public originated as a journal what Koppel calls "an exercise in self-discipline. Speaking by phone from the Nightline offices in Washington, D.C., Koppel explained that on the last day of 1998 he got the idea to keep a day-to-day record of his observations on the events of the following year. "My grandmother was born in 1899. I thought what a joy it would have been, for our family, if there had been a journal detailing the dawn of 1900. Determined to detail the dawn of 2000 for Grace Anne, his wife of 40 years, and their four children, Koppel wrote daily initially alternating between yellow legal pad and laptop. "Then I realized that everything I was writing on the legal pad I was transferring to the laptop. The legal pad was abandoned. Off Camera marks his second print project about Nightline. The first, largely written by former Nightline producer Kyle Gibson (with Koppel contributing) was the 1996 title, Nightline :History in the Making and the Making of Television. It took readers behind the scenes of the show. Off Camera also takes readers behind the scenes of Koppel’s childhood in England, his contemporary family life, and his work as a TV newsman. To Koppel’s dismay, in current news reporting, there is "this tremendous rush to be first with the obvious. His book underscores the perils of that rush, pointing out what happened when CNN broke the news of a shooting at the Armenian parliament. After reporting the death of the prime minister, a CNN anchor went on to report that the prime minister was actually at a hospital, in critical condition. (He did die, but it was never made clear when.) "It was a perfect example of all that is wrong with television’s electronic tail wagging the editorial dog, writes Koppel.

After all, he elaborated, "Journalism entails more than focusing a camera on an event. It entails providing some kind of context. Koppel also voices his concerns about the racism inherent in our society. (He once quizzed five of his black Nightline colleagues and found they had all been behind bars, if only in a holding cell.) Then there is Koppel’s theory about the Vannatizing of America, as in Vanna White, the beautiful game show personality who attained her fame without offering up opinions. "This, I believe, is the root of her popularity. We are able to project on her whatever we please, and, therefore, find her sympathetic, writes Koppel, who wryly wonders if George W. Bush’s popularity is likewise due to the Vannatizing of America. He also questions Bush’s continued refusal to squarely answer questions pertaining to rumors of possible drug use. Koppel, who has done numerous shows about this country’s correctional institutions and their inhabitants believes Bush owes the public the truth. After all, he is governor of a state known for dispensing tough penalties, in the form of stiff prison sentences, to drug users.

"A lot of the offenders are young people who are not going to be finding themselves on the path to the presidency. In fact, their options will be severely limited after they have served 10 to 15 years. As for the future: he is not yet sure how the internet will ultimately impact news. He worries that there are no watchdog agencies to make sure cyberspace news sites abide by "professional standards. Until that day comes, he advises news junkies to stick with solid news sources that are unafraid to weigh in late on a story. "The New York Times has retained its [lofty] reputation. I think they’d rather be beaten on a story than be inaccurate, said Koppel. Without skipping a beat, he added, "And so would I. Pat H. Broeske explores the worlds of crime and punishment as a segment producer for Court TV’s Anatomy of Crime.

 

Like Leno and Letterman, he is a fixture of the after-hours cultural zeitgeist. But instead of delivering monologues and Top Ten Lists, Ted Koppel delves into issues. His name is synonymous with ABC's Nightline, the respected news show he has anchored for more than…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

r. Christiane Northrup, one of American women’s most trusted medical advisers, challenged conventional wisdom in Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by arguing that common medical problems are often rooted in the basic circumstances of women’s lives and can be addressed by listening to their bodies. Now, in The Wisdom of Menopause, Northrup once again contests the axiom that menopause is a collection of physical ailments to be fixed through drugs or herbs. Rather, she contends that this stage in a woman’s life is an opportunity for growth not available since puberty. Instead of dreading menopause, the book urges women to understand that Midlife is when we hear the wake-up call that demands that we start honoring our own needs. This new book stresses how the choices a woman makes at midlife, from the quality of her relationships to the quality of her diet, either ensure or confound her emotional and physical health into old age.

Much of the advice in The Wisdom of Menopause is presented in a reassuring manner designed to give confidence to those approaching or going through menopause. Northrup offers a piece of common sense that binds all the advice in the book together: Our state of health and happiness depends more upon our perception of life events around us than upon the events themselves. By integrating the latest in medical techniques (hormone replacement) with the best natural remedies (diet, exercise and herb therapy), Northrup’s holistic, mind/body approach offers guidance on choosing the right avenue for almost every aspect of this important time in a woman’s life.

Intimate case histories from Northrup’s practice and her own life illustrate how menopause literally rewires the brain, triggering a shift of priorities from caretaking and nesting to personal growth and more outward focuses. This rewiring occurs, according to the book, whether the change has come about naturally, surgically or pharmaceutically.

In addition to outlining the kinds of alterations a woman’s body undergoes, the book elucidates how the body adjusts naturally to changing hormones; how to make personalized decisions about hormone replacement therapy and alternative supplements; how to rebalance metabolic shifts and prevent middle-age spread; how to prevent long-term health problems such as heart disease, hormone-related cancers and memory loss; and how to deal with the myths and realities of sexual changes and appearance issues. Ultimately, listening to the wake-up calls inherent in women’s cyclic nature allows them to hear the true messages their bodies are sending: that menopause is a time of personal empowerment and positive energy, a time for women to break free and thrive.

Kelly Koepke writes from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

r. Christiane Northrup, one of American women's most trusted medical advisers, challenged conventional wisdom in Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by arguing that common medical problems are often rooted in the basic circumstances of women's lives and can be addressed by listening to their bodies. Now,…
Nature

Review

Review by bookpagedev

avid Gessner’s third book, Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder, an account of his observations of four pairs of ospreys over a full nesting season, has an intensity born of understanding both nature and humanity. Gessner immerses himself in the lives of these magnificent birds, once driven almost to extinction by the pesticide DDT, as a way of exploring the interconnectedness of the world around him. He calls it an experiment in seeing in vision. Gessner is not a scientist, and for that we are grateful. We follow the birds as he does from his home on Cape Cod, with an unfolding sense of wonder and awe. We marvel at the return of these birds to numbers approximating their abundance in the 1930s; we take measure of a bird 24 inches high, with a wing span of six feet, who weighs only four pounds; we wiggle our thumbs in an attempt to understand the intricacies of a reversible outer talon capable of turning a fish in midair; we try to imagine the physical sensation of diving through the air, wings thrown back at the last minute to plunge into the water feet first; we laugh at the sight of half a naked Barbie doll, carefully selected as ideal nest-building material for a messy nest above a busy parking lot. Through the ospreys’ day-to-day living, Gessner connects us to timeless themes of life and death and human struggles with ourselves and others. He weaves glimpses of his family and neighbors and personal insights into the narrative of his search and vow to spend more time with the birds. Praised in his earlier books A Wild, Rank Place and Under the Devil’s Thumb for his rich lyricism, Gessner does not disappoint here. Painting scenes of what he sees and hears and smells and feels, he touches us not so much with subtleties of style, but with the eloquence and clarity of patient and persistent observation. Emerson, he says, was right, that to see is everything. And it is precisely the gift of his sight that Gessner has given his readers in this book. For anyone interested in our connections and disconnections to nature, this is a delightful romp from the marshes of wilderness to the pavements of civilization.

Temple West is a writer in Norfolk, Virginia.

avid Gessner's third book, Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder, an account of his observations of four pairs of ospreys over a full nesting season, has an intensity born of understanding both nature and humanity. Gessner immerses himself in the lives…
Religion & Spirituality

Review

Review by bookpagedev

n William Tyndale’s version (1525), as in most subsequent versions, the Gospel of John begins, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God: and the word was God. And in the beginning, the Word was in Hebrew, and then in Greek, and then in Latin, and then it was cobbled together into the English version we now know as the King James, or Authorized Version of 1611. But if 1611 seems to us like a long time ago, it is a relatively recent date in the Bible’s long and tortuous journey from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate of 405 to our own language. Benson Bobrick’s book is about that journey.

Today we take for granted that the holy scriptures of a religious faith should be in the vernacular of the faithful. But as early as a documented case in 1233, the first question ever asked by an Inquisitor of a Ôheretic’ was whether he knew any part of the Bible in his own tongue. It was the job of the Church to select what portions of the Bible should be known to the laity and how those passages would be interpreted. For with ready access to any document and the ability to read it, human beings begin to ask questions, and inevitably to interpret what they read. And that confers a certain freedom that brings with it an implicit challenge to established authority. The Inquisitors were rightly concerned about who had been reading what.

The story is as much a political and social history as it is a religious and linguistic one. One of the biggest and most persistent struggles was between those of Puritan inclination and those with more traditional views. The Pilgrims who came to American shores were of course Puritans, and their influence in our own history and thinking is difficult to overstate. Bobrick explains how the quest for freedom of religious belief led almost inevitably to the quest for personal freedom. And it is on this basis that he makes his claim, difficult to refute, that the translation of the Bible into the English language was of greater historical significance than its rendering into any other vernacular. For the English Bible had given its readers the idea of the equality of man. . . . It was the idea of the sacred and equal importance of every man, as made in the image of God. Bobrick skillfully manages to entice the reader to accompany him on what turns out to be a fascinating and often surprising journey.

Carl Smith teaches at the Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University.

n William Tyndale's version (1525), as in most subsequent versions, the Gospel of John begins, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God: and the word was God. And in the beginning, the Word was in Hebrew, and then in Greek,…
Business & Finance

Just your type: behavior on the job

Review by bookpagedev

We’re each wired differently that much is for sure. Scientific knowledge about the "nature" part of our personalities is continually improving, while psychological inquiries into the "nurture" side are ever deepening. Nobody has mapped the human soul, as has happened with the human genome, but it’s not for lack of trying.

Given the outpouring of ink in recent years on the varieties of human intelligence (such as Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence and Howard Gardner’s Intelligence Reframed), it’s no surprise that business authors would seek to apply this evolving science to the workplace. This month, we look at four recently released books that delve into the connections between personality type and business performance.

The Character of Organizations: Using Personality Type in Organization Development (Davies-Black, $18.95, ISBN 0891061495), by William Bridges, is an updated edition of a title that gained critical acclaim upon its initial appearance a decade ago. Bridges looks at businesses as organisms, with their own personal histories and inherited characteristics. He argues convincingly that a company’s character is much more than the sum of its employees’ personalities, and he offers guidance in understanding how different types of organizations think, feel, perceive, and behave. Applied properly, his analysis may be able to steer a firm away from patterns of action that are self-defeating and toward actions that better suit its strengths.

As I read through Bridges’s 16 types of organizational personalities (modeled on the individual personality types of the widely used Myers-Briggs personality assessments), a Rorschach effect sets in. I see one of my former employers in the profile of an ENFJ corporation (a type in which extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging behaviors predominate), and then I see it again in the quite different profile of an ISTJ company (introverted, sensing, thinking, and judging). I find another ex-employer in four different personality-type ink blots. Accurately defining one’s true type is hard in Bridges’ system (as it is in the Myers-Briggs system), but the very act of trying to figure out which profile fits best can improve self-knowledge.

Bridges includes in his book an "Organizational Character Index" that business teams can use to evaluate the character of their companies and, by implication, determine what kinds of people will fit best within a given corporate culture. The author is at pains to stress that his index should not be used as a screening tool by employers, stressing that there are no "good" or "bad" personality types just different types that are more well-suited, or less well-suited, to be part of a certain type of team. Just as a career counselor can help an individual focus on jobs he or she is good at, The Character of Organizations can help a company hone strategies that make the most of its strengths.

Conversely, another new book tries to help workers avoid being harmed by their own personality defects and, one must admit, we’ve each got a few of those. Maximum Success: Changing the 12 Behavior Patterns that Keep You from Getting Ahead (Doubleday, $24.95, ISBN 0385498497), by James Waldroop and Timothy Butler, is a thoughtful and useful compendium of things not to do and ways not to be, while you’re on the job.

Maximum Success is the consummate self-help guide for talented people who keep running into the same problems over and over, in different jobs. There are employees who never feel quite good enough to deserve the jobs they have. There are workers for whom no job is ever good enough. There are those who try to do too much at once, those who avoid conflict at any cost, those who can’t get along with the boss, and those who feel they have lost track of their career paths. The authors, who head up the Harvard Business School’s MBA career development office, have seen it all.

The downside of perusing a book like this is that it often brings on moments of rueful recognition. Playing the "peacemaker" or the "bulldozer," exhibiting a "reactive stance toward authority" or "emotional tone-deafness" these are workplace behaviors that emerge out of a person’s deepest psychological being. Confronting them means confronting a piece of yourself. Like Bridges, Waldroop and Butler go out of their way not to be judgmental about such habits. But, again like Bridges, they draw on a body of psychological literature stretching back to Karl Jung as they offer constructive suggestions for recognizing these tendencies and avoiding the career ruin they can cause.

The human resource manager’s role as group psychologist is the subject of Making Change Happen One Person at a Time: Assessing Change Capacity Within Your Organization, by Charles H. Bishop, Jr. (AMACOM, $27.95, ISBN 0814405282). Bishop lays out the characteristics of four different personality types, classified by how they react to change. Making Change Happen is a precise, step-by-step guide to determining who within a company will be most likely to succeed during and after the implementation of a change initiative.

Here, too, part of the lesson is that there’s not a one-size-fits-all personality template that produces ideal employees. A company with too many of Bishop’s "A-players" or "active responders" the Alpha Males of the corporate world who embrace change, pinpoint opportunities and learn from mistakes will face leadership and succession problems because there’s not room enough at the top for everyone. On the other hand, Bishop is tellingly sparse with suggested roles for "D-players" who resist change: From the HR man’s perspective, the main point is to make sure these misfits don’t get in the way. And now for something completely different but once again related to psychological typecasting. Power Money Fame Sex: A User’s Guide, by Gretchen Craft Rubin (Pocket, $25.95, ISBN 0671041282), is an archly written guide to making a complete creep of oneself. Take Rubin’s advice to heart, and you can become any organization’s worst nightmare: a talented tyrant, a "user." Like the other featured authors, Rubin is scrupulously non-judgmental. And her work is not exactly satire. It’s something that bites deeper an exposŽ of a certain type of person that lives among us.

Naturally, it begins with a personality assessment quiz. Presuming you are a "striver" and do crave power, the quiz is intended to determine whether you seek direct or indirect power. Power, Rubin notes trenchantly, will get you a lot further in life than merit. She then spells out how to use people to get power, money, fame, and sex, and then how to use power, money, fame, and sex to get more power, money, fame, and sex.

Advice like "Never let your effort show" and "Traffic only in the right products, places and pastimes" could have come straight out of J.P. Donleavy’s sadly out-of-print gonzo manners manual, The Unexpurgated Code. A discussion of "useful defects and harmful virtues" turns everything your scoutmaster tried to teach you on its head. Here as elsewhere, Rubin raises questions that cut through the book’s veil of irony for instance: "Did Richard Nixon become president despite his insecurity and mistrust, or at least partly because of those traits?" If it all sounds unsavory, and these postmodern perversions of the idea of manners strike you as something not quite cricket, then you can at least have the satisfaction of knowing how others are trying to manipulate you. Rubin is not an advocate for this sort of behavior, after all. She’s just pointing out how it works. And I know a few people who would study a book like this carefully, doing their best to follow it to the letter.

Journalist and entrepreneur E. Thomas Wood is working with author John Egerton on a book about Nashville.

We're each wired differently that much is for sure. Scientific knowledge about the "nature" part of our personalities is continually improving, while psychological inquiries into the "nurture" side are ever deepening. Nobody has mapped the human soul, as has happened with the human genome,…

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