The Ebooks Review

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A fascinating insight into the birth and growth of the largest consumer society the world has ever seen — and a handbook for how to make technology desirable.” — New Scientist

“A great resource for the auto buff as well as aficionados of industrial design.” — Cruise-In.com

Review

“An autobiography by one of the leading industrial designers in this country… Mr. Loewy tells of his youth in France, his coming to America after the first war, his initial success as a fashion artist, and the dawn of industrial design and his part in it… The book is instructive, brash, cocksure, occasionally funny, sometimes vulgar, and always honest.” — New Yorker, reviewing a previous edition or volume

“Whilst displaying an uncommon amount of literary dexterity, modesty, and generosity, Loewy manages to describe the development of his career, his achievements, and the methods and organization of his business… It is the funniest and most lucid success story that the industrial design field has yet produced.” — Interiors, reviewing a previous edition or volume

“The details in this book are amazing… This book serves well to teach how the designs of everyday objects can have an effect on their usefulness, attrativeness, and even potential sales for businesses.” — Paul Regna, Avanti Magazine, reviewing a previous edition or volume

Order Never Leave Well Enough Alone: Raymond Loewy, Glenn Porter form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
As Owings (Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich) knew when she decided to explore the large, understudied world of the American waitress, many women have worked as waitresses at some point in their lives because it requires little training. Marrying social history and oral history, the author deftly explores her themes, primarily classism and the social stigma conveyed by waitressing (tips, she argues, give customers too much power and some restaurants the legal right today to pay as little as two dollars an hour), the confidence-building that comes with handling a demanding and often rude public, the sexism of bosses and kitchen staff, and the pride the women take in presenting an attractive meal and making their customers feel good. Owings allows a wide range of women to speak for themselves, among them a supremely confident mother-and-daughter duo; a former Connecticut housewife whose job gives her independence from an abusive marriage; a Ph.D. who feels more at ease as a waitress than as a graduate student; and a former Seattle union leader who has made great strides in improving the working conditions of waitresses. Owings presents her findings with compassion and wit and a sense of feminist indignation that doesn’t detract from her journalistic balance. These qualities make for a lively read in this trailblazing contribution to the study of women and work.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This is the second oral history by Owings, whose first book, Frauen, collected the reminiscences of average German women about Hitler’s Germany. The subject here is not so fraught, but the observations of 35 waitresses, as selected and edited by Owings, are absorbing to read. Part of the interest is in her choice of locales: an Ursuline convent, the Woolworth’s counter where civil rights sit-ins took place, one of the Harvey restaurants that “civilized the West,” the first New York haute cuisine restaurant to hire a woman, and Everglades National Park, among others. Judicious editing also makes the book compelling: each waitress is full of insights about her life and her life’s work and does not seem mired in the job. This is neither a labor study like Greta Foff Paules’s Dishing It Out nor a first-person expos‚ of what Barbara Ehrenreich calls one of America’s “least attractive jobs” (Nickel and Dimed). At its heart is young Owings’s compassionate realization, while on a summer job at Howard Johnson’s, that “some girls do not go to college”; she is not referring only to the scarcity of the literature when she observes that “waitresses stand alone even when they sit down.” Recommended for labor history, women’s studies, sociology, career counseling, and general interest collections. Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Order Hey, Waitress! The USA from the Other Side of the Tray: Alison Owings form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

Review
“Victor Zarnowitz, probably the world’s pre-eminent scholar of business cycles, has written a fascinating account of his life up to now, mostly in the turbulence of the 20th Century. The book is not only a narrative of triumph over many evil forces and events, but is also illuminated by the warm, kind, and thoughtful personality of the author, familiar to those who have known him for many years. It is partly that personality that comes out in his love for democracy and freedom, evident throughout the book.”-Robert E. Lipsey, Director, New York Office, National Bureau of Economic Research

Review
“Victor Zarnowitz is an economist–an absolutely first-class economist. He is one of the few totally at home both with masses of data and with sorting out that data in ways that cast fresh light over the way the economy works. But this memoir is not a statistical book. Rather, it’s a uniquely personal story. It’s a human story and a quintessential American story: the triumph of the human spirit in the context of freedom and opportunity.”–Paul Volcker, Former Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve

“Victor Zarnowitz is a national treasure–and, having survived the Nazi invasion, he’s an American national treasure. He probably knows more about business cycles than anyone alive. But even such a monumental store of knowledge is just a part of Victor–as this book beautifully demonstrates.”–Alan S. Blinder, Professor, Princeton University, Former Vice Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve

“Victor Zarnowitz stands among the great business cycle researchers of the past half century. His work as an economist helped his adopted nation navigate uncertain times. This very personal story of how he navigated war and economic calamity is a moving and important tale. From a youth in the Polish town of Auschwitz, to Russian gulags, to his research in Heidelberg and Chicago and New York, he is a survivor who lost much in his journey. He has also given very much back.”–Jon Hilsenrath, Wall Street Journal

“Victor Zarnowitz, probably the world’s pre-eminent scholar of business cycles, has written a fascinating account of his life up to now, mostly in the turbulence of the 20th Century. The book is not only a narrative of triumph over many evil forces and events, but is also illuminated by the warm, kind, and thoughtful personality of the author, familiar to those who have known him for many years. It is partly that personality that comes out in his love for democracy and freedom, evident throughout the book.”–Robert E. Lipsey, Director, New York Office, National Bureau of Economic Research

Order Fleeing the Nazis, Surviving the Gulag, and Arriving in the Free World: My Life and Times: Victor Zarnowitz form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
According to Felsenthal ( Alice Roosevelt Longworth ), Katharine Graham, the imperious media mogul whose empire includes the Washington Post, Newsweek, TV stations and cable systems, was a fragile, withdrawn person, ill-prepared to run a troubled newspaper, when she became publisher of the Post after the suicide of her manic-depressive husband Phil. In this absorbing, gossipy biography, Felsenthal sympathetically portrays Graham (b. 1917) as a survivor of emotional abuse and as a brave fighter for a free press who took tremendous risks by printing the Pentagon Papers and by disregarding pressure from Nixon in covering the Watergate affair. As a girl, she had to prove her mettle constantly to her father, Eugene Meyer, a Jewish Wall Street millionaire, and to her bombastic Lutheran mother, Agnes Ernst Meyer, a “do-gooder liberal” who preached tolerance while harboring “an ugly streak of anti-Semitism” and belittling her children. Felsenthal presents Graham as an “emotionally battered” wife who endured her husband’s anti-Semitic slurs and even laughed at the crude jokes he made at her expense. Photos. First serial to Vanity Fair; BOMC featured alternate.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In this new biography, Katharine Graham emerges as a woman of contradictions: a powerful publisher plagued by insecurity and self-doubt. Beginning with Graham’s difficult relationship with her mother and moving through her marriage to the brilliant but manic-depressive Phil Graham, Felsenthal ( Alice Roosevelt Longworth , LJ 2/15/88, and The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority: The Biography of Phyllis Schafly , LJ 1/81) documents the emotional abuses that helped shape a vulnerable and tough Kay Graham. Ever contradictory, she supported Nixon for president yet made decisions that permitted Washington Post reporters to pursue a story that would result in his resignation. She believed women were inferior yet led a media empire to both financial and journalistic success. This is the second biography of Graham; the first, Deborah Davis’s newly reissued Katharine the Great (Sheridan Pr., 1991), stirred controversy and was pulled soon after its publication in 1979. Felsenthal devotes a chapter to the fate of the first. She bases her biography on interviews and offers the reader a compelling portrait of a complex woman. It belongs in both public and academic libraries.
- Judy Solberg, Univ. of Maryland Libs., College Park
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Order Power, Privilege and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story: Carol Felsenthal form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

Pearls of Wisdom from How They Achieved

"Pride comes from knowing what you want to do and trying your best. You may not always get there, but you will be proud of the experience of trying your best. And if you really, really try and enjoy the process, nine times out of ten you will get there."––John Chen, President and CEO, Sybase

"Be the most passionate guy in the room. Not the smartest, not the cleverest, but the most passionate. Care more than anybody. You’ll be the guy that wins."––Ted Bell, Vice Chairman and Worldwide Creative Director, Young & Rubicam

"People who are lucky enough to be in a position to choose their career should ask themselves, ‘What interests me? What makes me really excited?’ Then they should get going and never take no for an answer."––Susie Tompkins Buell, founder and former owner, Esprit Clothing

"People usually plan their vacations more carefully than they plan their careers. I’m a compulsive planner, but there were times when I had no idea what I was doing."––Bob Cohn, CEO, Octel and Lucent Technologies

"A lot of it is timing, but a lot of it is a desire to work hard and to contribute, to not be somebody sitting on the sidelines and commenting, but to be someone playing a part in what’s happening. It’s also having the courage to toss your ideas out even though eight out of ten of them will be shot down."––Jane Cahill Pfieffer, President, NBC, and former vice president, IBM

From the Inside Flap
What are the qualities that enable certain extraordinary individuals to transcend self-doubt and stiff competition to reach the pinnacle of success? Can these qualities be learned and emulated by others? Few people are in a better position to find answers to these questions than Lucinda Watson, whose father and grandfather turned IBM into "Big Blue."

Now an accomplished scholar in her own right, Watson grew up surrounded by the greatest business leaders and thinkers of the twentieth century. Her unique access to these top-level achievers combined with her own training and expertise make her especially qualified to obtain their fascinating inside stories.

In How They Achieved, Watson interviews outstanding men and women who have reached the very peak of their professions, distilling those special qualities of personality that separate the winners from the also-rans. These legendary CEOs, celebrated entrepreneurs, and social and cultural visionaries reveal how they discovered their life’s passions, pursued their goals, and overcame adversity.

Susie Tompkins Buell reveals how she managed the evolution of the Plain Jane Dress Company into Esprit Clothing. Faith Popcorn explains how she helps Fortune 500 companies see into the future to devise new strategies and develop new products. And Jack Kornfield, author, psychologist, and founder of the Spirit Rock meditation center, talks about how he achieved a different kind of success––measured not so much in dollars or titles but in personal satisfaction.

These and other achievers tell their stories in their own words, offering their experiences as examples for others to follow. They remember their heroes and mentors, relive their most difficult decisions, and explain how they overcame inner demons such as fear and insecurity. The message they deliver is that self-confidence and self-esteem––both key ingredients for success––are not natural gifts but can be learned, developed, and strengthened. In these compelling success stories, readers will discover proven practices and philosophies that will help them find their own passions, set their own goals, and discover the inner confidence they need to achieve.

Order How They Achieved: Stories of Personal Achievement and Business Success: Lucinda Watson form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

Review
“‘An outstandingly successful account of a demanding subject. As one would expect from Philip Ziegler, it is gracefully and wittily written, with an enviably sharp eye for the appropriate anecdote.’ John Darwin, University of Oxford”

To be chosen as a Rhodes Scholar is to join the company of a highly select group: former scholars include presidents, prime ministers, ambassadors, archbishops, authors, judges, and other important figures. Over 7,000 individuals have received the world’s most prestigious scholarship in the century since Cecil John Rhodes, the British-born founder of the De Beers diamond company, established through his will the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes scholarships. This fascinating history traces the evolution of the Trust and its scholarship program from Rhodes’s vision in 1902 to the new world of the twenty-first century.

Rhodes specified the criteria for selecting scholars, stipulating public service as their highest aim. An avowed imperialist, he dreamed of a white masculine Anglo-Saxon hegemony that would lead to world peace and prosperity. The book explores how the organization changed after the Empire faded and how Rhodes’s vision has been made relevant today, particularly through the vital contributions of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation in South Africa.

Prominent American Rhodes Scholars include:

J. William Fulbright – Robert Penn Warren – Bill Bradley – Wesley Clark – Bill Clinton – Strobe Talbott – David Souter – George Stephanopoulos

Order Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarships: Philip Ziegler form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

Walt Disney has been described as complex, difficult to work with, and a workaholic. This book shows how simple his methods were and how he got so many people to want the same things he did.

He with the help of his brother Roy accomplished more in one life than any other modern entertainment executive. Walt s achievements are well documented. But how did this man, who quit formal education after one year in high school to become an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in France, achieve all the things he did?

Walt once said, If we can dream it, we can do it. Then he showed the world how to give cartoons a heart, make an animated feature film, and build Disneyland. Experts bet on his failure at every turn. When Walt did encounter major setbacks he had a way of turning them into a success. He didn t do it alone. His brother Roy was there his entire life to make his dreams financially possible. Walt carefully built teams of animators, motion picture production executives, and Imagineers who wanted to share his dreams.

This book focuses on how he did it and the key people who helped him. It is a compilation of facts learned through friendships with people who worked directly with Walt Disney while he was alive, plus interviews with others close to Walt.

About the Author
An interest in Walt Disney and his studio led Tom Tumbusch to start writing on Disney and other collectible subjects in 1973.

Included among the books published are seven works on Disney collectibles he authored. Tumbusch is also the editor-in-chief of Tomart s DISNEYANA Update magazine and was a writer on Disney collectibles for Disney Magazine.

Tom Tumbusch is listed as an expert on contemporary collectibles in Warman s, Mahoney s, and several other antique and collectible guides. He has appeared on TV and radio talk shows and been consulted on nostalgia subjects by such publications as the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, The Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Money Magazine.

Tom is a graduate of the University of Dayton, where he was president of the University Players. He was associated with Kermit Bloomgarden Productions in New York and was the Dayton correspondent for the weekly Variety for 12 years. His interest in Musical Theatre has resulted in three books on the subject published by Richard Rosen Press. Prior to starting his own publishing company, he was an account executive and vice-president of the Yeck Brothers Group of advertising and direct marketing agencies.

Tumbusch has a son and daughter who are both writers, and enjoys two grandchildren who love Disney.

Order Walt Disney The American Dreamer: Thomas E Tumbusch, Amber Henry, Matt Busch form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

Creativity is highly prized in the business world but once that creativity extends to bookkeeping, things can get a bit sticky. Bruce McNall’s creative career afforded him celebrity status, millions of dollars, an opulent lifestyle, and, in the end, a five-year prison term. His memoir, Fun While It Lasted, which shares the same breeziness hinted at in its title, is both entertaining and a bit depressing. McNall parlayed a boyhood interest in rare coins into a profitable livelihood even before entering college. Within a few years, he was traveling the world, buying up coins from shady dealers and reselling them to Hollywood’s elite. McNall played fast and loose with his prices and accounting and profited handsomely off a market that he helped create. From coins, he branched out, trading in thoroughbred racehorses, and buying the L.A. Kings hockey team. Ultimately, the FBI caught up with him and McNall was jailed for fraud. In reflecting on his life and crimes, McNall heartily endorses the assessment made by a Los Angeles Daily News reporter: “In the end, Bruce McNall wanted too much to be liked.” And while that explanation is awfully sweet, if one judges by his choices and lifestyle it seems like his problem was plain old greed. Despite his financial success and stunning talent as a salesman, McNall always seemed to crave more money and power and was willing to break laws and lie to achieve them. Because it details a life more dramatic than most, and because its compelling central character ultimately gets his comeuppance, Fun While It Lasted, co-written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael D’Antonio, manages to be both a fun adventure and a cautionary moral tale. –John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
When McNall was a kid, his dad wasn’t emotionally available, and, as a result, McNall grew up with a need to be liked. An oversized need, actually, which is why, he says, he defrauded several financial institutions out of $236 million. As a teenager, McNall was fascinated by ancient coins and soon became one of the world’s leading collectors and dealers. Later, he got into horse racing, creating ownership syndicates that included the rich and famous. He bought a movie production company, a Canadian football team and the L.A. Kings hockey team. He brought Wayne Gretzky to the U.S. and, in 1992, was appointed chairman of the National Hockey League. Alas, ethics weren’t a part of McNall’s voyage to millionairedom. He abused his position to buy ancient coins well below the wholesale price, smuggled coins out of Tunis, paid under-the-table commissions and, before long, graduated to fraud. Taking payment for coins he had not purchased and using assets that didn’t exist to secure loans, McNall was essentially operating a loan pyramid. By the time the FBI came to call, his company had nine different sets of books. McNall got 70 months for his crimes and offers a detailed but unconvincing account of the rigors of minimum-security federal prison camps. In fact, McNall is unconvincing as anything other than a white-collar conman, and his story, while sufficiently dramatic, doesn’t provide enough backbone to give him credibility, never mind sympathy.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Order Fun While It Lasted: My Rise and Fall In the Land of Fame and Fortune: Bruce Mcnall, Michael D’antonio form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A good read, for Texans or others." — Larry L. King, author of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

"Chapters on Claytie’s years as a young cowboy in a distinguished West Texas family and on his adult business dealings make easy and entertaining reading. Overall a highly recommended biography." — Gilmer Mirror

"Claytie Williams is a living symbol of the mythical larger-than-life Texan, sometimes down but never out, willing to back his judgment on a Hail Mary pass, win, lose, or draw. He is one of the most affable people I have ever met." — Elmer Kelton, western novelist

"Clayton Williams lives life on a grand scale in this fast-moving, readable biography. Anyone interested in Texas history, petroleum history, or political history should enjoy this book." — Joseph A. Pratt, Cullen Chair of History and Business, University of Houston

"None of the stories detract from the picture Cochran paints of a quintessential Texas Aggie, a West Texan who values personal integrity and candor, who inspires loyalty in friends and employees and affection from his growing family." — The Gilmer Mirror, October 31, 2007

"There is a forthrightness to this book that reflects Claytie’s own basic honesty, his inimitable combination of straight talk, braggadocio, combativeness, and poking fun at himself." — Dave McNeely, author and dean of Texas political reporters

"This is an extraordinary biography." — Davis Ford, adjunct professor of engineering, University of Texas, and past president of the Association of Former Students of Texas A&M University

The native son of a distinguished West Texas family and a 1954 graduate of Texas A&M whose career and personal pursuits have ranged from farmer to insurance salesman to wildcatter, pipeline entrepreneur, rancher, banker, real estate mogul, big game hunter, conservationist, philanthropist, front-running gubernatorial candidate, and oil tycoon, Clayton W. Williams Jr. is by all measures one of a kind.

He has repeatedly been on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, yet more than once Claytie has also been on the verge of bankruptcy. This authorized biography captures the dimensions of his fascinating life: his determined work ethic and honesty; his passionate interests and rough-hewn style; his devotion to wife and constant companion Modesta and family; his all-in wildcatter bets and integrity-above-all payoff of debts; his patented gaffes in the “wildest, woolliest Texas governor’s race ever” and their spotlighted consequences for the state and nation; and running through it all, both unrestrained celebrations and knees-on-the-ground repentance.

His many notable successes, his most admirable traits, as well as his most outrageous flaws are all portrayed in this book, often in Claytie’s own words or in the extensive comments, revealing anecdotes, and first-person accounts of others, supplemented by family and business documents, as well as contemporary journalistic records.

This book tells it all, revealing one distinctive maverick who has left his boot prints all across Texas for 75 years.

Claytieisms

The wit and wisdom of Clayton W. Williams Jr.

"I ran my company like Christopher Columbus. When he left Spain, he didn’t know where he was going. When he got here, he didn’t know where he was. When he got back, he didn’t know where he’d been. And he did it all on borrowed money."

"You can be a man of achievement and not be an arrogant snoot. . . . If I had to choose, I’d be on Bubba’s side. Hell, I am Bubba!"

Order Claytie: The Roller-Coaster Life of a Texas Wildcatter: Mike Cochran form Amazon.

Editorial Reviews

The professional memoirs (and insights) from a revered organization consultant.

In this remarkable memoir, Richard Beckhard shares a lifetime of wisdom from his forty-five year career as one of the country’s foremost organization consultants. Written in a highly readable style, this book offers an insiders view of how change management has evolved in the latter half of the twentieth century. Throughout the book Beckhard weaves his life story with the lessons he learned from his role as an influential ?agent of change.? The book thoughtfully outlines his principles of practice to show how they not only shaped his career but how they can be used as a model for anyone who is grappling with the issues of organizational change.

From the Inside Flap
For nearly fifty years Richard Beckhard has worked to help organizations function in a more humane and high-performing manner, and to empower people to be agents of change. A pioneer in organization development (OD), human relations training, and large systems change, he has both witnessed and personally influenced the evolution of the organization development field.Here, in his professional memoirs, Beckhard articulates his principles of practice, reflecting on how they affected his work and how the next generation of OD practitioners can build on them. In recounting his vast and varied experience as a top consultant, Beckhard provides a personal, yet broad and enlightening perspective on the history and theory of organizational change. Readers will gain new insights from the first-hand account of a career that parallels the establishment and growth of the OD field itself?an account in which Beckhard relates his experience creating one of the first professional training programs for OD practitioners, his work as a consultant and leadership trainer throughout the U.S. and abroad, and his development of models and tools that help people become better students and learners.To those grappling with the developments impacting today’s business environments, this book offers a personal and incisive historical perspective on consulting and change management. Academics and practitioners in consulting and human resources management can use Beckhard’s solid guidelines and conceptual models to hone their own expertise and benefit from his wisdom and unique experience.

Order Agent of Change: My Life, My Practice (Jossey Bass Business and Management Series): Richard Beckhard form Amazon.