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From Publishers Weekly Ralston's story is one of the most gut-wrenching and compelling real-life adventures in recent years: in early 2003, the avid rock-climber and outdoorsman became trapped in a Utah mountain canyon when an 800-pound boulder pinned his right arm. He spent six days there, fighting both the physical challenges of pain and dehydration, and the psychological horror that eroded his hope and energy. Eventually, he amputated his own arm with his pocket knife in order to gain his freedom. It's a truly remarkable story, and hearing Ralston retell it is alternately fascinating and unbearable. After a brief setup that details his life as an adventurer, he arrives at his moment of horror, walking the listener in painstaking detail through everything he felt and thought; his honest and blunt language (" 'What are you doing, Aron? Get that knife away from your wrist!' I feel vaguely ill... my vision blurs in a nauseating swirl"), paired with his direct and non-sensational delivery, wrap the listener in a mental blanket of claustrophobia. Although squeamish listeners might find this audio presentation too overwhelming, it's a riveting document of one man's extraordinary trial. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library Journal Adult/High School - From midday Saturday, April 26, 2003, until midday Thursday, May 1, Ralston was pinned between a boulder and a canyon wall in a remote area of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. He had little food and water. No one would even wonder where he was until he didn't show up for work on Tuesday. Unable to sit, lie down, use his right arm (that was the part between the rock and the wall), or sleep, he knew right away that he was in for an excruciatingly difficult time. Those 120 hours of what he calls "uninterrupted experience" tested to the fullest his physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being. His eventual rescue led to international headlines, partially due to his dramatic means of escape: he severed his arm with a cheap, dull, dirty knife. This is a searing and amazingly detailed rendition of his ordeal, along with accounts of several of Ralston's previous wilderness adventures. He is one active and tough guy, but readers never get the sense that he is boastful or seeking notoriety. Rather, he seems genuinely intrigued, even mildly befuddled, by his insatiable drive to be active in the wild. One could say he takes too many risks, and that he has a tendency toward carelessness. He himself notes this. But the man's drive and devotion to his calling are nothing but admirable. Sixteen pages of color photographs add considerably to readers' experience of this nuanced, gripping survival story that belongs in most collections. - Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author Kenneth Fee is a learning and development consultant who specializes in e-learning strategy.  He has consulted with blue chip clients and designed solutions based on published learning resources.  He was founder CEO of the eLearning Alliance.  He is also the author of Delivering E-Learning: A Complete Strategy for Design, Application and Assessment also published by Kogan Page.

If television's college football analysts had a Hall of Fame, Craig James would definitely be in it. His opinion and insight on ABC and ESPN-not to mention occasional jabs of sharp humor and Texas charm-are as addictive as the games are. Game Day takes a complete inside look at the 2008 college football season-from James's behind-the-scenes Spring Tour when he met with players and coaches from twenty top programs to the bowl season. He makes the book timeless by using the season as a springboard to tell tons of great college football stories from his twenty years spent covering the sport . Captures twenty years of unforgettable college football wit and wisdom from his time as a player at SMU and for the New England Patriots through his time in the booth Includes details about most of the top twenty programs around the country Covers the game the way only James can ("No one can capture the essence and spirit of a college football season better than Craig."-Doug Flutie) No matter what team you support or how well they did in 2008, if you love college football, Game Day is a book you just have to read. Craig’s Answers to the Top Ten Fan Questions Amazon-exclusive content from the author of Game Day. Craig James crisscrosses the country during the college football season and gets a bird’s-eye view of some of the biggest matchups the game has to offer. He also talks to fans, and lots of

From the Back Cover The Facilitator Excellence Handbook Second edition This is the thoroughly revised and updated edition of the best-selling The Facilitator Excellence Handbook. Written for both new and experienced facilitators, the second edition of The Facilitator Excellence Handbook offers a comprehensive guide for understanding the full range of skills, processes, and knowledge needed to become an effective facilitator. The book addresses a variety of facilitation opportunities, challenges, and problems and also contains A variety of verbal and nonverbal facilitation techniques Step-by-step facilitation processes and tools Information on how to facilitate conflict resolution in groups and how to facilitate difficult situations Instructions for designing and leading group work Examples of how various levels of facilitator competency are called for in different types of groups Techniques for facilitating meetings, teams, virtual teams, and organization-wide projects Discussions on the art of facilitating and what makes a great facilitator The CD-ROM that accompanies this book includes a fully reproducible version of the Facilitator Skills Profile, which provides insight into a facilitator's key development areas. About the Author Fran Rees is an experienced manager, consultant, and trainer in both the public and private sectors. She is the owner and principal consultant of Rees & Associates, a Phoenix-based training and consulting firm. She is the author of several books including How to Lead Work Teams: Facilitation Skills (Second Edition), Teamwork from Start to Finish, and 25 Activities for Developing Team Leaders, all from Pfeiffer.

Review 'A good job of an impossible task, looking beyond the borders of North America, Australia and northern Europe to include people who have made important contributions from outside the gay and lesbian mainstream.' - Diva'As entertaining as it is informative sets a standard in gay dictionaries and encyclopedias that others should note and follow. Highly recommended.' - Gay Times, March 2001 About the Author Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon are lectures in history at the University of Sydney. T

Amazon.com Review Acclaimed Irish author Emma Donoghue's fifth novel, Landing, is a story about how far people will step outside their comfort zones to be with the ones they love. Told through the eyes of Sile O'Shaughnessy, a cosmopolitan Irish flight attendant, and Jude Turner, a sheltered museum archivist from Ireland, Ontario, Landing is a touching, if not somewhat repetitive exploration of what we are, and are not, willing to give up for love. From the moment Jude and Sile first meet aboard a transatlantic flight, the chemistry between them is undeniable. After a rushed coffee at Heathrow, each woman returns to her own life, yet they are unable to shake the butterflies of that initial encounter. What follows is a long-distance exchange of passionate e-mails, letters, phone calls, and visits, most of which leave Sile and Jude feeling both exhilarated and despondent after each goodbye. Surrounding each heroine is a circle of friends and family members whose romantic struggles and successes highlight the pleasure and pain that often come with falling in love. Landing is a quick read, and it's easy to become absorbed in this engaging long-distance relationship. Donoghue is skilled at brining out the humanity in each woman, so the sacrifices they both must make to keep their relationship alive never seem forced. And while we may grow tired of the constant late night missives and teary-eyed goodbyes, we find ourselves rooting for this couple, and hoping they will go the distance. --Gisele Toueg --This text refers to the edition. From Publishers Weekly In her affecting fifth novel, Donoghue (Slammerkin) explores the idea that true love can conquer all. Jude Turner is a 25-year-old androgynous Luddite who's rooted to her small Canadian town of Ireland. She's also uneasy about flying, but forces herself to board a plane when she hears that her mother, visiting family in the U.K., may be ill. On the plane she meets the older, feminine, worldly Síle O'Shaughnessy, a flight attendant who lives in the other Ireland. After exchanging contact info, the duo part and find themselves thinking of one another and writing to each other as they lead their respective lives: Jude as the curator of a tiny museum who has the occasional dalliance with her former love, Rizla; Síle in bustling Dublin, entrenched in a complacent relationship with her longtime partner, Kathleen. Jude and Síle fall in love over the course of their correspondence and try to make their relationship work despite the distance between them, nay-saying friends, jealous exes and their own nagging doubts. That Jude and Síle are so vividly opposite is the slightest bit precious, but Donoghue mitigates the boilerplate aspects of this love story with an abiding compassion for her characters. There's a lot to like here, but nothing to really love. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the edition.

Review "This is a book that blends history, advice, and insight into a tool that can be used either as an introduction to Web-based training or as a field guide for every training developer.... Margaret Driscoll is uniquely qualified to produce such a high-quality addition to every training manager's library." —Cushing Anderson, program manager, Learning Services Research "I recommend this book to everyone who asks me for e-learning resources. Its descriptions are clear, its recommendations are practical, and it helps e-learning practitioners, new and experienced, focus on one of the most overlooked parts of e-learning — instructional design." —Dawn Adams, content development manager, Microsoft "Besides my books, this is the only one worth reading. Want to know what Web-based training and e-learning are? You can spend five years mucking around, or you can read this book." —William Horton, author, Designing Web-Bassed Training, Leading E-Learning, and Evaluating E-Learning "Offers updated insights and sound advice. Explains the universals of training...while preparing readers for the change in e-learning, including the rise of mobile computing and educommerce, and the growing link with knowledge management." —Saul Carliner, author, An Overview of Online Learning "A must-have book for anyone who has responsibility for ensuring that e-learning is successful in their organization. It not only provides the information and the tools you'll need, but through the exercises you'll be able to gain critical first-hand experience." —Lance E. Dublin, Lance Dublin Consulting From the Publisher "This is a book that blends history, advice, and insight into a tool that can be used either as an introduction to Web-based training or as a field guide for every training developer.... Margaret Driscoll is uniquely qualified to produce such a high-quality addition to every training manager's library." —Cushing Anderson, program manager, Learning Services Research "I recommend this book to everyone who asks me for e-learning resources. Its descriptions are clear, its recommendations are practical, and it helps e-learning practitioners, new and experienced, focus on one of the most overlooked parts of e-learning-instructional design." —Dawn Adams, content development manager, Microsoft "Besides my books, this is the only one worth reading. Want to know what Web-based training and e-learning are? You can spend five years mucking around, or you can read this book." —William Horton, author, Designing Web-Bassed Training, Leading E-Learning, and Evaluating E-Learning "Offers updated insights and sound advice. Explains the universals of training...while preparing readers for the change in e-learning, including the rise of mobile computing and educommerce, and the growing link with knowledge management." —Saul Carliner, author, An Overview of Online Learning "A must-have book for anyone who has responsibility for ensuring that e-learning is successful in their organization. It not only provides the information and the tools you'll need, but through the exercises you'll be able to gain critical first-hand experience." —Lance E. Dublin, Lance Dublin Consulting

Review this book clearly and accessibly opens up a range of issues which should be of interest to anyone, lawyers or otherwise, who has an interest in the position of sport within an increasingly globalising economy.Raymond BoyleTottel's Communications LawSeptember 2002the skill of the authors is such that there may well now be a specialist sub-topic, the law of the replica football shirtThis collection of interesting and informative papers will help sports law to find a coherence of its own and it is to be commended.Robert ShieldsJournal of the Law Society of ScotlandSeptember 2002 About the Author Michael Beloff is the President of Trinity College Oxford, Master of the Bench of Grays Inn and some time Recorder of the High Court and Deputy High Court Judge.Tim Kerr QC is a Barrister at 11 King's Bench Walk, specialising in public law, EU law, sports law and human rights.Marie Demetriou is a Barrister at Brick Court Chambers, London.

Review One of the best baseball books ever written. --Keith Olbermann Hilarious, Poignant, a really enjoyable read. --Bob Costas A true picture of baseball. --Tim McCarver Dirk Hayhurst has written a fascinating, funny and honest account on life in the minor leagues. I loved it. --Tim Kurkjian, Senior Writer, analyst/reporter ESPN television The Bullpen Gospels is a rollicking good bus ride of a book. --Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated Bull Durham meets Ball Four. --Ron Neyer, ESPN.com Fascinating. . . a perspective that fans rarely see. --Trevor Hoffman, pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers He has a message to deliver about the things that matter in life--and those that don't. And he offers sage observations about the nature of celebrity and ambition, forgiveness and family. . . . Mr. Hayhurst is already a writer, maybe even a major-league prospect. --Wall Street Journal If Holden Caulfield could dial up his fastball to 90 mph, he might have written this funny, touching memoir about a ballplayer at a career--and life--crossroads. He might have called it 'Pitcher in the Rye.' Instead, he left it to Dirk Hayhurst, the only writer in the business who can make you laugh, make you cry and strike out Ryan Howard. --King Kaufman, Salon The Bullpen Gospels is a funny bone-tickling, tear duct-stimulating, feel-good story that will leave die-hard baseball fans--and die-hard human beings, for that matter--well, feeling good. --Bob Mitchell, author of Once Upon a Fastball --This text refers to the edition. From the Author Best Baseball Autobiography Since Bouton? Dirk Hayhurst's description of himself for the author's ID in his upcoming book The Bullpen Gospels reads in part, "Dirk is a former member of the San Diego Padres, and after this book gets printed, a former member of the Toronto Blue Jays." I'm not sure he's correct. In fact, I'm not sure that in these times when so many fans feel like they're constantly having the wool pulled over their eyes by athletes ill-equipped for the attempt, if Hayhurst's constant honesty, his remarkable candor, his drumbeat of unadorned confessed self-doubt, and his seamless writing, won't resonate through the sport like the first true wonderful day of spring when the game and the weather finally reassure you that winter has been beaten back, at least for a season. In fact, I'm not sure that he hasn't written the best baseball autobiography since Jim Bouton's Ball Four. For Hayhurst, who bombed as a starter for the Padres in 2008 and then showed promise out of the Jays' bullpen the season past, has written what Bouton wrote, and what a decade before Bouton, what Jim Brosnan wrote - a book that is seemingly about baseball but which, as you read further and further into it, is obviously much bigger than that. These are books about life: struggle, confusion, purpose, purposelessness, and the startling realization that achievement and failure are nearly-identical twins, one which gnaws and deadens, the other which just as often produces not elation but a tinny, empty sound. Brosnan's achievement, in The Long Season and Pennant Race, was to introduce to a world which previously had no information of any kind on the subject, the concept of athlete as human being. What did he have to do when demoted, or traded? What happened when management changed? Was there a Mrs. Athlete, and could they share a martini now and again? (answer: You bet).  Bouton's breakthrough was to show the concept of athlete as flawed human being. Too many martinis, some of them shared with women other than Mrs. Athlete. Athletes who might not have been geniuses on the field or off, but who seemed invariably managed and coached by men even less intelligent. The struggle to self-start as one's team sank from optimism, to contention, to inconsistency, to irrelevance, to embarrassment. And yet, were they enjoying themselves, did their lives change for the better, was being an athlete fun? (answer: You bet). And now here is Hayhurst, who may single-handedly steer baseball away from the two decades-long vise grip of Sport-As-Skill-Development. Since my own childhood, we have ever-increasingly devalued every major leaguer but the superstar. Late in the last century we began to devalue every minor leaguer but the top draft choice. If you don't make it into somebody's Top Prospects list, you might as well not exist. Dirk Hayhurst is writing of his days, his months, his years, as far away from the Top Prospects lists as imaginable. He is, in The Bullpen Gospels, often the last man on an A-ball pitching staff, and trying to answer a series of successively worsening questions cascading from the simplest of them: Why? This, of course, is why the book transcends the game. It's not just Dirk Hayhurst's existential doubt about whether he'll reach the majors or why he's still trying or if he shouldn't be helping the homeless instead of worrying about getting the last out of a seven-run inning. He is experiencing the crisis of reality through which we all pass, often daily: when our dreams about life crash head first into its realities, what the hell are we supposed to do then? Thus The Bullpen Gospels is a baseball book the way "Is That All There Is?" is a Leiber-Stoller pop song by Peggy Lee from 1969. It is the primordial battle of hope and faith and inspiration versus disillusionment and rust and inertia. Sounds pretty grim, doesn't it? But of course therein lies the delightful twist: like Brosnan and Bouton before him, Hayhurst repeatedly rediscovers the absurd hilarity of it all, and the book is consistently laugh-out-loud funny. And like all great artists, he pulls back curtains we never thought to investigate: from how assiduously minor leaguers debate which "Come-out songs" they will choose or which numbers they will wear, to the pecking order of seat locations on the ever-infamous bush league bus trip. My favorite is probably the mechanics of something the average reader will have never heard of before, let alone have contemplated. It's "the host family" - the living arrangements by which the non-first-rounders survive their seasons in the minors. Hayhurst hilariously defines such temporary homes as ranging from Wackford Squeers' Dotheboys Hall, to the visitations from In Cold Blood. It doesn't hurt that Hayhurst is a fluid and gifted writer, whose prose can take off like a jet and compel you to read for half an hour more than you have. He populates the pages of The Bullpen Gospels with teammates, some identified, some amalgamated, some under aliases - and if the book takes off, ripping the Hayhurstian masks off the more colorful ones may become a low-key hobby after the book is published on March 30th. The reaction will be fascinating to see. In 1970, my father endured my clamoring and bought Ball Four and read it himself before handing it to me: "I know you know all these words. Just don't use them around the house. Read this carefully, there's a lot of truth in here." But ever since, we fans have been bombarded for decades by altered versions of truth, all of them writ large and desperately trying to impress us with their essential-ness. Baseball books have tended to focus only on the big, and to try to make it bigger still. We've gone from the unlikely accuracy of Jose Canseco's slimy indictment of the steroid era, through the analyze-all-the-damn-fun-out-of-the-game-why-don't-you tone of Moneyball and its imitators, through what may in retrospect be seen as a Hayhurst-precursor in Matt McCarthy's fraudulent Odd Man Out, through dozens of historical works insisting everything that has ever happened in baseball has re-shaped the nation - Jackie Robinson (yes), the 1951 N.L. pennant race (very possibly), the 1912 World Series (no way). Here, instead, will be a modest book by a modest relief pitcher who has appeared in the modest total of 25 major league games presenting what the modest author thinks (incorrectly) is only modest truth. He has yet to get his own major league baseball card and as I write this there are exactly two of his souvenirs available on eBay and one of them is a photo for $6.99 ("Or Best Offer"). His preface warns you if you seek scandal or steroids, look elsewhere, and the only bold face name in the whole 340 pages, Trevor Hoffman, comes across as a low-key gentleman. And yet there in the prologue Hayhurst offers a key to what he has written and why, self-guidance to which he sticks pretty neatly: "I also believe there is more to the game than just baseball. For all the great things baseball is, there are some things it is absolutely not. And that is what this story is all about." Of course, just as Bouton's exposure of the real flaws of the real men who played baseball in 1969 made them even more appealing than the phony deities into which they'd been transformed, the great things are made somehow greater by how well Hayhurst contextualizes them, how honestly he tells his story, and how vividly he takes us inside his world. -- Keith Olbermann  (edited by author)

About the Author Born in 1841 in a small Quaker settlement in the backwoods of Indiana, James Baldwin rose to become a highly-respected author and textbook editor. Largely self-educated, Baldwin became a teacher at 24, then served as superintendent of the graded schools of Indiana for 18 years before moving into the publishing world. As an editor of school books, first with Harper and Brothers and later with the American Book Company, he selected the best of our literary heritage and cast it into a form that delighted children of all ages. His influence in the first decades of the twentieth century was broad because of all the grammar school books in use in the United States at that time over half had been written or edited by him. He is remembered most for the books of introductory historical sketches he wrote for younger students and his retellings of the legends of the heroes for older students. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. KING ALFRED AND THE CAKES MANY years ago there lived in England a wise and good king whose name was Alfred. No other man ever did so much for his country as he; and people now, all over the world, speak of him as Alfred the Great. In those days a king did not have a very easy life. There was war almost all the time, and no one else could lead his army into battle so well as he. And so, between ruling and fighting, he had a busy time of it indeed. A fierce, rude people, called the Danes, had come from over the sea, and were fighting the English. There were so many of them, and they were so bold and strong, that for a long time they gained every battle. If they kept on, they would soon be the masters of the whole country. At last, after a great battle, the English army was broken up and scattered. Every man had to save himself in the best way he could. King Alfred fled alone, in great haste, through the woods and swamps. Late in the day the king came to the hut of a woodcutter. He was very tired and hungry, and he begged the woodcutter’s wife to give him something to eat and a place to sleep in her hut. The woman was baking some cakes upon the hearth, and she looked with pity upon the poor, ragged fellow who seemed so hungry. She had no thought that he was the king. "Yes," she said, "I will give you some supper if you will watch these cakes. I want to go out and milk the cow; and you must see that they do not burn while I am gone." King Alfred was very willing to watch the cakes, but he had far greater things to think about. How was he going to get his army together again? And how was he going to drive the fierce Danes out of the land? He forgot his hunger; he forgot the cakes; he forgot that he was in the woodcutter’s hut. His mind was busy making plans for to-morrow. In a little while the woman came back. The cakes were smoking on the hearth. They were burned to a crisp. Ah, how angry she was! "You lazy fellow!" she cried. "See what you have done! You want something to eat, but you do not want to work!" I have been told that she even struck the king with a stick; but I can hardly believe that she was so ill-natured. The king must have laughed to himself at the thought of being scolded in this way; and he was so hungry that he did not mind the woman’s angry words half so much as the loss of the cakes. I do not know whether he had anything to eat that night, or whether he had to go to bed without his supper. But it was not many days until he had gathered his men together again, and had beaten the Danes in a great battle.