ET Books

If one's field touches on the medical profession, insurance, or any other area concerned with the bureaucracy. . .this is an essential aid in unraveling and clarifying-insofar as is possible-the verbiage that assails one from all sides.

As reviewed by Laurence Urdang, in the Winter, 1997 (Vol. XXIII, No. 3) issue of VERBATIM, The Language Quarterly.

The fourth edition of Slee's Health Care Terms is an outstanding reference. Health care has become too complex to live without this book on your office shelf. It provides thousands of clean and crisp definitions, each carefully constructed to get right to the point. Written by a physician and two attorneys, this comprehensive book is an essential desk reference for physicians, health care managers, nurses, and students.

You may think you know the terms in your field and perhaps you do - but your field, whatever it may be, is just one part of the large world of health care. Management, finance, purchasing, quality, managed care - you name it the terms are covered.

You probably have a nice dictionary and thesaurus in your home and your office. Well, if you are involved in the business of health care, you also need Slee's Health Care Terms.

This book is a must for every not-for-profit executive director, financial officer, board member, or business manager who is thinking about starting or expanding a mission related enterprise.

I will recomend it to all of our clients. I manage the Urban Enterprise Fund, a revolving loan fund with a mission to provide capital and management assistance to companies (nonprofit or for-profit) that create jobs for the hard-to-employ.

We can't assume that we will be able to support our programs simply because we do good work. Each non-profit has to closely examine how it is funded and how it expects to be funded tommorow and the day after. Brinckerhoff gives a great outline here on how to think like an entrepreneur and start your organization thinking like a business instead of a charity. If you're looking for pro-active means of moving your non-profit forward, then this book is a must. It's practical, straightforward and honest. Best of all, Brinckerhoff is readily available to talk to you via email from his website. If you have any questions about what you've read, you can go straight to the author for clarification.
This is a must have book for non-profit managers.

This is a great book in which the authors very tactfully unfold the story of the Spindletop Oil Field. With modern techniques of oil exploration one may never have the 'Spindletop Experience' ever again. This book would interest anyone who is even remotely related with the petroleum industry. It should make one appreciate the early days of oil industry on whose experiences the modern peroleum industry is based on. The last chapters may not interest some people as the book goes into the legal suits fought over the oilfield. Overall, I strongly recommend the modern 'oilmen' to read this book.

A fascinating account of the events and people who brought in the birth of the modern oil business. The book brings to life the time period, the cast of characters that were involved and the obstacles and naysayers which had to be overcome. See how hard work and dogged persistence by these men was rewarded not just once (as in the initial discovery of the field) but several times. The book is well written and moves along at a good pace. As a person involved in the oil business for 20 years, this book reminded my of why the oil business is so special.

excellent cases and excellent review for the radiology boards. they are about 200 cases and concise findings and differentials for the boards. must buy for all radiology residents

This book is a comprehensive collection of neuroradiology cases which are presented in an outstanding format. In particular, the concise discussion of the differential diagnosis for each case and the inclusion of a "pitfalls/helpful tips" section are extremely helpful for residents and fellows trying to master this difficult field. Furthermore, the section on normal anatomy and pathology of cranial nerves is a fabulous resource.

Great book about how to teach psychology or any subject to undergraduate and graduate level students. I am an assistant professor at a small university in Texas and this book has been a blessing for me and my students.

This is an absolutely invaluable resource for new and seasoned psychology teachers at all levels. It should be required reading for all new faculty members at the University level.

THIS IS AN ASTONISHING BOOK. Written during the German occupation of Greece during WW II by a 12-year-old Jewish boy in hiding from a barbarian force, it conveys with amazing clarity both the horror of war and the invincible hope of the human spirit that so often prevails in the inexorable struggle between Good and Evil. Offered in English translation by a 12-year-old American boy, who also wrote a scholarly introduction and historical background, this book also reveals that even in the 21st century 12-year-olds are capable of amazing spiritual feats, because, in final analysis, this is what this book is.

I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a neglected part of the holocaust, that of southern Europe and/or in Jewish history in general; and, above all, to anyone with a heart who can appreciate the striking contrast between the tenderness and innocence of childhood juxtaposed to the brutality of war. None of those I know read the chapter on the death of a Greek boy (Fondas) without a cathartic tear. Reading it, has been quite an experience!

In the Spring of 1941, a cancer was spreading all over Europe. The (...) plague also came to Greece. Death followed their path. Twelve year old Nestor Matsas, a Greek-Jewish boy, wrote this diary after his father was murdered in a concentration camp. Now, twelve-year old Jason Rigas has translated this remarkable work, an astonishing feat in itself, gifting the world with a masterpiece that is infused with strength and wonderment. One cannot help but be struck by the incredible strength of young Nestor as he comes to grips with his father's loss; to comprehend the incomprehensible. "Can you kill a bird in a drawing"? wondered young Nestor, as he asked tougher and tougher questions of life. Amidst the destruction, young Nestor matures, an incredible sense of strength emerges that guides him to write with clarity and sensitivity. This same sensitivity is displayed by young Jason. The rendering to English of a deeply personal diary is exilarating. This is a monumental work of translation.
I could not put this book down. I read it twice. Once on the train to work, religiously every morning and then back. Another time in a quiet corner at the local Borders Cafe. I sincerely hope that it will be widely read.

This book will give students a good introduction to tide pools in general. With an index and glossary, students will find this book to be very useful for research or interest reading. It contains excellent color illustrations and will be interesting to the 5th grade through the 8th grade levels.

This book will give students a good introduction to tide pools in general. With an index and glossary, students will find this book to be very useful for research or interest reading. It contains excellent color illustrations and will be interesting to the 5th grade through the 8th grade levels.

This is an excellent book with maps and cool photos. My only complaints about this book are that it could have been better organized. For example, in one part the author mentions the shifting of the Tigris and Euphrates over the millennia, but she waits until later in the book to disclose that the Shatt al Arab did not exist in ancient times as water levels were higher. Interestingly, with ancient Alexandria it was just the opposite, part of it sank. The author makes several Biblical references as much of the early Bible takes place in ancient Mesopotamia. She also cites Qurnah as the possible location of the Biblical Garden of Eden. The Tigris and the Euphrates are mentioned in Genesis along with the Pishon and Gihon. The latter two no longer exist, but the author doesn't mention that scientists with their special equipment have determined that they did exist in antiquity. She also doesn't give a works cited list, only noting that she has read lots of books. Based on one of her descriptions it sounds like she read Samuel Noah Kramer's History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-nine First in Recorded History. If that's the case I think he should have been given credit. This book was written in 1999 and could use a bit of an update as most of this area is in present day Iraq. Overall, it's a very good comprehensive, yet short, book.

This wonderful little book is a look at Mesopotamia/Iraq, from ancient times to about 1999 (when the book was published). Filled with bright pictures, and easy to follow text, this is a great book for anyone who wants to get a quick, easy-to-understand, eagle-eye view of Iraq. Indeed, this book may be listed as a young adult book, but anyone will find it interesting and informative. I highly recommend this book!

This book is an insider's chronicle of the angry and frantic group of Paris dropouts that would become the Situationist movement. It is interesting in its own right as a portrait of rebel youth in the 1950s, with stories that are hilarious, poetic, and psychologically profound. But beyond this the book is truly priceless for anyone interested in Guy Debord and the Situationist International, the radical group that played a key part in the 1968 insurrection. The birth of Situationist concepts such as "psychogeography", "derive" and "detournement" are amusingly chronicled by Mension, who was Guy Debord's close friend and drinking buddy.

Readers of Greil Marcus's "Lipstick Traces" may remember Mension as the "human billboard" with offensive slogans scrawled on his pants, in a mesmerizing photo by Ed Van der Elsken.

This book is one of the best sources of information on the Situationist movement before it officially became "Situationist" - i.e. when it was still just a bunch of young people drinking too much, living precariously, and talking about psychogeography.

Pictures and facsimiles of original documents accompany the text and are worth the price of the book by themselves.

Turkestan Reunion is a compendium of letters written by Eleanor Holgate Lattimore to her family while traveling on her over one year honeymoon trip in Siberia, Turkestan and the Karakorum. These letters are arranged according to their date having been written at approximately fifteen day intervals. Each letter is forewarded by a brief resume of the happenings and is heralded by a nice drawing, which I believe is by the Author. It could be called an epistolary travel book and this is not common among travel literature. This very characteristic lends the book its grace and appeal, that emerge strikingly after all these years (it was assembled in 1934 from the journey which took place in 1927-28).
Why a companion book? Eleanor Lattimore was Owen Lattimore's wife and her husband is famous among students of politics and of the Eastern civilizations for his many contributions to the knowledge of those little known countries in those times. Owen wrote his own books on their original wedding trip, the Desert Road to Turkestan and High Tartary, that are famous in their own right, and probably Eleanor's book is often picked up because its mentioned in these other works.
However even if it describes events that are already known, Eleanor's outlook on these same occasions is completely different and orginal. A woman's sensibility? Probably, a woman that possesed courage, curiosity, wasn't afraid of disconforts and was able to relate herself with empathy towards her travel companions and the people she met.
The endurance of the great disconfort of the couple's trip assumes in the Author's prose almost a sense of liberation from the material preoccupations of the civilized world to go back to the essentials of living: protection from cold and heat, food, rest, traveling necessities such as carts and horses, good company.
The first part of the book contains the description of the seventeen day travel through Siberia, that Eleanor accomplished alone, while the rest narrates the common path through Chinese Turkestan and the five Karakorum Passes. Much attentions is dedicated to the nomads encountered during the journey, the Qazaks the Qirghiz and others.
The book can truely be defined ethnographic because it is first hand description of a traveling experience accomplished with curiosity and the desire to learn. "One can understand a little of how difficult a province is to rule when one relizes that it still contains flotsam and jetsam remnants of every variety of people who have passed through or conquered the land as well as the scamps and villains who have run away from Chinese law", is an example of the deeply empathic outlook on her experiences.
Another aspect I particularly love in travel books is the "spirit of place", the ability to make the reader feel inside a different reality. Eleanor Lattimore's Turkestan Reunion truely evokes this feeling, more than Owen Lattimore's High Tartary which is more scholarly and detailed.
As David Lattimore, the couple's son, affirms in the Biographical Note at the end of the book Eleanor and Owen's journey and love story deserve to be remembered because of their uniqueness and the sense of adventure and youth they are still capable of conveying.

Turkestan Reunion is a collection of the letters written by Eleanor Lattimore to her family in the United States documenting her honeymoon travels from Beijing, through Siberia, into East Turkestan, and over the Karakorum mountains into British Kashmir.

The route Lattimore takes is epic and ranging, crossing everything from arid deserts, Siberian tundra, and towering mountains. Such a journey would make fascinating reading regardless, yet an even greater part of the intrigue and charm of this book comes from its authorship by a woman in time when even hardy, professional male adventurers sometimes couldn't endure similar conditions. Ms. Lattimore is truly a trailblazer, in the literal sense of trekking across routes tread by the feet of very few, but also in the sense that her adventures in the early part of the 20th century very clearly run contrary to what where then very strong and revered concepts of female domesticity. In 1927, the idea of a traveling, white woman was so foreign and novel that many officials and friends who hosted the Lattimores, European or otherwise, were sometimes at a loss in deciding what kind of arrangements should be made for Eleanor. Not only does Lattimore shatter "womanly domesticity" just by traveling, she also consciously chooses to travel in the most down-to-earth way, reaching for the most authentic experiences. Often she chooses horseback over carriage (when physically possible; the weather in Turkestan often did no permit), she voices preference for the rundown accommodations and authentic food of the locals rather than the plusher European lodging and food that sometimes was available.

Beyond the gender angle, Turkestan Reunion additionally presents a sort of ethnographic experience much less condescending to locals than many travel writings and exploration writings of the time. Lattimore's writing inevitably retains an element of colonial privilege, for example, in the repeated tendency to bestow comical Western names on their guides rather than learning their real names. However, relative to other writers of the time, and to other Westerners in general of the 1920s, the Lattimores display a unique willingness and even desire to commune with locals and acknowledge the hardships of their existence. Eleanor Lattimore with a keen eye documents everyday proceedings of everyday villagers; games among herdsmen, a witch-curing ceremony, marriage and divorce, the arbitration of disputes, these and others are documented in Lattimores casual yet elegant prose. As white travelers in a China still mired in a pseudo-colonized position relative to the rest, there still are many instances where the Lattimores are regaled by obsequious officials and conniving businessmen with banquets and galas, but while these celebrations often compose the bulk of 19th and early 20th century travel writing, Lattimore's book is balanced by the ground-up perspective she is willing to describe. As such, there is a pre-ethnographic element to Lattimore's writing that anticipates the academic enlightenment which led to the understanding that the lives of locals are worth documenting and should be observed from more than just a colonial-overlord perspective.

What drew me to this book was the simple premise of it all; even in our intrepid modern times, young and energetic newly weds are more likely to choose Cabo San Lucas or Paris to celebrate their honeymoon, yet Owen and Eleanor Lattimore chose the foreboding deserts and towering, ice-capped peaks of East Turkestan to celebrate their marriage, and at a time when traveling through such extreme environments was not as easy as buying a bus ticket or boarding an airplane. However, Eleanor Lattimore's simple and descriptive writing style exceeds the novelty of this underlying premise, anticipating a sort of feminist traveling philosophy and capturing an ethnographic ethic to observe, and therefore understand the peoples of the places they visited.