Publication date: 2005-09-01 RRP: £19.99 Price: £6.99
Review Good to Great / Random House Audiobooks:Five years ago Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company, and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last concludes that it is possible, but finds that there are no silver bullets to greatness. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11-including Gillette, Walgreens and Wells Fargo-and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not-so-great, Collins lays a well-reasoned roadmap to excellence that any organisation would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. -Harry C Edwards.
Creator: Isla Blair Publication date: 2003-01-20 Dewey code: 813 RRP: £15.99 Price: £7.24
Review Atonement / HarperCollins Audio:
Publication date: 2008-03-17 RRP: £12.99 Price: £6.42
Review Agatha Christie: Crooked House (BBC Audio) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Authors
- Pearl Buck
- Ralph Ellison
- Lillian Hellman
- Arthur Miller
- John Steinbeck
- F Scott Fitzgerald
- Sinclair Lewis
- Raymond Chandler
- Gertrude Stein
Publication date: 2008-10-22 Dewey code: 810 RRP: £19.95 Price: £16.96
Review American Writers (The Spoken Word) / Tennessee Williams:
Creator: Steve Cox Edition: New ed Publication date: 2000-08-31 Dewey code: 782.281723 RRP: £16.99 Price: £16.13
Review Carol, Gaily Carol: Christmas Songs for Children (Songbooks) / A & C Black Publishers Ltd:
Creator: Miranda Richardson Edition: New edition Publication date: 2006-11-02 RRP: £9.99 Price: £1.77
Review Horrid Henry's Christmas Cracker (Book/CD) (Horrid Henry) / Orion:
Publication date: 2008-03-03 RRP: £15.99 Price: £10.13
Review Bleak Expectations (BBC Audio) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Creator: Michael Maloney Publication date: 2008-09-11 RRP: £12.99 Price: £7.94
Review The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas / Random House Audiobooks:John Boyne's The Boy in Striped Pyjamas will no doubt acquire many readers as a result of the subsequent film of the novel, but viewers of the latter would do themselves a favour by going back to the spare and powerfully affecting original book. Bruno is nine years old, and the Nazis’ horrific Final Solution to the âJewish Problem’ means nothing to him. He's completely unaware of the barbarity of Germany under Hitler, and is more concerned by his move from his well-appointed house in Berlin to a far less salubrious area where he finds himself with nothing to do. Then he meets a boy called Shmuel who lives a very different life from him - a life on the opposite side of a wire fence. And Shmuel is the eponymous boy in the striped pyjamas, as are all the other people on the other side of the fence. The friendship between the two boys begins to grow, but for Bruno it is a journey from blissful ignorance to a painful knowledge. And he will find that this learning process carries, for him, a daunting price. A legion of books have attempted to evoke the horrors of the Second World War, but in this concise and perfectly honed novel, all of the effects that John Boyne creates are allowed to make a maximum impact in a relatively understated fashion (given the enormity of the situation here). The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is also that rare thing: a novel which can affect both children and adults equally; a worthy successor, in fact, to such masterpieces as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye - both, of course, books, dealing (as does this one) with the loss of innocence. -Barry Forshaw.
Publication date: 2005-07-15 RRP: £14.99 Price: £7.34
Review Rapid Greek: v. 1: 200+ Essential Words and Phrases Anchored into Your Long Term Memory with Great Music: v. 1 (Musical Brain Trainer) / earworms Learning:
Publication date: 2008-07-10 RRP: £17.99 Price: £9.49
Review Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (BBC Audio Crime) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Creator: Stephen Fry Edition: Adult Ed Publication date: 2006-07-03 RRP: £35.00 Price: £22.78
Review Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter) / Bloomsbury Publishing PLC:The worry, when faced with the follow-up to books as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (both winners of the Nestlé Smarties Prize Gold Award), is that it won't be as good. With J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban any concerns are banished from page one. This, the third in the series, continues where the previous two left off and is a fantastic adventure of mystery, magic and mayhem combined with liberal doses of humour and plenty of suspense. Forced to do his homework in the dead of night and forbidden to refer to his magic skills or his life at Hogwarts school, Harry Potter is forced to endure the summer holidays with the dreaded Dursleys. The arrival of Aunt Marge is the final straw and, in a fit of anger, Harry breaks all the rules and casts a spell on her, causing her to blow up like a balloon. Running away from his dreaded relatives, Harry expects to be expelled from Hogwarts for his blatant flaunting of the rule not to use magic outside term time. However, the arrival of the mysterious Knight Bus and a meeting with Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, result in Harry enjoying the rest of the holidays in the wonderful surroundings of the Leaky Cauldron. The escape of Sirius Black-one time friend of Harry's parents, implicated in their murder and follower of "You- Know-Who"-from Azkaban, has serious implications for Harry for it would appear that Black is bent on revenge against Harry for thwarting "You-Know-Who". [+]
Back at Hogwarts, Harry's movements are restricted by the presence of the Dementors-guards from Azkaban on the look out for Black-however, this doesn't stop him throwing himself into the new Quidditch season and going about his normal business-or at least attempting to. Despite warnings Harry is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Sirius Black-how could this one-time close friend of his parents become the cause of their deaths? And why does the presence of the Dementors have such a devastating effect on him, causing him to hear the last moments of his mother's life? With another four Harry Potter novels planned, Jo Rowling is creating a series of books which will become classics to rival C. S. Lewis'Chronicles of Narnia-books written for children but loved by adults too. (Ages 9 and up) -Philippa Reece The worry, when faced with the follow-up to books as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (both winners of the Nestlé Smarties Prize Gold Award), is that it won't be as good. With J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban any concerns are banished from page one. This, the third in the series, continues where the previous two left off and is a fantastic adventure of mystery, magic and mayhem combined with liberal doses of humour and plenty of suspense. Forced to do his homework in the dead of night and forbidden to refer to his magic skills or his life at Hogwarts school, Harry Potter is forced to endure the summer holidays with the dreaded Dursleys. The arrival of Aunt Marge is the final straw and, in a fit of anger, Harry breaks all the rules and casts a spell on her, causing her to blow up like a balloon. Running away from his dreaded relatives, Harry expects to be expelled from Hogwarts for his blatant flaunting of the rule not to use magic outside term time. However, the arrival of the mysterious Knight Bus and a meeting with Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, result in Harry enjoying the rest of the holidays in the wonderful surroundings of the Leaky Cauldron. The escape of Sirius Black-one time friend of Harry's parents, implicated in their murder and follower of "You- Know-Who"-from Azkaban, has serious implications for Harry for it would appear that Black is bent on revenge against Harry for thwarting "You-Know-Who". Back at Hogwarts, Harry's movements are restricted by the presence of the Dementors-guards from Azkaban on the look out for Black-however, this doesn't stop him throwing himself into the new Quidditch season and going about his normal business-or at least attempting to. Despite warnings Harry is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Sirius Black-how could this one-time close friend of his parents become the cause of their deaths? And why does the presence of the Dementors have such a devastating effect on him, causing him to hear the last moments of his mother's life? With another four Harry Potter novels planned, Jo Rowling is creating a series of books which will become classics to rival C. S. Lewis'Chronicles of Narnia-books written for children but loved by adults too. (Ages 9 and up) -Philippa Reece.
Publication date: 2008-08-07 RRP: £14.99 Price: £7.75
Review Tales from the Back Green / Hodder & Stoughton:
Authors
- Kate Chopin
- Virginia Woolf
- Katherine Mansfield
Creator: Teresa Gallagher Edition: Unabridged Publication date: 2001-11-30 Dewey code: 808.831089287 RRP: £10.99 Price: £5.51
Review Classic Women's Short Stories (Classic Literature with Classical Music) / Naxos AudioBooks:
Creator: Ric Garrett Publication date: 2007-03-31 RRP: £7.99 Price: £5.35
Review Stories 4 Cool Kids 2 / Dancing Leaf:
Creator: Emma Chambers Publication date: 2004-01-15 RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.33
Review Real Fairy Story Book (CD) / Orion:
Publication date: 2000-01 Dewey code: 154 RRP: £11.95 Price: £5.20
Review Learn How to Think Positively / Diviniti Publishing:
Creator: Stephen Fry Edition: New Ed Publication date: 2007-05-07 RRP: £60.00 Price: £39.99
Review Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Children's Version (Harry Potter) / Bloomsbury Publishing PLC:
Publication date: 2008-08-21 RRP: £7.99 Price: £3.17
Review Five Go Off to Camp: WITH Five Go to Billycock Hill (Famous Five) / Hodder Children's Books:
Creator: Patrice Aggs Edition: PB edition with free audio CD Publication date: 2006-05-01 RRP: £6.99 Price: £2.34
Review Un, Deux, Trois: First French Rhymes (Book & CD) / Frances Lincoln Children's Books:
Creator: Tony Robinson Publication date: 2008-09-11 RRP: £14.99 Price: £6.90
Review Nation / Random House Children's Books:
| Browse Audio CDs:
Models & Brands: Good to Great, Atonement, Agatha Christie: Crooked House (BBC Audio), American Writers (The Spoken Word), Carol, Gaily Carol: Christmas Songs for Children (Songbooks), Horrid Henry's Christmas Cracker (Book/CD) (Horrid Henry), Bleak Expectations (BBC Audio), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Rapid Greek: v. 1: 200+ Essential Words and Phrases Anchored into Your Long Term Memory with Great Music: v. 1 (Musical Brain Trainer), Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (BBC Audio Crime), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter), Tales from the Back Green, Classic Women's Short Stories (Classic Literature with Classical Music), Stories 4 Cool Kids 2, Real Fairy Story Book (CD), Learn How to Think Positively, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Children's Version (Harry Potter), Five Go Off to Camp: WITH Five Go to Billycock Hill (Famous Five), Un, Deux, Trois: First French Rhymes (Book & CD), Nation |