A History of Accounting in America: An Historical Interpretation of the Cultural Significance of Accounting

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A Knowledge Management Classic

The Practicality of Knowledge

Insightful!

Putting the knowledge economy on a sound business foundation

Knowledge as Wealth

The New Organizational Wealth: Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets
Karl Erik Sveiby
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations

Intellectual Capital: Realizing Your Company's True Value by Finding Its Hidden Brainpower

Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)

If Only We Knew What We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice

Value Driven Intellectual Capital: How to Convert Intangible Corporate Assets Into Market Value

ASIN: 1576750140

Book Description

New strategies for business success based on shifting the focus from information to knowledge
-- Fifty percent of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. can be described as "knowledge companies" -- those that employ highly skilled, highly educated people who sell their knowledge rather than products
-- Provides tools for measuring intangible assets such as competent and creative employees, patents, brand names, and company reputation
-- Some archetypal knowledge companies are consultancy firms, advertising agencies, software companies, and architecture firms

Few of today's companies improve performance through knowledge or learning. This is because few managers understand how to make a business of knowledge. They focus on explicit knowledge -- information -- instead of implicit human knowledge. Investing in information technology instead of in people, they only know how to measure performance in money.

This ground-breaking book offers practical advice and rules of thumb for designing a business strategy that focuses on knowledge as an intangible asset. It begins by outlining the differences between information-focused strategies (such as adding chips to a manufacturer's product line) and knowledge-focused strategies (such as seeking returns in long term customer relationships, ideas and learning, and research and development). Measuring the knowledge-based assets of a company explains why, for example, Microsoft is valued at 40 times its worth on paper.

In eight chapters, Sveiby assembles a veritable toolbox of knowledge-based management techniques to enable managers to meet the new business challenges of the coming century.

Customer Reviews:

A Knowledge Management Classic.......2004-12-17

This was probably the first book on knowledge management that really paid any attention to the bottom line, or what km can do for it. While the concepts might be abstract without a brief primer on organization development the overall message is not beyond the reach of the average reader. I will say that it may be time for an update as the author was seemingly taken with "boom" economics and used said examples to emphasise his points. What is clear is that while his examples are powerful in the context of the time frame in which they were written they can still be applied to the economic environment now faced by many organizations. Overall I would recommend this book to someone looking to familiarize themselves with some of the underpinnings of KM or in the earliest stages of the development of a km practice.

The Practicality of Knowledge.......2002-02-17

Book Review - Joe Pulichino, Doctoral Student, Pepperdine University; President, Athena Learning Group

The New Organization Wealth - Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets is quite a practical book for managers seeking to get theirs arms around those intangible corporate assets that cannot be easily measured. It's also valuable for those in the fields of knowledge management and corporate education who are wrestling with ways to facilitate the development and productivity of their organization's human competencies.

Although Sveiby's argument that intangible assets can account for the difference between a company's market capitalization and its net book value may not seem so persuasive since the dot.com collapse, his categorization of those assets as "employee competence", "internal structure", and "external structure" is useful as a way of thinking about the character and value of knowledge in an organization. Much more so than the vague catch-all asset of "good-will", knowledge, though also intangible, is an asset that can be created, managed, and measured, and can serve as the focal point for developing a strategic business model. Sveiby demonstrates this through a wide range of case studies.

Especially useful is his "radical notion" that "information is meaningless and of low value". When we consider how much money and human resources are expended on technologies that collect, store, and retrieve information, this will be an uncomfortable notion for many. However, Sveiby, supported by Michael Polanyi's theory of tacit knowledge (The Tacit Dimension, 1967), makes clear that information does play a role in knowledge creation and transfer. As a means of broadcasting articulated knowledge, information provides raw material, the stuff out of which people create knowledge through their interaction with it and with each other. Knowledge thus created is called competency by Sveiby and is defined as the "capacity to act".

Sveiby then introduces the subject of managing intangible assets by making useful distinctions between the roles of professionals and mangers in the "knowledge organization". He discusses how their competencies are best managed and transferred so that the flow of knowledge through the organization (its internal structure) leads to greater efficiency and effectiveness in managing the flow of knowledge in customer and supplier relationships (its external structure). His model leaves business managers with a choice between a knowledge-focused strategy, which "earns increasing returns primarily from intangible assets", and an information-focused strategy, which "earns increasing returns from adapting to information technology".

To account for it all, Sveiby lays out a non-financial system for measuring intangible assets. While providing some thoughtful perspectives on how one might do this, it is not clear that in the end these forms of measurement have the same utility and precision that financial measurements do. It is fair to say, however, that these types of measures, which include surveys, indices, ratios, and rates of changes, do offer indicators that can help to monitor actions that will develop, maintain, and grow these assets.

In the final paragraph of the book, Sveiby admits, "I do not believe that the information in a book such as this can really change anything", and in saying so remains true to his thesis: "The only valuable knowledge is that which equips us for action and that kind of knowledge is learned the hard way - by doing." He invites his readers to experiment with the information in his book and by doing so turn it into knowledge. The practicality of The New Organization Wealth - Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets is therefore dependent on what the reader does with the information it contains.

Insightful!.......2001-06-01

Business is business, they say, but the knowledge management business is something else entirely. Author Karl Erik Sveiby earned his doctorate with a thesis that draws an interesting distinction between information and knowledge. This book owes a great deal to the research in that thesis, although some of the subtleties were probably lost in the translation after it was presented at Stockholm University. Dr. Sveiby offers managers a plausible structure for stratifying their employees. He provides a solid rationale to justify rationing resources and information. We [...] recommend this book to knowledge managers. Professionals who feel they are not receiving adequate support, information, or compensation from managers also will find succor in these theories.

Putting the knowledge economy on a sound business foundation.......2000-11-14

To this day, Sveiby's "New Organizational Wealth" stands apart in that the book remains one of the few to make a serious attempt to place the benefits of the somewhat nebulous concept of the knowledge economy on a sound economic and business foundation. (Paul Strassman takes a similar approach, but more towards the macroeconomic level, in his articles in Knowledge Management magazine.)

Readers of the "New Organizational Wealth" will likely want to visit Sveiby's web site to get access to some of the tools he has since developed to help implement systems to measure and improve upon a company's intangible assets.

Knowledge as Wealth.......2000-04-05

There is a thirst for understanding how to manage the "new" companies that are knowledge based rather than founded on product manufacturing. Here is a book to help with that quest. Sveiby explains that, as an example, the public was willing to pay, in 1995, an average price of $70 for Microsoft when their book value was about $7. In other words, the shareholders saw about $9 of additional value for every $1 of tangible assets on Microsoft's books. There is no entry on Microsoft's balance sheet for that $9, and it represents a major trend in our "post industrial" economy. How do we manage such an illusive asset? Sveiby steps us through (1) understanding the era of knowledge Organizations, (2) managing intangible assets, and (3) measuring intangible assets. There are practical examples of measuring systems, how to organize a company to maintain and transfer knowledge, and keys to developing professional competence. Sveiby defines, for the purpose of this book, knowledge as "a capacity to act." "One's capacity to act is created continuously by a process-of-knowing. In other words, it is contextual. Knowledge cannot be separated from its context. The notion also implies teleological purpose. I believe that the human process-of-knowing is designed by nature to help us survive in an often hostile environment." I learned about the professional's three life cycles - the super star, the statesman, and the normal professional. I learned about the classic problem of organic growth in our knowledge organizations. And I re-learned that "it takes time, experience, and mental effort to turn information into useful knowledge. And since recipients cannot know until afterward whether it was worth spending that time, information that turns out to be worthless is really worth less than nothing." For those trying to understand the new business model, this book is well worth the time and effort. It will help you move your company into the modern age.

Book Description

This is a compilation of Laws of Etiquette by A. Gentleman (1836) and Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society by Sarah Annie Frost. Both of these books, combined in one edition, are presented with minor editing, so that you may see how the antiqued etiquette of yesterday is highly viable today, and the humor of the 19th century seem freshly witty. The preview contains a list of topics.

$Frost\'s Laws and By-Laws of American Society A condensed but thorough treatise on etiquette and its usages in America, containing plain and reliable directions ... for deportment in every situation in life.$
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Frost\'s Laws and By-Laws of American Society A condensed but thorough treatise on etiquette and its usages in America, containing plain and reliable directions ... for deportment in every situation in life.
Sarah Annie Frost
Manufacturer: Hard Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1406939382
Release Date: 2006-11-03

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Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society
Annie Sarah Frost
Manufacturer: IndyPublish
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Jurisprudence | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1435341422

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Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society
Sarah, Annie Frost
Manufacturer: IndyPublish
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Non-US Legal Systems | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1421933594

Customer Reviews:

An amazing riddle.......2002-04-05

A masterly review of the history and science of a celebrated problem in the history of astronomy. Every chance I get I go out at night and look up at the dark sky and try to take in all that it means.+++

Darkness at Night: A Riddle of the Universe

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Darkness at Night: A Riddle of the Universe
Edward Harrison
Manufacturer: Harvard Univ
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GR7I16

Book Description

This comprehensive volume covers a range of topics related to the history of animal life, on land or in water. Issues discussed include the impact of palaeontology on the general public and scientific concepts related to the study of dinosaur extinction; others address more specific topics such as vertebrate biochronology of the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary. Accompanying these formidable research topics are more 'popular' aspects of palaeontology, examining the fascination that the public has had for dinosaurs over the last 150 years and the use of the word dinosaur in the English language.

Book Description

Moving Interfaces in Solids are typically phase boundaries and grain or subgrain boundaries. Continuum thermodynamics and continuum mechanics are applied to explain the motion process. Related numerical and experimental concepts are dealt with. Experts from material physics and mechanics bridge the gap between these fields. The reader is offered a common view of interface mtion in a unique representation. Examples are presented for various material systems.

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Pompous dribble

Not her best

Read a different novel

A Wedding in December

Melancholic

A Wedding in December: A Novel
Anita Shreve
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Domestic Life | Women's Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Shreve, Anita | ( S ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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The Last Time They Met

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Light on Snow

ASIN: 0316738999
Release Date: 2005-10-10

Book Description

Massachusetts, seven former schoolmates gather for a wedding. Nora, the owner of the inn, has recently had to reinvent her life following the death of her husband. Avery, who still hears echoes from a horrific event at Kidd Academy twenty-six years ago, has made a life for himself in Toronto with his wife and two sons. Agnes, now a history teacher at Kidd is a still-single woman who longs to tell a secret she cannot reveal to the others, a secret that would stun them all. Bridget, the mother of a 15-year-old boy, has agreed to marry Bill, an old high school lover whom she has recently re-met, despite uncertainties about her health and future. Indeed, it is Bill who passionately wants this wedding and who has brought everyone together for an astonishing weekend of revelation and recrimination, forgiveness and redemption. This is Anita Shreves most ambitious and moving novel to date, probing into human motivation with the grace and skill that have made her one of the finest novelists of her time (Boston Herald).

Customer Reviews:

Pompous dribble.......2007-09-19

I loved the Pilot's Wife, so I thought this might be an interesting one to read as well. I was sadly mistaken. The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic. The understory written by Agnes is a distraction, and the bottom line is I just didn't care about any of the characters when it was all said and done. I really felt as though Shreve's goal was to impress me with her amazing vocabulary and make these people seem as haughty and pretentious as possible. Now I'm not sure I'd like any of her other books. Ick.

Not her best.......2007-08-18

I've read many of Anita Shreve's books and found most of them interesting. This one was a disappointment. A better read of hers would be some of her earlier stuff.

Read a different novel.......2007-07-27

This author has written good books but this isn't one of them. There are several different stories woven though this novel, and none of them are fully fleshed out... except the adultery. Every couple is adulterous or abusive or both, and frankly it gets old and boring by the middle of the book. Because the author doesn't fully illuminate and resolve any of her plot threads, (unless the entire point of the book is that all relationships are pointless and doomed) this book ends with a dud. The book is not really not worth the time it takes to read. Select one of the author's other books or read something else entirely.

A Wedding in December.......2007-07-15

Another great Anita Shreve book. The characters are so dynamic. It makes you wonder for a long time afterwards how the characters go on with their lives. It shows how we do grow up but are characteristics are shaped at such a young age.

Melancholic.......2007-07-04

The reunion of seven former schoolmates who hadn't seen each other in over two decades, on the occasion of a wedding between two of them, starts off some long ago unresolved issues and recriminations, where the concept of missed opportunities dominates. Most of them face these long forgotten issues with a heavy heart, because the passing of time hasn't alleviated them, as most of them previously thought. So the need to resolve, once and for all, what had been pending for so long culminates in a string of stunning revelations which eventually clarify things.

As usual, A. Shreve's writing is somewhat dry but good, very good. The story and all its "ordinary" characters are captivating and absorbing. By reading this book, one cannot but wonder about the "what-ifs" of life.

Set of 2 Large Print Novels By Anita Shreve - A Wedding in December, All He Ever Wanted

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Set of 2 Large Print Novels By Anita Shreve - A Wedding in December, All He Ever Wanted
Anita Shreve
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VSRW9I

Product Description

Set of 2 Standalone Novels By Anita Shreve - A Wedding in December, All He Ever Wanted.

Set of 3 Novels By Anita Shreve - Fortune's Rocks, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December

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Set of 3 Novels By Anita Shreve - Fortune's Rocks, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December
Anita Shreve
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VSOZM0

Product Description

Set of 3 Standalone Novels By Anita Shreve - Fortune's Rocks, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December.

Customer Reviews:

Very interesting book on Dr. Zoya's Life.......2001-11-19

My wife and I met Dr. Zoya in September 2001. She was a guest lecturer on the ship we were on in Russia. No one fell asleep in her lectures as she would inject some humor into them. If a reader wanted to read about a woman who was an interpeter for President Roosevelt, Winston Churchhill and Stalin during World War II, this is for them. Dr. Zoya led a very colorful life and a very interesting woman to talk with.

Inside Russia The Life and Times of Zoya Zarubina.......2000-07-08

If you are looking for "Spook information, i.e. secret codes, secret drops, secret messages and meetings, forget it, this book is not for you. This is just a discription of the life of a person living in a difficult location.

Amazon.com

Robert Chevalier de la Salle, the French historian Anka Muhlstein writes, stands indisputably among Europe's most accomplished explorers. In the 1670s and '80s he crossed over most of what is now French Canada and the middle United States and charted the length of the Mississippi River--almost always traveling on foot, almost always under dangerous circumstances. Thanks to his pioneering travels, in the next century "America seemed destined to be French, until the Seven Years' War in Europe resulted in a reordering of the New World." La Salle would not live to see this turnabout. Murdered by two of his servants for reasons that are still unclear, La Salle drifted into history's cluttered attic, and his deeds have been nearly forgotten. France has yet to erect a memorial to him while in the United States his name lives on as an old car make, an unfitting tribute to that indefatigable walker. Thanks to Muhlstein's fine study, he may one day earn his due.

Book Description

Customer Reviews:

Very readable account of La Salle's life and explorations.......2007-08-27

Although I've lived in Canada for quite some time, all I knew about La Salle before reading this book was that he was one of the early French explorers of North America and that there are a few places in Canada named after him (like the suburb in Montreal). After reading this well-written and very clearlt set out account of La Salle's life and explorations, I'm a lot wiser. It's clearly written, easy to follow, well-written and interesting. Not at all a dry academic account which so many books like this unfortunately are.

Amazing voyages through the Great Lakes and down the length of the Mississippi by canoe. And on top of that he built forts and established settlements along the way. Many north americans don't have any idea just how far into the interior the French explored and settled back 400 years ago. This book really does give you an idea of what happened, how tough it was and how things could go disastorously wrong (such as happened on La Salle's last voyage where he attempted to find the mouth the of Mississippi from the seaward side and ended up landing in what is now Texas instead).

Riveting book. Some good illustrations too.

amazing story.......2004-04-27

This was a very readable account of LaSalle's journeys. It's truly amazing the conditions that people could survive back then as a matter of course. The language seems stilted sometimes, I believe because it was translated from French, but there is also an interesting slant, in that this is a european writing about our country, and our neighbor to the north. Keep an atlas handy to help track the story, and be prepared to be impressed. There is just enough well-researched information to bring the story alive, but not get too bogged down.

Very Credible.......2002-09-17

Well written and well documented, this book justifies France's North American claims like no other has. It is a very compelling account of one of North America's greatest explorers.

Dramatic and exciting. It would make a great movie........1999-05-22

A lot of people know that La Salle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi in 1682. Would they know that was probably his easiest trip? Anka Muhlstein gives you an intimate experience of real life in French America of the 1670s. Priests, civil administrators, trappers, and explorers fighting each other fiercely but living in peace with the Indians. Frenchmen in bark canoes with skate blades on the keel racing down a frozen river. It's the story about mosquitos, Iroquois attacks, shipwrecks, desertions and treachery and about the man who astonished both Indian and Frenchman with his perserverence and adaptation to each reverse and travail. This history reads like a good novel and would make a great movie.

La Salle : Explorer of the North American Frontier

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La Salle : Explorer of the North American Frontier
Anka Muhlstein
Manufacturer: Arcade NY 1994
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000R4UBOE

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La Salle: Explorer of the North American Frontier
Anka Muhlstein
Manufacturer: New York Arcade Books 1994.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000P0DM00

Amazon.com

Robin Morgan's brisk yet reflective memoir has all of the political and personal bite that you'd expect from someone who came out of the New Left to join the militant wing of the women's movement. It's written also with the elegance and formidable recollection of physical and emotional details that distinguish her poetry (Monster) and fiction (Dry Your Smile). And it contains a marvelously evocative rendering of what it was like to be a child star in 1940s radio ("The Little Robin Morgan Show") and 1950s television (Dagmar on "Mama") In short, there's little that this remarkable woman hasn't experienced and/or written about. Here, she goes lightly over the heady years of resurgent feminism (covered more fully in Sisterhood Is Powerful and Going Too Far), and concentrates instead on exploring less public areas of her life: her fraught relationship with her mother, who managed the performing career that young Robin didn't want, really; her single meeting with the father who abandoned them (described with a refreshing lack of sentimentality); her unconventional marriage to Kenneth Pitchford, which produced a beloved son and endured for more than 20 years, despite Pitchford's homosexuality; and her two long-term relationships with women. Naturally, there are political insights throughout (the first, expressed in a diary entry when Robin was eight), and Morgan chronicles at some length her ongoing engagement in the struggle for international women's rights. But she takes the time here to let us know the woman behind the causes more comprehensively than in her previous nonfiction; and, because she seems as self-aware as she is smart, it's a pleasure to make her further acquaintance. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

The fascinating narrative of an amazing life: from child TV star to poet and feminist activist. Robin Morgan is known as a prize-winning author, a political theorist, and a founder of the contemporary women's movement. But these adult accomplishments eclipsed an earlier fame. "Saturday's child has to work for a living," and Morgan has--since the age of two. She was a tot model, had her own radio show at age four, and was a child star on television, including on the popular series "Mama." Unlike most child actors, she emerged to reinvent a life filled with literary achievement and constructive politics. Here Morgan tells the whole story--the years as a child so famous she was named "The Ideal American Girl," her fight to become a serious writer, marriage to a fiery bisexual poet, motherhood, lovers (male and female), and decades working on civil rights, the radical underground, and global feminism. This is the intensely personal, behind-the-scenes story of her life.

Customer Reviews:

Impossible to put down . . ........2002-08-24

I picked up Morgan's "Saturday's Child" because I remembered her fondly from her acting days on "I Remember Mama," and I wanted to learn more about how she evolved from a child actress to a feminist activist. But I got more, much more. Full of insights, suspense, and wit, "Saturday's Child" captures
the many lives of Robin Morgan, all of them more vivid than fiction. But be careful not to start this book when you have miles to go or promises to keep because it's impossible to put down. Consider yourself warned!

meet a marvelous and funny woman.......2000-12-05

If you ever doubted that the personal and political are intertrwined, Robin Morgan's new book shows that they form a dramatic and dynamic interplay in her amazing life. It is a gripping story of a brave and funny and tenacious child-turned-woman who sees the world with the clarity of a great novelist and the sensitivity of the poet she is. But you don't have to read it for any of these high-falutin reasons. It's just a wonderful read and a juicy story.

A wonderful book on a wonderful life.......2000-11-28

Wow. Morgan survived child stardom but didn't become an alcoholic crazy; she took out her rebellion in progressive activism (civil rights, feminism) and saved her soul through a passion for language. It's very evident here that she's a first-rate poet--yet also capable of writing this friendly, funny, unpretentious, vulnerable, personal, and wise memoir. With sex,too! And high-grade gossip--about behind-the-scenes TV lives, the feminist movement, and the literary world. I confess that I LOVED every word.

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Saturday's Child: A Memoir
Robin Morgan
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UFFXD4

Saturday's Child: Memoirs of Canada's First Female Cabinet Minister

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Saturday's Child: Memoirs of Canada's First Female Cabinet Minister
Ellen Louks Fairclough
Manufacturer: University of Toronto Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

"As Chase examines his life in language that is simple yet powerful, he is never less than brutally honest-especially with himself."-Newsweek

"Exceptionally inventive, moving. . . . Chase has written an honest memoir."-Village Voice

"Multilayered and beautifully written."-The Advocate

"A quiet, eloquent memoir."-Kirkus Reviews

"Scrupulously honest, beautifully crafted."-Booklist

"A wonderful book . . . . Chase's story has a rueful charm; his voice is immediately convincing."-Bay Area Reporter

Out of love, anger, and grief Clifford Chase has crafted a moving and brilliant memoir of loss and family bonds. With startling honesty, he evokes scenes of life in a suburban American family and illuminates the strong ties that are woven between two gay brothers as they become adults. Chase documents how, in turn, the family dynamics change forever when one brother-the elder, the admired, the feared, the loved-weathers AIDS-related illnesses and ultimately dies. This is a searching, unsentimental account of how AIDS steals away loved ones and how the wounds of loss come to be healed.

"I read this book straight through, hypnotized by its scrupulous sincerity."-Edmund White

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......1997-08-15

A very artistic memoir of a rather disconnected family and a gay brother dieing of AIDS. Chase, who himself is also gay, weaves the bond that ties the two brothers throughout his book. Mainly childhood conspiracies and special games they created together. In the end, however, as his brother's health failed, he had to face and come to terms with the separatism that one must feel when they cannot truly share something as profoundly significant as death. Like most, he was left to sort out the emotions of the living

Wonderful.......1997-08-05

The admirable thing about this memoir is the way that it looks honestly, even wrenchingly, at devastation, and yet never mythologizes the past or liquifies its events into the mush of sentimentality so common in reflective works. Rather than epic proportions, The Hurry-Up Song is a work of small, quotidian proportions. Chase writes of the games he and his brother would play as children, the songs they would sing, and these games and songs are striking not for their uniqueness but their commonality - these are the games and songs that all suburban children remember. Expressions like "let's not and say we did" are the kind of expressions with which we all would taunt or were taunted. Commercial culture pervades this memoir; Chase often wonders if he acts, in response to the turmoil in his life, the way he has been conditioned to act by watching T.V. The Hurry-Up Song deals with how the empty, clanking images of the commercial machine can be remade as human, but also how the consuming suburban culture disables. Throughout the novel Chase holds out for an absolution, a final, dramatic scene that never quite comes. Again, the phrase, trite at first but then profound, "let's not and say we did" rises up. Rather than a harrowing catharsis and a pat conclusion, Chase is left with a collection of loose ends that resembles the human collection we are always holding. The final chapter of the book is a moving and yet restrained, sublime, sequence in which there is an intimation that Chase's wounds will heal only because they are ready to and he had decided they will. It is a fitting, beautiful ending, a uniting of the wholes, and although it (realistically) avoids conclusion, it moves itself, slowly, towards something new. Will Robinson Sheff

The Hurry-Up Song : A Memoir of Losing My Brother

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The Hurry-Up Song : A Memoir of Losing My Brother
Clifford Chase
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEX53Q

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