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BUILDING WITH CERTAINTY

EMPOWERING THE ASTUTE OWNER WITH EVIDENCE-BASED CONSTRUCTION

A concise, forceful, and entirely cleareyed program for getting the waste and disappointment out of the construction...

Awards & Accolades

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A pair of experts offer a guide for the management and funding of construction projects.

This collaborative work from the team of Levine and Burns (Capital Projects and Healthcare Reform, 2015) expands from a couple of starkly simple opening assertions. “News articles are full of stories of monumentally botched schedules and budgets,” the authors write. “Even projects that are said to be on time and on budget often have scope and content significantly reduced from the original concept in order to meet those schedules and budgets.” As they observe, despite the best efforts of experts and advisory panels, virtually every building project is still plagued with the likelihood that it will be late, over budget, or scaled back from its original design. Drawing on the authors’ long experience in the industry, their new book provides a series of straightforward and useful ideas to fix this endemic problem, a process of evaluating projects rooted in evidence-based design. The process has multiple components (Levine and Burns stress throughout their succinct manual that seemingly simple answers to any of these issues are almost always useless and can be damaging), sharing the main theme of increasing the knowledge of the owners engaged in the projects. As the authors deftly point out, those owners should recognize the need to educate themselves rather than complacently relying on others; they should build an understanding of “the nuances of the planning-design-construction industry”; and of course they should prioritize communication at all levels and stages, breaking down the “silos” that tend to form when multiple groups are involved in any complicated, long-term project. The authors have devoted their careers to enterprises involving health care, but, as they note, all projects share general concerns with cost, schedules, and scope. All owners will benefit from the concentrated experience and wisdom delivered in these pages. The specific construction details will change from project to project, but the clear common sense advocated here is universal.

A concise, forceful, and entirely cleareyed program for getting the waste and disappointment out of the construction business.

Pub Date: July 17, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-07-527521-0

Page Count: 124

Publisher: Time Tunnel Media

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

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