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Fair Housing Helper for Apartment Professionals

A useful, easy-to-read guide for those who want to learn more about complying with U.S. fair housing law.

A guide for apartment owners and managers looking to learn about U.S. laws and regulations governing equal housing opportunity.

Lawyer Leshnower (Every Landlord’s Property Protection Guide, 2008) takes a modified Socratic approach to explore the basics and subtleties of the federal Fair Housing Act by writing this book in quiz form, which he describes as an “interactive format that encourages knowledge, participation, and lasting comprehension.” Mostly that’s true. Walking readers through the law, the quiz poses 117 questions on topics from racism to pet policies. Followed by true-or-false or multiple-choice answers, the questions let readers make their best guess and then turn the page to find the correct response. Leshnower covers the basics of the law, including its seven protected classes—race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and familial status—and more esoteric questions, such as how to handle albinos and how to replace refrigerators without getting into hot water with the feds. The book offers plenty of good advice in plain English. For instance, sometimes it’s best for landlords to keep their mouths shut even if they just want to be helpful; while the FHA treats drug addicts as part of its protected disabled class, it doesn’t afford the same status to recreational-drug users; and though “very often, landlords get into fair housing trouble because they don’t take the same action with all tenants,” exceptions exist—e.g., even though landlords may require all tenants to pay a pet deposit, they must waive the fee for disabled tenants with service animals. Though the quiz format makes learning the law fun and easy to digest, it doesn’t lend itself to quick referencing; a table of contents, index and section headings would have made this book handier for landlords seeking immediate answers for particular problems. Also, though the author points out that even innocently violating the law “can lead to fair housing trouble,” readers want a better idea of exactly what kind of trouble that might be.

A useful, easy-to-read guide for those who want to learn more about complying with U.S. fair housing law.

Pub Date: April 19, 2013

ISBN: 978-0989291101

Page Count: 306

Publisher: Hillocrian Creative

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2013

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DYLAN GOES ELECTRIC!

NEWPORT, SEEGER, DYLAN, AND THE NIGHT THAT SPLIT THE SIXTIES

An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...

Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.

The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.

An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.

Pub Date: July 25, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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