First Edition Business Books Pt. 1 - Dale Carnegie

A classic! What more can you say? The quintessential "working handbook on human relations," I can't count how many times I have read or skimmed "How to Win Friends." Yet every time that I do, I learn something new and incredibly impactful to me, my personal life, and to my business.

Originally published in 1936, Dale Carnegie's examples are laced with references and stories relevant to his day and to his recent history, gleaning lessons from Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War generals, English kings, John D. Rockefeller, and many others.

But don't be put off by the age of this book or think that Carnegie's "old" stories and examples hold no meaning in today's world and times...they do! The book's insights and lessons are relevant to any decade, any organization, and any situation involving people. That's part of what makes this book such a classic - it's timeless.
The basis for the book is the fact that of prime interest to everyone is people: how to understand and get along with people; how to make people like you; and how to win others to your way of thinking. But the methods Carnegie suggests are not about tricking or cajoling others, or taking advantage of them. They are about focusing on others' needs and wants, just like you would like others to do with you.

The importance of being "good" with people is evident by studies performed at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and others. These investigations revealed that "about 15 percent of one's financial success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering - to personality and the ability to lead people." To me, those numbers are astonishing and run counter to where we actually invest so much of our time, attention, energy, and resources.
In no way can this summary do the book justice but, for the sake of our purposes, let's briefly review some select principles from each of the book's four sections.

Part One - Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

• Don't criticize, condemn or complain. Criticism is often futile and merely puts people on the defensive. Instead try to understand why people do what they do.
• Give honest and sincere appreciation. If you can arouse enthusiasm in people and a sense of good will, you can begin to realize the true power of appreciation.
• Arouse in the other person an eager want. Henry Ford said that "If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own."

Part Two - Six Ways to Make People Like You

• Become genuinely interested in other people. Care about them and their interests. Do things for others that require "time, energy, unselfishness and thoughtfulness."
• Smile. It's been said that "People who smile tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children." It's a simple enough idea, so I wonder why so few people seem to follow it.
• Be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves. A young boy once said to his mother, "Mom, I know you love me very much because whenever I talk to you about something you stop whatever you are doing and listen to me." Wow, that hits home!
• Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely. William James said, "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." Help someone feel appreciated and how could they not like you?

Part Three - How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

• The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. Sure, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will.
• If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. Any fool can try to defend his mistakes, but it raises one above the herd to admit one's mistakes.
• Get the other person saying "Yes, yes" at the outset...and keep your opponent, if possible, from saying "No." Use the "Socratic method" to garner trust and agreement.
• Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires. Just because they may not be consistent with your own, it doesn't mean they are wrong and you are right. Strive to be open to others, you may learn something.

Part Four - Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Rousing Resentment

• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. No one likes to take direct orders, so give people the opportunity to do things themselves.
• Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. If you want to improve a person in a certain respect, act as though that particular trait were already one of his or her outstanding characteristics.
• Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest. Be sincere. Be empathetic and match the benefits of doing the thing you suggest to the other person's wants.

There is so much wisdom packed into the pages of this book that it seems impossible to digest it all. However, if you take Dale Carnegie's principles and lessons to heart, you can't help but be more of who you want to be and accomplish more than you ever thought possible. And you'll develop some truly meaningful relationships along the way.

JFD Performance Solutions ( http://www.jfdperfsolutions.com )
As a business coaching and consulting firm, we specialize in helping individuals to reach more of their potential, companies to achieve greater results, and teams to work better together. We help our clients implement sustainable change and be more successful.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_Brimhall

WHAT TO COLLECT?

Whatever your interests – literary classics, landmarks in the history of ideas, monumental accounts of travel and exploration, revolutionary scientific and medical works, exquisite decorative bindings and sets, beloved children’s books, inscribed or association copies – Bauman Rare Books has much to offer.

 

Our extensive and constantly changing inventory includes everything from the most elusive and desirable rarities (such as an 1814 first edition of the account of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the 1640 first collected edition of Shakespeare’s Poems or a first edition of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations) to very affordable first editions, signed copies and lovely bindings that make perfect gifts. We’ve helped form every type of collection imaginable, from works banned and censored through the centuries to books that inspired classic films.

 

Many collectors, however, don’t necessarily collect around a specific focus. Some search for the books they’ve loved throughout their lives, those that taught, inspired or moved them. Of all types of collecting, this is perhaps the most personal: what other groups of objects can better reflect one’s passions?

 

Americana – From the earliest voyages of discovery to the founding of a new nation, from the exploration of the West to the turmoil of the Civil War, Americana is among the most compelling areas of collecting.

Art, Architecture and Design – Artists’ books – also known as livres d’artiste – provide the collector with an excellent opportunity to own original works produced specifically for that book and signed by an important artist. In the early eighteenth century Giacomo Leoni’s translation into English of Andrea Palladio’s I Quattro libri dell-architettura (first published in 1570) solidified the late Renaissance architect’s reputation and led to the revival of his classical architectural theories, sparking the movement that became known as Palladianism.

Children’s Books – Once upon a time, children’s books weren’t necessarily – or even usually – fun. It sounds strange today, when toddlers Pat the Bunny, beginning readers sound out a menu of Green Eggs and Ham and throngs attend midnight bookstore parties for the release of Harry Potter’s latest adventure. But education, not entertainment, drove the earliest literature for young readers.

History, Government and Thought – Whether your interest leads along academic or highly personal routes, whether you are in search of first-hand accounts or histories narrated by later voices, a collection built around classic histories can be fascinating. Great ideas in philosophy may represent the spirit of their age, or dissect it, but their influence is seldom limited to one field or discipline. For who could persuasively argue that the works of Plato or Aristotle are not profoundly resonant in medicine, architecture, literature and music?

Literature – Author and critic Italo Calvino wrote, “A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” As overwhelmed as we might be considering the range and sheer number of important works of literature produced through the centuries, one of the fascinations of collecting is that by seeking out the books we think are most important, we bring a certain order to the great expanse and preserve in our collections those books that had a significance for us – as individuals and as a society.

 

Music – Collectors of landmark musical scores enter the worlds of Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Puccini, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Gershwin and other brilliant composers whose works continue to thrill us. Music collecting is not confined to musicologists or academics; it is neither difficult nor arcane, but an arena with enormous intrinsic appeal.

Photography – Whether in snapshot, portrait, calotype, positive or negative, panorama, daguerreotype or print, the all-powerful eye of the camera has launched one of the fastest growing fields for the rare book collector to explore. With both art and technology in its genes, photography bridges centuries, tracing its origins back to our earliest speculations about vision, sunlight’s transformative mysteries, and the delights of the camera obscura. Part magic, part memory, with painting as a forefather and cinema a second cousin, this is a fascinating area.

 

Religion – One cannot ignore the Bible’s tremendous influence on world thought and literature. The Bible, of course, was the first book ever printed, and while a Gutenberg Bible of 1455 is no longer a realistic goal for private collectors, many magnificent editions printed in later centuries are.

 

Science, Medicine and Natural History – William Hazlitt defined science as “the desire to know causes,” and the collector of rare scientific and natural history books share that passion. The great works of mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, botany and astronomy represent not only the investigation of the hidden causes that move the visible world, but also the celebration of human curiosity, research and insight that made such investigation possible, and those revolutionary shifts in human thought that made the mysterious understandable.

 

Sport and Leisure – Chief Justice Earl Warren remarked, “I always turn to the sports page first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but a man’s failures.” Collectors of the literature of sport find inspiration in pages that record historic physical and athletic triumphs.

 

Travel and Exploration – In 1772 Captain James Cook, determined to either find or disprove the existence of Terra Australis, set sail on the HMS Resolution. Many collectors focus on the history of a single figure, like Cook, Richard Burton or David Roberts, while others turn to events like the race to the North and South Poles chronicled through The South Pole, The Voyage of Discovery and The Heart of the Antarctic.

 

THE KING JAMES BIBLE, 1619, IN MAGNIFICENT SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY EMBROIDERED BINDING

   

Holy Bible (in embroidered binding) 
Cost: $16,000.00 
#79227

 

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THE KING JAMES BIBLE, 1619, IN MAGNIFICENT SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY EMBROIDERED BINDING

(BIBLE) (BOOK ARTS). The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the New. London: Bonham Norton and John Bill, 1619. Thick 12mo, contemporary full white satin fully embroidered in colored silks and silver thread, all edges gilt and gauffered. Housed in a custom clamshell box.    $16,000.

Early edition of the King James Bible, bound with the Book of Common Prayer, Metrical Psalter and the Genealogies, which includes 34 pages of woodcut genealogies and a double-page woodcut map of the Holy Land (with an inset map of Jerusalem), in a splendid contemporary embroidered binding.

This early edition of the magisterial King James Bible, which was first published in 1611, has been lovingly bound in embroidered red satin. On both covers, a floral centerpiece in white, red, light green and dark green silks is surrounded by intricate silver thread work and smaller floral designs in blue, white and green. The spine is similarly adorned in floral designs of silver thread and multicolored silks. A roll border worked over with silver thread ornaments the outer edges. This highly decorative and unusual style of binding reached the height of its popularity and the pinnacle of its artistic development in the first half of the 17th century and is rarely found after the Restoration. The majority of such bindings were the work of professionals, members of the Guild of Embroiderers. Bible bound with an edition from the same year of Sternhold and Hopkins’ Metrical Psalter (bound after the New Testament), and with an edition from the same year of the Book of Common Prayer and the Genealogies (both bound before the Bible). With separate wood-engraved New Testament and Book of Common Prayer title pages. Includes Apocrypha. Text hand-ruled in red throughout. Darlow & Moule 287. Herbert 369. STC 2257. Early owner signature.

Interior exceptionally clean. A few signatures partially sprung, cords holding. Far less than the expected age-wear to beautiful and delicate embroidered binding; colors still bright and beautiful. A splendid volume.

Miller's "Tropic Of Cancer" Review

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Miller was a degenerate by my estimation at best and a lout as well and probably a cad as well. That's why I like reading him....he shines through every word. Very few wasted words as you'll agree. Miller most accurately depicts the darker side of human nature in this novel.



View all my reviews