Most Popular Books by Richard Williams

Reflections of one architect''s uniquely engaged life

Herbie and his best friend Raymond become more expert at getting out of hot water, as they struggle through the comic ups and downs of third grade.

Constant change is a given for most companies today. What differs is the scale, and the ability of people and organizations to deal with change in a positive, learning environment. Training must adapt too, to respond to the different learning styles of a new generation whose learning needs are the result of working in delayered, leaner, empowered organizations. Griffiths and Williams look at the implications for training and development, drawing on their first-hand experience of being with IBM during an extensive reengineering programme. With the aid of checklists, questions, summaries, ''food for thought'' and numerous real-life examples, they show how to improve corporate performance through organized learning. The book underlines the vital importance of linking learning with business needs and evaluating it like any other investment.

A cache of Venezuelan gold bullion is hijacked deep in the Swiss countryside en route to safekeeping in a bank vault, the heist orchestrated by the elusive Mr Bonjour, an international man of mystery and villain. Through a series of events, the gold ends up not in Bonjour''s hands, but in the grease separator of the newly opened Gourmet Burger Factory restaurant in downtown Geneva. The staff, a motley crew of young strays and disparate characters, have a choice - keep the bullion safe for Bonjour''s imminent arrival, or take the loot and run, knowing the elusive villain may already be amongst them.''A cast of larger-than-life characters and outrageous villains star in this fast-paced black comedy laced with heinous crimes and twisted retribution.''DAREN KING , AUTHOR OF BOXY AN STAR AND BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST

Published in 1992. The author sets out the main issues in Data Management, from the first principles of meta modelling and data description through the comprehensive management exploitation, re-use, valuation, extension and enhancement of data as a valuable organizational resource. Using his recent in-depth experience of a major trans-European project, he highlights data value metrics and provides examples of extended data analysis to assist readers to produce corporate data architectures. The book considers how the techniques of data management can be applied in the wider community of business, institutional and organizational settings and considers how new types of data (from the EDIFACT world) can be integrated into the existing data management environments of large data processing functions. This wide-ranging text considers existing work in the field of data resource management and extends the concepts of data resource valuation. References are made to new aspects of metrics for data value and how they can be applied. It will interest strategic business planners, information systems, and DP managers and executives, data-management personnel and data analysts, and academics involved in MSc and BSc courses on Dara Analysis, CASE repositories and structured methods.

First published in 1997, The Contentious Crown is a study of comment on the monarchy in Victorian newspapers, journals, pamphlets and parliamentary debates. It examines radical and republican criticism, reverence and sentimentality, perceptions of the Crown’s political role, the relationship between the monarchy and patriotism and attitudes to royal ceremonial. Williams shows that discussion of the monarchy throughout the reign was of a far greater volume and complexity than has hitherto been realized. Two strands of discussion, one critical, one reverential, co-existed from Victoria’s accession to her death. Criticism was overwhelmed by reverence by the 1880s since the Crown’s most controversial features, especially its political influence and foreignness, were seen to have receded, allowing the monarchy and Royal Family to appear in their ceremonial, domestic and philanthropic roles as the ideal family and the figurehead of the nation and Empire. The book gives a historical context to the current problems of the British monarchy by showing that controversy and debate are by no means novel and that the secure position achieved in the late nineteenth century was the product of circumstances which no longer exist.

In this revised and updated text, Fletcher and Williams take an evidence-based approach to analysing the key elements of the appraisal process and its place in performance management. Drawing on the academic literature and examples of best-practice, the authors explain how performance appraisal can motivate and develop staff, foster commitment and positivity, and ultimately improve an organisation’s performance. Key topics covered include: Designing an appraisal system Identifying and developing talent Multi-level and multi-source feedback Appraising professionals Cultural challenges Evaluating and maintaining appraisal systems Appraisal: Improving Performance and Developing the Individual, 5th Edition, is a standard in the field and essential reading for all students of HRM and occupational psychology, and for any HRM professional looking to develop more effective performance appraisal systems.

Tried and trusted by thousands of HRM students and professionals in three previous editions, this is the most comprehensive introduction to performance appraisal currently available. In this fully revised and updated work, Clive Fletcher explores the key elements of the appraisal process, and through best practice examples explains how such processes can motivate and develop staff, fostering commitment and positivity, and ultimately improving an organization’s performance. Drawing on the wider critical literature on performance management and organizational psychology, and based firmly on evidence-based analysis and organizational experience, the book stresses the vital role of performance appraisal in the identification, development and retention of talent. Discussion topics include: aims and outcomes of the appraisal process designing appraisal schemes appraisal as an ingredient of performance management Multi-level, multi-source ‘360 degree’ feedback training, implementation and monitoring the international and cultural adaptation of appraisal systems. Exploring both public and private sector contexts, this is essential reading for all students of human resource management and for any manager or HRM professional looking to develop more effective performance appraisal systems.

TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY EXTREME SPORT The distant towers of the Great, New and Cloister Courts looming against the dark sky, lit by the flickering lamps far below; the gradations of light and shadow, marked by an occasional moving black speck seemingly in another world; the sheer wall descending into darkness at his side, above which he has been half-suspended on his long ascent; the almost invisible barrier that the battlements from which he started seem to make to his terminating in the Cloisters if his arm slips; all contribute to making this deservedly esteemed the finest view point in the College Alps. By turns sage and foolhardy, the advice contained within represents the cumulative experience of three inquisitive, ambitious and daring men - the authors of the three editions of The Roof-Climber''s Guide to Trinity - and their accomplices. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, John Hurst andRichard Williams were each their generations'' luminaries in an historic sport, now known as Night Climbing; one by its very nature sparsely populated and largely anonymous. THE ORIGINAL NIGHT CLIMBING CLASSIC This Omnibus Edition contains the full texts and images from each of those editions, as well as the appendices to the First Edition, and features a special introduction by Richard Williams, author of the Third Edition, in which he details the collected wisdom and history of Night Climbing, andfinally removes the cloak of anonymity that has until now protected the identities of those first intrepid nocturnal explorers. Although many may baulk at the methods described in the narrative, few could question the diligence spent obtaining that content, or deny the impeccable locution and erudition displayed in presenting the illicit achievements in this cult classic. As the Guide itself posits, its existence will have been justified if it has succeeded in providing the young stegophilist making his first night venture upon the Trinity Roofs with a clue, however poor, to the creditable unravelling of their somewhat complex mazes. OTHER UNMISSABLE NIGHT CLIMBING TITLES FROM OLEANDER: The Bible of All Climbing Disciplines - The Night Climbers of Cambridge by Whipplesnaith Cut and Paste 9781909349551 to search)

From August 1978 until March 1979 the author carried out a study of North American career development practices whilst holder of a Civil Service Travelling Fellowship. This book is about that study and the career development practices which were found in a variety of organizations and the United States.

In 1964, in Australia''s remote outback, on the dazzling saltpan of Lake Eyre, Donald Campbell set out to drive his Bluebird car at over 400 miles an hour - faster than any man in history. Things went wrong from the start: unseasonal rains, a sodden lake bed in which every high - speed run slewed dangerously, money running short...even an Aborigi...

No popular entertainer has been more closely scrutinized than Bob Dylan. His garbage has been emptied, his lyrics computer-scanned, his daily wherabouts logged with an obsessive thoroughness worthy of J. Edgar Hoover''s G-men. And still he is a mystery.;Above all performers, Dylan showed his generation how to seize the licence they unanimously demanded: the right to express themselves. Before him, Elvis loosened the restrictions of class and race; then the Beatles and the Stones subverted the outmoded codes of domestic and public behaviour. But Dylan did more: his use of language liberated lyricists, moving them beyond Tin Pan Alley''s teenagers-in-love themes, and his attitudes shaped the development of other performers who would themselves influence millions.;It is usually said that Dylan has constantly re-invented himself. Only in such a way can his extraordinary changes of direction - such as the espousal of electric rock in 1965-66, the e into Nashville balladry in 1969, the conversion to born-again Christianity in 1979 - be explained. So extreme, so demanding of both himself and his audience were these shifts that it seemed they could only be the produce of a kind of pervers

Nina Simone was the first of the soul divas, and the most spectacular. Before Aretha Franklin, before Diana Ross, she established herself as a performer whose talent was matched only by her refusal to accept compromise. A classically trained prodigy, she brought her gift to bear on the whole sweep of African-American music, and much more besides, pushing ahead into an engagement with the blues, gospel, folk songs, and even rock ''n'' roll.But just as she was becoming acclaimed by a more mainstream audience -- the Animals, for instance, covered her legendary version of "Don''t Let Me Be Misunderstood" -- the course of her career veered away from the safe, conventional paths into the burgeoning black-consciousness movement. Her long involvement with the movement included a friendship with the black-power leader Stokely Carmichael and time spent living in Africa.She remains a performer of compelling and often disturbing magnetism whose range is unsurpassed. Richard Williams explores the life and work of this enigmatic and brilliant woman in a book that exemplifies what great writing on music has the potential to be.

Ferrari, the name itself evokes the world of speed, of fast cars, heroic deeds and glamour. This is the story of the man behind the name. This book goes back to Enzo Ferrari''s origins and traces his remarkable rise to prominence.

Providing concise overall coverage of colloid and surface chemistry, this thoroughly updated book aims to offer an intermediate text between the brief accounts in physical chemistry textbooks and the comprehensive coverage in specialized treatises. Added information is included on optical properties and dimension calculation, electrical properties of dispersion, elecrokinetic phenomena, colloid stability, particle interactions, coagulation and rheology. outlines relevant research techniques and considers technological applications. A basic knowledge of the principles of physical chemistry is assumed. The information should appeal to a wide readership, both undergraduate and postgraduate students at universities and colleges of technology as well as scientists in industry who need a broad background in the subject.

It was the green shirt. Charlie Parker had the headlong genius, Thelonius Monk had the beatnik weirdness, and Charles Mingus had the rebel soul. But only Miles Davis had the green shirt. There it was on the cover of "Milestones", one of a handful of late-fifties albums that turned him from a gifted bebop musician into a figure of godlike potency. That shirt, the green shirt with the perfect button-down collar, symbolised the taste of the eternally elegant outsider and was as good an emblem as any of Miles Davis''s intextinguishable need to be the coolest man on the planet.;That he succeeded became clear when he died in September 1991, aged 65. For many people around the world, great musicians as well as anonymous fans, this really did seem like the day music died. Having survived the deaths of Armstrong, Ellington, Parker and Coltrane, the creative momentum of the century''s most vital musical language suddenly seemed to be stalled by the departure of one man. Jazz people had followed him from Ivy League suits to silks and velvets, from the suave sophistication of "My Funny Valentine" to the wild funk of his electronic bands.;This tells the story of a musician who transcended his idi