"The Oxford Book of Work" is not the sort of book that ones sits down and reads from cover to cover. Naturally, this is exactly what I did, slowly nibbling my way through this engaging anthology, compiled by Sir Keith Thomas, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The compendium includes about five hundred excerpts ranging from a few lines to a few pages. All are meant to illuminate the vast, contradictory range of reactions which poets, novelists, theologians, social scientists, philosophers, reformers, journalists, diarists, biographers and just about everyone else have had to this sometimes dreary, usually fascinating subject.

The book is organised into three broad sections: "The Nature of Work," "Kinds of Work," and "The Reform of Work," plus an epilogue on "Life After Work." I found all of them useful for exploring the historical evolution of work. Living in the richest country in the history of the world, I was repeatedly reminded how lucky modern Americans are. The lot of most people throughout world history has been one of tedious, exhausting, unremitting, relatively unrewarding labour. (We) Americans are spoiled. Surveys generally show that Americans' greatest enjoyment comes from family activities and friendship, but that work ranks next -- well ahead of watching TV, sports activities, going to movies, gardening, reading, and shopping.

"The Nature of Work," starts, appropriately enough, with a section titled "The Primal Curse." It begins with Hesiod's Golden Age when men gained all good things without labouring, but soon enough the fall of Adam is presented and man learns that "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." This section makes it clear that many pre-modern thinkers couldn't imagine how a modern economy, with high incomes and high wages, could ever function. Wouldn't everyone simply cease working? As Arthur Young succinctly put it, "every one but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious." The section on "Compensations and Rewards," includes memorable selections such as Adam Smith's analysis of the division of labour in a pin-making factory: Maxim Gorky's observations of the "joyful furious tempestuous surge of strength" of Volga stevedores working "as though they had been starved of it and as though they had been waiting a long time for the sheer pleasure of throwing sacks weighing 160 pounds of more;" Henry Ford's belief that "work is our sanity, our self-respect, our salvation," and that "exact social justice flows only out of honest work;" and a description from Thomas Wright's "Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes" (1867) of the "ringing in" ovation given to a newlywed shopmate upon his return to work. Next, "All in a Day's Work," explores getting a job, job interviews, the first day on the job, tricks played on greenhorns, the daily grind, work breaks and the completion of work.

In reading "Kinds of Work," it struck me that most of us have very narrow knowledge about work -- having personally experienced only a handful of occupations. This section helps overcome this ignorance by describing a range of fictional and factual work experiences -- including housework, farming, fishing, sailing, mining, metalwork, factory work, shopkeeping, soldiery, domestic service, "shady" work, and "head work" from finance to office work, teaching and the professions. Highlights in this section include Simone de Beauvoir's explanation that "few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework;" A.G. Street's paean to the "all-sufficing and soul-satisfying" nature of plowing; George Orwell's lengthy description of mining: "Most of the things one imagines in hell are there -- heat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and above all, unbearably cramped space;" and a truly unexpected description of the occupation of "pure-finders" (who collected and sold dog droppings). In this section, one encounters the finest writers in the English language (such as Frank Norris and John Steinbeck) and makes a mental note to add these authors to one's reading list.

"The Reform of Work," includes a section on "Dissatisfactions" which includes many of the usual suspects -- Marx, Engels, Sinclair, Dickens, Shelley, and Markham. It is followed by "Toward Utopia," with interesting thoughts by Hawthorne, Wilde, and especially Keynes, and "In Defense of Idleness," which includes thought-provoking selections by Stevenson and Thoreau, but which is marred when an out-of-context quote from Jesus is inappropriately included. If you have the time to break away from your own work, consider picking up a copy of "The Oxford Book of Work".

At first, Anita Rau Badami's recently published second novel might appear to be rather curiously titled. Sripathi Rao, the central figure in the story's family, seems far from heroic: an ageing advertising copywriter, trying to understand the untimely death of his estranged daughter and her Canadian husband, and trying to deal with the new responsibility of raising his Indo-Canadian and stubbornly silent granddaughter. Sripathi's angry and isolated position within his family, as well as his fear and confusion, make him an unlikely hero - and one who would perhaps seem unsympathetic were it not for Badami's moving and careful depiction of his early relationship with his father. What Badami proceeds to do, however, is to challenge our conventional, limited notions of heroism.

This novel cannot help but leave the reader with a strong sense of the terribly 'everyday' nature of tragedy. Not only do we enter Sripathi's family as it experiences such an enormous and painful loss, each dealing with it in their different ways, but we also glimpse the continuing and almost unbearable pain of other, connected characters: Mrs. Poorna, the woman who lives next door and cries everyday for her lost daughter; or Sripathi's friend Raja who must decide the fate of his severely disabled daughter, Ragini. Badami does not present tragedy as something dramatic or exceptional, but rather as something mundane, common, and sometimes unrealised. In doing so, she transforms the idea of what is heroic - of the hero's walk - into something completely different. Badami depicts qualities such as endurance, compassion, and forgiveness as ultimately being heroic or courageous, rather than those that are more conventionally associated with heroic deeds and lives.

Badami's writing is clear and accomplished. She explores Sripathi's family's pain and confusion with emotional precision and enormous compassion. She skilfully constructs a family in which each of its members is isolated from the others, despite their interdependence and cohabitation: each character is isolated within his or her individual world of misunderstanding, deprivation, or fear. The novel focuses on the occupants of the Big House, a crumbling, decaying home that stands on what originally was Brahmin Street but is now simply Street. There, Sripathi lives with Nirmala, his religious wife; Ammayya, his cantankerous mother; Putti, his unmarried sister; and Arun, his radical, politically active son, all coexisting in an uneasy and sometimes angry tension. With the death of Maya and the arrival of Nandana, the characters emerge, slowly and painfully from their individual lives, and begin to forge and re-forge connections with each other.

"The Hero's Walk" confirms Badami as an intelligent, thoughtful writer. The novel is alternately funny and moving, and the precise, careful narrative voice switches easily and effectively between the thoughts and concerns of the ageing, angry Sripathi and those of the young, dislocated Nandana. Badami's rendering of the internal monologue of Nandana, who refuse to speak following the death of her parents, is one of the most delightful and moving elements of the novel: Nandana's defiant "No way" is repeated over and over, becoming a kind of mantra as the little girl attempts to defend herself against the tragedy and massive change with which she is faced. Badami sympathetically and carefully depicts the complexity of the emotional lives of all the residents of the Big House, even the cantankerous and mean-spirited Ammayya whose behaviour is explained, at least in part, if not excused, by the public and private betrayals of her late husband.

After the encouraging success of her first novel, "Tamarind Mem", Anita Rau Badami has produced another beautifully written, carefully observed, and thoughtfully constructed novel. "The Hero's Walk" asks its readers to reconsider the nature of heroism and of tragedy, just as the death of Maya forces the members of her family to reconsider their lives, beliefs, and relationships.

College basketball in the United States assumes that education, amateurism and athletics are, if not compatible, at least not antithetical. Bolstered by television contracts and shoe endorsements, it is a formidable business that seems threatened only by an arbitrary and hidebound regulating body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the lack of a monopoly on available athletic talent, as the diversion of promising recruits to the National Basketball Association bears witness.

Winner of two national championships and several National Coach of the Year awards, Mike Krzyzewski (pronounced "shushevsky," hereinafter "Coach K") is widely regarded as the leading member of the college coaching profession, an assessment that will be denied perhaps only by archrival North Carolina fans and those who persist in defending Robert Montgomery "Bobby" Knight, generalissimo of the over/under-achieving Indiana Hoosiers and, ironically, Krzyzewski's one-time mentor.

"Leading" is a hybrid: part sports book, part how-to leadership book for business-people, part inspirational book, part an American sports version of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". "Leading" is evocatively divided into sections entitled Preseason, Regular Season, Post-Season and All-Season. It is clearly intended as a teaching tool, to be pondered and shared.

Coach K's idea-charts, reminiscent of a clipboard for diagramming plays on the basketball court, schematise and drive home points made in the text about planning, personal development, and moulding a team of disciplined, creative performers. Examples from competitive and interpersonal experience furnish wisdom, reveal self-criticism and sound responses to failure, and point toward realisable goals. Included are accounts of the preparation and strategizing that leads to success, primarily an intuitive understanding of people, a feel for situations and willingness to adjust one's strategy, but not one's goals, to the demands of a particular season or environment.

The most memorable episodes that are discussed are the story of the remarkable pass and shot that beat Kentucky in the regional final in 1992, Coach K's struggles with back and hip surgery, the challenge of devoting himself to his teams and his wife, mother and daughters (mission accomplished), and the poignant account of Coach K's friendship with a fellow coach, the affable, cancer-stricken Jim Valvano.

Much of "Leading" reads like a strategic trip into the locker room and practice court, absent expletives and uncertainties. It highlights successful approaches to that sublimated, sporting warfare that forms a diversion and safety-valve for any thriving society. It makes a case, in so far as one can be made, that sport is a metaphor for life.

This review of a book that was written (with shrewd editorial help) by a Catholic of Polish ancestry, a coach who crosses himself before each game, must conclude with a confession, my confession. Yes, Father, I am a Duke alumnus and basketball fan who remembers chanting unfriendly words at opposing teams in Cameron Indoor Stadium years before Coach K arrived. Yes, Father, I am one who honours with a perhaps pardonable pride the wins and even the few losses of the Krzyzewski era ("better to lose with Duke than win with anyone else").

That is another way of saying that University of North Carolina basketball fans will, as a matter of principle, refuse to buy this book (or will prefer to scan it in a bookstore, as I did with the laudatory memoir of their coach, Dean Smith). All college basketball fans not so encumbered, however, should own this book. Coaches in all sports should purchase it or order it for their school or public libraries. Moreover, ethically-minded business people, itinerant motivational speakers, youth leaders and teachers will be able to apply many of its principles.

"Leading", which reads quickly and well, revives a genre not quite expired but greatly demanded in a postmodern age, the virtuous advice book. It, like its author, not only provides a model of the leader who inspires confidence and trust, but also offers a message that deserves to be propagated.

"Waves of Rancor" is a sound, scholarly study of an important political and mass media phenomenon in the United States, namely the historical and contemporary context for domestic terrorism and the growth of diseased conservatism run amok, mutating into the extremely deformed phenomenon of hate groups in their myriad forms (neo-Nazis, patriots, anti-Semites, militias, Freemen, survivalists, anti-environmentalists, conspiracy theorists, the KKK, revisionists, and Holocaust deniers). Each of these groups is meticulously described and analysed, interviews with some of their leaders are reported, and many of their favourite media technologies are depicted in great detail.

Most revealing is the hidden communications system used to spread hate messages using devices unknown to the average citizen, who is easily lulled into complacency regarding the extent of the threat from the millions of people involved in one phase or another of this movement. For example, while talk radio and TV may be very public expressions of these activities, this book makes clear that theses media are not the medium of choice for American rightists. Rather, it is shortwave, fax networks, pirate radio, microstations, and low-power television which are the new delights of political extremists when choosing vehicles for rapid communication and cheap networking. The reasons for these choices as well as the extent of usage are all fully developed topics in Hilliard and Keith's treatment of radical right political paranoia.

Their basic view, as the authors say, is the Nazi credo, "God is with us." Other goals are Aryan superiority, capitalism, rigid religious and family customs, and promulgation of US nationalism and military might. Among the various groups described, it is the religious terrorists who are the most dangerous, according to the two authors, because they are answerable only to God and use force without conscience or regret. Hilliard and Keith also argue that it is important to expose these radicals because they recognise the enormous power of mass media and their influence is growing without much opposition or debate.

Another useful aspect of this book is its encyclopaedic coverage of major rightist figures such William Pierce, the author of "The Turner Diaries", or Ernst Zundel, the creator of the neo-Nazi "Zundelsite". Additionally, to provide historical context, the authors take us back to the 1920s and 1930s, to the era of Father Charles Coughlin and Walter Winchell, and to the war years and Cold War era with "Axis Sally" and "Tokyo Rose" and later Joe Pyne, William Buckley, and Martin Agronsky.

Moreover, this book fulfils its stated purpose to expose some of the political sources of domestic violence, to uncover the right's media systems, messages, and leadership, as well as to place radical communications in the context of conservative dominance of the US mass media structure and organisation. They describe the right as a three-dimensional object consisting of the right wing comprised of "moderates" (such as Liddy, North, and Buckley); the far right of racists, anti-Semites, anti-government ideologues (such as David Duke, Pat Buchanan, and Louis Beam); and the extreme or radical right (including Zundel, Pierce, and "Bo" Gritz).

At the end of the book appear the counter-propagandists or those (from the American perspective) who can be considered as such. Edward Bernays once called them distributors of "proper"-ganda in support of the democratic process, pluralism, rationality, and Bill of Rights freedoms (especially the First Amendment). However, the latter do not merely subscribe to a "free marketplace of ideas" rationale for their tolerance of hate speech, but also recommend specific courses of positive action to offset, balance, and countermand far right extremism and violence. For example, these groups (such as Radio for Peace International, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Southern Poverty Law Center) have proposed a variety of possibly effective countermeasures. Among these are insisting that mainstream media cover the extreme right (but just Limbaugh, Liddy, and North), using citizen coalitions to threaten medic and producer-advertiser boycotts if necessary, establishing web sites to track hate mongers and to educate the public in reasonable alternatives to these messages of despair, distrust, division, violence, and hopelessness.

These specific proposals for taking back the initiative from extremist groups are one of this book's greatest strengths. All too often, observers merely shrug their shoulders and cite the First Amendment and Supreme Court guarantees of protection for such groups absent a clear and present/probable danger of imminent violence or personal harm.

It is also gratifying to read about the activities of other groups such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Political Research Associates, and the Center for Defense Information in terms of their reports on Limbaugh's lies, exaggerations, and inaccuracies; Buchanan's racism; and the perils of militarism and unbridled nationalism. All such groups, unlike their opponents, do not want to silence the right. Instead, they prefer to expose their obvious fallacies through counter-education while actually trying to raise the quotient of overall public support for free speech everywhere, not just for the left, liberal, moderate, or middle-of-the-road groups. These positive measures amply summarised in this book are especially important when we also read about the recent rapid growth of both hate groups and the Internet sites, especially among neo-Nazi and KKK cells. Fortunately, all but ten states have hate crime laws that can be used to limit threats of violence.

The broad scope, admirable purposes, and in-depth treatment of significant content material make this book a well-documented and unique study of American authoritarians and authoritarianism. Sources used are current and the footnoting is extensive. The book is well-organised, well-written, and achieves its stated purposes. It is quite well-suited for an audience of communications, politics, sociology, and interdisciplinary scholars.

There are very few weaknesses in this book. For example, the indexing is not complete or thorough enough. Another more serious problem with the otherwise excellent book is its lack of a tie-in to a theoretical context such as (in political science and political psychology) the theories of authoritarianism as a political system and authoritarianism as a personality construct, syndrome, or political malaise.