Confidentiality Books

This agreement exceeded my expectations! It is well written, easy to understand, and comprehensive. And you can't beat the price ($6.97)! No need to "play" attorney myself - particularly since I don't have a legal degree! Instead of trying to edit an existing document that was weak to start with, we are using this document exactly as it is written.

With its annual supplements, this book continues to be an outstanding resource on privacy issues--the collection and dissemination of personal data, electronic surveillance, identify theft, credit reporting, and many others. The Compilation is always my first source for fielding questions about confidentiality and privacy rights and protections--or the lack thereof--in this country.

A truly valuable resource for privacy researchers, as well as anybody interested in navigating the confusing (and sometimes contradictory) panorama of legal protection afforded to privacy in the United States. The fact that this 2008 edition updates the compilation of laws up to very recent months makes it a much needed and timely reference.

Knowlege is power and this book will empower you with knowledge on how the government likes to keep track of everyone through laws such as the "Freedom of Information Act", the "Privacy as of 1974" Computer matching of information on you, if you want to learn about the different files that are kept on you, you need this book.

Knowlege is power and this book will empower you with knowledge on how the government likes to keep track of everyone through laws such as the "Freedom of Information Act", the "Privacy as of 1974" Computer matching of information on you, if you want to learn about the different files that are kept on you, you need this book.

Originally published in 1988, I first read Sorcery and Cecelia after its re-release in 2004. Happily, that meant I didn't have quite as long a wait for a sequel as Kate and Cecy's original fans. Released in 2006, The Grand Tour or The Purloined Coronation Regalia picks up shortly after the end of Sorcery and Cecelia with both cousins newly married and beginning their honeymoons with an English tradition known aptly as the grand tour during which they plan to travel through the great cities of Europe. Like its prequel, this novel also has an extended title to offer further enlightenment as to what the story will actually relate. That title is: Being a Revelation of Matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, Including Extracts from the Intimate Diary of a Noblewoman and the Sworn Testimony of a Lady of Quality.

While the plot of this novel does stand alone, I don't recommend reading this book before the first in the series because it just isn't as fun that way. Part of the great thing about these books is watching the girls grow and tracing the relationships between the characters--things that are harder to do without reading the books in order.

(That said, a quick recap: The happily married couples are Kate and Thomas Schofield, Cecy and James Tarleton. My favorite couple is Cecelia and James. Thomas is a wizard, and Cecy is just realizing that she also has a magical aptitude. These novels are written with a variation of the Letter Game. Patricia C. Wrede is Cecelia and Caroline Stevermer is Kate.)

Instead of being written in alternating letters, this volume alternates between excerpts from Cecelia's deposition to the Joint Representatives of the British Ministry of Magic, the War Office, and the Foreign office; and excerpts from Kate's . Joining the couples on part of their wedding(s) journey is Lady Sylvia, another wizard of note in England (and Thomas' mother).

Expecting a leisurely honeymoon, and the chance to purchase proper bride clothes and secure the services of maids, both Cecelia and Kate are dismayed when their quiet grand tour turns into nothing less than a race to prevent an international conspiracy of Napoleanic proportions. As the couples tour Europe's great antiquities--and meet their fair share of unique tourists--the young women, and their husbands, begin to piece together a plot the likes of which no one could have previously imagined.

Like Sorcery and Cecelia this novel once again serves as a lovely homage to Jane Austen. The pacing and tone of The Grand Tour is again reminiscent of Austen's work (or George Eliot's for that matter). Nonetheless, some of the plot did seem more difficult to follow than, say, the first book in this series though the problem was remedied with back-reading. I love these characters unconditionally, in a way I rarely love book characters. Artless, charming, and profoundly entertaining, both Cecelia and Kate are first-rate characters in a first-rate fantasy series.

"The Grand Tour" is a sequel. But wait! Before you fall back hopelessly upset and disappointed, read on. Because "The Grand Tour" is just as fun as its predecessor. It's still witty, charming, and enjoyable. But in a slightly different way.

Unlike "Sorcery and Cecelia", "The Grand Tour" has one complete story. It is not the casually fun back-and-forth between our two now-beloved cousins, but rather two separate accounts of the same trip, the grand tour of Europe. Rather than the somewhat predictable yet adorable previous book, here we've got a mysterious setting and another grand adventure. But of an entirely different sort.

"The Grand Tour" has much more mystery/intrigue/history than magic (though fear not - there are still wacky and oddball spells to wonder at). It's got a charming mix of history and magic, as well as a fun road-trip feel. At times the descriptions of dreary carriage rides through mud may seem like a bit much, but on the whole, they're just so much fun.

Because once again, Wrede and Stevermer have created a fun and charming novel that will delight readers. It is clearly a sequel (one MUST have read the previous book to understand this - I'd also recommend rereading the charming original to refresh your memory before delving into this one), but not a failed one. Perhaps it won't lure quite as many people as "Sorcery and Cecelia" did, with its flair and charm. But "The Grand Tour" is still a grand read - fun, exciting, and delightful all the way along. Less predictable, but still a sequel.

Another solid 4 1/2 recommendation.

This is a direct sequel to the authors' Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, told alternately through Cecy Tarleton's "deposition to the joint representatives of the British Ministry of Magic" and entries in Kate Schofield's "commonplace book," or journal. The two cousins have just married their gentlemen and are setting off on the Grand Tour of Europe. Before they've done more than land in France, a mysterious "Lady in Blue" bestows on them a small vial of unknown provenance--and someone immediately attempts to steal it. Gradually the two couples learn that various items of traditional coronation regalia from countries all over Europe have been disappearing without a trace, and that their vial is one of them. And their old foe Sir Hilary Bedrick has turned up dead in Paris. Ultimately they discover that an Italian magician, in an effort to forestall Bonaparte several years earlier, has created a spell to apply "modern theories of magic" to the ancient traditional coronation rituals and legitimize a pan-European ruler. Unfortunately unscrupulous people have found out about it and are taking steps to crown a puppet ruler--a young Englishman who has no idea what's in store for him. The quest of the Tarletons and Schofields to forestall them leads from Paris to Venice and across the Alps to Nemi, with intrigue, narrow escapes, and magic aplenty; in fact, this volume in the series begins to explicate more clearly the way in which magic works in this alternate Universe, and although longer than its predecessor is at least as quick-moving and, in my opinion, more exciting and suspenseful, while retaining the wry humor of the first book. And, since the quartet are already safely married, there's less of the romantic entanglements that characterized the latter. For those who enjoy light fantasy with a strong leaven of political suspense, "The Grand Tour" should make a perfect read.

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot told the story via letters exchanged between Cecy and Kate. In The Grad Tour the story is told by entries in Kate's (now Lady Schofield) commonplace book and Cecy's (now Mrs. James Tarleton) deposition to the Joint Representatives of the British Ministry of Magic, the War Office, and the Foreign Office. Cecy and Kate are on their honeymoon with their husbands (Cecy's James and Kate's Thomas), Lady Sylvia, and assorted servants. Of course Lady Sylvia will be staying in Paris where she makes her home. But as soon as they land in France, they are involved in mysterious events: the delivery of a strange bottle of scent, a robbery, a servant who is missing, and the news from the British representative that coronation regalia is being stolen throughout Europe and that two couples on their Grand Tour are just the ones to solve the case.

The story is cleverly written in diary entries and depositions. Cecy and Kate are very independent women of their times. They know the rules and follow them but within that they stand their own ground and their husbands have come to understand that there is no way to protect them when they decide to act.

If you enjoy the period following the Napoleonic Wars and comedies of manners, you'll enjoy these books. The characters are well drawn and the mystery is convoluted and in some ways simple. You think you have it all figured out quite handily and then in the end it takes a weird but logical turn. The characters are all so of their times that only the addition of magic takes it from being a historical to a fantasy mystery.

I was shocked to find this book on my weekly bookstore wanderings. I had no idea these imaginitive writers planned on another adventure and I immediately snatched it to see what Kate and Cecy were up to now. I confess this book was not as good as the first, but well worth the time to read. The first book interested me to the point that I could not put it down however, the second seemed to lag on a bit. Despite its minor flaws, I loved it. The character development and the Grand Tour in general was magical. After reading Grand Tour I did not expect a third, but there was one. I could not help myself. It is like going to a highschool reunion every time I see another of Wrede and Stevermer's books on the shelves.

It is no small irony that Schmidt takes his title from his curmudgeonly Eighteenth Century ancestor, Samuel Johnson. The irony is that Johnson, while judgmental, was at least interesting in his thundering declarations.

I cannot for the life of me understand why all the other reviewers find this work daring or controversial. Schmidt says nothing new. He is, in fact, the most diplomatic of judges. And I challenge any reader to find an unequivocal take on any of the poets. He inevitably has both good and bad things to say.

A further irony is that the title of the book is a misnomer. Yes, Schmidt provides a few scanty biographic facts, but a better title might be The History of Metrics or something of the sort. The book is mostly concerned with the form English poetry has taken over the past several hundred years.

Above all, Schmidt hates exegetics. Don't expect in depth explorations of a poem's meaning or the evaluation of poet's oevre. Truly, this book reads like a hopscotch through the history of meter and rhyme. No wonder it only took him ten months to write the 900 or so pages. He didn't have to think!

Schmidt's history opens with an occasion on which he chaired a debate between Heaney, Walcott and Brodsky, contemporary giants - hence a portrait of himself in situ with the Gods - but its true opening scene is a typically more casual one mentioned in aside - where he tells us that his father disclaimed any further interest in his prospects when he announced his intention to publish poetry; he had put himself beyond the pale, made himself "a gambler" at best, and it is this chatty comfortableness along with self aggrandizement which holds the charm of this survey. Schmidt's paternal conference has the air of "Brideshead Revisited" as the painter Charles's father wonders aloud what became of a cousin who had run through his allowance early, gone off to Australia perhaps? Wherever possible in his account of the poets from Langland and Gower to his own stable of Khalvatis and Cissons Schmidt tries to give the impression that he was there, in spirit if not in person, and it is his identification of publishers' base motives not less than poets' fleeting visions which conspire to make this not so much a critical sourcebook as a story of how English poetry wound its roots into a tree.

Of the eighteenth century Tory publisher and clubman Tonson, whose Kit Kat club saw writers gathering with him to eat superb pies, he remarks that it was clever of him to gather writers round him so that he could pick off their completed works like berries ripened off the bush. It is just possible, he allows, that writers and publisher actually enjoyed each other's company socially. Of the printer who bought out Milton's copyright from his widow for an additional eight pounds after a total payment of fifteen, he observes that this was a good buy. The fathers of poets are viewed by Schmidt companionably as "men of substance", if they have wealth, and the sorry ends of poets who do not have such means or a career besides come to seem regular as passing calendar leaves. Spenser's work went up in flames, he ended very poor. Charlotte Mayhew, a favourite of Hardy's, consigned to a friend the copy of her poem taken in that great man's hand, and drank bleach. These, as well as the publishers' copyists, scribes and outgoings for paper are the cost of eloquence: a life in foolscap.

What emerges from the trawl of centuries is a generalism not common in this age of political axe grinders for critics: Schmidt sees that the ageing rebel turned conservative Wordsworth ("the silent muser had become the comfortable talker") echoes across centuries the radical turned arch-conservative Eliot, both critics in their age who turned their backs on ground broken. A half page on the dogs at poets' sides and what they tell us of their owners - Pope, Byron, Elizabeth Barret - is a gem. The readings of the poets are quirky but often fair: Browning left nine tenths of his work not worth re-reading, but that leaves a tenth that stands, a huge amount. Donne gets a quick seeing to - too clever and abstruse - Raleigh, with his deathbed nerves of steel, is "a man of flesh and blood". More often than not it is a chain of well chosen adjectives that makes Schmidt's prosecution or defense briefly and irrefutably - Johnson, despite his sloth, had "put so many projects into motion" that he achieved them, Dryden was happy to be top of his heap and did not "struggle with himself" to get higher. He quotes the great critics and sources so regularly - Aubrey, Wharton, Hazlitt, Eliot - that the intrusion of an occasional croney of his own - Cissons, Donald Davies - draws you up short. We had come to believe Schmidt was ensconced there in the Mermaid Tavern, what does this latter day vaingloriousness here? In these bowings to others' views he sometimes loses his tone - at his best he either lifts great critical cases outright or makes his own gruff motions to the jury, often digging up a soul long lost to view in the dungeons of posterity's Old Bailey.
It is a vast book. I have still not reached the twentieth century, though those I've browsed of the contemporary listings do not retain his scabrous touch. Pity. He leaves to other publisher-writers the honour of regaling us with tales of chicanery in his own poets' contracts. Or he reveres too much his comfortable perch with them to risk scaring his own poets from his own pie shop. Still. It's not possible to skip while reading through his earlier centuries. His greatest achievement is to make English poetry live like a story you do not wish to miss parts of - you never know when Burns will echo Piers Ploughman, you do not know when Schmidt's map, like a three dimensional model, will let you see the Pearl poet peeping up at the bottom of the sea beneath a fishing trip by some contemporary craft.

Schmidt's boldness is nearly unmatched among literary critics. For this reason alone, his book, Lives of the Poets, is a stimulating read. Of course, there are problems with the book. He spends nearly a third of his book on the last fifty years, after swiftly encompassing the rest of English poetical history in the first two thirds. A few glaring omissions are almost unforgivable, such as James Merrill and A.R. Ammons. One must remember, however, that Schmidt is a publisher by trade, and not really a literary critic. Even Samuel Johnson wrote about bad poets, though it may have been his advisors who pushed for such a shift of emphasis. In the end, one is often refreshed and enlightened by this book.

A great value, this book contains lots of fax 'n' info about the important and not-so-famous poets. Schmidt combines chronology with history and attempts a kind of psychobiography or mentalistic theory to try to get inside the minds of the poets. This approach, though it strikes me as somewhat culturally German, is I think quite effective. Schmidt is not a scholar but an enthusiast of poetry whose love of the material is overwhelming. And I also think Schmidt is an excellent teacher. He mentions that Spenser was highly influential up through the first half of the twentieth century, and from my recent browsing in the tradition, I could confirm this statement for myself. He also points out that Shelley is a great guide for budding poets, and I think that this is the kind of specific generosity that brings out the best in Shelley. Recently I've been reading Dryden's poetry and prose on the strength of Schmidt's recommendations. As for one reviewer's umbrage at the description of Spenser as small hands, etc., well so what? It's just--gasp--friendly irony at best, Germanic sarcasm at worst. Nobody thinks any less of Samuel Johnson for being ole blood 'n' guts Dr. Johnson with big appetites and, like Schmidt, strong opinions--but unlike Schmidt, smack in the middle of the English tradition, probably never even spent a weekend in Cabo San Lucas. So there!

I can't believe I read the whole thing. You may find yourself saying the same thing too I you should so choose to tackle Schmidt's lengthy analysis on the history of English poetry. With that statement I suppose is the warning. Reading this book from cover to cover is probably not for the average reader. You have to really love poetry and not just the language but what goes into it, what resides behind the words in the fabric of each poet's life. The book is not without merit though for the casual poetry semi-enthusiast. It is also a pretty enjoyable read for quick bite analysis. Pick it up, turn to an era, poet, or genre, and away you go for a quick 10-15 minute before going to sleep read. I was reluctant to give this book 4 stars tending towards a lower rating due to the weightiness, but the fact that I made it through speaks to the entertaining value of Schmidt's writing. To make literary analysis readable is no small feat.

Michael Schmidt is not without opinions. You may find yourself vehemently in disagreeance or enthusiastically joining the choir and singing along. For instance, Schmidt pretty much holds low opinion of the likes of Alan Ginsburg and his use of mind altering drugs to create poetry with little form. "Ginsburg dropped on American poetry like a bomb; his generation outgrew him and American poetry has outgrown him." It's not so much that Schmidt has an opinion. Of literary criticism, that is to be expected. But instead, it is that Schmidt offers up his opinions as imperatives, absolutes not to be countered.

Reading Schmidt's book it's as if all of English poetry revolves around Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. He is downright ebullient in his praises of the two. "After Pound we read poetry differently." and "In The Waste Land he demanded to be read differently from other poets. He alters our way of reading for good, if we read him properly." And so it goes in Schmidt's world poetic view of the ushering in of modernism. Elsewhere, Schmidt decries the loss of formal verse or at least verse that respects formalism. It is here that he finds the true poet's art. Again an opinion presented as an imperative.

Schmidt is in need of conciseness. He is self-critical is his choosing of format biting off too much swallowing too little. He spends precious pages to launch campaigns for regional poets, virtual unknowns, and underappreciates. These are pages, he could be spending making a case for his St. Eliot and St. Pound sainthood. If a poet caters to a specific culture with a specific language virtually unintelligible to the rest of the English speaking world, why be inclusive? Toss 'em out and save 'em for the regional anthologies. Sorry about the preceding colloquial language, friends.

With all this criticism, Schmidt's massive book is a treasure for poetry lovers. It is high brow in places, but when you finish reading the whole thing or just bits and pieces you will know more about poetry, appreciate more in depth poetry, and be indebted to the history and love of language that precedes us and will succeed us. Literary infinitum by good friends. Read on.

This collection of papers from the first international workshop on the topic of steganography contains some of the earliest papers available, ones which are often referred to in the literature. This book should be considered as a conference proceedings, and anyone looking for a general introduction to the subject should look elsewhere. The papers are included full-length, and the collection constitutes an essential background. Together with the proceedings of the second workshop (IH'98), this text certainly goes recommended to anyone doing serious work in the area.

At the time (2000-2001) this was a great book. But HIPAA has since passed into law and the whole landscape of medical information privacy and confidentiality has changed, while this book has not. This book will not help you with today's rules and regulations, and it will be a waste of your money. One can only hope that it will be updated, as it was much more manageable in size and scope than many of the current publications on HIPAA.

This book a must read for anyone interested in understanding the issues surrounding privacy in the healthcare industry. In plain English, the author has down a wonderful job in preparing the reader for an informed discussion he or she may have with others working with the privacy issue in healthcare. This book does not go deeply into all of the federal guidelines, but it does contain an excellent appendix and reference list for further reading.

While I agree with Slovenko's conclusions, I find the subject matter rather tragic. It is such a sad statement about human life that this is an issue that not only warrants disscussion, but also necessitates action. I suppose the world as we know it and live in it would have to cease in order to erradicate such themes.

I thought for the money I would be getting a more detailed non-disclosure agreement. This is very very basic information. Can get better free downloads on line.