Has any comic been as acclaimed as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, but Watchmen remains the critics' favorite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to gather praise since.

The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterization is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling; rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control—indeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the finepace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up—it keeps its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. —Mark Thwaite

With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow", "mind like water", and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance.

Not quite. Yes, Getting Things Doneoffers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-dos clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists—all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organised, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Companyhas dubbed "the personal productivity guru", suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech sabre known as the mobile phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)

As whole-life-organising systems go, Allen's is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can't junk. The next step is to write down every unaccounted-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant "in-basket".

That's where the processing and prioritising begin; in Allen's system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen's ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there's anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It's common sense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment. Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belaboured, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to football mums (who, we all know, are more organised than most CEOs to start with). —Timothy Murphy

"A handbook for those tho by intention or accident, find themselves in the position of writing for public relations."

Chapter List:
1 - Writing for Public Relations
2 - Planning and Research
3 - Choosing the Right Message and Medium
4 - Media Relations and Placement
5 - Design, Printing, and Desktop Publishing
6 - News Releases an Backgrounders
7 - Newsletters, Magazines and Feature Writing
8 - Brochures and Other Information
9 - Annual Reports and Social Responsibility Reports
10 - Print Advertising
11 - Television and Radio
12 - Speeches and Presentations
13 - Computer Writing and the Internet
14 - Ethics and Public Relations

Activists and pressure groups can present a serious threat to organizations. An activist group intent on creating opposition can do untold damage to an organization`s reputation, sales, profits and share price. While this sort of action can be destructive, in many cases the motives of the activists are worthy. How can an organizer protect itself without creating a public relations nightmare? The author provides realistic solutions and covers important areas like:

•The dynamics of pressure groups
•Assigning responsibility
•Building relationships
•Media relations
•Handling emergencies

In this fascinating book, Seth Godin argues that today everyone has an opportunity to start a movement - to bring together a tribe of like-minded people and do amazing things. And yet too many people ignore the opportunity to lead because they are 'sheepwalking' their way through their lives and work, too afraid to question whther their compliance is doing them - or their company - any good.

Tribes is for those who don't want to be sheep and instead have a desire to do fresh and exciting work. If you have a passion for what you want to do and the drive to make it happen, there is a tribe of fellow employees, or customers, or investors, or readers, just waiting for you to connect them with each other and lead the where they want to go. (Book cover description)

The secret to a successful PR campaign, as with most projects, is advance planning and systematic management. This new edition, updated to include information on new technology, takes the reader setp-by-step through each crucial stage of a campaign.

With numerous case studies and a 10-point action plan, this updated edition covers all the vital topic including:

•Starting the planning process
•Research and analysis
•Setting objectives
•Strategy and tactics
•Timelines and resources
•Evaluation and review