It Is Impossible to Extract Review Copies from McGraw-Hill

I am pretty annoyed with McGraw-Hill right now. What I have gone through since the advent of this website to try to get review copies out of them: too embarrassing to detail here. I am, where McGraw-Hill is concerned, impotent. I am not big on advertising my lack of influence. But now you know.

Like an abused puppy, I keep coming back for more. I continue to buy their products on my own dime so that I can use and review them. Every other publishing company is sending me review copies, for which I am grateful, since I am doing this project by myself without institutional support. I admit, I kind of resent McGraw-Hill for their indifference to me, since I am so not indifferent to them. It is kind of like liking a boy who doesn’t know you exist.

They are mentioned on at least 78 pages on this site, which is pretty good publicity! Except for the products I don’t actually care for, that is.

Some New ESL Books from McGraw-Hill: To Be Tested Shortly

Anyway, I just ordered three more McGraw-Hill books from the Practice Makes Perfect series I have mentioned so many times before. The difference here is: these ones are about English! For non-native speakers learning English as a foreign language—not native speakers. I haven’t looked at them yet, but I am teaching some ESL these days, so I will try them out shortly and write them up.

My impression when I first began this project was that McGraw-Hill had Practice Makes Perfect books only in four major European languages: Spanish, German, French, and Italian. Apparently that was an incorrect impression, but those are the ones I came across regularly. Now it appears to me that the company is significantly expanding their language portfolio. I’d like to ask them about it, but it’s hard to do that under the circumstances.

Fortunately, there is the Internet. And therefore I can tell you that for Chinese, they have a new book this month entitled Practice Makes Perfect: Writing Chinese Characters. Another Chinese book, Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Chinese, is scheduled for next month. 

In June 2013, a second edition of Practice Makes Perfect: Latin Verb Tenses came out. In 2012 McGraw-Hill issued Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Portuguese. Last year also saw the publication of Practice Makes Perfect books for Arabic Vocabulary, Arabic Pronouns and Prepositions, and Arabic Verb Tenses.

Okay, now I am seeing that there will be Practice Makes Perfect for Japanese in 2014! And more Latin! Rats!

That means I am missing out on a lot of potential perfection that I would like to share with you. In my utopian language-learning world, every Practice Makes Perfect book that came out (not to mention some other language titles McGraw-Hill publishes) would be shipped to me automatically, without my asking, because they are so relevant to what I am doing here and what I want to make available to you, dear readers.

I Have So Many McGraw-Hill Grammar Books I Sometimes Need a Cart

Because I just found myself drooling over the prospect of so many new language books, I googled “appetite” and “sin.” Up popped Total Life Ministries. Their tagline is “Breaking down strongholds through Word Based Counseling.”

Perfect! I love words!

The Total Life Ministries website warns me, “Many people attempt to fill an inner emptiness or void by indulging the desire of their flesh through sins of appetite—drunkenness, drugs, impulsive eating or buying, improper relationships or sexual immorality.”

They didn’t say “impulsive buying of language books,” but they might as well have. I know when someone’s talking about me.

The site continues:

In a broad sense, this attempt is a form of the practice of idolatry. In his heart, a person sets up the object of his desire—the drink, the food, the illicit relationship, the pornography or sexual encounter—as being able to fill the void and provide soul-satisfaction. This is akin to making an image and then bowing down and serving it.

Scripture equates idolatry with covetousness or greed (Colossians 3:5; Ephesians 5:5), which is defined as “a desire to have more.” By it’s nature, the practice of idolatry says that one deserves to be satisfied and that what God is giving is not enough. Therefore one turns to the idol which offers “more.” 

In this scenario McGraw-Hill is my idol and their language books my porn. And I definitely want more.