The advice this book provides to people who have suffered a loss is priceless. I found this open, honest approach to dealing with grief to be a must-read for everyone. Whether you have lost a loved one through death or divorce, this book will help you understand the many stages you experience.

Ms Russell has created a unique book that readers will find comforting, as well as educational. Her many years of experience are evident in the knowledge and compassion that she conveys. Although this is a serious subject, the book is written with a touch of humor.

Dealing with loss is a fact of life. We will all experience the confusion of grief one day. Having books such as this one, to be used as a resource, will offer answers to many questions. It is well written and easy to understand. It is written in such a way that even the most distracted reader, who may be drowning in grief, will be able to comprehend. However, it is just as useful for people who suffered a loss years ago and need to understand the behaviors and feelings they dealt with. (also the issues they might still be dealing with)

Grief can send you into crisis, threatening your mental, physical and spiritual health. This book can help you adjust and take an active role in your own journey to understanding yourself and the others around you that think they are "helping." I highly recommend this book.

After reading some of the reviews on "Conquering the Mysteries and Lies of Grief," by Sherry Russell, I have decided there isn't much in the way of adding anything that might be of help to those pondering the purchase of this 'MUST READ NOVEL' except for perhaps my sending a special heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to the author of this book. My husband passed away four years ago at a very young age. With his passing a large part of "ME' died too. It has taken four years to finally comes to terms with my loss and to be honest with you this book helped me in more ways than I care to admit publicaly. I think denial leading to depression played a large role in my having problems with moving on in life (or even wanting to move on in life). Now, I have come to terms with the loss of my husband and the love and life we once shared together. I have moved on, but not without a few reservations. This book is an amazing find to be sure! Thank you Ms. Russell for writing it!

By Cher King Islamarada, Florida...
Thank you for your exceptionally powerful book, Conquering the Mysteries and Lies of Grief. Your outstanding offering is just what I personally needed to read, and it stands apart from other books I have read on the subject--especially in its immediate applicability to my own life and to understanding the needs of others.
You have delivered an immensely comprehensible, easily readable discussion, including an unusually well-chosen selection of relevant research and personal experiences. It is much more difficult to write concisely, with simplicity and in a refreshing conversational manner. You have managed to accomplish this, while packing in significant research, related theories, actual experiences of your own and so many others.
Hope and healing reside on every page. I feel I can pinpoint and address areas within me and my life that have been made much more accessible to me through "Conquering the Mysteries and Lies of Grief."
Sherry, thank you for the obviously extensive education, experience, dedication, and life-well-lived that have gone into this superior work on an issue we will all face in our lives.

Ungaro, Alycea. Pilates; Body in Motion. New York: DK, 2002. (number of pages:171,
Paperback)

This book is a great introduction into the world of Pilates, even for inexperienced newcomers! The author, Alycea Ungaro, is highly educated in the area of the Pilates program. She is a licensed physical therapist, and the founder and director of the Pilates Center of New York - Tribeca Bodyworks, New York's largest Pilates center.
The introduction covers the history of Pilates and the man who created the original exercise program, as well as his philosophy of the numerous forms he created. It also briefly describes the evolution of Pilates and Pilates today. Throughout the book you can find chapters that cover different levels of the Pilates program, for example, the Introductory Program, the Beginners Program, the Intermediate Program, and finally the Advanced Program. Each page is clearly laid out with step-by-step instructions, which are numbered and followed by a paragraph that is written using simple words with precise meanings. Following each informative paragraph is a picture of a model doing the exercise in the correct position. In the bottom corner of every other page is a picture of someone doing the exercise incorrectly to help the participant correct the most commonly made errors. Towards the end of the book, the reader is spoiled with a small section where the model uses a "Magic Circle" in her exercises, and following that is the complete index.

This book will streamline your body, help with breathing, concentration, control, centering, precision, flow, and focus your mind with classic mat exercises to do at home. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in improving their physical and mental being.

Pilates: Body in Motion is a stunner. I picked this book up at the bookstore and my first thought was - "wow, this is so beautiful, I bet the content is poor". Well, I was wrong. The pictures and gorgeous layout are actually secondary to the clear, precise, and extraordinary instruction that author Alycea Ungaro provides for each and every exercise.

I am a Pilates student and have been working out at a studio for about 5 years now. I have many of the other Pilates books but from now on I will only refer to Pilates Body in Motion. The Pilates Body by Brooke Siler has been my best resource until now but that book is very long winded and a bit weak on photographs. This book by Ungaro really put it all together. Great design, superlative instruction and a good price too. I am planning to buy her audio Mat class next to put her instructions and her live voice together for a true "real-time"experience.

This book far out weighs the book by Brooke Siler, Pilates Body. I found that the pictures, the descriptions, the layout, everything is FAR superior. This book has taken me to a higher level. I have gotten a lot out of Brooke's book as well, but the layout and the pictures make it the winner hands down.

I have also purchased the Classical Mat Pilates DVD that Alycea Ungaro was involved in as well as the Portable Pilates, and they are both great. The only thing I was even slightly disturbed with was the Magic Circle and the lack of information on which ones are more superior, etc.

You can buy one for either twenty-five or sixty. I have already spent more money that I had planned, but I am hooked on pilates. They have a few web address and a small mention as to where they got their's, but even her own website doesn't sell them. The ones they had were pricey and from what I can tell the less expenive one will be fine. Hate paying for a video though that comes with it as I don't own a VCR.

The Magic Circle has me dying to get to try it out, and I believe I will have to wait for it to be ordered and shipped. For now though I am sticking to Brooke's scuplping series using light weights. In all fairness I also liked Brooke's listing of studios, etc. so you can find places nearby that can help as well.

I read this book in 1980; at the time I was chairman of the democratic party in my county. I really began to do some serious soul searching. I finally concluded I was going to leave my party, as It no longer represented it's founder Mr Thomas Jefferson. This small simple easy to read book totally changed my life That same year I met Jim Hansen, he was making his first run for congress from the state of Utah, I made a deal with him, I would vote for him if he would read The Law by Bastiat. He promised, and I did. I received a nice letter from Jim after he was elected. " Never read a book that has so impressed me". P.S. "Find Yourself another copy, Im keeping Yours". Jim.

Best three dollars ever spent. Ron Steele Moab, Utah

Though written in 1850 the ideas expressed by the author are so true today. Unfortunately, we have a government today dominated by liberals, who believe they need to use the law to take from the producers and give to the lazy, and conservatives, who, while claiming to stand for many of the things in this book, in reality join with the liberals to keep us in a strangle hold of big government-using the law to control us rather than using it to prevent injustice as intended. This should be required reading for every congressman. It is a short, easy read that could be referred back to often.

Fredric Bastiat was a 19th century French law-maker, economist and author. He wrote a number of highly technical works of economic theory, books that are still considered valuable contributions to free-market economic thought. But his least technical work, a pamphlet called The Law, has proven to be perhaps his most enduring from a modern political standpoint.

Written in 1850, just two years after the French Revolution of 1848, the Law is part treatise and part polemic, an appeal to the French people reminding them of the proper sphere of the law and government and begging them to turn away from their descent into socialism. The Law is also a summary of much of what Bastiat considered to be important from his own work; at the time The Law was written he was very sick, and he would be dead within a year of its publication. As a French patriot, Bastiat was deeply moved by the disintegration he saw in French society.

As the last vestiges of the class-society were replaced and the new "democratic" order was being instituted, the State was more and more being used as a means by which groups of citizens (special interests) could plunder one another through taxes, transfer payments, tariffs, etc, committing what Bastiat calls "legal plunder." As he saw it, the law was being perverted into a so-called "creative" entity, through which controlling groups would seek to enforce their particular agendas at the expense and through the pocketbooks of the people in general.

Bastiat argues that the law should be properly viewed as the formal embodiment of Force. That is, human laws should be the organized and formal construction of justice. Just law, he says, is nothing more than the organization of the human right to self-defense. This is a surprisingly narrow definition, perhaps almost too narrow to be truly useful. But I can imagine that Bastiat wouldn't have seen much moral value in the philosophy of pragmatism; he certainly would have made a bad present-day politician, a "flaw" which I find highly admirable.

Bastiat is revered by many modern libertarians as one of the founding fathers of their ideology, and rightly so. But it seems to me that his work is more accurately anarcho-capitalist than libertarian. To say that Bastiat is arguing for "limited" government is a gross understatement. In fact, Bastiat seems instead to be arguing for the abolition of most all of what today we would call The Government. Many libertarians, for example, probably wouldn't argue the abolition of all forms of taxation on moral grounds. Personally I appreciate his definition of plunder as "...tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on..."

Obviously although Bastiat may not share the views of modern libertarians in every respect, they have much to respect in him. And of course, the average economic and social liberal won't care for him at all, as he makes a special point of going after the vast majority of liberal sacred cows. But more surprisingly, the Religious Right should be wary of taking Bastiat on as too great of an ally. Although Bastiat and his book have been instrumental in forming many right-wing/libertarian ideas about free markets and the proper role of government, Bastiat argues forcefully against the use of the law as a tool for the shaping of moral values. Jerry Falwell and Bastiat are notably out of step with one another. I can imagine that Bastiat would not have much use for the Congressional institution of days of prayer, or for teacher-led prayer in the public schools he so despised, for anti-drug and pro-abstinence programs, or for the ministerial functions that many politicians have sought to usurp.

Conservatives have an unfortunate habit of revering political figures. But as Bastiat says, "There are too many 'great' men in the world--legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it."

Bastiat didn't believe in the inherent value of rulers of men. Many conservatives hope that their sons will grow up to be leaders in a political sense. Bastiat believed that we would be better served if more people sought to be useful, productive, inventive and moral, instead of trying to lead all the rest of society. Society will function much more desirably when we relinquish the desire for power over our fellow men, and instead seek power over our own actions.

Although Bastiat's views on law and government may be too simplistic and dated to be implemented literally in a modern society, I believe that there is still much instruction to be had from this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing an understanding of the roots of modern libertarian thought.

In Open Spaces is a quiet book - the plot is simple and nothing overly dramatic happens. But somehow, the story draws you in forcefully. Rowland infuses his characters and their harsh rural Montana environment with so much depth, creating a story of family ties and sibling strife that surprised me in its power to intrigue and move me.

A friend turned me on to this one. What a stunner! A pitch perfect description of the tribulations facing a family attempting to survive each other and the rough, rough world of Montana ranch country in the first half of this century. The challenges facing the Arbuckle clan are overwhelming and bleak, and yet this book is absolutely charged with energy, life, and passion. I could not get the main characters (esp. Blake, Jack or Rita (ooooh, i LOVED rita), out of my head. And if for no other reason, read this book to experience what I will only describe here as an intense medical procedure performed on an injured (and profoundly angry) cow by lay people with no anestheia, one of the most gripping (and if you can believe it, sexually charged) scenes I have ever read. Like the "Corrections", Rowland captures both the intimate details of family life AND the overall impact of large societal forces (in this case, WW1, the great depression and relentless dust bowl, and WW2). This book is not getting the attention it deserves, it is one of the finest books i have ever read, grand in scope and true in its details.

"In Open Spaces" rewarded my slow reading style with layers of intrigue, multiple story lines and a few choice innings of baseball.

Like people we know, "Spaces'" characters are seemingly simple, but ultimately tied up in complex personal interactions made difficult by their refusal to discuss anything, with both comic and tragic results.

The book is built a little like an extra-inning baseball game, where, just as one issue is put to rest, another rears its head. Why can't these relief guys get anybody out? Well, the story isn't over yet.

One can imagine Mr. Rowland as a boy, visiting his SE Montana Arbuckle relatives on the ranch during those dog days of August, the family and local lore boiling in the dust of what must have seemd like a rainless eon. This may help to explain his straight-forward, tactile despriptions that show he's lived it.

Rowland leaves just enough loose ends to remind you that, as a reader, you're a participant. If nobody's talking to you about the details...well, join the family fun and have a go at guessing what in the hell IS going on.

Slow reader or not, you'll be rewarded with a nice finish, a defining metaphor for Blake Arbuckle's life and for the story itself.

After reaching a point in my life where I was severely overweight, I found Dr. Russell's book and decided to read it. WoW! Was it an eye opener! Alot of the problems that people in general experience was brought on by themselves by poor eating habits. Dr. Russell uses his medical background to validate all biblical references and intertwines the two to make a compelling argument for eating reform.
After applying Dr. Russell's 3 major eating principles, developing an active lifestyle, I have lost 21 pounds and counting! I'm happy to be returning to what God originally wanted me to be!
Thank you, Dr. Russell.

Dr. Rex Russell's book is wonderful!

After reading his book, I have gained a new insight into the types of foods that I eat. He constantly references the scripture in his endeavor to explain God's plan for food in our lives. Dr. Russell also uses medical research studies to outline the points of his book. I feel this is a great combination for those folks that aren't "super-spiritual" but want to improve their lives.

Personally, I am very excited about putting God's plan for food into action. Please note, salvation and holiness are not determined by the foods you eat. The old laws are removed, and we are saved by grace. Dr. Russell expressly makes this point throughout his book. You will have to make your own choices, but Dr. Russell definitely gets you thinking about the poisons we consume on a daily basis.

On a side note: don't read this book if you believe in evolution, it will probably change your mind.

Finally a book that explains what our bodies need and don't need when it comes to food. It's amazing the toxic things we so unquestioningly consume. Dr. Russell has given our family the guidelines we have been looking for and it's no wonder that we're all feeling so much healthier. No more quilt for eating the foods that are so good for us. I'd recommend this book to anyone trying to find a simplified and biblical approach to eating.

The story of Samarkand is woven around the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, from its creation by the poet and sage in eleventh-century Persia to its loss when the Titanic sank in 1912. Unwittingly involved in a brawl on the streets of Samarkand, Omar Khayyam is brought before a local judge who recognizes his genius as a poet and gives him a blank book in which to inscribe his verses. Thus the head of a great poet is saved and the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam is born. The threads of his life become interwoven with the designs of the vizier, Nizam al Mulk, and of Hassan Sabbah, the founder of the Order of the Assassins who later hides the precious manuscript in his famous mountain fortress. At the end of the nineteenth century the poems fire the imagination of the West in Edward Fitzgerald's evocative translation. An American scholar learns of the manuscript's survival and recovers it with the help of a Persian princess. Together they take it on the fateful voyage of the Titanic.

A friend of mine recommended this book to me and I am so pleased that he did - the story covers a vast region in the Middle East and informs the reader of the geography, history, politics, and poetry of Iran and what is now called Turkmenistan. I not only learned more about Omar Khayyam, arguably one of the finest poets and philosophers of Persia, but I was entertained from the love stories, friendships, deceit, revenge - all the ingredients for a great novel. I highly recomment this novel - it takes you to another world and makes you realize how art and culture play such integral roles in our lives, and how the poetry and philosophy written ten centuries ago are still present and relevant today!

Once again Amin Maalouf has applied his prodigious story-telling ability to illuminate a slice of history with details hitherto unknown to this reader. Samarkand is a richly textured novel with all the right elements to capture and hold the reader's attention: Plot, adventure, romance, poetry, sex, cloak and dagger assassination, and international intrigue. But one should not be fooled by the genre, for, barely concealed behind the search for the manuscript of the famous Rubbaiyat of Omar Khayyam, purported to have gone down with the Titanic, is a well-researched chronicle that does justice to its author. It is a scholarly work that thrills like a mystery, tingles like a romance, tickles like a children's story, and educates better than those dry and boring books they handed out in school!

Samarkand takes you to 11th and 12th Century Persia where one learns that the word assassin, though Arabic in Origin, became the symbol for the most feared underground terrorist group then known to man. They were the vanguards of today's desperados who willingly suffer martyrdom for a cause.

The account of events chronicled by Maalouf opens a window into a world so exotic that we can hardly imagine its influence would reach across space and time to affect our own lives now in the 20th Century.

I could hardly put it down and was very sorry to see it end. But I do not despair; three more of Mr. Maalouf's books are stacked on my nightstand!

Required to read Henry for my AP English Language class, I came into the play with a bias. I honestly felt that it would be a boring political play. I was utterly wrong! A huge fan of Shakespeare, I found Henry V to be a formidable match for the Bard's more critically acclaimed plays, such as Hamlet and Macbeth. Henry has it all! Shakespeare's attitude toward Henry the King is certainly one of admiration. By communicating the fact that an effective monarch must have a complete understanding of the common subjects (Pistol and Bardolph and Quickly), Shakespeare sets up Henry to be the ideal Christian king. The controlled language of Henry's speeches, particularly his response to the Dauphin's idiotic insult, also glorifies Henry. I certainly recommend this play to anyone, fan of Shakespeare or not.

I looked long and hard (and asked many a scholar) for the "perfect" Shakespeare publication that I might purchase to study "King Henry V" (for a experiential education requirement, I had undertaken the translation of Henry V into American Sign Language). The Arden Shakespeare came highly recommended by everyone, and has lived up entirely to all its rave reviews.

I will never buy Shakespeare from another publisher. While these books may be slightly more expensive than a "mass market" edition, I believe that if you are going to take the time to read and understand Shakespeare, it is well worth the extra dollar or two. The Introduction, the images, and plethora of footnotes are irreplaceable and nearly neccessary for a full understanding of the play (for those of us who are not scholars already). The photocopy of the original Quatro text in the appendix is also very interesting.

All in all, well worth it! I recommend that you buy ALL of Shakespeare's work from Arden's critical editions.

Written by Shakespeare for Queen Elizabeth I amidst a time of Irish rebellion, Henry V more than adequately serves its intended purpose of galvanizing nationalistic fervor. It proved itself to be an unwavering and unfaltering impetus of patriotism in Shakespeare's day, during WWII, and still today it continues to resonate and reverberate this provocatively telling tale of the most gloriously revered monarch in English history.

Henry V's stirring orations prior to the victorious battles of Harfleur("Once more unto the breach") and Agincourt("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers") astonish and inspire me every time I read them. Simply amazing. Having read Henry IV Parts I&II beforehand, I was surprised Shakespeare failed to live up to his word in the Epilogue of Part II in which he promised to "continue the story, with Sir John in it." The continuing follies of the conniving Bardolph, Nym, & Pistol and their ignominious thieving prove to be somewhat of a depricating underplot which nevertheless proves to act as a succinct metaphor for King Harry's "taking" of France.

Powerful and vibrant, the character of Henry V evokes passion and unadulterated admiration through his incredible valor & strength of conviction in a time of utter despondency. It is this conviction and passion which transcends time, and moreover, the very pages that Shakespeare's words are written upon. I find it impossible to overstate the absolute and impregnable puissance of Henry V, a play which I undoubtedly rate as the obligatory cream of the crop of Shakespeare's Histories. I recommend reading Henry IV I&II prior to Henry V as well as viewing Kenneth Branagh's masterpiece film subsequent to reading the equally moving work.

This is a book that I would have loved as a child. Don't get me wrong, I love it today but a child would bask in the wonders of the Earth for hours with these images. It's hard to believe that some of the locations in this book are on this planet. There is such beauty and awe in these pictures. At almost every turn of the page there is a "wow" coming out of my mouth. Well worth the money. The only gripe I have is the reference of the locations. You have to flip around all over the place to find out the location of the photographs. There does not seem to be any order connecting the photos to the descriptions. Don't worry though! Still get the book.

I first saw the work of this super talented photographer in the wee hours of August 20th, 2000 outside Palais du Luxembourg in Paris. I was so fascinated by the colors, the angles, the beauty, and the emotions conveyed that I pledged to get a copy of the book as soon as I returned to the US. The pictures portray everyday places and people that seem out of this world when viewed through the lens of Arthus-Bertrand. The photographer and his staff really did their homework when putting together the captions that accompany the pictures. They have gathered information on geography, history, ecology, anthropology, economics, sociology, politics, and popular culture to describe the sites, hence increasing our awareness of our precious and wondrous yet fragile world. Earth from Above will never make it to my bookshelf because it's so fascinating that I keep it out on my living room table to share the wonder!

I saw this amazing exhibit, "La Terre Vue Du Ciel", of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's in the Jardin du Luxembourg Senat when I was in Paris a few weeks ago. The exhibit included much larger-than poster-sized photos that are some of the same photos contained in the book. They were spectacular and breath-taking. Stunning really. But if you can't afford to go to Paris, or if you can't get a hold of a poster of his work, this book is a fantastic collection of awesome, thoughtful, inspiring, thought-provoking, and humanistic usually unseen images taken from above Earth, that have an incredible aesthetic beauty. I can't recommend this book more highly. I was going to purchase 3-4 of them myself for me and my family and friends. However, I waited to get back to the US before doing so since they are large and very heavy due to the high-quality paper the photos are printed on. I was sorry they would not fit in my luggage as I had wished to stare at the photos for many hours on the plane trip home. Many kudos to Yann Arthus-Bertrand for an outstanding artistic work! Bravo! I hope to see another exhibit by this talented photographer in Paris or the U.S. in the near future.

If you could read only one book in your entire life, this should be the one. If your needs are emotional,financial, or physical...or if your question is as simple and complex as finding the meaning of life...you will find the answers in this book. But, don't expect easy answers. Don't confuse simplicity, with ease. This book will challenge you to grow, and remind you that no growth process is ever easy. Yet, in its pages you will find a tenderness, love, and support that will move you to tears. Read it daily, and listen with your heart, and you will hear God calling...you.

I have read this devotional every day for the past seven years. I have found this book to be inspirational and helpful in keeping me focused on my daily walk with Christ. This book comes to us from two "Listeners". It occurred to me that it doesn't really matter how these God-inspired messages came about, it only matters that these messages lead others to God's love. A truly comforting and uplifting source of peace.

A friend had given this book to me. I thumbed through it, thought it was good but then moved on. When I found myself in a tough situation not long afterwards I instinctively returned to this book and began taking it wherever I went, seeking and finding encouragement, support and most of all, peace. This book, in no small part, saw me through a rough period in my life. Each time I read it I'd find something else that it was saying to me (and still do). I've given my highlighter a good workout on these pages. Its message is the same throughout but never redundant. I am encouraged to move in a new direction. A little persistent practice of what is offered yields results. To seek God in our lives there must be action. Actions taken reveal the depth of our willingness to know Him. Wherever you are in your spiritual walk, either for many years or just for today, this book can only enrich and inspire you, and in turn, those who are in your life. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

RIDDLEY WALKER is an engaging, challenging and touching novel that warrrants multiple readings. Hoban has written what i imagine to be a perfect novel. It is a grand experiment in language where form and content converge, allowing Hoban to reveal more about Riddley's world than convention would allow for.

It is nothing short of appalling that this book ever went out of print--it is a masterpiece of postmodern (ick)literature and is equally inspiring for writers and readers. This should be taught in every modern American literature course.

Make everyone read it.

Trubba not! This book is a coming of age novel set in the time after Eusa split the littl Shyinin Man the Addom. (Nuclear war in contemporary usage). Riddley is a twelve year old boy who watches his father die, and then has to take over his role as Connexion Man. Although Riddley is only twelve, he has an adult's insight into humanity that twelve year olds of our day wouldn't necessarily have. Hoban wrote this novel in near-phonetic spelling, showing the sub-theme of language being a dynamic force that changes with time. Although it can be hard to read and understand at times, it is worth getting through cover to cover.

Unlike many readers, I first discovered Russell Hoban's adult novels and only later, when my daughter became old enough, did I read his books for children. Ridley Walker was my first Hoban novel and still remains my favorite. Looking at his earlier children's books, though, it is easy to trace the curve of his style. One's first impression of Ridley Walker is one of awe that he can carry off the language as well as he does. This is not "A Clockwork Orange" with a few new words and phrases, but an entirely new pidgin with a consistent syntactic structure and an wonderfully twisted take on the (future) derivation of the English language. And you must discover the language for yourself, there's no cheating by looking it up at the back of the book. Next I was taken in by the seamless melding of religion, geography, history, folk lore, and science that form the many circles within circles of the plot line. Hoban's intellectual powers are obvious in the way he can take disparate real locations and events and forge a connection or relationship where none exists. Finally though, it is the beauty and the magic of the world he has created, the clarity and the fearlessness of his vision, and the metaphysical flights of fancy that puts this novel at the top of my list of must-read books. Little Shinin Man roading out..