Have you ever wanted to listen or talk to someone who is travelling the same road as you? Who has hit some of the same potholes along the way? Who has been to the top of the mountain & to the depths of the deepest seas...just like you? Well, hold her hand & she will go with you, just like she did with me. A truly incredible & insightful book, yet so simple!

Kathleen Allen-Weber has written the kind of book many of us only dream of discovering in bookstores : a very thoughtfully crafted volume of advice for daily and whole-life living offered with warmth, wit, and wisdom. The author's voice is that of a generous, passionately-spirited neighbor; her personal anecdotes ring true. The reflections of artists and thinkers she has selected to illustrate her ideas represent her as the well-read individual she obviously is. This is a gem of a book, the kind that friends give to friends.

Impact Teaching: Ideas And Strategies For Teachers To Maximize Student Learning by educational psychologist Richard Howell Allen presents a wealth of new ideas for classroom instructors to their help students to better absorb knowledge and prepare themselves for life in an ever-changing world. Individual chapters address embracing instructional precepts such as combining learning and enjoyment, enhancing retention, designing effective and interactive lessons, and a great deal more. Impact Teaching is a strongly recommended and dynamic guide for both public and home school teachers and tutors.

Pardon the cliche' but this is a "must read"! Finally a practical book with real life examples and techniques that can be immediately used in the classroom. Not abstract lofty theories, but specific tools to improve your lessons and staff developments. From giving effective directions to positive mental imagery and ways to keep your students and participants actively involved, this book has practical information that you may have not thought about in such detail. I am a secondary teacher and a presenter and I can't think of anyone who speaks in front of a group that wouldn't benefit from this book. The book also includes stories, metaphors and a keynote speech template. I can't say enough positive things about it!

David Allen is a well trained classical psychiatrist who has written a practical book that addresses behavior from a unique vantage point. The unique feature of this book is the fact that classical psychiatry is framed in a clear Christian light. My experience with "Christian" self help books is that they are so frequently based on the premise that if you "believe" everything will be OK and if its not then obviously you really don't believe which could not be further from the truth. David Allen has it right, read what he has to say.

Everyone desiring to travel the road to spiritual discovery, experience emotional closeness, a richer, healthier, loving life and "compassion of a child's soul", look no further. This book is like none other on the market, you owe it to yourself to have it in your collection of "great books."

I am impressed by the skill in which Dr. Allen integrates psychiatry and Judeo-Christian values. His recounting of personal challenges and triumphs gave me courage. I have discovered why "hurt people, hurt people," how past hurts can stand in the way of developing honest, deep, caring and loving relationships, and I have learned how to abandon my "hurt trail" and live a more productive life.

I especially love the statement, "the heart is a metaphor for the center of the person...essence of who we really are involving our body, soul and spirit. We reach out to others through our hearts. The heart is a repository for those painful feelings, but like a sponge it can only absorb so much emotion. Once it's saturated, there is no room left for love and joy and beauty."

IN SEARCH OF THE HEART is so plainly written even a child could benefit from reading it. This book is more than a self-help book, it is a study guide. When I finished reading it I felt like I had an anchor. As the author puts it, "spiritual discovery anchors a person in the reality of love and peace, faith and trust."
I am having fun living and embracing the principles found in, IN SEARCH OF THE HEART.

Mandlebaum's verse is beautiful: he manages to keep up an iambic 11-syllable line throughout the work--just like Dante. If you can bear his comically pedantic and effete introduction, his notes are very thorough(they even point out the location of the epigraph to "Proufrock"). This edition has the Italian on the opposite side of every page as well, so it will doubtless be useful to those lucky enough to be able to read Dante in the "linguo volgro". Plus, this edition has pictures too! How many other editions (save those with Dore's work) give you a PICTURE of Cerebrus?

The Circles of hell come to life in this verse translation by Allen Mendelbaum. Mendelbaum won a National Book Award for his translation of "The Aeneid of Virgil", and his translation of Dante's Inferno is equally superb.

The format of the book is italian and english, with translated pages on the opposite of the italian verses. There are some great illustrations throughout the book, but it is the imagery created in your head that makes this such a great read.

Highly recommended. I have read other translated versions of Inferno, and this is by far the best I have read so far. An excellent book.

I implemented Dr. Peters' "Smiley Face System" just last week, and I've seen dramatic changes in my son's behavior already. This book has been a great help in my efforts to change the behavior of my three year-old. Both he and I are happier because of it.

Dr. Peters offers no-nonsense, down to earth solutions to some tough parenting questions. Through practical advice, she shows how stern and loving discipline is the key to happy, healthy, and well behaved children! Not to mention sane parents! She points out the manipulative tactics that young children use with great success and the ineffective parenting styles that fail to nip these behaviors in the bud. Dr. Peters offers a behavior management system with clear and fair rules that are connect to solid consequences and rewards. In addition, she teaches how to apply the rules without your child even being aware they are being disciplined! I am so glad that I found this book! It has truly been a life-saver!

I bought this book because my older brother and his wife had a baby a few years back, and I wanted to know how to treat him in a way that would benefit him. I would always just spoil him, and I noticed that he would throw temper tantrums when he couldn't get what he wanted. Of course, when other people were around, the parents usually gave in to the wants of the toddler. This book educated me in how to deal with my nephew during temper tantrums (and other times when he didn't listen to his parents), and I am very excited when I see my nephew and understand how to take care of him in a way that benefits him the best.

This is a book that is getting a lot of attention for the older child version, but do people know about the one for ages 6 and under? Much like the other version, this book offers guidelines for young children. I have had much success and am a happier mother because of it! It is a must read for mothers of preschoolers! Don't miss out and miss the boat! Buy this book today.

Poet, essayist, and Southern Agrarian, Allen Tate brings (brought) to his life of Jefferson Davis not only a tremendous narrative talent, but also a deep understanding of, and sympathy for, the Southern culture that produced Jefferson Davis. But unlike other Southern writers who made Davis a larger-than-life hero of the Lost Cause, Tate pulls no punches in his assessment of the President's weaknesses as well as his strengths, and how they may have crippled the Confederacy from the very beginning.

Tate considers Davis a man of high ideals and great personal honor. At the same time, though, he had a "peculiarly inflexible mind" ("he had not learned anything since about 1843") (p. 197) and a "feeble grasp of human nature" (p. 255). He treated his office as a sort of super-minister of defense, and was never "the leader of the Southern people as a whole" (p. 180). The South could have won the war if she had had the right kind of political leader, Tate argues. But Davis, whose rise to leadership was generally unearned (p. 79), wasn't it.

Beyond Davis the man, Tate also has a deep grasp of the Southern culture and the larger historical and cultural issues that were clashing in the War Between the States. In keeping with his Southern Agrarianism, Tate paints the South as the last outpost of European culture in the Americas, standing against -- and ultimately overwhelmed by -- the surging might of restless, expansionist, wealth-seeking "Americanism," embodied in the Yankee Northeast. Tate's grasp of Southern regionalism lets him place an emphasis on the tensions between Upper and Lower South that, for me, shone a light on the instability of the Confederate government that I haven't seen as emphasized elsewhere.

Tate's perspective and narrative form may not be in keeping with more modern styles of biography. But this book is nevertheless an excellent and insightful read, and I recommend it to any student of the men caught up in, as well as the issues behind, America's bloodiest conflict.

This book is no act of idolatry, despite the author's reputation as a Southern conservative and Agrarian. Tate believes Davis was a great man, but he points out his flaws as well, his diffidence in acting sooner that might have won the South the War, his pride, his sometime aloofness, his tendency to remain loyal to generals (Braxton Bragg foremost among them) whose incompetence was all too apparent to others, and his refusal to appoint the right men for the right job.

This is an absorbing read that puts one in mind of Shelby Foote's celebrated War trilogy, although Tate's was written first. It has the same novelistic quality and drive and the same quickly drawn but utterly convincing characterizations. The book alternates between presentations of certain monumental battles and portraits of life on the "homefront." The latter is actually more fascinating than the former. We learn in vivid detail of the strength and loyalty and perseverance of the Southern people.

Allen Jayne's "Jefferson's Declaration of Independence" is a fantastic book. Jayne explores the Scottish Enlightenment and the religious liberalism of Lord Bolingbroke, a hero of Jefferson. Also Jayne shows how Jefferson's own religious liberalism influenced his philosophy behind the Declaration when he referred to "Nature's God". This was not Jehovah, but the God of Reason, and the Universe. Jayne shows the influence of the "moral sense" Scottish philosophy on Jefferson as he formulated a coherent philosophy of freedom, and religious liberty. It is also shown how Jefferson believed that religious tyranny to be the worst of all tyrannies since it crushed the freedom of thought. Jefferson, a tireless opponent of mental slavery, used the theological influences of Lord Bolingbroke to inaugurate the new nation. A great study.

For generations, historians have examined the Declaration of Independence looking for the source of Jefferson's ideas. Many have looked to John Locke and his Second Treatise on Government as the main source. While acknowledging Locke as an important source for Jefferson, Jayne also suggests that there were other sources for Jefferson's thought. In researching for this book, Jayne examined Jefferson's Commonplace Books, where he recorded selections from various authors. He compared these selections to the ideas in the Declaration and found ways that different authors influenced Jefferson's thoughts as they appeared in the Declaration of Independence.

I wanted to understand the basics of what goes into
jewelry repair and creation. Can I resize my own
rings? Can I set my own stones? What simple
maintenance can I do instead of having to pay
big bucks to a professional, it just can't be
that hard!

This book proved me right. It's a wonderful
reference and text. It's not too much, it's not
too little, it's not too technical. Jewelers
tools are shown and explained. If you want
to build a jewelry repair set up in your home
this will show you how to make one that's just
right for you.

Someone said it's "dated", which I would rephrase
by saying it's a good, time tested and true basic
source of reliable up to date information. The
tricks they use out there and charge top dollar
for amazed me. I'm a smarter shopper now too.

If you want one book on the subject, this really
is a great choice.

While a bit dated, this book presents an excellent primer for the beginning jeweler. It is written in a clear, concise manner, with excellent illustrations to support the text. If you are looking for a basic, how-to book to learn the time-tested methods of jewelry repair...this is your book!

Jewels of the Dragon is the begining of the Rikard Braeth saga. Our young hero is a university trained historian who is tracking down his father who abandoned him and his mother to return to his old life of adventuring, and seeking out the final fortune of all fortunes. For years Rikard has followed his fathers movements (though his father left over a decade ago, before Rikard was barely a teen). Rikard tracks his father to Kohltri, a sort of self-exiled penal planet, where the citizens cut you down in the middle of the street in broad daylight, if they think it's worth their while. Kohltri is not a planet for acedemic types, as Rikard soon discovers. He must learn either to blend in with the criminal element, be accepted as a tourist, or go home to the the safe halls of the university (providing he can find a way off-planet). While searching for his father on Kohltri, Rikard makes some unlikely allies, and quite a few enemies, as well as several amazing discoveries, that would seal his career as a historian and archaeologist, if he can survive Kohltri, and then find a way to leave the planet. There are several twists to the plot which keeps you glued to the book waiting to see what'll happen next.

The characters are engaging, and spirited. I really enjoyed this book and have re-read it several times. The whole atmosphere of the book was intriguing, and I found myself wishing for more details, or possibly spin-off novels about the Belshpaer, or Atreef (alien lifeforms). This book however, did not bog down with a lot of insignificant details, there was enough to keep interest up, mixed with enough action that I do not recall one dull moment. I truly recommend this book to anyone looking for a something a little different, than the traditional interstellar-war or futuristic styled spaceaged-monarchy common in so much main-stream sci-fi.

The author introduces us to Rikard Braeth, a young man in search of his father. On a strange planet, our hero becomes involved in ancient mysteries and forgotten races. Rikard makes new friends and enemies in his search for his father, ending the story in an unforseen direction. This is the first book in a trilogy which combines archeology, adventure and strange alien races in a futuristic "Indiana Jones." The next two books in the series, "Crown of the Serpent," and "Lair of the Cyclops" are also highly recommended.