The quotes are from multitudinous, eclectic sources. It is nice to see so many teachers in agreement that we create our own reality.

What I really love about this collection of quotations is how widely divergent their sources are. They range from traditional authors and views to those more unconventional and offer an eclectic mix of religious and spiritual traditions and new age concepts -- kudos to the editor. An excellent, well thought-out mix which opens the reader to all kinds of spiritual possibilities, while always focusing on the empowering idea of inner consciousness and the way it affects our lives and perceptions. As you read each day's quote, you realize over several days that a theme is emerging, and often one theme leads into the next in interesting, unexpected ways. I have a number of quotation collections and this one is by far the most diverse and well-arranged. I have found that there is real depth in the themes, and for me, an uncanny sense that each quote concerns some aspect of my spiritual growth on the day I read it. Another great aspect of this calendar is that each quote is footnoted so you can go to the source and read the text from which the quote was taken -- an invaluable resource, and one that very few quotation books or calendars employ. I also prefer the calendar form to that of a book because the calendar stays open. All you have to do is flip the page, not pull out a book and open it. In a perpetual calendar, no days of the week are associated with the dates, so when the year is over you start again. I highly recommend this inspiring calendar of quotations -- you won't be disappointed.

At first I found myself reluctant to start yet another consulting manual. And yet, within the first page, I was captured by the fact that Payn had managed to take what can seem a dry subject and turn it into artistry with his little gems of wisdom. And reading it one can soon feel, very deeply in your bones, that Payne has done this consulting business in many ways, for many reasons, and for many years. The truth rings through in so many of the thoughts. As a consulting futurist myself I know how hard it is to convince my clients of the importance of what I am saying. I hope Payn doesn't mind and I do promise to give credit when it's due: I AM going to start quoting him a bunch!

I will end with my favorite:

Consultants be forewarned: You cannot manage CHANGE, it manages you. Respond and anticipate its flow. RULE 211

Happy reading!

Mr. Payn has done a great job of embracing some of the core principles of consulting and managed to convey them clearly, concisely, and in a manner that encourages thought. The author's style and panache lend to the words on the pages. These lessons keep the pages turning and people learning; in that alone, it is a success. I enjoyed the book so much, that I found myself carrying it with me and opening it to random pages; every one of them inspiring with new and unique lesson.

In respect to technology and where we as professionals stand, Mr Payn is right when he says that "we are already behind." In my practice as an Internet Technology Consultant, I find that more time is spent on keeping abreast of new technologies in order to better help my clients keep up with their customers. Many of the passages in the "Consultant's Advanced Instruction Book - 303 Rules to Guide Consultants in the Internet Age" helped to remind me of lessons long since learned and forgotten, as well as inspired many "ah-ha's" that were truly needed. This book is inspiring, witty and intelligent. At the same time it provokes thought and embodies the spirit of what we as professionals do, advise to the best of our ability.

I was there too. Bit player at another agency, but saw, heard, smelled (OK, tasted too -- I had a Saab with a Scotch compartment) the same wonderful ambiance that was advertising in the Renaissance '80s. Ray has it down. He records a time loved -- and lost -- to mega business. Oh, well.

For close to 20 years, ending in the late 1980s, Ray Welch dominated New England advertising awards. He was the Woody Allen of the industry, writing self-deprecating (but hilarious and strategically spot-on) ads, and later becoming one of the area's most effective voice-over announcers. He was also one of the most well-liked personalities in the community -- I should know, I was there -- and a great story-teller.

These are his stories. They're all funny. Many of them also reveal truths of ad agency life, the kinds of people attracted to that business, and the thinking that goes into a great campaign.

Welch had art-director friends each design a separate chapter, and told them to go wild. The designs are readable -- these are top-level art directors we're talking about -- and range from whimsical to surprising. Not a bad thing in a book of stories.

The book reads the way I remember that era. Except Welch obviously had a lot more fun.

I found this book a complete surprise. From the title, I expected only a story about explosions and collisions but this book is much, much more. It provides really brilliant descriptions of how all kinds of stars evolve and how they regulate their energy production. After reading this book I fully understood why aging stars produce more energy but are cooler than they were in their youth. A minor complaint might be that the content is not well organized. A type 1A supernova is explained here and a type 2 there and later some more about 1A etc. But, I shouldn't dwell on a quibble. This is a terrific book. After reading it I'll never think of iron or nickel in quite the same way again.

There seems to be an aspect of human nature that wants to search out and discover things that are the most extreme in their class. People just seem to love record setters. This is a book about cosmic record setters. Within its pages Wheeler describes the biggest, most energetic, oldest, densest, things in the universe. If cosmic record holders hold any interest for you, then I think you'll find this book as enjoyable as I did.

Wheeler begins his book by describing how stars form, how they evolve in response to gravity, how they ignite, how they burn, and eventually how they die. This is a logical introduction, since virtually all the examples of cosmic catastrophes involve stars in one form or another. Like people, though, the life of each star is unique - and the end times are very different. Wheeler does an excellent job of describing the negative feedback process that stabilizes solar activity. If the star generates too much heat it expands. This expansion reduces the temperature, and throttles back on the rate of nuclear fusion. If the star cools down it contracts, and the contraction heats it up again, keeping the rate of fusion at a remarkably constant level for long periods of time during the stars life.

Much of Wheeler's text is actually about how stars evolve. This is important because to understand their deaths, you need to understand how they are born and how they evolve over their lifetimes. Their deaths are frequently the most interesting parts of the story because they are often involved with the catastrophes that are the book's principal thesis. While I bought the book because of its discussion about cosmic catastrophes, I found it valuable for its descriptions of stellar evolution alone. This includes a nice description of the "solar-neutrino" problem as well as a nice explanation of the red-giant phase, and especially the last stages during the life of a massive star that explodes in a super nova.

The foundational understanding of the basics of stellar evolution makes it easier to follower Wheeler as he takes the reader on a tour of the major players in cosmic catastrophes: white dwarfs, super novae (of many different types), neutron stars, black holes, and gamma-ray bursts. Wheeler's descriptions of these phenomena (to the extent that modern science understands them) are among the best I've seen in a popular science textbook. There is also a smattering of discussion about the origin of the universe in the Big Bang, and some interesting speculation about time (and space) travel using black holes.

In any book dealing with modern cosmology and astronomy there are inevitable discussions about the nature of space and time and how they fit together with Einstein's theory of general relativity. Most such books have at least one figure showing a funnel-shaped construct with grid lines converging as they swoop into the tapering end where the black hole resides. Wheeler uses lots of such diagrams. However, I think he does a better job than most at helping the reader understand what the diagrams illustrate. More importantly, he helps the reader understand what the diagrams do not illustrate, and their limitations (he dispels some common misperceptions about these sorts of figures). I especially enjoyed Wheeler's explanations about how one might (with the application of the appropriate mental acrobatics) use the diagrams to actually envision what is really going on in our multi-dimensional world.

Another thing I liked about Wheeler's book is the clear and frequent illustrations. For the most part the author has anticipated those places where prose just cannot quite complete the mental picture. When this happens there is inevitably a well-constructed diagram that finishes the concept and makes things clear. There was one exception, however. Figure 7.3 really needs to have an arrow or circle marking the location of SN 1987A. [I'm pretty sure I found it, but the exposure changes between the photographs, and so I'm not quite sure. It would have been nice to have the author's help in preventing a false identification.]

Reading this book one gets the sense that even though it is a qualitative description of astronomy (there are no equations) Wheeler is not over simplifying. His discussion of super novae, for example, lists many classes and describes theoretical uncertainties that other authors gloss over or ignore all together. Of course there is much more detail to super novae than what is in Wheeler's book. But at the qualitative level Wheeler leaves the reader understanding that there are many classifications of super novae, that some of the boundaries between classifications are not always so clear cut, and that we still don't know a lot about how some types form, and how other types explode. These are concepts that other popular science textbooks don't always convey. I think the only thing missing from the chapters on super novae is a table that summarizes all the different types and some of their descriptive identifiers.

Unlike some popular science texts, Wheeler devotes quite a bit of time describing the evolution of binary stars, which play an important role in some of the greatest cosmic catastrophes. I think he does an especially good job of qualitatively describing accretion disks, and how they fit in the context of mass transfer in binary systems. It's this mass transfer that is ultimately involved in some of the most spectacular catastrophes in the sky.

Overall, this is a great book. If you enjoy astronomy I'm sure you will find it satisfying and informative. It's just the sort of book to enjoy on a vacation, or after a grueling day at the office.

I appreciated this book, not just for the fantastic illustrations and stories, but for improving the reputation of the Wetherills, long considered no-good cowboy pot hunters. A great companion to this books is In Search of the Old Ones by David Roberts, in which Fred Blackburn features largely as a revolutionary who shapes Roberts' thinking about the mess each generation of southwestern archeologists passes on to the next.

Undoubtedly the popular book of the year in Southwest archaeology, "Cowboys and Cave Dwellers" tells how a group of talented and dedicated "amateurs" found the missing links between nearly forgotten collections of artifacts stored in museum basements and their original sites in Utah's spectacular Grand Gulch. In the process they unearthed valuable information about the people called Basketmakers, the first farmers of the Colorado Plateau. The first explorers and untrained archaeologists who dug sites in Grand Gulch removed thousands of artifacts, often taking little care to record their locations. By carefully matching old photographs, diaries, newspaper articles and the signatures those adventurers carved on the canyon walls, the authors of this book, the members of the Wetherill-Grand Gulch Research Project, were able to locate many of the caves and cliff dwelling where the treasures were originally found. They solved one of the most puzzling mysteries of Southeastern Utah archaeology: the location of long lost Cave 7, where Mesa Verde discoverer Richard Whetherill dug up dozens of skeletons that seemed to show evidence of a massacre. A good story with extensive historial and archaeological background and beautifully illustrated, this book is essential for anyone interested in Southwest archaeology. A good companion piece is William Ferguson's "The Anasazi of Mesa Verde and the Four Corners Region," which gives a broader view of the entire Mesa Verde-San Juan region.

Single crystal structure determination has become an important and extremely powerful tool not only for inorganic and structural chemists but for all kinds of chemists interested in the structures of their compounds. The major disadvantage of this method was hitherto the lack of useful introductions into it's practical use.
This gap has been filled by Massa's book.
It focuses - unlike other crystallography books - on the practical applications and enables the reader to attack own structural problems by himself. Additionally, this book will provide the necessary theoretical background to understand how X-ray diffraction works, how crystals are built, all this symmetry stuff and so on.
The absolute highlight is, however, the step-by-step explanation of a structure determination, where one can almost see the author sitting in front of his computer and struggling with one of his structures, explaining every step in detail.
Crystallography still needs heavy brain work sometimes. But this book won't cause unnecessary headaches as many other crystallography books do.
Therefore, I recommend this book warmly to my crystallography students.

This review is important for me because I'm working in a Lab.

If your looking for a good scary book, I think you've met your match. This book tells of when three girls, Wendy, Keri, and Libb, who don't believe an old lady's stories until the legends start happening to them. Join the girls as they ride the urban legend rollercoaster.

Wendy O' Darby loves Urban Legends but doesn't believe them especially one about an alligator in the sewer but then they start becoming real and she finds that what she calls Urban Legends, are actually Urban Facts.

Being a Grand Nephew of ray and never actually getting to meet him, (he passed away before I was born) it was great to read about the stories that were told at the dinner table by my father and his brothers. It seems that the VanNeste family loves to talk about the old days. My Grand Mother was Ray's sister Gunhild(Gunny).
When I was a child Aunt Ackey use to go through her old photo's of ray and tell us the stories.
Ackey recentley passed away earlier this year in her 90's and every one should know what a pistol she was. Thank you Russ and Bev for the wonderful job. Jim

Daredevil Cameraman was an entertaining and enjoyable book to read. Swede was a pioneer in the movie business and spent his life chasing the best stories and ways to shoot them. From the decks of a luxury liner to the wings of a stunt plane, Swede set the standards for future cineography. I enjoyed reading the book both for the historical value and the insight into the life of a pioneer.

David copperfield is a story that gives you courage and faith to deal with life during bad season in your daily life. David Copperfield grows up to be a lawyer, but he had a very hardtime growing up during his childhood.He had to face the consequences of his mother getting a new husband. During his childhood he met some wonderful people who made his dreams come true after the death of mother.

The GREATEST Illusionist of all time has created the GREATEST book of all time!! David Copperfield is by far an amazing person and this book proves it. If you love wonderful short stories, this book is for you!!

I was very satisfied to be hammered by nailbiting Koontz stuff...thrilled and excited to experince this new feature which I now regard as one of my best top 10 books - Thank you Mr Koontz

I was very satisfied to hammered by nailbiting Koontz stuff...thrilled and excited to experince this new feature which I now regard as one of my best top 10 books - Thank you Mr Koontz